The Beast of the Camargue (6 page)

He headed toward Rabateau, overtaking the entire rank of cars that seemed glued to the tarmac, before driving into the industrial estates around La Capelette.

“If all the girls were mine,
I'd barter them for sugar,
And all my sugar I would give
To the one I liked best.”

In front of the half-demolished old sulfur plant, he avoided the mattresses and wrecked washing machines on the paving stones. Then he lowered the window to feel the air on his face; there was still that same electric smell as when he had been a boy, when he used to bring girls to these dead streets to fondle them, while his friends were at home groaning over Euclidean geometry.

When he got home, the Baron drew the curtains across the French window overlooking the gardens of the Résidence Paul Verlaine. Night was falling; the orange light of streetlamps spilling out across the gray and black bark of a tall sea pine.

Jean-Louis Maistre rang the doorbell. De Palma could not remember having invited him round.

“Sorry, Le Gros, my brains are jelly at the moment.”

“No matter,” Maistre said, sitting down on a chair. “Any news of your medal?”

“No, why?”

“Because it's supposed to be soon.”

“I couldn't care less …”

“Come on, don't play the romantic cop. A bit of recognition never did anyone any harm!”

Maistre was the exact opposite of de Palma: short and stocky, with a bright face beneath a black mane of hair. Always ready to laugh
at anything, even the dirtiest tricks. The two friends had met in the
Brigade Criminelle
at 36 quai des Orfèvres in Paris, the sanctum of the
Police Judiciaire
. Their friendship had been cemented during long evenings spent over packs of beer instead of their guns.

When the Baron returned to Marseille, Jean-Louis had followed him. Now he had a wife and children, and had abandoned the
Police Judiciaire
for the quieter pastures of the
Sécurité Publique
.

“Tell me, Le Gros, does the name William Steinert ring any bells?”

“You should move to a real police office, Baron, that way you'd be up to date—we know our stuff in the
Sécurité Publique
! We've got a missing person's alert for him. It arrived this morning. You do mean the German billionaire who lives in Provence?”

“That's him. Do you know anything else?”

“No, sir. Nothing apart from the notice dated today.”

Maistre's face was covered with fine wrinkles announcing imminent old age, and tiny pink veins ran across his fleshy cheeks.

“Why are you interested in Steinert?”

“Good question! His wife has asked me to find him.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that!”

Maistre burst out laughing. He crossed his arms over his stomach.

“I wouldn't mind playing at private eye myself.”

De Palma sighed.

“There's something that's bothering me.”

“What's that?”

“She looks like Isabelle.”

Maistre fell silent. He was thinking, trying to find the right thing to say. The Baron interpreted this silence as a sign of mistrust: his friend had doubts about his mental health.

“When will I see you next, Baron?”

“Dunno.”

“How about next weekend? The children haven't gone on holiday yet. They'd love to see you.”

“I'm fine for this weekend.”

Maistre stood up, took a C.D. down from the shelf beside him and pretended to read the cover.

“Come to think of it, in fact it's the boys in Tarascon who are on the case at the moment. At least they're the ones who put out the alert. But I reckon it will all end up with the
Police Judiciaire
.”

“Do you think Marceau is in the know?”

“I reckon so. He's always the one who deals with this kind of thing.”

“How do you get on with him?”

“I haven't seen him for ages. But things were O.K. the last time I did. We had a good chat: two old-timers going down memory lane.”

“It's odd that he should be mixed up in all this as well.”

Maistre opened his eyes wide and shook his head.

“It's a coincidence, Michel. It's true that Marceau was with us when we got stuck with the Mercier case, but that's as far as it goes.”

“He worked very hard on it …”

“We were three young officers from the same year at the police academy, and we happened to end up on a case that affected all of us. We were marked by Isabelle. Marceau maybe more than we think.”

“You're right, Le Gros. I'll look him up in Tarascon.”

“He'd like that.”

The Baron ran his index finger along the line of C.D.s and picked out
The Court of the Crimson King
. He slid it into the player, poured himself a shot of Aberlour and slumped into the armchair.

