7

Nico had given his instructions and left. Commander Kriven knew from the dark look on his boss’s face how urgent the situation was. The man’s devotion to his mother was a well-known fact.

Mrs. Cassian looked at Kriven and Lieutenant Almeida from her place on the sofa, then blew her nose and wiped the tears from her cheeks. She was short and slim, with gray hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was clearly distraught over the events of the previous day. Her husband, Samuel, had been hospitalized for shock. Fortunately, the doctors had said he could come home soon.

“It’s horrible. This project meant so much to Samuel.”

Kriven tried to avoid showing his impatience.

“Ma’am, I’m sure it’s a relief to know that your husband will be home in no time at all. Now, if I may, I would like to speak with you about the remains of the individual discovered at the site of the banquet.”

By using the word “individual,” Kriven wanted her to understand that they had, indeed, found a human being in the pit. A person with a face—at one time—and a name. It could serve as a first step. Perhaps she would make the connection between the remains and her son’s disappearance. A few seconds passed without either of them breaking the silence. He had to be careful not to push too hard.

“This individual died young,” Kriven prodded gently.

“That’s a shame,” she said quietly.

“He took a blow to the head. He didn’t suffer at all.”

“That’s a relief.”

Her mind seemed to be elsewhere, and she wasn’t willing to connect the dots.

“Can you tell me about your son?”

Her eyes immediately went to the throw pillow by his knees. It had fallen off the chair when he sat down. He picked it up and propped it back in place.

“Do you remember if he ever broke his leg?”

“Jean-Baptiste,” she said. A long pause followed. “We still don’t know what happened to him. I’m sure he just wanted to get away from his problems. You know, he was such a promising artist, but he was upset over not being as good as his father. I think he feared disappointing him. So he left. I respect that. Maybe he’s living in the United States under an assumed name. I hope he’s happy. He’s my son, my only child. You’ll never know how much a mother can love a child.”

“Tell me, ma’am, do you remember if Jean-Baptiste ever suffered any broken bones, perhaps a bone in his leg?” Kriven asked.

She glared at him, as if she couldn’t bear the interruption of her idyllic reflection on parental love.

“He broke his tibia in a soccer game when he was seventeen. He gave me a good scare. His operation went well, and after his recovery, he ran as fast as a rabbit.”

Kriven wasn’t taking any chances.

“And how tall was he?”

“A bit shorter than you. About five feet, nine inches. But such a handsome boy.”

“Have you kept his possessions?”

“Of course. I haven’t moved a thing in his room.”

David Kriven shivered. Underneath the success and the money, the wound was still fresh. The Cassians had continued living, but were haunted by their son’s specter. People knew that Mrs. Cassian rarely went out and never saw anyone, and now he understood why: she had lost her appetite for life, along with her son.

“May I see his room?”

Mrs. Cassian was plainly suspicious. “What exactly are you looking for?”

“Well, we’re hoping to find him,” Kriven said. It was a lie.

The woman’s eyes lit up. She got up quickly and walked across the apartment. Kriven and Lieutenant Almeida followed. As he passed the windows, Kriven took in the bustling Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood. It was an artists’ haunt Samuel Cassian would never leave, Kriven had found out when reading up about the man. Apparently Cassian was nostalgic for the student uprising days of the sixties, when idealistic young people would gather in the Saint Germain cafés to reenvision the world.

She had barely opened the door when Kriven understood how time had, in fact, stood still for the Cassians. A sweatshirt was still draped over the back of an armchair. The room hadn’t been touched since Jean-Baptiste’s disappearance. It was a mausoleum for the young man and a godsend for the police.

“May we look around?”

“Yes, but keep everything in its place.”

Kriven gestured to Almeida, who opened his briefcase to begin collecting the DNA evidence necessary to make a comparison with the genetic code of the skeleton. It would take twenty-four to forty-eight hours to make that assessment.

