The First Fingerprint (29 page)

Without another word, they strode down the corridor between D and B wings. When they reached the gate, de Palma turned to Barbieri.

“Did you see ‘Faust'?”

“No, did you?”

“Not yet. But I have heard that young William Norton brings the house down. It appears the public haven't heard anything like it since Georges Thill. A divine voice.”

“That must be quite something!”

*

“Paulin's offloaded the Ferri couple on me!”

“Romeo and Juliet with an 11.43 … What a lovely present!” said Maistre, raising his glass. “So what are you going to do?”

“I'm going to put the kid on the case …”

“Poor thing.”

“He's in the police force, isn't he?”

Le Zanzi was quiet. Dédé joined their conversation by placing his two large, hairy paws on the bar.

“By the way, have you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“They're talking about releasing Francis Bérard.”

“‘Le Blond'? Jesus, what a mess!” said Maistre.

“Jean-Louis, do you remember when we collared him?”

“Of course I do! When I took him to the toilet, I went with two armed officers … he's a real madman, Dédé. I swear to you, he scared me.”

Maistre stood back from the bar and grimaced, baring his teeth.

“Like a wild beast … a nasty piece of work.”

“Was he the one who killed Judge André?” asked Dédé, creasing his eyebrows, which were as thick as brushes.

“Yup, that was him. Or rather, there were two of them.”

“The fuckers …”

“That's the way it goes … And Judge André respected nothing at all.”

“Don't say that, Baron! André was quite a man. What's more, he really liked you, you know that!”

“O.K., but sometimes he went over the top, remember? To make someone talk, Dédé, he had their whole family put away. He was a real crusader. All the same, he was a good man.”

“Those were the days, weren't they, Baron?”

“Oh yes, the cases were magnificent.”

“Zampa, Hoareau, Le Belge … you remember?”

“We copped them all, there was no stopping us.”

“Things aren't the same any more,” said Dédé, pouring out another two pastis.

“Too right,” the Baron replied, throwing away his cigarette butt. “Things aren't the same because they don't want us to catch them any longer. Anyway, organized crime doesn't exist in France … So
there are no problems. They control the nightclubs, the slot machines, the drugs … but without any organization … the Ferri couple died for no real reason. They're going to tell us again that it's all down to gambling syndicates.”

“The commissaires aren't what they used to be,” said Maistre. “Nor are the magistrates. Nowadays, if you go to a nightclub to suss out what's going down, and you talk to an informer, you get accused of corruption. So what do you do? You get yourself transferred to public safety. Then everything becomes clear!”

“He's right, Jean-Louis. There's nothing else to be done. And the kids couldn't give a damn. They turn up at 9:00 in the morning, they type out their reports and then they go home at 6:00.”

“No, it's all over,” said Maistre, glancing toward rue de l'Evêché. “Look, the hacks are all on their way out. With this Ferri affair, Paulin and Duriez must have put on quite a show about gangland killings. The TV news should be a laugh this evening.”

“Watch out, Michel,” said Dédé. “Two of them are coming this way. I reckon they're after you.”

“I'm off, then. They can always talk to Jean-Louis.”

When he got home, de Palma wandered around the flat.

All four rooms were empty. As empty as the secret drawers of his life. He could not help thinking about Marie, about her departure, and her weariness at spending nights in a bed that was too big for one. To get Marie back, he would have to give up something, an essential part of himself. He would have to abandon the dark alleyways of his character. His bastion. But he couldn't do it.

For a week he had read and reread the letter Marie had left behind: a single page covered with round handwriting which was a little childish, but also rather voluptuous. She had not really said goodbye. Not quite.

My darling
,

I'm going to spend the Christmas holidays with my parents, in the Alps. I think we need some time to think. Life with you
has become impossible—your fits of anger, your staying out all night, I won't go on …

I think you're becoming more and more mad. More and more solitary. You really should see a doctor. Something is wrong and you won't talk to me about it, even though I'm your wife. Think about it while I'm gone. I'll be back. When? I don't know. But I will be back, because you're the only man I love
.

Tender kisses. Take care. I love you
.

Marie

His knees trembled. It felt as if his legs could no longer support him. He had lost his brother, now he was losing his wife. In matrimonial terms, his destiny was starting to look like that of most of his colleagues. Quite banal. Nothing to talk about, really. He put on some music: “La Bohème,” act one, Rodolpho—Marie's favorite aria. He went out on to the balcony.

“Che gelida manina!

Se la lasci riscaldar
.

Cercar che giova? Al buio non si trova.”

He looked out over his neighborhood, La Capelette, a scattering of cheap houses arranged according to shady property deals made in the Defferre era, and bordered by Menpenti medical college, avenue Toulon, Le Jarret municipal dump, Saint-Pierre cemetery and the Pont de Vivaux race course. De Palma had grown up in the joyless streets of La Capelette, among factories with jagged roofs and dusty pavements which stank of dried dog turds, where dilapidated lodgings alternated with hastily constructed buildings from the '70s. This industrial quarter had followed the ebb and flow of the port and finally, bit by bit, it had passed away like a little old lady in a nursing home.

“Ma per fortuna è une notte di luna
,

e qui la luna l'abbiamo vicina.”

When de Palma was a boy, La Capelette had produced sulfur, soap, dates, pith helmets and playing cards. These small industries gave the neighborhood exotic fragrances, and on hot days in June, in the school on rue Laugier, the teacher would open the windows wide, letting the external odors invade the classroom: sulfur, soda, oil, North African fruits, the sea, fragrances from the entire world mingled with the sweat and acidic breath of children bent over their exercise books.

“Aspetti, signorina
,

Le dirò con due parole

Chi son …”

Until the end of the '60s, there was still a ghetto where the east motorway presently ran. It was reserved for Arabs.

