you will take personal charge of finding her.”
Yippee, brilliant: she’s just using me as a punching bag. I wait for Deucené to tell me the name of the agent who will take over the case. I’ve never done missing persons, no experience. But he turns to me.
“You’re already familiar with the file.”
The client approves, she’s smiling again now. The boss gives me a conspiratorial wink. He looks relieved, pathetic jerk.
AN INSECT CRAWLS along the top pane of the window in the broom cupboard I have to use as an office. It has huge antennae.
I take out my card index. I don’t store much on my computer. If I’m shot dead tomorrow and they come and search through my things, and find my notes, they’ll probably think I’ve invented a system of coded language that makes Enigma look like child’s play. The truth is that when I try to read it over myself, I wonder what I meant to say. Luckily, I’ve got a good memory, and I usually end up remembering what I intended to note down, more or less. I have this set of index cards covered with weird signs, sometimes mathematical (as if I know anything about algebra).
SINCE I’VE BEEN working here, I’ve got really fed up with being assigned these teenagers. A kid can’t smoke a joint in peace without me personally being right up behind him. The first year, I never had to follow anyone under fifteen. Nowadays, it doesn’t surprise me to be asked to work in the primary-school sector. The life of their children belongs to adults of my generation, who don’t want to let their youth get away from them twice. I can’t exactly say I hate what I’m doing, but fixing little kids’ cell phones is neither glorious nor exciting. I ought to be feeling pleased at getting a bit of variety in my work, except that I haven’t the faintest idea what I should do. Deucené dismissed me from his office without asking me if I needed any help.
I try typing in Valentine Galtan’s name on the Internet. And draw a blank. No surprises there. She’s the first kid I’ve been tailing that I’ve never seen send a text message. And yet, even youngsters high on crack take the time to post a video of themselves looking totally spaced out on YouTube.
Her father, François Galtan, is a novelist. I met him briefly the day the grandmother came to hire us. He didn’t say a word throughout the conversation. His Wikipedia page is typical of those insecure people who write their own entry—any sense of decency’s gone out of the window. Who he sat next to at school, where he went to school, what books influenced him, what the weather was like the day he wrote his first poem, his super-important lectures in improbable seminars, and so on. In the photos accompanying the articles devoted to him, you can see he’s very proud of not going bald, his hair’s combed back in a great wavy mane. I suppose the first thing I should do is contact him.
Valentine’s mother abandoned the child soon after her birth. The family claims to have no idea where she could be today. I’ll have to find her, of course. The scale of the task overwhelms me. I consider resigning. But it would be better if they sacked me for incompetence, if I want to claim unemployment benefits. I’ve reached the stage of wondering whether I should look again at the TV shows about private investigators that used to make us laugh so much, to get some inspiration, when Jean-Marc knocks at my door—I know it’s him without seeing him, he bends two fingers and taps the panel gently, his way of flexing his wrist is elegant, sexy. He puts his head around the door to see if I’m alone, then goes over to the window looking on to the street. I make some coffee. He hums “J’aime tes genoux,” a Henry Salvador song, keeping time with his shoulders and hips, not bothering to take his hands out of his pockets. He’s tall, thin, but strong-looking, with a powerful frame and a way of standing up straight, occupying a lot of space. His features are irregular, he has deepset eyes, a rather thick nose, and a bulging brow. The kind of craggy face girls often like, but the ones it really turns on are his male colleagues. They think he’s a god. Jean-Marc is the only one on the team who dresses well. The rest of us look like sales reps from the suburbs. We’re not doing a job where it pays to look conspicuous. He always wears a black tie and an impeccably white shirt, and tells anyone who’ll listen that by not wearing ties, men have lost their virility. Stop wearing a suit, according to him, and you stop representing the law. He rarely visits me, unless he needs to contact some kid who might be useful to him. I have a helpful network of youngsters willing to run errands on the cheap. Today he’s come to see me because I’ve been given this difficult case. Agathe must have filled him in. From her desk, she can hear and follow everything that goes on in the boss’s office. The Reldanch Agency premises are a former blood-testing lab, and the walls haven’t been soundproofed. I’d like it if Jean-Marc were to suggest working together with me on this inquiry. But he thinks I can handle it on my own.
“Where are you going to start?”
“That’s just what I’m wondering. This kid is half-crazy. I’ve no idea what’s happened to her. And the grandmother is so scary that I can’t lean on her about it. Honestly, I don’t know. Her biological mother, I suppose.”
He looks at me without saying anything. I think he is waiting for me to outline my plan of attack.
I ask, “You’ve done missing persons, haven’t you? Aren’t you sometimes afraid you’ll find something grim?” I’m trying to sound casual, but just pronouncing these words opens up a hollow in my chest. I hadn’t realized how scared I was.
“Well, five thousand euros reward, what can I say? I don’t ask myself if I’m afraid of what I’ll find, I ask myself how I’m going to track down this kid. If you can’t see how to handle it yourself, just delegate. Everyone else does. You can share the bonus. Do you need some contacts?”
“I thought about that. I’m going to make an offer to the Hyena. She knows the ropes.”
It’s the first name that comes into my head that might impress him. I let it drop in the tone of voice of a girl who calls up the Hyena every time she loses her house keys. It’s true that I know this guy who knows her, but actually, I’ve never set eyes on her.
Jean-Marc utters a slightly choked laugh. He doesn’t look anxious and concerned anymore, he looks distant. The Hyena has a reputation. Declaring I could work with her is tantamount to saying I have clandestine activities. I’m already regretting the lie, but I go ahead with my yarn.
“I often meet people in this bar where she hangs out. The bartender’s a pal of mine, and he’s a big friend of hers.”
“So one way or another, you’ve got to know her.”
I don’t answer. Jean-Marc blows on his coffee then says, thoughtfully, “You know, Lucie, it’s just a matter of luck and perseverance. It may look impossible at first, but somehow or other a lead opens up, and then it’s just a matter of sweating it out.”
I agree, as if I could see what he means.
Jean-Marc has long been the star of our outfit, not just because he composes his reports in such a dazzling style that even when he fails on a case, by the time you reach the end you would think he had succeeded. He was the right-hand man of our old boss, and everyone thought he’d become the official number two, and go off to direct a big branch. Then Deucené was appointed director, and Jean-Marc made him ill at ease. Too tall, probably.
Jean-Marc closes the door quietly behind him. I look for the index card for Cro-Mag. I’ll call him when I go down to lunch in a while. I don’t trust the phone lines in the office, they’re all tapped, although I can’t think who’d have the time to listen to our conversations. It’s a professional reflex, I only use my phone to text birthday greetings and I avoid sending emails altogether. I know what they can cost you if there’s an inquiry or a lawsuit. And I know they can be hacked by anyone who’s nosy. I still often send letters by snail mail. To guess the contents of an envelope is a skill most agents don’t have nowadays. I’ve never had anything important to conceal, but in this job you develop a degree of paranoia.
CRO-MAG DOESN’T burst out laughing when I tell him I want to contact the Hyena. I’m grateful to him for that. He tells me to call back later. I head for Valentine’s school, to have a coffee in the