5:07 P.M.
Captain Aja Purvi curses as she slams on the brakes of her Peugeot 206. Just before the Cap de la Marianne tunnel, one of the two lanes of the coast road is closed off with an interminable row of orange cones.
Roadworks!
The tunnel entrance resembles a vast black mouth, slowly sucking in a necklace of multicolored metal sheeting. The 206 crawls forward for another ten meters or so, then stops behind a 4x4, level with a red pickup truck.
Irritated, Aja checks the clock on the dashboard.
How long will it take to drive the eight kilometers that separate her from the Hotel Athena? Thirty minutes? An hour? More?
Suppressing her fury, Aja stares out at the waves of the Indian Ocean crashing against the rocky outcrop that is supposed to look like Marianne in profile. Hmm . . . Aja has never been able to see the resemblance between this block of basalt and the symbol of the French Republic. They’d have been better off just blasting the thing with dynamite than spending billions on the Route des Tamarins, a few hundred meters higher up, a blot on the landscape that will not solve any of the island’s traffic problems. All it will do is foster the illusion that an endless number of cars can continue to be registered here, thirty thousand new ones every year, ad infinitum. What they really ought to do is just face the truth: Réunion Island is a mountain that has grown out of the sea. Almost its entire population is crammed around the edges, and they all travel by car along the narrow, flat-ish strip of land between the ocean and the lower slopes of the volcanoes, going round and round in circles, no more free than protons in a cyclotron. A particle decelerator—the islanders are testing the concept.
Aja switches off the engine with a sigh of resignation. The man in the next car stares down at her from his pickup. A Cafre in a white T-shirt, his arm dangling from the truck’s open window. This adds to Aja’s annoyance. If she’d taken the gendarmerie’s Jumper, or if she had a blue flashing light to put on the roof of her 206, she’d get past this crowd of vehicles in a few minutes; they would part for her like the Red Sea, including that Cafre, who is twisting his neck so he can get a good view of her cleavage . . . Unconsciously, Aja pulls the seams of her blouse together. Sometimes guys like that make her want to wear the veil, just to piss them off.
After all, when it’s eighty-five degrees, a baseball cap is obviously a better option than a chador . . .
Or a policewomen’s cap . . .
But the Athena’s manager, Armand Zuttor, had been very insistent on that point.
“Keep it discreet, eh, Aja? Whatever you do, don’t go scaring off the tourists!”
That Gros Blanc6 hotel manager knew her when she was a child and came to the Athena with her parents, and he still talks to her with the same familiarity he did then. But Aja is no fool: she knows there is a fine line between affection and humiliation.
“This is a private affair, Aja, you understand, not an official investigation. Martial Bellion does not wish to press charges against anyone. Just come and see him, reassure him about his wife. I’m asking if you’ll do this for me as a favor.”
A favor? Incognito? Anything else? But how can she refuse? Tourism represents eighty percent of employment in Saint-Gilles.
Two hundred people work in hotels here, more than thirty of them in the Athena alone.
According to Armand Zuttor, there is no cause for alarm. This is a simple domestic case: a Parisian couple on holiday, the wife going off with her suitcase, leaving the husband alone by the pool like an idiot, with a six-year-old kid on his hands.
“Funny, isn’t it, Aja? If this had happened to a Creole, everyone would just have laughed. Even if it was a Zoreille.7 But a tourist . . . and then the husband won’t face facts, won’t admit that his little bird has simply flown away. He was the one who insisted we call the cops, that you get your arses over here straight away . . . You understand?”
Aja understands. And so the captain of the Saint-Paul gendarmerie had got in her car as fast as a fireman at the first hint of smoke appearing at the top of the Fournaise volcano.
