“Might be a heart problem all the same.”
“What do you mean?”
“I remind you that he’s divorced.”
“Yes, but he was the one who . . .”
Sebag interrupted himself.
“You think that he lied to us about that, too? That he might not have been the one who cheated?”
“Someone who has lied once will lie again.”
“That’s a real 19th arrondissement proverb!”
“No. I invented it. You twist proverbs, I have the right to invent them. I think this one is very practical, you can use it in all sorts of contexts: someone who has stolen will steal again, who has killed will kill again, who has cheated . . .”
She slapped herself on the cheek.
“I’m sorry, Gilles, I spoke without thinking.”
“It’s OK . . .”
Fidelity was like virginity. Once the step had been taken, it was more difficult to start over. He had told himself that not so long ago, when he was at the bottom of the pit. Stupidities . . . Words, nothing but words. The lesson must have been learned: Claire wouldn’t do it again. Ever. To drive away these thoughts, he called Molina. With Llach and Ménard, they were still pursuing the other leads.
“Did you get anywhere this morning?”
“What do you think? That we’ve just been lazing around?”
Genuine aggressiveness. Molina had something new.
“So . . . . Sylvain Crochet first,” Molina began. “He’s the mechanic who divorced his wife for ‘definitive severing of marital ties’ and who got beaten up by his wife’s lover, you remember? Ménard found him: the guy quit his job and went back to where he came from, Berry,39 I think. So we can cross him off the list.”
Sebag had turned on the speaker and Julie was listening in on the conversation.
“So . . . now Henri Sylvert. He’s the guy who works for Orange and who is being divorced for serious offenses. Llach talked to him and, believe it or not, he killed two birds with one stone: he crossed him off the list of suspects and put him on the list of victims.”
“He was contacted by the corbeau?”
“Precisely! But he received only photos, he never got a phone call.”
“No kidding!”
“Apparently the guy has his personal enemies, because I also came across another victim of the corbeau this morning, and he too received only photos.”
“Interesting . . . That gives us six victims at this point, if I’m counting correctly. Did you find any points in common?”
“Not really. Apart from downtown Perpignan. The female technician at Orange saw her lover at the Paris-Barcelone, a hotel across from the train station. As for the mechanic’s wife, we don’t know anything.”
“I suppose there are cameras around the station. I’ll check that this afternoon with Julie. For the moment, although your info doesn’t confirm our current hypothesis, it doesn’t invalidate it, either. By the way, I’ve got a little job for you, OK?”
“No problem.”
Gilles asked Jacques to find out what he could about Laurent Martinez, and then ended the conversation. With Julie, he returned to the video-surveillance center. The morning team had been joined by the famous 20/15. The one who had been presented to them as a phenomenon opened his mouth only long enough to greet them briefly.
“Beneath his gruff exterior, he’s a real sweetheart,” the chief told them discreetly. “And he has a deadpan sense of humor. He can go for hours without speaking and then make a joke just when you expect it the least.”
Sebag waited until they had taken their seats before consulting his list. In real life, 20/15 was called Olivier Carbonnell. He was fifty-two years old, and had been married to Annie Fabre for twenty-six years. A former press correspondent, he had joined the municipal police after being dismissed as part of a downsizing.
The afternoon passed in a soporific calm. Around 3 P.M. Julie went out again to drink a cup of coffee, and this time it was Josiane Masson who followed her out of the room. When Julie returned, she confirmed what Sebag had sensed that morning:
“She likes women.”
Sebag grimaced.
“Shit! It didn’t occur to me until just now: she could also have been the victim of an unfaithful woman: do you think we have to add her to the list of suspects?”
“Oh . . .”
They both reflected for a few moments before setting that hypothesis aside. Julie spoke first:
“I don’t know what to give as an argument, it’s mainly just an impression, but I think that a lesbian who had been cheated on and who wanted to avenge herself as the corbeau did would attack all cheaters, not just women.”
“I rather agree with you. As a woman herself, she couldn’t be angry with women in particular. Yeah, I don’t think we need to change our priorities: our corbeau is a man, divorced or a bachelor, but a man!”
Sebag overcame his boredom by going out several times to the parking lot to smoke a cigarette. The third time he did so, Pauline the redhead joined him.
“Can I bum one off you? I stopped but I can’t resist. I don’t know what I miss more, the tobacco or the break.”
Gilles handed her a cigarette.
“I’ll let you take just one puff, I don’t want to be responsible for your relapse.”
Pauline accepted the deal with a languid batting of her eyelids. She drew on the cigarette before handing it back to Sebag. After making a few general remarks about their work, Gilles decided to ask more precise questions.
“While I was viewing your archives this morning, I spotted a colleague. When you see someone you know, isn’t it tempting to follow him for a while to see what he’s doing?”
“Following little hoodlums we’ve already spotted is more or less the basis of our work. That’s what we do during dull moments. We try to anticipate their offenses.”
“I wasn’t talking about hoodlums.”
