Murder in Belleville

tells me, so you’d need a warrant to get me to Belleville without my customary cup.”

His sour-faced partner returned the smile and waved a piece of paper. “Matter of fact, Mademoiselle, I happened to bring one with me.”

Tuesday Midday

BERNARD STOOD IN FRONT of Notre-Dame de la Croix Church. Chanting protesters in bright-patterned Mali cloth tried to block his way. The men, North African Tuaregs called “blue men,” for their traditional indigo blue veils and turbans, marched with women in black chadors and stout nuns in habits.

Arms crossed, Bernard waited as the negotiator checked off concessions for the sanctuary seekers. Last night a group holding a candlelit vigil had refused him entrance. He’d been relieved when the minister told him to postpone meeting the leader. But when the car picked him up this morning, he’d felt the same dread. Only worse.

On the way he’d heard the radio alerting the city to repercussions from the ministry’s decision finally to enforce last year’s anti-immigration laws. Had France’s recent triple-digit unemployment tipped the scales?

Tension rippled, too, across the Mediterranean, from Algeria, where an undeclared civil war still simmered after the military’s cancellation of the 1992 elections. The military’s hold over the strong fundamentalist factions was tenuous at best.

Bernard wondered again why he, and not his boss, stood in the drizzle to negotiate. Bernard’s sleep, his first in days, fitful and broken, hadn’t been restful at all. His left eye had begun to twitch, a sign of extreme fatigue.

“We know Mustafa Hamid, the Alliance Federation Liberation leader, bowed to internal pressure in taking over the church,” said the sharp-nosed negotiator, studying Bernard. “He organized the sans’papiers, but he’s a pacifist leader from way back.”

Notre-Dame de la Croix stood before them, an anomaly of vaulted stone and lead-paned windows in the heavily Muslim immigrant quartier. Around them the air was redolent with spices and Arab music.

“Future residence priority—there’s your give point,” the negotiator continued. “If you get that far.”

Now Bernard understood: Dangle the carrot of future residency before the immigrants. This disgusted him. Once the zealots agreed to leave the country, he knew they’d never be allowed back in. These people might be stubborn, but not stupid.

“Where’s k Ministre Guittard?” Bernard asked.

“Staying informed,” the negotiator said. In the glare of the police-car lights his crew cut glistened with tiny rain droplets. “Monsieur le Ministre awaits the negotiations breakthrough.”

It made sense. Guittard would watch the outcome, then either step in to claim credit or remain on the sidelines if a bloody confrontation occurred. Having been a midlevel fonctionnaire for years, Bernard understood how the ministry worked.

“Le Ministre Guittard hopes for your successful negotiations,” the man said, as if an afterthought. “The Naturalization Committee needs leadership.”

Here were the wily workings of a modern-day minister, Bernard thought. Delegate the dirty jobs and offer higher rank if the job proved well done. If the dirty job backfired, so did the fonctionnaire. Last year one of his ministry counterparts had been banished to the Ivory Coast in a similar fracas.

Bernard’s mother’s words played in his head as he entered the church. “These … Africains, these Arabes … they are just people, non?.… Like us, Bernard.”

AIMEE BANGED ON THE cell bars, demanding to speak with the commissaire. The blue-uniformed flic lowered the radio volume on his desk, smoothed the red hair under his kepi, then took his time walking to her cell.

“Cool your heels,” the flic said. “Everyone’s busy right now.”

“Monsieur, please let me talk with the commissaire.”

“He’s dealing with the immigrants taking sanctuary in the church,” the flic said. “Too busy to take much interest in you right now.”

“A bizarre mistake has been made,” she interrupted.

“You’re a troublemaker,” the flic said, pushing the brim of his kepi back. His eyes were bloodshot. “We like things calm in here. Peaceful. And if you don’t shut up, there’s a a cell where types like you can meditate and reflect. It’s our premiere accommodation with no telephone privileges.” He grinned. “Come to think of it, no privileges at all.”

“My father was a flic,” she said. “Those ‘meditation’ cells disappeared after the big reform.”

“Care to find out?” he said.

She’d like to report this tyrant. Flics like him gave the force a bad name; ones who enjoyed having suspects in pretrial detention and making them sweat before being charged. Procedure-wise, she knew that she could be held up to seventy-two hours, like suspected druggies or terrorists, with only the prosecuter’s signature. He seemed the type who’d take advantage of the penal code.

Worried, she drummed her fingers on the bars. Why hadn’t Morbier come?

“My godfather’s a commissaire in the Fourth,” she said. “He’s en route.”

The flic stared at her, his eyes like hard green stones. “If you’re asking for special treatment, I told you, the ‘meditation’ cell can be arranged.”

She shut her mouth.

The flic grinned, “If you change your mind, let me know. We like to accommodate all our clients.” He strutted back to his radio. Only two cells in this criminal-holding commissariat, but he acted as if he presided over a private prison.

Aimee tried to piece it all together: the explosion, Anais’s story, the moped escape, and the rat. She sat down on the wooden cot hanging from the brick wall by metal chains. A coarse institutional brown blanket was folded in a neat square in the middle. Not even a pissoir, Aimee thought. Sticky, smudged steel bars three centimeters apart were bolted into the stained concrete floor that angled into a drain. Her feet were wet, and her stomach growled. Her teenage cellmate wasn’t much of a conversationalist; she crouched in the corner, in black overalls and with needle tracks visible on her bony ankles, drooling and nodding off.

How had she ended up in a vomit-laced cell with a junkie who couldn’t be more than sixteen?

“Couldn’t you at least have waited until I finished my poker game?” Morbier grumbled, grinding out his Gauloise with his foot. “I’m on medical leave.”

He nodded his salt-and-pepper-haired head to the flic, who got out his keys. The flic examined Morbier’s ID, then unlocked Aimee’s shared cell.

“What’s the uproar about?” Morbier demanded.

The flic handed Morbier a clipboard, and he scanned it.

“Et alors?” Morbier asked. “Suspected robbery, telesurveillance photos, obstruction of RATP personnel, neighbors’grievance. You can’t hold her with this.”

“The commissaire issued holding instructions,” the flic said, standing his ground.

Morbier passed the clipboard to Aimee. She read it quickly.

“Circumstantial evidence! My business card and smudged fingerprints won’t cut it with the police judiciare,” Aimee said, handing back the clipboard. “And you know it.”

The flic squared his shoulders, his gaze rigid.

“My commissaire’s instructions were specific,” he said.