The Stranger in the Seine

by Guillaume Musso

Genres: International Crime & Mystery; Suspense

Synopsis

From an international bestselling author: one foggy Paris night, a young woman is fished out of the Seine with no memory of who she is —but the quest to identify her leads to a woman who is already dead.

On a winter night in Paris, a young woman is pulled naked out of the Seine. She has amnesia and bears no identifying marks apart from two peculiar tattoos. She is rushed to the infirmary of Paris police headquarters, but only a few hours later, she disappears.
 
DNA analysis reveals her identity. She is the famous pianist Milena Bergman. But that’s impossible, because Milena died in a plane crash more than a year ago. Raphael, Milena’s former fiancé desperate for answers, and Roxane, a cop hell-bent on proving herself after a recent fall from grace, spearhead the investigation. Their quest to uncover the truth quickly reveals secrets long buried, a web of impostors, and danger lurking in plain sight. Nevertheless, they are determined to get to the center of this mystery: How can a person be both dead and alive at the same time?

Release date: August 1, 2023

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 400

Sample

Paris

‘This time you’ve put us all in a tight spot, Roxane. The unit, your colleagues, me…’

The unmarked police car had just pulled out of Avenue de la Grande Armée onto Place de l’Étoile. It was the first time Captain Sorbier had spoken since they left Nanterre. With his fingers clenched around the steering wheel, he continued his lecture in a grave tone.

‘Given the current climate, if the press get wind of what you’ve done, even Superintendent Charbonnel’s neck could be on the line…’

In the seat next to him Roxane Montchrestien remained silent, her gaze turned towards the droplet-streaked window. Paris loomed ominously under the heavy, grey sky. It was the latest in a succession of dismal days since the start of the month, and the whole passenger compartment was thick with damp. Roxane leant over to put the demister on full blast and squinted through the glass. The spectral bulk of the Arc de Triomphe was barely discernible behind the curtain of rain. In a surge of déjà vu, the bleak setting made her think back to that Saturday when gilet jaune protestors had descended on the capital, and the most extreme fringe of them had attacked the iconic monument. The scenes of revolt had been broadcast around the world, encapsulating the toxic environment that was choking the country. Things hadn’t really improved since then.

‘Basically, we’re all in the shit because of you,’ Sorbier concluded, kicking down to veer onto Avenue Marceau.

As Roxane was thrown back in her seat, she let her boss’s criticism sink in. It didn’t even cross her mind to defend herself. She had a lot of time for Sorbier, who headed up the Brigade Nationale de Recherche des Fugitifs – the BNRF for short, the unit charged with hunting down France’s most wanted criminals. The problem lay with her. For months now, she’d been wading through a tunnel with no end in sight. She rubbed her eyes and wound down the window. As the cool air hit her face, she wanted to believe that a fresh lease of life was gusting into her and making everything click into place: from now on, her fortunes would be decided a long way from the national police force.

‘I’m going to hand in my notice, boss,’ she announced, sitting back upright. ‘It’s better that way for everyone.’

Roxane felt a certain liberation in saying the words aloud. She was someone who had always lived for her job, yet she now found herself incapable of doing it properly. Like many of her colleagues, over time her sense of unease had developed into genuine anguish. In France, and especially around Paris, people’s hatred for the police was palpable. Ubiquitous.

‘GO TOP YOURSELVES! GO TOP YOURSELVES!’ She could still hear the foul chants that had been slung at police officers during the demos. It’s time, she thought to herself between repeated gulps of polluted air, time I got out of here.

A deadly spiral had been set in motion, inciting the public to loathe the very people who were meant to protect them. Police officers were ambushed in housing estates, their stations were attacked, they were lynched at protest marches and hit by mortar fire in the middle of Paris. Their children went off to school with terror in their stomachs. Their family lives disintegrated. And all the while, Saturday after Saturday, demo after demo, the news channels continued to take shameless relish in making them out to be Nazis.

‘GO TOP YOURSELVES! GO TOP YOURSELVES!’ It’s time I got out of here. Luckily, she didn’t have anything to tie her down. No loans to clear, no kids to bring up, no rent to pay. It wasn’t just the force she was turning her back on. It was this whole sick country. She’d find herself a distant rock somewhere, but not so far away that she couldn’t sit back and watch, to the painful end, as it all went up in flames.

‘I’ll get my resignation letter to you by this evening.’

Sorbier shook his head.

‘Dream on, Roxane. You’re not getting away that easily.’

They were now driving along the banks of the Seine towards Place de la Concorde. For the first time, Roxane let her irritation show.

‘Can I at least know where you’re taking me?’

