Crimes of Winter

by Philippe Georget

  Claire knew that. She’d had ceaselessly to juggle this necessary sincerity and this impossible transparency. Gilles, without doing it on purpose, was not making her task any easier: he couldn’t tolerate zones of shadow. He was a man of questions, of questions and answers, they were his job, they were his talent, his virtue and his vice . . .

  Claire pushed back the quilt and stretched. She looked at the alarm clock: 9:15, time to get up. She grabbed Gilles’s pillow and inhaled its odor. She would have liked to remove the pillowcase and put it in her pocket like a child’s blankie.

  Yes, she loved Gilles and couldn’t imagine a life without him.

  She finally got up, put on a dressing gown, and went to the garage, which Gilles had divided into two parts, a workshop on one side and a small exercise area on the other. In the latter she saw his jogging clothes hanging on a rack. He hadn’t gone running. He was probably walking the deserted streets of Saint-Estève. She imagined his quick and furious pace slackening—she hoped—as he went. He would soon come back with warm bread and croissants.

  When in fact he put those presents on the living room table, she’d already prepared everything. Four bowls of different colors surrounded a slab of butter and two jars of jam, raspberry and apricot, produced from their own garden. A lovely fragrance of strong black coffee floated in the room.

  Claire examined her husband’s face.

  “Did you wake up early?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it cold outside?”

  “Pretty warm. The wind died down during the night.”

  In the Catalan country the tramontane wind out of the north determines how cold it feels as much as the temperatures do.

  Gilles took off his jacket and sat down opposite her.

  “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Please.”

  Claire got up, went around the bar that separated the kitchen area from the dining room, and came back with the coffeepot. She poured the hot black liquid into a blue bowl. Then she sat down again. She pushed the bowls aside so she could reach across the table and lay her hand on her husband’s.

  “Do you think we’re going to get through this?”

  “I hope so. We’re going to do everything we can, right?”

  “Anything you want.”

  Séverine came into the living room, putting an end to their conversation. Her eyes were still sleepy and she sat down on her father’s lap. She buried her face in his neck. Gilles ran his hand through her brown locks and closed his eyes. Claire felt her heart breaking when she saw her husband letting go like that. He was savoring every last second of cuddling with his daughter; it was a long time since he’d been able to cuddle with his son.

  Gilles had always been close to his children. After Séverine was born, he’d even gone on a part-time work schedule so that he could spend more time with them. This had not been well received in the macho world of the police, and it had affected the development of his career. He’d felt blacklisted by both his colleagues and his superiors. They were living in Chartres at that time. Fortunately, after his transfer to Perpignan he’d recovered everyone’s confidence, but something in him was broken: he no longer felt any real passion for his work.

  They ate breakfast while absentmindedly watching a news channel. But could it really be called news? Nothing but stories on insignificant subjects such as past Christmas Eve celebrations and the feasts to come on Christmas Day. This year, Christmas fell on December 25. What a scoop!

  “Foie gras with apples, is that still what we’re having?” Gilles asked.

  “Precisely. With a little salmon as a starter and a bûche de Noël4 for dessert.”

  “The whole shebang, in other words! Great.”

  He got up and put his bowl in the dishwasher.

  “I’ll peel the apples. In the meantime, if you don’t mind, I’m going to get a little exercise.”

  “Will you also get the wine, please?”

  “Of course. A little Château Mossé 2008 Coume d’Abeille, that will be perfect with the meal. The wine shop is closed and I think it’s the last bottle I have. We have to savor it!”

  She watched him leave. Exercise would be an excellent outlet.

  Léo got up shortly before noon, just in time for the aperitif. Claire had an amber Rivesaltes, Léo and Séverine Cokes, and Gilles a whiskey. Claire frowned when she saw the amount her husband poured for himself. Then she said to herself that for the time being, that was a lesser evil.

  She pleased everyone with her sautéed foie gras. She congratulated Gilles on his choice of wine and forced herself to drink more of it than usual. If she didn’t, he would.

  Her eyes never left her husband. Whether it was the alcohol or dark ideas—maybe both—he seemed to be slowly slipping into a kind of lethargy. He was there without being there. When Séverine expressed her surprise, he said he was tired and needed more sleep. And that was only half a lie.

  “Had I known, I’d have taken vacation time after all.”

  “Oh, yes, it would have been great if you could have come with us to Grandpa and Grandma’s!”

  “Too bad! Maybe next year . . .”

  Claire’s eyes met his. Next year . . . How sweet those words were and how sincere he looked when he said them! If only the year could go by in a flash and they could already all be together a year later . . . Their suffering over, their insouciance restored. And maybe also their trust.

  Gilles’s telephone rang just as the coffee was being served. Léo and Séverine had gone back to their rooms and Gilles and Claire were alone again, silent and pensive. Gilles didn’t answer the phone; he got up only after hearing the beep signaling a voice message. He listened to it. Twice. Then he put the phone down. He seemed to be hesitating.

