Summertime All the Cats Are Bored

by Philippe Georget

  They couldn’t make any mistakes.

  Sebag’s cell phone vibrated. It was Léo calling to learn his father’s decision.

  “Have you thought about what I asked yesterday, Papa?”

  “Yes, a bit.”

  “And?”

  “I’m not very enthusiastic . . . but I’m not opposed to it.”

  “Great . . . ”

  “On one condition.”

  “What?”

  “I want to meet your pal’s parents.”

  “Okay, fine, that shouldn’t be any problem. But why?”

  “To get to know them. And thank them, that’s the least I can do. I’ll come get you as planned at the end of your stay there, and I’ll drive you to Toulon myself. Is that all right?”

  “Why not . . . ”

  “You talk to your friend, he talks to his parents, and then you call me, okay?”

  “Okay, fine.”

  Jacques returned to the office. Holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a bag of candies in the other, and with Ménard right behind him.

  “Apart from that, is there anything new, son?” Sebag continued.

  “No. We’re going swimming in a lake this afternoon.”

  “That will be a change for you.”

  “We’ll also be doing some jet-skiing.”

  “I wondered about that . . . Okay, good, I’ve got to let you go. Take care of yourself, son. See you soon.”

  Ménard’s face looked tired, his complexion waxy. Sebag understood that he wasn’t the only one who’d slept badly. He also realized that his colleague was supposed to have left on vacation at the beginning of the week. Castello had certainly asked him to delay his vacation. Unless Ménard himself had offered to stay another week. The old bugger was very capable of that.

  Vacation . . . In any case, his had been put in jeopardy.

  Molina and Ménard were pursuing a conversation that had probably begun in the cafeteria.

  “Well?” Jacques asked. “Was your guy glad to get his car back?”

  Ménard had just met with the owner of the stolen station wagon.

  “He didn’t seem euphoric. It was an old car and he had very good insurance on it, he told me.”

  He took out his notebook and started to summarize his notes for them.

  “Didier Coll bought the car about ten years ago from his mother, who was too old to drive that big wagon. Coll lives and works downtown. So he uses the car very little. He noticed that the car was gone last Thursday about eight in the morning, when he was getting ready to leave for a long weekend. It wasn’t where he’d left it. At first he was afraid that it had been towed away—he often parks in streets with alternate-side parking, and he’d already forgotten more than once the days when you’re supposed to change sides—but after he looked into it, he came to headquarters to file a complaint.”

  “The theft could have taken place long before last Thursday,” Molina noted.

  “Right. Coll hadn’t touched his car for more than two weeks. Since June 24, to be exact.”

  “So it could have been used on the first day of the kidnapping?”

  “It’s possible.”

  Sebag was mulling over his dark thoughts. He heard the discussion vaguely, but without being able to take an interest in it. Ménard spoke to him:

  “By the way, Gilles, why didn’t you tell me that you knew the owner of the car?”

  Sebag jumped. He stared at his colleague, astonished.

  “I know him? What did you say his name was?”

  “Didier Coll.”

  “Didier Coll . . . Coll, Didier. The name means nothing to me. Are you sure I know him?”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “He did?”

  “He asked me to give you his greetings, in fact.”

  “Thanks. That’s nice. But his name really doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  His cell phone rang again.

  “Hi there, it’s me.” Claire sounded cheerful and affectionate.

  “Uh . . . Hello.”

  “Am I disturbing you?”

  “Yes, a little. It’s complicated just now at work.”

  Claire’s voice became coaxing. And slightly mocking.

  “My poor darling! And you don’t have five little minutes to spare that you can devote to the woman of your life?”

  Gilles didn’t have the heart to pretend. But this was neither the time nor the place to unload all he had on his chest. And then there were too many witnesses.

  “No, not for the moment.”

  Sebag’s cold tone dampened Claire’s spirits.

  “The problem is that I’m calling you from a telephone booth in Palma de Mallorca and I don’t know if I’ll be able to call back later.”

  It would have been so much easier if she’d taken her cell phone, Sebag thought irritably. She had so much wanted to be left alone . . . He felt his anger rising.

  “Try this evening if you’re still on land. Or send me an e-mail. You can also call me from the boat; it can’t be that expensive. But right now, I really can’t talk.”

  “Okay, too bad,” Claire said, put out. “Talk to you later. I love you.”

  “Me too. Later.”

  Sebag turned off his cell phone and put it on the table. Looking up, his eyes met Molina’s for a moment. His colleague hadn’t missed a word of the whole conversation, even though he’d been trying to pay attention to what Ménard was saying to him.

  “All right, what’s next?” Sebag asked with annoyance.

  “We have a meeting with the boss at two P.M.,” Ménard answered.

  Molina glanced at his watch.

  “Great, we have time to eat, then. The Carlit has cargolade at noon today. You coming with me?”

  Jean Pagès, the head of the crime lab, spoke first at the afternoon meeting. He made no effort to hide his irritation.

  “One thing is sure: we haven’t found in this car what the kidnapper wanted us to find there.”

