Crimes of Winter

by Philippe Georget

  “Here you’ve got the history of the calls and text message sent and received by Christine Abad over the two weeks preceding her death. I’ve left the calls in chronological order for you, and classified the text messages by their interlocutors. I thought it would be clearer that way. Everything that has been erased appears in red. There’s not much to conclude from it other than that her husband did in fact lie to you: there is no SMS that corresponds to what he told you.”

  Her hand moved to the second pile.

  “Here, you’ve got the same thing for Didier Valls’s calls and SMSes. I’ve classified everything in the same way as for Christine.”

  She picked up the stapled sheets.

  “So far as Stéphane Abad’s mobile is concerned, because it was thrown in the river I haven’t been able to get from his service provider anything more than the record of his calls. I don’t have anything on the content of the text messages.”

  “A brief summary?” Sebag cut her short.

  She pushed one of the two piles of paper toward him. The one that corresponded to Valls’s telephone records.

  “Have a look at this.”

  As soon as he had examined the first sheets, Sebag spotted a recurring number written in red. The first SMS went back to Christmas Eve. It was simple and concise: “Your wife is cheating on you.” He looked up and smiled at Elsa. There it was, they had proof: Ménard was right.

  “Valls didn’t answer this first SMS,” Elsa explained. “He must have thought it was a mistake. The real exchanges began the next day, and they continued until the day before his suicide. Valls erased everything just before the argument, including the records of this number in the call log.”

  “So Valls was also the victim of the informer.”

  “Of an informer,” Elsa corrected. “There are good reasons to think that it is the same person who sent the photos to Abad, but no definite proof.”

  “Explain.”

  “I compared the corbeau’s number with those found in Abad’s call log: it’s not there. On the other hand, I did find another number that recurs several times on the days leading up to the murder. Text messages and even three calls were exchanged. Since this number doesn’t appear in the phone’s contact list, I tried to identify it, but didn’t succeed: it’s probably a disposable phone.”

  “Like the telephone used to contact Valls, I suppose?”

  “Exactly. I have not been able to identify the owner of that phone, either.”

  “So it’s probably the same individual using two different disposable phones?”

  “Or the same phone with a different SIM card.”

  “OK, we don’t have ironclad proof that it’s the same person, but you spoke of good reasons to believe that it is.”

  “I geolocated the two numbers. We have to assume that they are no longer active, but it seems that both were used in the center of Perpignan, essentially in a sector that reaches from, say . . . the Place Arago to the Conference Center.”

  Sebag nodded pensively. This time it was certain, it couldn’t be an accident. He warmly thanked his colleague and went back upstairs to his office, his arms loaded with documents. For a good hour, he delved into Christine Abad’s and Didier Valls’s private lives.

  These days, there is nothing more intrusive or more instructive than reading people’s text messages. Written rapidly and summarily, they reveal everyday life in its raw state, both the great and the very small things in life, details that are insignificant but highly symbolic. Written straightforwardly and without artifice, these momentary states of mind tell us more about a person than the most personal of diaries.

  Sebag went through dozens of messages that were probably valuable for determining Christine’s and Didier’s personalities, but had no direct interest for their case.

  He found Christine’s correspondence with her lover disturbing. Necessarily. This outflowing of sweet and sometimes sexually explicit words, this profusion of desires and wishes laid out before his eyes, awakened his demons. It was impossible not to draw a parallel, not to wonder what phrases Claire might have exchanged with “her” Simon, what greedy hungers she might have expressed, what satisfactions she might have told him about.

  On Tuesday, December 23, at 12:10 P.M., Christine Abad send a final message to Éric. She wrote: “I’m leaving my house. I can’t wait to feel you inside me.” Sebag felt a sudden unease in the pit of his stomach. As when you realize that you’ve just escaped a tragedy. Fortunately, he hadn’t read his wife’s text messages earlier. If he’d read them while the affair was going on, he would probably have found messages of the same kind. And, he was convinced, their marriage would never recover from that.

  He took the whiskey bottle out of his drawer, and after drinking a first glass, breathed a long sigh. By beginning with Christine’s correspondence, he’d already done the hardest part. He could calmly move on to Valls’s.

  On Christmas Day itself, after twenty-four hours without a reply, the corbeau had sent Sandrine’s husband another SMS.

  “I have all the proof you need, your wife is cheating on you.”

  “Who are you?”

  “A friend who wishes you well . . .”

  “But who are you?”

  “My identity doesn’t matter, only my information does.”

  “How can I believe you without knowing who you are?”

  “This is your business, not mine. Do you want the truth?”

  “What are you after, what do you want from me?”

  “I want to reveal the truths that are being hidden from us. Are you ready to see them?”

  “Do you want money?”

  “I’m not asking for anything.”

  “How much?”

