Lebreton put on his black jacket and zipped up his boots, giving the former a brush and the latter a buff. His body, crippled by loss, had become a straitjacket. He wanted to rip it off and run, the way people flee the capital for the countryside. He wanted to leave this all behind, just for a weekend. As he closed the door behind him, he wondered how long it had taken for Guénan to remake her bed.
It was bucketing down. At the café on the corner, Lebreton found Rosière and her dog sheltering beneath the awning of the terrace. The rain was making a racket on the canvas. Rosière seemed to be coming off second best as she tried to open her paper packet of sugar. Pilou leapt up on seeing Lebreton, causing the table to lurch to one side, spilling half the coffee and making Rosière drop both sugar and paper into her cup.
“Shitty fucking table . . . ,” she said before looking up at the commandant.
Maëlle Guénan lived on rue Mazagran not far from here, and they had agreed to meet here before heading on together. Lebreton sat down next to Rosière, stroked the dog’s head, and signaled to the waiter for a coffee.
“Morning, Eva. Are you planning on bringing Pilote, too?”
“No, I’ll leave him in the Lexus. He should be fine for half an hour with the window open a crack. Might even help us avoid the car getting swiped.”
The rain hammered into the awning as the pedestrians hurried along the pavement, while some of them huddled in the doorway opposite the bar, staring at the sky to make sure they didn’t miss a clear spell. A gale was picking up, flipping umbrellas and blowing flyers down the street. The water in the puddles was rippling and a rumble of thunder announced the next downpour.
“Savage day,” Rosière said, trying to reassure the dog cowering between her ankles.
“That’s a funny expression—where does it come from?” Lebreton asked.
“It’s a Loire thing, I’m from Saint-Étienne. What about you, you’re not a Parisian, I hope?”
“No, I’m from outside Dijon.”
Lebreton’s parents lived in the sticks, in that lowland expanse that rushes past on the train, and that you run away from as a teenager in favor of the hustle and bustle of Le Marais. The commandant drank his espresso in one shot, then placed enough change in the saucer to cover both of them. The rain had calmed, as if gathering its strength for the next bombardment; a window of opportunity in the storm that they could not afford to miss.
“Shall we?”
The dog seemed to think the invitation was directed at him, and he jumped to his feet and started wagging his tail frantically.
“Do you remember the Key Line Express shipwreck?” Maëlle Guénan asked as an opener.
Rosière was struggling to concentrate, knowing that Pilou was all by himself in the car. Poor little thing. What with the storm, too, he must be overcome with distress and worry on those honey-colored leather seats. On top of that, she always found these preliminary interviews tiresome—nothing useful ever came out of them. Rosière usually saw them as an opportunity to establish a picture of the witness, nothing more. She was always on the lookout for the moment when the emotions started to come through. Only at that point would you get any leads worthy of the name. Shit, the nice lady had just asked her a question—what was it again? Oh yes . . .
“No, before our investigation I had never heard of it.”
Maëlle Guénan nodded sadly. At almost forty-four years of age, she was wearing jeans with various colors of butterfly sewn onto them, and her baggy mauve cotton sweater was starting to fray at the elbows. She smiled, pushed back her hair with her chewed fingers, and moved her feet together. A silver, star-shaped badge twinkled on the laces of her sneakers.
“Same with me, I have to admit,” Lebreton added from his magisterial height.
Lebreton: Such a waste, Rosière thought to herself. There had even been a twinkle in Guénan’s distant eye when she saw the stud.
“It’s crazy,” Maëlle said. “Twenty years and no one remembers it anymore. People remember the Concordia, the Estonia. . . , but the Key Line? Nothing. Too far away. Or maybe not enough deaths. Although there were forty-three. Forty-three deaths, you realize. Maybe it’s because there weren’t enough French people among the victims.”
A laminated floral-pattern tablecloth covered the kitchen table, where Maëlle had invited them to sit down. They could feel the nonslip padded protector underneath. The corners had worn through with use, revealing the dark wood below. The straw chairs were threatening to collapse—Rosière and Lebreton kept still and watchful as a precaution. Along the wall were three fake brass portholes, under which was a series of gold-framed photographs showing a boy growing into a fine-looking young man: Cédric, their son, no doubt. On a side table, a bizarre instrument with a grille, also brass, drew Rosière’s attention. A compass, she figured.
“Can I offer you a cider?” Maëlle said, her voice so soft they had to lean forward to hear her.
Cider! So that was her poison, Rosière thought. Cider? Goodness gracious, old girl . . . Well, reputations don’t come out of thin air. Rosière was about to pick up the compass-thingy to have a look, but Lebreton’s glare stopped her just in time.
“Two ciders would be lovely, thank you,” he said, with his half-silky, half-shattered tone.
Maëlle appeared to live an austere life. She looked like the sort of person who dreads opening the mailbox. Next to a white playpen in the corner of the room, a see-through plastic box was overflowing with teddy bears, colorful bricks, and scuffed toys. Her childcare toolkit. Once Maëlle had come back with an already open bottle of cider and three glasses, Lebreton picked
