Irene (31 page)

Remember the words that Gaboriau puts in the mouth of Commandant Lecoq? “There are people who have a passion for the theatre. It is not unlike my own passion. But I cannot understand how people can take pleasure in the shoddy fictions, which are to real life as a tallow candle is to the sun. Being more jaded and more difficult to please than the public, I demand genuine comedies, actual tragedies. Society, that is my theatre. My actors laugh truly, or they weep genuine tears.” It is a passage that has always deeply moved me. My actors, too, have wept real tears. I have a special affection for Alice, who played my Roseanna, as I do for Évelyne in my re-staging of Bret Easton Ellis because both wept magnificently. Both were gifted actresses, more than equal to the roles in which I cast them. My faith in them was rewarded.

As you will no doubt have sensed, our correspondence must come to an end. I am confident that sooner or later we will pick up this conversation from which both you and I have learned so much, but that time has not yet come. I must complete my “oeuvre” and that demands total concentration. I know that I will achieve my goal. You can have faith in me. I must put the finishing touches to the monument I have toiled so meticulously to build. Only then will you
realise that my creation – so carefully planned, so skilfully crafted – is fit to rank among the masterpieces of this nascent century.

I beg to remain, Sir, your humble and obedient servant.

“I saw the doctor again. He’s surprised I haven’t been having contractions.”

“I’m not.” Camille smiled. “The little guy is hanging in there. He’s perfectly comfortable where he is, and I don’t blame him.”

He could hear Irène’s smile over the phone.

“So what happens now?”

“I’ve just had an ultrasound. The baby waved – he sends his love. If I don’t start contractions in the next couple of hours, they’ll send me home and we’ll wait until he’s good and ready to join us.”

“How are you feeling?”

“My heart is aching. I had a terrible scare. I think that’s the only reason they kept me in.”

Camille felt his own heart ache. There was such need, such pain in Irène’s tender words that it cut him to the quick.

“I’ll come in.”

“There’s no need, darling. Élisabeth was very sweet, remember to thank her from me, O.K.? She stayed here for a bit and we had
a chat even though I knew she had places to be. She told me you received another letter. Things can’t be easy for you right now, either.”

“It’s tough. But you do know I’m with you in spirit, don’t you?”

“Of course I know, I’m not worried.”

*

“Right now, he’s still in the frame. The fake entries in his diary, the mysterious withdrawals, there’s a lot of disturbing evidence.”

“And you think he might have sent the letter before he was arrested?”

“It’s possible.”

That afternoon, Juge Deschamps was wearing a jacket and trousers of excruciating ugliness, a grey ensemble trimmed with ruffles that looked like a cross between a three-piece suit, a pair of dungarees and a flamenco dress. The woman’s eyes, however, were as keen and intelligent as ever; Camille could well imagine the troubling effect she had on men.

She was holding the latest letter from the Novelist, scanning it quickly for a second time, attentive to the smallest detail.

“And you’ve released the sister?”

“All that matters right now is keeping the two of them apart,” Le Guen said. “She’s willing to back up everything he says. Blind faith.”

“She’ll be hard-pressed,” Camille said. “It’s not enough to say he was with her when he wasn’t. We have a great deal of evidence that it will be difficult to refute.”

“From what you’ve said, it sounds to me like he’s spooked.”

“If he really is a twisted psychopath, we can’t rely on how he seems. If he’s spent years living a double life, deceiving his sister, then he’s had a lot of practice. I’m going to need a little help from
Dr Crest. We’ll have to use a room with an observation booth so he can watch.”

“I think you’re right. Once the custody limit expires, we can’t keep them isolated. But he could be extremely dangerous. If we do have to release him, do you have the manpower to keep him under tight surveillance,
divisionnaire
?”

Le Guen held up the rolled-up newspaper he had been clutching since the start of the meeting.

“The way things have been going, I don’t think I’ll have a problem allocating the necessary resources,” he said grimly.

Deschamps made no comment.

“He makes threats in the letter,” Le Guen said. “Now, that might be nothing, it might just be a wind-up. It may be that he doesn’t have a plan.”

Deschamps clicked her tongue, still staring at the letter.