Now here she is, stuck in traffic. At a standstill; no one is entering or leaving the tunnel at all. Aja sighs and restlessly opens the driver-side window. The air is oppressive, not a breath of wind. Tyre-meltingly hot. The sound of a séga8 song flits over the motionless row of cars, emanating from the pickup’s radio. The Cafre drums along to the rhythm with his ring-covered fingers, no doubt waiting for the Radio Freedom presenter to list all the kilometers of traffic jams on the island, while reminding his already depressed listeners that there are no alternative routes.
Aja throws her head back against the headrest. She wishes she could just leave the car here and walk to the hotel. The Cafre seems unfazed by the traffic jam. In fact, he almost appears to be enjoying it. After all, he has music, sunshine, the sea . . . and a girl to ogle at.
As if he had nothing better to do with his day . . .
5:43 P.M.
Martial Bellion stands opposite Aja Purvi. He is very pale, the captain notes. She’s the one who’s been sweltering in the sun for the past hour, her arse stuck to the leatherette seat of her 206, and yet it is the tourist who is sweating buckets, despite the air-conditioned cool of the hotel lobby. As soon as she came in, he stood up from his plastic, imitation wicker chair.
“Captain Purvi?”
His mouth was open, as if he were gasping for air; it made him look like the exotic fish in the aquarium behind him.
“I . . . I apologize for disturbing you, Captain. I’m sure that, for a police officer such as yourself, a disappearance like this must seem very ordinary, unremarkable . . . but . . . how can I put this? I’m sorry, Captain, I’m not making myself very clear . . . What I mean to say is that, despite how it seems, there . . . there is . . .”
Aja tries to look sympathetic while Martial wipes his dripping forehead with his open shirt. He has only been speaking for a few seconds, and Bellion has already apologized twice. She finds it strange, this feeling of guilt, particularly at odds with his handsome face, the muscular pectorals visible beneath his Blanc du Nil shirt. What does he have to feel so guilty about?
Bellion sucks in air as if he’s about to go for some kind of world record, then says in a gush of words:
“Captain, let me start again. I’m not stupid, I know everyone must think that my wife has just left me. Obviously . . . There’s no lack of temptation here, on this island. But listen, Captain, I’m sure that’s not what’s happened . . . She wouldn’t have left like that. Not without her daughter . . . Not without—’
Aja suddenly interrupts Martial’s stammering.
“O.K., Monsieur Bellion. There’s no need to justify yourself. We’re going to do everything we possibly can. You’re lucky: Armand Zuttor takes very good care of his customers. The police force is all part of the service, ensuring the safety of the guests. Don’t worry, I will investigate your wife’s disappearance, as discreetly as possible . . .”
“Do you want to . . .”
Martial’s linen shirt is sticking to his skin. Transparent with sweat. Aja smiles and turns to look at the yellow tang bossing the other fish around in the aquarium. There is something in this tourist’s behaviour that continues to intrigue her.
“Listen, Monsieur Bellion, it’s too late today, but you should come to the police station in Saint-Gilles tomorrow to make an official report of your wife’s disappearance. You’ll be required to show your ID, and to fill out a few forms. In the meantime, I’ll see what I can do. Do you have a photograph of your wife?”
“Of course.”
He hands her the picture. Aja observes the impeccable oval of Liane Bellion’s face, the cascade of blonde hair, the fine white teeth. A pureblood! She is well aware that such a girl would stimulate desire in a racial melting pot like Réunion. Aja purses her lips sympathetically.
“Thank you, Monsieur Bellion. Armand Zuttor has already given me the essential details. Stay in the lobby or in the hotel garden, have a beer or a glass of rum—it’ll do you good—but don’t go up to your room yet, and don’t touch anything. I’ll come back to you in a few minutes.”
5:46 P.M.
Gabin watches Aja walk around the edge of the swimming pool and approach the bar. The captain slaps the photograph on the counter.
“A beautiful girl like that in the hotel, I assume you must have noticed her, Gabin?”
