End of conversation with M. Brun. M. Sarla leaves the Brasserie and goes into the Métro station.
1205 hrs:
M. Sarla comes out of the Métro at Brochant and goes into the Cercle Batignolles, a gaming establishment located at 145 Rue Brochant. This is a club governed by the 1951 law, so only proposed members have access to the card and roulette gaming rooms. The surveillance continued from the billiard hall adjoining the gaming rooms.
1330 hrs:
Brief reappearance of M. Sarla wearing a jacket and tie clearly leant to him by the establishment. He visits the toilets and goes back to the gaming room. From information gathered, it can only have been in the room used by poker players.
1550 hrs:
M. Sarla leaves the club, alone.
1555 hrs:
M. Sarla goes into the Brochant Métro station.
1605 hrs:
M. Sarla comes out of the Métro at Place-de-Clichy and heads for the Rue Blanche.
1610 hrs:
M. Sarla goes into a municipal crèche at 57 Rue Blanche.
1625 hrs:
M. Sarla comes out of the crèche carrying a baby. He takes a pushchair from a shed and puts the baby into the pushchair. He leaves.
1630 hrs:
M. Sarla pushes the pushchair towards the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette to the Saint-Georges bus stop for the No. 74 bus. He waits.
1635 hrs:
The bus arrives. A young woman gets off the bus and comes to meet M. Sarla. She appears to be 20–25, is wearing a short skirt and a Perfecto-style leather jacket. She kisses M. Sarla on the lips and picks up the baby in a motherly way.
1655 hrs:
M. Sarla leaves the young woman and the baby, and walks back up the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, then the Rue Fontaine and stops at a shop selling tailor-made fur and leather garments at 17 Rue Duperré. He tries on a very long sort of tunic in beige leather with black embroidery; the tailor adjusts the sleeves (which are very wide, bat-wing style), asking M. Sarla to try the tunic on several more times.
1720 hrs:
M. Sarla comes out of the shop and goes into the Pigalle Métro station.
1745 hrs:
M. Sarla comes out of the Métro at Sentier and heads for the corner of the Rue Réaumur and the Rue Saint-Denis.
1750 hrs:
M. Sarla waits at the street corner.
1755 hrs:
A prostitute (aged 40–45) comes to meet M. Sarla. They speak for a while, then step into the porch of 148b Rue Saint-Denis and enter the dilapidated building. From information gathered, the prostitute is known by the name Gisèle and works mainly on the Rue Saint-Denis.
1945 hrs:
M. Sarla and the said Gisèle come back out of the building and part company. It is important to point out that part of the prostitute’s face is swollen (signs of blows, bruising), she has clearly been crying and still has a handkerchief in her hand.
As she goes back to her usual work area, M. Sarla walks towards the Porte Saint-Denis and goes into the Strasbourg-Saint-Denis Métro station.
2005 hrs:
M. Sarla arrives at the Place Vendôme and goes into the Alibert restaurant on the Rue de Castiglione. This being a top gourmet restaurant, all tables must be reserved in advance; the surveillance continues from outside, in the Café Balto opposite.
2305 hrs:
M. Sarla comes back out of the restaurant with two men, both in their fifties and well dressed. They talk for a few minutes then both men get into chauffeur-driven cars, a Mercedes registration 450 CZH 06 and a Safrane registration 664 DKJ 13. The man getting into the latter invites M. Sarla to join him. He refuses.
2310 hrs:
M. Sarla leaves the Rue de Castiglione.
2350 hrs:
M. Sarla has walked home to 24 Cité Germain-Pilon.
2355 hrs:
The surveillance equipment is kept in place outside 24 Cité Germain-Pilon.
Paul was waiting for the exact moment before she turned the page.
“I felt I should stay there, even if it meant spending the whole night there. Bearing in mind what he had done so far, I thought he might have nocturnal activities. And I was right.”
The pink had drained from Brigitte’s cheeks, leaving them much paler.
