a mini thriller by Rémi Lacouette-Fougère, to close 2024 with the Noires de Pau (1/4)

“From his earliest childhood, Jacques Bégorry was driven by a very strong desire for justice. From his puny build, he kept within him the idea that no crime, however minor, should go unpunished. It was therefore quite natural that he embraced a career as a police officer. He also owes his vocation to the American cinema that he loved, and in particular to Clint Eastwood. As a child, he had sworn to himself that he would become as remarkable as the Inspector, if not nothing.

After an honorable career, he had not become as essential as Inspector Harry, but he was a lieutenant, and that was no small thing! At the end of numerous sacrifices, no longer counting his overtime hours, his nights in hiding and his unfailing dedication which somewhat jeopardized his family life, he ends up being promoted to the rank of commissioner.

Jacques Bégorry had learned of his promotion, and had not dared to tell his wife Judith that he was going to be transferred to Pau, the land where he was born fifty-three years earlier and which he had left for his work and a family in Paris. He had waited three days and until their two older children were in bed to serve him a drink.

She had accepted graciously without getting up from the sofa and looked at him suspiciously. To his great surprise, Judith was delighted, she even encouraged him! He dreamed of this position, he imagined himself as commissioner every morning while shaving. Judith, who drank very little, had finished her drink in one gulp upon receiving the news. She was already getting excited: this distance would bring them closer together, be a new impetus for their relationship.

As soon as she had finished her sentence, Jacques understood that she was not considering for a single second following him to Pau. He felt the blow a little. He would have loved to show them the places he visited as a child, tell them about his crazy cycling escapades with his friend Thierry Pucheu, they were inseparable. Besides, he wondered what had become of him after the death of his father, he had moved and had never heard from him again.

Freshly landed in Pau, Commissioner Bégorry had begun to tour the city. The historic heart was smaller than he remembered, but still as charming. While strolling in front of the shops, he noticed that many brands were competing in their imagination to come up with a play on words with the name of the city, a more or less famous play on words which made him think that urban communication was now in the hands of 'a mafia of hairdressers.

“Here, all the people of Pau seemed to say that nothing equaled the sumptuousness of their mountains. Was this pure chauvinism? »

He occupied a small accommodation on rue Pasteur, not far from the police station. This new position far from Paris enchanted him, but what he had initially seen as a wonderful opportunity turned out to be a golden prison within the first month. He who thrived on long-term investigations, hideouts and the hunt for major criminals found himself, most of the time, sitting behind a desk doing paperwork and putting up with the screams of drunks in the sobering-up cell.

His personal life was hardly better. He called his wife once a week and systematically his children were out or busy. He vented his frustration by running like a madman from the castle district to the banks of the Gave or by doing laps at the Nautical Stadium which had had a facelift since he learned to swim there.

Jacques was happy to return to his beautiful Pyrenees. Having lived in several places containing unexpected beauties, he had learned that we quickly no longer pay much attention to the splendors that surround us. Now, here all the people of Pau seemed to say that nothing equaled the sumptuousness of their mountains. Was this pure chauvinism? While he was walking under the Beth Ceu de Pau, well sheltered under his umbrella, he finally had the revelation. Starting from the adage that here it only rains twice a year, once for five months, once for seven months; he understood that if the Pyrenees were always so beautiful in the hearts of the people of Palois, it was because they never really saw them. On a clear day they were distant and evanescent, and on a wet day they were shrouded in mist.

Several times a week, he got up early and took the opportunity to stroll around Les Halles, to the producers' square where he bought fresh fruit which he placed in a basket in the office to munch on in his spare time. It helped him concentrate.”

The more time passed, the more boredom set in. When finally a case presented itself. It all started with an ordinary disappearance: the head chef of the restaurant Le Pau Lenta had no longer given any sign of life. His girlfriend, Manon Cayola, reported his disappearance after three days without news. After a week, we carried out a poster campaign for a call for witnesses which yielded nothing.

The young woman was received at the police station to tell her that several thousand people disappeared of their own free will every year in France, and that sometimes we saw them reappear as they had left and whenever they wanted. Without proof of a more worrying disappearance, the investigation could not go any further. It was not the desire to help that the commissioner lacked, this young woman made him sad, and the prospect of a case, if this story of disappearance was one, would bring him out of his deep weariness, thought Bégorry. .”