Fatale by Jean-Patrick Manchette

Aimée, who seemed to be tottering, Commissioner Fellouque leaned over and reached into the DS21 to get his overcoat. Awkwardly, he slammed the door shut. With his coat under one arm, he pushed Aimée forward but did not let go of her.
    â€œLorque and Lenverguez?” he asked, repeating two of the names that Aimée had just supplied. “You mean to walk into the Bléville police station in the middle of the night and claim that Lorque and Lenverguez paid you to shoot a man? You must be crazy.”
    â€œIt’s the truth,” said Aimée. “Let go of me.”
    She threw a forearm blow to the side of the commissioner’s neck. Fellouque let go of her and fell back. Had it not been for the parked DS21, he would have fallen flat on his back. Leaning against the car, he struggled to get his wind back, wincing, his eyes bulging. Aimée walked towards the police station.
    â€œYou are playing into their hands,” said Fellouque in a hoarse, very weak voice. Aimée halted. “You just don’t understand the situation here in Bléville. You’ll be found hanged. Tomorrow morning you’ll turn up hanging in your cell.” Fellouque was beginning to recover his voice. Aimée had struck him a rather moderate blow. She turned and looked at the policeman uncertainly. “It’s the examining magistrate you need to see. Not the station cops. You don’t understand anything.”
    He shook his head and sighed. Grimacing, he bent down to pick up his overcoat, which he had dropped on the ground. Aimée came back to him as he straightened up.
    â€œThey have to be picked up right away,” she said. She consulted her Cartier watch. “Five minutes from now, that fat Lorque will be waiting for me behind the fish market. Between two forty and four fifteen I have eight appointments. You can pick every one of them up. They will have keys on them, keys to the station luggage lockers. There is money in those lockers. That’s your proof. You can nab the lot of them.”
    Fellouque slipped into his overcoat. He did not button it up, and once again he grasped Aimée by the upper arm.
    â€œFirst, let’s get you inside,” he said. His voice was still rather hoarse and he was breathing heavily. “Come.” He pulled her along, and she allowed herself to be pulled. “You can give me the details, very quickly. I’ll run and scare up the magistrate. Together, the magistrate and I will nab them. Leave it to me. You don’t know how things work in Bléville. I do.”
    At the end of the street, past the police station, Aimée and Fellouque emerged onto the waterfront. Aimée let the commissioner lead her. Her face registered barely any emotion. From time to time she shot a sideways glance at the man, who was walking a step or so ahead of her with his hand behind him, drawing her along after him.
    A sole café-bar was lit up and open on the road along the wharves. Fellouque and Aimée went in. It had a narrow frontage and was six or eight meters deep. On the right was a red Formica-topped counter, on the left four red Formica-topped tables in booths with red banquettes. A jukebox stood silent. At the counter, perched on one of three barstools, a drunk in blue worker’s coveralls and a peacoat was peering into a Picon and beer as if trying to read the future. A fat man of around thirty-five, in shirtsleeves, sat behind the counter at the cash register, reading the softcover comic-book edition of Special Operative 117 in Lebanon.
    â€œGood evening, Commissioner,” said the fat man when he saw Fellouque.
    â€œGood evening, lad.”
    Fellouque steered Aimée into a booth and made her sit. The barman had put down his comic book, come around the bar, and stood deferentially near the booth as Fellouque took a seat opposite Aimée.
    â€œWhat would you like to drink?” asked Fellouque.
    â€œI’m hungry,” said