“You're into pop music now?”

“You made me listen to it on stakeouts, don't you remember?”

“Like it was yesterday. We used to smoke the evidence as well.”

Maistre pulled a face and knitted his eyebrows. He scratched the tip of his nose and shrugged.

“I think I've found a boat, Baron.”

“For fishing?”

“Affirmative. It's a lad from Pointe-Rouge who's selling it.”

“Then we'll go fishing with King Crimson on full blast.”

At night in La Capelette, the factories stood in dark rectangular clusters, ruins of pitiless time.

It was in front of the huge wall of the pith helmet factory that
the local boys used to fight with the lads from Pauline or Saint-Loup. With bicycle chains and hobnailed broom handles.

De Palma was generally the last to get into a fight, but he was also the most violent—a violence he had now locked up behind bars of alcohol and music, and, when he was young, doggerel verse as well.

The Marseille that the Baron knew could turn the sweetest children sour; it fed them neither folklore nor good intentions, but rather violence and the lure of money.

In La Capelette, the role models were the local gangsters, who drank in the Bar de l'Avenir under the bridge of the railway that ran through the neighborhood and ended up in the municipal dump. The hard nuts of l'Avenir were the only ones with even a shred of prestige, a success that stuck like shit to a blanket. They all had Italian roots, but were proud to be from Marseille, despite the great white city's record of injustice.

The others, that seething mass of proles, worked like nobodies. After their shift was over the smartest of them used to go and rack their brains at the offices of the Communist Party, reforming the world with Stalinist slogans.

The Baron had been born in this area, but had never belonged to it. He was not raised with his feet treading sawdust in the bars or cafés, talking too loudly and waving his hands around the way the plebs do on T.V.

But when he bumped into a childhood friend in the street, who had been in and out of prison, he would greet him as a friend. Their eyes would meet, and commonplaces rained on the tarmac. Nothing more. The true Marseillais is a silent man.

On Friday, July 11, at 5:50 a.m., a fine drizzle was blowing in from the bay.

From the dual carriageway overlooking the harbor, you could see the flickering yellow lamps on the bellies of freighters streaming with rain. Anne Moracchini and Daniel Romero were driving in silence, their mouths bitter from the day's first cup of coffee and their eyes still puffy with sleep.

Capitaine Moracchini, the only woman in the
Brigade Criminelle
, did not like the rain. It reminded her of her early years with the
Police Judiciaire
in Versailles.

“Daniel, did you remember the blotting paper?”

“Yes, Anne,” Romero sighed. “It's in the bag.”

Daniel Romero was wondering whether his boss's explosive mood was going to cool down, or if she was always like this when she went to grab a gangster while the milkman was still doing his rounds. He did not know that Moracchini could not bear rain, especially not at 6 a.m. when they were about to make a difficult arrest in a lane in the village of Saint-André. It was enough to make you think that criminals had a guardian angel out to ruin the best-laid plans.

“What's your aftershave, Daniel?”

“
Habit Rouge
.”

“Tomorrow morning, try
Pour un Homme
by Caron. It's just as virile and doesn't get up my nose so much.”

Lieutenant Romero had just arrived on the brigade. With his good looks and relaxed, feline gait he looked perfect in his new part. He kept his cool in all circumstances, had a brain that still sparked and a true belief in his mission. He had been with the
Brigade Anti
Criminalité
, before taking the officers' exam and joining the
Criminelle
in Marseille—his deepest wish come true.

On the church square of Saint-André, Moracchini looked at the clock on the Xsara's dashboard.

“Jesus, what are the B.R.I. boys up to? They're not here yet! And it's six already!”

“Maybe they're lost?”

“That's not funny, Daniel …”

At the top of rue des Varces, a Mégane appeared, with its headlights off, followed by a 306.

“Just look at them,” Moracchini said, mechanically checking her Manurhin. “Aren't they just wonderful?”

“They're on time, you can say that for them. On the dot of six …”

“Yeah,” she said, spitting her chewing gum out of the window.

