31

Nico sat on the couch facing Samuel Cassian. On the coffee table, his wife had set out refreshments, as always: tea, coffee, chocolate, slices of cake, and cookies. The ceremony didn’t bother the artist, who played the game patiently and lovingly. Then he sent his wife away on a ruse. After so many years, he still wanted to spare her needless suffering. Nico respected him for that.

“I can still see myself on the Rue de Valois, in the gilded offices of André Malraux and the minister of culture,” Samuel Cassian reminisced. “We were smoking Partagas. Jacques Langier took me out on the terrace overlooking the Palais Royal’s gardens. He was proud of the palace courtyard; they had replaced the parking lot with the Colonnes de Buren, Daniel Buren’s art installation. It was so long ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. Bernard Tschumi was with us. He unfolded the map of the Parc de la Villette so we could decide where the banquet would take place.”

“And you picked the Prairie du Cercle to the north of the Canal de l’Ourcq,” Nico said. “There was no changing your mind.”

A smile played on Samuel Cassian’s face as he looked at the police chief.

“The City of Blood and Fear. Quite the foreshadowing, wasn’t it? One second and your life is flipped upside down. Your son disappears, and you disappear along with him. My wife lost her mind, and sometimes I wish I had too.”

His eyes had a strange glow.

“Your wife always believed that Jean-Baptiste left the country,” Nico said. “She thought he’d rather flee than face the idea that he’d never be your equal. Or perhaps it was the other way around, and he was terrified of surpassing you.”

“Yes, she preferred to believe that he went to the United States and was living a happy life in anonymity. She’s told me this many times. She’s even convinced that she has grandchildren. My God. I wish I could believe it myself.”

The old man closed his eyes for a few seconds. Nico could see that he was struggling to avoid betraying his emotions. Once again, Nico laid out each of the group photos on the coffee table. He knew he was rubbing salt in the wound, but he didn’t have a choice.

“Mr. Cassian...”

“Call me Samuel. Samuel would be nice. You remind me of my son. He was committed to his work too.”

Nico looked away. This man had lost his son. Was he himself about to lose his mother? It was strange how their fates had aligned.

“Samuel, the man behind these prints was a friend of your son: Daniel Vion. Jérôme Dufour told him that your wife believed Jean-Baptiste was living abroad. Laurent Mercier, who’s here in this picture, told him. So I have a question: How did Laurent Mercier know what your wife thought?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Laurent came to visit us many times after Jean-Baptiste’s disappearance. He was distraught.”

“Was Laurent a family friend?”

“No, not really. But he was very close to our son.”

“What makes you say that?”

“My wife would always fill him with sweets when he visited,” Samuel Cassian replied with an affectionate smile. “Then he’d ask to go see Jean-Baptiste’s room. He’d spend ten minutes or so in there all by himself. I didn’t think this ritual was very healthy, but the young man seemed genuinely overwhelmed, and I hoped it would give him some comfort. I also hoped that his visits would taper off. They didn’t, so I had to put an end to it.”

Nico set his folder on the couch and drank some coffee. He wasn’t hungry. He felt tired, not because of the long night at the club or because of all the time and energy he had put into solving this case. It was the thought of giving Samuel Cassian a final blow that was wearing him down.

“Samuel, I have something important to tell you.”

His host sat up.

“I’m listening. I loved Jean-Baptiste, and nothing could change how much I loved him. Nothing, you hear me?”

Nico thought of Dimitri and knew he felt the same way. Was that what it meant to be a good father?

“Jean-Baptiste was cheating on Lara.”

It was then that he saw that Samuel Cassian was holding a rosary. He was working the beads.

“At the time, Lara knew, but she wanted to go ahead and marry Jean-Baptiste,” Nico continued.

“He was a young man. Those things happen.”

“This case was, well, different.”

“Don’t beat around the bush, Chief.”

“Call me Nico, please.”

“I’m listening, Nico.”

“He had been involved with another man.”

The rosary fell to the floor. Samuel Cassian’s face paled, but he managed to maintain his composure.

“Why didn’t he tell me?” he asked. “I accepted everything about him. It wouldn’t have mattered. Laurent—is that who you’re thinking of? I caught him with his nose buried in one of Jean-Baptiste’s sweaters. He was crying. My God, I should have known.”

“The investigation isn’t over, but I should have an answer for you very soon. Thank you for helping me, Samuel.”

“No, Nico. Thank you. It sounds like you’re close to arresting our son’s murderer.”

“We’re closing in, yes. We hope to have something for you soon.”

“Soon,” the artist repeated, as if a theater curtain were about to fall.

So Samuel Cassian understood that the young man he had taken into his home and comforted, that this young man had done the unforgivable.

From his window, Samuel Cassian watched the chief’s car pull away and merge with traffic between the Café de Flore and the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church. He wished it was his son in that car, the son he had missed every day for thirty years.

Why had Jean-Baptiste kept that vital part of himself a secret? What kind of mess had he gotten into that someone would kill him? If only he’d come to his father, things would have gone differently. But Samuel had no way of knowing that for sure.

Samuel rocked back and forth and pressed his head against the windowpane.

“Sweetheart, are you okay?” his wife asked nervously.

“I’m fine, darling.”

“The police officer?”

“He left.”

“I know. Just like I knew our son was dead the day he disappeared.”

Samuel turned around.

“What did you think, Samuel? That I really believed Jean-Baptiste would leave us to go live in America? How could you think I was that far gone?”

Their eyes met, and his softened as he tried to read his wife’s dark gaze.

“Even if Jean-Baptiste had fled to America, he would have found some way to let us know that he was all right. He would have sent us a postcard, at least. But we’ve both known all this time that he never left the country.”

Samuel pursed his lips. Those few seconds of clarity that flowed every so often through his wife’s mind would fade away, and she would go back to her imaginary and orderly world. A world where their son lived forever on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Samuel glanced at his watch. What time was it in New York? He closed his eyes. If only forgetfulness or madness could save him.