The coffee was without personality—a product from the lower shelves of a supermarket—but it was very strong. Drinkable. Jacques began the conversation without waiting any longer. He handed her the rough portrait of the suspect. It meant nothing to her. Gilles suggested looking at the family photo albums. He didn’t have high hopes.
He found nothing remarkable. No suspicious figure, no known face. Moments of happiness like those found in all families throughout the world. Those of Sebag’s family were no different. Less artificial, he hoped.
Gilles saw no reason to stay any longer. The contemplation of family photos always plunged him into a strange state. Almost nauseous. A feeling of dizziness like the one he had when he let Claire and the kids make him get on those infernal merry-go-rounds at fairs. Jolts and speed. Life bouncing you around and slipping through your fingers. Time going too fast. Every page turned represents months, even years, of life. Buried. Fled. Forever and ever.
He suddenly stood up. Jacques seemed surprised, Sylvie Lopez frightened. She offered them another cup of coffee, a glass of fruit juice, a piece of cake . . . She was ready to do anything to keep them there a little longer. Sebag said he had an urgent call to make and took leave of his colleague.
“I’ll see you back at headquarters in a little while. I need to walk a bit to think.”
On his way back, Sebag took the Avenue Poincaré. That was where Anneke Verbrucke had been attacked. Marc Savoy’s sport coupe was parked across from the service station. The sales rep apparently came home early on Fridays.
Unconsciously, Sebag had hoped to have an insight, or at least a new idea. He stopped for a moment, lit a cigarette. But nothing came to him. Nothing at all.
While he was saying hello to Martine at the reception desk, his cell phone rang.
“Hello, this is Gilles Sebag.”
“It’s me, am I disturbing you?”
“Where are you calling from?”
“A phone booth. I’m in Naples; the connection is good.”
“Do you have five minutes? Give me the number. I’ll go up to my office and call you back.”
“Okay. Talk to you in a minute.”
He hung up and climbed the stairs two at a time. When he got to his office he connected his computer and then grabbed the receiver. Claire answered immediately.
“I hope your work’s not too hard?”
“So-so. And you, you aren’t suffering too much?”
“Oh, yes I am! It’s pretty unbearable. Swimming pool, chaise longue, reading. Magnificent cities. Bonifacio on Thursday, Naples today; this evening we’re leaving for Palermo . . . ”
“You’re not staying very long in each city. Isn’t that a little frustrating?”
“Yes, it is. But I tell myself I’m scouting out the terrain and that I’ll come back with you to the places that please me most.
There was a short silence.
“What about you, you aren’t feeling too lonely there in Perpignan?”
“With my job, I don’t have time to get bored,” he lied. “We’re making progress slowly, but we’re making progress.”
Another silence. A little longer. It wasn’t easy to find the right words. Usually they telephoned each other only when they had something precise to say. It was in the evening, as they were eating dinner, that they talked.
“Is the weather good there?” Claire asked.
“Very good. But there’s a little wind, and that’s nice. And you—are you having good weather?”
“Yes, more or less the same.”
“Then it wasn’t worth the trouble to travel so far away.”
He hadn’t intended to be disagreeable. It was just a harmless remark. He had to apologize. Or just go on.
“I heard from Séverine the other day. She seemed happy.”
“I also had an e-mail message. One from Léo, too. He’s having a great time, I think.”
“That’s also my impression.”
They exchanged a few more banalities and then slipped in two or three tender words. It was time to finish up; Molina had just come into the office.
“I’m going to let you go, I’ve got to work. Thanks for calling.”
“My pleasure. I don’t know when I’ll be able to call again. Maybe from Palermo or Tunis.”
“I hope so. Talk to you soon.”
“Talk to you soon. I love you.”
“Me too.”
He had to hang up.
“Is she okay?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is Claire okay?” Molina repeated.
“Fine.”
“Are there any handsome guys on her old tub?”
“Probably.”
He hastened to mount a counter-attack.
“And Mrs. Lopez—did you succeed in comforting her?”
Molina pretended he hadn’t heard. He turned on his computer.
“Do our colleagues have anything new?”
“I haven’t had time to look.”
They glanced through their e-mails. The analysis of the blood had issued its verdict: the blood on the envelope was indeed that of Anneke Verbrucke.
“Is the last meeting this evening at six P.M.?” Molina asked.
“That’s what I heard. But I don’t think I’ll go.”
Molina looked up from his screen.
“Are you pouting?”
“A little, yeah” Sebag conceded.
“Castello isn’t going to like you being absent.”
“I don’t give a damn!”
“That’s not true.”
Molina was right. Sebag wasn’t fooled by his own anger.
“You know him,” Jacques said. “He’s waiting for you to react. You’re a good cop but you’ve got to admit that you have to be pushed a bit sometimes.”
“How about you, don’t you have to be pushed, too?”
“Yes . . . But the difference is that I’ll never give off sparks no matter how hard I’m pushed.”
