The bike had barely left her sight when Capestan’s second telephone rang. She picked up. It was Rosière:
“Hi, Anne? You’ll never guess!”
“Buron’s on the passenger list?”
“No. At least we’re not sure—it hasn’t arrived yet. But we have something better: on June 2, 2005, a court in Miami made the ferry company pay damages to the survivors. To celebrate, the French chapter of the Shipwreck Survivors Association organized a party in Boulogne. And we have a video. We checked the event against Torrez’s time line and found that it coincides with the date of Marie Sauzelle’s murder.”
“We need to watch that. We don’t have a video player at the Innocents, where might—”
“Oh yes we do,” Rosière said with delight. “We’ve got a video recorder, DVD player, Blu-ray, flat-screen . . . I’ve even called up CanalSat to get cable. Shall we wait for you?”
“Yes. Let me contact Orsini to get him to relieve me here, then I’ll be with you.”
Capestan hung up and raced through her contacts for Orsini’s number. She couldn’t help but smile—honestly, cable TV?
Dax made the most of his break from tailing duty to swing home and take a shower. Once he’d put on a fresh set of clothes, he sank his fingers up to the second knuckle in a pot of ultrastrong hair wax, then rubbed the substance across his palms and applied it evenly to his wet locks. He combed his short hair to one side and topped off his handiwork with a quiff. Pleased with the result, he smiled at his reflection in the wardrobe mirror and then washed his hands thoroughly. “If you want a nice girl, you need to wash your hands like a nice boy,” his mother would often say. Dax’s hands were always gleaming: the day that nice girl came his way, he would not need to find a sink. He dried them carefully on the spotless white hand towel, then put the finishing touch to his toilette by dousing himself in cologne. Dax liked to smell good. He could never understand guys like the ones they’d been following. Biking makes you sweat. Anyway, that kid must have relations in high places. He sauntered into number 36 without having to show his papers. HQ was like home to him.
40
The answer would be in the video. Capestan pressed PLAY. A few black streaks wiggled across the snowy-white screen, then the color appeared and the picture eventually settled down. Rosière and Lebreton fell silent over on the sofa. They could hear the tape whirring in the video player.
The commemoration was an open-air event. On a wide, raised area of ground someone had erected a wooden stage with a giant screen on top. Long trestle tables ran down each side. The ones on the right were lined with benches, while those on the left served as a kind of buffet, with cardboard trays of neatly arranged petits fours. One end of each table had towers of plastic cups surrounded by jugs of wine, bottles of soda, and cartons of fruit juice. It was hardly a chic garden party at the Élysée, but it was late afternoon and the sky was still blue, and the guests were greeting each warmly.
A man in a suit stood up on the stage and tapped the microphone. He mouthed a few words as he looked searchingly at the sound guy. Some loud feedback cut through the atmosphere, causing the scattered groups of the congregation to turn to the stage as one.
The static video camera was facing the raised area and had the stage and the screen in its shot. The man in the suit blushed and, hunched over the microphone, started speaking, the speakers only kicking in after the third or fourth word: “. . . My dear friends, may this year be about remembering . . .”
“There!” Rosière exclaimed. “Bottom left—the old lady with the curly hair!”
It was indeed Marie Sauzelle. But still no Buron, which put Capestan’s mind to rest. She did not want to see the chief’s tall, slightly droopy figure. She was scanning the crowd feverishly, hoping against hope not to find anything. Suddenly another figure, more upright than the one she was looking for, caught her eye. She pointed at the screen to alert Rosière and Lebreton. They waited for the man to turn around to confirm it. There was no doubt.
“Valincourt,” Lebreton said.
“What’s he doing there?” Rosière added. “Look . . .”
Marie Sauzelle went up to Valincourt, greeted him, and stood next to him. They exchanged a few words, all the while watching the man on the stage. “After months of research, the committee I represent has managed to produce a film that pays homage to the victims of the shipwreck . . .”
Valincourt straightened. He was no longer listening to his neighbor.
“. . . and as we play the slideshow of photographs, could I please ask you to pay your respects in absolute silence . . .”
The opening notes of the “Étoiles du cinéma” theme rang out and a series of people’s faces started crossfading on the screen while the man read out their names.
“So cheesy . . . ,” Rosière muttered.
Lebreton shook his head, while Capestan’s attention shifted back to the bottom left of the screen. Valincourt was as tense as a tightrope. Marie took out a hankie and started dabbing her eyes, then all of a sudden she froze and stared at the big screen. Then at Valincourt, then back at the screen, and finally Valincourt again. The tribute reel lasted a few more seconds before the last picture faded into a black background.
Marie turned square-on to the divisionnaire and began speaking to him animatedly. He made a gesture of denial and placed a hand on the old lady’s shoulder, appeasing but authoritative, too. She nodded, but she did not look wholly convinced. All the same, she let herself be ushered toward the buffet, and they disappeared offscreen. Shortly after, the video cut out.
“I wonder what Sauzelle said to him that made him react like that,” Capestan said as
