The First Fingerprint (23 page)

De Palma sketched in another connection: Christine—Lolo and the Bar des Sportifs gang. An intellectual and the mob. And Franck Luccioni. He didn't like the way things were going. And the case was tumbling into a world it would be hard for him to penetrate. A world of silence.

De Palma aimed a friendly smile at his informer. He thought about those glasses. Tête had mentioned lenses like magnifying glasses, so real ones which the wearer cannot do without.

A detail.

A simple detail which complicated everything and upset his thoughts and certitudes. The investigation had gone off the rails. Caillol had not followed Christine Autran. Mourain was a skilled villain; he wouldn't have made a mistake. It was impossible.

“How's your kid?”

“Fine, boss. She'll be leaving school soon. But I think she's seeing someone. Jesus, just let me catch him.”

“She's eighteen, Tête.”

“If he lays a finger on my daughter, I'll smash his face in!”

“Maybe she loves him.”

“Fuck love! At her age, you concentrate on your studies.”

“You're right, Tête, watch out for her. By the way, where does she go to school?”

“Lycée Périer.”

“A word of advice, don't let her out of your sight.”

“What do you mean, boss? Do you reckon …”

“I think the guy you ran into on boulevard Chave knows where you live and maybe also knows where your daughter goes to school. It wouldn't be hard. You'll have to do something.”

“Like what?”

“Keep your eyes open. If you spot him, call me, O.K.?”

“Right, boss.”

De Palma lifted Mourain's jacket. He saw the grip of a police Beretta.

“So you're out in company, Gérard?”

“I'm scared, boss.”

“If he gets close to your daughter, stay cool and call me at once. Where shall I drop you off?”

“By Bougainville métro. I'll walk home.”

The terrace of Le Robinson provided a spectacular view of Epluchures beach, the only place around Marseille with waves good enough for surfers. Sitting sheltered from the wind, Bérengère Luccioni had been sipping at her mint-flavored mineral water for the past fifteen minutes as she watched the dickheads parading themselves.

She thought of
Pourriture Beach
, the well-known detective story by Patrick Blaise, which she had just read. A few fluorescent figures were trying to stay upright on the crests of the waves beyond the beach; invariably they flopped down like unstrung puppets and vanished for a few seconds beneath their multi-colored sails. Submerged in the blue. Three days before, the mistral had changed direction, and the waves were becoming smaller and smaller. The next day, it would fall completely and the sea would be calm.

De Palma was late. From afar, in the sunlight, he stared at Bérengère for a few moments. Her hair flew into her face at each gust of wind, and he was reminded of the little girl he had once known.

Bérengère had recovered her natural hair color—auburn had replaced that vulgar blond—and she was no longer wearing an overly short skirt or high boots. Just jeans, a pair of trainers and a cotton top which hugged her hourglass figure. The mobster chick had been transformed into a Madonna by Raphael.

She sensed the policeman's presence and turned round.

“Hello,” she said, pushing back her hair.

“Hello, Bérengère.”

He sat down beside her. She was not wearing perfume, but the mistral breathed the subtle fragrance of her hair into the atmosphere. De Palma stared at the sea whitened by the crashing of the waves.

“How are things, Bérengère?”

“Fine, Commandant … I mean, so to speak …”

“What do you mean?”

“I've lost my brother, Commandant. I don't know why, but he's in my thoughts a lot at the moment. He wasn't as bad as all that, you know.”

“I know, Bérengère, I know …”

The waiter arrived. De Palma ordered a beer, and Bérengère another mint mineral water. She turned to the policeman and looked at him for a long time. De Palma had the impression that she was trying to read his mind.

After he had left Mourain, a detail had disturbed his initial certainties. He remembered that the Luccioni family had for some time lived in the Mazargues quartier, like Christine. It might just be a
coincidence, but he wanted to check it out. Franck and Christine had been exactly the same age, so they might have known each other at school, or elsewhere.

He took a photo of Christine Autran out of his pocket.

