Sebag felt Castello’s eyes looking at him more and more intensely as he talked, and he saw a thin smile beginning to form on his lips.
“As the director of human resources for a company specializing in public works,” he went on, “Didier Coll has regular contacts with Perpign’And Co. That was where he met José Lopez, and it was also where he saw the policeman whom he later chose as his contact person. After the alleged theft of his car, he addressed himself to this policeman. Just to challenge him. He even went so far as to call him up and try to get him to look into the case.
“Didier Coll lives in an apartment in the city center, but he didn’t tell investigators that he also has the use of a property in Le Soler. A farmhouse that belongs to his mother and is suitable for holding a prisoner, it stands in the middle of a large, private lot and has”—here Sebag hesitated for an instant—“a rather large pond.”
“Another of the suspect’s lies: he claims to have traveled exclusively by scooter since the theft—or rather the abandonment—of his Volvo, whereas in reality he has rented another vehicle. Also a station wagon,” Sebag added, his voice trembling a little. “This rented vehicle is parked in a street in the Mailloles quarter in front of the service entrance to the retirement home where his senile mother resides. This subterfuge allowed him to lose a tail yesterday. He was gone for a little more than an hour, which gave him time to go back and forth to Le Soler to visit his prisoner.”
Sebag had finished. Castello nodded enthusiastically. He was getting ready to congratulate his inspector when the latter cut him off.
“He’s with Ingrid right now. He probably realizes that we know. We have to act quickly, Superintendent.”
CHAPTER 38
So it would never end.
A thin ray of golden light made its way under the planks that closed off the cellar window. A new day had begun. A sunny day. The kind she would have liked to spend sun-bathing instead of rotting in her dungeon . . .
She couldn’t stand her passivity any more. She felt submissive, tamed, defeated. She was no longer able to react. Fear was destroying her. And yet what could she be afraid of?
Death?
Death would be far preferable to living this way, like a moribund woodlouse.
She could no longer bear to look at her reflection. Her eyes were empty and had bags under them, and she had the transparent complexion of a cadaver.
She was already dead.
She slept all day. Dragged herself from her bed to the slop pail, sometimes taking a shower on the way. She now had free access to the shower. The door from the cellar to the shower was always open. Her jail had doubled in size. What luxury! She cursed herself for having rejoiced when she realized that this door would never be closed again. If her tormentor gave her his hand she would kiss it happily. If he offered her his cock she would lick it avidly. Where could such a renunciation come from? She would have slapped herself if she’d had the strength to do it.
His visits had become less frequent recently. She was pained by that.
She heard a sound behind the door. It wasn’t time for him to come, however. The last few days he’d come only in the evening.
The key squealed in the lock. The door of the vestibule creaked as it opened. He was there, on the other side. She threw herself on her bed and buried her head in the pillow.
He approached her slowly. She didn’t dare turn over. She heard the sound of a glass being set down on the tiled floor.
“Drink this, please.”
The angelic voice was warm and coaxing. Mesmerizing. The angel of death.
She turned over but couldn’t raise her head. She saw a big glass at the angel’s feet. It contained an amber liquid rimmed with foam.
“Drink it,” he repeated. “It won’t hurt you.”
She took the glass and put it to her lips. The glass clicked against the enamel of her teeth. She drank. It was beer.
A nice cool dark beer.
Had Socrates felt the same inner peace when he swallowed the hemlock?
She handed the empty glass back to him. He took it and then knelt down to put it on the floor. The angel had a face. Neither ugly nor handsome. He opened his arms. She took refuge in them and began to cry. An unknown serenity was flowing through her veins.
Before slowly falling asleep, she had the impression that the destroying angel was weeping with her.
CHAPTER 39
The game would go on without him.
That was one of the rules. He now regretted it, but that was the way he’d wanted it. It was what made the game beautiful.
He would soon lack the strength to go on.
Everything had happened as planned. Or almost. He wasn’t sure that he’d completely controlled the tempo. A little too slow at the beginning. A little too rapid toward the end. Inspector Sebag had succeeded in giving him the impression that the investigation was stalled, whereas in fact he had succeeded in identifying him. He’d understood that only this morning, when he noticed he was being followed. The police had won this inning.
Would he win the last one? Deep inside, he hoped he would.
He’d been forced to rush the end, but still in accord with the scenario he’d foreseen from the beginning. He’d stuck to the line he’d decided on. It was his victory. Everything was set now, the police could come, they wouldn’t find anything. If they persevered, they would have one more chance. Otherwise, too bad for them.
Too bad for her.
He felt a twinge in his heart when he thought again about Ingrid. She’d slipped into unconsciousness as he held her in his arms. Peacefully. He’d told her she wouldn’t suffer, and she had trusted him. He’d rocked her like a child.
Good-bye, Ingrid.
He would have liked to hold her in his arms longer, but time was short. She’d had to make the last journey before they arrived. He’d succeeded. He was ready.