‘For a little run-out.’

She could almost have smiled at Sorbier’s turn of phrase. It made her picture lush countryside, fields stretching out as far as the eye can see, ripe wheat dappled with sunshine, a gently rippling breeze, the tinkle of cowbells. A world away from the reality of Paris: a city cankered by filth and apathy, crusted in pollution and endless miseries.

Sorbier waited until they were halfway across the Pont de la Concorde before revealing what he had in mind.

‘Here’s the idea, Roxane. Charbonnel has found you a quiet unit where you can lie low for a few months.’

‘So I’m getting a transfer, that’s what you’re telling me?’

‘Temporarily, yes.’

François Charbonnel was the chief superintendent in charge of the OCLCO, the central office for combating organised crime that oversaw the BNRF.

‘And what about my investigation team?’

‘Lieutenant Botsaris will take over duties for the time being. We’re giving you a chance to get back on your feet. After that, if you’re still dead set on it, you can ditch us for good.’

Roxane raised a hand to her chest, feeling a sudden flare of heartburn.

‘What will I be doing in this new unit, exactly?’

‘Have you heard of the BUA?’

‘Nope.’

‘To tell you the truth, until this morning I hadn’t either.’

Sorbier was at least decent enough not to sugar-coat his proposal.

The wipers were locked in a losing battle with the sheets of rain pouring down the windscreen. The car was now on the Left Bank, stuck in a tailback that ran the length of Boulevard Saint-Germain.

‘The Bureau of Unconventional Affairs was set up under Pompidou in 1971,’ Sorbier explained. ‘It’s directly answerable to the Paris Prefecture. Initially, its aim was to investigate unusual cases that the judicial police couldn’t find any rational explanations for.’

‘When you say “unusual”…?’

‘Anything relating to the paranormal.’

‘You’re having me on.’

‘No, but you’ve got to put it in the context of the time. The whole “magical realism” craze was in its salad days. People wanted to study areas that were shut out of “official” science. Flying saucers were all the rage, The Morning of the Magicians was selling out in bookshops, the national UFO unit was about to open in Toulouse…’

‘Why’s nobody ever heard of this thing?’

Sorbier shrugged.

‘It got a bit of press coverage at the time. They had a dozen or so people working there during the late seventies and eighties. But with the socialists coming to power, and all the changes in society since, over time it’s just become a place to crash for cops who’ve gone through the mill a bit or fallen out of favour after some blunder.’

Roxane knew about the Le Courbat centre in Touraine, which had been set up for CRS riot officers suffering from depression, alcoholism or burn-out, but this particular dumping ground was new on her.

‘Over the years the BUA’s moved offices and its staff have melted away. It’s only a heading in the budget now, and next June it’s being disbanded altogether. There’s every chance you’ll be the last cop in the post.’

‘Is this the only deathbed you could find me?’

Her skipper didn’t let the comment slide.

‘I don’t think you’re really in a position to argue, Roxane. And for someone who wanted to resign five minutes ago, you’re being bloody picky.’

Sorbier had just turned right onto Rue du Bac. Roxane lowered her window as far as it would go. Grenelle, Verneuil, Varenne… The streets of the Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin quarter filed past. This was where she’d grown up. She’d been to school at Sainte-Clotilde’s, a stone’s throw away. Her father, an army man, had worked for the Ministry of Defence at the Hôtel de Brienne; the family home was just opposite in Rue Casimir Périer. Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin was like Saint-Germain-des-Prés without the tourists and posers. Returning here today was unexpected, stirring a flurry of hazy yet comforting memories – parquet floors crisscrossed with sunlight, white acanthas-leaf moulding, the tinkling of an old Steinway, the bronze cat-butler sculpture that always seemed to be sneering down from the mantelpiece.

A furious taxi horn blared her back to reality.

‘How many guys will I have on my team?’

‘None. Like I said, the unit’s been running idle for years. In recent months there’s just been one person in the job: Superintendent Marc Batailley.’

Roxane frowned. The name vaguely rang a bell, but she couldn’t place why.

Sorbier jogged her memory.

‘Batailley’s an old-timer from Major Crime. He had his moment in the sun at the start of the nineties, when the group he ran in Marseilles identified and arrested “The Horticulturalist”, one of the first French serial killers.’

‘The Horticulturalist?’

‘The guy used secateurs to lop off every part of his victims that stuck out: fingers, toes, ears, penises…’

‘Original.’

‘After his five minutes of fame, Batailley secured a transfer to the judicial police HQ in Paris, but he never lived up to hopes. Because of his rocky family life, I think. He lost a child and his marriage fell apart. The later part of his career was disrupted by health issues, which is how he came to be posted to the BUA.’

