The Technical Cooperation office is a kind of diplomatic police assigned in particular to exchanges of information with police forces in other countries.
“Cyril Lefèvre is here in connection with a case to which we will have to give priority this week. It involves the disappearance of a young Dutch woman. But I’ll let Cyril tell you the facts in greater detail.”
Another disappearance, thought Sebag. It’s the rule of threes!
Cyril Lefèvre quickly surveyed his interlocutors and then went straight to the heart of the matter without any polite preamble. He was the direct type.
“Ingrid Raven is a Dutch citizen, nineteen years old. A university student, she was vacationing in the region. She was traveling alone. She took a flight from Amsterdam to Gerona on June 10, a Sunday, and then got on the train to Perpignan.”
He took an electronic organizer out of his hip pocket. He turned it on and continued his narrative while it started up.
“She usually called her parents every evening, but they have had no word from her for a week. Her last call goes back precisely to the evening of June 26. They have left her numerous messages on her cell phone but there has been no reply.”
Glancing from time to time at his agenda—which he seemed to use mainly as a notebook—Lefèvre outlined the case for the Perpignan police. Ingrid Raven was studying history of art, he told them, and had chosen fauvism as the subject of her thesis. Hence her stay in the region. She’d reserved a room in a student residence hall but stayed there only a few days. She made friends with some local people and went to stay with them in Collioure. These friends were an artist couple who owned a house in the village: that was all she’d told her parents. Ingrid had no car and traveled by train and bus. Her parents had advised her against hitchhiking, but were not sure that she had taken their advice on the subject.
During his presentation, Lefèvre handed around photos. In some of them, the young woman’s hair was red, in others blond. She had a pretty smile and emanated joie de vivre.
“Ingrid Raven’s parents are very worried, I can tell you that. Their daughter has never gone for such a long time without contacting them. The Dutch authorities request that we look into this disappearance with all due diligence. A request relayed by the Minister of the Interior, who also wants results.”
Superintendent Castello took the floor again to add something intended to galvanize his troops.
“Ingrid Raven’s father is a policeman in Amsterdam.”
Cyril Lefèvre typed a few notes on his electronic organizer and then laid it on the table.
“Any questions, gentlemen?” he asked.
Llach didn’t hesitate. He often spoke up first in work meetings. An activist in the professional association, he had adopted above all the labor unionist’s habit of making objections of principle: before attacking a problem, make sure it can’t be circumvented.
“If I understand correctly, the parents are our only source of information.”
“Correct,” Lefèvre acknowledged.
“I ask because I’ve already encountered a case in which a father claimed that his son had disappeared. After investigating, we found out that in fact they had been at odds for several weeks. The boy no longer maintained contact, and he’d even moved without notifying his father. We wasted our time.”
“I have to say that I hadn’t thought of that possibility,” Lefèvre admitted. “I suppose our colleagues in Holland made sure the parents were reliable before alerting us.”
“Let’s hope,” Molina muttered.
Castello spoke again to reframe the discussion.
“There are no grounds for entertaining such a hypothesis. We have an official request from the Dutch authorities and we will investigate. With all our diligence and experience.”
There was a pause. As there was every time the superintendent allowed himself to be carried away by a certain bombast.
“Our first task will be to draw up a detailed account of this young woman’s activities,” Castello went on. “We have to find her room in the residence hall and her friends from Collioure. Since she was working on fauvism, we can also assume that she went at least once to the museum in Céret.”
“Collioure and Céret are under the jurisdiction of the gendarmes,” Llach noted.
Lefèvre looked at him like an explorer in an equatorial jungle who has just discovered a tribe that still practices cannibalistic rites.
“Is that a problem?”
“We have excellent relationships with the department’s gendarmes,” Castello assured him. “If I am not mistaken, what concerns Inspector Llach is whether the work load that you’re asking us to take on will be equitably distributed among the various services.”
Llach scowled at this ironic presentation of his thought but did not contest it.
“That question does not fall within my domain,” Lefèvre explained. “It will be up to you to make the arrangements, but it seems to me preferable that the responsibility not be shared. And I even think it should remain in the hands of the local police. It’s a matter of efficiency, I’d say!”
Sebag sensed his colleagues becoming less reserved as Lefèvre’s flattery began to take effect. He met the young superintendent‘s eyes. They made him think of sparrows: always alert, they fixed on people only reluctantly, and flew away at the first sign of danger. At first, he’d taken that for modesty; now he knew he’d been wrong.
The discussion went on for a good quarter of an hour. Sun was pouring into the room, which the presence of so many people had already made warm. Lambert quietly got up and put the air conditioning back on maximum.
Sebag decided to speak up.
“The photos of Ingrid Raven that the superintendent has shown us suggest that the young woman likes to change her style. Is it possible to know how her hair was done and what color it was when she arrived in France?”
“Photo no. 1 is the most recent,” Lefèvre said. “It was taken just before she left Holland. Her hair was blond then—that is in fact its true color—and it was cut short. That’s interesting because it implies that she couldn’t have changed her hairdo that much since then.”