“I know . . . .”
She held out her hand. He gave her his cigarette again.
“Of course it’s tempting,” she admitted. “But it’s strictly forbidden. A question of ethics!”
“Do the municipal police respect ethics more than the national police?”
She smiled.
“You’ve seen the conditions we work under: we’re on top of one another. It wouldn’t be easy.”
He took his cigarette back, took a drag on it, and handed it back to her.
“Not easy but not impossible. Don’t tell me you’ve never done that?”
“OK, yes, but I didn’t tell you this.”
“Who was it?”
He pointed to the wedding ring on her finger.
“Your husband?”
She had just taken two drags in row but nonetheless hung onto the cigarette.
“My son,” she finally confessed. “I saw him one afternoon in the middle of downtown when he was supposed to be at the lycée. I had just discovered a few days earlier that in his room he had the materials for rolling a joint. I said to myself that I could find out who his dealer was and have him arrested. Catching him in the act with my son would have really put the fear of God into him.”
She took another puff. Sebag took back his cigarette, which was almost completely smoked.
“And then?”
“Then he met a girlfriend in a public park and they smooched on a bench. I’d never been so ashamed.”
“What if it had been your husband?”
He was aware that he had rushed the question. But he had just put out his cigarette in the parking lot and the break was almost over. Pauline’s mouth twitched several times before she answered:
“That’s exactly what I asked myself and I promised myself that I’d never do it again. If my husband cheats on me someday, I’d prefer not to know about it.”
/> Her face relaxed and a raffish spark shone in her eyes.
“Just as I would hope that he wouldn’t know anything. If ever . . .”
She didn’t finish her sentence and turned her back on him. His eyes followed the delicious shape of her ass. Sebag felt himself blushing involuntarily, and he cast a worried eye on the video camera attached to the wall over the door. His telephone vibrated in his pocket and showed him a face. Molina’s name appeared on the screen.
“Can you talk freely, Gilles?”
“Yes, I’m outside.”
“I’ve got something new concerning your Martinez. I’ve just spoken with his ex-wife. They separated by mutual consent but first he tried a procedure for serious offense: he surprised her with another man!”
“You see? That’s the second time we’ve caught this rascal in a flat-out lie.”
“Ah, ah . . . this is getting interesting.”
“Hmm . . .”
“What do you mean, ‘hmm’ . . . ?”
38François Arago (1786-1853).
39A region in central France.
CHAPTER 44
Seated on the grass, Sebag contemplated the city of Perpignan spread out below him. The bleating of sheep occasionally drowned out the urban rumble. The country in the city. A beautiful utopia.
A military fort built in the nineteenth century on a hill south of Perpignan, the Serrat d’en Vaquer had pretty grounds neglected by the Catalans. From this summit, there was a view of the sea, Le Canigou, and the whole city dominated by the Palace of the Kings of Majorca. But nobody came up this far. It was not the solid ramparts that frightened families, but the shady fauna that peopled the bushes at their feet. For years, this area had been the favorite meeting place for homosexuals looking for partners. When he had parked his car in front of the entrance to the park, Sebag had taken care to lower the sun visor on the back of which the word “POLICE” was written in large blue letters. He wanted to discourage certain ardors.
Chubby clouds were galloping over his head. The air remained basically cool, but the sun’s rays were caressing Sebag’s back through his jacket. Like a foretaste of spring. However, it was only mid-January and it would still be a while before he would see the sunny flakes of the mimosa and then the almond trees’ nuggets of snow.
Patience . . . . Life would soon be reborn.
With Julie, they had decided to wait before questioning Laurent Martinez directly, and since the preceding day they had been having him followed by a team. The special agent had left the video-surveillance center in his car shortly after 6 P.M., taking with him 20/15 and Pauline, the redhead. Sebag smiled. With those nicknames, you might have thought they were working on a vice case. Martinez had dropped off his colleagues on the Place de Catalogne and then returned to a small house in the Haut-Vernet neighborhood. He did not emerge until the next day at 7:30 A.M., to go back to work, stopping again at the Place de Catalogne to pick up Carbonnell and the redhead.
Nothing to report.
That morning, still with Julie, Sebag had met Virginie Coste, Martinez’s ex-wife. She had told them about the circumstances under which Laurent had surprised her with her lover. It was a Friday. She had spent the afternoon at her lover’s home in Canohès, a village about eight kilometers from Perpignan, and they had prolonged their pleasure by talking in her car. They were no longer able to separate. Laurent had arrived on a motorcycle. He’d come up alongside the car, looked inside, and zoomed off again, making his engine snarl.
That night at the house, the argument had been stormy, and the quarrel definitive. Virginie was in love and it was no longer with her husband!
Laurent had always refused to tell her how he had found out about her infidelity, but he knew that she had been with her lover at Canohès since 1 P.M. that day. Virginie was convinced that he had bugged her telephone. She’d quickly bought another one.
