Summertime All the Cats Are Bored

by Philippe Georget

  “You think we’re playing a kind of chess game, is that it?” Lefèvre asked.

  “Call it what you want. I’m just suggesting a working hypothesis.”

  “And so the kidnapper chose you as his adversary?”

  Lefèvre’s tone had become mocking. The young superintendent held his fax rolled up like a parchment and waved it at Sebag, who chose not to answer the question directly.

  “Yesterday, he gave us Lopez’s corpse as a ‘gift.’ That’s one stage. He’s still got the young woman, so the game can go on. Once again, this is only a hypothesis.”

  “And the next time it’ll be Ingrid’s body that we’ll find?” Molina asked.

  “Not necessarily. To make the game interesting, he has to give us a chance of winning.”

  “He’s really a sicko, this guy!” Llach said again.

  Lefèvre tapped the table with his fax, which was still rolled up. He seemed to be hesitating. Then he smiled broadly.

  “Over the past few days, if I recall correctly, you said that the murder in Argelès and the attack in Perpignan had nothing to do with Ingrid’s kidnapping. What happened yesterday proved you wrong, and yet today, despite everything, you’re proposing a new theory.”

  Everyone turned to look at Sebag. His colleagues awaited with interest his explanations; the hunt the kidnapper had forced them to make the day before had finally convinced them that they were in fact dealing with a serial attacker.

  “I don’t think that what happened yesterday proved me wrong.”

  He had also reflected on this question at length, and he had come to conclusions he found satisfactory. But he would have preferred to keep them to himself for the time being. Lefèvre’s sardonic smile made him act imprudently.

  “In fact, I think the opposite.”

  The young cop put on an astonished look.

  “You’re a bold, not to say presumptuous, kind of guy. I hope you’ll deign to enlighten us.”

  “What happened yesterday strengthened me in my convictions. I believe that if the kidnapper led us yesterday to the sites of the two other cases, it was precisely in order to make us think that everything is connected. In order to confuse us completely. He’s playing with us.”

  “So we would be the victims of more smokescreens?”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “And how did he know about Avenue Poincaré and the Oleanders campground?”

  “It was all in the newspaper,” Sebag said, thinking he’d won the point. “He had only to follow the reporter’s wild imaginings. The serial attacks on Dutch women must have amused him no end.”

  “You’re very sure of yourself . . . ”

  Lefèvre’s smile became sly.

  “No. I’m not sure of myself,” Sebag replied. “I have a hypothesis and I’m developing it. I’m trying to see if all the elements can be connected in the framework of this hypothesis.”

  “And does it work?”

  “It seems to.”

  Sebag suddenly felt that a trap had just closed on him. He, Gilles Sebag, who was usually so circumspect, had let himself be led onto terrain where he was open to attack.

  “It seems to!” Lefèvre repeated scornfully.

  Sebag held his breath while Lefèvre slowly unfolded his parchment. The young Parisian cop put the fax on the table and ran his hand over it several times to smooth it out. Up to that point, he’d avoided looking at Sebag. Now he turned toward the inspector and looked him straight in the eye.

  “This morning I took the liberty of calling Anneke Verbrucke and asking her what her blood type was. We’d stupidly forgotten to ask about that. Well, guess what: her blood type is B positive, like the blood found on the second message the kidnapper sent us. Does that still fit with your . . . theory?”

  Sebag abstained from replying. He had not seen the blow coming, but he sensed that a second one would follow. The fax that Lefèvre was still trying to smooth out was not a blood analysis but a telephone record.

  Molina reacted in Sebag’s stead.

  “I doubt that Anneke Verbrucke is the only person who is B positive.”

  “Only 8 percent of the population belongs to that group,” Lefèvre said without taking his eyes off Sebag.

  “That’s enough so that it could be a coincidence,” Molina insisted.

  “Yes, that’s true,” Lefèvre conceded slyly. “There is one chance in ten that it’s a coincidence.”