“Did you, by any chance, keep your son’s medical records?” Kriven asked.

Mrs. Cassian gave him an odd look.

“His dental records, for example.”

She stared him as though he were a strange creature.

“Or at least his dentist’s name?”

“Hmm, everything’s in the office,” she finally answered.

He followed her into the hallway. All alone in the room, Almeida could go through Jean-Baptiste’s personal effects. In the office, Kriven stood in front of a desk with drawers full of folders labeled in black marker: “Middle School,” “High School,” “École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts,” “Soccer Club,” “Guitar Lessons,” “Pediatrician,” “General Practitioner,” “Specialists,” “Dentist,” “Letters and Postcards,” “Exhibitions.” Jean-Baptiste’s life had been organized, filed, and archived. Kriven gulped. The woman pulled out the dental folder, set out her son’s X-rays, and looked at them with sadness on her face, as if they were beloved family photos.

“May I borrow them?” Kriven asked.

“Only if you promise you won’t damage them. He may need them someday, you know.”

Damn it! He’d have to ask Dominique Kreiss, the division’s psychologist, to see the woman.

“You have my word,” he said.

“Well, you seem like a good man, and honest, too. Like Jean-Baptiste. You’ll bring them back, won’t you?”

The top floor at headquarters was filled with small interview rooms. The rooms had computers with cameras to record the questioning. Each had only a skylight. This dearth of natural lighting gave the rooms a claustrophobic feel and also deterred escapes. The room Captain Franck Plassard was in felt even gloomier as he thought about his boss and Anya Sirsky.

The door opened, and an officer poked his head into the room.

“Mrs. Béal is here,” he said.

The director of Monaco’s contemporary art museum, the Nouveau Musée National, had attended Samuel Cassian’s banquet, as well as the opening ceremony for the archaeological dig. She was a major player in the art world.

“Send her in,” Plassard said.

The officer let her in, then closed the door and stood in a corner. In French cop lingo, the officer in the background was called a “ghost”—not seen, not heard, but there.

Plassard got up to greet the witness and asked her to take a seat.

“I have to thank you for responding so quickly.” He wanted to set her at ease; he had no reason to consider her a suspect. At the moment, no one was a suspect.

“It’s absolutely fine. This isn’t a practical joke to draw more attention to the dig, is it?”

“I’m sorry to tell you that the bones we’ve uncovered are human remains, as we suspected.”

“My God! But who could it be?”

“We haven’t gotten that far yet,” Plassard said in a soothing tone. “You were at the banquet and the excavation of Samuel Cassian’s tableau-piège. Tell me: Did you notice anything in particular at either of these two events? I know the banquet took place a long time ago, but it must stand out in your memory.”

“Oh, we were all so happy and excited to take part in this experience. We were all friends, some of us closer than others. We discussed ideas. We talked about the arts. And we laughed. It was a lovely event. Samuel’s idea to bury his last banquet and symbolically renounce his tableaux-pièges was sheer genius.”

The captain smiled politely.

“What else can I tell you? We had to bring our own silverware and a few things to put on the table for posterity. I came with a bouquet of flowers in a white porcelain vase. The person sitting next to me drew on the vase. And he wasn’t just anybody. He was Fabrice Hyber. The Fabrice Hyber!”

“You don’t say,” Captain Plassard said. “That’s quite a story. I bet you wish you had that vase on your mantel now.”

“Of course. Who wouldn’t? One of his artworks, The Artery, is in the Parc de la Villette. It’s an immense pathway made of ceramic tiles. A homage to AIDS victims.”

“Can you recall any particular incident that day? Maybe some kind of argument?”

“Not at all. Samuel looked like he was happy to be turning over a new leaf. He wanted to work in bronze.”

“In your reports to the archaeologists, you say that the tables buried in the trench were made of wood,” Plassard said. “But they were plastic. Samuel Cassian thought plastic would survive better than wood.”

