Autumn, All the Cats Return

by Philippe Georget

  He noticed a photo on the writing desk in the living room. Two smiling, elderly men against a background of palm trees. He recognized Jean-Pierre Mercier and the view one had from his balcony. He put his finger on the second man.

  “Is that your brother?”

  “It is. The photo was taken two years ago. The last time he came down here.”

  The man had an oval, rather jovial face, and he was completely bald. Sebag gave the photo a little salute.

  “Delighted to make your acquaintance, Gérard,” he joked.

  He put the frame back on the desk.

  “Don’t go out alone,” he recommended again. “I’m going to ask for more frequent patrols in this area for a few days, particularly around your building. I’ll also contact the city police and suggest that they be more vigilant as well. And don’t hesitate to call us if you see anybody suspicious-looking.”

  He held out his hand to Mercier, who shook it.

  “But don’t worry too much. I really think you’re in no great danger if you’re careful. You know, the most dangerous dogs are not the ones that bark the loudest.”

  “Very true. I wonder if that isn’t an Arab proverb . . . ” Mercier reflected.

  “In any case, it’s not Catalan,” Llach commented.

  CHAPTER 31

  Three telephone calls punctuated Gilles Sebag’s afternoon. First there was a call from Sabine Henri, the young director of the prefect’s cabinet.

  “What’s this I hear, Lieutenant Sebag? You were completely wrong about the OAS monument?”

  That question had been haunting him all day. He served up Llach’s theory. But that way of seeing things didn’t entirely satisfy him, and the young woman sensed that.

  “You don’t sound very convinced,” she said.

  He decided to lay his cards on the table.

  “I admit that I’m puzzled. Really. I still feel sure that the same individual was not responsible for the double murder, the destruction of the monument, the attack on the president of the Pied-Noir Circle, and the threatening letters. We’re dealing with a murderer who kills two men in cold blood to avenge something that goes back half a century. He also has a third target to hit in Spain. So I can’t see him fooling around distributing threatening letters and stabbing a quiet director of a Pied-Noir association, any more than I can see him using a hammer to destroy a monument in a cemetery, even if it was a memorial to the OAS.”

  “I understand your reservations about the threats and the knife attack, and I’m tempted to share them. But I don’t agree regarding the monument. Our murderer is settling accounts with three men, but also with the OAS in general. We have to operate on that assumption, I think.”

  Sebag did not immediately reply. As usual, he didn’t know how to explain what he was feeling.

  “All I can tell you is that for me that just doesn’t ring true. If I attribute all the crimes to one person, he no longer makes sense to me!”

  Sabine Henri giggled.

  “Superintendent Castello has told me how much he admires your intuition, and I’d like to believe you, but I’m much more rational. I need better arguments to be convinced. And I’m afraid that this so-called intuition actually conceals an inability to recognize your own mistakes . . . ”

  Sebag sighed.

  “I don’t have any other arguments,” he had to admit.

  “That’s a problem. And all the more so because it makes me doubt another one of your . . . theories. Yesterday you claimed that the murderer and the person responsible for young Mathieu’s death were one and the same, but I don’t recall that you provided any proof whatsoever for that, either.”

  “I don’t have any proof, in fact, but I’ve got a cluster of assumptions.”

  “That’s much better than a simple intuition,” the cabinet director scoffed. “But what really bothers me here is that this afternoon the prefect gave that information to the press. If you’re mistaken, we’re all in trouble.”

  “I wasn’t mistaken,” Sebag said stubbornly, though he was less and less sure of himself. “In any case, there’s only one way to find out who’s right and who’s wrong, and that’s to arrest the murderer.”

  “And have you made any progress today?”

  “I don’t know. Everyone is working on his own assignment. Since Superintendent Castello is here today, I’m not coordinating things, he is. All I know is that I have two colleagues who have been authorized to go to South Catalonia this afternoon to follow the rental car lead.”

  “Fine, I’m going to call Castello.”

  Sabine Henri didn’t hang up right away. She paused to think for a moment and then added:

  “Don’t get me wrong, Lieutenant Sebag. It’s my job to put pressure on you. Even if you haven’t convinced me today, I have confidence in you. Arresting the murderer is in fact our top priority. Do that and we’ll accept the rest.”

  These last words were hardly any relief to Sebag, who was already thinking about something else. And especially about someone else. Sévérine.

  Up to this point the lack of certainty had prevented him from telling his daughter about the developments that had occurred in the investigation into Mathieu’s accident. He was willing to take the risk of having to take back something he’d said in front of all the Pieds-Noirs and all the cabinet directors in the world, but not in front of her. Now he no longer had the choice. The information was going to appear in the newspapers, and Sévérine had to hear it from him first.

  He called her on his cell phone. It was Thursday, it was 5 P.M., school was out.

  Sévérine took the news properly, with prudent and restrained joy. She promised to transmit the information to Mathieu’s parents with the necessary reservations.

