Autumn, All the Cats Return

by Philippe Georget

  “It’s a kind of hot pot with bacon, blood sausage, cabbage, potatoes, and white beans,” Sebag explained. “Dietetic, in other words!”

  “Oh, yes! That’s right, I’ve had it before. Right here, in fact, I think. It’s very good.”

  “So we’ll all have it,” Sebag concluded, knowing Molina’s tastes.

  He wet his lips with the glass of amber muscat wine, savoring its mellowness with his eyes closed before turning to Ménard.

  “So, Martinez and the OAS?”

  “This morning I contacted another historian, Michel Sonate. He’s based in Marseille and the OAS is his specialty. He has undertaken a study on the former activists—the reasons they joined, what they did, what they think about it now, and so on. He’d met Martinez a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Great!” Sebag exclaimed. “And what did he tell him?”

  “Nothing very specific, unfortunately. He talked about his motivations. In fact, he never really believed that clandestine combat would succeed, he claimed, but at the time he couldn’t bring himself to stand by and watch French Algeria being liquidated. He absolutely wanted to do something, anything at all, so long as he acted.”

  “And what exactly did he do?” Sebag asked.

  “He didn’t want to talk about that: he limited himself to claiming that he’d managed to take over Radio Algiers’s frequencies. The historian acknowledges that he finds it hard to get former members of the OAS to talk about their actions. They all remain very discreet.”

  “You must be kidding! They’re ashamed . . . ” Molina interjected.

  “I think it’s a little more complex than that,” Ménard said. “They always admit that they were involved at the time and still show a lot of hostility and resentment toward France in general and toward de Gaulle in particular. In their view, their only possible choice was to keep Algeria part of France.”

  “So, apart from the confirmation that Martinez belonged to the OAS, we don’t have much else,” Sebag observed without being able to conceal his disappointment.

  He saw Ménard’s face fall and understood that he’d annoyed him. He tried to make up for it.

  “And . . . that’s already very important. We suspected it, but we had to be certain. That was the main thing Castello asked of us. Now we have to find other former members of the OAS in the area. Could your historian give you any names?”

  “Not yet. He’s questioned an incredible number of people for the book he’s writing, but his interview notes aren’t classified by the places where they live. Apparently he’s a really old-fashioned guy and doesn’t computerize anything.”

  Sebag didn’t listen to the rest of what Ménard said. Outside the window he’d just seen Lieutenant Cardona carefully crossing the slippery street in their direction, and when their eyes met he saw trouble coming.

  The head of the Accidents group at the Perpignan police headquarters burst into the restaurant. Without greeting the owner, he came and planted himself in front of the three inspectors.

  “What the hell are you guys up to?”

  Molina sat up straight on his chair, annoyed at this interruption of their conversation.

  “Hello.”

  Cardona looked him up and down and asked his question again.

  “What are you up to?”

  “What are you talking about, Estève?”

  Cardona looked at Molina, then at Sebag, who understood. Trembling with rage, he pointed his finger at Sebag.

  “He knows what I’m talking about.”

  They all looked at Gilles, who tried to smile.

  “What’s all this mess?” Molina asked.

  Cardona ignored him and addressed himself icily to Sebag.

  “I had Mme. Grangier on the phone this morning. She’s Pascal Lucas’s lawyer, you know her?”

  “The lawyer? No.”

  “But you do know her client.”

  It was not a question. Sebag nonetheless nodded.

  “I saw him yesterday.”

  “And you have no problem with that? You’re trampling on my turf without saying anything and you think that’s O.K.?”

  “Mathieu’s family asked me to have a look at the file, just to be sure that nothing had been overlooked.”

  “And meeting with the person responsible for the accident, that’s what you call ‘having a look at the file?’”

  Ménard’s and Molina’s eyes jumped back and forth from Sebag to Cardona and from Cardona to Sebag. It was like being at a tennis match.

  “I began by examining the accident report and then I wanted to clear up a few points that seemed to me somewhat obscure.”

  “And you couldn’t have talked to me about it?”

  “What would you have told me? That it was your business and didn’t concern me!”

  “Probably . . . ”

  “Well then, you see . . . There wouldn’t have been any point to it.”

  “It’s my case,” Cardona said heatedly. “You had no business messing around in it.”

  His face was getting beet-red, accentuating the flamboyance of his blond, greasy hair combed straight back on his head.

  “The family want to be sure that the investigators . . . I mean, the investigation didn’t neglect certain aspects of the case.”

  “And you think that you’re authorized to supervise my work? I don’t neglect anything.”

  “I just wanted to be sure about this business regarding the white Clio.”

  “There was no such car, goddamn it. Lucas is the only one who saw it. None of the witnesses confirms what he said! The guy is trying to protect himself, that’s all, we can’t be naive here. I don’t have time to waste on all this nonsense . . . ”

  They fell silent for a moment. Molina and Ménard held their breath. Sebag looked his adversary in the eye and said in a steady, calm voice, trying to avoid aggravating matters:

  “My daughter was very close to young Mathieu. I promised her that I would check out all the leads. And I’m going to do that.”

  Cardona banged his fist on the table, knocking over the glass of Cat Cola. All the conversations in the restaurant had stopped.

