The long walk gave me time to think. It looked like I was through as a cop. Suspended from the force. Under investigation for corruption. Even if I got off on that charge, the slime would stick to me.

There is not much of the macabre in this story, very little of the rude or violent. The mystery was mostly imaginary, a case of mistaken identities. But it was pivotal and bears telling. It happened in the second part of my life, when I was thirty-five. We were into the 90's and the world was changing. France was trying to, but it has always had such a reputation to uphold.

I'm from the west but I worked in the east, in a city on the Rhine. It was mid-sized and dull: museums dedicated to cars, fabrics, the railway and wallpaper -- of all things. These places, however, reflected an ongoing prosperity down through the years and in those days auto manufacture, heavy machinery, chemicals and fertilizer served to keep most people working. Before being French, it had been part of the Swiss Calvinist enclave...a mural depicting the Virtues, on the terra cotta facade over the door to City Hall, bore witness to the pervading moral fibre. After that it was mainly a history of being traded back and forth between France and Germany (the place had been occupied and severely battered during the last war) and one could hear this heritage at every corner, where the Alsatian dialect paid unfelt homage to the erstwhile conquerors across the Rhine. I picked up a bit of it, but usually stuck to proper French. A civil servant ought to.

The offices of the Police Judiciaire were on the third (properly called Second) floor of a time-stained building in rue Des Bon Enfants in the heart of the old quarter. A pair of neo-classical columns guarded the door. One walked up eight wide stone steps to enter. The ground floor (back down again, but not quite to basement level) housed a small morgue; the "shop" where our two technicians known as the IJ or Identité Judiciaire kept their cameras, dusting materials and other devices for gathering physical evidence; a row of detention cells that were quiet and lonely; and a murky garage where two overworked mechanics called Joel and Paul did their best. Main and First floors belonged to the Urban Police: your basic police station, often a busy, clattery place. SU (Sureté Urbaine), headed by Commissaire Duque, handled the more or less straight-forward crimes: B&E's, hit and run's, hookers, petty drugs, people beating and sometimes even killing each other inside the home. If the robbery, abandoned pedestrian, purchased sex, drug deal or murder had wrinkles that could not readily be smoothed, the case was sent upstairs to a less hectic domain where our cadre of eleven PJ investigators also called the Criminal Brigade specialized in the full range of modern crime that ran from art theft to drug conspiracy, organized gangs to white collar fraud, and those violent crimes which tended toward terrorism. Mine was a corner office overlooking the cobblestone quadrangle. It was nothing special when it came to views, the quad having more or less completed its devolution from stately courtyard to trashy parking lot; but it got the sun at the end of the day, affording a richer quality of light which I have always enjoyed. In a pot on the file cabinet was a shamrock, in the process of flowering on the day this thing started; and on the walls my framed poster of a sweaty Johnny Hallyday playing outdoors in front of the Acadian fresco in Nantes, as well as two photos of that city's port. (Nantes being my home town).

I was preparing my report. I won't say I'm proud of it because there are lots who say it's a neurosis, but I have always been the intent and organized type when it comes to keeping track. I kept a jar of pencils on the corner of my desk, each of them absolutely sharp. I was reaching for one when there came a knock. "Oui...?"

The door opened, revealing Louis Moreau, my Commissaire, coming to present me with another file. He was accompanied by one of my lesser-known colleagues, a gangly man prone to shaving rash named Claude Néon who spent most of his time with the anti-gangs group, bearing a whole stack of files. The boss stepped forward with that tight smile of his, and dropped a face on my desk: roughly shaven, double-chinned, clearly heading toward middle age...but with a jaunty, smirking attitude that made one notice. It was the face of Jacques Normand, stuck front and centre on a yellowed Wanted poster. I was not sure if reputations lapsed like driver's permits and love affairs, but I did recall the faded smile of France's former Public Enemy Number One.

"You know this man, of course..."

