nspector 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 Hôtel 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 Rhéaume. 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.