“I can already see the spiel,” Sebag grumbled. “They’ll set up a great show: joint operation with the police, customs, and maybe even the gendarmes. They’ll talk a lot, arrest a handful of smugglers, and seize a few cartons of cigarettes. And what will matter is not the result of the operation but its coverage in the media.”
“Well! It’s not by making remarks like those that you’re going to advance your career.”
Sebag refrained from snickering. He’d given up hope for his career long ago. Or rather he’d been forced to do so.
“Don’t you regret now the choices you’ve made?” the superintendent suddenly asked him.
Sebag crossed his arms nervously. He didn’t feel like talking about that. Castello caressed his graying beard. It was a little too long. His hair, too, for that matter. It was beginning to go down his neck. The chief grabbed a pen on his desk and put it in a terra cotta pot that Sebag knew well. He’d received one just like it for his participation in the Ronde cérétane, a famous race in the region.
“I’ve never had a chance to tell you, but I think it was a very courageous choice.”
The remark surprised Sebag. It was the first time he’d been congratulated on this. Up to now, he’d had more the impression that he was considered a pariah. From one day to the next, he’d passed from the status of a promising young cop to that of an ugly duckling. And all this without anyone saying anything at all explicit about it.
The chief went on in a serious tone:
“When I began to understand things, it was too late.”
Castello lived apart from his wife. She’d refused to follow him to Perpignan, preferring to remain in Paris. Sebag had sensed that divorce proceedings were under way. Castello had two grown sons; one was studying medicine, the other was still in high school, a senior. Until now, Castello had never shown that loneliness and distance weighed on him: a boss, rather like a father, had to be strong and resolute. Sebag agreed, and did not seek to elicit more such confidences.
“Your children are grown up now,” Castello went on. “I thought I might give you a little promotion.”
“God forbid!” Sebag said with alarm.
The chief frowned. His eyebrows had remained oddly brown, while his beard and his hair had gone white.
“You know, I already consider you to be the de facto coordinator of the team of inspectors. Coordinator and supervisor are more or less the same thing in practice, but officially they’re very different. And the salary isn’t the same.”
Sebag avoided Castello’s eyes. He didn’t want this position and the responsibilities that went with it. But he had no argument to offer—at least none that was valid in his boss’s view.
“I . . . The present situation suits me very well as it is.”
Castello furtively scratched the end of his nose.
“Think about it. Your children will soon be going to university and then you’ll see that a simple inspector’s salary is no longer enough.”
“Léo is still only in tenth grade. And then my wife works, too . . . ”
“Time passes more quickly than we think. And by the time your son has finished high school, the position will have already been filled.”
Sebag shook his head in a manner he hoped looked grave.
“I promise you that I’ll think about it,” he said.
The superintendent was satisfied with this answer, but Sebag knew that he was annoyed. The following question confirmed his impression.
“By the way, where were you this morning?”
“Working on an investigation with Molina, uh . . . an interesting case, at least I think it is.”
“But still . . . ”
Sebag was aware that he was traversing a slippery slope.
“A taxi driver who has mysteriously disappeared.”
“Mysteriously? Come on! How long ago?”
Sebag made a rapid calculation in his head. Sylvie Lopez had not seen her husband since Tuesday morning. Two days of absence were enough to cause a wife concern, but not enough to disturb a cop’s routine.
“More than seventy-two hours,” he exaggerated.
“Hmm. I suppose you’ve put out a missing person bulletin?”
The law allowed the police several kinds of action in such cases. A missing person bulletin could only be put out for an administrative investigation carried out in the local jurisdiction alone. A kind of minimum. For adults, it was the most common procedure.
“I was about to do that when you called me. I was also wondering whether I shouldn’t put him on the national database of missing persons.”
“Already?”
Castello automatically put two fingers on his lips.
“It’s true that seventy-two hours is beginning to seem long,” he went on. “A little too long for a simple matter of sex, isn’t it?”
“That’s what Molina and I thought. There might be something else behind it.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure. There are some details, in fact, that don’t fit with the idea that he just took off or simply had an adulterous affair.”
Sebag hesitated. “The bigger the lie, the more people believe it,” Molina always said.
“To judge by the first results of the investigation, the taxi driver was making lots of round-trips to Spain.”
“You think he’s involved in smuggling cigarettes?”
“I’m not sure, in fact, but there’s something funny about it.”
“Your instinct?”
Castello believed in instinct. Sebag preferred to speak of intuition, but the latter is associated with women, and it didn’t seem to suit the superintendent.
“Yes, maybe . . . There’s something wrong in this case.”
Sebag didn’t like lying. Experience had made him skilful but not comfortable in that domain.
“Do as you see fit,” Castello said.
He put his fingers to his lips again.
“Do you have a cigarette?” he abruptly asked Sebag.
“I thought you’d quit.”
“Yes, as I do every week,” the superintendent grumbled. “And as I do every week, I started again the next day.”