  Getting no reply, Valls dialed the number. The call had lasted only twenty-two seconds. Sebag inferred that he must have gotten an answering machine and left a short message. Two days later, the dialogue was resumed. At Valls’s initiative.

  “What exactly do you know?”

  “If you want answers, don’t call me anymore.”

  The corbeau made it clear that he alone was setting the rules.

  “OK. What do you know?”

  “Your wife has a lover. Her boss. First name: Francis. They seem to be very much in love.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I know it, I see it. You don’t need to know any more.”

  “What is Francis’s last name?“

  The SMS received no response. Valls sent another the next day. The mysterious informant knew how to turn up the heat. If he was after money, Didier was ready to shell out a small fortune.

  “If you want me to believe you, you’ll have to tell me more. I’ll give you what you want.”

  This message got a quick response.

  “Don’t insult me, I don’t want your money.”

  Sebag frowned. Was the man sincere or particularly devious?

  “Excuse me. But you’ve told me too much or not enough.”

  “Sandrine has been lying to you for a long time. Be patient. You’ll soon know everything.”

  Despite Valls’s numerous attempts to recontact the corbeau, this was the last SMS. The last trace of the mysterious interlocutor was a call he made on the morning of Valls’s suicide. At precisely 9:45. The conversation had lasted thirty-five seconds.

  Just one thing aroused Sebag’s interest in the rest of Didier Valls’s telephone correspondence. Valls seemed to be very close to a certain Nathalie who also worked at Cantalou. They often set lunch dates, and while many of the messages referred to work matters, others concerned their marital problems, tensions and arguments, their worries and even their suspicions.

  Despite the large number of text messages and their very personal character, this relationship seemed not to have gone beyond sincere friendship. Some text messages e
nded with “love and kisses,” nothing more.

  And no trace of a message mentioning the corbeau.

  He’d had a piercing headache ever since he’d begun reading the text messages. In his desk drawer, he found a bottle of paracetamol. He took out a tablet and washed it down with a gulp of whiskey.

  No one having answered the door, Julie knocked again. A little harder. This time she heard Gilles’s voice:

  “Come in.”

  She opened the door and walked into the room. She saw Sebag rapidly close his desk drawer.

  “I was wondering if you were still there,” she said. “It’s late.”

  “What are you thinking! I often work late . . .”

  Seeing his distant expression, she was concerned:

  “I hope I didn’t disturb you?”

  “Are you kidding? I’m contributing to my own legend as a do-nothing.”

  “I promise to keep your secret then. I won’t tell anyone that you worked hard today.”

  “Whew!”

  Julie smiled. She liked Gilles. She had rarely met a cop with such a great sense of humor, so much humility and talent. He asked her how her day had gone and she told him that she had once again walked the streets of Bas-Vernet and collected interesting new information. Some residents had mentioned a six-year-old girl’s game.

  “I think the burglars took advantage of the trust inspired by her youth. She stands in front of the apartment building’s doors and claims that she’s going to see her grandmother: people are inclined let her come in. The problem is that she has not yet been identified. How about you, made any progress?”

  Gilles didn’t have to be asked twice to summarize Elsa’s discoveries for her.

  “Wow!” she exclaimed. “This case is getting exciting! I’ll have to clear up my burglary in a hurry so I can work with you on it.”

  “I’d like that.”

  There was an odd aroma floating in the room that occasionally tickled Julie’s nostrils. Her eyes fell on the plastic glass next to the telephone on Gilles’s desk. The amber liquid it contained wasn’t water, and still less coffee. She wanted to be sure, and took another glass from Molina’s desk. She wiped the rim and then held it out to Gilles.

  “Will you give me a little?”

  Sebag blushed slightly. He opened his drawer, took out the bottle, and poured a shot of whiskey into her glass. Julie put it to her lips. She immediately made a face.

  “You have better taste in coffee.”

  Saying this, she remembered the conversation they’d had a few days earlier. They were in the cafeteria at headquarters and Gilles was criticizing the quality of the coffee. She had suggested that he buy an espresso machine, and he had replied that if he could make good coffee for himself in his office he would probably drink too much of it. Didn’t the same go for whiskey? She examined his drawn features, his sad face. Her colleague didn’t look so good.

  “So, when are we going for a run together?”

  “Whenever you like . . .”

  “Tomorrow after work?”

  “If I don’t finish too late . . .”

  “You, working late two days in a row? Watch out, if you pull that one on me I’m going to conclude that you’re avoiding me. Given the time I’ve been asking and you’ve been delaying, I’m going to end up thinking you’re afraid to run with me.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “Or that you just don’t want to . . .”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Drinking or running, you have to choose!” Julie almost told him. She restrained herself but vowed to force her colleague to make a rapid decision.

  CHAPTER 28

  I think it would be crazy for them to get into the Top 14 immediately.”

