31
In the brasserie, intermittent blasts from the coffee machine rose above the hum of conversation, while the radio was tuned to a station that bombarded the clientele with frenetic ads. Lebreton couldn’t hear himself think. At the far end of the bar, the smoking area accommodated a line of people puffing away obediently. Just next to the till, the owner, damp cloth on shoulder, was pulling half-pints with the solemn expression of a judge. The commandant was slightly removed at a table in a bow window with an unrestricted view of rue Mazagran and its Stalinist post office.
Through the glass, he saw the black Lexus slide alongside the pavement and come to a smooth halt. Capestan jumped out of the passenger seat and made for the café, quickly followed by Orsini, Rosière, and Pilote. Lebreton stood up as they came in.
“Torrez is on his way,” Capestan announced. “He had an idea and needed to stop home first.”
As always, everyone battened down their hatches at the mere mention of Lieutenant Malchance: it was as though the commissaire had not said anything at all. She was carrying on regardless, though, determined to play it down as much as possible. She shrugged off her coat with an elegant movement and folded it over the back of her chair.
“So?” she said, looking back at Lebreton.
“I introduced myself and I was shown the door. Valincourt was in charge: do you know who I mean?”
“I know who you mean. Did he play the ‘overview’ card?”
“Precisely,” Lebreton said.
Capestan shook her head, more furious than offended. That welcome hardly surprised her. Lebreton stayed on his feet while Capestan sat down at the table. Merlot burst into the café and went directly to the bar to shake hands with the owner. Évrard and Dax followed soon after and joined them at the table.
“They can have their overview. We’ll wind up their inquiry before they can even get it off the ground. That will settle it,” the commissaire said.
“To do that we’ll need the preliminary findings, the time of death, the autopsy report . . . Can you go through Buron?”
Capestan thought about it for a moment. So far her calls to the decision makers at 36 had taught her one lesson. If the squad was about to launch a competing investigation into Maëlle’s death, then they’d be better off keeping it under their hats to avoid being slapped with an official injunction. On the other hand, the widow’s murder constituted a development in the Yann Guénan case, and by extension the Sauzelle case. If they were simply pursuing the investigations they had already started, then there was no need for authorization. Setting all good faith to one side, they were not stepping on the brigade criminelle’s toes; rather, they would be working in parallel. It was a blatantly underhand approach, and no doubt Buron would give her a dressing-down for it, but it did avoid the risk of being directly disobedient. No contravention meant no punishment. There was one drawback, however: they could not ask for anything.
“No. For now, we’re staying on our own. Low profile,” Capestan said.
Lebreton made a face. He would have preferred to keep his superiors in the loop. Even though his love for protocol had started to wane in recent weeks, he still was not a fan of all these roundabout routes in the outer fringes of the law. He frowned and leaned back against the window, his hands in his trouser pockets. Nevertheless, he nodded his agreement:
“Maëlle had set the journal aside for me; I saw it next to her telephone.”
“Did you show it to the others?” Capestan said with a smile.
“No,” Lebreton said. “Let’s just say that something about Valincourt’s patronizing tone made me reconsider.”
“We have to get that journal.”
“We can’t exactly steal it, though.”
Capestan hesitated for a moment before deciding to skirt around the issue:
“Anything else?”
“When we were there the first time, she had a blue filing cabinet in her living room that contained the dossier and other bits of paperwork. It was lockable. I couldn’t get close enough to see if it had been forced, but if it was, then the killer was looking for documents, just like us.”
“We have to get back in there,” Capestan said. “Crim are inside, along with officers from the commissariat in the tenth and the forensics guys . . . It’ll be tricky for anyone to distinguish between us and the officers working on the investigations. As soon as Valincourt leaves, we can try to get ourselves onto the premises.”
“Even if we can take a peek, we’ll never manage to stay and take notes without being spotted,” Rosière objected. “If we want a proper look, we’ll have to ask.”
“No deal,” Capestan said, still smiling.
“What then? Snatch the details right out of their hands?”
“No, not that. If anyone has any other ideas . . .”
All of them looked at each other in silence. They had identified a problem but not a solution. They didn’t even know the time of death. At present their hopes of a parallel investigation seemed like a long shot.
Capestan looked out the window to see a breathless Torrez arriving with a paper bag under his arm. He waved at her and she went to join him out on the street.
“We’ll be able to listen in on what they’re saying,” he said.
“Listen? Lieutenant, please tell me you’re not suggesting we go and plant microphones in a crime scene.”
Capestan quickly filed this notion away in the folder marked PRISON. She was desperate to solve this case before the brigade criminelle did, but she was less than willing to sacrifice her freedom in the process.
“Hidden mics are illegal. But these should do the job!” Torrez said excitedly.
He pulled a box out of the bag and waved it in Capestan’s face:
“Baby monitors! Look at these beauties: three-hundred-yard range plus a no-signal indicator, three different alarm settings,