Sebag tapped a cigarette out of his pack of Gitanes blondes and handed it to him. Castello took the package and read the label out loud.
“‘Fumar puede matar.’ Do you buy your cigarettes in Le Perthus, too?”
“Like everyone else, I go there from time to time. I don’t smoke much.”
Castello laid the pack on his desk and put the cigarette to his lips. Sebag took out his lighter and held the flame up to him.
“As the proverb says, ‘You can’t smoke without fire.’”
The superintendent gave him a minimal smile. He closed his eyes and took a long, voluptuous drag on the cigarette. The smoke wrapped his face in a bluish halo.
“Man, it’s good, this junk,” he said, opening his eyes again. “And it’s even better after a few days of abstinence. But . . . one mustn’t ever become a prisoner of his vices. Nor his choices.”
He slowly took another drag.
“I’ve already told you and I’ll say it again: I respect the choice you made a few years ago. You’re a good cop, Sebag, but a good cop isn’t anything without a minimum of work.”
Sebag put the lighter on the desk next to the pack of cigarettes.
“I’m leaving it all for you, boss. I’ve got dozens of lighters. They give them away free in Le Perthus.”
“When you get involved in a case, you’re the best, Gilles, but only on that condition.”
“It’s lucky that they give away lighters in Spain, otherwise we’d have to deal with lighter smuggling as well . . . ”
Sebag interrupted himself. Castello was scratching his nose and biting his lips at the same time. It was a bad sign.
>
“I’ve always had confidence in your instinct and I hope I can continue to do so. I want to see some tangible evidence in this case of the “mysterious” disappearance of a cab driver, and see it soon.”
Sebag acquiesced with a nod. He turned around and started toward the door. Castello stopped him.
“One more thing, Sebag.”
“Yes, sir?”
“When I say soon, that means before tomorrow night. Understood?”
At his house, everything was oddly calm. He went into the living room. The French doors were open.
Gilles Sebag lived in Saint-Estève, on the outskirts of Perpignan. The house was constructed in a U-shape, and faced south toward the terrace and the swimming pool. On the east side, there was an office and the master bedroom with its own bathroom; on the west side, the children’s bedrooms and a family bathroom. Between the two, there was the common space: a big living room/family room with an open, American-style kitchen. The house also had a garage, but Sebag had divided it into two parts to serve as both a laundry room and a gym area.
He crossed the terrace. No one outside. The water in the pool was rippling in the light breeze. A few apricot leaves were floating on the surface. He went back inside.
He opened the bar, took out the bottle of pastis, and poured himself a few drops in a large glass. He dropped in three ice cubes and then filled the glass at the faucet. He drank a mouthful. It was still too warm.
He called out:
“Claire!”
No answer. He called again.
“Claire!”
A high-pitched voice reached him from the back of the house.
“She’s not here, Papa. There’s only me.”
He crossed the west wing—the term made the house sound big, he liked it—to Séverine’s room. He knocked but didn’t wait for her to tell him to come in. His daughter was sitting at her desk, doing her homework. Sebag saw nothing but her brown, curly mop of hair.
He laid a kiss on the nape of her neck.
“Mama isn’t here?”
“No, she had a student evaluation meeting at school.”
“A student evaluation meeting? Two days before vacation?”
“You’re right, it’s not an evaluation meeting. I think it’s more like a disciplinary council meeting, something like that.”
“I see. What about Léo?”
“Papa . . . He’s playing basketball in Perpignan. Like every Thursday.”
“True! Do I need to go get him, or did he go on his scooter?”
“He took his scooter.”
Sebag hesitated between relief at not having to go out again and worrying about his son on the road with that damned scooter. He hadn’t wanted to buy him one, but after a bitter fight, he’d had to give in to Léo’s insistent requests relayed by his mother. We are always done in by those who know us best—or a breast. One night his wife had come to talk about the scooter with her blouse unbuttoned. She’d sat on his lap and ended up getting him to agree. Who will still claim that men are the stronger sex?
Séverine had gone back to her homework. She was in seventh grade. A good student. No problems. He put his hands on her slender shoulders and leaned over her work.
“You still have homework just before vacation?”
“No, not really, but I’m interested in the subject: Charlemagne and the organization of the Carolingian Empire.”
“Woof! The missi dominici, the marches, Aix-la-Chapelle, the coronation in the year 800, the emperor with a full beard . . . ”
“Hey, you really know your stuff!”
“Of course I know it . . . Who in the police hasn’t heard about the Dominici case?”
She let out a little crystalline laugh. Enchanting. A few weeks earlier, they’d watched a documentary on this famous murder case. Sebag closed his eyes. He knew that his daughter wouldn’t always laugh at his facile jokes.
Before leaving the room, he took a brief look around. A few stuffed animals were waiting patiently on the bed. A bear, a rabbit, a cat. The last witnesses to a childhood that was rapidly passing away. On the walls, posters showing fashionable singers were already publicly proclaiming the teenager’s emotional turmoil. At least Sebag could rejoice in his daughter’s preference for a more literary kind of song, the chanson française à textes, which he was discovering at the same time she was. With Léo, it was different. The boy’s only passions were for sports and rap, two domains about which Sebag was proud to say he knew nothing at all.
