AFTER HIS VISIT TO Jules, in which he had wanted to think of himself as a kind of French Paul Revere, Fran?ois believed that Jules had gone mad, but that, despite this, Jules was safe.
The next day, Arnaud and Duvalier drove north to Honfleur, taking Duvalier’s Volkswagen Jetta instead of a police cruiser. It was light, and even though the engine was not powerful the acceleration was like that of a sports car. And it had a sunroof, as police cars do not. On their way, just east of Lisieux, they passed Armand Marteau, who was heading toward Paris. They wouldn’t have known Armand Marteau, and he wouldn’t have known them had they been stuck in the same elevator or elbow to elbow at a bar, even though the three of them were focused on Jules. Still, when their vehicles passed at a collective 190 kilometers per hour, only ten meters apart, had there been a little bell devoted to marking such things it would have sounded.
The judge was an elegant old man with, nonetheless, gaps between his teeth. They caught him completely by surprise as he was returning from the beach, dressed in shorts and a Dr. Seuss T-shirt. They were in summer suits, with ties. Less embarrassed than they were, he invited them into his garden, from which they could vaguely hear the waves. The judge pulled out of his flip-flops and swung his feet onto a big ottoman with a square cushion. His wife brought out caviar on toast, and a pitcher of sangria.
“We have to drive home, Monsieur Juge,” Arnaud said upon his third glass.
“Why don’t you stay for a swim and work it off. Do we have enough chicken?!!” he screamed so loudly that Duvalier’s drink spilled.
Because the judge had been looking straight at Duvalier when he shouted the question, Duvalier said, sheepishly, “I don’t know.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to my wife. I have arthritis and I can’t turn my head. Do! We! Have! Enough! Chicken!!!”
“For what?!”
“For four!”
“No. But we have ham, too!”
It was a very strange hearing, which ended when the two policemen – a Muslim and a Jew, who had had a nice lunch of ham – left their guns with the judge and went off to the beach. The judge’s bathing trunks fit Arnaud decently enough, but to keep the pair loaned to him from falling off, Duvalier had to use a rope tied around the bunched-up waistband.
Before they went swimming, however, they told the judge what they had, including the most recent information, which was that the blood on the receipt was the same as that on the ground, that Raschid Belghazi’s prints were on the receipt, as were two other sets, one of which they were sure would be Jules’.
“But you don’t know,” the judge said.
“When we take him in we’ll know. Our theory about the boathouse seems to be correct.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“We’re very sure. We accept the risk.”
“Before you arrest him, it has to be cleared with the DGSI.”
“We would have broken the case much sooner had the DGSI not intercepted the letter from Belghazi.”
“They didn’t. The letter was caught by the DGSE, who got it from the Turks before it even left that country. And what do you mean, it shouldn’t have been intercepted by the DGSI? That’s their job. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Do you think he’s a flight risk?”
Arnaud expressed skepticism. “He’s old, he’s lived all his life in Paris, he has no one to go to and nowhere to go. The old almost never run.”
“I’ll sign,” the judge told him, “but only after I run it past the DGSI.”
“Can you reach them now?”
“Not the person to whom I speak. Tomorrow. Why don’t you stay overnight? It’s not a weekend, and there won’t be much traffic going back. Once I have clearance, you can be in Paris in time to arrest him.”
“You can’t do it independently of the DGSI?”
“No. Your Raschid Belghazi is with Islamic State. They take that very seriously, and the DGSI has much more information than we do, so we’ve got to defer. Besides, I promised them.”
“You knew?”
“Of course I did. The letter was forwarded to you a while ago. I thought you were working on it.”
ARMAND MARTEAU DROVE around Saint-Germain-en-Laye for almost an hour trying to find a good parking space. He had driven from Normandy to tell Jules something he could have related in a phone call of less than a minute, but he didn’t want to leave a record. Yes, someone might have recorded his appearance, but he knew that it wouldn’t be Nerval. Even were no one watching Jules, Armand didn’t want an accidental parking ticket to mark his whereabouts, so he took the time to find a good space.
When he appeared at the door, Jules wasn’t surprised. “Marteau,” he said. “Come in.”
“Better to walk in the garden.”
“All right,” Jules agreed, closing the doors and starting out in that direction. “Why?”
“Bugs.”
“It’s August,” Jules told him. “There are more bugs in the garden than in the house. Or is it the other kind of bug?”
“It’s the other kind.”
“In my house? There aren’t any.”
“How do you know?”
“Who would do it?”
“The DGSI.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know. First the police then the DGSI ordered Nerval to lay off. The police were crude, and threatened him. He was going to work around them, but as soon as he started the DGSI flattened him. It came from above, in our company. Evidently you have the attention of ministers, which made sense to everyone, given that you live here, and would be the kind of person who would – excuse me, who could – pick up the phone and call the élysée.
“I came here to tell you that Nerval is off your case, and the DGSI’s on it. There was a delay in wiping the servers because of vacations in August. It can happen. But they did it at the end of last week. Your policy exists only as it is written. The investigative materials and notes are gone forever.”
Armand looked back at the palatial house. “You don’t live here, do you. I mean, it isn’t yours.”
“How did you know?”
“By accident. We’re fixing up our farm, and I’ve been there since late July. There are a lot of old magazines lying around, and in one of them was an interview with Shymanski after he was accused of bribery. They didn’t show the outside of the house or say where it was, but I recognized the study where you received me, and the painting. It’s his house, isn’t it?”
“Now it’s his sons’, and they’re selling it.”
“So you have to move. But you’re not going to move, are you?”
“No.”
“This is your last stop, and where I come in.”
The fate of Cathérine and Luc now depended on a rotund blond farmer from Normandy, whom Jules hardly knew.
At times of stress and danger, the truth always shone out to Jules, which was partly why he had never quite succeeded in the world. Truth had always been more alluring than success. “Yes,” he confirmed. “This is my last stop, and it is where you come in. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going back to Normandy, to work my farm.”
Amina