At 8:26, the notebook was still just a notebook.
It had a black cloth cover, a stretched elastic band, and a red thread tied around its edge, as though someone had tried to repair a binding that had asked for nothing. The old woman held it with both hands on her lap. Beside it, in a clear sleeve, a ten-by-fifteen-centimeter photograph slid whenever she crossed her legs.
Inès Delcourt saw them before she looked at the face.
“Captain?”
The desk officer held out a sheet by one corner. His tone meant he was passing her a problem before she could pretend not to have noticed it.
“She insists on speaking to someone from the criminal investigation unit.”
“Why?”
“She won’t tell me.”
The woman looked up.
“I told you. You didn’t listen.”
The officer pressed his lips together. Inès took the sheet.
**Madeleine Vasseur, seventy-six.** An address ten minutes from police headquarters. No missing-person report in her name, no current complaint. Under “reason for visit,” the officer had written: *find a neighbor*.
Inès had a nine o’clock meeting, a statement to revise before noon, and an unopened message from Thomas. Even so, she asked:
“Which neighbor?”
Madeleine looked at the photograph in the sleeve.
“Élias.”
“Élias what?”
She made a small impatient movement.
“Marin. Élias Marin.”
Inès crouched to her level. The woman smelled of face powder and the cold outdoors. Her beige coat was buttoned crooked; the bottom button had gone through the wrong hole. None of that meant anything, and Inès distrusted details eager to mean too much.
“Do you want to report him missing?”
“I want you to find him.”
“When did you last see him?”
Madeleine slid a finger beneath the notebook’s elastic without opening it.
“That isn’t the same question.”
The officer exhaled through his nose. Inès handed the sheet back.
End of excerpt. Discover the other stories in this universe.