He quietly closed the door.
Holding his glass, he went to the laundry room. He sorted the wet clothes in the washing machine. Claire had started a load in the morning before leaving for work. In the yard, he hung the clothes on the line. The wind out of the north/northwest—la tramontane—was singing in the trees and the sun was beating down despite the fact that evening was coming on. In just an hour, he would be able to bring everything in. He didn’t mind doing household tasks. These repetitive acts carried out with care gave him time to think. He’d become accustomed to doing them after Séverine’s birth, when he’d opted for a half-time parental leave in order to spend more time with his children.
That was the notorious career choice that had cost him dear.
However, the law had not excluded cops from the program. Everyone had the right to choose an adjustment of his work time during his youngest child’s first three years, and no one had been able to oppose it at the police headquarters in Chartres where he was working at the time. But his decision had surprised and displeased people. A man who chooses his children over his profession—that was obviously not part of the habits and customs of the French police.
As a result, his career had been significantly slowed. After his transfer to Perpignan, he’d gone back to full-time work, but his name was probably on a black list in a secret file in the Ministry of the Interior. People all around him had been promoted, but he had received nothing. Until Castello took over three years earlier. Then Sebag had finally obtained a salary increase and, still more importantly, he had recovered his superiors’ trust. That made his work more agreeable for him on a daily basis, but for the rest it was too late. Today, his life was outside the police station, and his only ambition was to do his job well enough, without pointlessly complicating his life.
In the laundry bag, he picked up a bra he didn’t recognize. Pink. Small. It took him a moment to realize that it belonged to Séverine. Her first bra. He remembered a summer when she stubbornly refused to take off the top of her swimsuit. She kept it on under her T-shirt, even to go to school. She must have been seven or eight years old.
That was yesterday.
He picked up another bra. Larger, and with lace. It belonged to Claire, that one. The girl still had a way to go before she would have her mother’s seductive figure. No need for nature to hurry. He hung the bras far from one another so as to avoid annoying anyone.
He’d worked hard with Molina this afternoon. He’d gotten them into deep shit with his stupid instinct. There was probably nothing mysterious about the cab driver’s disappearance. When he found out, the boss would be furious. If at least they could bring the adulterous husband home by tomorrow night, they could limit the damage.
To ease his conscience, Jacques had also left a message on Lopez’s answering machine while Sebag was calling the Perpignan hospital and then the main clinics in the area. He had even contacted the psychiatric clinic in Thuir. Without result. They had communicated the taxi’s license number to the police patrols. And to the municipality as well. No trace of it on the streets of Perpignan. In the late afternoon, they had transmitted the number to the gendarmes. Jacques had gone back to see Sylvie Lopez at her workplace. She had given him a photo of her husband that she kept in her wallet. In the meantime, Sebag had gone to the train station and the airport. He’d questioned Lopez’s colleagues. No one had seen him.
Not today, and not yesterday, either. In theory, he’d completed his last trip on Tuesday, not at 11:00 P.M., as his wife supposed, but around 7:00 P.M. Finally, armed with Lopez’s photo, together they had made the rounds of all the hotels near the train station, in case the taxi driver had taken his conquests there.
They’d come up with nothing.
Molina still had to work this evening. He would go to a bar where Lopez played billiards on Friday nights. Maybe he would meet the cab driver’s friends there. For his part, the next day Sebag was supposed to resume the rounds of the hotels, extending the scope of his search. For the time being, he’d had enough.
Sufficient unto the day is the idleness thereof, that was his motto.
Before leaving work, they had received Lopez’s police record. A conviction for car theft in 1994, when he was seventeen; another for assault and battery five years later. Lopez wasn’t a greenhorn, that was something of a surprise. A second tangible fact, but it did not provide a new line of investigation any more than the first one did.
After he’d hung out the laundry, Sebag sat down on the edge of the swimming pool. Dangling his feet in the water, he enjoyed his iced pastis.
So where had this damned Lopez gone? He had a nice wife who not only pardoned him his escapades but also pretended she didn’t know about them. No remark, no reproach. Why did he have to take advantage of her? Was it daddy’s baby blues? It seems that these fathers often don’t accept their responsibilities. Many couples split up within six months after the birth of a child.
Gilles had always found that strange.
Léo’s birth had been the most beautiful day of his life. He found the expression appropriate, even if its banality weakened its force. After leaving the maternity ward after a long night without sleep, he’d wandered through the streets of Chartres, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He examined the faces of the men he met, thinking he could see in them the happiness of paternity. How could they be fathers and not shout it from the rooftops? How could they continue to live as they had before? For his part, he had such a feeling of fulfillment and accomplishment . . .
Summertime All the Cats Are Bored Page 3