  “Was it work?” Claire asked.

  “Jacques, yes. He’s holding down the fort today.”

  “Something urgent?”

  Gilles pulled a face.

  “I’m off duty.”

  Claire understood that the notion of urgency could be relative. Ordinarily, it would take a particularly tragic event to make Gilles leave his family on Christmas Day. But during this troubled time, it might be urgent to forget his personal difficulties by throwing himself into his work.

  “Is it important?” she asked again.

  “They’ve arrested the murderer. You know, the husband . . .”

  She indicated her assent by batting her eyelids.

  “Is Jacques going to question him?”

  “Of course.”

  “Alone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to go?”

  Surprised at first, Gilles was clearly relieved by this suggestion.

  “That might be better.”

  “Maybe . . .”

  “I mean, for the investigation,” he smiled.

  “I did, too.”

  Gilles stood up and kissed her on the forehead. Then he put on his jacket. Claire watched him get in the car, start it up, and then drive away. Higelin’s5 hoarse, low voice resounded in her head:

  Leave, and above all don’t look back

  Leave, do what you have to without me

  Whatever happens, I’ll always be with you

  Oh leave, and especially come back to me!

  4A cake in the form of a yule log, traditional at Christmastime.

  5Jacques Higelin, a French composer and singer born in 1940.

  CHAPTER 13

  As he drove, Gilles used his speakerphone to call Molina.

  “Congratulations on Abad, Jacques! How did you arrest him?”

  “Uhh . . . He turned himself in. He showed up at headquarters less than an hour ago, holding his rifle by the barrel. He put it down on the floor and let the man on the front desk cuff him. He’s now in our office. I was a
bout to begin questioning him.”

  “Can you wait for me? I’m coming . . .”

  “What?”

  “I’m already on the way. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “Are you sure that . . .”

  Sebag hung up, not giving his partner time to finish his sentence.

  Early on the afternoon of Christmas Day, traffic was at its lowest point, and it took him less than ten minutes to make the trip from his home. He left his car in the empty parking lot at police headquarters. The building was four stories high and fifty meters long, and its walls were the dirty concrete color of a low-cost housing development. Sebag climbed a few steps and entered the lobby. Agent Ripoll was manning the front desk on this holiday.

  “Hello, Lieutenant!”

  The old cop’s loud, hoarse voice was further amplified by a contained pride. Sebag responded with exaggerated deference.

  “Hello, Monsieur Ripoll! You are the hero of the day, it seems. My congratulations on having arrested such a dangerous criminal all by yourself!”

  Ripoll ran his big, hairy hand over his thinning hair. The uncertain look in his eye betrayed his perplexity. He didn’t know whether the inspector was sincere or if, once again, he was making fun of him. Sebag did nothing to help him in this dilemma. He held his personal card in front of the electronic reader and went into the secure part of police headquarters. As he entered the room that he shared with Molina, he ignored his colleague’s astonished look and concentrated his attention on Stéphane Abad. First he noticed the man’s bare neck and his light-colored hair. Abad was sitting on a chair next to two desks. His head was bowed and he had not looked up when another police officer came in. Sebag walked around him and sat down in his desk chair.

  Abad slowly raised his head. He looked exhausted. He must not have slept much for a couple of days . . . His dark, tired eyes looked from under two long, thick eyebrows that nearly met over his nose. His delicately drawn mouth and his rounded cheeks gave the rest of his face a babylike look, despite a nascent beard. Sebag discerned in his features a mixture of gentleness and violence.

  Molina began the interview with the traditional questions about identity. Stéphane Abad answered in a weary and monotone voice: he was born on May 28, 1962, in Perpignan, the son of Jean Abad and Pauline Coll; he had married Christine Lipart on June 3, 1994, in Boulou; and for twenty-five years he had been working as a quality-control manager at the Cantalou-Cémoi chocolate company. These details having been duly recorded, Jacques paused. He glanced at Sebag and divined that his colleague was advising him not to ask the crucial question right away. So first he questioned the suspect about what he had been doing since the day of the murder.

  Stéphane Abad explained that he had spent these two days—”Two days, really?”—crying in his car, hidden away in the hills above the village of Opoul, an area where few people went. He hadn’t received any of the messages that had been left for him because he’d thrown his mobile phone into the Têt River.

  “You didn’t want to be found?” Molina asked.

  “I don’t know, I just did it, I wanted people to leave me alone. That’s all! I didn’t want to talk to anybody.”

  “Not even your son?”

  Abad looked up at Molina. Gilles sensed that he’d only now remembered that he had a son.

  “Have you seen Maxime? How is he?”

  “He’s fine, as you’re well aware,” Molina replied curtly. “Why did you run away? Did you hope to escape us?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t believe so, I wasn’t thinking. I was . . . wasted, I think. I had alcohol with me, and I drank a great deal. I don’t remember much.”