  “I’m going to write them an e-mail and I’ll let you read it before I send it to them. In any case, they’re not here right now. They couldn’t bear staying home any longer without Mathieu . . . They’re in Andalusia, in a house some friends lent them.”

  Her voice trembled when she mentioned her friend.

  “We’re going to find this reckless driver-murderer,” her father promised her. “I’m going to go all out.”

  “I’m proud of you, Papa. I’ve always known that you’re the best.”

  As he put down his phone, in the reflection on his computer screen he caught a glimpse of a silly grin that stretched from ear to ear. Good thing Jacques isn’t here, he said to himself.

  Late in the afternoon, Sebag’s cell phone rang. Unknown number. It was late. He shouldn’t answer. The caller would leave a message if it was urgent.

  Finally he answered.

  “Georges Lloret here. You’ve been trying to reach me, I think.”

  The tone was dry and direct, the voice grave and deep.

  “Uh . . . yes, absolutely,” Sebag stammered.

  “You’ve been hassling my secretaries, I hope it’s important.”

  “It is, in fact.”

  “You said it was a matter of life and death.”

  “Yes, that’s right, and I wasn’t exaggerating.”

  “I’m listening.”

  There was no trace of concern in Lloret’s voice, only impatience.

  “Monsieur Lloret, I’d first like to know if a certain Gérard Mercier has already contacted you.”

  “I know that like you, that man has tried to reach me several times today. But I respect the laws and the police, and I called you first.”

  “That’s very kind of you . . . ”

  “No, I’m not kind, and I’m sure you’ve already figured that out. Now let’s get to the point, please, otherwise I’m going to hang up and call this Monsieur Mercier.”

  Lloret seemed to be one of those men who see life as a permanent battle and who conduct all their affairs the way one launches an attack. Sebag understood that he wouldn’t be ea
sily impressed. He had to hit hard.

  “Did you know André Roman?”

  A silence followed. Then Lloret showed that although he’d been living in Spain for years, he hadn’t forgotten the nuances of the French language.

  “Did I know him?”

  The fish had taken the bait. Now it was a matter of not giving him too much slack.

  “Excuse me, Monsieur Lloret, I didn’t quite understand your answer. Did you know André Roman?”

  “Did something happen to him?”

  “If that matters to you, I assume that means that you knew him?”

  Lloret bristled. He was used to giving orders and especially he was used to being obeyed.

  “Don’t play games with me, you’d lose. All I have to do is make a certain call in France to find out everything you don’t want to tell me. You tried to reach me to warn me, apparently. I’d like you to tell me, Lieutenant, exactly what is going on, and stop beating around the bush. Lieutenant who, by the way?”

  “Lieutenant Sebag, Gilles Sebag. But I’m not beating around the bush, I’m asking questions, that’s my job. I would like to be sure that I’m talking to the right person.”

  “You know very well who I am . . . ”

  “Your name is Georges Lloret, but are you the Georges Lloret born in Algiers in 1933?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Thus you knew André Roman?”

  “You’re stubborn, aren’t you? Yes, I knew him. That was a long time ago. In Algeria, precisely. But I haven’t seen him in years. I’ve closed the door on that past. So, has something happened to André?”

  Sebag decided that he could make a few concessions, but not too many.

  “Yes, he’s dead.”

  “Was he killed?”

  “Why do you ask that question? André Roman was an ordinary retiree, why would you immediately think he’s been killed?”

  “Don’t take me for a fool! You’re the police, you bother me for a so-called question of life and death, and you tell me that one of my boyhood friends is dead. You don’t have to have gone to the police academy to draw the conclusions. Especially since if you’ve connected him with me, that’s because you know about our past and you know that before he was an ordinary retiree, as you call him, André fought alongside me in the ranks of the OAS.”

  Sebag decided to fire his second bullet without waiting any longer:

  “Did you also know Bernard Martinez?”

  “Bernard? . . . Has Bernard been killed, too?”

  For the first time, Lloret’s voice betrayed concern.

  “How did it happen?”

  “Omega was murdered in his apartment two weeks ago, and Bizerte in his car last Sunday. If we also count Sigma, who died in an explosion fifty years ago, you’re the last survivor of the Babelo commando: that’s why we’re calling you today.”

  “I understand better now,” Lloret admitted.

  His voice remained just as cavernous but had become less harsh, almost soft. But that didn’t last.

  “I understand, but it’s stupid,” he replied in a tone that was sharp again. “All that stuff is so far in the past, it doesn’t interest anyone anymore. Not even those who lived through it, and not even me, though I loved Algeria so much. You’re on the wrong track, it’s ridiculous. And then I haven’t been in contact with André and Bernard for years.”

  “However, Martinez was living in an apartment that belongs to you.”

  “I see that you are well-informed,” he said, “but I had almost forgotten that. Bernard contacted me about ten years ago, when he went bankrupt. He’d had to sell everything to pay his debts and no longer had a penny. I bought that apartment so he could live under a decent roof. That wasn’t a problem for me. Since I didn’t want my name to be connected with that operation, I set up a small corporation just for that purpose. Its address is a simple postbox that I never look at. I did everything long-distance, and I didn’t even meet with Bernard about it.”

