“Absolutely, capitaine, thank you very much.”
Capestan still wasn’t sure whether it was good news or bad, but it was definitely news. She decided to think over the various theories by herself before informing the troops. She had a trump card, she just wasn’t sure about the rest of her hand.
Two hours later, the brigade criminelle still hadn’t moved and the squad was still lounging in the brasserie. Évrard, Dax, and Lewitz were standing at the bar arguing over a game of dice and studiously ignoring Merlot, who was narrating the more elaborate version of his recent exploits. Orsini was still sitting beside Capestan in the window, but without participating in the discussion, choosing instead to admire his slender hands. Rosière had commandeered the table behind theirs and was digging into a plate of confit de canard with pommes salardaises. Catching the rays coming through the glass, her red mane was shining like a halo. Capestan spoke to Lebreton, who was perched between the two tables on a chair he had tipped back against the window.
“Any suspects for Maëlle Guénan?”
The commandant nodded slowly as he gazed into the bottom of his cup.
“I was just wondering that myself. Yesterday on the telephone, Maëlle hinted that some other people wanted to see her. She may have had a meeting this morning.”
“Jallateau?”
“No, I don’t think so. There was nothing hostile about her tone, but there was no sign of closeness either. My guess is that it was someone she vaguely knew,” Lebreton said, shrugging uncertainly as he looked up at Capestan. “Or there could just as well be no link at all.”
He wasn’t convinced either way.
Capestan turned to Rosière:
“What do you think?”
Rosière finished her mouthful before answering with a wave of her knife:
“Jallateau’s still my favorite. He has links with Yann Guénan and Sauzelle, and soon after our trip to Sables-d’Olonne, the widow gets bumped off. It’s too much of a coincidence for us to ignore. Maybe we said something that panicked him and made him want to clear the ground. He seemed to be the sort of guy who likes to be in control. In any case: the violent killing of a wife twenty years after her husband’s murder, right in the middle of our investigation . . . that’s no accident.”
Rosière grinned between forkloads of duck, then said:
“I say we head back to Sables and give him a good going-over.”
Capestan was struggling to make up her mind on the shipbuilder from the Vendée. She had never seen him or heard his voice. She tapped her chin with her index finger and turned to look down the street. On the far pavement, a young man in Bermuda shorts was getting off his bike. Funny-looking kid, Capestan thought to herself before she had even noticed the green flash of his helmet.
Suddenly it dawned on her: the helmet, the shorts, the sneakers . . . She couldn’t make out the mutilated ear, but the profile matched Naulin’s visitor perfectly. What was he doing there?
The boy, drenched with sweat, unzipped his hoodie and laid it on the saddle while he chained his bike to the traffic light. He straightened up and poked at the bits of hair sticking through his helmet. That was when he saw the police cars. He stopped dead.
Why that reaction? Capestan leapt up from her chair and called out to Torrez across the room:
“Torrez! Outside, Naulin’s squirrel! I’m going.”
34
The young man cautiously approached the crowd that had gathered around the security perimeter. A couple of busybodies standing there talking must have said something that alarmed the Squirrel, because he made a half turn, the color drained from his face. Capestan waited for him to get back to the junction with the boulevard so that she could intercept him without attracting the attention of the officers on duty.
He came up alongside her, tugging nervously at the strap of his green helmet still on his head. He was about to put his hoodie back on and set off when Capestan took a step toward him and showed him her police badge. The commissaire watched as his brown eyes bulged. The young man froze for a second before shooting down the boulevard like a dart, abandoning both hoodie and bike.
Caught by surprise, Capestan shoved her ID back in her coat pocket and took off after him. As she passed the brasserie, she sensed Torrez fall in at her left flank.
The boy was young, swift, and nimble. He ran down the slope of the boulevard and reached the crossroads with rue Saint-Denis in a matter of seconds. At the pedestrian crossing, the traffic lights changed from red to green. Just as the cars were about to move off, the Squirrel flung himself across the road, causing a screech of tires and a chorus of car horns. The drivers lurched forward, revving their engines angrily and preventing Capestan from crossing. She was blocked on the wrong side, hopping from foot to foot as she desperately scanned for a gap in the traffic, but there was no way through. Beyond the rush of cars, she saw the boy cutting across rue Saint-Denis. A group of four teenagers appeared at the same instant, obscuring her view for a second. By the time they were gone, the boy had disappeared.
Capestan jumped on the spot to try and make him out in the crowd. He couldn’t just vanish like that. Naulin had seen him at Marie Sauzelle’s place, and now they had run into him outside Maëlle Guénan’s building. Along with the sailor’s petition, this boy was a link. The squad had a new thread to bind the two cases together. So long as he
