“You seem to know her well.”
“You better believe it . . . I worked for her when I was a kid.”
“You don’t say . . .”
“The agency needed a smart kid for certain stakeouts and to tail people. Because of my age, I was less likely to be spotted than the adult detectives. That’s where I learned the rudiments of the trade.”
“And today you continued to inform ‘your’ Àvia every time she asks you to.”
“Every time I can.”
“So she owes you one!”
Molina smiled.
“It’s clear that you don’t know her: Àvia Maria doesn’t owe anything to anyone.”
Sebag was beginning to feel a strong interest in this charming grandmother.
“And so that’s what happened today with the old lady?”
“She didn’t seem very sincere to me.”
“But you didn’t succeed in getting her to spill the beans?”
“No. She knows me too well. In fact . . .”
Molina scratched his head again and lowered his eyes. He looked like a timid child.
“In fact, I need you to play hardball with her.”
Sebag didn’t hide his astonishment. When they were working together, it was always Molina who played that role. It was second nature . . .
“That would be a first. It might be fun.”
“Could you manage it?”
“Thanks for your confidence! Since I’ve been working with you, I’ve learned a lot. Shall we go back there now?”
“I thought we could show up unannounced this afternoon.”
“Why go unannounced?”
“Because she doesn’t like that at all!”
Sebag remained skeptical about Molina’s theory, but he was eager to make the acquaintance of this old woman who had so impressed his partner.
The offices of the Catalan Detective Agency occupied the second floor of a dignified building that looked out on the Promenade des Platanes. The two lieutenants passed through a glass door and found themselves in a small lobby equipped with a desk and four chairs lined up along the wall. A young woman stood up behind the table and gave Molina a kiss.
“Twice in two days, the year is starting well! I hope this time it’s me you’ve come to see.”
“Julia, this is Gilles, my partner. Gilles, this is Julia, one of Maria’s granddaughters. I knew her when she was little and I even dandled her on my knee.”
“But ever since I grew up he has stubbornly refused to do it again . . .”
“It’s the very first time I’ve seen him turn down a pretty young woman,” Gilles observed.
“I consider her my grand-niece,” Jacques explained, pinching Julia’s cheek. “A grand-niece who’s mischievous and a tease. I’m sure that if I said yes, she’d be the one to refuse.”
“Mean.”
“No, not mean. Àvia Maria is here, I assume?”
“The day when you don’t find her here, you’ll have to look for her in the cemetery. But you didn’t call in advance?”
Molina spread his arms wide in a gesture of impotence.
“My partner was in too much of a hurry to make her acquaintance.”
Julia walked down a long hallway and gently opened a door at the end on the right.
“At this hour she takes her nap,” Molina explained. “For more than fifty years she has been coming to the agency at 7 A.M. and takes a little nap in the morning and a longer one in the afternoon.”
“Fortunate lady.”
Julia rejoined them.
“You can go in now.”
They entered a large, dark room cluttered with files. There were files everywhere, on bookcases, on the desk, on a windowsill, even on the floor. In a corner, a large armchair offered comfort from the headrest to the footrest. It was covered in plaid.
Behind her desk, partly hidden by the files, Àvia Maria showed them a pleasant face. Molina planted resounding kisses on her plump cheeks. If it hadn’t been for her steely blue eyes, Sebag could have imagined her at a stove surrounded by grandchildren rather than at the head of a private detective agency. He shook her hand.
“Bonjour, Madame Borell.”
“Call me Àvia Maria, please.”
“All right, Madame Borell.”
The old lady noted this refusal without batting an eyelid. She invited them to sit down and then addressed Molina:
“So you’ve come back with reinforcements.”
“In a way.”
Àvia Maria turned to Gilles.
“So you’re the one who’s going to play the bad cop?”
“You could say that.”
“That doesn’t seem to be in your nature.”
“It’s true that I usually like to leave that role to Jacques. But I promise to force myself to play my role.”
“I’m expecting you to. I don’t like to give up my information without a battle. It’s a question of principle. At my age, you don’t change.”
“So you have information that might be of interest to us?”
“If you’re here, it’s because you think I do. I sensed yesterday that this big lout here hadn’t found my answers very convincing. I know him, and he knows me, so . . .”
“You know each other!”
“Precisely.”
“But you and I don’t know each other.”
“Speak for yourself. Jacques has often told me about your exploits. And I know about the most recent ones: arresting a young drug dealer and preventing a madman from burning down a whole neighborhood. All that in less than ten days, I say bravo!”
“You’re well-informed.”
“I read the newspapers, I listen to the radio. Among other things.”
Sebag noticed that Molina, on his left, was squirming on his chair. He shot him a side glance. His partner seemed to be telling him: “Be careful, she’s putting you to sleep.”
“Madame Borell,” Sebag went on, “I have no desire to play cat and mouse with you. So far as I’m concerned, I’m too old for that. Or not old enough!”