The barman takes his time before replying. Usually, the eyes of the customers who stand on the other side of the bar sweep past him to the impressive collection of flavored rums that fill sweet jars over three shelves, like brightly colored potions in an apothecary’s window. Aja, on the other hand, stares straight into his eyes. She couldn’t care less about the rum. Like most Zarabes,9 she doesn’t drink alcohol. Not for lack of trying on Gabin’s part. Many times, when Aja was a teenager, waiting for her mother and father by the edge of the pool, he would offer her a drink, just to taste. That was before the tragedy, of course.
As Aja is looking into his eyes, Gabin does the same to her. The head of the Saint-Gilles police force is quite a rare flower on the island. A Zarabe with Creole blood. Gabin has a fairly specific opinion on Zarabes, who rarely interbreed, generally preferring not to share their genes or their bank accounts with any other race. Discreet and efficient. Twenty-five thousand people, thirteen mosques, and no niqabs, veils or other outward signs . . . and they own every fabric, car and hardware business on the island.
Aja’s Zarabe blood comes from her father, the Creole from her mother. Would he categorize her as pretty? Gabin wonders. Not an easy decision. Sometimes interbreeding produces masterpieces of universal beauty, but more often the results are like an interesting experiment. Aja is a case in point: a somewhat improbable combination of long black hair, blue almond-shaped eyes, and thick black eyebrows that almost meet above her nose. There’s potential for prettiness there, Gabin concludes, but in order to realize it, the captain would have to smile occasionally. He’d also have to see what she looks like in a bikini, which doesn’t seem likely to happen. Aja is from the Hauts de Saint-Paul, the hilly interior of the island, from one of those squalid apartment buildings on the Plateau Caillou. He’s known her since she was in secondary school. Even then, Aja acted like a margouillat10 in a class of endormis11. Blessed with a rare level of intelligence, she was one of those studious types who never went out in the sun or swam in the lagoon, but spent all of her time working, working, working. Like many others from the island, Aja went to university in France. She studied Law at Panthéon-Assas, then went to police academy at Châteaulin, in Brittany. Top of her class. But unlike most of the super-intelligent kids from the island, she came back. Maybe she regrets that slightly now? It’s not easy for someone of mixed race to climb the ladder of power here, and Aja got stuck with the local police squad at Saint-Gilles-les-Bains. But Gabin has seen her at work: she’s tenacious, ambitious, gutsy, capable of making it all the way to the top. And her thirst for vengeance gives her added motivation. The Zoreilles of Saint-Denis will have trouble keeping her muzzled for long . . .
Aja waves the photograph in front of his face impatiently.
“So?”
“So, what? I don’t remember hearing any sirens, Aja. I take it this isn’t an official investigation?”
“Well, you know us cops. We won’t get out of bed for a Creole who’s been beaten up by her husband. But a tourist who runs off . . .”
Gabin gives a wide, toothy smile.
“You’re learning the art of diplomacy, Aja, that’s good . . .”
Aja does not reply—she appears to be thinking about this—but then she asks him again.
“So, what do you know about the tantine?”12
“Hardly anything, my sweet. You know me: I just stand here behind my bar like a palm tree. I saw the girl walk past the deckchairs, take off her bikini top, wrap herself up in a towel, and then—poof!—she vanished into thin air. You should ask Naivo, on reception. He’s new, you can’t miss him; he’s Madagascan, looks like a lemur in a shirt and tie. He was the one who opened the door of the room for Bellion.”
5:51 P.M.
Aja enters the lobby. No sign of Martial Bellion. He must have taken her advice and made himself scarce so that she can get on with the investigation. Suddenly she smiles: Gabin wasn’t exaggerating, the guy at reception really does look like a lemur. Naivo is sitting behind his desk, round hazel eyes like marbles, a crown of stiff grey hair stretching from one ear to the other; he is wearing a black-and-white-striped tie, as if he’s wrapped his own tail around his neck.
And this lemur is not insensitive to the charms of a blonde. As soon as she waves the photograph of Liane in front of his bulging eyes, he suddenly becomes loquacious.