The photo was handed around again. The young woman was posing in front of what must have been the family bungalow. She was wearing a loose tank top over light-colored, close-fitting pants. The inspectors examined the image attentively in order to memorize the young woman’s features. Lefèvre seemed to be looking for something else in his electronic organizer.
“Your question makes me think of an important fact that I forgot to mention, and which does not appear in the photos. Before leaving Amsterdam, Ingrid got a tattoo, a real tattoo, not one of those decals that are so fashionable among the young.”
Gilles Sebag felt a shiver run down his back.
A tattoo . . .
He thought quickly. A young blonde, tall and pretty. Another disappearance. It was probably just a coincidence. He consulted his little blue notebook. Sylvie Lopez hadn’t heard from her husband since last Tuesday. June 26. The date of Ingrid Raven’s last telephone call to her parents. He turned over a page and reread the notes on his interview with Gérard Barrère. He had written: “northern European accent, Nordic or Germanic.” There were getting to be a lot of coincidences.
With the tattoo, too many.
He went for it:
“Her tattoo was on the right shoulder, wasn’t it?”
Lefèvre confirmed that it was, without trying to hide his surprise. Everyone turned toward Sebag. Molina was also beginning to make the connection.
“And it was a bird, wasn’t it?” he went on.
CHAPTER 9
Her physical situation was improving day by day.
The young woman was now free to move around. Her hands were no longer tied. She could dry her tears with the back of her hand, wipe her nose with her fingers, and above
all scratch herself. She could tell that her body was covered with bumps; it was being bitten by the minuscule but countless insects that were swarming in her prison. When she thought about it, a long shiver ran along her spine.
This morning, she’d taken off her mask. She didn’t know whether she was allowed to do that. But she’d made up her mind to do it anyway. She’d dared. During the first days of her captivity, her jailer checked her bonds every time he brought her something to eat. Then he’d stopped doing that. Before coming into the room, he took care to knock three times, then waited a few seconds. As if he wanted to give her time to put her mask back on.
After having imagined her universe for a long time she had finally seen it.
It didn’t amount to much, really.
Her prison was a cellar. Dark and sinister. At the end of the room there was a small window near the low ceiling. It was blocked from the outside by a pile of planks and cardboard boxes, but nonetheless let a little air and light into the room. She stood on tiptoe. She could clear the obstruction with a single vigorous blow of her fist. Then she could take a deep, intoxicating breath of fresh air. Dazzle her eyes with daylight. But then what? What would her kidnapper’s reaction be? She couldn’t bear being punished. Being tied up again and plunged into darkness. Still, if only she’d had some hope of escaping through the opening. But it was too high and too small.
Now she could count the days.
She remembered falling asleep in José’s taxi. It was a Tuesday evening. She must have slept until the next day.
How many days had she been held captive? At least a week, she guessed. She imagined her parent’s concern. Her mother’s tears, her father’s worried silence. My God, what a terrible week they must have endured. Had they continued to work or had they stayed home all day waiting for a telephone call that became less and less likely? She knew that they were not sleeping, or if they did, only for a few minutes here and there, prostrated by fatigue and fear. She was their only daughter, their “angel,” their “pearl,” “the apple of their eyes.” Earlier, that had pained her. As a teenager, she’d even come to envy her friend Mary, who had been orphaned at birth. What a marvelous feeling of freedom one must feel when one didn’t have to bear on one’s frail shoulders the hopes, worries, and ambitions of a mother and a father! At times, she still felt that way: everything would have been so simple if she hadn’t had to worry about anyone but herself. And then at other times, when she was seized by despair and feared she would go mad, she clung fiercely to the memories of her father and mother. If she could no longer fight on for herself, she had to fight on for them. They would be too miserable . . .
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
José . . . She never stopped wondering what role her lover had played in the kidnapping. The deep sleep that had overcome her during the trip in the taxi was not natural. She’d been drugged. She remembered the way José insisted that she drink a beer when they got into the car. “That’ll give you courage,” he’d said. She’d ended up agreeing to do it. She was about to do something she’d never done before.
Her parents must have quickly notified the Dutch police. But how long would it take the French police to start looking for her? And how long before they found her?
She thrust her hands into a basin of cold water. From the beginning, he’d put one there every morning, on a stool next to the pail where she relieved herself. She could clean up. And each time she was gripped by fear, she came and washed her face.
Despite these repeated washings, a strong, rancid odor persisted around her. Her skirt and blouse were imbued with it. Not to mention her underwear. It was warm enough in the cellar for her to go naked. She’d stayed in nudist campgrounds and had never felt embarrassed. She was not prudish, and was in fact proud of her body. But she wasn’t in a nudist camp and she sensed that to be able to continue to consider oneself a human being it was sometimes better to wear clothing that stank rather than go naked.