SURVEILLANCE REPORT
Purpose: Surveillance of M. Thierry BLIN, known as Franck SARLA (and hereinafter called by that name), on Tuesday, 29 May, starting at his home at 24 Cité Germain-Pilon, 75018 Paris.
0240 hrs:
M. Sarla leaves his home in the same clothes he was wearing the day before. He sets off down the Boulevard de Clichy.
0300 hrs:
M. Sarla parks outside the disused cinema, Le Royal, on the corner of the Rue du Delta and the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière. He rings a bell outside the sliding metal shutter, and waits. He repeats this procedure several times and shows signs of impatience.
0310 hrs:
An elderly man opens the inside door of the cinema, then the metal shutter, and lets M. Sarla in.
0540 hrs:
M. Sarla comes out of the cinema with four women, aged between 25 and 40, smartly dressed and very made up. They wait on the doorstep in silence.
0545 hrs:
Three taxis stop level with them. M. Sarla sees all the women into the taxis. They shake hands. The taxis leave. M. Sarla goes down the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière while making a number of different calls on his mobile.
0615 hrs:
M. Sarla goes into the Holiday Inn hotel on the Boulevard des Italiens. From information gathered from the concierge, M. Sarla took a room, alone, and asked to be woken at 1430 hrs.
1510 hrs:
M. Sarla comes out of the Holiday Inn and goes up the Boulevard des Italiens. He stops at the Deville & Charron chocolate shop to buy some sarments à l’orange, which he eats as he heads back towards Place de l’Opéra.
“Those were his favourites!”
Moved, Brigitte smiled.
“Sometimes he would do a detour of three arrondissements to go to Deville & Charron to buy them. The best in Paris, according to him.”
She sighed and went back to her reading. Paul, still leaning against the window, waited patiently.
1535 hrs:
M. Sarla goes into the FNAC store. On the books floor he spends most of his time in the “Esoterica” department.
1550 hrs:
He comes back out having bought several books including: Rémy Grangier’s A History of Sects, Carina Lorajna’s A Guru for Life and Mark Selmer’s Forbidden Minds.
“Monsieur Vermeiren . . . Do you think there’s some connection with the extraordinary tunic he tried on at the tailor?”
“There’s no way of knowing.”
1555 hrs:
M. Sarla goes into the Café Marivaux opposite the shop. He sits at a table and orders a croque-monsieur and a glass of beer.
1620 hrs:
As he eats he looks at the books he has bought.
1630 hrs:
He receives a phone call, speaks for a moment, ends the call and asks for the bill.
1635 hrs:
M. Sarla comes out of the café and walks to a workshop which does alterations (but has no sign) situated at 61 Rue Bachaumont. He speaks to the owner. They are alone.
1655 hrs:
A police van stops outside the workshop. Three uniformed officers – two men and a woman – get out and go into the workshop. They are greeted enthusiastically by the man and M. Sarla. They engage in conversation while the man goes into the adjacent café, La Chope, and comes back out with a teapot and some cups.
1700 hrs:
The three police officers, M. Sarla and the man from the workshop have a cup of tea.
1710 hrs:
The officers leave and get back into the van. M. Sarla stays in the workshop a little longer.
1720 hrs:
M. Sarla comes out of the workshop. He makes for the Rue Saint-Denis by cutting along the Rue Saint-Sauveur.
1730 h
rs:
He stops on the corner of the Rue Réaumur and the Rue Saint-Denis, and waits.
1755 hrs:
The aforementioned Gisèle comes to meet M. Sarla.
They go to the Surcouf café-tabac on the corner of the Rue Réaumur and the Rue de Palestro.
1800 hrs:
They sit at a table with a glass of beer each and talk. M. Sarla has his hand on Gisèle’s knee.
1810 hrs:
They part on the doorstep of the café-tabac. M. Sarla catches the Métro at Strasbourg-Saint-Denis.
