36
Buron’s lair was now filled top to bottom with old glass cabinets displaying exhibits of every description: medals, pipes, antique pill boxes, leather-bound anthologies of French poetry, and, within easy reach, the pearls of his spectacles collection, which he alternated depending on whether he was in a mood for flirtation or manipulation. Dusk was falling over the river, and the gloomy room was lit only by the faint glow of an emerald-green lamp. As Capestan came in, the chief remained seated and simply gestured toward the chair opposite his. He left his paperwork where it was on his desk and put the top back on his pen, laying it on the documents for later.
“Good evening, Capestan. I don’t have an awful lot of time. What brings you here?”
“I want our squad attached to the brigade criminelle for the rue Mazagran investigation.”
“Out of the question,” Buron said, lining up the edges of his pile of paper.
“We have complementary information from investigating the husband’s murder and—”
“No. I said no.”
Buron had decided to play obtuse. Capestan shifted her weight and leaned forward. She could not understand why he was putting up such a resistance. It made no sense.
“So what exactly are we supposed to do? Why create our unit if we can’t even offer our help?”
“As I’ve told you already, it’s to bundle all of you together. Don’t make me spell it out for you again . . . ,” he said, waving his hand exaggeratedly.
“No, I’d like you to.”
“Capestan . . . We put you all in the same pound because we had to isolate you. You are all unmanageable. More to the point, you are all un-de-sir-able. I don’t want you anywhere near an official investigation.”
“You can’t tar us all with that brush. We’re not so terrible,” Capestan protested, before the memory of her own track record forced her to change tack. “Fine, perhaps not in my case, but the others are—”
“The only reason you’re all there is because we can’t fire you!” Buron snapped, hammering each syllable home. “Can’t you get that into your head? We’re paying you to play dominoes or do some knitting. Get Évrard to teach you baccarat! Anything, commissaire, but just leave me in peace.”
Buron was hopping mad. Capestan was exhausted: she was done in by the chase, Torrez was out for the count, the boy was still at large, and her hip was killing her. She had come to offer valuable information and instead she found herself on the receiving end of an unfair tirade. Her head was in a mush. She felt completely at sea.
“They’re not all completely nuts. I don’t understand—”
“Not all completely nuts? Get a life, Capestan! Dax and Lewitz are hyperactive cretins, then there’s that grape-brain Merlot, Rosière and her wretched soap opera, Torrez—”
“Actually Torrez is in the hospital . . .”
“Why won’t he just resign and stop plaguing us with his bad luck! And don’t get me started on Orsini . . .”
Capestan had had her fill. Buron was going overboard and there was no way she’d be able to talk him down. She opted for an abrupt change of strategy.
“Does your catalog of flawed character traits happen to include ‘underhandedness’?”
“Capestan, that’s quite enough . . . ,” the chief said, leaning back in his chair and unfolding the arms of his metal-rimmed glasses.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve done a little digging. Riverni—now that wouldn’t be the same Riverni who stonewalled you back in 2009, by any chance? And also, while I think of it, what’s with these cases we keep picking up? Are we the only people who know there’s a link, or not? Crim throws out cases just like that and you don’t seem to see anything wrong with it? The brigade criminelle ignoring criminal activity? Seriously, what’s going on?”
Buron twisted his glasses pensively, not answering. His basset hound’s eyes were watering slightly as usual. If it weren’t for his gray crew cut, he wouldn’t have looked like a police officer at all. He scratched the side of his head with the end of his glasses. The two of them sat there in silence.
Capestan shifted her gaze outside the window. The plane tree on the embankment had shed its last leaves. The prickly seedballs were covered in petrified bugs, clinging on for dear life, lending them the appearance of baubles on some macabre Christmas tree. Capestan sighed and turned back to Buron.
“The fact is, I know you’ve stowed us away over there on purpose. You want us to answer the questions you’re asking yourself. You know exactly which buttons to press to get me going, but I know you, too, Monsieur le Directeur. I’m not sure why yet, but you have some cases that you want handled in secret. That’s why you set up our squad. That’s the only reason. So give me the resources I need. We’ll investigate on the down-low if that’s how it has to be, but I want the Maëlle Guénan file.”
A faint, sporting smile of defeat snuck across Buron’s face, and again Capestan was left with the unpleasant feeling that she had
