Affairs of State

Sunday 1 December

Noria gingerly pats her police ID in her anorak pocket, like a talisman, and starts her beat at the bottom of rue de Meaux, a street lined with shops between Jaurès and Laumière, no more than a stone’s throw from porte de Pantin via avenue Jean-Jaurès, a narrow street where the shops are wedged together. The fine weather’s returned, bringing with it a dry, bracing cold. The whole street’s in a good mood. She starts off at a greengrocer’s, open onto the street, with colourful pyramids of fruit and vegetables reflected in a series of mirrors; the vendors keep up their cheery sales patter and greet their regulars, the customers crowd into the shop stretching the length of the pavement, carrying huge baskets on their arms, taking their time to choose. Today is Sunday.

Noria goes up to the cashier, a plump, faded blonde, hesitates briefly, takes the plunge and shows her police ID:

‘Noria Ghozali, police officer.’ She smiles to soften the official nature of her visit. ‘I don’t want to disturb you or take up your time. I just want to show you a photo.’

A kind reception, she’s young, this rookie cop. Noria takes out the photo. The woman looks ghastly, the Polaroid doesn’t help. Her eyes are closed, she looks in a bad way, but her face is intact, therefore recognisable, and the bullet wound is outside the frame. The cashier calls the staff over, the customers all crowd round, there’s a bit of a crush. The answer is unanimous: no, we don’t know her.

Noria makes her way up the street going from shop to shop. She has to push through the crowds of customers weighed down with plastic bags, some with buggies. Not many cars around. There’s a queue outside the pork butcher’s for homemade farmhouse sausages. There’s a rotisserie outside the poulterer’s, and chickens turn slowly on the spit, huge, sizzling, the fat drops onto the potatoes roasting in the drip pan. The warm air’s filled with the smell. Noria slows down. This isn’t a Sunday stroll, get a grip. Everywhere, the same reception, welcoming, helpful, a tendency to chat, and the same response: never set eyes on her. The florist, the wine merchant, hardware store, bakeries.

There are still the cafés, four in this little stretch of the street. In the last one, on the corner, with its terrace in the sun, Noria stops for a snack: a hard-boiled egg and a coffee. The customers are all drinking beer, coffee and calvados or white wine.

‘Well, have you found your little lady?’ asks a fat man in his sixties who’s passed her twice in the street, which somehow makes him feel entitled to be familiar.

She smiles.

‘Not yet, but I’m getting there.’

‘She looks a bit rough in your photo, as if she’s on drugs. Why are you looking for her?’

‘She’s disappeared …’

Noria’s tired. Her right ankle’s hurting a little, from having walked too much. Her expression is drawn. The owner comes over:

‘Aperitif time and it’s on me. A glass of white wine, that’ll perk you up. You look as if you could do with cheering up.’

Noria hesitates, a fraction of a second: oh to prolong this moment of everyday friendliness, this new-found warm feeling. But it’s just not possible. The mere smell of the wine makes her stomach heave. Too bad. She smiles and says: ‘No, thank you,’ waves a general goodbye and heads off in the direction of avenue Laumière, more shops, more cafés.

Noria feels a sort of conviction. With persistence and method, and that’s something she knows all about, she’ll find the girl. Today, tomorrow, sooner or later.