She felt that she was under surveillance. As soon as she’d finished her meals, her kidnapper came to take away the tray, as if he’d been watching her the whole time. On some occasions, she’d intentionally dawdled, chewing slowly, drinking in tiny sips. On others, she’d eaten very quickly, gulping down the food the way she had her first meal. But every time, as soon as she had swallowed the last mouthful, he’d come in.
She constantly talked to him. Even when he wasn’t at her side. She told him about her childhood, her city, her parents. She talked about painting and film. She asked questions about what he liked or what the weather was like outside. She adopted a light tone, that of a conversation among friends. She knew he would never reply. Besides, she didn’t want him to reply. She didn’t want to know things that would allow her to identify him someday.
CHAPTER 10
The machine had gone into high gear.
Castello had grabbed the telephone and called the prosecutor, who had immediately decided to open a preliminary investigation. However, by lending support to the hypothesis of an amorous adventure, the simultaneity of the disappearances of Ingrid Raven and José Lopez might have been considered reassuring. But the magistrate had preferred to play it safe in this matter that involved a foreign national. He’d also asked that the cab driver’s home be searched.
Sebag and Molina had gone to pick up Sylvie Lopez at her parents’ house. The young woman had insisted on taking her daughter with her. She held her tightly in her arms and patiently put up with her screams. Above all, the child’s presence allowed her not to think, and provided an outlet for her fear. Now she was afraid for her husband. Afraid that something serious had happened to him. And afraid that he’d done something stupid. She didn’t know which she should fear more.
Gilles Sebag thought again about his little minute of glory. His boss’s proud smile and Lefèvre’s surprised one. Also the frowns of some of his colleagues. Generous in triumph, Sebag had let Molina set forth the main lines of the case they’d been working on for several days. Jacques had done that very well, giving a great deal of importance to their insignificant advances and emphasizing particularly the facts that had made them suspicious. Sebag himself had ended up thinking they’d been very shrewd.
The Lopez family lived in Moulin à Vent, a neighborhood built in the 1960s on the heights above Perpignan. The apartment buildings were a little dilapidated but the whole still looked pretty good. Vigorous palm trees and svelte pines prospered over well-tended lawns. Loggias with wooden railings decorated the façades of the buildings, while open-work brick screens concealed the poverty of cluttered sculleries. Finally, red tile roofs lent these blocks of buildings a certain village quaintness. The neighborhood had initially housed the hundreds of thousands of pieds-noirs who returned from North Africa with heavy hearts and empty hands. Then, with the rebirth of the university system toward the end of the 1960s, it had begun to be a place for nice, quiet students.
“We moved in when José started driving a taxi,” the young woman told them. “Before, we lived in a low-cost housing development in Bas-Vernet. It was less expensive, but José was too afraid something would happen to his car. You know, these days young people don’t respect anything. José used to sleep in the taxi at night. We couldn’t live that way.”
The elevator took them to the fourth floor. Jacques offered to carry Sylvie’s daughter for her. He held out his arms but the girl immediately began to scream. The young woman politely declined the offer.
“Jenny’s a little shy. She doesn’t do well with new people.”
In front of the door to the apartment, Sylvie, her hands full, handed Jacques her purse.
“The keys are on a big chain with the Perpignan rugby team’s logo on it,” she told him.
Suddenly overcome by a young man’s timidity, Molina carefully probed for the keys with his big fingers, hardly daring to move the various objects in the bag. He put out his tongue and two big beads of sweat appe
ared on his furrowed forehead. Sebag thought with astonishment that some men felt more uneasy putting their hands in women’s purses than they did putting them in their pants. After a few seconds of superhuman effort, the inspector held up the keys with as much pride as a Perpignan rugby player raising the championship trophy in Paris. He immediately put the key in the lock and opened the door on a cool, dark apartment.
Sylvie opened the shutters in each room. A kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, and a bath. Molina noted with satisfaction that the search wouldn’t take long.
Their hostess offered them a drink before they began their search. Jacques opted for a beer, Gilles for a simple glass of water. Astonished by his frugality, the young woman insisted on flavoring his water with fruit syrup or even a little anisette. He refused, but managed to satisfy her by asking for a few ice cubes. Outside, the sun was already high in the sky and the tramontane had stopped blowing. It was going to be a hot day.
Sylvie Lopez put her daughter on a play-mat in the living room and headed for the kitchen.
“Does your husband keep his personal things in some special place?” Sebag asked her from the living room.
“His clothes are in the bedroom closet.”
Gilles waited until she came back with the drinks before explaining what he meant.
“By personal things, I meant papers, documents, files . . . ”
The question seemed to surprise the young woman. Her husband wasn’t the kind to like paperwork. She finally pointed to the PC that stood on a desk in a corner of the living room. Right next to the play-mat.
“José spends lots of time on the computer, but it’s mainly to play with CD-ROMs or on the Internet. I don’t think he has many personal things on it.”
“What about the accounts for the taxi?”
“All that’s on the computer, yes. But I’m the one who handles it. José hates bookkeeping.”
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