Capestan smiled at the lieutenant and went back to her swivel chair. It was time for the commissaire to pick her way through the Guénan file with a renewed focus. This case had just become her own.
A line was emerging. Lebreton and Rosière had been so focused on Jallateau that they had failed to consider the victim’s temperament. A sailor with that much perseverance, who gathers together hundreds of documents and puts the whole thing in writing, must have kept some sort of journal, almost like a ship’s logbook. If so, it would surely contain some vital clues. Capestan wanted to avoid broadcasting this oversight to the group, especially since relations between her and Lebreton were still frosty—better not make it more awkward. But she promised to tackle the issue the moment they were one-on-one.
The studious atmosphere that had settled on the room was interrupted by the screech of Torrez’s chair on the floor. He crossed the room, his sheepskin jacket already on his back. The silence continued until the front door clicked shut.
Midday, Capestan thought. Lunchtime. They would all make better progress with some food in their bellies.
29
Lebreton and Évrard had taken the whole squad’s order and gone to fetch burgers and fries. Back on the overcrowded terrace, the brown paper bags were distributed and each officer buried their nose inside to check that everything was present and correct. Pilote trotted from one to the other, desperately searching for the biggest pushover.
Merlot set upon his cheeseburger with the expression of an intrepid explorer. He was discovering the virgin terrain of junk food, devouring the flabby bun with gusto and sending a jet of ketchup into the distance. His round pickle slice slid down the red sauce like a shaky surfer and landed on the capitaine’s already stained tie. Nonchalant as ever, he took a paper napkin and flicked the offending condiment onto the floor tiles of the terrace. The dog went over to inspect the spoils but seemed unconvinced, preferring to wait for something a little meatier to fall. Lewitz pointed at the animal, then swallowed and directed a question at Rosière:
“Did you name him after a particular pilot?”
“Yes. The first of a series.”
This surprised Dax, who stopped chewing:
“So you want more than one dog?”
“No, series as in television series,” she said.
Évrard closed the plastic lid on her barely touched salad and tore open a packet of petit-beurre cookies from the shopping bag, offering them around as she nibbled at the corners of her own. Dax held out an interested hand.
“I bet you ten euros you can’t eat three in under a minute,” Évrard whispered.
“No money!” Capestan said straightaway. “How many in a minute?”
“Three,” Évrard repeated, nodding to suggest the odds were stacked in her favor.
“Is that all?!” Dax blurted.
He leapt to his feet, ready for action, shaking his arms and rotating his head to loosen his neck.
“Let’s do this,” he said.
A crowd rapidly formed around the contender. This foolish challenge reminded Capestan of something, maybe a YouTube clip or a scene from a film. Three cookies in under a minute. Good, clean fun among colleagues. Dax stuffed in all three at once, his jaw going into overdrive as he tried to mash them up and get them down.
Sitting with her back to the window, Capestan watched from a distance, deep in thought as she picked at her fries. Lebreton took this as his opportunity to have a quiet word with her:
“I’m with you on the missing cat: it’s bizarre. If we want peace of mind, we have to look for the carrier.”
Capestan sat up straight to show he had her attention. Lebreton continued in the same tone:
“If we call Marie Sauzelle’s local vet, we should get a date for their last visit and a summary of the cat’s health. And the vet will know whether the animal had some sort of carrier. If the carrier is missing, then it means the murderer took it with him.”
“Marie might have thrown it out when the cat died,” Capestan said.
“You don’t throw that sort of thing out so quickly. Plus the vet can tell us if the cat had died a long time before.”
“You’re right. The vet, the carrier. Good idea. I’ll look into it this afternoon. Thank you, commandant.”
Dax was staring at the stopwatch. One minute, thirty seconds. He had failed. He was refusing to believe it. Lewitz picked up the baton, opting for a diametrically opposite technique: he nibbled each cookie in turn, biting continuously, like Bugs Bunny on a carrot.
Capestan could have made the most of her talk with Lebreton to flag up her views on Guénan, but she was worried about coming across as overly competitive (“Think you can teach me a lesson? Have a listen to this . . .”). The commissaire did not like to use that sort of tone. Lebreton could sense she was holding something back.
“And the Guénan case?” he asked. “Any thoughts after looking at it with fresh eyes?”
“Yes, in fact. I figure that a sailor like Guénan would instinctively have kept a journal to log his thoughts. Our mystery passenger must have gotten his hands on it.”
“A journal. Of course,” Lebreton said. “The widow told us that he spoke about the shipwreck all the time. Maybe he wrote things down for comfort.”
Lebreton was annoyed with himself for overlooking this possibility. They hadn’t varied their questions enough when they interviewed Maëlle. He would have to go and see her again as soon as possible. The commandant thanked Capestan with a nod, then went over to join Rosière. It was her turn, and she was guzzling down her third cookie under the watchful eye of Évrard and her digital watch.
“One minute, ten! A new record!” the referee announced. “But no one’s broken the one-minute mark yet.”
“More training required,” Rosière said with a splutter. “We’ll get there . . .”
A few hours later, as Merlot indulged in a diligent siesta on the sofa, his colleagues’ research was progressing.
Away in his den, Torrez had called André Sauzelle and
