The Beast of the Camargue by Xavier-Marie Bonnot Page A

pretend you didn’t know.”
    â€œFor the Ferri murders? What a prick that magistrate is. Every time there’s a hit he’s going to send us to Casetti’s!”
    â€œNo, this time it was the new boss.”
    â€œDelpiano! Good, now I feel better off on leave.”
    â€œWhat’s more, we’ve picked him up on a Friday, which means we’ll spend all weekend questioning him.”
    â€œThat triple bastard.”
    â€œAnd I wanted to see you a little!”
    One of the B.R.I. team came close, so she went out into the alley.
    â€œO.K., so what’s up? You’re going to pop the question?”
    â€œUm, no, but I’ll have to think about it …”
    â€œWe’re made for each other, Michel, but only after ten in the morning.”
    â€œI can imagine those nights of passion.”
    â€œHmmmm …”
    â€œTell me, does the name Steinert mean anything to you?”
    â€œYou never change. I talk love to you, and you talk job. Who do you mean?”
    â€œA guy who’s disappeared. I found the case interesting and …”
    â€œAnd you want me to ask around! O.K., Baron. But right now I’m going back to Casetti. Who told you that it was the Ferri murders?”
    â€œI know everything, you should know that.”
    She went back into the house. Casetti had spat conscientiously onto the blotting paper that Romero had handed him—so conscientiously that the two from the
Criminelle
realized at once that he must be in the clear. Or at least over the Ferri affair. The rest was quite another story. De Palma had always suspected him of doing jobs for the one-armed-bandit racketeers. Before running his own amusement arcade, Casetti had been a top bank robber. Not the sort who screws up and gets pulled in by the
Brigade de Répression du Banditisme
every time he fails to make ends meet. But between that and becoming a gangland trigger man lay a gulf that a magistratefresh in from Lyon was too quick to cross. The credo was to apply constant pressure on the big boys of organized crime. To dig for information constantly, whenever official procedures gave them enough leeway. The police might drag their heels, but the magistrate took himself very seriously.
    Moracchini glanced at Casetti’s daughter. She was born during his first spell out of prison. A child of the visiting room, which explained the great difference in age between her and her elder brother. The little girl had the look of a weary Madonna, despite the sparks that occasionally lit up her eyes.
    â€œIt’s half-past seven. Are you going to school soon, Marion?”
    â€œGo to school while you take my daddy to prison?”
    â€œIf it isn’t him, he’ll be home tomorrow.”
    â€œThe last time, the magistrate put him in prison anyway! For my daddy, even when it’s not him, it’s still him!”
    â€œDon’t talk to the police like that,” Casetti said. “They’re doing their job.”
    At ten o’clock that same morning, de Palma was driving slowly along Route Nationale 568, northwestward from Marseille, in heavy rain. Visibility was down to about twenty meters, which did not improve his mood.
    The thirty-year-old radio in the Alfa Romeo was crackling. De Palma took out his walkman, put on the headphones and swore when he realized that he had forgotten the box set he had bought the day before: a legendary version of the
Götterdämmerung
with Astrid Varnay and Wolfgang Windgassen, conducted by Clemens Krauss. He wanted to compare it with the ten other versions of
The Ring
he already owned.
    So now he would have to be content with reflecting on the day he was going to spend far from Marseille. That night, he had made the decision to investigate the Steinert case. It had been neither the billionaire’s wife’s money, nor his unhealthy curiosity that had clinched the decision; but rather the simple fact that this woman looked like