“It’s hard to imagine that a man who could devise such an intricate plan wouldn’t have an endgame. No, I think it’s a crucial piece of information,” she said, looking up at the two men. “In his twisted way, he’s a man of his word. He does exactly as he says. He has done since the start. And what really concerns me” – she glanced at Camille – “is that this plan was worked out long ago. He has known from the very beginning where this is leading.”

“And we don’t,” Camille said.

Louis took over the questioning of Lesage, followed by Maleval and then Armand. Each had his own tactics and the contrast between the interrogation methods of the four men had frequently produced results in the past. Louis was scrupulous, urbane, his interviews were subtle, he took time formulating his questions, as though all eternity stretched before him, with the patience of a saint he listened to every answer with unsettling attentiveness, always leaving some doubt as to his interpretation. Maleval, true to his training as a
judoka
, worked in short, swift bursts. He was often casual, even friendly with the suspect, eager to gain his trust. He could be immensely charming, only to voice all of a sudden some callous conclusion, pounce on a glaring inconsistency with the same force he would once have used to pin an opponent to the judo mat. Armand … well, he was Armand. Hunched over his notes, rarely looking at the suspect, asking pedantic questions, jotting down every answer, constantly reverting to minor details; he could spend an hour dissecting a single incident, ferreting out the merest inaccuracy, the most trivial evasion, gnawing away at the same bone until he had picked it clean. Louis’ questioning was sinuous, Maleval’s was straight, whereas Armand’s approach was a spiral.

By the time Camille arrived, Lesage had already spent an hour with Louis and Maleval had just finished his interrogation. The
two were comparing notes at a desk together. Camille headed straight for them but was waved over by Cob from behind his bank of monitors.

“Bad news?” Camille said.

Cob leaned his elbows on the desk, resting his chin in his cupped hands.

“Worse than bad.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, hesitant. Then Cob reached out and, took a page from the printer and held it out to Camille without looking.

“I’m so sorry, Camille,” he said.

Camille scanned the page, a long column of numbers: dates, times. Then he looked up and stared at the computer screen in front of Cob.

“I’m so sorry …” Cob said again, as he watched Camille walk away.

Camille strode across the office and, without stopping, tapped Louis on the shoulder as he passed.

“You, with me.”

Louis glanced around him, puzzled, then quickly got to his feet and followed Camille who was heading for the stairwell. The two men did not exchange a word as they crossed the street to
the brasserie where they sometimes went for a beer together at the end of a shift. Camille took one of the tables on the glassed-in terrace and settled himself on the moleskin bench, leaving Louis the chair with its back to the street. They waited in silence for someone to come and take their order.

“Espresso,” Camille said.

Louis gestured to indicate that he would have the same. For a while he kept his eyes fixed on the table, furtively glancing at Camille, until the waiter finally set down their drinks.

“Exactly how much does Maleval owe you, Louis?”

Before Louis had a chance to deny it, Camille had brought his fist down on the table so forcefully that the coffee cups rattled and people at the neighbouring tables turned to look. Camille did not say another word.

“A bit, I suppose,” Louis said after a while. “I mean, it’s not a fortune.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

Camille angrily raised his fist again.

“About five grand.”

Camille, who was still not used to thinking in euros, mentally calculated that this was almost 35,000 francs.

“What’s his deal?”

“Gambling. He’s been on a losing streak, he owed a lot of people money.”

“So how long have you been playing the banker, Louis?”

“Not long, honestly. He’d borrowed small amounts before, but he always paid me back. Admittedly, he’s been borrowing a lot more recently. Last Sunday when you came round to my place, I’d just given him a cheque for €1,500. I told him it was the last time.”

Camille did not look at him. He had one hand in his pocket and with the other he toyed nervously with his mobile phone.

“Listen, this is a personal matter,” Louis said calmly. “It’s got nothing to do with …”

He did not finish the sentence. He scanned the piece of paper Camille had just handed him, then laid it flat on the table. Camille’s eyes were welling with tears.

“Do you want my resignation?” Louis said at length.

“Don’t leave me in the lurch, Louis. Not now.”