“Have you ever seen this woman?”

Bérengère frowned as she held the photo. She thought for a while, and something seemed to be rising up from the depths of her memory. Then she put a hand to her mouth, and her chest heaved.

“My God, yes, I do know her! I saw her with my brother a lot. It's Christine, she was a local girl when we lived in Mazargues. She went to school with him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Definitely, I'm certain. She's changed, I didn't recognize her at first … But it's her alright. They were inseparable when they were young. They were the same age. My brother would be forty-three in …”

Bérengère looked down, filled her lungs with sea air and rotated her glass in her hand. She seemed overcome by immense distress.

The murders of Luccioni and Autrane had at last converged. He could no longer believe it was a coincidence. Why hadn't Jo told him about the friendship between Christine and his son? Why hadn't Bérengère told him anything before? Questions like these burned in his mind, but he decided to keep them for later.

“I've got some photos of her at home,” Bérengère said. “Do you want me to bring them to you at the station, or do you want to come back with me?”

“Let's go to your place. It'll save time.”

They passed by the leprous buildings along the coast and soon entered the quiet streets of Pointe-Rouge and the new suburbs. Newly built houses, as regular as cubes, were set amongst pine trees and alongside a shopping center with a multiscreen cinema.

Bérengère lived on the top two floors of a stone building in a small complex in Le Roy d'Espagne. The flat's balcony overlooked the Pointe-Rouge quartier and, beyond it, the sea. Planier lighthouse could be seen in the hazy distance. A ferry cruised slowly toward a destination
known only to itself, like a tiny, white shoebox on the mother-of-pearl foam. Opposite, lost on the horizon, the solitary lamp of a beacon watched over the comings and goings in the huge bay of Marseille.

“Can I offer you anything?”

“No thanks, Bérengère. Do you live on your own here?”

“Yes, I'm all alone … if that's what you mean. How about a drop of whisky?”

“O.K., but no ice.”

De Palma looked round the flat of Luccioni's daughter. It was as spick and span as an ideal home exhibition: little knickknacks, a few holiday souvenirs on the Provençal sideboard, a basalt figurine of the Horus falcon, probably haggled over at a market in Egypt between visits to a temple and a royal tomb. There were three white-washed rooms, containing top-quality Provençal country furniture which must have cost a fortune. The wardrobe had acquired the patina of age and was of a simple beauty, carved with ears of corn and a seashell. Where had she found such a piece? Had she inherited it? Unlikely. Was it her pay as her father's salesgirl? Also unlikely.

“You have some lovely furniture.”

“Oh yes, they're my treasures. When I was a little girl, I dreamed of having a beautiful house in the country, with lovely old furniture. I don't have the house, but I do have the furniture. That's something anyway!”

“Where did you find it all?”

“Here and there. In antiques stores … My ex-boyfriend was a specialist.”

“In antiques?”

A smile flitted over Bérengère's face. “No, a thief like my brother.”

She went into the kitchen and came back with two glasses, then opened the sideboard, produced a bottle of Bushmills Pure Malt and poured out two treble measures.

“Cheers, Michel.”

She emphasized his forename, as though to let him know that she wanted to remember.

“I'll go and get the photos. They're in my bedroom.”

De Palma knocked back his whisky and went out on to the balcony. Waves as far as the eye could see; the horizon was trembling, moved by an invisible force.

“Look, Michel, here's a photo of my brother, and there she is just beside him, Do you recognize her?”

In the picture, Christine must have been seventeen or eighteen. She already had a willful, goody-goody look which made her seem a little cold.

“And then in this one they're a bit older. They must be about twenty. Look, that's her there.”

“Did they go out together?”

“I don't know. My brother really loved her. But I'm not sure it was mutual.”

New line: Autran—Luccioni. Childhood friends, found dead in the same place.

“The last time you came to see me, at the station, you told me about a man on a motorbike. Try to remember. Was he wearing glasses? Did he have blue eyes?”

“I've already told you. He was wearing glasses and his eyes were really blue. That's all I could see because of his helmet.”

