CHAPTER 18
He’d arrived early and was stirring a cup of coffee.
Sebag had made an appointment to meet Anneke Verbrucke in a cafe on the Avenue Poincaré, near the place where she had been attacked. The interview would be less formal that the one at police headquarters. He’d followed Anneke’s route from the discotheque. Then he’d sat down in the cafe. He’d reread the night patrol’s report and had in fact noted a few gaps. Oversights that were symptomatic of policemen who were tired and had no illusions about their chances of solving this case, which was commonplace enough. An aborted attack—no theft, no wound other than a scratch on the neck, no description of the assailant. The police’s laziness sometimes had excuses.
A blond young woman entered the cafe. He recognized her immediately. Despite the heat, she was wearing a silk scarf around her neck. Her blue eyes looked around the cafe and stopped on Sebag’s raised hand. Anneke Verbrucke came over to his table and sat down. The inspector let her order a Monaco before having her tell her story once again. She spoke French very well, with just enough accent to make her soft voice seductive. The night club, her crossing of Perpignan on foot, the attack, the knife, and finally the escape: her account added nothing to the anti-crime squad’s report. It was time to make some progress on this case.
“Let’s start over from the beginning, please. Precisely when did you understand that you were being followed?”
She sighed.
“I don’t know, it’s difficult to say. As I told you, it was when I came to the palace of the Kings of Majorca that I realized that there were footsteps behind me . . . but on second thought, it was as if they had been there much earlier and I hadn’t been aware of them.”
“Could you have been followed from the time you left the bar?”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“It’s just a supposition. We have to consider everything. Did you notice something or someone odd at any time during the evening?”
“Odd in what way?”
“I don’t know. Someone who paid special attention to you?”
Sebag sensed that she was repressing a smile.
“What does ‘odd‘ mean? When I first came to France, it seemed to me that all men looked at me oddly. And then I understood that it was in your nature. You Latins are like that, aren’t you? You aren’t even aware of the insistent way in which you look at women. In Holland it’s not like that. Men are more . . . discreet.”
Her blond hair fell in curls on her bare shoulders. She was wearing a tank top with lacy edges. Obviously she wasn’t wearing anything under it. When she spoke, a dimple appeared on her right cheek. Sebag had no trouble imagining the looks that some men might give her. Especially at late hours of the night.
The waiter set the Monaco down in front of her.
“Let me reformulate my question: have you noticed in the course of your stay anyone who looked at you in a particularly odd way?”
She thought for a few seconds. Her mouth grew still slimmer. It looked like a simple pink line between her nose and her chin. It wasn’t her best feature. Clearly she’d thought of something, an idea or an image, and she was reluctant to talk about it.
“Tell me everything,” Sebag insisted. “From the time when that occurred to you; that may not be insignificant. I’ll make the decision regarding that.”
“You’re probably right,” she admitted. “It’s . . . there was a man who stared at me for a long time. Oddly. He didn’t look at me in exactly the same way as other men. I don’t know how to put it, but it was . . . more coldly. A little like the way a doctor looks at you. And then he was alone at his table. All the other men were in groups, or in couples, but he was all alone.”
“Could you describe him for me?”
“Do you think . . . ?”
He interrupted her with a gesture.
“Just describe him for me, please. We’ll see about the rest later on.”
“Okay. He must have been between forty and fifty years old. He was slender . . . maybe even thin, I’m no longer sure, and he had hollow cheeks. His eyes were light-colored . . . That’s about it, I don’t remember anything else.”
“What did he look like? Was he tall?”
“Yes, I mean no, I don’t know. He was sitting down. Oh, wait: one time he went out for a few minutes, to go to the toilet, I suppose. He was . . . of medium height.”
“What time did you leave the bar?”
“At three A.M. One of my friends’ watches sounded every hour—it was really annoying—and it had just beeped when we got up to leave. Afterward, I talked with a friend in front of the café for maybe ten minutes or so.”
“Did anyone come out during that time?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“What about the guy who was watching you—did he stay in the bar?”
“No. I think he left a little before we did.”
“Weren’t you afraid to go back to your room alone? Couldn’t anyone accompany you?”
“No, I thought it was better . . . alone.”
She’d blushed. The question had been indiscreet.
“With Latins, sometimes you have to make things clear, don’t you?” he asked her with a complicitous smile.
“That’s one of the first things I learned in France. But at first there were some . . . misunderstandings. It isn’t always easy.”
Sebag took out his notebook and made a few notes regarding Anneke’s description of the man in the bar. Then he drew up a quick chronology of the night. At 3:00 A.M., the young people left the bar. At 3:10, Anneke started walking back to her room. At about 3:20, she reached the Avenue Poincaré, the site of the attack made on her. 3:20 sharp was the time when Ripoll woke him after having received the anonymous phone call. Hard even for an attacker to do two things at the same time. Of course, the details would have to be checked. A few minutes one way or the other, it still worked despite everything. Especially since he thought he remembered Ripoll saying that he’d waited a moment before deciding to wake him.
