Crimes of Winter
Page 39
“That’s true.”
“Why?”
Carbonnell’s mustache sagged.
“I think I was scared . . . Scared that she would leave me . . . That she’d take off with that guy . . .”
“Did you also follow them?”
“Yes.”
“And you photographed them as well.”
“Yes.”
“And you classified the photos in the family albums.”
Carbonnell smiled.
“It’s crazy, isn’t it?”
“A little masochistic, for sure!” Molina remarked.
“Why did you do that?”
“I’m not really sure. Maybe there was some masochism involved . . . I think I would have liked Annie to discover all that someday, even much later on, and understand that I knew, that I’d accepted it, and that I was ready to do anything to save our marriage, our family life . . .”
“And you continued to live together like that, as if nothing were wrong?”
“Yes.”
“That must have been terrible.”
“You can get used to anything.”
“Why didn’t you hide those albums before we got there?”
“I didn’t think of it, you didn’t give me enough time. I hid the computer and the camera, and burned a few compromising papers in the fireplace, but at that moment I wasn’t thinking about the albums . . .”
Sebag let a few seconds pass before continuing:
“You said ‘you can get used to anything,’ but to do that you had to find a distraction. Spying on other unfaithful wives, for instance.”
Carbonnell looked up.
“I got caught up in it, that’s true. That . . . task completely obsessed me. It prevented me from thinking about Annie. It did me a lot of good, otherwise I’d never have been able to hold on!”
“Some people paid a heavy price.”
20/15 fidgeted on his chair and opened his mouth, but Sebag cut him off:
“I know, you were only the messenger, you’ve already said that, but you’re lying. To yourself first of all, perhaps. It’s time to face up to the truth, Olivier: your goal was to make these husbands do to their wives what you didn’t have the courage to do to your own.”
“Is that what you think?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“You’re probably right . . . I never asked myself that question. I found an initial relief in the pursuit, and then another in . . . the punishment.”
“You could have stopped after the first tragedy . . .”
“I didn’t know about it.”
“You didn’t want to know.”
Carbonnell started rubbing his hands again.
“I don’t know how to explain it: I didn’t want to hurt them, but it did me good that they suffered . . .”
“And that they died?”
Carbonnell pushed his right thumb into his left palm, harder and harder.
“Only one died.”
“Her name was Christine.”
“I know. Does Annie know?”
“Yes. I told your wife everything.”
“What did she say?”
“That she didn’t know that you had suffered so much.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“She still loves me?”
“I don’t know.”
“She didn’t say that I was a bastard?”
“No.”
“Then maybe she still loves me a little. Because I am a bastard . . . not a messenger, a real bastard.“
Castello watched Molina handcuff the suspect. Olivier Carbonnell was going to be handed over to the court and a prosecutor would indict him before putting him in detention.
“There’s still work to do!” the superintendent exclaimed. “Informing all the corbeau’s victims will take time, but it has to be done so that they can file complaints.”
Molina took the corbeau away. Sebag and Julie followed him. Gilles turned out the light before leaving the room. With his face in the dark now, Castello rubbed his hands together.
“At least a hundred criminal acts revealed and resolved at the same time. That’s excellent for our statistics. The year is beginning well!”
41Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés, a French government agency whose task is to prevent information technology from being used in ways that violate human rights.
EPILOGUE
He parked his car in front of the garage door and laid his head on the steering wheel. He felt exhausted. He hadn’t slept much the two preceding nights, coming home late and leaving early. However, the end of the investigation had cleared his mind. Like a purge taken at the right time. All these sad stories of adultery settled at one go! He was finally going to be able to turn the page, several pages even, all at once.
Finally.
He was exhausted, yes, but for the first time in a long time, serene. He raised his head.
There were no lights on in the house. Strange. However, he could have sworn that a small light had gone on in the entry hall when he’d shut off the engine. He got out of the car and quietly locked the door behind him. Then he put his hand on the door of the house and pushed. It was open. He went in and perceived a slight noise in the direction of the living room.
The sound grew louder, became noise and then music. A few notes of a piano alone, soon accompanied by a trumpet. The pure voice of Ella Fitzgerald filled the room, soon joined by the hoarse timbre of Louis Armstrong. Gilles recognized “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.” The first evening they spent together, in a cellar where a jazz group was playing. Twenty years ago already.
Gilles moved forward silently in the large living room. A lamp went on in their bedroom and Claire appeared against the light. He could only see her silhouette but he would have recognized her anywhere. She was so beautiful, she pleased him so much . . . She approached him, swinging her hips. She was wearing a silk negligee so short that it stopped at the lace on her stockings.
She’d pulled out all the stops.