  “Why did you turn yourself in today? Did you run out of stuff to drink?”

  “I’d finished it all off, yes,” Abad answered without noticing the lieutenant’s irony. “But that’s not why I came . . . I thought there was no other solution. It seemed to me inevitable. I don’t know, that’s normal, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t know much, in fact! I hope you’ll be more precise on other points.”

  “Have you eaten?” Sebag broke in. “Are you thirsty? Do you want some water?”

  “Yes, I’d like a glass of water.”

  “Something else? A soda, a chocolate bar, a few madeleines? We have vending machines on the ground floor.”

  Abad was astonished by his concern. Molina warned him: “The interview might be very long.”

  “A glass of water would be fine. As for the rest, no, thanks, I’m not hungry.”

  Sebag stood up and filled a cup at the water fountain in the hallway. He got another for himself. As he came back into the office, he signaled to Molina that he could now ask the fateful question, the one that had been looming from the outset but whose answer had to be clear and sharp, and then written down in black and white in the record of the interview. Jacques shifted to his most solemn tone.

  “Monsieur Abad, do you admit having killed your wife Christine on Tuesday, December 23, shortly after 2 P.M.?”

  Abad hesitated. He took the time to take a sip of water before answering.

  “I’m not certain about the time.”

  Molina drummed his fingers on his desk.

  “We don’t give a damn about the time! Do you admit having killed your wife?”

  Abad’s cheeks flushed.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell us what happened.”

  Abad took another drink of water before starting to tell his story. In the late morning of that Tuesday, he’d gone to the Hôtel du Gecko. He’d waited for the lover to come out, then went up to room 34. He’d opened the door, seen Christine, and fired.

  “How did your wife react when she saw you?”

  “I’m not sure, everything happened very fast, I don’t think she had time to react . . . Oh, yes, she opened her mouth!”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. She fell next to the bed.”

  “She was already dead?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “You didn’t check?”

  “No.”

  “What did you feel?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Pleasure?”

  Abad jumped, as if he’d been bitten. Or slapped. Molina continued: “Relief, then? Or sadness?”

  “Yes, perhaps a little . . . Especially a great emptiness.”

  Molina wrote down these answers and then, after a short silence, resumed his most solemn tone.

  “When you fired, it was in fact with the intention of killing her?”

  Abad sat up slowly and, for the first time, spread out his body. He was bigger than his slumped position had suggested up to that point. Sebag estimated that he was at least six feet tall.

  “Yes,” he replied without batting an eyelid.

  “Why?”

  The question surprised Abad.

  “Well, because she was cheating on me!”

  “Is that a sufficient reason?”

  Abad stared at Molina as if he came from another planet. He jutted out his round chin.

  “Obviously, since I did it.”

  Molina sighed and pulled his chair closer.

  “Monsieur Abad, tens of thousands of people are cheated on every year by their spouses—both men and women, I believe equality is complete in that domain these days—but that does not result in tens of thousands of deaths. Fortunately for us—we’d be overworked—and also fortunately for the country, because if everybody acted as you did, adultery would become a plague worse than cancer, car accidents, and cardio-vascular disease combined . . .”

  He paused, turned to Gilles to be sure that he had appreciated this bit of humor, and then went on: “It looks like you thought it was natural to kill your wife. Why?”

  Abad wrinkled his forehead and his bushy eyebrows joined over
his nose. He spoke in a voice that betrayed his exasperation:

  “I don’t know what other men in my situation do or don’t do, and I don’t give a damn! I didn’t put up with her so that she could make a monkey out of me again.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes, she had already cheated on me. At least once! Right after Maxime was born. At the time she admitted it, and I agreed to forgive her and to continue to live with her. But despite all that she did it again.”

  “So for you that was reason enough to kill her?”

  Molina’s tone had become less severe.

  “She humiliated me. When you’re a married woman, a mother, you don’t do that. If you don’t respect your husband, you can at least show concern for your son!”

  “Do you regret what you did?”

  Abad took time to weigh his words. Then he looked Molina in the eye: “No. I regret that she did it. She’s the one who is responsible for what happened. Not me.”

  “Why did you wait for the lover to leave the hotel? Weren’t you mad at him, too?”

  Abad seemed surprised. Apparently, he had never asked himself that question; his jealousy was all in his gut, not in his head.

  “I don’t understand, he didn’t know me,” Abad replied after thinking for a moment. “She’s the one who cheated on me, not him. I don’t give a shit about him!”

  Jacques carefully noted down his remarks: He had heard enough on that subject. It would be up to the examining magistrate to investigate further, if he wanted to, regarding the murderer’s motivations and psychology.

  “At what point did you decide to kill your wife?”

  “As soon as I discovered that she was cheating on me.”