“My hands are tied, Jean-Claude, I have no choice but to sack you.”

Sitting opposite Camille, Maleval blinked rapidly, desperately looking around for something to lean on.

“It kills me to have to do it … it really does. Why didn’t you just come and talk to me?”

Staring at Maleval’s hunched figure, Camille saw in a flash what lay ahead and it pained him. Unemployed, up to his neck in debt, Maleval would have to “muddle through” – that ghastly formulation reserved for those who have long since ceased to be able to.

Cob had printed out the list of calls made from Maleval’s mobile to the journalist at
Le Matin
. It detailed only those made since April 6, the date on which the Courbevoie victims had been discovered. The first call had been made at 10.34 a.m. It was the
earliest that anybody could have known about it.

“How long has this been going on?”

“Since the end of last year. He got in touch with me. At first, I just threw him a few crumbs of information and that seemed to be enough.”

“And then you started having trouble making ends meet, right?”

“I lost a lot of money, yeah. Louis helped me out, but that wasn’t enough, so—”

“You realise I could haul in Buisson for bribing a public official,” Camille growled with barely suppressed rage. “I could have the little fucker strip-searched in his fucking newsroom.”

“I know.”

“And you know that I won’t, but only for your sake.”

“I know,” Maleval said gratefully.

“We’ll keep it low key. I’ll have to call Le Guen, but I’ll sort things so that it’s handled as discreetly as possible.”

“I’ll go home—”

“You’ll stay here! You’ll go when I tell you to and not before, got it?”

Maleval nodded.

“How much do you need, Jean-Claude?”

“I don’t need anything!”

“Don’t fuck me around! How much?”

“Eleven grand.”

“Jesus Christ!”

Several seconds passed.

“I’ll write you a cheque.”

Then, seeing that Maleval was about to protest, Camille said calmly, “This is how things are going to play out, Jean-Claude,
O.K.? First, you clear your debts. We can worry about repayments later. As for the disciplinary procedure, I’ll make sure it’s as swift as possible. If I can, I’ll persuade them to let you step down, but you know that decision is not in my gift.”

Maleval offered no thanks, he merely nodded, staring into the middle distance as though at this moment he had just grasped the enormity of his downfall.

When Armand eventually emerged from the interview room into the open-plan office, the atmosphere was palpably leaden. Cob was toiling away in silence. Louis, barricaded behind his desk, had not raised his head since he came back with Camille. Mehdi and Élisabeth, sensing the sudden change of mood and unsure how to interpret it, were whispering to each other as though in church.

Louis took charge of debriefing Armand and cross-referencing data from all the interrogations.

*

At 4.30 p.m., Camille had still not left his office when Louis knocked on his door. He slipped in quietly when he heard that Camille was on the telephone. Engrossed in conversation, the
commandant
did not even look up.

“I’m asking you as a favour, Jean. Given the shitstorm the case has stirred up in the media, we can’t risk this getting out. The
whole thing would explode, and there’s no way of knowing where it would end.”

Louis waited patiently, his back to the door, feverishly pushing back his fringe.

“Fine,” Camille said. “Think about it and get back to me. But whatever you decide, I want you to call me before you do anything, is that O.K.? O.K., speak later.”

Camille rang off, picked up the receiver again and dialled his home number. He let it ring for a while, then hung up and dialled Irène’s mobile.

“Let me just call the hospital,” he said distractedly. “Irène must have been discharged later than she expected.”

“Can it wait?” Louis said.

“Why do you ask?” Camille picked up the telephone again.

“It’s about Lesage. There’s some new information.”

Camille replaced the receiver.

“Enlighten me.”

Fabienne Joly. Thirty-something, freshly scrubbed and dressed in her Sunday best. Short blonde hair. Glasses. Utterly ordinary, and yet there was something about her Camille could not quite put his finger on. Something sexy. Was it the sensible blouse, whose top three buttons were open to reveal her cleavage? Or was it the coy
modesty with which she crossed her legs? Setting her handbag down next to her chair, she stared hard at Camille; clearly she was not someone to be easily intimidated. She clasped her hands over her knees and seemed prepared to endure the silence for as long as necessary.