“There you go,” she said, closing the knife, “there’s your cell. That should work just fine for starters. Catch young Riverni red handed like the good police officers you are, and if there are any complications, play dumb and call me.”
A smirk played across Lebreton’s lips, who had been listening all along. Évrard, still skeptical, nevertheless slipped off to telephone Merlot, who had stayed behind at Café Carnot “just in case.”
Capestan had not expected an arrest to be in the cards so soon. She would have preferred to spend a bit more time getting her bearings before rushing headlong into the game, especially as it involved contravening the powers that be. But she wasn’t about to let her officers be sidelined. Admitting to them that their investigations were futile would hardly make for a motivational team talk. This squad had to be good for something. Good for what remained to be seen: she should find out in a couple of hours. The least she could do was keep a close eye on them when it came to crunch time. Her eyes met Lebreton’s again. The commandant tapped his pen on the edge of his desk and tilted his head to one side to show that, like her, he was looking forward to hearing the verdict. She gave him a quick smile and returned to her shopping cart.
From the bottom of it, she lifted out a pair of antique-style andirons embellished with goddess figurines. She lined them up on either side of the fireplace, perfectly parallel, then rubbed her hands together again to get rid of the thin layer of rust they had left behind. Rosière came over to admire the installation.
“Classy. I’m thinking a big mirror to go on top. Gold frame?”
Rosière needed little encouragement in this department, but Capestan nodded her approval anyway. As a matter of principle, she always tried to reward good intentions.
“Have you got one?” she said.
“Of course. Let me make a quick call,” Rosière said loudly, grabbing the telephone on her desk.
“We’ll need a crystal chandelier, too,” she added, the receiver clamped against her shoulder.
“A chandelier?”
Capestan felt the stirrings of a whirlwind.
“As you wish . . . ,” Capestan said, knowing full well she was about to unleash a war machine.
17
One hour later, a gilt-bronze mirror and a crystal chandelier had appeared in the main room. Capestan and Rosière were celebrating the arrival in the deck chairs on the terrace, each sipping a cup of steaming tea. It was a mild autumn, perfect for the twin pleasures of the log fire and the terrace. The hurly-burly of the Parisians teeming around the fountain rose up toward the rooftops: laughter, piercing voices, ringing cell phones, the bells of bicycles, and the beating wings of the pigeons. A pair of djembe drums could be heard pounding in the distance, their soft rhythm setting the perfect tempo for the midmorning dawdlers. Lebreton came out and propped his elbow on the stone edge of the terrace as he lit a cigarette. The lull seemed to go on forever in the warmth, staving off the threat of the ringing telephone. Eventually it came, shattering the silence, and Capestan, ever the good soldier, stood up to answer it. Time for Buron’s verdict.
She took a breath and picked up. It was indeed the chief, and his tone was far from friendly:
“Your officers are over at Riverni’s, is that correct?”
“That’s correct. Unlike your own highly qualified, utterly perfect son, Monsieur le Directeur, young Riverni is peddling some pretty low-grade coke—”
“Capestan, what exactly are you trying to do? I forbid you to arrest or even question him.”
“Excuse me?”
“Not one single juge d’instruction will take on the case. Just like last time, and that was with proper police officers,” Buron said. “We’ve tried it all before. Don’t bother wearing yourself out.”
“I don’t feel worn out. In fact I feel in great shape.”
“Capestan, please, this is not a laughing matter. Do you want to know how limited your options are? Let me spell it out for you: none of the investigating judges even know your squad exists. You simply don’t have the weight for this sort of case.”
That final sentence really riled Capestan. She listened first to the silence, then to the tone at the other end of the line before resignedly hanging up. There was no point fighting if the public prosecutor’s doors were closed.
However much she had seen this coming, a flush of annoyance rose to her face. She was really angry. Fine, Buron had laid out the rules from the start, but to be gagged so quickly was hard to take. Her squad deserved better than that; they would do better than that.
The adrenaline was coursing through her veins. Capestan took a deep breath to try and dismiss the dark clouds overwhelming her, to think of a way around the barriers the chief had erected. Standing in the middle of the room, she screamed at no one in particular, hoping she’d be heard from the terrace through to the back offices:
“Does anyone here know Divisionnaire Fomenko?”
Her question was met with silence, and she was about to rephrase it when Rosière, mug in hand, rippled into the living room.
“I know the dragon well,” she said in a husky voice, her grin heavy with innuendo.
Capestan was not at all sure she wanted to hear the details, but it was good news nonetheless.
“Listen, Buron’s refusing to let us nab Riverni. Our team is being forced to back down, officially at least. But surely the drug squad will have more to say on the matter. Fomenko is still tight with his old team: he might persuade them to check out the boy or, failing that, at least lend us a hand. But first we need to get him on our side. Might that be doable?”
“Sure, why not,” Rosière said casually. “But should we really be so bothered about this dealer?”
“Absolutely. If we give in this easily, it will discredit all our future actions. We’ll look like a
