As nine-to-fives went, Rosière’s time at police headquarters had been as cushy as anything: it was a constant source of juicy information, with officers from every department passing through. Colleagues, swivel chairs, gossip, and banter on the one hand; appreciation, coziness, and security on the other. She had lived a truly charmed life. But she had not been able to resist going for broke and pursuing television glory, so she had taken a sabbatical.
All of a sudden she was doing nothing but writing from dawn till dusk. Before long, the monumental demands of creating a series had drained her bank of ideas. There was not a drop of fiction left in her veins.
Without realizing it, in turning her back on the police, she had turned her back on her friends. Now her keyboard was her only colleague; just a screen to chat with. Olivier was the one thread that tied her to the world, her only link. A link that had become considerably more tenuous since his move to Papeete . . .
Papeete, Tahiti. Rosière had consulted the map: you could not get farther away from Paris.
In the last year of her leave of absence, her only human interactions were painfully brief, to negotiate a contract or attend a briefing. There was always a reason for any contact; a function of some sort. No more casual drop-ins or fly-by visits. In the morning, she saw nobody; in the afternoon, nobody; and in the evening, after she had been out to fetch some bread, she knew she would come home to nobody. Every week was made up of seven Sundays. What use was it being successful if you did not have anyone to show off to? Her life looked more and more like a poster warning against isolation.
So she went back to the police. At number 36, there was plenty to fill up her day and her pool of inspiration. Suddenly, everything came to life. She could make a racket without getting herself fired. At least that was what she had thought before they packed her off to this squad. She was optimistic, though. Apart from anything else, there were four of them, so she was well catered for when it came to company.
Rosière had gone digging for some info, and what she had found out through rumors, speculation, and snippets of overheard conversation had intrigued her. She was not at all upset to be working with Capestan. The star pupil who goes off the rails, a loaded Kalashnikov with an innocent smile. Ideal ammunition for her next script. Usually middle-class types didn’t interest Rosière, but she could not deny that Capestan was pretty sexy. And she was no pushover, either. She had a natural authority to her, a strong force of will, but she was not the sort to trample over others with her size-sevens. Plus, she had taken on Torrez instead of throwing him to the dogs, and that took guts. Rosière was also delighted to have snared the Adonis from IGS, and on top of that, the murdered sailor’s file seemed promising.
She had not stopped thinking about the case and had barely written a line all morning. There were a few upcoming episodes on the back burner, but an author never wants to be faced with a blank screen, so she had eventually managed to eke out a few words. Hence the delay to the mandatory second dog-walk and the subsequent strike action: Pilote was a stickler for timekeeping.
How was one to go about investigating a case that dated back twenty years? The file was flimsy, with no trace of interrogations or potential leads. The officers at the time had screwed up, the lazy bastards.
Rosière, planted in the middle of the pavement, took a cigarette from her pack and lit it with her gold Dupont lighter, which had LAURA FLAMES engraved on it. She blew the smoke out through her nose. The murder of an out-of-work sailor had not caused much of a stir. His widow had kicked up a fuss at the start, but before long she had hit the bottle. Rosière wondered if she was still drinking today, as the world continued to turn a blind eye. She imagined a scene with the woman and her red wino’s nose, then switched it to TV format and tried to come up with a dialogue that was long on emotion without being too tear-jerky. Pilou took this pause as his cue to relieve himself.
Eva Rosière was still gazing at the tip of her cigarette when Lebreton and his broad shoulders appeared in her line of sight. Such a hunk, she thought to herself. What was he doing in this dead-end squad? He did not fit the no-hoper profile. She stubbed her cigarette out on the toe of her Louboutin.
“Anything to report?” Lebreton asked, nodding at the dog.
“Yes, this plane tree finally gave him some inspiration. Right outside my door. We do a full lap of the neighborhood and he ends up pissing on my steps. Come on then, Pilou, are we going to do our trick?”
At these words, the dog immediately hopped through the open door and did a series of pirouettes—around to the left, then the right, and repeat—diligently cleaning his paws on the brush doormat.
“Good boy,” Rosière congratulated him, then turned to Lebreton. “Coffee?”
The two of them were perched on her large, white-leather L-shaped sofa, with Guénan’s file carefully laid out on the smoked-glass table. Lebreton stirred his coffee, placed the teaspoon on the saucer, and opened proceedings with a calm voice:
“So we have Yann Guénan, a quartermaster in the deck department of the merchant navy, who, after a brief spell of unemployment, had taken a job on one of the bateaux-mouches. When he was thirty, he married Maëlle, a
