“What would you have done in my place?”
Sebag did not reply. Even though their search had produced little, they took 20/15 with them, put him in police custody, and let him spend a night—a short one—in a jail cell. Early in the morning, they put him in an interrogation room. Behind the one-way mirror, Castello followed this first interview. Investigations would be begun across the board later in the day, but for the moment, they didn’t have much evidence against Carbonnell and he knew it.
“All that was in violation of the rules, I admit that, and if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t do it. But since we can’t turn back the clock, I take responsibility for what I did.”
Clever. 20/15 had decided to make concessions on the main evidence against him, Martinez’s testimony.
“That was already almost a year ago, and I haven’t done it again in the meantime.”
Sebag decided to launch a first attack.
“However, that was also how you learned about your wife’s infidelity.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your wife is cheating on you, isn’t she?”
Carbonnell ran his index finger over one eyebrow and a smile appeared at the corners of his lips.
“You worry me, Lieutenant. Do you have information I don’t know about?”
“You sleep separately from your wife, you’ve given up the house to live in the garage. That’s not the sign of a happy couple.”
“I’ve had problems sleeping, and when I do sleep, I snore. We’ve decided by common consent that it was better this way. We have been together for almost twenty-seven years . . . How long have you been married?”
Sebag did not reply and laid the photos of Christine Abad and Éric Balland on the table in front of Carbonnell.
“Did you take these pictures?”
The municipal police officer contemplated the photos.
“I’m seeing them for the first time.”
He looked up at Sebag before adding:
“Who is it?”
Sebag shook his head, the question rang false. Then he laid down the photos of Marie-Isabelle Casty and her motorcyclist lover.
“A pretty woman,” Carbonnell remarked. “And very good photography. A real paparazzi photograph.”
Carbonnell was displaying too much confidence. Gilles noted that Carbonnell’s pride might cause him to make mistakes. He handed him a pen and a blank sheet of paper to have him write the corbeau’s sentence. Carbonnell did so with a disconcerting naturalness. Gilles took back the paper and compared it with the original. Not entirely the same, but not entirely different, either. He could already imagine what would happen—an expert opinion, a contradictory expert opinion, et cetera. In any case, the results of the analysis, if they were someday to be useful, would be so only for the court. To indict Carbonnell, they would need more evidence.
When he was placed in custody, the policemen had stated their accusations to the suspect. Sebag repeated them, and Carbonnell rejected them again:
“I have nothing to do with this business and I think that none of my colleagues could be this corbeau. It’s not only a question of professional ethics . . . It’s simply technically impossible: how can you spy on people without your neighbor noticing what you’re doing?”
“That is in fact one of the questions we’re asking ourselves. It would probably require immense amounts of memorization and precision, and also a great deal of rigor and an incomparable talent as a physiognomist. I’m sure that you will explain all that to us in a little while.”
Gilles had the suspect taken back to his cell before taking Julie out to drink a cup of coffee at the Carlit. Molina and Ménard soon joined them, and together they drew up a list of the tasks that had to be done during the day. Sebag and Jacques were to make the rounds of the newsagents, service stations, and supermarkets. What a chore! After a second coffee, they separated: they had to find something concrete before evening, and there was a lot to do.
“So, what have you got?”
Castello was pacing up and down his office, round and round Gilles and Julie. Sebag opened his notebook and then summarized the investigations carried out during the day. A slender harvest. First of all, the examination of the computer had not been conclusive. There wasn’t much on the hard disk; only a tenth of its space had been used. And nothing, absolutely nothing, had been recently deleted. When Carbonnell had booted up this computer on the evening the search was made, it was for the first time in two weeks.
“Elsa thinks he must have another one, probably a laptop.”
“She thinks?”
“She’s convinced of it. Carbonnell has a Facebook account and an e-mail account, but the passwords for them are not in this computer’s memory. He has to type them in each time to access the accounts.”
“Maybe he doesn’t trust his wife.”
“Elsa was able to access the Facebook and e-mail accounts. They contain nothing very personal, and in any case nothing that he would have to hide.”
“Maybe he’s paranoid.”
“Maybe . . .”
“But you didn’t find the alleged second computer in the house?”
“No.”
“Any more than you found the throwaway phones your suspect is supposed to have. On this question too, you’ve come up empty-handed.”
“By definition, throwaway phones . . .”
“Can be thrown away, I understand. Anything else?”
“With Jacques, we visited about fifty sellers of these disposable phones to show them photos of Carbonnell. Two of them thought they’d had him as a customer.”
“They think or they’re convinced?”
“They think . . . They have dozens of customers every day, they can’t be certain about anything.”
Julie spoke up:
“Our colleagues on the forensic team compared Carbonnell’s photographic paper with the paper used by the corbeau. It’s the same brand, but they can’t certify that it comes from the same batch. I found the place where it was sold: a supermarket at the Porte d’Espagne.”
