Sebag knew that Molina liked his way of working, but he’d never given him such compliments.
“Thanks.”
He felt embarrassed. Molina said no more. He was probably already regretting having let that paean escape him.
“See you tomorrow?” Gilles asked.
“Of course.”
“Well, until tomorrow then. Have a good evening.”
After he hung up, Gilles walked around the yard, wondering how he could spend the evening. He’d had enough of the computer. A movie? Why not? But he didn’t know anything about current films. It was Claire, usually, who chose for them. And then the idea of going to freeze his butt off in an overly air-conditioned theater didn’t appeal to him.
He went into the garage. The back tire of his bike was flat. He pumped it up a bit before getting on it. He rode to the video store in the center of Saint-Estève, rented an American comedy from the 1970s and a more recent porno film and slipped them into his backpack.
That evening, he was going to have some fun.
CHAPTER 25
He had to go back. One day or another. Might as well drink the bitter cup dry right away.
Sebag had the impression that everyone was looking at him strangely. With compassion. Like a person who is ill or convalescent. He was probably imagining things. Not everyone at police headquarters had heard about what happened. He’d worked up theories and had found himself suddenly contradicted by the facts. Okay. Nothing to get all upset about. This sort of thing happened every day. Only the person mainly concerned accorded that so much importance. His colleagues had probably already forgotten the incident.
He went directly to his office without passing by way of the service de quart or the cafeteria. He met Llach on the stairway.
“How are you?” Llach asked.
There was no more neutral question than that one. But Sebag nonetheless saw an allusion in it. He replied brusquely. Without unclenching his teeth.
“Fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine?”
“I don’t know. I was just saying hello.”
Sebag took refuge in his office. He turned on his computer to look at his work e-mail A message from Castello gave him his assignment for the day. Meet with Brian Wayne. He was a retired English surgeon. One of the last B.W.’s who had not yet been questioned. The lead of Lopez’s mysterious customer was thus still being pursued. Sebag was supposed to work on it with Lambert.
Molina came into the office. He seemed surprised to see Sebag.
“Well! How are you?” he asked.
Sebag tried to reply as decently as he could. But he felt a wave of ill humor rising up in him.
“What about you? What are you doing today?”
“After my swim at Argelès yesterday, I’m going to work on my tan at Força Real. I’m supposed to spend the day up there trying to meet people who are there often—hikers, joggers, people who go there to screw—anyone who might have noticed a suspicious individual. The kidnapper has gone to the hermitage at least twice since the beginning of the case.”
“Do you think there will be many people at Força Real who go up there often? It’s a little far from everything, isn’t it?”
“You never know. It’s a pain in the ass but it’s worth a try.”
Molina sat down at his desk and turned on his computer. Earlier, they’d had to share a machine, but for the past year they’d each had their own. Computers had long since become part of their daily routine. For better and for worse.
“Do you know who I got stuck working with today?” Sebag complained.
“No.”
“Lambert.”
“Oh, shit.”
He pointed to the floor over his head.
“Looks like you’re out of favor up there.”
Sebag seized the opportunity.
“By the way, was there a lot of talk around headquarters yesterday?”
“Talk about what?”
“I don’t know . . . About the new direction taken by the investigation, for instance.”
“Ah. Not, not much. We were all surprised by the turnabout. A little annoyed, too, to have been made fools of by a young cop from Paris. But what the hell! We might have a chance to take our revenge.”
Sebag nodded: he appreciated the first person plural.
Brian Wayne lived in Les Aspres, a little village in the foothills of Le Canigou. An English surgeon from Birmingham, he’d chosen to retire in the South of France. As soon as Sebag saw him, he understood that they were going to waste their time. Wayne was a quiet little old man. He was five foot two at most, with frail shoulders and a kind of doughnut around his waist.
Nonetheless, the inspectors accepted Wayne’s invitation to drink an orangeade in the library, the coolest room in the large house. Sebag let Lambert run the interview. The young cop carried out his task with gravity and application.
They learned that Brian Wayne had been living in Boule d’Amont for about ten years. That he was sixty-nine years old. That he was a widower. That he had a daughter who was still living in England. Wayne had just come back from Great Britain, where he’d gone to see his second grandson, who had been born in early June. Wayne had thus “been absent at the time of the events,” to use the traditional formula. The interview was quickly concluded.
However, Sebag did not come back completely empty-handed. When they explained to the old surgeon why they had come to visit him, he asked them if they were very sure that the initials BW corresponded to a true identity.
“What do you mean by that?” Sebag asked.
“They could be the letters of a nickname, couldn’t they?”
Sebag was annoyed at himself for not having thought of that earlier. Had he really wanted to hide the identity of his mysterious customer, Lopez would in fact have a reason for using a double camouflage. The idea was interesting. The problem was that it led to a dead end.