The devil was in the details, he said to himself. And so were the bad guys!
“Do you think this man in the bar might be the one who attacked me?”
He put his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his hands.
“I don’t know, Anneke. I haven’t any idea. For the moment, I’m just gathering information. We’ll filter it later on.”
She’d already finished her Monaco, and he had long since given up on his coffee. Too bitter.
“Would you like something else?”
“No, thanks.”
The sun was already high in the sky. It would soon be time for lunch. He’d have liked to drink a pastis but didn’t dare. Anneke undid her scarf. The mark made by the knife was still very visible on her white skin.
“How was the attack made, exactly?”
Her eyes turned dark blue. The severe pink line of her mouth reshaped itself under her nose.
“He suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I hadn’t heard him coming. He pinned me against a car . . . He put one hand over my mouth and I felt a knife against my neck.”
“What hand was he holding the knife in?”
“It was his . . . left hand that was gagging me, so he must have been holding the knife in his right hand.” Sebag shrugged. The attacker was right-handed, like 90 percent of the population. Too bad!
“And what happened next?”
“Next? Nothing!”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“He waited.”
“What was he waiting for?”
“I don’t have any idea. He was holding me against the car, he didn’t move, he didn’t say anything. I just heard him breathing. He was breathing heavily but calmly.”
She put her index finger and her thumb on her neck and ru
bbed the red mark.
“Because he . . . waited, you must have had time to take in a few more details. I know he was wearing a hood, but what did he look like to you? Was he tall? Fat?”
She closed her eyes. Her features hardened even more and that was not because of the effort to remember he’d asked her to make. After a few seconds, she reopened her eyes.
“He was about my height, around five-eleven, I’d say. Fairly thin. Dark eyes.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Uh . . . Dark-colored clothes. A jacket, maybe. Yes . . . he must have had a jacket.”
“What about the man in the bar?”
“He was wearing a light-colored polo shirt. I don’t know whether he had a jacket.”
Sebag noted all this down alongside the description of the man in the bar. It was too thin to draw any conclusions.
“When your attacker stopped . . . waiting, what did he do?”
“He told me to get into the car and not to cry out.”
Sebag turned a page in his notebook. They’d arrived at a crucial point in the narrative and he needed room: he knew that he’d have to come back to the question they were about to take up.
“Which car did he want you to get into?”
“The one he was holding me against.”
“Are you sure? Do you think you were being held against his car?”
“He even put a hand on the door handle to try to open it,” Anneke went on, “and that’s when I was able to get away.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“Light-colored . . . yellow, I think. Yes, yellow. With elegant shapes. Like a sports car.”
Sebag scribbled furiously on his notebook. He finally had something tangible. A yellow sports car, that was not so common. But that wasn’t the most important thing. That car could not belong to the attacker. Impossible, he wrote in his notebook. And he underlined the word several times before putting his pen down again.
“Which hand did he use when he tried to open the door?”
“The one that he was holding over my mouth . . . The left.”
“And was he able to open the door?”
“I don’t know.”
She ran her fingers down the side of her empty but still cool glass.
“I think he had trouble opening it, and that’s why I was able to get away from him. At a certain moment, I no longer felt the knife against my throat and I yelled. I shoved him away, hit him on the head with my purse, and took off.”
“You hit him?”
“I think so, but it’s difficult to say: at times like that, you’re not aware of what you’re doing.”
Sebag pointed to a little purse in dyed fabric that the young woman had set on the table when she arrived.
“Is that what you hit him with?”
“Yes.”
“Do you mind if I have a look?”
He picked it up and weighed it in his hand. A couple of pounds at most. She must not have done him much harm, he thought.
“Then what happened?”
“Then I crossed the street, there was a car coming. It stopped. When I turned around, there was no longer anyone there.”
“He’d left?”
“Yes.”
“On foot?”
“Uh . . . yes, I suppose.
“But you’re not sure? You didn’t see him running away?”
“No . . . ”
“You didn’t hear him, either?”
“No . . . But how else could he have gotten away?”
“In his car, for example.”
“No, I’d have heard that. And then he couldn’t have gotten out like that, there were cars in front of him and behind him.”
“So the car stayed there.”
“I think.”
It took her a moment to realize.
“Oh, damn . . . ”
Sebag smiled at her sadly. According to their report, the anti-crime brigade men had rapidly arrived at the scene. They had looked around but hadn’t found any trace of a suspicious individual. They’d gone back to headquarters to take the victim’s deposition. It was therefore only after they’d returned that they learned about the business with the car. Either they didn’t react, or they couldn’t be bothered to go back to the scene. The night was almost over, and so were their shifts.
