Of course it was best to ask Rosière. On entering the living room, she saw Évrard and Lewitz hard at work around a desk that they had transformed into a banquet table, covered in a paper cloth with a red-spiral pattern. The walls were adorned with garlands, and Dax was decorating the windows with a can of spray paint that, judging by the smell, would not be rubbing off anytime soon. Colorful paper lanterns dressed the lightbulbs that until then had been bare. The commissariat resembled a primary school the day before a fête. Over in the kitchen, Capestan caught a glimpse of Torrez strapped into a cotton Knorr apron. Since his discharge from the hospital, the squad had seemed a lot more relaxed about having him around. They still weren’t patting him on the back or making eye contact, but fewer hairs were standing on end when he walked past.
Armchairs, desks, sofas, tables: all the furniture was pushed up against the walls, making sure there was ample space for dancing. Lebreton had just finished rigging up some speakers. Rosière, with a green balloon in one hand and a pump in the other, was deep in conversation with Merlot, who was sitting on his ass offering moral support.
“Seaside or mountains!” Rosière spat. “Why should you have to choose one or the other? Ever heard of having the best of both? What’s wrong with people! It’s always A or B, Beatles or Stones—”
“Pink Floyd!” Dax hollered across the room.
“. . . Hallyday or Mitchell . . .”
“Sardou!” Dax barked again, not quite grasping her point but enjoying the game nonetheless.
“Dog or cat, sweet or savory, I’m more into this, I’m more into that . . . It’s bullshit! Why stop there? Are you more into tables or chairs?” Rosière said.
She tore the balloon from the pump and knotted the end with an expert maneuver. She was wearing a golden satin skirt suit that seemed to have been chosen with an after-party at the Moulin Rouge in mind. Her emerald eyeliner duplicated her green gaze, which was trained on the capitaine, challenging him for an answer. But it would take more than that to breach Merlot’s defenses, accustomed as he was to holding forth from dawn till dusk. As for him, he was gleaming like a freshly minted coin, his bald pate buffed to perfection.
“Well, quite, my dear girl! Choice! Endless choice, just as I was saying.”
Fed up, Rosière turned around to see Capestan.
“Not bad, hey?” she said with a sweeping gesture across the room and its party decorations. “Closed cases, a guilty man before the public prosecutor, new wallpaper . . . We thought—”
“We?”
Rosière smiled, pretending to be contrite before carrying on:
“‘We’ thought that was all worthy of a celebration—it’s high time this commissariat popped some corks! What do you say?”
“‘We’ did a fantastic job. Who’s invited?”
“Well, everyone from the squad. But I thought maybe you’d like to ask Buron yourself?”
“I’ll call him.”
Capestan retired to the window, her gaze lost on the toppling, higgledy-piggledy buildings of rue Saint-Denis. There was nothing in line about this street, which looked as if it could do with a trip to a good orthodontist. The commissaire chatted with Buron for a couple of minutes before hanging up.
Lebreton came and stood next to her, puffing away on a blue balloon.
“So, Valincourt?” he said between blows.
“Thanks to his signed confession, Buron was able to hand things straight to the public prosecutor’s department,” Capestan said. “None of our business anymore.”
“Yeah,” Dax shouted (Dax always shouted). “We nailed this case! Think about those goons back in the day who found zilch—in your face, Crim!”
“Well, it was Valincourt’s case. It wasn’t exactly in his interests to find the guilty party . . . ,” Orsini pointed out, having wandered over to the group.
“Yeah, big deal,” Dax said, still happy.
Hunched over the stereo, Lewitz put on a CD, letting the first few notes blare out before skipping to the next track with a confused look at the album cover. Évrard automatically twitched along to each note, stopping and starting with the DJ. She was making a face—something was bothering her. She came over to join in the conversation:
“I’ve been wondering . . . Why did Valincourt palm the Sauzelle case off on us? It was risky. He likes a gamble, that man.”
“I’m going to check with Buron, but my guess is that the box marked CLOSED CASES might have taken a walk while Valincourt was away on holiday.”
After another puff into his balloon, Lebreton gave it a look that indicated a clear intention to cut down on his smoking, then joined the conversation himself:
“The son?”
“Poor boy,” Rosière said. “He must hate him.”
“No,” Capestan said in response. “Valincourt brought him up, and well, for twenty years. He thought he was acting out of a sense of duty, to keep his son safe. He plotted a course for him and stay focused on his objective, to the point of committing four murders. Gabriel can’t hate him, he could never hate him. But he is in shock. This morning, he still wasn’t angry or sad—just nothing. Completely stunned. Luckily for him, his fiancée hasn’t once left his side.”
A hint of sadness fell over the squad and each of them returned to their jobs.
Three hours later, the room was a scene of total chaos. Dax was constantly cranking up the music, with Orsini constantly cranking it down. Rosière and Merlot were sinking every bottle within reach, whereas Lebreton was carefully nurturing his beside his glass. Over in the corner, Torrez was sorting through the CDs. In the middle of a rock ’n’ roll with Capestan, he had been delighted to sprain his own knee. Évrard and Lewitz were literally in a trance, having not left the dance floor for a single track, not even when Torrez insisted on playing his crooner classics. Capestan could make out Pilou in the kitchen nuzzling his water bowl manically against the wall, defying its antiskid rubber bottom and gouging a nick in the new paintwork. When he had finally had an elegant
