Lucien was calming down and his breath was becoming regular. Vandoosler had his commissaire’s face on, a thrusting nose and narrowed eyes under lowered eyebrows. He was tearing apart pieces of bread from the basket Mathias had put on the table.
‘In any case,’ said Marc, who was rapidly trying to get his ideas into some kind of order, ‘that has nothing to do with our business. These two guys were shot over a year after “Elektra”. And drugs were involved as well. I presume the police knew what they were talking about there.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Marc,’ said Lucien impatiently. ‘Young Christophe Dompierre didn’t believe that. Was it just out of loyalty to his father? Maybe, but when Sophia gets killed fifteen years later, he reappears and starts looking for new clues. Do you remember what he said about his pathetic “little sliver of belief”?’
‘If he was wrong about it fifteen years ago,’ objected Marc, ‘he could still be wrong three days ago.’
‘Except,’ said Vandoosler, ‘that he got himself murdered. People who are wrong don’t usually get killed. It’s people who are on to something who get killed.’
Lucien nodded agreement and mopped his plate energetically with his bread. Marc sighed. He felt his brain was slowing down recently and that bothered him.
‘So Dompierre was on to something,’ Lucien continued in a low voice. ‘Therefore he was already on to something fifteen years ago.’
‘And what was that?’
‘That one of the extras had attacked Sophia. And if you want my opinion, his father knew who it was, and had told him. Maybe he had seen the man running out of the dressing-room with his balaclava off. So that would explain why the extra didn’t come back next day. He was scared of being recognised. That must have been the only thing Christophe knew: that his father had seen who Sophia’s attacker was. And if Frémonville was a dealer, it certainly wasn’t the case for Daniel Dompierre. Three sachets stuffed up the chimney is a bit obvious, isn’t it? The son told the flics all about the attack on Sophia. But this old story about the theatre didn’t interest the police. The drugs squad was running the investigation and the Sophia incident didn’t have a drugs angle. So Dompierre’s son had to let it drop. But when Sophia in turn was killed, he got back on the case. The affair was still alive. He had always believed that his father and Frémonville had been killed not because of the cocaine, but because somehow their paths had crossed that of the attacker. And that he’d shot them to stop them talking. It must have been terribly important for him.’
‘Your story doesn’t make sense,’ Marc said. ‘Why didn’t this attacker shoot them straightaway afterwards?’
‘Well, because he probably had a stage name. If you were called Roger Prune for instance, you’d probably change it to something like Franck Delmer, or some fancy-sounding name that might appeal to a director. So he disappears under his stage name, his real identity can’t be traced and he’s out of danger. Who’s going to connect Franck Delmer with Roger Prune?’
‘Well, so what? I still don’t bloody get it!’
‘You’re on edge today, Marc. Well, imagine that a year later, the guy meets Dompierre under his real name and is recognised. Then he has no choice. He shoots them both, him and his friend, who almost certainly knows too. He knows that Frémonville deals in cocaine and that suits him fine. He plants the sachets at Dompierre’s, the police buy the story and the case is referred to the drugs squad.’
‘And why would your Prune-Delmer kill Sophia fourteen years later, since Sophia didn’t even identify him?’
Lucien, looking excited once more, produced a plastic bag which he placed on the chair. ‘Don’t move, pal, don’t move.’
He fished around in it and pulled out a roll of paper held by a rubber band. Vandoosler was looking at him, visibly impressed. Luck had favoured Lucien, but he had also very skilfully harpooned his lucky chance.
‘After our talk,’ Lucien said, ‘I was a bit shaken. And so was the old lady. It had upset her to dredge up her memories. She didn’t know that Christophe Dompierre had been murdered and as you can guess, I didn’t tell her. We had a cup of coffee at ten o’clock to restore ourselves. And then, that was all very well, but I was still thinking about my war diaries. I’m only human after all, you can understand that.’
‘OK, I understand,’ said Marc.
‘Mme de Frémonville had a good look for the war diaries, but she couldn’t find them anywhere, they really were lost. But while she was drinking her coffee, she gave a little cry. You know the kind of thing, like in old movies. She remembered that her husband, who was very attached to these war diaries, had had them photographed by his magazine’s photographer because the paper was fragile and starting to disintegrate. She told me that with a bit of luck, the photographer might have kept the negatives or proofs of the photographs, because he had taken a lot of trouble over them. The diaries were written in pencil and not easy to reproduce. She gave me the photographer’s address, in Paris luckily, and I rushed straight over there. And there he was, making prints. He’s only about fifty and still in business. And get this, Marc. He had kept the negatives and he’s going to print a set for me. I kid you not.’
‘Great!’ muttered Marc crossly. ‘But I was talking abut Sophia’s murder, not your notebooks.’
Lucien turned to Vandoosler and pointed to Marc. ‘He’s really edgy, isn’t he? Too impatient.’
‘When he was little,’ Vandoosler said, ‘if he dropped a ball from the balcony into the courtyard, he would stamp and cry until I fetched it. It was all that mattered to him. The number of times I went up and down the stairs. Just for those little cheap plastic balls with holes in, you know.’
Lucien laughed. He was looking pleased again, but his brown hair was still dark with sweat. Marc smiled as well. He had entirely forgotten about those plastic balls.
‘Listen,’ said Lucien, still in a whisper. ‘This photographer, as you might expect, accompanied Frémonville on his assignments. He did the press photos for shows they covered. So I thought he might have kept some old prints. He knew about Sophia being killed, but he hadn’t heard about Christophe Dompierre. I told him about it and he thought this sounded so serious he went to look for his file on “Elektra”. And here,’ said Lucien, waving his roll under Marc’s nose, ‘we have a set of press photographs. Not just of Sophia. Of the whole company.’
‘Come on then, show us!’ said Marc.
‘Patience, patience,’ said Lucien.
Slowly he unrolled the photos, and took out one picture which he laid on the table.
‘The whole company on parade the first night,’ he said, using wineglasses to press down the corners of the photograph. ‘Everyone’s on it. Sophia in the middle, with the tenor and the baritone either side of her. They’re all made up and in costume of course. But can you recognise anyone? Commissaire, do you recognise anyone else?’
Marc and Vandoosler leaned over the photo. The faces were made up, small but clear. It was a good photograph. Marc who had been feeling himself falling way behind, as Lucien became more and more ebullient, felt all his strength draining away. His brain was muddled and confused. He looked at the little white faces, but none of them rang any bells. No, wait a moment, there was Julien Moreaux, looking young and thin.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Lucien, ‘but that’s hardly surprising. Look again.’
Marc shook his head. He felt almost humiliated. No, he couldn’t see anything. Vandoosler equally baffled, pulled a face. However, he pointed to one face with his finger.