Yes, yes, I knew Jacques Normand; anyone old enough to vote would have at least some acquaintance with the man. I had grown up hearing his name at my parents' dining room table. The less credible papers out of Paris had taken delight in splashing his brutal exploits all over their Sunday editions. Seeing him there at my finger tips made me remember the puzzling mixture of horror and adulation those stories brought forth from everyone including my parents and so many of the boys I had thought I liked...always odd the way my love could change just watching someone looking at a picture; because discussions of "our Jacques"-- so dubbed by the breathless journalists -- always seemed to make people shrink and become much less than they were. What was there to admire? The man was breaking the law and hurting people. But by the time I got to the Police Academy, le grand Jaki Normand had long since disappeared. Into Spain, perhaps, or back to Canada, where he had done some time, or maybe to hell, which must be where Public Enemies go after they leave this earth. Although there remained a few die-hard scribes who insisted on beating a dead horse, I had assumed as I began my career -- if, indeed, I ever thought about it at allÑthat the Normand file was closed. Now here was le Commissaire, with a gleam in his eye as he handed me a picture of a ghost. "I remember him," I said, "he was a bad one."

"My dear Inspector, Jaki Normand was the worst. And the best. A remarkable man...the Carlylean great man! He affected people."

"You had dealings with him back in Paris?"

"Dealings? I had champagne!"

Champagne! That invoked an involuntary tightening. I braced myself. "Oh...really?"

"I tracked him, and put him behind bars twice. We drank together the second time I arrested him. He let me in the front door and we shared a glass together. No shooting that day; just champagne. In a perverse way Jacques Normand made my career. But he escaped again...and disappeared into the woodwork."

"Yes, he's been quiet for a long time."

"Ten years. But time is not a consideration, Inspector. Not for someone like our Jacques or myself or for you."

"Me?" Yes; he was looking at me with that fondness again.

"You, Inspector. I believe you were born to the breed. He's all yours..."

All I could do was study the Wanted poster and try not to appear too dubious. I liked Louis Moreau, and owed much to his good advice and encouragement. "Monsieur Commissaire," I ventured after a suitable silence, "I'm flattered. But what if he's dead -- or somewhere in a forest in Canada -- or...with all respect, I would never call Jacques Normand a missing person."

"And I wouldn't let you."

"...but this is not really my kind of operation. I mean to say, I was trained for--"

"You were trained for this."

Inspector Vincent Spanghero had quit the force last spring, very suddenly, then disappeared. No one, including his wife and children, had seen him since. The weeks and months leading up to that day had been tempestuous. Aliette, working through her first year at her new posting, was still a stranger. She had been aware, but from a distance. But it was no secret Vincent Spanghero had tried and apparently failed to live with the fact that Nabi Zidane, his former partner on the street, had won the top city job. The situation had been simmering for more than a year, since Nabi had moved into the corner office on the third floor at Hotel de Police. Openly bitter, Spanghero had grown stubbornly maverick. His volatile temper even erupted during instructions -- Sergio had felt the brunt of it more than once. 'It rarely had to do with the case at hand. It was simply and crudely to make a point. In giving the job to Nabi, they had made a big mistake. Vincent seized every opportunity he could to let them...us, everyone know.'

Aliette had not known Sergio then, except as a face in the hall at the Palais de Justice.

Sergio ventured that Vincent Spanghero had probably sealed the deal five months before his sudden departure, when he'd ignored a direct command from Nabi, and sent his men into a dangerous situation. One was killed -- Inspector Menaud Rh&eacuteaume. In the aftermath, Zidane and his group had tried to cope and carry on in what amounted to a failed attempt at solidarity. Politically iffy, psychologically impossible. 'But Nabi tried. Not easy... It was mainly for Spanghero, his career, if not their friendship. And Vincent tried too. For a bit. Tried to calm down. He did calm down. Got kind of silent, is what I'm hearing. Then he walks in one day last June, drops his warrant card on Nabi's desk and that's it. Gone. Totally gone.'

Was Vincent Spanghero back, wreaking revenge? The obvious evidence said yes.

'Positive forensics?'

'Not yet... Gloves. Hats. Cold out there these nights.'

'Another note?'

'Not this time. No note on or near Inspector Trop&eacuteano. Or at least none found. It's possible one of the crowd may have picked it up. Then forgot.'

'They do that.' Scattered brains filled with too many noxious things. 'But Nabi. They going to bring it to him?'

'Of course not. Nabi can't have anything to do with it now.'

'Thank you... I meant to his group?'

Sergio looked up, abashed. Sometimes he said things the wrong way, things that implied she was a junior -- and he was a judge. He smiled and adjusted his reply. 'No. Not yet.'

'So why you, then?' If it was not yet an officially assigned case.

