9:02 P.M.
Aja has settled on the veranda behind the station. The inner courtyard is cloaked in darkness, except for the table, which is lit by a dim lamp hanging from a wire wrapped around a beam. The night is incredibly warm. Aja loves ending her days like this, outside with her laptop, surfing the internet. Just the feeble glimmer of the bulb and the blue glow from her computer screen. Listening to the birds sing nervously, as though this were the first time they had ever encountered dusk. Her father taught her how to recognize the songs of tuit-tuits,33 tec-tecs, oiseaux-la-vierge,34 but especially of her favorites, the salanganes,35 which only come out at night and which use echolocation to find their way around.
The words swarm across the screen. Aja types quickly, without even correcting her mistakes. Colonel Laroche is expecting her report before midnight. He made it clear that he personally would send it on to the various departments of the ComGend.
Headquarters’ decision reached her at precisely 8 P.M.: Operation Papangue is officially launched. The ComGend is taking over the co-ordination of the hunt for Martial Bellion; the media plan is to broadcast a missing persons appeal across all television channels and radio stations. Liaison with forces in mainland France as well as those on the island, mobilization of the National Police Intervention Group, the GIPN.
The full monty.
Aja didn’t even have to negotiate. Laroche has left her in charge of the investigation within the perimeter of the Saint-Gilles commune—as well as the roadblocks and the house searches—until morning. Until further notice, he will oversee everything else.
Behind her, inside the station, Aja hears the crackle of radios. Muffled orders. Some laughter, and a lot of swearing from her exhausted colleagues. At the last checkpoint, on the very edge of Saint-Gilles, the traffic jams caused by the searching of every vehicle are now several miles long. The unfortunate cops in charge of the searches have had to put up with a constant stream of insults. Fifteen other officers are systematically searching houses with garages, more or less at random. For the moment, they have no leads at all.
Not even the tiniest clue.
Aja closes her eyes and makes out, in the distance, towards the cliffs, the sound of paille-en-queues36 protecting their nests. She must have missed something.
Too young, too female, too Creole. A triple handicap. They’ll make sure she understands that tomorrow morning.
And so, she revises the report. The process is enlightening.
Tuesday, March 26. Proven fact: Liane Bellion goes to Saint-Benoît to ask for police protection. She says she feels threatened.
Friday, March 29, 3 P.M. Fact: Liane Bellion leaves the garden of the Hotel Athena and goes up to her room. All the hotel guests and staff have confirmed this. Eve-Marie Nativel is positive: Liane Bellion did not come out of her room.
3:15 P.M. Fact: Martial Bellion goes to join his wife in their room. Confirmed by the testimonies both of the Jourdains and hotel employees.
3:25 P.M. Almost a proven fact: Martial Bellion leaves the hotel room, pushing a laundry cart that may or may not have contained a body. He goes down to the car park behind the hotel. The testimonies of Eve-Marie Nativel, the hotel gardener, Tanguy Dijoux, and the children playing in the car park all concur. This is also confirmed by Martial Bellion’s confession.
3:45 P.M. Fact: Martial Bellion returns to the hotel swimming pool.
4 P.M. Fact: Martial Bellion goes back up to his hotel room. Again, all the testimonies of the hotel staff agree on this. In the room, signs of a struggle are observed, as well as bloodstains belonging to Liane Bellion.
Between three and four, Amaury Hoarau, aka Rodin, was murdered at the port in Saint-Gilles, around half a mile from the hotel. The murder weapon, a knife, belongs to Martial Bellion. The analyses leave no room for doubt: the knife’s blade is covered with traces of Liane Bellion’s blood. The only fingerprints found on the handle are those of Martial Bellion.
Sunday, March 31, 4 P.M.: just before his arrest, Martial Bellion escapes from the Hotel Athena in a grey Clio, a rental car, taking his daughter Josapha with him.
He has not yet been found.
Doubts concerning Martial Bellion’s guilt: none.
Problems: no apparent motive. No corpse for Liane Bellion.
Most likely hypothesis: an argument between Martial Bellion and his wife turns nasty. He accidentally kills her. He panics, then becomes caught in a violent spiral of events.
Subsidiary question: what might he be capable of if he really freaks out?
