Summertime All the Cats Are Bored

by Philippe Georget

  He had only one regret: not having played earlier. Why did he have to wait until his mother fell ill? As if he could have feared that she would one day be ashamed of him. He hated her so much.

  He would never experience other days like this one. Too bad. He had really almost laughed.

  Suddenly he understood that all this would not have happened if he had ever proven capable, even once, of laughing.

  CHAPTER 37

  Sebag had slept fitfully, his head resting on his desk. His body felt tired but his mind was clear. Lucid. He’d given himself the morning to make a significant advance. He hoped that at noon he’d be able to give Castello proof of Coll’s involvement.

  Anneke Verbrucke hadn’t called him back. He dialed her number, but after the phone rang a dozen times he got her answering machine again.

  Molina had staked out Coll’s building until 7:00 A.M. before going home to bed. By common accord, they’d asked Lambert to take over. That was risky. But they had no choice. Llach was attending a meeting of his union in Montpellier and Ménard would have refused to play along.

  Sebag’s eyes were stinging. They were bloodshot. He’d noticed it when he went to the lavatory to throw some cold water on his face.

  He had to hold on. They were in the final stretch.

  He called Barrère and had the pleasure of awakening him. Barrère complained on principle, but ever since the police had brought to light some of his activities, he could no longer refuse them anything. To conceal the precise objective of his call, Sebag took care to begin with various questions concerning Barrère’s last deposition. Then he took up the question that preoccupied him.

  “Didier Coll, you say? Yes, I know him, of course. But I don’t recall having recommended you to him. Why would I have done that, anyway? I don’t feel like I’ve exactly made friends in the police department lately.”

  “I must have been mistaken, then. It’s not important.”

  He immediately went on to other minor questions. It was Barrère who returned to the subject at the end of their conversation.

  “That reminds me . . . About Coll. You met him at my office the other day.”

  “I did? Are you sure you’re not confusing me with my colleague Ménard?”

  “No, no. I had an appointment with him and I was forced to make him wait in order to talk with you.”

  Could this be the link he’d been looking for? He’d looked so hard. In Coll’s past. In his relationships. The question had tormented him night and day; he’d even felt guilty at times. And the answer might be right there. He’d met Coll by accident at Barrère’s office. And that was how Coll had chosen him as his contact person. This guy is sick, Sebag thought.

  Barrère was still on the line. He had just said something.

  “Excuse me?” Sebag said.

  “I was asking whether this is all that urgent.”

  “What?”

  “Well, this telephone call!”

  Sebag didn’t want to put a bug in his ear. Barrère was quite capable of warning Coll.

  “No, you’re right. This is a matter of unimportant details. Mr. Coll’s car was stolen, and we’re trying to find it. But you know what they say, there’s no rest for the wicked . . . ”

  He hung up.

  Sebag went downstairs to get some coffee. Clutching his cup, he stopped at the reception desk to talk with Martine. The young woman remembered the telephone call the other day but was unable to say why, when she heard the kidnapper whispering, she’d thought he was the owner of the stolen car.

  “You saw him just the one time?” Sebag asked.

  “Yes, but he called back the next day—or the day after that, I’m not sure.”

  “So you’d already talked to him on the phone?”

  “Yes.”

  Sebag nodded but said nothing. He looked at Martine, and she smiled without understanding. He decided he could rely on her impression.

  Back in his office, he called the Joffre retirement home. It was still too early to contact the car rental companies or the tax office. The directress was surprised that he was calling at that hour but she was already at her desk and had thought about his request.

  “I would like to propose a candidate whom I haven’t yet been able to contact. I’ve left a message and am waiting for a reply.”

  “I hope it’s a man, as I asked?”

  “Yes, of course. A bachelor, so far as I know, and in any case he’s not married. In his forties. He comes to see his mother every day and won’t let anyone else take care of her while he’s there. In fact, I thought he was with her when you called, and I went to see right away, but didn’t find him. He’s a very good person and . . . ”

  Sebag paid no attention to the rest of what she said. Coll must have been in his mother’s room during the phone call, but then he had disappeared. Could he have left the retirement home without Molina seeing him? That could turn out to be important. Unless the directress was talking about someone else. He had to be sure about that. Didier Coll might not be the model son she had chosen.

  “If you’ll give me his name, I can put him down as a candidate right away . . . ”

  “I’m not sure it’s wise to rush things. He’s a very discreet gentleman. I don’t know if he’ll agree to participate.”

  “He’ll do it to please his mother, surely. What mother wouldn’t be happy and proud to see her son honored in that way?”

  “Oh, you know, his mother . . . ”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s completely senile, the poor thing, and for the past several weeks she hasn’t recognized anyone. Not even her son.”

  “Is that right? And he takes care of her anyway? What devotion! The minister will absolutely want to reward this fellow. Give me his name, please. If he’s reluctant, we can always work it out afterward. I’m seeing the minister this morning, and he’ll be very happy.”

  The directress finally gave in.

  “It’s Mr. Coll.”

  “And what is Mr. Coll’s first name?”