The woman blushed. “I was mistaken about the tables. But do you think I would have forgotten an argument?”

“I suppose it isn’t easy to remember everything, even about a gathering as noteworthy as Samuel Cassian’s banquet.” Plassard wasn’t intent on trapping her, but he needed her to recall as much as she could.

She looked equal parts annoyed and perplexed. “What I remember vividly was that we all truly enjoyed ourselves.”

“Was Samuel Cassian’s son there?”

“Jean-Baptiste? Of course! His father had asked him to help, and he put his heart and soul into the project. He was such a charming young man with a promising future. If he hadn’t disappeared so suddenly, I’m sure he’d have become one of the best artists of his generation.”

“Do you know anything about his disappearance?”

“It happened a week after the banquet was buried. Like everyone else, I was shocked. Samuel was crushed. He loved his son. I’m told that his wife lost her mind. Samuel never talked about it.”

“Nobody mentioned the disappearance the day they began the excavation?”

She shook her head. “Why are we talking so much about Jean-Baptiste? Has he come back after all these years?”

She had no idea how close to the mark she was.

“Damn it!” Professor Charles Queneau never liked being the last to know. Captain Vidal had told the director of the police forensics lab that Nico’s mother was in the hospital, and Queneau was angry nobody had told him sooner.

“How old is she? Barely sixty-five? Damn it. Bloody hell! Do you have any other information?”

“No,” the captain said. “Not at the moment. As soon as we hear anything, we’ll let you know.”

“Nothing to do but hope,” Queneau said.

“For now, we need to focus on the investigation. That will help to ease the chief’s mind. For starters, we have to confirm the victim’s identity.”

Queneau led the police captain into one of the labs in the Quai de l’Horloge building. This building was as old as division headquarters. To partially compensate for the lack of space, mobile units had been set up in the courtyard. Only the pleasure of being in the Latin Quarter made the cramped conditions acceptable—and even then, only for so long.

The lab was filled with workers in white coats, as well as machines connected to computers, printers, microscopes, and a surprising number of flasks and test tubes. As Queneau and Vidal passed by, some of the lab techs nodded and waved and returned to their work. A young woman approached them. She was holding Skeletor’s watch in a gloved hand.

“It’s a Rolex Explorer II,” she said. “Initially, we thought the watch was older than that. This was part of a limited-edition series sold by Tiffany & Co. in 1984. It’s worth four or five thousand euros today.”

“That much?” Vidal said.

The scientist put the watch in a plastic bag and sealed it. Then she brought out the shoes found in the trench with a few toe bones inside.

“Our victim was pretty cool,” the young woman said. “These are Adidas mi Forum Mid black-and-white shoes for men. They’re Adidas’s most emblematic shoes, and they also came out in 1984. If these shoes have been buried for thirty years, that certainly shows how resistant to the elements they were.”

“The toes have disintegrated, but the Adidas live on. We have the makings of a brilliant advertising concept,” Vidal said, smirking.

“Considering what people find acceptable today, consumers would probably go for it,” Queneau said.

“Speaking of ads, I’ve got one to show you,” the researcher said.

She turned to the computer and clicked. Ray Charles’s “Hit the Road Jack” blared from the speakers. Spotlights flashed on a tennis court, and a bare-chested man leaped over the net. Yannick Noah caught a racquet and swerved wildly to hit the ball. The C17 jeans logo was visible as the narrator repeated the name over and over.

“He’s hot,” she said.

“These days, he’s a few years worse for the wear,” Vidal said.

“I bet he’s stayed in shape. But you’re right. This commercial is also from 1984.”

“A year after his win at the Roland-Garros,” Queneau said. “I was new to my job. This woman was barely born, and you, Captain, were just old enough to be building sand castles. It really is time for me to think about retirement.”

“That’s if you can ever tear yourself away from this place,” Vidal said with a good-natured smile.