Aja lifts her eyes from the screen. She keeps stumbling over that last phrase, “freaks out.” She would like to find more appropriate wording for the ComGend, but she can’t think of anything better.
The initial investigation in mainland France has not produced anything substantial—the Bellions seem to be a normal couple with an unremarkable past. Martial Bellion works in a gymnasium in Deuil-la-Barre. He has been married to Liane for eight years. She quickly gave up her PhD in sociolinguistics in order to raise their daughter, Josapha.
Above Aja, near the wire attached to the bulb, a gecko is creeping carefully along the beam, like a tightrope walker, in an attempt to move closer to the light. An Icarus without feathers.
Aja forces herself to smile.
No one becomes a murderer just like that. There has to be something in Martial Bellion’s past. The police station in Deuil-la-Barre is supposed to send over all the information they’ve discovered about the Bellions some time this evening. Apparently, they are still busy at work, even though it is nearly 7 P.M. in France and, for the moment, the ComGend does not seem to believe in the psychological aspect of this case. Or perhaps it just doesn’t care. The simple explanation, a domestic row that went drastically wrong, is probably enough for them. And the priority is to catch this guy before he kills again. After that, they can start looking at any extenuating circumstances.
Except it’s not that. Aja has met Martial Bellion on two occasions now, and something just doesn’t make sense. A guy who killed his wife by accident then gave in to panic would already have been caught. Why call the cops, why turn up at the police station voluntarily, why confess, and then run away? This whole scenario seems like it’s been planned in advance with a particular objective in mind.
But what?
It would be hard to mention her gut feeling in a report. She would immediately be accused of trying to avoid responsibility, of inventing a Machiavellian enemy so that she didn’t have to admit she has been duped by an amateur.
She doesn’t care.
The words on her screen are all underlined in red and green. She sighs. Surely there are more pressing needs than correcting her spelling mistakes just to satisfy the Zoreille administrators . . . And yet, even if she is bored out of her brains by all this bureaucracy, she will go through the report again meticulously.
It’s a question of pride.
9:05 P.M.
“Good night, Gabin!”
The barman turns around but does not hold out his hand, which is black with charcoal. He has been cleaning the Athena’s huge barbecue for the past fifteen minutes. It is Armand Zuttor who chooses the menus for the Grain de Sable, the hotel restaurant. On nights when the food must be grilled, in addition to making cocktails, Gabin has become a chimney sweep. Well, orders are orders.
He looks at Eve-Marie Nativel. The cleaning lady stands in front of him, gripping her canvas bag. Clearly, she is about to go home.
“I won’t shake your hand, Eve-Marie. See you tomorrow.”
The old Creole woman smiles under her blue headscarf but she doesn’t move an inch. Slowly, she turns her head and checks that there are no tourists within hearing distance. Most of them have already left the pool to escape from the mosquitoes.
“No,” she replies. “Tomorrow I’m working for a Gros Blanc. A bastard, even worse than Zuttor, but he pays me four times as much . . .”
“Well, Happy Easter then.”
The barman looks down at his sooty arms, resigned. He’s going to be spending quite a while yet cleaning out the fireplace. Him, an artist, the king of Ti’ Punch, obliged to sully his skin and his throat with clouds of ash.
Eve-Marie still hasn’t moved. She seems to be turning a word around in her mouth the way some people chew on a cane stalk.
“What did you say to the cops?”
Gabin almost sits down in the charcoal.
“To the cops?”
“Yeah, little Aja and the prophet. What did you tell them exactly?” Gabin forces himself to reply without thinking.
“I just told them what happened. What I saw from behind my bar. What else was I supposed to say?”
The old Creole woman closes her eyes. Out of tiredness or exasperation? It’s hard to tell. When she opens them again, her two blue irises are glaring at the barman.
“You could have mentioned the past, for example. Martial Bellion’s past.”
Gabin takes his time pulling a Marlboro from his pocket.
“I didn’t say anything about that, Eve-Marie. The police didn’t ask. I’m a disciplined type; I only reply to the questions I’m asked.”
“Bullshit, Gabin! You know it’s only a question of time. The police are bound to check everything.”
The barman leans over the barbecue and blows on the embers in order to light his cigarette.