The bleating came closer. Accompanied by two Pyrenean Mountain Dogs, the flock of sheep was now feasting right below him. The old shepherd, leaning on his staff, was smoking the cigarette that he had just rolled. Sebag greeted him.
“Let’s get back to our sheep,”40 he said to himself.
Had Laurent Martinez used the city’s surveillance cameras to track his wife? It was possible. But these cameras could not have led him to the village of Canohès. The hypothesis of telephonic espionage remained plausible.
Hmm . . .
The “hmm . . .” Sebag had uttered when Molina informed him of Martinez’s lie regarding his divorce had continued to resound within him. To reason with him. Everything wasn’t so simple. There remained knots to be undone. Either Martinez was hiding his game very well, or he was still not the right customer. Despite his little mendacities, the “special agent” seemed to him rather simple in nature, far removed from the probably twisted personality of the corbeau.
A sheep had strayed from the flock and was slowly approaching him without ceasing to graze on the grass. One of the two dogs came over to place itself between them and gave a brief bark, a warning addressed as much to the human as to the animal. The sheep raised its head for a moment. It did not become agitated, but calmly rejoined its flock.
Sebag was beginning to glimpse another path to the solution. Laurent Martinez had things to tell them. Perhaps all it would take was a few barks to make him finally put them on the right track.
40“Revenons à nos moutons,” a quotation from a medieval farce that means figuratively: “let’s get back to the subject at hand.”
CHAPTER 45
Good evening. What brings you here?”
When he opened the door of the little house and found the two lieutenants on his doorstep, Laurent Martinez initially had a radiant smile. But the closed faces of Julie and Gilles turned this smile into a grimace.
“What’s going on?”
“Can we come in?” Gilles asked.
Martinez stepped aside.
“Please do. Excuse the mess, I don’t have the children this week, so this really looks like a bachelor’s house.“
They entered a living room full of cardboard boxes. The television was on, and in front of it a pile of laundry was heaped on an ironing board.
“I was about to start working on it,” Martinez joked.
Sebag pushed aside a box to make his way toward the sitting corner.
“And when do you expect to finish moving?”
Agent Martinez replied in a less cheerful tone:
“When I feel up to it . . .”
“How long have you been here?”
“Five months.”
“Ah, yes, all the same!” Julie exclaimed.
“The house belongs to one of my uncles. He was going to sell it when I got separated. He’s lending it to me. But I have to buy back the furniture. You know how it is, a divorce: you give up half of your property.”
He took another pile of laundry off the couch and put it on the floor.
“But I still have this couch.”
He was already smiling again.
“Please sit down.”
He took a box and put it on another one in front of them.
“It’ll take me just a second,” he added before disappearing into the kitchen.
Sebag and Julie heard water running and dishes tinkling. Martinez came back with three stemmed glasses and set them on the piled-up boxes.
“You’ll have something, won’t you? Well . . . I mean a glass of wine, that’s all I’ve got.”
“No problem that’s fine,” the lieutenants said.
In the mess, the special agent dug out a bottle. He opened it and filled the three glasses. The sadness prevailing in the room was in furious contrast with the good humor displayed by the municipal policeman.
“So, to what do I owe this honor?”
“We’re here because you lied to us,” Se
bag began.
Martinez stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“You lied to us about the reasons for your transfer to the video-surveillance center and the causes of your divorce.”
Martinez’s eyes moved from Gilles to Julie and then from Julie to Gilles.
“What are you talking about?”
“It was after your fight on the street that you asked to be assigned to the center, and not because of some so-called cardiac malformation. As for your divorce, it was your wife who cheated on you, not the other way around.”
Martinez couldn’t get over his stupefaction. His mouth was open and he gasped for oxygen to feed a brain that was running wild.
“But . . . I . . . but . . . It’s per . . . sonal.”
He took his glass of wine and drank it dry. Better than the oxygen, the alcohol put his mind back in place.
“All that is none of your business!”
His stupor gave way to anger. He rose from the box on which he had perched one of his buttocks.
“What’s all this police stuff? What are you meddling in? Don’t you have anything better to do? Since when do you have to reveal your whole life the minute a policeman asks you a question around a coffee machine? Does respect for private life mean anything to you? Do I ask you questions about your life?”
His diatribe had run out of steam. Sebag felt like he was reading Martinez like a book. As he spoke, the municipal officer had realized that the two cops hadn’t come about his tall tales, that they must have good reasons for being there and for asking him these questions. Julie took over and explained their investigation.
Sebag examined the living room. Disorder, dirt, neglect. What would his house look like if Claire had left him for her Simon, and he’d found himself alone? Probably in the same state. With a few dead soldiers under the couch. He took the glass and drank a swallow. A bad wine. A fruit juice past its expiration date. He saw many similarities between Martinez and the former night guard at Cantalou. Two men unlucky in love, two depressives, too exhausted by the ordeal for either of them to be capable of duplicity or especially of Machiavellianism. And Gilles understood the reasons that had led Martinez to disguise reality.
Crimes of Winter Page 35
