Bezu Fache

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Bezu Fache is a fictional character in the popular 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code and the 2006 film based on it. In the film, he was portrayed by Jean Reno.

[edit] Story

Fache is a captain in the Direction centrale de la police judiciaire (DCPJ), the French criminal investigation police. Tough, canny and persistent, he is in charge of the investigation of Louvre Museum curator Jacques Saunière's murder in the Louvre. From the message left by the dead curator, he is convinced the murderer is Harvard professor Robert Langdon, whom he summons to the Louvre in order to extract a confession. He tries to make Langdon show hints of being the murderer, but is thwarted in his early attempt by Sophie Neveu, who knows Langdon to be innocent and surreptitiously notifies Langdon that he is in fact the prime suspect.

He then starts pursuing Langdon doggedly in the belief that letting him get away would be career suicide. However, after contact with Opus Dei leader Bishop Manuel Aringarosa about the murder of Sister Sandrine Bieil, he realizes that he made a big mistake – it was not Langdon who killed Saunière, but Aringarosa's trusted albino monk Silas, who killed the four top members of the Priory of Sion (including Saunière) under the instruction of a mysterious person called The Teacher.

Fache tries to track down Sophie and Langdon and tell them they are no longer suspects, but the two did not know and even fled to London with Langdon's friend Sir Leigh Teabing. Fache follows desperately but doesn't succeed. Unknown to all of them is that Teabing is actually the Teacher. He has a final confrontation with Langdon and Sophie at Westminster Abbey and threatens to kill them, but Fache arrives later and arrests Teabing.

Fache later visits the hospitalized Bishop Aringarosa, shot by Silas accidentally after arriving in London. He sees Lieutenant Jérôme Collet on television, and is relieved that Collet did not reveal his mistake and even hints that Fache purposely framed Langdon and Sophie as a ruse to find out the real killer.

[edit] Miscellanea

• "Bezu" is not a common French personal name, but "Le Bezu" is the name of a castle not far from Rennes-le-Château with Cathar associations; Rennes-le-Château is the town in which Bérenger Saunière served as Catholic priest. When we first encounter Fache, he is compared to an ox; note that "Bezu" is an anagram (and the spoonerism) of zebu (zébu in French), a type of ox. Fâché is French for "angry", but "Fache" is also a reasonably common French surname, although it is pronounced differently than fâché.
• André Bézu was the singer of the popular hit song A la queue leu leu and is somewhat regarded as a symbol of low-brow humour : as his name sounds like Bezu Fache's first name, this has been the source of unintentional comedy for french audiences.
• Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, revealed that he wrote the character of Bezu Fache with Jean Reno (who portrayed Fache in the film) in his mind.
• He is not a member of Opus Dei in the book, but in the film he is. This helped quick reasoning of his actions in the film where Ron Howard had to cut things down to 2.5 hours.
• In the book, Langdon notices that he is wearing a Crux Gemmata, which does lead the reader to believe he is a very devout catholic (and possible fundamentalist or opus dei member).

Preceded by Lawrence Ekstrom

Dan Brown Red herring The Da Vinci Code

Succeeded by Unknown