  The last investigation of his career was giving him a hard time.

  “We went over the car with a fine-toothed comb. It was spotless, without any trace of dust on the dashboard, or even dirt on the pedals. And yet, we were able to find the fingerprints of the owner, José Lopez, on the driver’s side and especially on the inside door handle on the passenger side. In the trunk, there were a few dried stains: mud completely identical with that we found in Lopez’s lungs and on his clothes.”

  When he spoke, two furrows danced between his eyebrows. Jean Pagès had retained his youthful figure. He was short and thin, all skin and bone. Only the deep wrinkles on his face betrayed his age. He was supposed to have retired two or three years ago.

  “In the trunk, we found a hair—just one!—a blond hair. The DNA analysis is under way but the length and the color of this hair suggest that it belongs to Ingrid Raven. There was also earth stuck to the tires. A heavy, chalky soil, the kind found all over this region. We also found three pink chunks of gravel, pink, very common, stuck in the treads. They could provide us with evidence once we have a suspect, but they’re not enough to help us locate the site where Ingrid is being held. That’s it, that’s all I can tell you.”

  Pagès’s presentation was over, and the inspectors had no questions. Their faces were grim and tired. This case was beginning to obsess them. Concerned that discouragement might set in, Castello spoke up.

  “We are moving ahead. Slowly, but we’re moving ahead. The identikit portrait of the kidnapper is being confirmed if not made more precise. Raynaud and Moreno have gathered information in the Moulin à vent area. One of the Lopez’s neighbors—a retiree who does . . . what do you call that?”

  “Sudoku,” Moreno said.

  “That’s right. In any case, this retiree was sitting in his loggia when
he noticed an individual handing out leaflets late in the afternoon. Surprised that this individual went into only one stairway, he followed the suspect with his eyes for a few moments until he disappeared behind a group of buildings. He didn’t see him get into a car, but his description of the individual matches in every respect the one we already had: a tall, slender man in his forties. He couldn’t say what color the man’s hair was because he was wearing a cap.”

  The superintendent saw that he had not aroused even a glimmer of interest among his men.

  “Probably more interesting, Llach and Lambert called in Pascal Daniel this morning. The name no doubt means nothing to you, but he is the ornithologist that Molina met a few days ago—I don’t know if you all remember that detail of the investigation. Daniel’s favorite bird-watching point is not very far from the hermitage, and he told us that on several occasions he saw a big red station wagon in the parking lot at Força Real. This morning, he said he was sure he recognized the Volvo.

  Sebag saw Lefèvre squirming on his chair. Their eyes met and they understood each other. Although all the clues fit together ideally, they didn’t allow the investigation to advance. Molina was also on the same wave length. Faithful to the role that everyone expected him to play, he put it bluntly and plainly.

  “To make a long story short, Superintendent, and with all due respect, we have our asses in a sling.”

  “You can choose your own expressions,” Castello said with annoyance, “but we mustn’t forget that we are also working for what follows: we’re accumulating facts so that we can construct a solid indictment when we finally have a suspect . . . ”

  “If we finally have one.”

  “Please, let’s not scoff. We’re doing all we can. If you have an idea as to how we can advance the investigation, tell us about it.”

  A cold silence followed these words. Superintendent Castello took the time to look at each of his inspectors, one after the other. They avoided his eyes. After long seconds, Ménard broke the silence.

  “A red Volvo station wagon is not inconspicuous. We should launch a neighborhood investigation.”

  “Which neighborhood? That’s the problem!” Llach remarked.

  “We can begin with the streets where Coll parked his car.”

  Castello approved.

  “That’s a good idea, François. We’ll also ask the gendarmes to gather information.”

  The atmosphere was warming. But Moreno suddenly cooled it down with his cavernous voice.

  “Who says Ingrid Raven is still alive?” he asked.

  Sebag felt a shiver run down his spine.

  “After all, Lopez freed up a place in the freezer,” Molina breathed.

  Lambert tried to suppress a nervous laugh. Llach elbowed him in the ribs, which had the effect of making the laugh escape from him in a series of childish squeaks. Sebag decided to speak up.

  “In my opinion, Ingrid is alive . . . If not . . . ”

  He hesitated and then smiled.

  “If not, as the kids say: ‘it’s not a game.’”

  Lefèvre nodded gravely and then asked:

  “Do you still think the kidnapper is playing with us?”

  “If I still had any doubts, today would have completely dispelled them. He played marvelously well on our nerves, don’t you think?”

  “That’s clear,” the young superintendent agreed.

  “The game can amuse the kidnapper only if we have a real chance of winning,” Sebag explained.

  “In Lopez’s case, he didn’t give us a chance,” Moreno persisted.

  “That has nothing to do with it. Lopez wasn’t part of the game. He got in his way, and so he immediately disposed of him.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Lefèvre said. “I had the Dutch police on the line a little while ago. Mrs. Raven was hospitalized yesterday. She’s no longer eating and hasn’t slept for two weeks. The waiting has gone on too long for her.”

  “For us, too,” Castello concluded, “for us, too.”