“C17 was a popular French brand in the eighties,” the young woman said. “Its ads were aimed at the fifteen-to-twenty-five-year-old market, as you can tell. The leather label and the fibers we found all match up with this design.”

“The belt hasn’t given us any clues,” Queneau said. “But overall, the victim’s wardrobe aligns with Jean-Baptiste Cassian’s disappearance in the middle of the eighties.”

“And what about the fingerprints and samples taken at the site?” Vidal asked.

“We’re drawing a blank there,” Queneau responded. “We’re waiting for more. Shall we?”

They walked down a floor. Skeletor’s skull had been set on a metal plate. A technician was in the process of digitizing it for 3D visualization, turning it on its axis while the laser scanner recorded its image on the computer. The computer modeled the face on the basis of the skull’s shape and the bones’ thickness and gave it features typical of the victim’s age, build, and ethnicity.

The technician, who had been at the machine for several hours, showed them the result. After a few seconds, Vidal took the photo of Jean-Baptiste Cassian out of his briefcase and held it up to the screen.

“Looks like him,” Professor Queneau said.

“No kidding. They look like brothers. Good work.”

“Hello!” They heard a voice behind them and turned around. Lieutenant Almeida was there, holding some bags intended for Queneau.

“Here are the DNA samples from Jean-Baptiste Cassian’s home,” he said. “And I’ve got more. You’ll never believe it: a hairbrush that’s been untouched since the artist’s disappearance!”

DNA extraction from hair was far easier than from bones or organs. The DNA molecules were protected by a layer of keratin, which was a malleable natural substance that formed a barrier resistant to bacteria and other invaders, even after death.

“We can make the comparison with the bone samples,” Queneau said.

“So it looks like we’re making some headway, Professor,” Vidal responded.

Deputy Chief Jean-Marie Rost was busy writing the preliminary report, a crucial part of the investigation. He had to cover the circumstances of the corpse’s discovery, explain the location and presence of clues, summarize the witness accounts, and include the complete autopsy report. With his signature as section chief, the report would be sent to the prosecutor in charge of the case. Based on the conclusions, a magistrate would almost certainly open a criminal investigation, which would give them more time. The mere discovery of human bones in a trench dug and filled thirty years earlier would likely be the deciding factor. The director of the medical examiner’s office had helped. According to her, a violent blow to the head was most likely the cause of death. The magistrate owed Samuel Cassian and his wife a full explanation of their son’s disappearance and death, even if the statute of limitations had passed.

The phone rang. Looking up from his computer keyboard, Jean-Marie Rost paused at the picture of his son stuck to the edge of his screen. This little boy with a round head and a smile that curved like a banana was the cutest baby in the world.

“Deputy Chief Rost? Professor Vilars would like to speak with you.”

“Put her on.”

“Lieutenant Almeida has sent me dental records for Jean-Baptiste Cassian,” Vilars said. “I’ve just compared the antemortem records with the X-rays.”

Oral characteristics and bone morphology were significant calling cards.

“There is no room for doubt. It’s a positive ID.”

This was good news for the investigation.

“I’ll send a note with Lieutenant Almeida to include in your preliminary report.”

“Thank you, Professor.”

“Of course. Any news about Mrs. Sirsky?”

Like Vilars, who spent her days and many of her nights cutting open bodies, Rost was keenly aware of how quickly loved ones could be lost. As easily as a file folder could be dropped into a trash can.

“We’re waiting to hear more,” he replied quietly.

“Keep me posted.”

She hung up. Rost got up from his chair, left his office, and went to knock on Claire Le Marec’s door.

“Come in!” she said.

“Professor Vilars just called,” he said.

Le Marec’s cell phone went off.

“About the dental records…”

She hunted through her bag for the phone.

“We were right. The skeleton is Cassian’s son.”

“Good work,” she said. She gave him a quick thumbs-up before punching in a number an holding the cell phone to her ear.

“Nico?”