“No, you didn't tell me.”

“Didn't I? Strange, I can really remember the way he looked at me.”

“It doesn't matter.”

A new character had now entered the scenario: a man with blue eyes. Intuitively, the Baron sensed that this was the murderer of Luccioni and Autran.

“You know what happened to Christine?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head

“What do you mean?”

“It's been in all the papers.”

“I don't read the papers.”

“She was found dead, in the same place as Franck.”

Bérengère held her face in her hands.

“But why?” she said with a sob. “WHY?”

“I don't know, Bérengère. I don't know …”

A long silence descended. Sounds from the city drifted up from
time to time, carried on gusts of wind. Bérengère was no longer crying. Her eyes were vacant, open on to a huge empty space.

“Did your father know Christine?”

“No, he never met her. He was never around. And then he went to prison. No, my father … he knows nothing about his children. Nor does my mother, for that matter … Christine never came to our house.”

“What do you know about their relationship? Was he still seeing her last year?”

“Maybe, but I can't guarantee it. Franck was very secretive. Too secretive even. And I never asked any questions. It wouldn't be right … I don't think they saw each other very often, but that's all I can tell you.”

She looked at him with her big, green eyes; they told him a secret, a part of her inner self and invited him into a forbidden space in her past.

“Michel, you know, over the years I've often thought about you … you can't imagine how often. Even though it was you who arrested my father. No, really! I'll always remember that day, the way you took his handcuffs off so that he could kiss me goodbye, like a father should. You weren't like the others. Please don't laugh. It really isn't funny.”

“But I'm not laughing, Bérengère. I'm really touched by what you've just told me … I … I don't know what to say …”

“Then don't say anything.”

She took his hand and squeezed it.

De Palma thought about the visiting rooms, the slamming of heavy doors, the bright lights in concrete corridors, the urine-like yellow of the thick walls. The sounds, the metallic clangs. Tannoys. Keys. Clinical colors. Prison car parks, here in the brilliant sunlight, or up north, in a sad drizzle. Fortresses of fury, prefabricated citadels: Baumettes, Luynes, Fresnes, Santé, Clairvaux, Fleury-Mérogis, Douai …

A strange pain ran through him, a sword in his guts pushed up to its hilt.

*

A sound: the harsh wood-paneling in the courts of justice. A murmur, too, classroom chatter, the babble of people re-judging what has just been judged
.

The magistrates, the vultures, the hacks weighing one another up … Luccioni leaves the box. Twelve years
.

Soft, white packets, an air pump, acid filling the air in a little mountain chalet … Hoods staring at one another in the back rooms of society
.

Transfer of inmates at the end of the night. No-one should be disturbed. The elite brigades, armed like Hollywood S.W.A.T.s. Balaclavas
. POLICE
written in capital letters. Children, their eyes puffy from sleep, yelling: “Dad, we're here with mum, we love you
.”

A LONG SENTENCE

He placed his hand on Bérengère's shoulder and hugged her. Hard. Very hard. Twenty-five years on the force and he still did not know where the borderline lay.

Planier lighthouse vanished into the light.

De Palma went home at the end of the afternoon. On the way, he received a call from Vidal.

“I've been trying to contact you since this morning.”

“Sorry, kid, I turned off my mobile. What's new?”

“Nothing at all. I saw the priest in Saint-Julien. He's got a cast-iron alibi, and I looked like a complete idiot.”

“Calm down a bit!”

“I am calm, but you could have phoned me this morning to let me know they'd got the psychiatrist.”

“Sorry, Maxime.”

Vidal then told him how the fingerprints taken from the plastic bag de Palma had handed to Palestro had spoken that afternoon: they were the same as the ones the technicians had lifted in Autran's flat. But those found in Julia Chevallier's house were completely unusable.

“Have you got anything more on the knife and lamp?”

“No, nothing. We decided that was about Luccioni, and so it could wait.”

“Not any more. Luccioni and Autran knew each other.”