The Beast of the Camargue by Xavier-Marie Bonnot Read Free Book Online Page A

Pointe-Rouge who’s selling it.”
    â€œThen we’ll go fishing with King Crimson on full blast.”
    At night in La Capelette, the factories stood in dark rectangular clusters, ruins of pitiless time.
    It was in front of the huge wall of the pith helmet factory thatthe local boys used to fight with the lads from Pauline or Saint-Loup. With bicycle chains and hobnailed broom handles.
    De Palma was generally the last to get into a fight, but he was also the most violent—a violence he had now locked up behind bars of alcohol and music, and, when he was young, doggerel verse as well.
    The Marseille that the Baron knew could turn the sweetest children sour; it fed them neither folklore nor good intentions, but rather violence and the lure of money.
    In La Capelette, the role models were the local gangsters, who drank in the Bar de l’Avenir under the bridge of the railway that ran through the neighborhood and ended up in the municipal dump. The hard nuts of l’Avenir were the only ones with even a shred of prestige, a success that stuck like shit to a blanket. They all had Italian roots, but were proud to be from Marseille, despite the great white city’s record of injustice.
    The others, that seething mass of proles, worked like nobodies. After their shift was over the smartest of them used to go and rack their brains at the offices of the Communist Party, reforming the world with Stalinist slogans.
    The Baron had been born in this area, but had never belonged to it. He was not raised with his feet treading sawdust in the bars or cafés, talking too loudly and waving his hands around the way the plebs do on T.V.
    But when he bumped into a childhood friend in the street, who had been in and out of prison, he would greet him as a friend. Their eyes would meet, and commonplaces rained on the tarmac. Nothing more. The true Marseillais is a silent man.

6.
    On Friday, July 11, at 5:50 a.m., a fine drizzle was blowing in from the bay.
    From the dual carriageway overlooking the harbor, you could see the flickering yellow lamps on the bellies of freighters streaming with rain. Anne Moracchini and Daniel Romero were driving in silence, their mouths bitter from the day’s first cup of coffee and their eyes still puffy with sleep.
    Capitaine Moracchini, the only woman in the
Brigade Criminelle
, did not like the rain. It reminded her of her early years with the
Police Judiciaire
in Versailles.
    â€œDaniel, did you remember the blotting paper?”
    â€œYes, Anne,” Romero sighed. “It’s in the bag.”
    Daniel Romero was wondering whether his boss’s explosive mood was going to cool down, or if she was always like this when she went to grab a gangster while the milkman was still doing his rounds. He did not know that Moracchini could not bear rain, especially not at 6 a.m. when they were about to make a difficult arrest in a lane in the village of Saint-André. It was enough to make you think that criminals had a guardian angel out to ruin the best-laid plans.
    â€œWhat’s your aftershave, Daniel?”
    â€œ
Habit Rouge
.”
    â€œTomorrow morning, try
Pour un Homme
by Caron. It’s just as virile and doesn’t get up my nose so much.”
    Lieutenant Romero had just arrived on the brigade. With his good looks and relaxed, feline gait he looked perfect in his new part. He kept his cool in all circumstances, had a brain that still sparked and a true belief in his mission. He had been with the
Brigade Anti
Criminalité
, before taking the officers’ exam and joining the
Criminelle
in Marseille—his deepest wish come true.
    On the church square of Saint-André, Moracchini looked at the clock on the Xsara’s dashboard.
    â€œJesus, what are the B.R.I. boys up to? They’re not here yet! And it’s six already!”
    â€œMaybe they’re lost?”
    â€œThat’s not funny, Daniel …”
    At the top of rue des Varces, a