The Switch

16:40

  The greasy features of Monsieur Briac loom into view.

  Lily shrinks into the cluttered shelves of the small interview room. She holds her head, hearing Madame Briac apologising again. ‘It is time to explain,’ the lady says, scooping her arms over Lily’s shoulders.

  A uniformed police officer enters with orange juice, biscuits and an armful of official papers, which he delivers to the table. Monsieur Briac raises his hand and the officer leaves.

  Lily turns to Madame Briac, feeling her cheeks shallowing as she attempts to form words. Saliva blocks her speech.

  Madame Briac saves her. ‘You fainted at the end of the bridge and you are in shock. Don’t feel you have to say anything. There is no hurry.’

  Lily stares. ‘How long have I been here?’ she asks.

  ‘Ten minutes. The nurse has been here. Madame Briac says. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Better,’ Lily replies. She reaches to her legs. Her ankle twinges and her thighs ache from running. That is all. ‘Yeah, I’m OK.’

  ‘Jean?’ Madame Briac says.

  Monsieur Briac steps forward. Her fingers feel weighty as he clasps them. His hand is uncomfortably warm.

  ‘My husband Monsieur Briac is in charge of drugs investigations at the Commissariat,’ Madame Briac says.

  Lily swallows, scouring the man’s eyes. She manages a shortened, ‘Monsieur.’

  He offers a smirk and invites her to relax; his English is perfect. He surprises her again.

  ‘You saw me. After the car crash?’ he says.

  He knows she saw him, she’s certain. He crossed the road to the apartment, climbed the stairs.

  ‘Yes,’ she replies.

  He takes a chewed biro from the top pocket of his jacket. ‘The crash. I think I should make things clear.’ He gives her a glass of juice. ‘

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  ‘Jean, I want to start from the beginning,’ Madame Briac says, checking to see if Lily is amenable.

  Lily says, ‘I can listen and talk.’

  Madame Briac’s mouth wrinkles. ‘In the car, when the mobile rang I should have been more attentive than to leave you behind.’

  Lily pouts. ‘No one could have known.’

  ‘All the same,’ Madame Briac says. ‘Monsieur Briac’s telephone call should have been a warning to me.’

  Lily recalls Marc-Olivier’s blood-covered face sliding over the pavement.

  ‘I picked Marc up in town and brought him to the Rue de la Bastille,’ Monsieur Briac says.

  ‘I saw. It was dramatic.’ Lily replies, with a display of sarcasm.

  ‘Marc wasn’t in a good way after his interview here at the Commissariat. I took his keys and drove the car. I wanted time with him and Thierry at the apartment. Alone.’ Monsieur Briac wipes his face with his arm. ‘The boy pulled at the wheel. It slipped from my hands. The car hit the kerb. He came off the worst.’ He peers at her. ‘I think this is what you want to know about what happened earlier.’

  Is this all he is going to say?

  She inhales his garlic wheezing as he scribbles something in the dossier. The crash scene tears into her thoughts.

  ‘Is he OK?’ is all she can say.

  ‘He breathes,’ Monsieur Briac replies. ‘The boy makes friends in the wrong places. Makes the wrong choices. He will learn.’

  ‘You left him on the ground.’

  ‘I called the ambulance.’

  She remembered Monsieur Briac’s stance. ‘Oui,’ she says.

  ‘I left him to recover,’ he adds.

  Lily’s strength and courage grows with the progressive ticking of the wall clock. ‘When you saw me—’

  ‘I saw Raymond Claude first,’ he says

  ‘Raymond Claude . . . related to Madame Claude?’

  ‘Yes,’ answers Madame Briac.

  ‘The dragon lives on the ground floor of the block,’ Monsieur Briac says.

  Lily shakes. ‘I know that. I didn’t know the connection.’

  Madame Briac says. ‘She doesn’t have much to do with Raymond.’

  ‘He uses her,’ Monsieur Briac says. ‘But still she’ll do everything to cover up the truth. Especially if it involves her grandsons.’

  Madame Briac delivers him a look of disapproval.

  ‘Claude was aiming a gun from the window,’ Monsieur Briac says.

  ‘He was hiding, waiting in the block . . . for you?’ Lily asks.

  ‘Not for me,’ Monsieur Briac says.

  ‘Madame Briac runs her painted nails over her mouth. ‘Thierry,’ she says.

  ‘Claude tried to force his way into the apartment after that,’ Lily says.

  ‘I couldn’t stop him,’ Monsieur Briac says. ‘He took his chance.’

  ‘To get to the film on the memory card?’

  Madame Briac and her husband exchange a charged glance.

  ‘Lily, tell us what you know about the incident,’ Madame Briac says. ‘What you saw from the apartment. Where you went. And about the memory card.’

  Minutes pass before Lily feels she can speak. She is afraid to look at Monsieur Briac and keeps her eyes on Madame Briac.

  ‘I saw the crash at the Bar Tabac from Pascale’s bedroom window, as Monsieur Briac described. Monsieur Briac held a gun. I saw him rush into the block. Someone, Claude, hit at the door. I ran to hide in the bathroom. When I was able to move my legs, I fled to the fire escape.’

  Madame Briac’s attention is unwavering.

  ‘I took the path to the bridge. Claude followed, but not as far.’

  ‘You found Thierry,’ Madame Briac says.

  ‘Yes, he must have been in the apartment all along. He ran past me on the footpath and I caught up with him on the bridge. He made me get on a bus. He said we were coming here.’

  ‘You know that?’ Monsieur Briac says.