“Several hundred people must have bought photographic paper there in recent weeks, especially over the holidays. It’s no more conclusive than the rest.”
The superintendent didn’t conceal his annoyance. He had intervened personally with the prosecutor and he wasn’t happy about the investigation’s lack of progress.
“At his house, Carbonnell has a card that gives him access to an athletic club near the Promenade des Platanes,” Sebag went on. “That’s exactly the part of downtown where the corbeau made his phone calls. After work each day, he had himself dropped off at the Place de Catalogne and walked to his bus stop, which is located near this club. In short, it is proven that he was often in this area.”
Castello opened his mouth to make another objection, but Sebag beat him to it:
“As hundreds of other people probably also were, that’s true. But if we include all these elements—the photographic paper, the disposable-phone sellers, the athletic club—there aren’t that many people left.”
The superintendent scratched the tip of his nose.
“You think you can convince the prosecutor with that? Because if you intend to ask him to extend police custody for Carbonnell, you’re going to have to take the lead. Don’t count on me this time.”
Castello sat down behind his desk and put both hands on the blotter. He bit his lip.
“This is becoming a mania to rush things. First Ménard with the guard, now you with this municipal cop. We don’t arrest people just like that, for a trifle. I trusted you.”
“And you can continue to trust me. He’s our man, I sense it.”
Sebag knew how to cajole his boss. Castello gave him a restrained but slightly indulgent smile.
“You still have to prove it.”
He looke
d for a paper on his desk, found it, read it.
“I see that police custody began at precisely 11:17 P.M.? So you still have the whole evening to make a significant step forward.”
He dismissed them with a martial gesture and the two lieutenants found themselves back in the hallway.
“Shall we go back to Carbonnell’s house?” Julie proposed.
Sebag hesitated. He didn’t want to offend his colleague.
“Would you mind if I went alone? I think Madame Carbonnell has things to tell us and that it would be easier to speak with her one-on-one. Less official, so to speak.”
“As you wish, but keep me informed.”
“I promise.”
CHAPTER 48
The dancing light of a computer screen was still illuminating the driveway. Gilles could make out a dark figure curled up in a chair. He knocked. The murmur of the TV set stopped and the door opened.
“How is Olivier?” Annie Carbonnell asked without any other greeting.
“He’s fine.”
“Why are you holding him? What are you accusing him of?”
When they’d taken Carbonnell away, Gilles and Julie hadn’t told his wife anything. Gilles knew that she had contacted a lawyer but their suspect had rejected any representation.
“May I come in?”
She stepped aside and pointed in the direction of the living room. He sat down on a couch.
“Would you like a tisane?”
“Yes, please.”
“Saveur du sud? A mixture of mint and licorice.”
“Perfect.”
Gilles would gladly have chosen a different blend, a mixture of barley and malt, but for the past several days he had been trying not to drink too much. Two or three glasses a day, wine or whiskey, depending on the hour and the place. Never between meals. He no longer had a bottle in his desk drawer. When this stage was over, he would limit his consumption of tobacco as well.
Annie Carbonnell set two steaming cups on the coffee table, along with a saucer and a sugar bowl. She sat down on her chair, tucking her legs under her. She wore a shirt that was too long for her. A man’s shirt.
“Are you finally going to tell me why you arrested my husband?”
Sebag said he was, and summed up their suspicions in a few sentences.
“But why would he have done that?” she exclaimed when he had finished. “It’s madness!”
Sebag looked straight into Annie Carbonnell’s hazelnut-colored eyes.
“We think he wanted to take revenge on unfaithful wives.”
Annie’s eyes clouded. Her face tensed and unattractive wrinkles appeared between her mouth and her nose.
“I don’t understand what you mean . . .”
Sebag had no doubt: she was lying. The only question he asked himself was whether she was lying to protect herself or to protect her husband.
“You’ve never cheated on your husband?”
“No . . . Absolutely not.”
“How long have you been sleeping in separate rooms?”
“But that . . . that . . . has nothing to do with it.”
This time her astonishment seemed to him sincere. She gave him the same explanations as her husband, insomnia, snoring . . . Sebag was beginning to see the outlines of this couple’s strange relations, the weight of what was not said and of silent suffering. He removed the tea bag from his cup and put it on the saucer.
“Didn’t your husband ever tell you that he knew?”
Her mouth opened and her chin trembled. Her eyes became vague, she was looking inward. Toward a recent past that she was seeing in another light. Her hesitation lasted about ten seconds.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Sebag did not reply. He sipped his tisane and went on.
“We think Olivier anticipated our arrival and that he got rid of compromising objects, such as a laptop computer, for instance, a telephone, and maybe also a camera . . .”
“There again, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She had replied too quickly, almost cutting him off.