  “That’s not negligible,” Molina noted, even though his colleague’s sudden silence made him uneasy.

  “No, you’re right, it’s not negligible.”

  The young cop ran his hand over the wrinkled paper again.

  “I have something else to tell you. Another coincidence, perhaps, but I’ll let you decide how probable it is. I asked the telephone company to give me a list of the calls made on the night of July 4 from the bar where Anneke had a drink with her friends.”

  “I wasn’t informed about that request,” Castello protested.

  “I hope you’ll excuse me, Superintendent,” Lefèvre replied with obvious hypocrisy. “The desire to be efficient sometimes forces one to take shortcuts.”

  “To break the rules, you mean.”

  “It’s better to break the rules than to make serious mistakes. Because I found something very interesting: a call to police headquarters at the very time that Officer Ripoll received the anonymous call.”

  Sebag felt a powerful wave of heat pass over him. A trickle of sweat ran down his back. He understood what mistake Lefèvre was talking about. And he knew who had made it. He had nonetheless written in his notebook that he would need to check the timetables for that night.

  “Make yourself clearer,” Castello said, furiously rubbing the end of his nose. “What made you suspect that the kidnapper had telephoned from that bar?”

  “Since our obsolete telephone switchboard had prevented us from determining where the kidnapper’s call came from, I tried to approach the problem the other way around. The place where the call came in not giving us any information, I looked for places from which it might have proceeded. I went through all the reports and I came across Inspector Sebag’s interview with Anneke Verbrucke. In it, she says that she found suspicious the behavior of a customer in the bar. On that basis, I also formed a hypothesis: I thought that if this client was the attacker and if the attacker was also the kidnapper, he had to have called from either a cell phone or the phone in the bar, for lack of time. You understand the rest . . . ”

  Lefèvre brandished the telephone record in front of him. All eyes moved from the fax and converged on Sebag, who sought in vain a mouse hole in which to take refuge. He was able to regain his composure only when he met the merciless eyes of Lefèvre.

  “The conclusion seems to me obvious,” the young superintendent went on. “The kidnapping, the attack, and the murder are all connected. Period.”

  Sebag understood how a groggy boxer might feel when he saw his adversary lift his gloves high and the referee announce the end of the bout. He looked at his audience and realized that his supporters had also thrown in the towel. Never had he gone so wrong in an investigation.

  The sounds from the street could no longer pierce the deep silence that reigned in the room. The moment seemed to go on for an eternity. Sebag wiped his damp hands on his pants. Then Castello came to his aid by trying to obtain a certain sharing of the points.

  “Efficiency is one thing, Cyril, but I would ask you not to do that again. For me, it’s not a question of procedure but of teamwork. We don’t fiddle around on our own.

  He paused and glanced furtively at Gilles:

  “And I’d like you to avoid all personal quarrels. There’s too much tension for my taste. Let’s be adults, please. The life of a young woman is at stake.”

  “We’re all aware of that,” Lefèvre declar
ed in a honeyed voice.

  “I hope so.”

  Castello dismissed his inspectors and remained alone with Lefèvre to discuss the further pursuit of the investigation. Sebag suspected that the following days were going to be among the most painful of his career.

  The palm tree’s fronds cut the sky into slender blue strips that the wind was shuffling. A robin warbled next to the trunk, protected by a cluster of spines sharper than daggers.

  In the shade of the tree, Gilles was finishing a siesta on the chaise longue.

  In the late morning, a call from Séverine had salved his heart a little. Her vacation was going well. Her friend Manon’s parents were nice and gave them lots of freedom. They were making use of it, but without ever abusing it, she assured her father. They planned to go spend a few days at PortAventura, a large amusement park near Tarragona.

  The neighbor’s whistling drowned out the birdsong. For the past two or three days, she had often been looking for her cat. In vain, most of the time. Because the tomcat, attracted by the new calm that reigned in the yard, had taken up summer quarters in Sebag’s yard. Of course, the saucer of milk that Gilles furtively set under the palm tree in the morning had something to do with this. For once, the neighbor’s breathless whistling was music to his ears.