“Yes, Captain Purvi, I saw Liane Bellion go up to her room this afternoon. Yes, her husband came to fetch me to help him open the door to number 38. How long afterwards? I’d say about an hour. That poor guy looked so worried, panic-stricken in fact, standing there in his trunks and flip-flops. So I opened the door for him, and the room was—how can I put this?—in a state of some disorder. There were signs of a struggle. Or a shared siesta between a man and a woman, if you know what I mean, Captain . . .”
One of those hazel marbles vanishes behind the salt-and-pepper forest of an eyebrow. The lemur version of a wink, Aja supposes.
“Except,” Naivo continues. “Except that all the women’s clothing had disappeared. You can trust me: I have an eye for that sort of thing. Liane Bellion had packed her suitcase.”
Another bizarre wink.
“But that was not the most important thing, Captain. The most important thing was that there were traces of . . . how shall I put this?”
Aja’s eyes narrow. She has a feeling she isn’t going to like what he says next. The lemur looks up at her again.
“Stains that looked very much like bloodstains.” Aja nods, impassive.
“Let’s go upstairs, if that’s O.K. with you. You can show me the room . . .”
They take the lift. Second floor. Aja glances out through the bay windows at the hotel guests drinking cocktails and talking around the pool beneath the crimson sky; the women’s bare backs, the wreaths of smoke, the kids splashing in the fluorescent water, colored blue, red and green by the underwater lights.
A tropical evening. Perfectly calm. Like paradise. Armand Zuttor was right: flashing blue lights would have been out of place here.
Naivo searches through the keys in his hand and moves towards room 38. He looks like a zookeeper about to open the cage of a gorilla.
“Captain, may I talk to you?”
The voice seems to come out of nowhere. Aja turns around and sees an old woman standing behind her, holding a broom. The Creole, who came up behind her so stealthily, speaks again:
“You are Captain Purvi? Little Aja? Laila and Rahim’s daughter?”
Aja doesn’t know what irritates her more. The reference to her childhood from a woman she doesn’t recognize, or the lazy rhythm of the cleaning lady’s speech. She gives a vague nod.
“I see your mother often, you know, my little Aja,” the Creole woman continues. “At the covered market in Saint-Paul, practically every other day. We talk about the past the way old women do.”
Aja forces a smile.
“Go on . . .”
The lemur has not moved. Nor has the Creole. Stalemate.
“Can we talk alone?” she says.
“O.K.,” Aja agrees, turning towards Naivo.
The lemur’s eyes open wide with indignation but he reluctantly moves away to the other end of the corridor. The Creole woman with the broom seems to be searching for words. Aja waits for a few seconds, then interjects:
“How long have you been here?”
“Thirty years and six months, my little Aja.” Aja sighs.
“I mean this afternoon, madame. How long have you been up here, in this corridor?”
Eve-Marie smiles, slowly checks her watch, then replies.
“Four hours and thirty minutes.”
“That’s a long time, isn’t it?”
“Well, let’s just say it’s not usually this busy on my floor . . .”
Aja looks at the tiles, the walls, the paintings, the windows, all of it as impeccably clean as a hospital corridor. The cleaning lady’s first name is embroidered on her jacket.
“Eve-Marie, you seem like a precise, organized kind of person to me. Tell me exactly what happened in your corridor this afternoon.”
The old woman takes forever to lean the broom against the wall.
“Well, Naivo and the husband came up here around four o’clock to open the door to number 38. The room was empty and . . .”
Eve-Marie slowly adjusts the scarf in her frizzy hair. To speed things up, Aja takes control of the conversation once more.
“All right, Eve-Marie, so Martial Bellion came up here at four. Liane Bellion came up an hour earlier, about three o’clock. It’s what happened in between that interests me. If you didn’t leave your corridor, you must have seen Madame Bellion come out of her room.”
