Roger Lascaux

Roger Lascaux is a young police officer attached to the Tour de France detail, introduced through Yves Dauresse’s teasing description of him as eighteen and never kissed. The brief scenes in which he appears establish him less through individual action than through his place in a lively group: a junior colleague who joins its banter, shares its familiar jokes, and listens as the investigation turns to matters beyond his knowledge.

Identity and Introduction

Lascaux appears beside Dauresse when Roland Granot is introduced to the group. Dauresse identifies him as a blond young man with a ready smile and relays, with mock authority, that his mother says he is eighteen and has never been kissed. The description is comic and pointedly second-hand; it is Dauresse, not Lascaux, who supplies the personal detail, and the scene offers no further account of Lascaux’s family or private life. The remark briefly unsettles the easy picture of the young officer: a cloud seems to pass over Lascaux’s clear blue sky. The narration registers a change in his expression without explaining it, leaving the joke’s effect visible but his response private. This small pause gives his introduction a flicker of vulnerability amid the teasing, without establishing what he feels or why.

The Tour Detail and Its Camaraderie

The group’s work on the Tour de France detail is framed as an assignment that can feel like a coveted adventure to a younger officer. Granot recalls that, as a boy, he would have given anything to join it; Dauresse answers that he would have felt the same, then contrasts their adult perspective with Lascaux’s youth. The exchange places Lascaux at the point where youthful enthusiasm and veteran familiarity meet. When Granot says he is merely along for the ride, Lascaux joins Dauresse and the third colleague in chorusing the phrase back at him. The coordinated response suggests that this is a routine joke, not a fresh improvisation: the larger officer laughs because the trio have clearly used it before. Lascaux’s role here is social rather than investigative. He participates in the group’s shared performance and helps make Granot an outsider only momentarily, before the joke becomes a point of recognition between them.

Banter and Professional Identity

The exchange turns to the possibility of joining the Brigade Criminelle. One speaker tells the commissioner that, if the younger colleagues want to see French life as it really is, they should transfer there. The older man counters that they would attract fewer women in the criminal police, drawing a laugh from the group. Lascaux grins and adds, “Just have to give each one double time,” extending the joke on the terms it has already established. His line shows him able to answer teasing with teasing, but it does not define his ambitions or prove that he plans to transfer. The surrounding banter contrasts the imagined glamour of police work with the familiar routines and reputations attached to different assignments. Lascaux is one of the young officers being addressed, and his quick contribution makes him an active member of the exchange rather than merely its object.

The Briefing and the Limits of His Knowledge

Later, during a briefing led by Georges Lanvalle, the group is asked whether anyone has heard of Meier Al Zatdin, a detainee at Guantanamo. Dauresse whispers the question to Lascaux, who shakes his head. Dauresse then asks David Jarret and turns toward Granot, eyebrows raised, extending the inquiry beyond the young officer. The moment gives Lascaux a modest but clear position in the investigation: he is present among the police, but the briefing’s subject is unfamiliar to him. His answer is direct and non-performative, unlike the earlier jokes, and it marks a shift from group camaraderie to the work of establishing what the officers know. The available scenes do not show him taking a later investigative action or reaching an outcome; his characterization remains a concise portrait of a young colleague introduced through humor, group belonging, and one candid admission of ignorance.