“How long has this little game been going on between you two? How long have you been cheating on him and how long has he pretended not to know about it?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“But I do! You’re protecting him, that’s normal. You’ve just realized how much he has suffered because of you.”
Sebag bit his lip. He’d just been clumsy. The “because of you” was excessive. It would only imprison the wife in her guilt and thus in her blind support for her husband.
“Where might he have hidden those objects?”
This last question he had asked himself. Annie Carbonnell wouldn’t tell him any more. He got up and went to the garage. The bed was unmade and the mark of the dust left by the computer had disappeared. Olivier’s sports bag was lying on the floor, open and empty. A perfect homemaker had been there. A short night in the imprisoned husband’s bed, a bit of housework, collecting dirty laundry. Gilles picked up the bag and searched it again. He remembered that Julie had done that rapidly without hiding a grimace of disgust at the strong odor that came from the still-damp sports clothes. He plunged his hands in the various pockets and corners of the bag, felt a hard little object under his fingers, and managed to pull out a key. He sat down on the chair in front of the desk to examine his discovery. A key to a padlock, apparently. Like the ones used in locker rooms, whether at work or at a gym. Carbonnell was probably keeping something besides a pair of gym shoes in his locker, but he couldn’t have hidden a laptop there just before their visit.
He leaned backward and made the flexible back of the chair creak.
His eyes scanned the shelves. A few books, magazines, comic books, and the long series of family photo albums. He focused on the last ones, 2014, 2015, and suddenly stood up. Hadn’t Carbonnell claimed that he no longer took pictures of his daughters since they’d grown up? He grabbed one of the albums. Opened it.
Goddammit!
He took the album under his arm and found Annie in the kitchen. He put the album on the table and let her look through it. As soon as she looked at the first page she went pale. On the second page, she almost fainted.
Annie Carbonnell flipped through the pages without stopping to look at the photos. The black of her hair accentuated the sudden pallor of her face.
She abruptly closed the album.
Without saying a word, she emptied the cups of cold tisane into the sink and put them in the dishwasher. She pulled the string and the label off the bags and then threw them in the big salad bowl that already contained vegetable peelings. She put her hand on the handle of the window that looked out onto the backyard but changed her mind. For a few seconds, she shifted from one foot to the other without knowing what to do with the salad bowl. Finally she set it down on the countertop.
Sebag reopened the album at random. The two pages contained photos of Annie on a beach in the company of a tall man with close-cut hair. She was reading, he was looking at the screen on his telephone. Nothing compromising. He turned the page. On the right-hand page, one saw her from the back, walking hand in hand with the same man, and on the left-hand page they were kissing.
“I’ll ask you again the question I asked a little while ago, Madame Carbonnell,” Sebag said softly. “Have you never cheated on your husband?”
She opened her mouth but no sound came out. Gilles pulled up a chair and asked her to sit down. He opened several cupboards before he found the one that contained the liquors. He took out a bottle of plum brandy. It was about 100 proof, it would take something at least that strong. He found two little cut-glass goblets and filled them. Then he set one in front of the spouse still in shock. She seized it and emptied it in one draft. She coughed and then managed to stammer a few words:
“It’
s . . . not . . . possible.”
“Astonishing behavior, isn’t it?”
He refilled his own glass. He had to maintain the connection, not let her sink back into silence.
“Didn’t he ever show you that he knew everything?”
She shook her head. He turned more pages.
“He was following you, spying on you, photographing you. And he classified the pictures in the family photo albums.”
“It’s . . . it’s crazy.”
She put her hand on the glass.
“It was the madness of love. He continued to love you in spite of everything.”
“How he must have suffered . . . He must have decided to move into the garage after he discovered everything. And I believed that he really had insomnia!”
“It probably wasn’t all feigned. His behavior didn’t change, he hadn’t become more distant? Wasn’t there anything that might have tipped you off?”
She took another swallow of plum brandy. He did the same. Despite its strength, the eau-de-vie emitted delicious aromas. He put the glass down.
“Olivier was already distant,” Annie continued before correcting herself. “We were already distant. I . . .”
A tear rolled down her cheek. As transparent and clear as the eau-de-vie.
“I haven’t had feelings for him for a long time. Physically, I mean.”
“But you still love him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you leave with your lover, then?”
“Marc isn’t free, he has a wife, children. And then . . . I’m not sure that we’re made to live together. Our tastes are . . . different.”
She put her glass to her lips again.
“I didn’t want to hurt our daughters, to break up our family life. Olivier didn’t ask me to explain myself even when I came home late, he never seemed to suspect anything. I . . .”
She paused.
“Deep down, I think I knew that he knew.”
Gilles put his hand on hers.
“You saw him hide the computer yesterday, didn’t you? Where is it?”
Annie abruptly retrieved her hand and let her arm hang by her side.
Crimes of Winter Page 37
