“Two million euros. It was a tidy offer, at the time.”
Naulin seemed to have no qualms about providing such a wonderful motive. Maybe he organized the burglary to frighten Marie Sauzelle and pressure her into moving, and it turned sour? Capestan rejected this thought before it had even fully taken shape. Naulin was still looking at her through the slits of his lizard-like eyes: he had cast his rod and was waiting for her to take the bait. No doubt he’d have an alibi for the time of the crime. She did not want to give him the pleasure of announcing it, so she chose to let him stew in silence instead.
“I was in Bayeux,” he said, as if reading the commissaire’s mind, “at my parents’ place. I only came home two days before discovering the body. I didn’t kill her. Just as well I didn’t bother, because as you can see, her death hasn’t changed a thing. They ended up building the center over by the boulevard.”
“So the brother refused to sell, too?”
“There’s no hiding anything from you two.”
“He even pays someone to keep an eye on the house. That’s the real bummer,” Capestan said, playing him at his own game.
“Me. He pays me,” Naulin replied, stubbing out his half-smoked cigarette in the overflowing ashtray.
“You’re not working terribly hard,” Torrez chimed in. “We walked straight into the house in broad daylight.”
“I didn’t say he paid me well.”
So Naulin was the one in charge of security. Maybe this was the piece of information he had been brooding over so mysteriously since the start of the interview. The man did not know much, but he packaged it in such a way as to swell his own sense of importance. Or perhaps he was throwing them a dummy with this admission. Capestan decided not to push any further until she had dug around in his past a little. It was time to call it a day.
After a few more questions about the discovery of the body, the officers gratefully hauled themselves off the foam sofa that had swallowed them up. They left a contact number, just on the off-chance that Serge Naulin hit upon some memories or some compassion, and left after the customary farewells.
Torrez ripped a flyer off the windshield that promised him unbeatable prices on full leg waxing.
“Nice guy, wasn’t he?” he asked, scrunching up the ad before tossing it into a nearby trashcan.
Capestan opened the passenger door of the 306 and practically dived in, despite its lingering smell of stale tobacco. Once Torrez was inside, too, she delivered her verdict:
“There’s something not quite right about the guy. And there’s something not quite right about his connection with the brother, either.”
“You think it wasn’t a burglary after all?”
“No, I do, because crim said so. They did work on the case for a while, to be fair to them. I just don’t know,” she admitted, rolling down the window to let in the warm afternoon air.
A sticker on a road sign was saying NO TO AUSTERITY! On a bench on the square, in the shade of a plane tree, two young women chatted as each of them rocked a buggy.
“We’ll need to take a look at Naulin. He might be hiding something.”
“I’ll take care of it when we get back,” Torrez said before starting the engine.
He pulled out of their space in silence, cautiously avoiding the cars that were hurtling recklessly down the street.
“And the brother,” he said once they were on the move. “Seven years later and he hasn’t sold? Having the place watched? Strange behavior.”
“The brother. I don’t think we should make up our mind before we’ve seen him. We need to go down there.”
“In this car?” Torrez exclaimed, the tinge of concern in his voice not quite disguising his excitement about going back to Creuse.
“Let’s take the train and hire a car down there. Our budget is only supposed to cover local journeys, but it’s set for forty people. There are still only about four and a half of us, so we should get away with it.”
Capestan thought for a second longer. It would also be good to meet the police officers from the time and find out what led them to conclude that it was an isolated robber.
“No,” she said, turning to Torrez. “I’m not buying the burglary theory at all.”
“Neither am I.”
11
They drove back on the other side of the Seine and had to slow down when they were level with place de la Concorde. Capestan gazed across the square, with its obelisk and street lamps surrounded by little clusters of tourists on Segways. They advanced in short bursts, stiff with apprehension and smiling nervously as they clung to the handlebars of their mobile platforms. They had all of Paris before their eyes, but most of their excitement was focused on their thick rubber tires on the pavement. Thanks to the traffic jam, Capestan had time to appreciate this whirligig. When the lights finally went green, the 306 stalled. Torrez glared at the windshield menacingly, took a deep breath, and turned the key. The engine revved back into action just as the lights went red again, setting off a deafening blast of horns that almost ruffled the seagulls occupying the bridge. Twenty yards later, they were met by yet another holdup.
Torrez sighed and drummed the steering wheel impatiently.
“Let’s stick the light on . . .”
He took his eyes off the traffic for a second as he searched the dashboard, then under the passenger seat. Nothing.
“There isn’t one,” Capestan confirmed wearily.
“What about a siren?”
“Afraid not: no siren, no lights. We’re an auxiliary squad and we do get a budget, but it doesn’t cover everything.”
Bearing in mind the state of the office, the computers, and the cars, Capestan had resigned herself to such setbacks.
“So it doesn’t cover sirens?”
“Not for equipment. We get the hand-me-downs and the surplus. Or the stuff that’s gone out of fashion. And sirens are still in.”
“How are we supposed to work without them?”
“We’re not