They could come.
His limbs were gradually becoming numb. Especially his right arm.
He felt at peace. As he hadn’t been for centuries. People had always said he was a tranquil man; no one had perceived the tumult that murmured in his head. His movements were slow and measured; he had a low voice and calm breathing. They didn’t look deeper.
He was the only one who knew that his thin body sheltered a volcano.
Fatigue was overcoming him. It was the origin of this unfamiliar calming. His eyelids weighed tons. Soon he would fall asleep.
And sleep without nightmares.
He would leave so many questions behind him. The policemen would find some answers, but not all of them. The press would also ask questions. For a few days, he would be all people talked about.
Why?
He imagined journalists debating that question indefinitely.
Yes, why? He who could say would be a clever man. He himself didn’t have all the answers. The only thing he knew for sure was that he wouldn’t have wanted to die as he had lived. In silence. For once, he wanted to be surrounded by a little sound and fury.
His head was spinning. It seemed to him that he already heard them coming.
Let me have a little more time, Mama, please.
He was happy. He was leaving before the din enveloped the house.
His father’s image occasionally disturbed his serenity. So the old bastard was going to bug him right to the end.
“The bastard!”
He’d said the word out loud. He was astonished by this. He was getting vulgar at the end. Even when Papa . . . left, I didn’t dare tell him that he . . . that he . . . that he was a . . .
A bastard.
His ribcage shook. His breathing became irregular. An unfamiliar sound escaped his open mouth.
So that was it. Laughing.
CHAPTER 40
The pitiless sun scorched the Roussillon plain with it burning rays.
Far off to the southwest, the summits of Le Canigou were disappearing in a haze of heat. At the edge of an orchard, a wooden shed sheltered an old man with a leathery face. He was dozing, his head resting between two empty baskets. He no longer had any peaches to sell. He’d been cleaned out.
Leaning against a tree, Sebag listened to the locusts chanting their summer song in rhythm. Sweat was running from his armpits down his sides. He wasn’t the only one suffering. Dark rings were spreading over his colleagues’ shirts as well. Even the plainest were becoming two-tone.
The policemen had surrounded the road that led to the Colls’ farmhouse. The dirt tracks were blocked. An officer had discreetly sneaked along the property’s perimeter wall and made his way toward the gate. At the end of a driveway paved with pink gravel he’d seen the rented Mégane station wagon. Castello had decided to wait for Coll to come out before arresting him.
A cloud of flies was buzzing over a peach pit someone had recently thrown away. The old peasant’s fruit had provided most of the lunch eaten by the thirty or so policemen and gendarmes who’d been waiting in the sun for almost two hours. Sebag deftly tossed the peach pit and the flies into the ditch. He was beginning to get impatient. And not only because of the heat.
He thought they’d taken too long to get going. It would have been better to immediately send a small team to arrest the kidnapper, who would surely not have resisted.
On the way from Perpignan to Le Soler, Sebag had fallen asleep on the back seat for a few minutes. Ménard was driving, with Molina sitting at his side.
Gilles had dreamed about Claire. She was supposed to return the next evening. They hadn’t spoken since Wednesday, when he’d brusquely rebuffed her on the telephone. She hadn’t called back. But he’d received another letter. Mailed earlier, from Tunis. A letter full of sweetness and love.
He didn’t want to think about Claire. Not now. This wasn’t the time. But the wait was long and the breeze was carrying to him aromas that reminded him of his wife’s perfume. Was it peach, rosemary, or star anise?
He wondered what he should do when he saw her again.
He turned the question over and over in his head.
One answer struck him as absolutely clear.
It was peach!
That was the fragrance that constantly took him back to Claire. To restore the shine to her hair dulled by the sun, the sea, and the chlorine in pools, in the summer she used a peach shampoo. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of it. The ripe, juicy, soft fruit. That was it. He felt relieved. He was going to be able to control his thoughts again.
The Colls’ property was hidden behind a thick wall made of cayrou, a mixture of stones and bricks that was typical of the region. Alongside the old wall, a hedge of laurels in flower made the place even more secluded. The white petals danced slightly in the breeze. All that could be seen of the house were the tiles at the crest of the roof standing out against a cloudless sky. No sound came from the property; there was no movement. No sign of life.
Sitting next to Sebag, Molina lit a cigarette. His face raised toward the sky, he blew out a long, voluptuous stream of smoke. His eyes were bloodshot and tired. At the back of his dilated pupil there was a glimmer of uneasiness.
“This doesn’t smell good,” Sebag murmured.
Molina misunderstood him.
“I couldn’t hold out any longer: it’s my first cigarette since we’ve been on the stake-out.”
“I wasn’t talking about that . . . Anyway, give me a drag, please.”
Molina smoked mentholated cigarettes. The puff Sebag took did away with the peach fragrance.