How could they hope to find the nickname Lopez had given to an unknown person? Still more difficult: how could they find that person on the basis of the nickname?
The inspectors said good-bye to their host. As they left his property, Lambert suddenly tugged Sebag’s sleeve.
“Did you see that down there?”
Lambert, all excited, was pointing to a dark place at the back of the yard.
“Gilles, it’s a pond.”
“So?”
“Well, Lopez was drowned in a pond, right?”
Sebag told Lambert to get into the car. Then he sat down behind the wheel and started the engine. The young inspector started sulking.
“Thierry, for shit’s sake!” Sebag said. “Don’t you see that we’ve bothered Wayne for nothing? He has nothing to do with all this.”
“I’m not so sure of that. He has the right initials, he’s got a pond . . . You don’t think we should take a sample of the water?”
“If you want to . . . but you’re wasting your time! Can you imagine old man Wayne dragging Lopez’s body across his yard? He wouldn’t even be able to pull him out of the water.”
“I’ve learned not to trust appearances . . . ”
“You haven’t learned anything at all,” Sebag interrupted him. “Where have you ever seen a nice little grandpa who is transformed into a bloodthirsty beast at nightfall? At the movies?”
“I expected you to be more prudent. After what happened the other day . . . ”
Sebag slammed on the brakes. The car skidded to a halt in the middle of a curve.
“What was that you just said? Can you repeat it?”
“Don’t get angry, Gilles,” Lambert stammered, surprised by the violence of Sebag’s tone. I wasn’t trying to be disagreeable. I apologize.”
Sebag put the car in first gear and got back on the road.
“I apologize, too.”
“It’s okay, but all t
he same . . . Maybe you should listen to your colleagues more.”
Sebag was breathing hard. He must have fallen very low for an idiot like Lambert to think he could tell him what he should do.
They drove on in silence as far as Ille-sur-Têt. After crossing the commune, Lambert asked if they could stop for five minutes. He needed to pee because of the orangeade. Sebag took advantage of the pause to send Léo a text message.
Good weather here. I’m working and thinking about my son. Lots of love. Have a good vacation.
He pushed the “Send” button and imagined the message crossing the sky to land in the left pocket of his son’s jacket. There were good things about modern technology. How could he have survived far from his children without this permanent umbilical cord constituted by the cell phone?
He watched Lambert through the closed window. His right elbow moved, then his left. He was done taking a leak. But before he got back in the car, the young inspector engaged in other oscillations that Sebag couldn’t immediately identify. It was only after his colleague got back in the car that he understood: Lambert had taken advantage of the stop to spray some more of his bad cologne under his arms.
Sebag held his breath for the first few kilometers and then decided to drive with the window rolled down, despite the fact that the air conditioning was on. He was ready to endure anything, but some things were beyond his strength.
“Inspector, please!”
Sebag whirled around. A motley crowd was invading the lobby at police headquarters: mugged old men, women who’d been beaten and perhaps raped, youths whose scooters had been stolen, foreigners waiting for papers they were unlikely to get, French nationals who were angry or simply annoyed. Plus a few depressed lonely people looking for a little human compassion.
Sebag hadn’t been able to identify the low voice that had addressed him.
“Hello, Inspector.”
A tall, slender man came up to him and held out his hand. Sebag shook his hand hesitantly. He studied the knife-edge face that was smiling at him in a friendly way. No click. He didn’t know the guy.
“Would you have a few minutes for me, please? My car has been stolen.”
Sebag glanced at the intern who was behind the reception desk. Even though she had her hands full with the noisy crowd, Martine had followed their conversation. She gave him a sign suggesting that she couldn’t help him, and she wrapped it in a nice smile. Sebag turned back to his interlocutor.
“Sorry, but I don’t deal with car thefts.”
He was about to turn on his heel and leave when the man spoke to him again.
“That’s too bad! Someone told me that you could help me.”
“Someone? I don’t know any ‘someone.’”
Sebag was starting to get annoyed. He’d been given enough minor tasks lately, and he wasn’t about to start investigating car thefts
“Gérard Barrère told me about you. He thought you could help me. He said you were very competent.”
Sebag frowned. He was becoming distrustful and wondered if this guy wasn’t making fun of him.
“It doesn’t take any special competence to deal with stolen vehicles. If your car is a luxury model, it’s already on the other side of the Pyrénées. Otherwise we’ll find it here in a few days, all banged up at the bottom of a ravine or burned to cinders on the parking lot in a low-cost housing development. I hope you’ve got good insurance.”
The man gave him a broad smile. His crew-cut hair made his face look even longer. A hand was suddenly put on Sebag’s shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
Molina. All smiles. Relaxed. Working alone seemed to suit him.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll buy you a cup. I’m going to the cafeteria.”
Then, addressing the owner of the car, he added:
“Excuse me, I think I interrupted you.”