Eve-Marie has spotted some invisible mark on the closest window, and she rubs at it with the corner of a turquoise cloth. It seems like an eternity before she replies:
“I saw people come through this corridor between three and four . . . But not the blonde . . .”
The words are like a hammer blow to the back of her head. “What do you mean?” Aja almost shouts. “Liane Bellion didn’t come back out of her room?”
Again Eve-Marie takes her time to answer, slowly folding the cloth in four. The suspense builds. This woman should write thrillers.
“The husband came up.”
“One hour later. Yes, I know.”
“No, not one hour later. Long before that. I would say about fifteen minutes after his wife came up.”
Another hammer blow. To the chest, this time. “Are you certain?”
“Oh yes, my little Aja, you can trust me. No one comes through my corridor without me noticing them.”
“I don’t doubt it, Eve-Marie. Please go on.”
Eve-Marie shoots a suspicious glance at Naivo. The lemur is pacing around in front of the lifts. The Creole woman lowers her voice.
“He went into the room. At the time, I thought he just wanted to have a bit of fun with his wife. After all, it was the siesta and the kid was downstairs with their friends. The husband came out of the room a few minutes later, ten minutes at most. He approached me, and asked me to do him a favor.”
Aja observes her reflection in the window. Her blue eyes blend into the fluorescent glimmer of the swimming pool, four meters below.
“A favor?”
Eve-Marie takes forever to turn around to face the cart that contains her bin, her cleaning products and her brushes.
“Yes, a favor. He asked if he could borrow my cart. Not this one, but the big one, the one I keep all the towels and sheets in. It was empty. He went into the room with it, and came out two minutes later, and took the lift . . . then he just disappeared. I found my cart downstairs, on level -1, near the car park. It may seem strange to you, my little Aja . . . But we don’t refuse the customers anything here.”
The captain rests her trembling hand on the window ledge.
“The laundry cart . . . Did he tell you why on earth he wanted it?”
“Well, you know, we don’t ask the guests questions here. La lang na pwin le zo.”13
Aja chews her lip.
“Did anyone else go in? Or come out? Was there anyone else in the corridor this afternoon?”
“No one! You can believe me, Aja. The katish from 38 never left her room.”
And why wouldn’t she believe Eve-Marie? “Your laundry cart. How big is it?”
Eve-Marie seems to think about this.
“Well, there’s a sign on it saying it can carry up to a hundred and eighty kilos of laundry. I can see what you’re thinking, Aja. Between you and me, I’d be surprised if the little blonde in her bikini weighed more than half of that.”
While Eve-Marie’s gaze finds more invisible specks of dust, Aja stares down at the garden. There are no more than twenty people there, chatting, drinking, waiting for the sunset. Aja spots Martial Bellion under a lamp post. He is sitting in a tall chair, a little girl of six on his knees.
His wife never came out of the room . . .
Naivo mentioned signs of a struggle. And bloodstains.
So much for the nice, reassuring theory that Liane Bellion went off with a lover somewhere . . .
Noticing that their conversation is over, the lemur advances down the corridor, keys in hand. Aja will have to explain to him, and to the hotel manager, that the nature of the case has changed. Armand Zuttor is not going to like it. There is every chance that the clothes scattered across room 38 now form pieces of evidence from a crime scene. Aja glances down at her watch. Ideally, they should search for fingerprints tonight, analyse the bloodstains, test samples for DNA, and all the rest of the protocol.
Now she will just have to convince Christos to get off his arse . . .
6 Literally, “Fat White Man,” a name given to island inhabitants from mainland France who have retained the wealth they gained during colonial days.
7 Someone from mainland France who lives permanently on Réunion.
8 A kind of music and dance from the island.
9 A Muslim inhabitant, of Indian origin.
10 Lizard.
11 Chameleons.
12 Girlfriend.
13 A Réunion proverb: “the tongue has no bones,” meaning that one should be careful what one says.