“Don’t give me your modest act.”
“I’m not modest, but at the age of forty-seven, I’ve learned to recognize my limits.”
“I have, too, I know my limits.”
“No, that’s not true. Your problem is that you doubt yourself too much . . . ”
“You sound like my wife.”
“You see? If she says it too, that’s because it’s true.”
Sebag considered the question for a few seconds.
“Are you expecting me to give off sparks?”
“Yeah.”
“I wouldn’t want to disappoint you, but I’m afraid I’ve lost my way in this investigation.”
“Well, then, get back on track.”
“How would I do that?”
“Start your reasoning from the beginning and think it all through again.”
“But my reasoning is lousy! These cases are connected, that’s been proven. And I can’t start over again from that postulate.”
“Stop sniveling and follow your instinct, as the boss would say. You must have had good reasons.”
“We have to admit that we took a wrong turn. The blood on the letter, the telephone call from the bar . . . ”
“Agreed. That proves that the guy who attacked Anneke is in fact the one who kidnapped Ingrid. But there’s no connection with the murder.”
“What about the treasure hunt? It wasn’t chance that took us to the campground in Argelès; it was the kidnapper.”
“Maybe to confuse us. As you suggested.”
“I’ve already made myself ridiculous enough with that theory.”
“It won’t kill you. Just imagine Lefèvre’s face if you prove that the crime in Argelès has nothing to do with the other two.”
“And just how am I going to do that?”
> “You find the murderer.”
Sebag snapped his fingers.
“Good God, you’re right, how did I manage not to think of that earlier? It’s so simple: all we have to do is find the murderer! The gendarmes have been investigating for a month, you yourself have been working on the case and getting nowhere, but I, with a wave of my magic wand, will be able to find him.”
“We might have missed something obvious that another more objective, sharper look would reveal.”
“Thanks for your confidence, but it seems to me a little excessive.”
“It doesn’t cost anything to try.”
“A few hours of unpaid overtime . . . ”
“You’ll be able to get them back some other time.”
Sebag couldn’t repress a smile.
“Castello will never allow me to keep pursuing that line of investigation.”
Sebag’s arguments were losing their pertinence, and Molina understood that he’d won.
“Why do you have to tell him what you’re doing?”
“Do you expect me to work free-lance? The boss wouldn’t like that.”
“Lefèvre did and it worked pretty well for him.”
“Lefèvre doesn’t take his orders from Castello.”
“I don’t see what the problem is: either you don’t find anything and nobody will know that you worked on your own, or you find something interesting and the boss will be forced to accept your methods. Results, comrade, results are all that matters. Besides, if you want my opinion, Castello would be very happy to see you get the better of that little cur from Paris.”
“He’s not like that.”
“Everybody is like that.”
“In short, you’re suggesting that I play double or nothing?”
“So? Aren’t you a gambler?”
Sebag didn’t answer right away. It’s difficult to say what really influences life decisions. Big ones or small ones. A smile, a look, or a phrase sometimes has more influence than fine ideas or the most conclusive arguments. Sebag often let himself be guided by the witticisms he came up with. And he’d just invented one that pleased him very much.
“You’re right, pal, we have to strike Lefèvre while he’s hot.”
CHAPTER 26
He was almost smiling.
He couldn’t remember having so much fun since he was a child. This game of hide-and-seek was turning out to be very amusing. Still, he wondered if he hadn’t over-estimated his adversary. After all, he’d chosen him on an impulse. The policeman had seemed to him reliable and intelligent, but he’d noticed his fragility as well. Wasn’t he too tender for the role? At police headquarters, he’d seemed nervous. His investigation must be marking time. And it wouldn’t move forward much in the coming days if he insisted on ignoring the little hints he kept giving him.
Maybe he’d tried too hard to confuse things. The police were apparently getting lost in the false trails he‘d put in their way.
Another concern worried him. He was obsessed with his prisoner’s body. He didn’t like that at all.
He hid in the large closet to watch her taking a shower. Using a knife, he enlarged a wormhole in the wood so he could see everything she did. He wasn’t able to take his eyes off the washcloth that softly caressed her smooth skin. It slipped over her round shoulders, her lovely breasts, then her flat stomach. It disappeared furtively between her thighs before moving to the lower back to cover her well-rounded buttocks with white foam.
He would have so much liked to be a washcloth.
At night he dreamed of this body that was so beautiful. So accessible. He woke and got up to watch her sleep. He needed to make only one gesture: to lift the light sheet that hardly concealed her body and simply lie down on her. The young woman wouldn’t have resisted. She would have limited herself to docilely spreading her thighs. She would probably even have made a few little moans to give him pleasure. And who knows, maybe also for her own pleasure.
He was the master; she was his slave.
He sensed the warmth of her body.
But he didn’t want that.
His game was not a sexual game. He mustn’t soil it. He didn’t care if later on he was called sick or mad, but he didn’t want to be called perverse. Ever. He was above all that.
