“Italian?” Verlaque asked.
“Venetian,” the man said, sticking his chest out in such a way that Verlaque almost laughed out loud.
“How lucky,” Verlaque replied. The couple stood in front of the honey-colored town hall, and Verlaque took two photographs. They thanked him and walked on, probably on their way to the cathedral. He turned around and again looked at the facade of the three-story town hall, lit up in the morning sun. He could see why the Italians—no, Venetians—wanted their picture taken there. It was at once majestic and intimate. Above the wide entryway, where on Saturdays newly married couples streamed out after their obligatory state wedding, were medallions bearing not the usual three inscriptions, but five. Verlaque had never noticed them before. Liberté, égalité, and fraternité were joined by two newcomers: générosité and probité. These two additions were more personal than the other three. Generosity was one of Verlaque’s own favorite traits, inherited from his paternal grandparents Charles and Emmeline. Their homes in Paris and Normandy were always open to family, neighbors, friends, and colleagues. “If I was down to my last shilling, I’d still throw a party,” Emmeline used to say to her grandsons in her educated London accent. Verlaque realized that generosity was something important to all his friends, for those who were stingy, or “mean” as Emmeline used to say, were soon struck from his list of acquaintances. A colleague once told him about a Christmas he had spent in America. Friends of friends were throwing a party. They were well off and living in a big house whose mortgage, bragged the husband, was paid off, but written on the invitations was “BYOB.” The colleague kept the invitation as a souvenir, and when he got back passed the letter around the Palais de Justice. His Aixois coworkers tried to guess what the acronym could possibly mean. “Bring your own bottle!” the young law clerk had to explain. “Bottle of what?” a secretary asked. People looked at each other, bewildered. “Wine or whatever,” he went on. “I didn’t know what it meant, either, and arrived bearing only flowers and expensive Parisian chocolates. So I went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of tap water. I refused to drink alcohol that night. For the first time in my life, I was at a party where I drank water.”
Verlaque smiled, fondly remembering the young clerk, who had since moved to another city. He looked up at probité, thinking of his conversation with Marine the previous evening. Honesty was Marine’s paramount trait. She was the most honest person he had ever met. He walked on, his hands in his pockets, thinking of Barbier. The snapshots of him with his arms around actresses and rock stars. The numerous television appearances. Verlaque walked into the coffee-roasting house and said hello to the three women who had worked there as long as he could remember. He leaned against the counter and ordered an Italian, thinking about Valère as he watched one of the women make his coffee and simultaneously load the dishwasher. How could Valère have faked his way all that time? Why hadn’t the journalists and critics caught on? Verlaque thanked the woman for his coffee and, tapping a sugar packet on the counter and then opening it, poured half in. Two men at the opposite end of the counter joked with the women, their voices and laughter loud, ringing out over the piercing noise of the grinder. Verlaque then realized that Barbier always laughed and joked in the same way. It was one of the reasons he was so loved, and such a popular guest on literary talk shows. The nation’s favorite writer was a cutup, a joker. What a good way to disguise the fact that you weren’t as profound as you sounded in your books.
Fifteen minutes later Verlaque was at his desk, having firmly closed the door to his office. He picked up the telephone and called Daniel de Rudder. “I hope it isn’t too early,” Verlaque said.
“Are you joking?” Rudder asked. “I’ve been up for hours. What else am I supposed to do? So, what have you come up with?”
“I had a good look at the photographs of the boat, taken by the police just after Agathe’s disappearance.”
“And?”
“The mess . . . From all accounts, Pelloquin was a good sailor, maniacally so, and a good sailor doesn’t leave the bow in that kind of state.”
“Hmm.”
Verlaque could tell that Rudder was smiling on the other end of the phone. “The anchor wasn’t even in the well, which means Pelloquin may have set Agathe up—”
“Or . . .”
“Or wanted someone else to trip?” Verlaque winced, embarrassed to sound unsure to his former teacher.
“Did you go through the records?” Rudder asked.
“Certainly,” Verlaque said. “Everyone on board had a clean history. As you know, Agathe and Valère Barbier argued that day, and so did Agathe and Pelloquin. But that doesn’t tell us much. My wife was in Paris yesterday, at Les Loges—”
“Oh really?” Rudder asked. He began to cough, and Verlaque waited until the coughing subsided.
“Yes, an old schoolmate of hers is now assistant director. Marine, my wife, looked at Agathe’s records and had a very informative meeting with the current directrice.”
“And?”
“A few oddities,” Verlaque said. “Agathe was a talented writer, and won an award for an essay with the same title as Valère Barbier’s first novel.”
“Rue Faubourg?”
“Exactly.”
“She gave him the title, most likely.”
“That’s what I think,” Verlaque said. “But my wife thinks otherwise.”
“Hogwash—although . . . if Agathe did help write the books, that would give Valère Barbier a nice motive for killing her.”
“Or Alphonse Pelloquin,” Verlaque said. “He must have made millions off of Barbier’s books. Speaking of Pelloquin, I have an acquaintance who saw Alphonse and Agathe together in a café in the 6th more than once.”
“Now you’re getting warm. Do you not find it interesting that her body was never found, despite the fact that she fell off the boat relatively close to Nice? I think you should—” Rudder began to cough