'They're panicking. Almost. I mean, apart from Nabi's claim, there's still really nothing to build a case on. Maybe the notes. Hugues is hearing from a lot of people in Nabi's division and others who know Spanghero that the notes sound a lot like Vincent's ranting. Before he went all quiet. Even Nabi mentioned it. They figure Trop&eacuteano noticed too and went out looking. Menaud Rh&eacuteaume was Trop&eacuteano's partner. Good pals. There's really no other explanation for him.'

Aliette mused as to how that fit with Nabi's fretting over the notes the day before.

Sergio stared into his wine. 'Nabi's nightmare has resurfaced -- in spades, I'm afraid. Last spring, trying to work it out with Vincent, some people started stirring up a lot of shit. Mario B&eacutedard? Not nice, some of things Mario was starting to say.'

'Yes?'

'Political stuff. Ugly.'

'Mario can definitely do ugly.'

'But people hear him, especially now he's up there on the third at HQ.'

'Makes me glad I'm not.'

'Makes me wish you were.'

'Nabi's stronger than Mario.'

'Let's hope so... He managed to walk past it last spring. Now this.'

'If it really is Nabi's knife,' mulled Aliette.

'It is... But that is not being shared,' cautioned Sergio. 'Nor Vincent's name.'

'But Trop&eacuteano. They can't keep that -- '

'They'll announce it Monday. But it's a still a crazy street person. That's the official line. No one wants people thinking there's a rogue cop out killing people. Not good for the public's confidence. An angry cop killing his former colleagues is worse.'

'How long can they keep the lid on something like this?'

'Depends on who knows and how they feel about it.'

'Like Mario?'

'Like a lot of people.'

'But you -- what are you supposed to be doing?'

'It might not be Vincent.' Though it surely was. And Sergio Regarri was to very unofficially work with top city police investigator Hugues Monty to determine which way the thing should head before any definitive public statement was made. 'I'm supposed to be quietly talking to relevant people, establishing what we all hope and pray isn't, actually is the case. Monty will continue working on the first two victims, looking for a street-related thing. Or whatever.'

'Poor Nabi.'

'Nabi definitely has a problem. But we all do. This gets out the wrong way, the entire house could come tumbling down.'

'Yes...' Aliette poured herself the last of the wine, mulling a city police force in panicked disarray. She tried to spin a positive from Sergio's grim scenario. 'But if it's Spanghero and he's returning the knife, maybe that means he's done. It's over.'

Sergio gave his head a glum shake. 'And it's complicated because Trop&eacuteano's gun is missing.'

'No!'

'Yes.'

She got up to fetch another bottle and mulled the ramifications of that. Presenting bottle and corkscrew to Sergio, Aliette ventured, 'So maybe it isn't Spanghero. He'd have his own gun.'

Sergio confirmed, 'Vincent's service arm is unaccounted for -- like him. He quit, but he never turned in his gun.' He pulled the cork and tasted. Shrugged. Filled his glass. 'But if the knife's a gesture -- returning Nabi's gift, as you say -- so is taking Trop&eacuteano's gun. Like a warrior taking a scalp?'

She blinked. 'Nice image.'

'The more interesting question is, was Trop&eacuteano tracking Vincent? Or vice-versa?'

'Why would he target Trop&eacuteano?'

'Trop&eacuteano was on the operation that brought it to a head. He saw Vincent put his phone on a window ledge, still open, and go in with Rh&eacuteaume while Nabi was still in the process of giving orders. Total insult, not to mention blatant disregard for orders. He said as much to the enquiry, if not to the media. Rh&eacuteaume was young, next generation, like him. Trop&eacuteano couldn't wait to testify. I'm told Vincent hates Trop&eacuteano as much as he hates Nabi.'

'But the other two?' Two homeless kids.

'That's the hard part. The notes? Maybe Vincent needed some bodies to communicate his cry of pain? Didn't really matter who. Now the notes have been...noted? And it's a good cover.'

'You're saying he doesn't want to kill the whole city, just his old friends from work?'

'It's a theory.' Magistrate Regarri could be just as mordant as any street-hardened cop.

'So they may have sent him out expressly. Poor Trop&eacuteano.'

'Maybe. Though obviously not on the clock. I'll have to talk to some people about that.'

'Including Nabi.'

'Nabi most of all. But we need to let Nabi rest, get over the shock, I'm sure he'll have some things to tell us.'