  “Didier. But note that his last name is spelled C-o-l-l, though it’s pronounced ‘Coye.’ It’s a local name.”

  “And you say that you were unable to reach this Mr. Coll yesterday? I called you around seven P.M., didn’t I?”

  “It was exactly 7:07 when I hung up.”

  “You were in your office after seven P.M. yesterday and you are still there before eight A.M. . . . on a Saturday . . . Well! I’ll know where to go when the ministry decides to reward the best administrators of retirement homes. So at 7:07 Mr. Coll had left, is that right? He couldn’t have just gone to the rest room or outside to smoke a cigarette?”

  “Uh . . . No, I don’t think so. I stayed in his mother’s room for a quarter of an hour and I didn’t see him come back . . . Afterward, I had to go home, my children were waiting for me . . . ”

  “Of course, of course, that doesn’t matter.”

  Sebag would have had other questions for the directress, but he couldn’t ask them without running the risk of making her suspicious. He promised to sing her praises to the minister.

  He consulted the map of Perpignan that he always kept at hand in his desk drawer. The Joffre retirement home occupied a full city block. The map wasn’t detailed enough to tell, but he could imagine that there was an additional exit on the other side of the building. He redialed the retirement home’s number, identifying himself by his real name this time, and trying to disguise his voice.

  “Yes, of course we have a service entrance on Le Couchant Street,” the young woman on the reception desk told him. It’s used by our suppliers.”

  “It isn’t guarded? Some of your patients are senile; isn’t there a risk that they would try to get out that way?”

  “The door is always locked. The guard’s booth is right next to it, and he’s th
e one who has the key.”

  “Do visitors sometimes use that exit?”

  “No, that’s not allowed, precisely for security reasons. If you want, I can connect you with the guard; he’ll confirm what I said.”

  Sebag reflected rapidly. It was too early to ask such direct questions. There were other things he had to check first.

  The most important task was to locate the house where Coll could be holding Ingrid. He called one of their contacts at the local tax office, a fairly high official for whom they had done a favor in a case involving his daughter. Possession of marijuana. The girl had been arrested during a routine check. She didn’t have much on her, in fact.

  “It’s a question of life and death,” Sebag explained, “and a matter of hours as well.”

  The girl’s father didn’t raise many objections, and promised to provide the information before noon. The final sprint had started. Sebag was enormously excited and abruptly stood up. He would have liked to have another coffee in the cafeteria but knew that wouldn’t be smart. So he limited himself to going into the hall to fill a glass of water at the drinking fountain. He heard Castello’s big voice resounding in the stairway. He left his glass of water behind and took refuge in the rest room. Sitting on the toilet, he felt he was being childish, but he didn’t want to talk to the superintendent just yet. It was still too soon. In a few hours—or maybe a few minutes.

  Back in his office, he locked himself in and then grabbed his telephone again. He had before him a long list of car rental agencies. About sixty of them. He began with the largest. The law of probabilities required it, and so did logic: it would be easier for someone renting a car to conceal questionable activities by dealing with a large agency rather than a small one. The same reasoning led Sebag to look first at the agencies that had an office at the airport. Hoping to avoid being refused information as often as he’d been when he called real estate agencies, he invented a little story about a hit-and-run driver.

  With his ninth call, he hit pay dirt.

  “Yes, I’ve got a record in the name of Didier Coll, residing in Perpignan. Last week he rented a Renault Mégane station wagon for two weeks.”

  Sebag wrote down the dates and the vehicle’s license plate number.

  “Was the accident serious?” the manager of the agency asked.

  “Not very,” Sebag said. “But for the sake of the investigation I need you to keep this confidential. If your vehicle was involved in this accident, we’ll have to play by the rules. Is that clear?”

  “Completely,” the manager replied.

  Sebag felt a tingling in his fingertips. Finally . . . he had proof that Coll had lied. The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to come together. Coll had probably parked his rented car behind the retirement home to foil a possible tail. While people thought he was with his mother, he went to the place where he was holding Ingrid. Sebag needed a confirmation.

  He called the guard at the retirement home.

  “Do the residents’ relatives sometimes use the service entrance, the one for which you hold the key?”

  “No,” the guard replied. That’s forbidden.”

  “Never ever?” Sebag asked. “This question could turn out to be crucial in a very important investigation, so I’ll ask it in an official manner and your answer will be recorded in a formal statement: Do visitors sometimes leave the building through the service entrance?”

  There was a silence of a few seconds.

  “Uh . . . That might have happened,” the guard finally decided to answer. “That might have happened a few times.”

  Sebag imagined him squirming at the other end of the line.

  “That might have happened or it did happen?”

  “It did happen a few times, I think.”

  “Yesterday, for example?”

  Another silence. Sebag was more precise:

  “What time did Mr. Coll leave through that door?”

  Still no reply.

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yes, uh, excuse me, but I can’t answer your question just now. Can you call back later?”

  The rogue was exhausting Sebag’s patience.

  “Maybe you’d prefer that I send two officers down to get you? The management would surely like that . . . ”

  “I . . . uh, one second, I mean, a moment. Please.”