The old woman’s eyes smiled at what she could have seen as an affront. Everything seemed to be a game for her. Not easy to handle.
“Jacques undoubtedly explained to you that we’re working on two cases that are delicate because, although in different ways, they both resulted in deaths. We’re now certain that Stéphane Abad and Didier Valls were informed of their wives’ infidelities by photos that resemble in every way the kind that agencies like yours provide.”
He had decided for the time being not to dissociate the two cases.
“These are serious matters, two homicides. If it was your agency that provided these photos, you’re obligated to tell us that.”
Àvia Maria looked at him without answering. Her eyes spoke for her. They said: “You don’t scare me at all!”
“We’re conducting this investigation at the behest of the prosecutor. You have to cooperate.”
When the old woman’s mouth widened, it made her chubby cheeks even rounder.
“But I am cooperating, since you’re here . . .”
“That’s not the feeling I have.”
“But you haven’t yet asked me any questions!”
Molina burst out laughing. Àvia Maria ran a spotted hand over her blue-black, permed hair. This time her pink lips formed a genuine smile. Sebag felt ridiculous. By playing this unhabitual role he was acting against type and wasn’t doing it well. Not focused. Not involved. Or maybe too much involved.
Suddenly he felt a desire to give it all up, go home, pull the covers over his head, and sleep.
Finally sleep. For a day, a week, a year. Forget everything.
Obviously, that wasn’t possible.
“OK., Madame Borell, I will therefore very of
ficially ask if your agency has had anything to do with Stéphane Abad or Didier Valls?”
“I promise to ask my agents about that. But some of them are still on vacation.”
She looked around the room with its piles of file folders.
“I can also look myself, but that might take a while.”
“Don’t tell me you aren’t computerized?”
“Of course we are. But I’m not! I don’t know how to use a computer, and for such important matters I’m the only one who can provide you with the information.”
The owner of the Catalan Detective Agency might run her operation with a firm hand, but she was acting like a capricious old lady.
“Do your employees use prepaid phones?”
“Sometimes, when the investigation requires it.”
Sebag took out his notebook and opened it to the page where he had written down the number Elsa had found on Abad’s phone.
“Does this number mean anything to you?”
She didn’t even look at it.
“When my agents use that kind of phone, it is to be discreet. In general, they don’t give the number to everybody.”
A capricious old woman, yes, that was it. That was all it was. He had to find something else. Silence fell on the room. Gilles looked out the window at the sparse foliage of the plane trees on the Allées Maillol. He thought. The old woman was having her fun like a girl, he had to surprise her. That was just what she was waiting for.
Get back to fundamentals, that was the key. Observation, psychology, intuition . . . He stopped contemplating the trees. His eyes grew blurry, he was looking inward. An image came back to him. When they had come into this room . . . the armchair with the plaid . . . he studied the room, examined the armchair. He felt something vibrate inside him.
“Your friend is no longer talking,” Maria said to Jacques, astonished. “He’s lost his tongue.”
The old lady had followed Gilles’s eyes and then broken the silence. She was confirming his doubts. He sized her up for a few more moments before beginning to speak.
“Do you know Abad and Valls?”
An imperceptible movement of her lips provided an answer.
“No, not both of them. You know only Abad.”
A wrinkling of her eyelids assented. Àvia Maria’s interest was growing.
“You worked for him.”
He asked no further questions. An interrogative tone would have caused the old woman to clam up. Making an assertion seemed to him the best way to get a response.
“You run an agency with an excellent reputation and you’re completely familiar with the law. You wouldn’t play around this way if you were the source of the photos Abad received.”
Àvia Maria didn’t turn a hair, but her breathing became quieter, as if she were monitoring it.
“So if you have already worked for him, it was earlier. Much earlier. Long ago.”
He paused.
“Go on, I’m finding this fascinating,” Maria said.
Molina was bouncing on his chair. He was loving it. Like a kid at the circus.
“Oh, there, Maria, I recognize my Gilles, and when he has that inspired air of Jesus Christ Policeman, he’s redoubtable. He’s going to make you spill all your secrets!”
Sebag didn’t want to let himself be distracted. He recalled a few elements of the Abad couple’s marriage. It all fit together. He waited another moment before continuing. That was it, now he had his idea.
“Christine Abad cheated on her husband the first time after the birth of her son. She confessed everything to him, and that was a mistake, because Stéphane, who had not been jealous before, became jealous. He started spying on her and asked your agency to help him. At least once, maybe more.”
Sebag had taken a risk by being too explicit. But the old woman’s attention had not flagged. He wasn’t mistaken. With a wave of his arm, he indicated the disorder in the room.
“Among all these files, Madame Borell, you therefore have one that bears the name Abad. You knew that you hadn’t convinced Jacques yesterday and you suspected that we were going to come back. So you’ve already looked for this file and found it. You even reread it during your naptime. And you should have put it back with the others before receiving us instead of putting your plaid over it.”
