Mercator and Van Holden are sitting on folding chairs, waiting. The first short and round, threatening and easygoing in equal measure; the other large and red-headed, a touch of the geeky scientist about him. In front of them, the dark, motionless mass of the vat can just be made out. They are pleased with this unraveling of time and their growing certitude of being able to crack the case. Why are they so sure of themselves? How do they know that their prey is ripe for the taking? For the same reasons that they are as senior as they are, even if their ascent has happened without the protection, or even the kindness, of anyone in the police hierarchy. Is it three hours, ten minutes, three days they’ve been here? They couldn’t say. For ammunition, they’ve brought M&M’s, marshmallows, ice tea, and a pair of nine-millimeter automatic pistols. Enough to keep them going a lifetime.
After leaving the crime scene, Mercator went to parc des Buttes-Chaumont, stopping by the little breakfast joint where Van Holden can be found every morning having a coffee and tartine before taking his seat behind the director’s desk at the IGPN. All Mercator said was that he had a meeting with Enkell and Benamer, and that it would be nice if he came along. So off they then went aboard the no. 75 bus, getting off at boulevard MacDonald. Van Holden had found the address by complete chance two months earlier. Ever since he’d started sifting through administrative documents in the course of his long inquiry into the corrupt policemen of the eighteenth, he’d worked out how to spot a nugget. As was the case here: the simple sale, well below market price, of a warehouse belonging to a butcher on rue du Mont-Cenis who had bizarrely been cleared in a scandal involving the sale of out-of-date meat after the only witness suddenly withdrew his testimony. The buyer was one Ezzedine Moussa, a resident of Saint-Chamond. It turned out that he was an old school pal of Aïssa Benamer’s, and had gone on to have a few brushes with the law . . . Van Holden had mentioned his discovery to Mercator by the by, and his memory had been jogged when reading Ruben Aboulafia’s statement. The warehouse allegedly belonging to Ezzedine Moussa was next door to Kosher Facilities, the very one where Ruben had claimed he’d dropped off his consignment of magic pills. The lock opened easily enough with a master key, and two folding chairs—chance or destiny?—appeared to be waiting for them, carefully propped up against the wall at the far end. All that was left for the two comrades was to sit down, their standard-issue Manurhin revolvers on their knees, and the M&M’s, marshmallows, and ice tea within easy reach.
A key turns in the lock. The door opens. Heavy breathing strained with effort. A strange noise that is part metallic, part pneumatic. Benamer is so occupied with hauling his trolley that he doesn’t notice them. It’s harder by yourself: the body flops from side to side, left and right. Then he hears one click, two clicks. His eyes aren’t yet adjusted to the darkness; it takes him a few seconds to identify his colleagues. An absurd, belated reflex takes over and he lets go of the trolley, which collapses with a crash, as he moves to grab his Beretta.
“Wouldn’t do that if I were you, Aïssa.”
And indeed Benamer does not do that. He feels tired, suddenly, very tired. He puts up no resistance as they cuff him. In actual fact, he feels relieved.
From then on it’s all go. The end of any investigation is a process of precipitation—in the chemical sense—where all, or nearly all, of the threads untangle. Kupferstein, Hamelot, Gomes, and half the arrondissement’s uniformed officers arrive at the scene no more than two minutes after Mercator’s call. The Godzwill pills are found without much trouble, stashed unsubtly inside a fake casing installed within the foot of the acid vat. The search of the Kosher Facilities unit carried out as a security measure brings up nothing. Back at the Bunker, Aïssa Benamer starts talking immediately, like a sink that has had its plug pulled out. Without any delay, arrest warrants are issued to apprehend the Barnes twins and Raymond Meyer.
The handcuffs are slipped onto Rabbi Seror right at the moment when he is putting on his tefillin for morning prayer. Barely had the Hasid taken his seat in the interrogation room when he—not needing to be asked twice—began providing very detailed information on Rebbe Toledano’s Brooklyn organization. First and foremost he reveals the identity of Dov, Rébecca’s ex-fiancé, the virtuoso chemist without whom this adventure would never have taken place. Moktar’s interrogation is considerably more hazardous. Getting a psychotic to talk is never easy, and this one is a particularly tough nut to crack. Through a mixture of patience and tenacity, Rachel and Jean are just able to make him recount how he and Raymond Meyer, having been denied the support of Mourad, Ruben, and Alpha, had waited for Laura on the landing outside her apartment as she came home from her Los Angeles–Paris flight. Threatening her with a knife, Raymond ordered her to keep quiet and open the door. Then he gagged her and tied her up. Meyer had suggested Moktar take a Godzwill with him. After that, the paranoid beatmaker-cum-Salafist can’t remember a thing. Not that that changes much anyway: his psychiatric evaluation will deem that he was not responsible and he’ll go back to the hospital for a very, very long time, whatever the role he played in Laura Vignola’s drawn-out agony. As for Raymond Meyer, he’s nowhere to be found. Same for Vignola, one of the accessories to the murder along with Enkell, Benamer, and the Barnes twins.
Mercator contemplates the blank sheet of paper, his Sheaffer hanging in the air. A moment’s hesitation, then he shakes his head with a soft smile, lays down the pen and motions to the three lieutenants to come in. Kupferstein, Hamelot, and Gomes walk up to the desk, preferring to stay standing since their chief is not sitting down. Mercator starts speaking.
“So, this case is over.”
Gomes reacts with surprise.
“Over? But Vignola and Raymond Meyer are still at large. And the Barnes twins, and . . .”
“And the Hasids in Brooklyn. I know. We won’t catch any of them. Not for the moment, at least. We will, of course, do everything in our power to do so. Release descriptions, international warrants, notify Interpol . . . all that jazz. We’ll find one of them, sure: Vignola. My guess is that his body will appear not far from where we are now either tomorrow or the next day. He might even be engaged in killing himself as we speak, but who knows where? The Barneses will vanish into thin air; so will the chemist in Brooklyn. As for Rebbe Toledano’s Hasids, we’ll never be able to prove anything.”
Hamelot and Kupferstein are wearing wry smiles. Gomes looks furious. Mercator continues.
“The evil in all this, Gomes—the evil it was our job to vanquish—was Frédéric Enkell, Aïssa Benamer, and Francis Meyer. They walked among us, you understand? They were the rot, the antithesis of what we ought to be. As for the rest, we have done what we can, which is already not bad. But there’s no such thing as absolute victory. There is no end to this fight. It has been going on since time immemorial, and it will continue to go on forever.”
He laughs.
“Right! Time for a drink. We’ve deserved it. Fifteen-year-old Lagavulin. After that, you ought to go away for a few days, Hamelot and Kupferstein. You won’t be any use to me if you don’t.”