  He decided to get up. His head hurt.

  Before finally dozing off, he’d gone over the whole case in his mind. He still didn’t understand. And in one corner of his brain there was a little, insistent voice that told him he hadn’t gone off track. Not completely.

  He’d put his cup down next to the chaise longue. There was still a little cold coffee in the bottom. He swallowed it.

  Claire had left thirty-six hours earlier. He didn’t expect to hear for her any time soon. Phone calls from the boat were very expensive, and she had decided not to take her cell phone. A trip is a chance to get away from it all, she said, and these days the first thing one has to do is break the telephone link that constantly binds us to our familiar world.

  So be it.

  He was still hoping to receive an e-mail from her. Today or tomorrow. He missed Claire, but at the same time he was glad that she was far away. She would have tried to reassure him, telling him that he was the best, that if anyone could solve this case, it would be he. There are times when the confidence of your friends and family supports you, and others when it depresses you even more.

  He took his cup back to the kitchen.

  He had the whole afternoon before him, but he didn’t know what to do with it. It was too hot to run. Take a swim and lie around in the sun? That was probably best.

  Instead, he decided to go to the study. He turned on the computer and opened Age of Kings, Léo’s favorite video game. He’d received it for his tenth birthday. Sebag had learned the rules by watching his son, and he’d begun to share Léo’s passion. At one time, they’d thought about buying a second computer so they could play in a network. And then Léo had found better partners on the Net.

  Gilles played until 5:00 P.M. He hadn’t eaten anything at noon, and now felt a little hungry. He ate a few fresh tomatoes and opened a bottle of rosé.

  After this improvised meal, he put on a swimsuit and lay down beside the pool, a glass of wine nearby. His body and his mind became coated with a sticky languor. He didn’t want anything. He felt tired.

  Tired of everything and everybody.

  He must be coming down with something.

  A cold, the stomach flu, or the beginning of a fit of depression.

  After the morning meeting, Castello had called him to his office. He’d told him to go home for the rest of the day.

  “You look tired to me,” he’d said. “So take a break and come back tomorrow in top form.”

  Castello’s tone was friendly, but for Sebag this was neither more nor less than a fall into disgrace. The image of Cyril Lefèvre forced itself on him. Their relations had been electric ever since the first day. Why? It wasn’t the first time he’d see this kind of Parisian cop show up. Lefèvre was no worse than others. He even seemed cleverer and less pretentious than the average one. So what was it?

  He thought again about what Claire had suggested the other night in the restaurant. Yes, he’d been like Lefèvre at the beginning of his career but time had changed him. The job, too . . . The sad reality of the everyday job of the cop was the tedious, repetitive, and sometimes futile character of investigations in the field, the violence, the misery, the scorn . . . And then Léo was born and Gilles thought he’d understood that life was to be found elsewhere. He’d stopped doing too much and contented himself with doing as good a job as he could.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw again Lefèvre’s mocking and then derisive smile. The young cop hadn’t failed; Sebag had let himself be caught out like a neophyte. He couldn’t understand how he‘d been so mistaken.

  What could have gone wrong in his reasoning?

  The murder in Argelès was not a premeditated crime but an act of anger, or even a fit of madness. It had nothing in common with the resolute calm that Ingrid’s kidnapper had shown. He might be prepared to recognize in Anneke’s attacker the same cold-blooded qualities. But whereas the former had demonstrated his efficiency, the latter had demonstrated above all his amateurism.

  Good Lord! He was doing it again. It was proven now, and in an irrefutable manner: the kidnapper and the attacker were one and the same person. That was the basis on which he had to rethink his whole argument.

