“This is where Marie is, not there. Here is where it counts, where it has to be tidy, well maintained. In the churchyard.”
“One last thing, Monsieur Sauzelle. Was she wary by nature, or might she have opened her door to a stranger?”
“She was confident, but within reason. Strangers were better off outside than in.”
“Is there anything other than the flowers that’s stopping you from accepting the burglary theory?”
Capestan did not believe in intuition. Intuition was just a detail that occurred at the back of your brain. It needed to be brought forward for analysis, to be scrutinized in the nerve center. She needed something else: an uncharted feeling about his sister’s death; a telephone conversation, perhaps.
“What did she say the last time you were on the telephone?” Capestan said.
Sauzelle scrunched up his face as he tried to remember, then suddenly he lit up:
“That’s it! She had an evening, with one of her associations or clubs . . .”
“Tarot? Tango? Residents’ association?”
“I can’t remember. Hold on, she said it was something ‘not very cheerful, but close to her heart.’ That’s it. That’s the last thing she said to me,” Sauzelle said in a distant voice, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. “So, shall I take you back to your car?”
“Yes, thank you,” Capestan said, getting to her feet.
She looked for somewhere to throw away her cup and saw a trash can that already had a good foot and a half of plastic cups spilling out of it. She managed to balance hers on top, and Torrez gave her his so she could perform the feat again. On their way to the van, the lieutenant stopped at a stand and bought two pots of honey. He handed one to Capestan.
“Here. To support local business,” he said with a serious expression.
“Thanks,” Capestan said, slightly taken aback. “I’ll bring it to the commissariat so that everyone can enjoy it.”
“As you wish.”
Key West Island, South Florida
January 19, 1991
Pushed up against the rear wall of the room, giddy from the deafening screams and crying, Alexandre squeezed her hand in his and stared through the windows at the back.
“One more try! I can see his head!” the midwife said, urging her on.
The girl from reception was standing next to them, gawking unashamedly at the event. Even the director of the museum had joined the party, wearing a striped polo shirt and a toothy smile fit for a lottery TV presenter. Alexandre would have chased them off right away, but he hadn’t seen them come in. The midwife’s encouragements became more intense and Alexandre started sweating buckets.
Outside he could hear the hustle and bustle of Mallory Square. Tourists were gathering in droves around the plaza and along the docks. At that time of day, they turned their backs on the jugglers to admire Key West’s finest spectacle: sunset over the Gulf of Mexico. The expectation surrounding this moment of pure beauty spread across the entire island, forcing it to pause for a few minutes to catch its breath. His son was to be born here; he was to be born now.
His first cry shattered the silence.
One breath later, the child took hold of his father.
One step later, Alexandre was by Rosa’s side, and they squeezed each other’s hands. Both of them were stunned into silent admiration of the cherry-red infant, all sticky and wrinkled.
“Gabriel . . . ,” the new mother murmured.
He was there.
For almost nine months, they had thought about this presence that would become the mainstay of their lives, yet they had never seen his face. Now they were meeting him for the first time. They welcomed him with tears streaming down their cheeks, proud mammals dazzled by their cub.
The midwife swaddled the newborn in a large terry towel, onto which the emotional director planted an I LIFTED A GOLD BAR sticker.
Before Alexandre could protest, Rosa burst out laughing. She was right, he thought to himself. A wild commotion broke out in Mallory Square: the crowd outside had burst into rapturous applause as the last rays of sunlight disappeared. Gabriel had been born, surrounded by treasure, before the whooping adulation of a crowd celebrating his star.
His arrival could not have been more auspicious.
23
Évrard had organized an impromptu darts tournament by pinning a target to the door at the end of the corridor. Two rooms down, Torrez must have been hoping against hope that no one would hurt themselves, but in the main arena it was all fun and games. Although not entirely: Capestan had just won her fourth round in a row. Out of four.
“I think we should play without her,” Rosière announced, plucking her dart from the outermost ring.
Évrard, Merlot, Orsini, and even Lebreton nodded enthusiastically before returning to their mark, which had been painted directly onto the wooden floor.
“That’s mean,” Capestan protested, although secretly she was delighted.
Each time a player threw a dart, Pilou set off like a mad dog, then trotted back confusedly, one ear pricked and the other down.
“It’s a fair point: having a shooting champion does slightly kill the fun,” Évrard said.
“It’s nothing like firing a pistol!”
Capestan had won silver in the twenty-five-meter pistol event at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Twelve years later, she was not even allowed to look at a gun.
“Whatever,” Évrard said, lining up the tips of her sneakers with the red ochre.
The telephone rang in the living room.
“There you go, you’re all off the hook,” Capestan called out with a wry smile, knowing it would be for her.
She went to her metal-top desk and cleared away the samples of English wallpaper that Rosière had