A third unmarked car drew up behind the Xsara.

“How many are we altogether, Anne?”

“Eleven …”

She got out and shook hands with Capitaine Bonniol, of the
Brigade de Recherches et d'Intervention
.

“It's there,” she said, pointing at number 32, which was half erased.

It was a ramshackle maisonette, set back from the rest of the street. A rusty fence, mended with reinforcings for concrete, stood in front of a small garden of irises and scrubby rose bushes. To the left was a prefabricated garage, and at the far end the house itself, with its bedroom under the rafters; one of those prewar shacks put up by Italian laborers in one weekend, using materials nicked from building sites. A first step out of their shanty town.

Moracchini drew her .357, signaled to the B.R.I. hard cases to hang back and gave four violent kicks that almost demolished the door.

“This is the police, M. Casetti!” she shouted loud enough to crack her voice. “Open up!”

More kicks, then she nodded to her teammate.

“This is the police.” Daniel Romero, in a voice that was almost soft. “Come quietly, M. Casetti.”

“Shall we break the door down, Anne?”

“Why not bring in the anti-terrorist squad and T.V. reporters while you're at it! Are you joking or what? We'll do it the old-fashioned way. He'll come down and open up like a good boy.”

“My ass he will,” said Bonniol.

At that moment, a light shone through the bedroom shutters. A shotgun barrel gleamed in the air.

“This is Capitaine Anne Moracchini, of the
Brigade Criminelle
. I have a judge's warrant … You know me, Jean-Luc … come on, open up!”

Events unfolded just as the two had imagined from the start. The door was pulled ajar, a figure appeared and a pair of eyes shone in the half-light. Romero kicked hard at the bottom of the door and Moracchini aimed her revolver at Casetti standing ashen-faced in his underpants.

“No messing now, Jean-Luc. And no sudden moves. Put your hands where we can see them and turn round.”

Jean-Luc Casetti, a crook used to the routine, turned and offered his wrists to the police officer. Bonniol turned on the kitchen light, and a greenish glare came down from the neon on the ceiling.

“Not too tight, please,” Casetti begged.

“Don't worry, Jean-Luc. We've been here before!” Moracchini grabbed hold of Casetti and sat him down on the kitchen table.

“We've got a warrant …”

Casetti shook his head and looked skyward.

“We're here because you're suspected of taking part in a raid on a security van. So, as of now—and it's ten past six—you're in police custody. If you want, you can see a lawyer, and also a doctor. How are you, no problems at the moment?”

“No, I'm fine.”

Jean-Luc Casetti was short, with bright eyes that darted around in all directions. A gypsy called Bagdad de la Cayolle had fingered him as the gunman in the double murder of the Ferri couple. After two lean years in a post in Nice, the
Criminelle
's new boss, François Delpiano, had jumped at the chance of solving his first big case in Marseille. But Moracchini was sure that the tip was a phony. She
had said as much to Delpiano, but he wouldn't listen. All he had agreed was to bring in Casetti for a hold-up, so as not to put the wind up the people who had taken out the contract on the couple.

“Casetti, the security van raider …”

“Please Inspector, not in front of the children. Don't say a word.”

“No, Jean-Luc, I'm a Capitaine now!” Moracchini said, to cool things down a little.

A little girl wearing a blue-flowered dressing gown over her bony shoulders and foam slippers on her feet was standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Hello,” Moracchini said, as simply as possible, smiling at the wide-eyed girl.

“Hello, Madame.”

“What's your name?”

“She's called Marion,” Casetti butted in proudly.

“You had a son too, no? A big lad …”

“Christophe? He's in jail.”

“Why?”

“Because he takes after his prick of a father.”

“For a long stretch?”

“Ten years.”

“Jesus, ten years, Jean-Luc! That's no life.”

Despite her years on the force, it still riled her when a crook spoke so coolly about his family's troubles. The verdicts seemed to rain down on the Casetti family without ever teaching them anything. They went in and out of prison and seemed to accept these return trips between the free world and “inside” as if they were the terms of a contract. A contract often settled by a bullet.