  “What a generous and disinterested thing to do,” Sebag ironized.

  “Generosity can’t be judged in the abstract: it’s a function of the sacrifice that the donor makes. For me, there was no sacrifice involved. And if I’ve closed the door on my past, that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten anything. Bernard would have given his life for French Algeria, he didn’t deserve to die homeless on the streets.”

  “His murderer didn’t forget anything, either.”

  “You’re mistaken, Lieutenant. The murders of André and Bernard have nothing to do with the battle we waged.”

  “We haven’t found any connection between the victims other than this shared past. They saw each other only now and then, just for a meal in a restaurant, and did no business together. And then . . . ”

  Sebag decided it was time to reveal the main bit of information to Lloret.

  “And then, after each of these crimes, the killer left a message, a kind of signature, on a door at Martinez’s apartment and on the headliner of Roman’s car. But it wasn’t really a message, it was an acronym. A three-letter acronym.”

  “A signature, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “FLN?”

  The suggestion surprised Sebag.

  “No. OAS.”

  “OAS,” Lloret repeated pensively. “Then it wasn’t a signature.”

  “Not really, you’re right. Rather a mark of infamy. Like the fleur-de-lys branded on the shoulders of convicts back in the old days.”

  “OAS a mark of infamy? You’ll allow me not to share that point of view . . . ”

  “It’s that of the murderer. Not necessarily mine.”

  Sebag was immediately annoyed with himself for making that stupid remark. He would have liked to add “Although . . . ” but he decided it was pointless to stupidly provoke an interlocutor whose animosity he’d taken so much trouble to allay.

  “Now you probably understand better why we considered it urgent to find you and warn you.”

  “You think I’m next on the list?”

  “Everything leads us to think that.”

  “That’s incredible . . . Who could . . . ?”

  Lloret didn’t finish his sentence. Sebag gave him a little time, but nothing came.

  “Yes, who? That’s certainly one of the questions we’re asking. The other being: Why?”

  “Do you think I know?”

  “Who else would know?”

  “Maybe El Azrin,” Lloret sighed after a few seconds of silence.

  “Excuse me?”

  “El Azrin, the Angel of Death among the Arabs.”

  “You think the murderer is a former member of the FLN?”

  A loud hissing sound tickled Sebag’s ear. Lloret must have blown noisily into the receiver.

  “No, I was only saying that . . . It was an expression we used to use. I’d forgotten it, and it just came back to me . . . As for the reasons for this belated vengeance, frankly I don’t see . . . As I believe I told you a moment ago, that all seems so far away.”

  “You made enemies as well as friends back then,” Sebag insisted.

  “That’s for sure.”

  Gilles perceived a certain satisfaction in Lloret’s tone. The former OAS activist continued:

  “But precisely, that was ‘back then.’ Why bring it up now? We’re all so old.”

  “Obviously, we’ve asked ourselves that question, too. The best answer we’ve come up with is that the murderer must have learned something new recently. Maybe he didn’t know your identities before . . . ”

  An idea was born in his mind.

  “Or perhaps he didn’t know that he had something to hold against you. Maybe he learned recently that you played a dirty trick on him back then.”

  Several periods of silence had already occurred since the beginning of th
eir phone conversation, but the one that now began was far thicker than the others. Sebag had no basis for imagining Lloret other than the photo and the sound of his voice. He couldn‘t see either his gestures or his facial expressions, but like a blind man, he hoped to somehow sense them.

  He closed his eyes.

  The silence seemed dense and compact. The idea he’d thrown out had reimmersed Lloret in his Algerian past. He’d almost stopped breathing. The man was reflecting. He was probably reliving scenes, reviewing his friendships, revisiting his fantasies, his crimes, his boasts.

  “No, really . . . I don’t understand.”

  The powerful voice had lost its assurance. It had lingered too long on certain words.

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. And . . . for your part, do you have any good leads?”

  “Leads, yes, but it would be too much to call them good leads. We’re looking in particular at former barbouzes.”

  “I see . . . That’s not stupid. We didn’t give them any quarter at that time. Of course, they didn’t give us any either. They tortured and executed some of us in cold blood.”

  “In your opinion, are there barbouzes who might have something against your commando in particular?”

  “Aïwa! More than one, for sure.”

  “Does the name Maurice Garcin mean anything to you?”

  “Absolutely not. But you know, we never took the time to introduce ourselves to each other.”

  He gave a loud, sonorous laugh, then immediately stopped.

  “At the time, neither side was very sociable, you know,” he joked.

  “I see that the threat hanging over you hasn’t frightened you too much.”

  “It isn’t the first. I’ve never been a very popular person. That is, in fact, not the least of the things that I’m proud of.”

  Sebag was convinced that Lloret had had an idea that he preferred to keep to himself. He hoped that by reminding him of the dangers facing him he’d be able to get the former OAS man to reveal it.