During that time, he headed a network of informers, put a check on illegal activities-gambling, drugs and prostitution-while maintaining ambiguous but effective relations with the leaders of the various communities. He also obtained a record success rate in the solving of cases.
According to a widely held opinion in high places, it was thanks to him and him alone that a relative calm reigned in that part of the tenth arrondissement from 1978 to 1998. Schiffer even enjoyed the exceptional honor of prolonging his time on the force from 1999 to 2001.
In April of that year, he finally retired officially. He had been decorated five times, including with the Order of Merit, and could boast of two hundred thirty-nine arrests and four deaths by shooting. At the age of fifty-eight, he had never risen higher than the rank of inspector. He was a cop on the beat, devoted to fieldwork in a single territory.
So much for Mr. Steel.
His Cipher side emerged in 1971, when he was caught beating up a prostitute on Rue de Michodière, by the Madeleine. The official inquest and investigations by the vice squad led to nothing. No one wanted to testify against the man with silver hair. Another complaint was made in 1979. It was rumored that Schiffer was racketing whores on Rue Jérusalem and Rue Saint-Denis.
Another inquiry another failure.
The Cipher knew how to cover his tracks.
Things turned really serious in 1982. A stock of heroin disappeared from the Bonne-Nouvelle station, after the rounding up of a network of Turkish dealers. Schiffer's name was on everyone's lips. He was put under investigation. But a year later, he was cleared. No proof, and no witnesses.
As the years went by, suspicions mounted: percentages gleaned from protection rackets, or from illegal gambling syndicates, fiddles involving local bars, or pimping… Apparently, he had a finger in every pie, but no one managed to trap him. Schiffer had his sector in a grip of steel. Even inside the force, internal investigators were confronted by the silence of their fellow officers.
Yet everyone still saw the Cipher more as Mr. Steel. A hero, a champion of law and order, with a prestigious career behind him.
But one last scandal nearly brought him down. In October 2000, the body of Gazil Hemet, a Turkish illegal immigrant, was found on the tracks of the Gare du Nord. The day before, he had been arrested by Schiffer himself as a suspected drug dealer. When accused of excessive violence, Schiffer riposted that he had freed the suspect before the end of the legal period of detention-which was rather unlike him.
Had Hemet been beaten to death? The autopsy gave no clear answer, because the body had been torn to pieces by the 8:10 express from Brussels. But an independent forensic report spoke of mysterious wounds on the Turk's body, which could have been caused by torture techniques. This time, it looked as though Schiffer's career was going to finish behind bars.
Then, in April 2001, the prosecutor decided to drop the charges again. What had happened? Who was pulling strings for Jean-Louis Schiffer? Paul had questioned the officers charged with the internal police investigation. They were so disgusted they did not want to reply. Especially because, a few weeks later, Schiffer personally invited them to his farewell drinks party.
He was bent, a bastard, and cocky with it.
Such was the shit that Paul was about to encounter.
The highway exit to Amiens brought him back to the present. He turned off and took the A road. There were just a few more kilometers to go before he saw the sign to Longéres.
Paul drove down the side road as far as the village. He crossed it without slowing down, then spotted another road that led down into a waterlogged valley. While driving between the tall grasses, brilliant from the rain, he had a sort of revelation. He suddenly realized why he had thought of his father while driving to meet Jean-Louis Schiffer.
In his own way the Cipher was the father of all cops. Half hero, half demon, he alone incarnated the best and the worst, rigor and corruption, Good and Evil. A founding father, a Grand Old Man, whom Paul admired despite himself, just as he had admired, from the depths of his hatred, his violent alcoholic father.
8
When Paul saw the building he was looking for, he nearly burst out laughing. With its enclosing wall and two clock towers shaped like lookout posts, the Longéres police officers' retirement home looked just like a prison.
On the other side of the wall, the comparison became even clearer. The yard was surrounded by three main buildings, laid out like horseshoes, each pierced by galleries with dark arcades. Some men were braving the rain and playing boules. They wore overalls that recalled the dress of the inmates in all the world's prisons. Just near them, three uniformed officers, presumably visiting a relative, were playing the part of wardens.
Paul savored the irony of the situation. Longères, financed by the National Police Mutual Association, was the largest retirement home open to officers. It welcomed all ranks so long as they "suffered from no psychosomatic disorder based on or resulting in alcoholism." He now discovered that this famous haven of peace, with its enclosed spaces and masculine populace, was just another prison house. Return to sender, he thought.
Paul reached the entrance of the main building and pushed open the glass door. A very dark, square hall led to a staircase topped with a dormer window of frosted glass. The place was as hot and stifling as a terrarium, and it stank of medication and urine.
He turned toward the swinging doors to his left, from which a strong smell of food was wafting. It was noon. The inmates were presumably having lunch.
He discovered a refectory with yellow walls and a floor covered with bloodred linoleum. On the long lines of stainless-steel tables, the plates and cutlery were carefully arranged. Vats of soup were steaming. Everything was in place, but the room was deserted.
Noises came from the next room. Paul approached the din, feeling his heels sink into the sticky floor. Every detail added to the overall atmosphere of gloom. He felt himself age with every step he took.
He passed the door. About thirty pensioners in shapeless tracksuits were standing with their backs to him, concentrating on the TV. "Now Hint of Joy has gone past Bartok…" Horses were galloping across the screen.
As Paul approached, he noticed a single old man sitting in another room to the left. Instinctively, he craned his neck to get a better look at him. Slumped over his plate, the man was toying with a steak at the end of his fork.
Paul had to face facts: this debris was his man.
The Steel and the Cipher. The officer with two hundred and thirty-nine arrests.
He crossed the room. Behind him, the commentary was blaring: "Hint of Joy, it's still Hint of Joy." Compared with the last photos Paul had seen of him, Jean-Louis Schiffer had aged twenty years.
His regular features had shriveled over his bones, as though stretched on the rack. His gray, scaly skin hung loose, especially around his neck, making him look like a reptile. His eyes, which had once been chrome blue, were barely visible beneath his heavy eyelids. The former officer no longer had the long hair that had made him famous. It was now short, almost in a crew cut. The silvery mane had given way to an iron skull.
His still-powerful frame was obscured in a royal blue coverall, whose collar divided into two wavy wings over his shoulders. Beside the plate, Paul spotted a stack of betting slips. Jean-Louis Schiffer, the street legend, had become the bookmaker for a crew of retired traffic cops.
How had he ever imagined that such a wreck could help him? But it was too late to turn back now Paul adjusted his belt, gun and handcuffs and put on his most impressive look-eyes ahead, and jaws clenched. The glassy eyes had already located him. When he was only a few paces away, the man said straight off: "You're too young to be a cop's cop."