Capestan let go of the curtain and headed toward the adjacent bathroom. None of the toiletries had been moved. For seven years, Marie’s ghost had been allowed to continue her existence without any disruption to her routine. A tube of Émail Diamant toothpaste, a small glass bottle of rose water, an old-fashioned bristle hairbrush, some violet soap, and cotton balls of various color in a large glass dish. There was also a tube of red lipstick in a small terra-cotta bowl. Marie Sauzelle had been quite the coquette.
A sudden inkling forced Capestan to return to the bedroom. The bed was still made. So Marie Sauzelle had indeed been downstairs watching television when the murderer entered the house. He had dropped by unannounced in the early evening, like an old friend.
Torrez was still in the living room when Capestan came back downstairs. A long, curling thread suggested that one of the belt loops on the lieutenant’s sheepskin jacket was starting to come away at the seam. Torrez checked his watch.
“Midday. I’m going for lunch. Let’s meet outside number 32, Serge Naulin’s place, at 2:00 p.m.?”
Without waiting for a response, he walked out.
Commissaire Anne Capestan was left on her own, her arms held out in a gesture of helplessness.
10
Two hours later to the minute, Torrez came rolling down the street like a rhinoceros.
“I was doing some thinking on my break,” he declared.
The two officers were standing on the pavement, keeping their distance from the house owned by Serge Naulin, the man who had alerted the authorities. A badly pruned laurel hedge was shielding them from the windows on the ground floor.
“Since the murder, the house has never been put up for sale. It seemed odd to me that no squatters had come flooding in, so I wondered . . . Do you suppose the brother’s paying someone to keep an eye on the old place? No idea who.”
So maybe the brother was prioritizing security over sanitary measures. Interesting.
A plaque above the letterbox read MONSIEUR NAULIN.
The man who opened the door was still in his pajamas and a burgundy dressing gown. He possessed a sort of greasy softness that somehow allowed him to be both thin and fleshy. He raised his droopy eyelids and studied Capestan with a crooked smile, in no apparent hurry.
“Lieutenant Torrez and Commissaire Capestan,” she said drily, showing him her badge. “We won’t disturb you for long, we just have a few questions about your former neighbor, Marie Sauzelle. She was murdered seven years ago. Do you remember?”
“Of course,” he said, letting them in.
The man deliberately did not move far enough aside, obliging Capestan to brush past him. She held back a shudder of disgust before forcing her way through roughly.
“The street was blocked off for ages after that horrible event. Would you like something to drink?” he offered in a smooth voice. “I have some schnapps, or perhaps a crème de cassis?”
“We’ll be fine, thanks,” Capestan replied curtly.
A few patches of stubble intruded on Naulin’s otherwise bare cheeks, while his long, thinning hair was slicked back in a scraggly ponytail. He was clearly cultivating a bohemian look, desperately trying to come across as sensual and seductive. Seeing that Torrez was at the ready with his ballpoint and notebook, Capestan made a start:
“Did you know her?”
“A little. We conversed from time to time . . . The usual good-neighbor things, nothing more.”
He lit a cigarette, which he held between the tips of his slender fingers. Half the filter vanished when he brought it to his crimson lips.
“Were there any other burglaries in the area around that time?” Capestan asked, looking away from this distinctly unappetizing spectacle.
“No, just her house. Even though she was by no means the most well-heeled person on the street . . .”
“Did you hear anything that night? Any details that came back to you later on? Someone you saw scoping out the house beforehand, or anyone hanging around?”
“Nothing,” he said, puffing out smoke. “Nothing remarkable.”
“Did she seem at all anxious in the days before?”
Naulin stroked the corner of his lips with a yellow-stained finger, not bothering to think before giving his answer.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Though she wasn’t a worrier by nature. Would you like some cookies? I have some stashed away in a tin.”
Capestan didn’t want booze and she didn’t want cookies. Capestan wanted new information, something specific, anything to relaunch this investigation and give them a fresh line of inquiry. She wanted to honor the memory of Marie Sauzelle, and she also wanted her squad to succeed where others had failed.
This Naulin guy was prevaricating. He was displaying the smugness of someone who was sitting on what he knew, taking pleasure in keeping it warm. Capestan dropped the questions about the burglary and chose a different tack:
“Anyone have a grudge against Marie Sauzelle? Any locals, for example?”
Naulin did not seem pleased with this abrupt change of tone.
“Of course,” he said reluctantly, taking a deep inhalation. “She was a bit of a battle-ax and could be very stubborn, often without taking much heed of other people. The Issy–Val de Seine property group, for starters . . . now they were hardly enamored of her!” he said with a sardonic chuckle.
“Why do you say that?”
“A new media center was supposedly going to be built right here. Bernard Argan, the developer, offered her a fortune for her place . . .”
“How are we spelling ‘Argan’?” Torrez interrupted.
Capestan let him note it down before continuing:
“She didn’t sell?”
“No . . . Bless her soul, she never wanted to, the silly bitch.”
Torrez jerked his head up, the tip of his ballpoint still touching his notebook.
“Your house is just next door,” Capestan said, trying hard not to blink. “Did she consult you before sending them away?”
“No.”
“You must have had to turn down