  CHAPTER 32

  He was disappointed.

  He’d received a visit from a policeman with a sad face who had asked him banal questions. Inspector Sebag had not come.

  No one suspected him yet.

  It wasn’t funny.

  Perhaps he’d overestimated the policemen’s abilities? Or maybe he hadn’t given them enough signs? In a game, the hardest part was finding the right balance. It reminded him of the crossword puzzles he‘d invented when he was a teenager. He’d always found it difficult to gauge the difficulty of the puzzles that rose out of his knowledge and his imagination. And even though he constructed one after another, he didn’t feel that he was making progress.

  If only someone had tried at least once to solve them!

  Today, he had a partner. But no rehearsal had been possible. And there would be no second attempt.

  They were entering the home stretch. He had to be doubly prudent. He must never come to this house directly.The police mustn’t discover its existence too quickly.

  Ingrid was becoming more submissive every day, and he continued to reward her. A table, a lamp, a book, a chair. She’d asked for paper and pen. He was considering satisfying that desire in the near future.

  The young woman’s behavior never ceased to surprise him. He wondered what he would do in such a situation. But he’d never undergo the same fate. He wouldn’t be a captive. He wouldn’t even go to prison.

  Never.

  He was finding it increasingly difficult to control his desire. That annoyed him. The young woman’s body haunted his mind day and night. It was his cross, his burden. His punishment. This suffering would end only when the game was over.

  He mustn’t touch this body. He didn’t have the right. It was one of the rules. He had set it at the beginning. When he still thought he didn’t like women.

  He didn’t love anybody.

  And nobody loved him.

  Perhaps his mother loved him. No! In fact, she had loved the boy she believed he was. The boy she wanted him to be. She’d always refused to accept the truth.

  He’d tried to act as if he were that boy. Then he’d tried to make her understand. No use. She fled from reality. And when her husband left, she didn’t want to hear about it. She’d believed what the policemen told her.

  What he’d succeeded in making them believe.

  Already at that time, he’d been the stronger.

  The game was coming to its end. He mustn’t sink into the sordid. He wouldn’t touch this body. Otherwise people would no longer see the beauty of this gratuitous game. That’s all they would remember.

  People were so nasty.

  CHAPTER 33

  Gilles Sebag printed out all the documents in the Raven file, from Sylvie Lopez’s deposition three weeks earlier to Ménard’s account of his conversation with the owner of the Volvo. The file was available in digital form on each computer, but Sebag, to feel comfortable, felt the need to have contact with the paper.

  He hoped that light would emerge from all these pages blackened with information.

  Molina, who was rather late, made his entrance into the office. He threw his jacket on his chair and sat down at his desk. He turned on his PC and finally consented to stop gritting his teeth.

  “Damn it,” he said before explaining himself. “I’m looking for things for my sons to do. They’re arriving this weekend to spend two weeks with me. I was supposed to go on vacation next Friday, but I don’t believe Castello will let me leave.”

  He started tapping on his keyboard.

  “Do you have any ideas about what your sons can do?”

  “I just had one, yeah. I went to see a pal who runs a riding club. He’s willing to take them for at least a few days. They’ll give him a hand with grooming the horses, feeding them, changing the straw in their stalls. In exchan
ge, he’ll let them go for some rides.”

  “Good plan!”

  “Yeah, I think they might like that.”

  “In any case, I notice that you’re not exactly optimistic regarding the further course of our investigation.”

  “Why? Are you optimistic?”

  “Not especially, but I’m trying to keep in mind that in every investigation there are times when nothing is happening and times when things move very fast.”

  “Maybe. In this case I think we are more likely to stop dead than to get a ticket for speeding.”

  “That’s clear.”

  Molina started reading his e-mail. Sebag bent over his keyboard. While it was all still fresh in his memory, he wanted to compose a more or less coherent account of the whole case.

  He began writing.

  “Ingrid Raven and José Lopez disappear on the night of June 26, when they go to the Força Real parking lot to see a mysterious customer who has asked them to come there. The customer, BW, has paid two thousand euros in advance for the services of the young woman, who is preparing to start a career as a call-girl. Ingrid and José leave the taxi near the hermitage and get into the customer’s vehicle. Maybe the Volvo station wagon. Once they are at his place, the kidnapper—at this point in the story, he’s beginning to deserve that name—has Lopez drink the beer containing a powerful sedative.

  “The kidnapper, who owns an isolated house surrounded by extensive grounds including a lake or pond and a pink gravel driveway, imprisons Ingrid in a room or cellar. He drags the cab driver as far as the pond, where he holds his head under water. Lopez struggles but not enough to save his skin. The kidnapper—who is now also a murderer—puts the corpse in a freezer.

  “What does he do next? He attends to his prisoner and waits until the police begin to take an interest in the two people who have disappeared. During this period, he lives normally, going to work as usual. One day, he hears people talking about the murder in Argelès. Then it occurs to him that he can use the nationality of the two women to put the police on the wrong track. He writes the first ransom letter in the name of the Moluccan Front.