So when his penis hurt too much, he took an icy shower. Once, he’d remained under the cold water for twenty minutes before he calmed down.
CHAPTER 27
The arched bridge spanned the Loire. Dominated by a kind of centaur that was half-chateau, half-church, Gien spread its façades along the river. The high, brown tile roofs bristled with large brick chimneys. A long row of sycamores lined the quays. The Loire was at its low-water mark. Only one of its branches still had enough water to allow three flat-bottomed barges with cabins to slumber there as they waited for autumn. In the distance, off to the west, a nuclear power plant was producing its daily batch of clouds.
Sebag turned left after crossing the bridge and parked his car in a lot in front of the city hall. He went into a bar, ordered coffee and a croissant, and sat down at the back. His appointment was for 10:30, so he still had about an hour to wait.
He’d spent the preceding evening going over the report on the murder committed in Argelès. Two things had troubled him. Rather late, he’d called Lieutenant Cornet of the gendarmerie’s investigative team to ask him to confirm them. By midnight, he’d made his decision.
Anything was preferable to a weekend in an empty house.
He’d drunk a cup of coffee, thrown some clothes in a suitcase, and then locked up the house. Before getting on the superhighway he’d stopped at a shopping-center gas station to fill up. Then he set off for Gien. He allowed himself only one rest stop, at a service station on the Aubrac plateau. A chill wind had cooled down the inside of the car. He quickly fell asleep. He got back on the road around 3:00 A.M.
At eight o’clock, as he was getting off the superhighway at Bourges, he made a telephone call and arranged an appointment for mid-morning.
The croissant was still warm, the coffee not bad. He looked at his watch. Still a quarter of an hour. He waited. It was important not to get there early.
Bernard Palissy Street was next to the Gien earthenware factory, the owner of the bar explained. That was logical; he could have figured it out himself. He recalled learning at school the story of how Palissy, driven by his passion, burned all the furniture in his house to improve his firing techniques. He’d liked the story, and still remembered it thirty years later.
He walked to his appointment, making a detour along the banks of the Loire. He’d always like that river, which flows quietly and majestically between its dikes, concealing beneath its low and apparently peaceful waters lethal traps, whirlpools and quicksands. Every summer there were deaths. The scenario was played out over and over: a swimmer was carried away by the current, another jumped in to save him, and both disappeared in a few seconds. When he and his family were living in Chartres, they often went to spend their weekends along the river in the area around Tours or Blois.
Robert Vernier lived in a little row house. Behind a low, white wall topped with green wire fencing rose a gray stone façade decorated with brick friezes under the gutters and around the windows. A veranda extended the living space. Inside, an old rocking chair could be seen.
Sebag gently pulled a chain connected to an old bell over the gate. There was no sound. He pulled harder. Still nothing. He bent down to look under the bell: the clapper had been removed. Then he noticed a button next to the mailbox. He pushed it. A little tune could be heard inside the house. A curtain moved on the second floor.
He didn’t have to wait long. Walking slowly and resignedly, Vernier came to open the gate. They greeted each other.
“The bell doesn’t work any more,” the retiree explained. “The neighbors found it too noisy. I could have tak
en it down to avoid misleading visitors. But except for you, the only people who come to see me know about it.”
Sebag followed him into the yard, stroking on the way the leaves of a banana tree. They went into the house and his host asked him to sit down in the living room. The armchairs had the good smell of old tanned leather.
“Would you like a cup of coffee? It won’t take long. I already made some; all I need to do is warm it up.”
Sebag barely repressed a grimace of disgust. Warmed-up coffee was like Coke without carbonation, beer without alcohol, chili without carne.
“Perhaps you’d prefer something else?” Robert Vernier asked. “Some lemonade?”
Sebag accepted this new offer with pleasure. It had been years since he’d drunk lemonade. He’d tried to go back to that old-fashioned drink when he got to Perpignan, because there was a local producer whose reputation was well-deserved. But the children hadn’t taken to it, preferring something more carbonated, and lemonade had quickly disappeared from their refrigerator.
His glass was sparkling with coolness. He took a sip. Vernier put his coffee cup on the low table between them. Then he fidgeted in his armchair.
“Did you have something you wanted to ask me about?” he finally dared to ask.
“Yes. Two or three little details.”
He minimized the importance of their meeting. Without trying to be credible. Vernier couldn’t for a moment imagine that he’d driven five hundred miles to get a few details he could have obtained by telephone.
Sebag asked him to begin at the beginning and tell him everything all over again. His bouts of insomnia, his morning walk, the beach, the thicket of reeds. The account of the discovery of the body was painful for both of them. Vernier’s voice broke several times, but his words remained coherent. As in a story often told. Or well learned.
Silence reigned. Robert Vernier had finished. He was waiting for questions. His eyes were tired; his lips trembled. Throughout his life as a worker, he must have dreamed about a peaceful retirement. The inspector took a drink of his lemonade. It was time to take up the first point to be clarified.
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