‘Is he retired now?’

‘Not yet, but he suffered a massive heart attack last night. That’s why Charbonnel and his team were able to swoop to land you the job.’

Sorbier turned on the hazard lights, then parked up opposite the railings of the Square des Missions Etrangères. The rain had stopped. Roxane scrambled out of the car. The damp had wormed its way into her clothes, hair and brain. Sorbier followed suit, then leant against the bonnet to spark up.

The wind had picked up. She could breathe at last. A timid sliver of blue sky appeared above the square. Kids were already refilling the playground, squealing with delight as they besieged the swings and slides. Roxane had memories here too: strawberry and vanilla cornets from the olde-worlde ice-cream parlour next door, trips with her mother to Bon Marché and The Conran Shop, Romain Gary’s apartment a bit further down. She used to pass it with fascination while studying for her French literature baccalaureate, always casting a hopeful eye in case the door had been left ajar and the ghosts of Gary, his wife Jean and their son Diego might emerge.

‘There’s your office,’ Sorbier announced, pointing heavenwards.

Roxane craned her neck. At first she couldn’t tell what her skipper meant, then she spotted a kind of belfry, crowned with a clock. A crow’s nest tucked well back from the street that she’d never noticed before and which towered over the surrounding rooftops.

‘The building dates from the twenties,’ Sorbier began in a teacherly manner. ‘It was originally part of the Bon Marché complex, designed by the architect Louis-Hippolyte Boileau when the store was expanding into its Grande Épicerie food hall. The Prefecture got hold of it in the nineties, but the government’s just put it up for sale.’

Roxane made her way towards the imposing, blue-repainted carriage gates.

‘I’ll leave you here,’ Sorbier said, handing her a bunch of keys. ‘And for god’s sake, Roxane, behave yourself.’

‘Do you have the door code?’

‘It’s 301207: the date Clemenceau set up the Tiger Brigades. Followed by “B” for “Brigades”.’

‘Or “Bureau of Unconventional Affairs”,’ Roxane mused.

‘I hope we’ve understood each other, Roxane. Keep under the radar. We won’t always be here to clean up your mess.’

If the tower was unremarkable from the street, once through the gates its majesty hit her. At the back of a small, leafy courtyard the lighthouse-esque structure soared gracefully overhead, squeezed between two charmless apartment blocks. The clockfaces at the top consolidated its domination over the Parisian skyline. A real-life fortress in the middle of the 7th arrondissement.

Roxane crossed the cobbles to the solid, polished-wood entrance, where a bright-red moped was parked. With the keys Sorbier had given her, she unlocked the double doors. The belfry opened onto a stained-glass skylight that filled the three upper storeys with a warm, churchlike glow. The ground floor gave a taste of what was to come: exposed red brick, oak parquet, metal joists, riveted girders inspired by Gustave Eiffel.

A cast-iron spiral staircase connected the four levels. Roxane began to climb, her eyes fixed on the summit. The heating was purring away nicely. From the top floor she could hear bursts of piano music. Schubert’s Impromptus. One of the soundtracks to her childhood.

She reached the first landing. The storey was divided in two. The first side was a mass of metal filing cabinets, with shelves up to the ceiling, boxes of paperwork, a fax machine and even an old Minitel. Off to the other side was a kitchen area with a rough wooden worktop, and a shower room beyond.

Near the photocopier stood a traditionally decorated Christmas tree, guarded by a plump Siberian tomcat sprawled on a bed of papers. On seeing Roxane he yowled and scarpered off towards the floor above.

‘Come here, you.’

Roxane caught up with the animal on the stairs and bent down to stroke its belly. It was a hefty, muscular creature, with gleaming silvery fur and a cartoonish face.

‘His name’s Poutine,’ announced a voice behind her.

Roxane whipped around, feeling for her Glock in its holster. A young woman was standing by the window on the second-floor landing. She was about twenty-five, with an Afro haircut, olive skin, emerald eyes framed by tortoise-shell glasses, and a broad smile that revealed the gap between her teeth.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ Roxane demanded.

‘Valentine Diakité,’ the girl replied calmly. ‘I’m a student at the Sorbonne.’

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘I’m writing my PhD on the Bureau of Unconventional Affairs.’

Roxane sighed.

‘And what right does that give you?’

‘I’ve got permission from Superintendent Batailley. For the past six months I’ve been sorting out old case files. You should have seen the state of them before I started!’

Roxane watched the student advancing through the card-board boxes like a princess in her castle. With her black tights, velvet skirt, turtleneck sweater and snakeskin boots, she brought to mind a modern-day Emma Peel.