The streets now bore the names of the neighborhood's little glories: rue Antoine Del Bello, impasse Palazzo, rue des Luchesi …

“Chi son? Sono un poeta
.

Che faccio? Scrivo
.

E come vivo? Vivo.”

When Vidal pushed open the door of the Cadenet gendarmerie, it was as though he had gone back to his native village, south of Aveyron. It smelled clean and neat, authority in uniform. He glanced at the three men waiting on the bench and he could read on their gray faces the uneasiness of the common citizen when confronted with the boys in navy blue.

Capitaine Brauquier received Vidal with military reserve—it was just as well Barbieri had smoothed the way!

“If you want some coffee, help yourself in the break room.” Brauquier pointed to an enormous, electric, stainless-steel coffee urn.

“Thanks, but I've already had one.”

The gendarme and the police officer sized each other up.

“If we start with the Weill case, there's nothing I can tell you which you don't already know. You'd have to go to the magistrate.”

“I read the forensic reports, but I wanted to know if any books about prehistory had been found in her bookcase.”

“Look, I know where this is leading … But as far as we're concerned, the case has been solved. The gendarmerie have extremely impressive capacities when it comes to leading this sort of investigation. We don't need to check what she reads. In fact, Caillol practically fell into our lap. We get lucky too, sometimes.”

“I just wanted to know if you'd seen any books on prehistory.”

“They were loads of books, and some of them were about prehistory. Is that good enough for you?”

“Specialist books?”

“Look, we had better things to do than go through her bookcase.”

“Commandant de Palma …”

“I couldn't care less what Michel thinks. He's a very good policeman, and he's a friend of mine, but here I think he's going completely off the rails. Your Saint-Julien case is connected to ours … In fact, I should say your ex-case. Because it was Caillol. There's no doubt about it.”

“And yet …”

“I've prepared a summary. I've included everything you should find useful.”

“Look, Capitaine, I haven't come all this way to be brushed off. I may be young, but I'm a police officer empowered by the deputy public prosecutor, just like you. So either you cooperate, or I'll go and have a word with Barbieri … We're not interested in Weill, or Chevallier. We just want to have some details about the victims because we think there's a connection with the Autran case.”

Brauquier gave Vidal a venomous smile.

“And what is this connection, Lieutenant?”

“Caillol knew Autran, Weill and Chevallier.”

The gendarme coughed.

“There's nothing about this in your reports,” Vidal went on. “Have you come across the names Autran or Luccioni?”

“No, never.”

“In her correspondence, her phone calls …”

Brauquier slapped his palm on the file, which was a good twenty centimeters thick.

“There's enough in here to charge him twenty times over, and these are only the highlights … As far as Weill and Chevallier are concerned, don't look any further, you'd be wasting your time. And Autran is none of our business.”

“Thanks so much for your cooperation …”

“You know, we put a squad of twelve gendarmes on this case, and …”

“Goodbye, Capitaine.”

Vidal drove through the Aix countryside like a madman. Clutching the steering wheel, he snatched glimpses of the landscape. Young vine leaves, still damp with morning dew, gleamed in the sun, and the white cliff-faces of the Lubéron glittered in the brightness.

Half an hour later, Vidal was walking into the administration department of the Université de Provence. A chubby secretary gave him a pinched smile.

“Are you the policeman who phoned yesterday?”

“Indeed.”

“I've already started looking for what you wanted. If you like, we can continue together.”

The secretary explained at length how difficult it was to go back ten years into the past. The university kept very few records about the courses of particular students. But the degrees taken by Hélène Weill and Julia Chevallier had enabled her to uncover some valuable information.

“We have a system of units of value, did you know that?”

“Not really, I went to the police academy.”

“It's simple—to pass a degree you have to obtain a certain number of units of value, or UV. Some are compulsory, others are extra or optional. You can read English but also pass optional UVs in prehistory. Do you follow?”

“Absolutely. I'm even getting a tan.”

The secretary did not appreciate his little joke, but went on to explain that, after delving through the records, she had discovered that Julia Chevallier and Hélène Weill had taken several optional UVs in prehistory at the same time. Julia had read English and Hélène psychology.

“What about Christine Autran?”

“I haven't had time to check yet but, given her age, she must have taken the same courses, except that her UVs were compulsory.”

The day before, Vidal had discovered that Weill and Autran had both gone to Lycée Thiers, in the center of Marseille, while Julia had attended Marcel Pagnol. So these women had all known each other for years.

“Can you give me a list of the other students who took these UVs?”

“That will be difficult. I can only give you the names of people who passed their degrees that year. But many people fail, or else give up during the course of the year.”

“That doesn't matter!”

“Do you want the optional and extra UVs too?”

“I want them all, even the compulsory ones.”

“It's going to be hard, you do realize that!”

“Listen, lady, I'm investigating a murder and I'm looking for a man who will probably kill again soon. So either you get to work, or I'll ask the magistrate for the right piece of paper and we'll confiscate all your UVs, the extra, the optional
and
the compulsory ones!”

“But I'm the only person who deals with all this!”

“I'm on my own too. I'll be expecting your call.”

The sun had just dropped behind the dome of La Major when Vidal burst into the office.

“He isn't working alone.”

“Are you O.K., Michel?”

“He's not on his own in all this.”

“What do you mean?”

“The psychiatrist saw him with Autran.”

“Who?”

“Spectacles.” This was the nickname the Baron had given the mysterious man with thick lenses.

“Do you want me to find out more about Christine's private life? We've already seen her friends and professional acquaintances, and I hope we'll get to her university friends soon, but we could extend the net.”

“Don't waste your time on that now. There aren't enough of us. In my opinion, if we could find him by going through her acquaintances, he would have done things differently. We'll have to do it some time, but not now.”