Without giving me time to protest, my mother turned on her heel. My phone started to vibrate. Unknown number. I hesitated, then took the call. It was Claude Angevin, former editor of Nice-Matin and Stéphane Pianelli’s mentor.

He was a nice enough guy but impossible to shut up. He told me that he had moved to Portugal, to the Douro, and then spent at least five minutes trying to sell me on the wonders of the region. Eventually I steered him back to the Vinca Rockwell case and tried to get a sense of what he thought of the official story.

“I think it’s horseshit, but we’ll never be able to prove different.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Call it a hunch. I always thought that everyone—the cops, the press, the families—missed something in the investigation. Actually, to be honest, I think the whole investigation was flawed.”

“In what way?”

“From the start, we missed out on something crucial. I’m not talking about details here, I’m talking about something big. Something no one noticed. And we all ended up heading down the wrong path. Do you get what I’m saying?”

Although what he was saying was vague, I did understand, and I agreed with him.

“Stéphane told me you wanted to know who took the prom photo,” he said.

“Yeah—do you know?”

“Claro que sei! It was one of the parents, Yves Dalanegra.”

The name rang a faint bell. Angevin refreshed my memory.

“I looked him up. He was the father of Florence and Olivia Dalanegra.”

I vaguely remembered Florence, a sporty girl who had been half a head taller than me. We had been in the same year for the baccalauréat. She took mostly science subjects and I was studying literature, but we were in the same PE class. I probably even played with her on the coed handball team. But I had no memory of her father.

“He was the one who offered us the photo back in ’93, after we published the first article about Vinca and Alexis Clément. We were happy to buy the rights. We ended up using it a lot.”

“Did someone at Nice-Matin crop the photo?”

“No—at least, not as far as I remember. I think we published exactly what we were given.”

“Have you any idea where Yves Dalanegra lives these days?”

“Yeah, I just dug up the information. Give me your e-mail and I’ll send it to you, but prepare yourself for a surprise.”

I gave him my e-mail address and thanked him for his help. Angevin asked me to keep in touch if I made any headway in my investigation.

“Vinca Rockwell isn’t someone you can just forget,” he said.