“We’re done here,” Sebag hastened to say. “This gentleman has lost his car and he’s looking for a top-flight cop to conduct the investigation.”
“A top-flight cop?” Molina joked. “You won’t find one of those around here.”
“I think I’ve taken enough of your time,” the man replied, without ceasing to smile.
A strange glow burned in his eyes. His voice had gone down yet another note. Its timbre was enough to make the windows rattle.
“Give Mr. Barrère our greetings,” Gilles said.
“I will, Inspector.”
“And I hope all the same that you’ll get your car back.”
Gilles was beginning to regret the harshness of his reaction.
“It’s an old car,” the man concluded, quietly getting back in the line of people waiting to be served. “And then, I do have good insurance. I’ll see you soon, I hope.”
“See you soon, yes,” Gilles replied mechanically.
“With or without sugar?”
“Without. That way it’s less like coffee.”
Molina handed him his cup without trying to understand.
“Has Barry White been annoying you for a long time?”
“Barry White? The crooner?”
It was Sebag’s turn not to understand his associate. Molina tried to adopt a serious voice, which wasn’t easy for him.
“I need a top-flight cop to find my old junker. I . . . ”
A coughing fit prevented him from finishing his sentence. Sebag exploded in laughter.
“Did you know that I’ve got something new in our case?” Molina asked when he was able to speak again.
“Really?”
“I told you I was supposed to spend the day at the hermitage?”
Sebag glanced at his watch.
“You’re already back? It’s only three P.M.”
“I’d had enough. Not much happens up there. I saw twenty-five people in all. And even then! There were eight in a single minibus. But I found a witness.”
Molina put two coins in the machine and pushed the top key. Short espresso with sugar. The machine shook and noisily spit out its black juice. Jacques waited until he had his coffee in his hand before he went on with what he was saying.
“Up there I found a young kid who was bird-watching. He’s writing a study on a sparrow whose name I’ve forgotten. He goes up to Força Real every day, occasionally even several times a day. Moreover, he noticed Lopez’s abandoned taxi and was getting ready to report it to us when the gendarmes found it.”
He stirred his coffee for a long time before taking an initial swallow of it. Sebag was getting impatient and didn’t try to hide it. He knew that was what his colleague was waiting for.
“So?”
“So what?”
“Your witness?”
Sebag decided to speed things up.
“Your bird-watcher saw a car and the guy who went with it, is that it? And he gave you an exact description?”
“You’re such a pain in the ass!”
“That makes two of us!”
Molina took another swallow of his coffee.
“You have to admit that it wasn’t too hard to guess.”
“No, that’s true,” Sebag conceded. “So what is the guy like?”
“Slim and fairly tall. Blond hair. Light complexion. Wearing a very formal outfit despite the season. That was all he could say.”
“And the car?”
“A big station wagon. A Peugeot or a Volvo. He apparently doesn’t know anything about cars. In any case, it was red.”
“That’s great! Did you find the car and arrest the suspect?”
“Uh, no, the description is still a little vague.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too . . . ”
“In any event, it corresponds in general to the description Anneke gave of the man who attacked her.”
“Go ahead, turn the kni
fe in the wound.”
“Ah . . . Excuse me, I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
“Too bad, it’s done.”
Sebag crumpled his cup. It still contained a few drops of coffee that squirted onto his pants.
The investigation was stalled, even if Castello and Lefèvre refused to admit it. The inspectors had been assigned to question the main witnesses again and to show them the improved portrait—though it was still too vague, in Sebag’s view—of the suspect. He and Jacques were supposed to talk with Sylvie Lopez again. The burial of her husband was to take place the next day.
The young woman invited them into the apartment. She led them to the living room, which was very dimly lit.
“Would you like something to drink? Coffee?”
The two men accepted her offer. Jacques because he hadn’t taken time to drink a cup of coffee at the Carlit, and Gilles because he was always ready to try something new. While Sylvie Lopez was busy in the kitchen, Sebag examined the changes that had taken place in the living room since their last visit. Photos had grown like mushrooms on the tables. José and Sylvie leaving the church on their wedding day; José alone in his military uniform, José sitting on a hospital bed with baby Jennifer in his arms; the same a few months later on a beach. And then, in a prominent position atop the television set, a large format photo of José sitting very proudly behind the wheel of his taxi. The corners of the frame were bordered in black cloth. Next to the TV was a long, extinguished candle. The young widow probably lit it in the evening to relieve her loneliness and pain. She was in the process of making her swine of a husband into a saint. Her marriage had failed and now she was trying to make a success of being a widow.
Sylvie returned from the kitchen carrying a tray loaded with cups. Wrapped in her dark mourning clothes, she seemed more frail and fragile than ever. She made you want to take her in your arms to console her. Sebag said to himself that if he hadn’t been there, Jacques wouldn’t have repressed that desire.
Summertime All the Cats Are Bored Page 23