Gilles devoured her with his eyes. He wanted to think of nothing but her. Of no one else, not even the children. Claire must have firmly suggested that they go spend the night at their friends’ houses.
She came to press herself against him; her teeth chewed on his lips.
“I’m ready to do anything to win you back,” she murmured.
“I love that ‘anything.’”
“You haven’t seen anything yet.”
She took a few steps backward. Gilles could see a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket on the dining room table. Claire filled a single flute. Returning to him, she took a sip from it before kissing him.
“I’ve never tasted such good champagne,” he told her.
Ella and Louis were now singing “Isn’t This a Lovely Day.” Claire lifted the glass to Gilles’s lips. The bubbles tickled his palate, the coolness of the alcohol caressed his throat. Gently, Claire made him turn around until his buttocks were resting on the edge of the table. Then her body molded itself to his. He felt the hard tips of her breasts tracing words on his chest. Claire started undressing him.
The songs that followed would never belong to anyone but them.
When Claire let his shorts fall to the floor, Memphis Slim’s nimble fingers were caressing the keyboard. The quickened rhythm was a boogie. “Shake that Thing.” The piano was soon followed by the moans of a harmonica: “Speak Now Woman.” Gilles deciphered the message. He gripped his wife’s buttocks, lifted them, and put them on the edge of a table. Then he got on his knees. Elvis’s hot, powerful voice replaced the harmonica and electrified them. “See See Rider.” Gilles got up and kissed Claire before penetrating her. The songs followed one another at a furious pace. “That’s All I Want” by Sonn
y Boy Williamson, then “Hold On! I’m Comin,’” by a superb duo, Eric Clapton and B.B. King. Finally “Good Times” by Lightnin’ Hopkins, backed by a guitar and an increasingly urgent drum. Urgent. Gilles and Claire didn’t hear the end of the last piece, which they greeted with groans rather than applause.
Afterward, they dined by candlelight at the other end of the table. Claire set out canapés, smoked salmon, a jar of taramasalata, and a few sushi rolls. They ate as they devoured each other with their eyes. One bottle of champagne was not enough to slake their thirst. Claire opened another one.
After dessert, they sat down on the couch. They hadn’t touched each other during the meal and their bodies were already getting hungry again. They cuddled, caressed one another, and assured themselves of the solidity of this new desire. Then they made love, slowly. Surely. Tenderly.
Standing in front of the picture window, Gilles was drinking a last glass of lukewarm champagne. He’d turned on the lights on the terrace and was contemplating the garden in its wintry nakedness. Shadows populated it, enriched it, sublimated it.
It suddenly became obvious to him: their marriage could emerge from this ordeal greater than ever . . .
He wouldn’t go so far as to say that this painful business had been a stroke of luck—no, that he would never say—but he thought that it had allowed them to test the strength of their relationship. Could anyone know how much he loved life before having one day nearly died? Claire had gone to see what else there was, she hadn’t left. She remained, perhaps even more in love with him than before. He had confronted the torments of jealousy, the dark side of his soul, and he had returned from the struggle surer of himself. Surer of them. They hadn’t chosen each other at random twenty years ago, or for lack of someone better, either.
Love, even after all this time, couldn’t be a long, peaceful river. There was still an impetuous torrent with swirling eddies. Gilles didn’t envy couples whose life was uneventful, without storms, without temptations. They lived more on comfort than on love.
He heard steps slide behind him. Claire had just gotten out of the shower. She pressed her wet belly against his buttocks and put her arms around his torso. In the garden, the shadows continued to dance.
This garden would have been less beautiful lit by a stronger light. It wasn’t the intensity of the sun but the nuances of the shade that made the beauty of a landscape . . .
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks to my friends in the police forces of Perpignan, Toulouse, and other cities, whose information and advice helped me make this fiction credible. I won’t give their names here because I don’t want to embarrass them and because I’m not a snitch.
Thanks to my first readers, Hélène, Alain, and Sébastien, for having agreed to correct my prose within the strict deadlines I’d set for them. Here I will limit myself to mentioning their first names so that readers cannot blame them for any errors or incoherencies that may have escaped their scrutiny.
Thanks to my editor, Jimmy Gallier, for the confidence he has had in me since 2009 and the patience he has shown this year.
Finally, my thanks go to Toinon, Fantine, and Margot, who have supported their “papa” tenderly in difficult moments. My children, I love you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phillippe Georget was born in Épinay-sur-Seine in 1962. Summertime, All the Cats Are Bored (Europa, 2013), his debut novel, won the SNCF Crime Fiction Prize and the City of Lens First Crime Novel Prize. His Inspector Sebag series includes Crimes of Winter (Europa, 2107), Summertime, All the Cats Are Bored (2013), and Autumn, All the Cats Return (Europa, 2014). Georget lives in Perpignan.