She ushered him toward the armchair by the fireplace. Despite the boy’s meager frame, they heard the pop of a spring. Évrard handed Gabriel a cup of tea, which he accepted with a polite smile. Lebreton spent a few minutes getting the fire going, then went and sat in the second armchair. Gabriel, who was familiar with his father’s place of work at number 36, stared at the freshly pasted wallpaper, the antique mirror, and Rosière’s golden slippers. He seemed to be wondering where on earth he had ended up.
Without any animosity, Capestan started questioning him about what he was doing at Marie Sauzelle’s and, more important, why he had fled the scene of a crime. Gabriel started apologizing profusely.
“I know, I never should have run away like that, I’m sorry, I really am, I made a mistake. It’s because . . . I was doing some personal research. My mother died when a ferry sank in the Gulf of Mexico in 1993. I was only two at the time and I don’t have any memories of her. All I have left is this photo,” he said, bringing out the laminated photograph of a woman. “Everything disappeared in the shipwreck.”
After showing it to Capestan, he carefully returned it to his inside pocket. He then smoothed it with the palm of his hand through the material of his jacket to make sure it didn’t get more crumpled.
So Valincourt’s wife had perished in the shipwreck. Capestan wondered how, as Gabriel continued, not looking any of the police officers in the eye.
“My father never talks to me about her anymore. It makes him sad, and I don’t want to force him. So I asked for the names of the survivors from the Association, then went to meet them with this photograph . . .”
Évrard pushed the sugar bowl across the table toward the boy, who vacantly fished out four lumps before continuing:
“. . . to ask . . . I don’t know. If anyone had met her. Remembered something about her, anything. If they had made friends on board. That’s why I went to Issy-les-Moulineaux . . . Madame Sauzelle was at the top of the list. I also wanted to meet the sailor, Monsieur Guénan, who was the only French crew member.”
Gabriel, with his hair flopping over his eyes, gazed deep into his mug. To avoid frightening him, the four officers tried not to make too much noise—the only sound was their breathing and the crackle of the fire.
“I saw on the list that Monsieur Guénan had died not long after his return. So I called his wife. The day before . . . well, you know.”
The son had planned to question the victims. The father had not let him. Gradually, the gist of the matter started forming in Capestan’s mind.
“You and your father managed to escape, but not your mother? Were they separated during the accident?” Rosière said, trying not to let her voice grate too much.
“Yes. At least, my father told my mother not to move while he went to get me from the cabin, and when he came back, she wasn’t there anymore. He thought she might have already boarded a lifeboat.”
“Your parents left you in the cabin by yourself? When you were two?” Évrard said in disbelief.
She had hit on a sore point, and Gabriel seemed upset.
“Yes. I don’t know, that’s what Papa always said, but maybe I misunderstood him . . .”
A man as cautious as Valincourt would never have left a toddler unsupervised on a ferry, Capestan thought to herself. The father had lied to his son. Gabriel sat deeper in his armchair, gripping his mug in both hands. He was reaching his limit, but Capestan got the feeling that his day was far from over.
“You know we’re going to have to call your father?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Would you rather do it yourself?”
“Yes, I would.”
Rosière went to her desk and scooped up her beige handset, a standard-issue France Télécom model from the nineties, and stretched the cord until it reached the young man.
“Are you ever separated from your cell phone?” Capestan said. “Sometimes leave it on your bed when you go to the bathroom, or on the table in the living room before you go to the kitchen?”
Gabriel pulled on the drawstrings of his hoodie and his feet knocked quietly against the wooden floor.
“Yes. Sometimes.”
The boy did his best to ignore the commissaire’s insinuation. He took Rosière’s telephone set, placed it on his lap, and looked at it for a long while before dialing the number.
44
The sound of the doorbell announced the arrival of Alexandre Valincourt. He was on his way back from a ceremony where the préfet de police had awarded him the Légion d’Honneur. The squad had been waiting for him, closed ranks, for over an hour. The nerves in the main room were palpable. Each person ran through their role scrupulously. Capestan had laid out her plan: a two-stage relay race followed by a sprint finish. Failure was not an option. If they botched it with Valincourt, they would all end up in some hellhole of a dungeon, having kissed good-bye to any prospect of a pension. They were well aware that they were punching above their weight.
After a final glance around her troops, Capestan stood up and went to answer it. The divisionnaire, in full ceremonial garb, stood in the doorway and sized her up without saying a word. His hooked nose and big brown eyes dominated his aquiline face, which sat on top of his long, hardened, marathon-runner’s frame. Capestan adopted a colder tone for the father than she had for the son.
“Bonjour, Monsieur le Divisionnaire,” she said.
Valincourt merely lifted his