“We’ll see. I’ll come up with something. I’m used to it.”
“I’m not.”
Eve-Marie hangs her head as if the wooden cross she wears around her neck weighs a tonne. Then, in a weak voice, she adds:
“I have even more to lose than you have.”
The barman takes a long drag on his Marlboro. The smoke from the cigarette curls up into the sky around the Croix du Sud.
“You still blame Bellion?”
Eve-Marie Nativel blinks, then stares at the barbecue, like a seer who can read the future in its fatty residue.
“I’m counting on you, Gabin. The cops are going to stir up the ashes. Blow on the embers. I . . . I don’t want Aloé’s name mixed up in all this. I’ve spent years protecting her. You see what I mean, Gabin? Pis pa ka rété assi chyen mô.”37
Gabin flicks his cigarette into the hearth.
“I understand. But Aja is stubborn. And she knows this place better than anyone.”
Eve-Marie slowly turns towards the exit.
“I’m counting on you, Gabin. Pass the message on to Tanguy, Naivo and the others.”
The barman watches the old lady walk away. He tries to think of something to say to prove to her that he is on her side, not the cops’.
“Don’t worry, Eve-Marie. After all, the most likely thing is that Bellion will be shot by the police and buried straight away, without them having to dig up anyone else instead.”
9:09 P.M.
Christos enters the station’s veranda, a can of Dodo beer in one hand. Aja barely looks up from her laptop.
“Good work on the Jourdains’ witness statement, Chris.”
Christos drains his beer, indifferent to the compliment.
“Anything new, Aja?”
“No, nothing.”
She clicks an icon on her computer. The map of Saint-Gilles, showing each house that has been searched, appears on her screen.
“But we’re making progress, Christos. We’ll catch him. There are only a couple of officers working in the Carosse district, both rookies. Maybe you could give them a hand?”
Christos throws the empty can into the bin and stretches his back.
“I’m off, Aja. I’m going home.”
Aja’s arms fall onto her thighs. She doesn’t even try to conceal her surprise.
“You’re doing what, Chris? We have until tomorrow morning to find this guy. After that, the—’
“No, Aja . . . I’m sorry. We have to work in shifts. That’s how it goes.”
“Fucking hell, Christos. There’s a killer on the loose.”
“And not just one. Drug dealers too. Paedophiles. All sorts of lunatics. Widows to protect. I know what my job is. And so do my colleagues.”
Aja sits up. Her thick eyebrows form a single dark line.
“You don’t have a choice, Christos. You’ve been seconded to this assignment, like everyone else. Operation Papangue, remember?”
“What are you going to do to me, Aja? Give me an official reprimand? I’ll be here again tomorrow morning. Early. But I need to sleep. You should do the same, by the way.”
Disconcerted, Aja listens to the strange symphony of birdsong mixed with the static from police radios. She gives a tired smile, then says:
“You’re completely irresponsible.”
Christos just smiles cynically, then takes two steps into the garden.
“You have nothing to prove, Aja. To anyone. Even if you catch Bellion, you won’t get the credit for it.”
Her response is immediate: “I’m going to catch this guy before he kills anyone else. Full stop. I couldn’t care less about the rest.”
Christos applauds silently in the darkness.
“Respect, Aja. You’re a saint. Don’t forget to call your partner and your kids.”
Aja looks up and the light from the bare bulb burns her eyes. She thinks in a flash about Tom, about their daughters, Jade and Lola. Lola is barely three months younger than Josapha Bellion. Tom sent Aja a text just after the announcement about Operation Papangue was made on Réunion 1. She has not had time to reply yet. In any case, he’s already understood that she won’t be coming home tonight. He’d explained that to the girls before telling them a story and putting them to bed. Tom is her perfect man.
She blinks and stares at Christos’s shadow. She experiences small green flashes of light on her retina for a few seconds longer.
“You’re making me waste time, Christos. You’re right, it’s probably best if you just piss off.”
33 Réunion cuckoo-shrikes.
34 Mascarene paradise flycatchers.
35 Mascarene swiftlets.
36 Tropicbirds.
37 Réunion proverb: fleas do not stay on dead dogs. Misfortune separates friends.