1830 hrs:
M. Sarla comes out of the Métro at Bastille and heads for the Faubourg-Saint-Antoine. He goes into a furniture shop called Alain Affaires situated at number 51. He meets the young woman in the Perfecto jacket to whom he handed over the baby in the pushchair the day before. The young woman has her child with her, and M. Sarla picks the child up and kisses it.
1835 hrs:
M. Sarla and the young woman walk round the shop accompanied by a salesman. They seem to settle on a rustic-style wooden wardrobe, and a foldaway double bed. M. Sarla sits down to place the order and to write a cheque.
1855 hrs:
The Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine is very busy, and M. Sarla, with the woman with the pushchair, is trying to find a taxi.
1910 hrs:
M. Sarla puts the pushchair into a taxi, kisses the young woman and the child, and walks back up the Faubourg-Saint-Antoine. He goes into the Bastille Métro station.
1935 hrs:
M. Sarla comes out of the Abbesses Métro station and goes to the Le Poussah hostess bar on the Rue d’Orchampt. The surveillance continues from outside the bar.
2245 hrs:
M. Sarla comes out of the bar and goes back towards the Place des Abbesses.
2250 hrs:
M. Sarla stops when he reaches the square and turns back the way he has come. He comes over to his tail, whom he has spotted, and – without a word – drags him into the small lawned area in the middle, which is completely deserted. The tail is struck violently on the back of the neck and loses consciousness.
“. . . He hit you?!”
Paul turned away. The bandaging on his face was the best answer. “I’d been following him for too long.”
“. . . And what happened to you?!”
“Read on.”
Approximately 2330 hrs: The tail regains consciousness in a very damp, bare cellar. His hands are tied behind his back. Franck Sarla is facing him, they are alone. He destroys the film containing the photos taken that day and the day before, then he tries to get the tail to admit how long he has been following him and who hired him. When the tail resists his interrogations, M. Sarla beats him violently about the face.
Approximately 2345 hrs: The tail gives the name Brigitte REYNOUARD to M. Sarla.
“. . . How did he react?”
“When I said your name? He seemed very surprised. He was expecting it to be any number of other names, but not yours. I’m sure you’ll understand that, given the situation, I didn’t ask who the others were.”
Approximately 2350 hrs: After a long silence, M. Sarla leaves the room.
Approximately 0010 hrs: Wednesday, 30 May: M. Sarla reappears with a pad of paper and a pen. He starts to write a letter.
Approximately 0030 hrs: M. Sarla puts the letter in an envelope and asks the tail to give it to Brigitte Reynouard, then he lets him go. The tail goes up a flight of stairs and finds himself in the central courtyard of a dilapidated building on the Rue Véron. From information gathered, the cellar belongs to the jointly owned apartment building and is not used by them. M. Sarla’s name does not appear anywhere in connection with it.
0040 hrs: M. Sarla leaves in the direction of the Rue Lepic.
Holding the sheets of paper limply in her hands, with her arms hanging by her sides and a faraway look in her eye, Brigitte let a tear roll down her cheek. Paul lit another cigarette and put the pack in his drawer. There was something delicious about every drag of it.
“. . . He’s a monster . . . this man’s a monster!”
“He threatened me if I didn’t stop tailing him straight away. I don’t need to tell you that I took his threats seriously. I didn’t know Thierry Blin well, but I can tell you, Franck Sarla has enough influence to get rid of whoever he likes. Personally, I wouldn’t take it any further.”
“. . . And the letter?”
He opened a little drawer in his desk, took out an envelope and handed it to Brigitte.
“Would you like me to leave you alone?”
“No, please stay, Paul.”