‘And who are you, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘Police. Captain Roxane Montchrestien.’

‘Are you standing in for Superintendent Batailley?’

‘You could put it like that.’

‘Do you have any news on how he’s doing?’

‘No.’

‘Poor guy. It’s so awful, what’s happened to him. It’s all I’ve thought about since this morning. I’m the one who found him.’

‘Is this where he had his heart attack?’

‘I don’t think it was a heart attack. I think he tripped on the stairs.’ She gestured at the snaking metal structure. ‘It’s a real deathtrap.’

Turning her back on the student, Roxane continued to the top floor. The location of Batailley’s office. It was a remarkable space, with a ceiling height of at least 20 feet and riveted beams splaying in all directions. A Chesterfield sofa, a striking Jean Prouvé-style oak desk and red-brick walls completed the décor, giving an effect somewhere between a British nightclub and a New York loft. But most arresting of all was the view. A dizzying panorama of Paris, with the Eiffel Tower and the dome of the Hôtel des Invalides off to the west, the Butte of Montmartre and the Sacré-Coeur to the north, the Jardin du Luxembourg and the eyesore of Tour Montparnasse to the south, and the still-bruised shell of Notre-Dame to the east. It all gave a heady sense of cruising above the world, far enough removed to escape its wrath.

Roxane went back to find Valentine Diakité, who’d set up her own office on the floor below. Behind her wise librarian veneer, she radiated a sunny aura that unsettled Roxane.

‘Explain to me how Marc Batailley filled his days.’

‘He sometimes went about things slowly,’ Valentine conceded. ‘When I arrived, six months ago, Marc was still getting over his lung cancer. He was worn out, but always friendly and ready with advice.’

‘How long’s the Bureau been inactive?’

Delighted to be of service, the student launched into a whistlestop history.

‘In the early years, through the seventies and eighties, the BUA spent its time investigating quite a lot of spooky phenomena – hauntings, telekinesis, mind control, what we now call near-death experiences. During that period the unit received hundreds of accounts from all over France.’

Valentine motioned to the boxes around her.

‘Ghosts, Women in White, telepathy, you name it… It was also the golden age of ufology. If you’re interested in looking at any of the case files, you’ll see it’s like stepping into an episode of The X-Files.’

‘And now?’

Valentine pulled a face.

‘We still get the odd letter – from idiots who think the world’s being controlled by reptiles, or that Bill Gates is creating viruses to solve overpopulation and the French government is pumping them out through 5G masts and smart meters.’

Roxane rubbed her eyes. She wanted to be alone, to go to sleep and cut off the current that was surging through her mind.

‘You can’t stay here, Valentine.’

‘Why? The superintendent gave his permission, and…’

‘Yeah, but I’m in charge now. And a police department isn’t a university library.’

‘I could make myself useful.’

‘I don’t see how. You’ve got until the end of the day to pack up. And don’t forget to take your cat with you.’

Valentine shrugged.

‘Poutine’s not mine. He isn’t Marc’s either. He was already here when we arrived. I found a report in the archives saying he turned up at the Bureau in 2002, which makes him absolutely ancient.’

With a stab of frustration Roxane spun on her heels and stomped back up to the top floor. The old cast-iron dials behind the glass of the clockface gave the room a strange, almost otherworldly feel. She had the sensation of being in a cabinet of curiosities. The office equipment, by contrast, was like jumping back thirty years. There was no modern technology to speak of, and the phone reminded her of the one her parents had when she was a teenager.

A little red light was blinking on the handset. Intrigued, Roxane pressed the loudspeaker button to hear the message, which was recorded as having been received at 1.10 p.m. that day.

‘Hi Marc, it’s Catherine Aumonier again. I really could do with speaking to you about the message I left this morning. Please give me a call back.’

Seeing no further messages, Roxane listened to the previous one that had been left at 7.46 a.m.

‘Good morning Marc, it’s Catherine Aumonier, Deputy Director of the Prefecture infirmary. I’m calling for your opinion on a rather odd case. Yesterday morning we admitted a young woman in a state of total amnesia, who’d been recovered from the Seine by the River Brigade. She was completely naked when they found her. I don’t have your email address, so I’ve faxed the file over to you. Please call me back to let me know if you recognise her. Thanks.’

Her curiosity piqued, Roxane immediately replayed the message. If Batailley had listened to it – and the light flashing on the machine suggested this was the case – he must have done so only minutes before his fall.

She could feel her stomach tingling. Everything remotely connected with the I3P – the Paris Prefecture’s famously opaque psychiatric unit – had always fascinated her.. . .