  ‘It’s what he said.’ Lily takes herself back from the table.

  Monsieur Briac clears his throat. ‘Words, that is all.’

  She is not fazed by the remark. ‘Thierry cracked when I spoke of the boy Didier. He made me get off the bus at the Gare du Nord. Monsieur Claude must have caught up with us. He came into the station building.’

  A hiss from outside eats into Lily’s ears. She watches the change in Madame Briac’s face. The woman’s high cheekbones appear to sink and her plumped cheeks sallow.

  ‘This is Claude. To confirm,’ Monsieur Briac says. He holds up a photocopied sheet of A4.

  Lily cradles her face in her hands. ‘Raymond Claude . . . yes.’

  The overhead fan zips into the stillness.

  ‘Claude followed me to the Eiffel Tower. I made a mistake with the lift, and when I reached the first platform he was waiting. He forced me onto the stairs but I escaped to get here, to the Commissariat.’ Lily reaches into her back pocket and produces Kazumi’s business card. ‘This lady helped me after I got off the bus. She may have seen something.’

  ‘So we’ll contact her,’ Monsieur Briac says.

  ‘Can we go back to the Gare du Nord for a moment?’ Madame Briac asks.

  Lily fights to sequence events.

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  ‘You stayed with Thierry at the Gare for how long?’ Monsieur Briac asks.

  ‘About five minutes. He became confused, threatening. I ran and Claude followed. I was in another bus for the Eiffel Tower . . . the 42? I don’t know what happened to Thierry.’

  Monsieur Briac displays indifference.

  ‘Thierry is always our son,’ Madame Briac says. ‘But we know he is mixed up in trouble.’

  ‘I saw you there also,’ Lily says to Monsieur Briac, accusingly. ‘At the Gare du Nord.’

  The adrenalin hits. Impassioned, she sits forward. ‘Whatever Thierry has done, drugs, anything else – he said he was coming to the police. Didn’t he tell you? He wanted to hand over the memory card.’

  Monsieur Briac tosses down his pen.

  ‘You aren’t able to give this card to us yourself??
?? Madame Briac says.

  Lily shakes her head. ‘I don’t have the camera.’

  ‘It’s in the equipment? Monsieur Briac asks.

  ‘I don’t know. I had the camera with me but I lost everything outside the apartment . . .’ She feels the weakening of her vocal chords. ‘It could be anywhere in the rough ground on the path to the bridge. I don’t know if Thierry collected it.’

  ‘I’ll send someone to look,’ Madame Briac says, picking up an internal telephone.

  It’s nearly five o’clock and Lily watches the flicker of Monsieur Briac’s eyelid. ‘I need to understand what’s going on,’ she says. ‘

  Madame Briac’s piercing eyes almost meet. Her frown is prolonged.

  ‘OK,’ she says. ‘We suspect Marc-Olivier is mixed up with the group experimenting with drugs at the school. We believe Raymond Claude is the supplier. On Monday they were at the Bar Tabac: Claude, Marc-Olivier, we think, Claude’s sons Luc and Didier, and others. We now know Thierry was in the back kitchen with Luc. Out front things became heated. An argument about money. It accelerated.’

  ‘And most of them got away before the police arrived?’ Lily questions.

  Monsieur Briac stays quiet, watching Lily, returning his attention to his notes. Lily recognises the handwriting of the officer who had visited Camille’s house the previous day.

  ‘Thierry was injured,’ Lily says to Monsieur Briac. ‘Did you not see when you arrived?’

  ‘He also left through the back door, a little earlier.’

  ‘Unfortunate,’ she mutters.

  ‘Yes,’ he replies, gruffly. ‘I did not know he was in the building.’

  Lily calms. ‘The ambulance arrived for Thierry. I stood on the stairs watching and I heard a gunshot . . . the one that hit Didier?’

  Monsieur Briac grinds his teeth. ‘The gunshot,’ he repeats. He looks up, directing his gaze out of the small window. He goes to lift it open further. ‘Marc-Olivier thinks he fired the gun,’ he says. His back remains turned.

  ‘Oh God,’ Lily says. ‘It explains everything about Marc’s manner.’

  Monsieur Briac almost chokes in amusement, falling into the room towards her. ‘Easily more than one gun in the room.’

  She blinks repeatedly. ‘Are you saying he isn’t responsible?’

  ‘It may be that I’m saying he deserves to be. And Thierry for covering for him afterwards.’

  ‘Marc-Olivier didn’t make the shot?’

  Madame Briac shakes her head. ‘It’s not what happened.’ Her husband’s candour visibly anguishes her and she bends to massage Lily’s hand with her own. ‘The sad fact is Didier moved at the wrong moment,’ she says. ‘Vraiment tragique.’

  ‘And for this tragic reason, and a host of others, Claude seeks his revenge. It is why we have to find the drunken man. Don’t think we’re not trying!’ Monsieur Briac fires back before hurling his biro to the table and marching past to slam his hand on the doorplate.

  He leaves behind a trail of angst. The door yelps on its hinges.

  Madame Briac releases Lily’s hand. ‘I think we need to move on,’ she says with visible resolve. ‘There is too much history here.’

  The female police officer re-enters the room. ‘On a trouvé Mireille,’ she announces.

  ‘Mireille?’ Lily mutters.

  The urgency in the officer’s voice travels. ‘We’re in contact with Mademoiselle Chandris. She is at the Eiffel Tower.’

  The officer steps back against the interview room door, leaving the way for someone new to come in.