  Sebag heard disagreeable sounds in the receiver. As if it had been slammed down. Then he heard people talking in the distance. Finally he heard the guard’s voice again.

  “Hello, what were you asking me again?”

  Sebag felt a serious desire to go down there and read the jerk the riot act.

  “I was asking you what time Mr. Coll left by that door that is normally closed.”

  “Shortly before seven P.M.”

  “And he came back when?”

  “A little after eight.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I was watching the news on television and it must have been the third or fourth story when he rang.”

  “Does Mr. Coll often go through that door?”

  “He’s been doing it for a few days. He goes out to do an errand and then comes back.”

  “And why does he use that door?”

  “He parks behind the building. He told me he finds it easier to park there.”

  The guard seemed to have had no trouble accepting a justification that wasn’t very plausible.

  “But when he first comes in and the last time he leaves, he still goes through the main entrance?”

  “Yes. It’s just when he needs go out for a while that he asks me.”

  “And he goes out often.”

  “Lately, every day.”

  “And each time, he gives you a little tip, doesn’t he?”

  “He’s . . . uh, he’s a very nice fellow.”

  “I imagine he is, yes. I hope you’ve taken full advantage of his generosity because you’re going to have some problems.”

  “I . . . I don’t see . . . what . . . ”

  “I’m afraid Mrs. Raynald won’t appreciate that way of supplementing your pay.”

  “But . . . I . . . you . . . Do you have to tell her?”

  Sebag let the guard stew in his own juices for a few seconds. He had a proposal to make to him.

  “I’m a nice fellow too, you know. I’m willing to forget about it this time. On one condition.”

  “Yes?” the guard said eagerly.

  “On condition that you inform me immediately the next time Mr. Coll uses that exit, okay?”

  A deep silence followed his offer.

  “Well?”

  “It’s that . . . ”

  “Would you prefer that I tell the directress?”

  “No, no, it’s not that. It’s that . . . ”

  The guard gulped and finally got it out.

  “I couldn’t talk to you right away because Mr. Coll was just then leaving.”

  “Goddamn it to hell!”

  In his rage, Sebag almost threw his telephone against the wall. But he got control of himself and dialed Lambert’s cell phone.

  “The weather good in front of the retirement home?”

  “How do you know?”

  “A little bird told me. You could have informed me that he’d left his apartment.”

  “I was going to do that, but I didn’t have time . . . I followed him as discreetly as possible, but it isn’t easy. Is there a problem?”

  “You might say that . . . ”

  Sebag quickly brought him up to date on what he’d just learned.

  “Listen, now you’re going to forget the main entrance and go stake out the service entrance on Le Couchant Street. As soon as you see him park his Mégane, call me and go back to the front of the building. Understood?”

 
“Okay. Do you think it’s serious?”

  “I don’t know. Are you sure he didn’t make you?”

  “I hope not. But it isn’t easy to follow a scooter with a car.”

  “Didn’t Molina leave you his motorcycle?”

  “He offered to, but I’ve never driven one, so I‘m stuck with the car.”

  Sebag snorted. He was getting uneasy. His cell phone rang. A private number. It was his contact at the tax office.

  “I’ve got your info.”

  Everything was definitely going very fast.

  “As you suspected, Marguerite Coll owns a house in Le Soler. According to what it says here, it’s an old farmhouse with about three-quarters of an acre of land.”

  Sebag took down the address and thanked him.

  He contemplated the bit of paper for a few seconds. He was savoring the moment. He now knew enough to inform Castello.

  He decided to let Molina know first. He deserved that. The telephone rang but no one answered, and the answering machine came on. Sebag dialed the number again. In the meantime, he’d opened the white pages on the Internet. He knew there would be no telephone at the farmhouse, but he looked for a neighboring address. When he found one, he clicked on the aerial view option. He was zooming in on the photo when Molina finally answered his phone. A few words of explanation sufficed to wake him up.

  “I’m coming. Go see Castello, I’ll meet you there.”

  Sebag didn’t hang up immediately. The computer had focused as closely as possible on the aerial view and showed the whole property owned by the Coll family. At the back of the grounds, there was a large, dark area that could easily be a pond.

  Castello was on the telephone when Sebag entered his office. Gilles sat down across from him. Borrowed a pencil and a piece of paper from him. He wrote a single word and showed it to the superintendent, who cut short his conversation.

  “Is it really that ‘urgent’?” he asked.

  “Even more.”

  Before going upstairs, Sebag had taken time to write a summary, and he was now ready to make a clear and organized presentation of his evidence.

  He didn’t beat around the bush. The time for “perhaps” and “probably” was past. “Didier Coll is Ingrid Raven’s kidnapper and José Lopez’s murderer,” he told the superintendent. “He’s forty-three years old, he’s tall and slender, he has light brown hair and dark eyes. His voice is serious and deep, easily recognizable on the telephone except when he whispers and conceals its timbre. This very distinctive voice reminds some people of Barry White, of whom Lopez was a fan. To hide the identity of his mysterious customer, the cab driver gave him the initials of his favorite singer: BW.”