Paris Police Judicial Police Headquarters, 36 becomes a point in Captain Dorval’s investigation into the children’s murder: there she questions Wafa, whose account helps establish Louise’s movements on the morning of the crime. The interview also exposes the limits of what the investigation can learn from a witness frightened into tears and unable to speak easily.

Role in the Investigation

Week after week, Captain Dorval works backward through the events. Louise remains in a coma, and testimony describes her as an irreproachable nanny; Dorval nevertheless persists, convinced that some break in the account will help her understand what happened behind the closed doors of the children’s world. She summons Wafa to 36 and questions her.

The interrogation is strained from the outset. Wafa keeps crying and struggles to articulate a word, until Dorval loses patience. The captain tells her that Wafa’s immigration papers, employment contract, Louise’s promises, and Wafa’s own naïveté are beside the point. She wants to know whether Wafa saw Louise that day. The exchange places the headquarters in the practical center of the inquiry: a place where personal vulnerability is subordinated to the urgent demand for a usable account.

Wafa’s Account

Wafa says she came to the apartment in the morning and rang the bell. Louise opened the door only a little, seeming, in Wafa’s impression, to be hiding something. Before Wafa could get inside, Alphonse ran between Louise’s legs and joined the children, who were still in their pajamas, sitting in front of the television.

Wafa tried to persuade Louise to let them go out for a walk. The weather was fine, she said, and the children would be bored. Louise refused to let her enter. Wafa called Alphonse, who was disappointed, and left with him. Her testimony establishes that she encountered Louise at the apartment that morning, but it does not explain what Louise did afterward.

The Unresolved Trail

Wafa’s account is set against Rose Grinberg’s firm statement that she met Louise in the building’s hall an hour before the nanny’s nap—and an hour before the murder. That later sighting means Louise did not remain in the apartment after Wafa left, opening a gap in the timeline that the interview alone cannot close.

The investigation follows that gap outward through the neighborhood. Police carry Louise’s photograph, question people, and visit the square, Café Le Paradis, and the passages of Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis. They eventually recover supermarket surveillance footage, which Dorval watches repeatedly, studying Louise’s calm progress through the aisles and her hands taking a pack of milk. The headquarters interview is thus one link in a larger effort to test accounts against movements and images; it yields a departure and a witness’s impression, but leaves Louise’s whereabouts unexplained.