“One last question, please, Anneke. This time I’m going to ask you to answer without reflecting. Tell me the first thing that comes to mind. Okay?”
Her face became concentrated and serious, like a little girl’s.
“Okay.”
Sebag ran a finger over his lips before he asked his question.
“You told me that your attacker waited a long time, but you didn’t know why.”
“That’s right.”
“What happened at the moment when he stopped waiting?”
She did as she’d been told and replied immediately.
“A car came down the avenue.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. For a few seconds, I even thought he wanted me to get into the car that was coming. Until he put his hand on the car door, as I told you.”
Sebag wrote this remark in his notebook. Circled it in red. There was something here that he didn’t understand, either. He thanked Anneke and gave her his cell phone number in case she remembered something else. Even something that seemed to her unimportant. It was for him to decide, he said again.
Anneke took her coin purse out of her bag. He stopped her.
“Please, allow me,” he said, picking up the bill. “Courtesy of the French police.”
He put the money on the table and the bill in his wallet, as if he were hoping to be reimbursed for it. But the police didn’t have a line in its budget for that kind of gallantry.
Claire was dozing beside the pool, her entirely naked body exposed to the sun’s caress. That evening, or tomorrow at the latest, her skin would have forgotten all trace of a swimsuit.
“Are you having a good vacation?”
Her sunglasses reflected the image of a perfectly blue sky. Gilles saw her eyebrows move and knew that behind the lenses she had opened her eyes. He knelt down beside her.
“How about you?” she asked, without turning her head. “You job wasn’t so bad today. You’re home early.”
“Is that a reproach?”
She took off her glasses. The blue of the sky entered into her eyes.
“Why do you say that?”
“I was joking.”
“It’s not funny.”
“I know.”
He tried to laugh. It rang false.
“I’m going to make myself some coffee. Do you want some?”
“What time is it?”
“Almost four o’clock.”
“Too late for me, thanks.”
He bent over her. As he was bringing his lips to hers to kiss her, he put one hand under her shoulder, the other under her knees. With a sudden movement, he lifted her up and pushed her into the water. Then he went toward the kitchen, pretending to ignore her furious complaints.
In the cupboard, he chose a Guatemalan coffee. Its stimulating, acidic taste was just right at this time of day. While the first aromatic drops were flowing into the coffee pot, he went to take his swimsuit off the line near the pool. He dived in and swam alongside Claire. They did a few lengths together before getting out of the pool and sitting on the edge, dangling their feet in the water. Claire was still naked. The water was sliding off her pearly skin.
“It’s nice that you came home early,” she said to him. “We’ll have an extra long evening. Shall we have dinner in front of the TV or a film night?”
“Neither, unfortunately. I came home early because I have to go out again. I want to check a couple of things.”
“Absolutely.”
“Too bad.”
She seemed sincerely disappointed. He wrapped the towel around his waist. Then he went to get a cup of coffee and came back to drink it next to the pool. He took a first swallow.
“Is it good?” Claire asked.
“Delicious.”
“Can I have a taste?”
He handed her his cup but it was his mouth that she drank greedily. She put her arms around his neck and began to hug him very tightly. He prudently put down his cup. Claire pulled him toward her and they both fell into the cool water. Gilles felt happy. Claire still seemed to be in love with him.
They climbed out of the pool. Sebag sat down again to finish his coffee while Claire lay down to finish her tanning.
“Since you won’t be here this evening,” she began, “I’ll take the opportunity to go out with Véronique. She’s not doing any better, you know.”
“As you wish, my love, as you wish.”
That was all he was able to say. The charm had just been broken.
Avenue Poincaré crosses a residential quarter snuggled up to the foot of the palace of the Kings of Majorca. Built in the thirteenth century at the time when Perpignan was the capital of a kingdom stretching from Montpellier to Valencia and including the Balearic Islands, the citadel dominated the city. However, all that can be seen is its thick walls. Backed up against this imposing mass, the area is quiet. Avenue Poincaré becomes calm again each evening as soon as the residents of Perpignan come home from work.
Sebag inspected all the little streets in the neighborhood, unsuccessfully, and then sat down in a bus shelter at the top of the avenue. He took out a cigarette. The first he’d had in days. Although some smokers light up more often during periods of stress, Sebag smoked much less. He forgot. He could do without tobacco much more easily than coffee.
He’d thought all afternoon about this business with the car. It couldn’t have been the attacker’s car. How could the man have been sure that Anneke would pass right in front of him on her way back to her room, and that the street would be deserted at just that time? Either he was very lucky, or . . .
Or what? That was precisely the problem.
Summertime All the Cats Are Bored Page 17