Mademoiselle,
It seems such a long time . . . such a long time since that makeshift little office in the corner of the workshop. You knew how to be part of the furniture, forgotten even. Perhaps too much so. You could have lived this affair instead of dreaming about it, who knows? We were never lovers, try to convince yourself of that instead of convincing the rest of the world we were. You were the opposite of a mistress, you were my confidante. You were the woman I could tell everything, even my heartaches and salacious jokes. I liked the thought of talking to a woman about another woman. But you were never the one I talked about. We will never be lovers. Thierry Blin is dead, leave him in peace, and forget him, even the memory of him. The man I am now doesn’t have much left in common with the man you knew. It’s a shame you felt you needed that detective on my tail to realize that. Do you remember the day when you asked me where I was on a scale of one to twenty in relation to McEnroe? I’m now at twenty on the scale of my own life and I don’t want any other, however strange and wrong it may be. I don’t know where it will take me, but it’s what my life is now. Blin used to cheat. I don’t cheat.
I’ve destroyed all the photos taken by your investigater, I don’t want you to know what my new face looks like. Don’t ask him about it, in your own interests and his. Leave me in peace. Don’t try to find me again, Mademoiselle, I’m too good at taking advantage of women, I’d turn you into something that was no longer you.
With your salary, you can’t afford this M. Vermeiren’s services. I have paid him, and he shouldn’t ask you for any more. Try to be happy, Brigitte, you deserve to be. If there’s one person in the world who deserves to stay the way they are, then it’s you.
Never turn into someone else.
FS
It had not been easy going back to Blin’s cramped and barely legible writing. Brigitte was one of the few people who could make sense of it. She had had to be, after hours spent deciphering his accounts, his notes, all the scribblings in that workshop. Nowadays, Paul Vermeiren’s handwriting was more rounded, more fluid, smoother. Just another form of gymnastics.
“I’m so sorry, Paul,” she said, holding back her tears.
“Would you like a cup of coffee? Something hot? or a little glass of brandy? I must have some for emergencies.”
She did not reply. He went to prepare some tea and left her to stew in silence. Something told him that Franck Sarla would not be haunting Brigitte’s memory for long.
He handed her a cup of scalding hot tea, and she came out of her daze.
“Salacious jokes . . . That was what he used to say. ‘A little salacious joke, Mademoiselle?’ I hated them but I would listen, and sometimes I’d smile just to please him. ‘This is the sort of thing I can’t tell Nadine.’ It’s all in this letter, the way he repeated himself, his spelling mistakes, even the word ‘makeshift’, which he used to use all over the place. There’s so much of him in this letter . . .”
After a moment’s silence she picked a lighter up from the desk and lit the corner of the letter. They watched in silence as it burned, until the ashes scattered.
“Do I owe you anything?”
“Sarla gave me enough to cover my charges and the bandaging.”
“And there I was thinking I knew him better than anyone else . . .”
Paul Vermeiren had spent the whole night typing out the report. With the first light of
dawn, Franck Sarla had started to exist. Paul could hear him starting up the stairs, ready to come and punch his face in if he did not stop referring to him.
“Could you destroy the report too?” she said. “The fewer traces of this bastard there are, the better it’ll be. Thank you for everything you’ve done. I’ve got my answers at last. Everything will get better now.”
She headed for the door very quickly.
“Goodbye, Monsieur Vermeiren.”
“Brigitte . . . I wondered . . .”
“Yes?”
“I was going to suggest we could meet again when all these ghosts have disappeared.”
She smiled again. Surprised and probably slightly flattered.
“There’s something about you that I like, Paul. I would even say that I’m drawn to . . . something I can’t put my finger on . . . But you live in a world of Franck Sarlas. There’s too much violence in that world. Thierry was from my world. You’re not. I’m so sorry . . .”
She put her arms round Vermeiren and kissed him as if saying goodbye to a friend.
“Goodbye, Paul,” she said with a nod of her head to emphasize the finality.
She disappeared into the stairwell.
He went back into his office, picked up the Sarla file and burned it.
The Other
Since he had discovered that, in Russian, vodka meant “little water”, Nicolas could see no reason why he should not have it in the morning. When he woke he would get out of bed and drink a cold beer in the kitchen, then he would go back to bed with an iced vodka in his hand, and he would sip at that until he was fully awake. His despair no longer had time to set in; he had sworn that he would never let it gain control again.