Molina stood up. There was bump under the plaid blanket. He lifted the blanket, revealing a blue file folder. With Stéphane Abad’s name written on it in bold letters.
“I suppose there is nothing in this file that would help us in our investigation,” Sebag concluded. “You’ve wasted our time.”
“I haven’t wasted mine. Jacques has praised you to the skies. You’re really fascinating!”
“He’s not that good every day,” Jacques said.
“You’re not going to tell me that you did all this just to meet me?”
“I won’t tell you that, then . . .”
Àvia Maria automatically adjusted the embroidered woolen jacket that she wore over a thin turtleneck sweater. Jacques opened the bulging file folder.
“Monsieur Abad came to see us on three occasions over the past ten years,” the owner of the agency finally explained. “At his request, each time we followed his wife for several days. But we never found anything. Could you please close the file again, Jacques? Your colleague is right: there’s nothing in it that concerns your current investigation.”
Molina obeyed and put the folder on the desk.
“So apart from those two mistakes Christine was a faithful wife?” he asked.
“The absence of proof of adultery is not a proof of fidelity.”
“But Abad was reassured each time?”
It was to Sebag that she replied.
“A jealous husband can be reassured only by proving to him that he was right to be jealous.”
Gilles saw the justice of that statement. When he discovered Claire’s fling, he’d felt, beyond shock and pain, a strange and ineffable feeling of satisfaction.
“Since you didn’t succeed in ‘reassuring’ Abad, mightn’t he have gone to another agency?“
“I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“I would have been informed of that, believe me.”
That answer was enough for Sebag. He rose.
“It was a pleasure.”
“For me, too.”
He held out his hand. She shook it at length.
“And I hope that the next time you’ll call me Àvia Maria.”
“Count on it.”
This time, he couldn’t escape it.
But how could he hang on? The interview with Àvia Maria had emptied him out. And he’d drunk too much table wine at lunch. And also a little too much whiskey afterward. Two swallows straight out of the bottle. No, three. Whatever!
Too much, that was for sure. The problem with alcohol is that you drink when you’re sad, but also when you’re feeling good. He’d been happy with his performance at the Catalan Detective Agency and wanted to celebrate it!
Now he was paying the price.
But he also had to draw on his resources to put on a good show a little later. The run with Julie was looking like another test. How long could he keep this up?
Wasn’t that in fact what he was seeking? To collapse with exhaustion and no longer have the strength to think.
After his interlude in the domain of private detectives, he’d attended Ménard’s interrogation of Dominique Barrache. The guard had refused to be assisted by a lawyer and had clammed up. He seemed to fear the examination of his computer. François had found in that the confirmation of his suspicions and had decided to put Barrache in police custody.
Gilles, for his part, had his doubts.
But he also doubted his doubts.
Miraculously, his intuition had returned to him
long enough for a music hall number before an old madwoman. It had left him again afterward, frightened by the storm that was raging in his skull. The past was mixed up with the present, a mass of warm air and a mass of cold air, the devastating hurricane that even whiskey could no longer calm. Alcohol aggravated his fatigue and deprived him of the strength necessary for his struggle.
No, he couldn’t manage it. He was going to look ridiculous.
That idea made him smile. Reassured him. Or worried him. He wasn’t sure which. If the fear of being ridiculous troubled him, that was because he hadn’t yet touched bottom . . .
25Bread rubbed with oil and tomatoes, salt cod fritters, calamari cooked on a plancha, and dark Iberian ham.
26The cock.
CHAPTER 31
Julie and Gilles were jogging together around the lake at Villeneuve-de-la-Raho. It was the first time she’d run there. Two reservoirs separated by a dike formed this artificial lake. They had been made in the 1960s to serve as a drinking-water reservoir. At least that’s what Gilles had explained to her before shutting up to catch his breath.
He really wasn’t in good shape.
Julie told him about her day—while he was recuperating—and then she asked him about the Barrache case. Ménard had ordered a graphological assessment to compare the guard’s handwriting with that on the back of a photograph. He’d asked him to write “you know how to reach me” with his left hand and his right hand. Barrache had struggled to write these few words. Either he was pretending or he was virtually illiterate. Ménard had returned to Barrache’s home in Saint-Laurent to look for other written documents.
“What about his computer?”
“Elsa is working on it. She’s trying to restore recently deleted files. We should have the results tomorrow.”
As they talked, Julie was imperceptibly accelerating. Gilles’s sentences began to come haltingly again.
“You know . . . that I am . . . a mara . . . thon runner,” he groaned. “I have to do . . . at least one lap . . . to warm up.”
“How long is the lap?”
“Seven kilometers.”
“Ah, yes . . . I didn’t know you were so pretentious.”
Crimes of Winter Page 24