  “I agree with you so far as finances are concerned, but not on the athletic level. They have to be careful not to get too established in the D2 league. Just look at Pau: it took them years to get back into the Top 14!”23

  Molina was distractedly following his pals’ conversation. For once, he wasn’t interested in talking about the USAP. He put his lips on the straw and sucked noisily, but without success. He’d already finished his mojito. Three drops of rum, a slice of lime, and the rest in mint leaves and shaved ice. What a scam!

  He ordered a beer.

  For almost two hours, he’d been drinking and eating tapas with two friends who were rugby fans. They’d gathered around a table on the terrace in front of a bar. Despite the wind and the cool night, the sidewalk was swarming with people all along the Avenue du Maréchal Leclerc. After it was refurbished, this avenue had become a real street of thirst, lively late into the night even in winter.

  Jacques had had a full day on the job. In that respect, at least, he was satisfied. He’d met with the heads of five private detective agencies in the Perpignan area. They had all said they’d had no contact with Stéphane Abad or Didier Valls, and he had believed them all. Or almost. Regarding Àvia Maria, he had some doubts. He’d always had doubts about Àvia Maria. The old woman was too wily and they were too close. With her, he was never sure of anything.

  He’d have to talk with Gilles. He’d know.

  “Anyway . . . let’s hope . . .”

  For several days, Sebag hadn’t been in the best of shape. Headache, pain in the gut, upset stomach . . . He could say all he wanted, he couldn’t fool an old monkey like him: storm warnings were up for his marriage. Such a beautiful, desirable woman, such a confident man, twenty years of marriage—a quadratic equation with three terms and an unknown.

  But not all that unknown!

  During Gilles’s absence that afternoon, Jacques had dug through his partner’s desk drawer. Too often lately he’d seen his partner dive under his desk for no reason. And he’d found a bottle of whiskey there, three-quarters empty. As he stood up, he’d put his hands on the desktop and unintentionally awakened the computer, which Gilles had forgotten to shut down when he left. A face and a name had appeared on the screen. Those of Simon Bidol, a teacher of history and geography at the Lycée René Cassin in Bayonne. Jacques found the profile Bidol had posted on the social networks and learned that he had lived in Northern Catalonia the past year. A few more clicks revealed the school where he’d taught: the Collège de Rivesaltes, the one where Claire Sebag taught.

  No need to have his colleague’s gift for drawing conclusions.

  The waiter put Jacques’s beer on the table. His two pals were still drinking mojitos. And they were still talking about rugby.

  “What was really fucked last season was the scrum.”

  “No shit!”

  Gilles was going through a difficult period and he needed a helping hand. Work—there was nothing like it for taking some distance. But he still had to be able to lose himself in an exciting investigation instead of tagging along behind Ménard on a lead he’d discovered.

  A lead or a pseudo-lead?

  If he could prove that François was on the wrong track, that would be great. For Gilles and for himself. Because he also needed to think about something else.

  He shivered. The parasol heater set up next to their table was burning the top of his head but a cold wind was finding its way under his shirt. After this last beer, it would be time for him to go to bed.

  Since the previous evening Jacques had been in a glum, languid mood. His little English girl had dumped him without warning. He hadn’t felt any pain, and ultimately it was that that was making him sad. What was the point of these little flings if they didn’t leave you even a little sorrow when they were over?

  An unknown figure was approaching a nearby table. The man had his back to him, but Molina recognized the tall stature of Éric Balland. He wasn’t at all surprised. The Archipelago theater was not far away and Christine’s lover had told them that very morning that he’d been living on the same street since his wife threw him out. Ba
lland must have felt Jacques’s eyes on his shoulders, because he turned around and saw him. Then he leaned toward his friends—a man and two women—and all four of them very quickly got up and left.

  Molina caught himself watching them go with scorn. Normally, he would have rather admired Balland’s success with women. He thought about Cindy again. His desire for the young woman had been strong, and he was moved by the memory of their athletic sexual encounters. But what would remain of all that a week, a month, or a year from now?

  He thought about his ex-wife. Where was she tonight? After having dined with their sons, she must have sat down alone in front of her TV. Had she found someone since their separation? Up to this point he’d never worried about that, but tonight jealousy was bothering him. What was up with him? Probably getting old, by God, really getting old! Thinking about Sandrine, he felt melancholic. He missed her. His old friend. Fifteen years together, with fights, of course—a few too many—but also habits, comfort, and complicity. How he would have liked to sleep next to her tonight and feel her warmth against his tired body! He would have probably had a little erection, nothing much, the kind of desire that you could arouse or just let it fade away.

  He was tired of lovers and dreamed of a companion, a partner, a sister, somebody with whom he could share something other than a good dose of sweat and a few milliliters of sperm. Ah . . . calmly falling asleep next to a woman without having been obliged to make love to her . . . Complete bliss!

  At the age of fifty, the wolf was weeping over his chains. Christ, he was getting old. Old and stupid!