Inspector Bassé and the Winter Wolf

‘I thought they were sending you to South America?’ Sergeant Royer did not look up from his ledger. ‘Was the Southern hemisphere not to your liking?’

I was impressed that after ten years I was still remembered. In fact, Royer’s banter felt almost welcome.

‘I liked it well enough Sergeant,’ I said, ‘I almost married.’

Royer laughed then, a hoarse roar I was well familiar with. His moustache quivered in the middle of his ruddy face, and spittle flew onto his book. It seemed nothing much had changed, and the years fell away. But I was no longer the new recruit, terrified of this man’s rustic authority. We were in the middle of the 1880’s and the world was rapidly changing with a torrent of new ideas and new inventions that would sweep away all the exhausted remnants of France’s Third Empire. A man can hope.

‘A born escapologist Bassé,’ chuckled Royer, ’just like our old commissaire. So why are you back in Bayeux? Come to see how well we’ve all aged? Out to lift my pension at the card table?’

‘Indeed Sergeant, both,’ I said as I fished in my jacket for an envelope, which was addressed to Commissaire Hautefort. I handed Royer the letter, which was my winning hand. My best poker face set.

‘What’s this?’ he said, inspecting the typed address, ‘You know old Hautefort retired at last? Even so, he still comes in from time to time.’

‘It is my letter of appointment for the station’s files,’ I said, ‘addressed to Commissaire Hautefort out of protocol. You know how these things work.’

Royer nodded and slit the envelope open with a silver letter opener. Nothing happened without following due process. This was the state’s greatest strength and her ultimate weakness. He pulled out the letter and carefully set it on the desk and began to read to himself in his slow deliberate manner, lips quivering as he silently mouthed the words. I watched with some satisfaction as his eyes widened.

‘Congratulations sir,’ he said at last and raised his hand in a salute, ‘I trust you know the way to your office Commissaire?’

‘Indeed, I do Sergeant,’ I returned his salute and then extended my hand, ‘and I very much look forward to working with you once more.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Royer pumped my hand a little too long. I watched with some satisfaction as his face twitched while he took in the new situation.

I climbed the staircase at the back of the building. It opened onto a long landing that ran through the middle of the station house from end to end. I stopped at the top of the stairs and paused for a moment to let it all sink in. The smell of old polished wood, mouldering files, tobacco and burned coffee. I had started my career in police work right here in this very commissariat. In those days Sergeant Royer had been my superior, by turns encouraging and terrifying. He had taught me my first lessons in policing, in paperwork and how to get things done. How to sniff out a liar and when to call off a chase. The basics, good strong stuff.

The training was such that it was impossible to walk down a street without anticipating some lawless action that might be taking place behind closed doors and quietly curtained windows. A good policeman is always observing, forever on the lookout, for criminality is everywhere. Most people, I imagine, lead blissful lives completely unaware of the number of cut throats and charlatans who walk the streets mimicking respectability. If they knew what we knew, they would likely stay indoors petitioning the authorities to have them removed. But we are as visible to rogues as they are to the police, having had their own apprenticeship on the other side of the law. They wait for us to be looking in the wrong direction while we wait for them to make their mistakes.

My new office was at one end of the landing, with shuttered windows that gave out over the square. Almost opposite was the Palais de Justice and the office of the Mayor. There was also a partial view of the Western façade of the famous cathedral, with the high green dome dominating the sky.

It was all terribly grandiose. In Paris I had shared an office with a dozen other men. In Cayenne, the capital city of French Guyana, I shared with lizards, parrots, snakes and many-coloured frogs. I could not say which I preferred, and just now, either place seemed a long way off. They tell you that you can never go backwards, that life is a process of always moving forwards. It is true. I have returned to Bayeux, but it has changed and so have I. It is not the city I left, and I am not the same man who departed for Paris looking for promotion and adventure. I have had my fill of adventure in this lifetime.

Hautefort’s old desk was heavy with dust, the room clearly abandoned and unused for some time. The curtains were yellowed with pipe smoke and age. It felt a lot like home. The last time I had been in here, standing in this office, was when I shook Inspector Hautefort’s hand before I left for Paris. My mind conjured the scene and I saw a hint of sadness, and perhaps relief in his eyes. Most likely that was simply my own fancy. Like Royer, the inspector had never been a sentimental man.

There was a knock at the door. It was Sergeant Royer.

‘I will send in the housekeeper Inspector,’ he said, ‘I do apologize, it has been a while and so we were not expecting, that is to say we have been sailing without a captain for a little while now.’

‘Understandable,’ I said, ‘I only received confirmation very recently myself.’

Royer looked relieved. He was not a bad policeman. God knows there were worse in Paris. He had been tough on me when I started out, but he was the same with all the new men. I could not count it against him.

‘Do we have any business I should know about?’ I said, ‘Are there any interesting guests in our donjon?’

‘No sir,’ he shrugged, ‘just the usual old faces. We had a dead man in the morgue. He was found drowned in the river. Bloated like a pig he was, terrible smell. He reminded me of that whale washed up at Luc-sur-Mer in ’eighty-five. My wife made me take her on the train to go and see the poor dead thing. My God, you could smell it from Bayeux when the wind was in the North.

‘Well, this man, God rest him and forgive me for saying so, he smelled almost as bad as the whale.’

‘Are we certain it was a drowning?’ I said.

‘Yes sir, just like I said sir,’ Royer scratched his chin, ‘bad business. Not a nice way to go, but I reckon it would have been quick what with it being so cold of late.’

‘Who was he?’

‘Sorry sir, I don’t recall.’

‘You know perfectly well Royer,’ I said, ‘I remember your memory for detail. It terrified me when I was a cadet, and it would be a tragedy if it had dimmed since we last spoke. You used to tell me to notice everything and remember everything.’

‘I apologise Commissaire,’ said Royer, ‘perhaps you are right and I my faculties are simply aging without me realizing?’

‘I am going out for lunch,’ I gave the sergeant a look that let him know I did not believe a word, ‘when I return, I would like to see the case file on my desk and dossiers for all personnel. I should like to see how well Bayeux is manned these days.’

‘Very good sir,’

I marched past the sergeant, crossed the landing, and clattered down the stairs. The station house felt a little too quiet, slumbering under the dust of ages past. There are a thousand years of history in this city, each one a page inked with familiar stories. It was time for some new stories, time to shake off the dust and bring the city’s police force into the modern age.

Constable Mouche was on the front desk for Royer. They had joined up together more than thirty years ago. His moustache had silvered but otherwise he looked the same as when I left.

‘Good day Constable,’ I said as I passed.

‘Good day to you too sir,’ said Mouche. The news was already circulating. I would call a meeting later in the day and address the men. Right now, I was far too hungry to do anything sensible.