  Gilles got up to make a cup of coffee. He opted for a Sumatran Mocha. A coffee with a woody savor and an intense body. He stayed next to the machine. Once his cup was full, he went outside again and sat on the edge of the pool, his feet in the water.

  Let’s set aside for a moment the investigation into the murder in Argelès, he said to himself. Let’s just look at the other two cases. They were committed by the same individual, then. In masterly fashion the first time and awkwardly the second time. Why? Had he been forced to improvise? Possibly. But for what reasons? The kidnapping of an adult cannot be improvised. So he’d never intended to commit a second kidnapping.

  Sebag sensed that this was a new angle to be studied.

  He felt that someone was observing him. He looked up and saw two green, almond-shaped eyes staring at him. The eyes slowly closed as a sign of confidence. Then opened again. Gilles made a long, loud kissing noise.

  “Here, kitty, here, kitty.”

  The cat closed its eyes again but didn’t move. He remained sitting on his haunches on the other side of the pool, trying to tame this strange man who, after weeks of ignoring him, had finally started giving him milk.

  “Come here, kitty, come on.”

  Gilles suspected that the cat wouldn’t budge. Not right away. The voice had to be the first contact. The first connection. He’d already had that thought recently. When? Oh, yes . . . it was the other morning near the cigarette traffickers’ warehouse. When he’d succeeded in winning the boy’s confidence. In getting him to put down his gun. In avoiding a tragedy. The memory did him good. He was a good cop! Maybe in the end he was also a good father. And a good husband. He had no reason to be depressed.

  So where did his malaise come from?

  He put down his empty cup and let himself slip slowly into the cool water. When he got out, the cat was no longer there.

  Drops of water slid off his body. He lay down. A little cottony cloud was floating in the sky, lost in the immensity of the blue. Gilles wound a towel around his waist and returned to the study.

  Shortly before seven o’clock, the phone rang. It was Jacques. He was on his way back from Argelès. With Anneke’s description of the customer in the bar. He’d returned to the campground to question the owners and a few regulars who’d been there since June. A hard day. A useless day. The call for witnesses put out by the gendarmes had yielded nothing. The investigation into the Argelès cas
e still seemed to have hit a dead end.

  “I didn’t completely waste my time, though,” he said, trying to be positive. “I took my swimsuit . . . What about you, how did you spend your afternoon?”

  “I also went swimming, but in the pool, and I spent some time on the computer. I kept busy.”

  “Yeah. In other words, you were bored stiff.”

  “A little, yes.”

  They laughed.

  “Did you think about work the whole time?”

  “No. Not all the time.”

  “How do you see things now?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anymore. I have to admit that I’m floundering a little. And you?”

  “To tell the truth, I’m not sure, either. You’d ended up convincing me.”

  “And now you’re convinced by Lefèvre?”

  “He struck hard, but he didn’t explain everything. He’s going a little too fast when he says that it’s Anneke’s blood on the envelope that had the ransom demand in it.”

  “It’s disturbing, though.”

  “Maybe. But 8 percent of the population who belong to the B-positive group is still quite a few people.”

  “Not everything is just a matter of statistics.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “That drop of blood didn’t end up on the corner of the envelope by accident. The kidnapper put it there on purpose to send us a message. He wanted to make us guess that he was in fact the man who attacked Anneke. I don’t see any other possible explanation.”

  There was a silence on the other end of the line.

  “The worst thing,” Sebag went on, “is that I can’t help wondering whether it wasn’t the pleasure of contradicting . . . Kevin Costner that caused me to go off track.”

  “Oh, no, I’m sure it wasn’t that.”

  Jacques’s categorical tone surprised him.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Listen. Since we’ve been working together, I’ve begun to know you, and if there is one thing that I’ve always admired in you, it’s precisely your ability to set aside all personal considerations. In the South, we tend to act on the basis of our feelings. We have very pronounced likes and dislikes and we’re fond of declaring them. We’re too subjective, you might say. You, on the contrary, always manage to set all those parameters aside. That’s impressive.”