“It’s going on too long, he should have come back out long ago.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too,” Molina confirmed, taking back his cigarette. “His scooter is still in front of the retirement home; he‘s supposed to still be with his mother. If he was trying to shake off a tail, he failed.”
Sebag glanced at Lambert. The best place he’d been able to find to take a leak discreetly was a nearby bush.
The young inspector had just joined them. Before, he’d gone to show Anneke and the owners of the Deux Margots bar a photo of Coll taken from his mother’s bedside table. The three women had been able to identify their suspect as the solitary drinker who’d been sitting a few tables away from the Dutch girl the night she was attacked.
If they needed further proof, they had it.
“He must have noticed we were tailing him,” Sebag said.
“What the hell is he doing in there?”
“He’s preparing a surprise for us.”
“What kind of surprise?”
“I don’t know, because it’s a surprise. He must have foreseen this visit. The game isn’t over.”
“You mean we’re not going to find anything in that house? Neither him nor Ingrid?”
“Lack of sleep doesn’t make you more optimistic, it seems.”
“And how do you think this damned game is going to end? Are you optimistic about it?”
Sebag reflected and didn’t find anything reassuring to say.
“Me? I didn’t sleep much either.”
Molina carefully crushed out his cigarette on his heel. The vegetation was dry, and a spark would be enough to set it on fire. Castello slowly approached them. He smelled the mentholated fragrance in the air. He took a deep breath. His right hand was clenched, with his index finger and his thumb sticking straight up.
“We’re going in. Lefèvre is getting impatient, and the gendarmes too.”
“There’s no point in waiting any longer,” Molina confirmed.
Sebag nodded. Castello addressed him directly.
“Would it be dangerous, in your opinion?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Castello went off to talk with Lefèvre. Then he came back to them.
“We’re going to send four men onto the property. Two in front and two behind the house. When they’re in position, you’ll go ring at the gate.”
Sebag returned to the car, switched on his walkie-talkie and hooked it on his belt. Around him, the policemen were putting on their equipment. They adjusted their bullet-proof vests and checked their weapons.
“You should take your gun,” Molina advised him.
Sebag opened the glove box and looked at his service weapon for a moment, then changed his mind. The policemen accompanying him were all armed. That was more than enough.
He got out of the car and went up to the cast-iron gate. Castello and Lefèvre followed him but took care to keep hidden behind the stone wall.
They waited. Then a voice whispered in the walkie-talkies.
“We’re in position.”
Laurent Massart was directing the operations inside the property. He was a shooting instructor. He’d taken his best men with him. Castello signaled to Sebag.
“Go ahead!”
Gilles pushed the button. No reply. He pushed again. With no more success.
The walkie-talkie crackled.
“We hear the bell but no sound inside the house.”
Sebag glanced furtively toward the superintendent.
“Ring again,” Castello said.
Sebag obeyed, even though they all knew it was futile.
“Still no sign of life,” Massart’s voice replied.
Sebag turned off his walkie-talkie and pushed open the gate, which creaked over the gravel. He went in and was careful to leave the gate open behind him.
Protected by a flourishing palm tree, the farmhouse was surrounded by a poorly maintained lawn composed chiefly of dried moss and yellowed grass. The pink gravel driveway climbed slowly toward the house. Sebag moved forward. He felt calm and relaxed. The fear would come later. So long as they were in action, the concentration kept fear at a distance.
He stopped in front of the Mé
gane station wagon parked in front of a large wooden garage door. In the trunk, there was only an old road sign: “Road Closed—Repairs.”
The old farmhouse seemed to be dozing behind its wooden shutters. On the roof, the cascade of ochre-colored tiles was interrupted only by a little skylight, which was closed. A green ceramic gutter bordered the roof, then ran down the corner of a wall to its spout above the driveway. The gentle slope down to the road was sufficient to carry off rainwater.
Sebag took up his position in front of the main entrance. Two policemen came and stood on either side of him. Sebag knocked. Three quick blows. The officers leaned against the wall. Their revolvers raised to face level, they no longer moved. They were listening. They had the house’s silence in one ear, the conversation on the walkie-talkies in the other, through their earphones. Their colleagues posted on the other side of the building confirmed the absence of sound.
Sebag put his hand on the door handle. He pushed. The door opened silently. The interior was dark, and his eyes needed time to adjust. Suddenly he saw himself a few days earlier, standing on the threshold of Robert Vernier’s house in Gien. The same lugubrious atmosphere. The same profound silence. And here, also a warm, sugary odor that he could not immediately identify.
His eyes first distinguished an inert mass slumped on a chair. Then two legs stretched out. Finally, two arms hanging limply over the armrests.
Sebag opened a shutter while the two other policemen started exploring the house. A ray of light penetrated the living room. Contrary to the apartment in La Fusterie Street, this room was full of old furniture and knick-knacks.
Summertime All the Cats Are Bored Page 35