  “If you go on that way, it’s going to turn out badly. Who do you think you are, to give me lessons and tell me what to do? I’m warning you, I’m not going to let some good-for-nothing Parisian shit all over me. Is it because I’m a Catalan that you think I can’t handle a case properly without your help?”

  “I never said that, that’s utter nonsense!”

  Molina slowly rose to his feet and rolled his former rugby player’s shoulders.

  “You’re beginning to cross the line, Cardo. And it’s a Catalan who’s telling you to shut up now.”

  “I’m not talking to you, Molina . . . ”

  “Yes, but I’m the one who’s hearing you and you’re hurting my ears.”

  Cardona cranked his tone down a notch. He’d also played rugby, but wasn’t nearly as hefty as Molina.

  “Are you O.K. with what he did?”

  “If it’s a promise he made to his daughter, there’s nothing to be said, it’s sacred.”

  “Do you think our bosses would say the same if they knew?”

  “Are you going to snitch?”

  Sebag got up as well. It was time to calm things down.

  “I’m going to make you a promise, too, Cardona. If I find something, you will be the first to hear about it. And you can take all the credit.”

  He let a few seconds pass. Cardona still didn’t seem convinced but didn’t say any more.

  “Think about it carefully, because if you decide to file a complaint, I’m going to pursue this no matter what, and if I find something, you’re the one who’s going to look bad.”

  Cardona still kept silent; he was weighing the pros and cons. But Sebag was confident. T
he carrot and stick tactic was as old as the hills, but it still worked.

  “Sounds to me like a fair deal,” Molina said. “You’ve got nothing to lose, in the end, and everything to gain. Because Gilles may be a Parisian, but he’s also an ace detective, and if there’s anything to be found in this case, you can be sure he’ll find it.”

  “There isn’t anything,” Cardona grumbled, and then looked at them one by one, including Ménard, who had kept out of the discussion.

  Rafel came to wipe off the table and replace the spilled cola. One at a time, conversations started up again in the restaurant.

  “Do you want something to drink, Estève?” Rafel asked.

  “No, I don’t have the time.”

  Sebag and Molina sat down again and swallowed a big mouthful of their amber muscat. Cardona shook his head and his face gradually relaxed.

  “O.K., I’ll let it go this time, and we’ll handle it the way you said. But no stabs in the back, O.K.?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not doing this for the glory, only for my daughter.”

  Cardona snorted.

  “Yeah, sure, and it’s too bad for her and for you, too, because you won’t find anything.”

  “If there’s nothing to find, I won’t find anything, we can agree on that.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Don’t come crying to me.”

  “No chance of that,” Molina interrupted. “That’s not how we do things here.”

  “So, tot va be,” Cardona concluded. “Adéu.” He turned on his heel and rapidly walked away.

  “Adéu, you poor jerk,” Molina said in a low voice.

  Cardona left the restaurant and went back to headquarters. It was still raining hard: it was as heavy and dusky as a dark beer drinker’s piss. The three inspectors finished their aperitif, looking out at the rain without talking.

  Rafel brought three bowls full of ouillade, hot and fragrant. It was only after the third mouthful that Molina broke the silence.

  “All the same, that was a dirty trick you played on him.”

  Sebag shrugged.

  “I wouldn’t have liked it if you’d done the same thing to me,” Ménard added.

  “Except I wouldn’t have done it to you,” Sebag assured him. “I wouldn’t have doubted your investigation.”

  “So that was what the big bald guy, your date yesterday at noon, was about?” Molina asked.

  Sebag admitted it with a wink.

  “You could have told me about it.”

  “I didn’t want to get you involved in a risky business.”

  “It’s okay. We almost paid for a ouillade twice today.”

  Sebag smiled but Ménard sat there stone-faced. He hadn’t understood the play on words.

  Molina deciphered it for him:

  “In Catalan, a ouillade is also a fight. It’s the term they use in rugby matches when the players’ blood is up.”

  Molina suddenly looked at his empty glass.

  “Didn’t Rafel forget something?”

  He called out to the owner:

  “Hey, Rafel, bring us a bottle of Canon du Maréchal to decorate the table. With this lousy weather, we need more color here.”

  “I’m sorry to have gotten you mixed up in this thing with Cardona,” Sebag said.

  “I’m not. He’s been annoying me for years, that guy. We played together on the USAP’s junior team and he’s never pardoned me for making the first team whereas he ended up in the amateur league.”

  He stuffed a big forkful of bacon and cabbage in his mouth and went on:

  “In any case, I hope you haven’t gotten into this without knowing what you’re doing, because he’s not going to cut you any slack. He’s a nasty one.”

  Sebag just gave him a smile that he hoped was enigmatic, but Molina was not fooled.

  “Damn, could you be any more sure of yourself than that? Then you’ll just have to pray that he fucked up his investigation. On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that he did. Cardona’s as stupid as he is nasty. But what can I say? He’s not even a real Catalan. His father came from Andalusia!”

  “Gentlemen, I have asked you to come to my office so that we can proceed more quickly. I have to take a plane for Paris at 6 P.M. and don’t have a lot of time. I’ll be concise and ask you to do the same.”

  Superintendent Castello was in a foul mood. He had to attend the big annual meeting of the departmental national security directors at the Ministry of the Interior. They were all supposed to compare their crime statistics, and those of the Perpignan headquarters were not good. Castello was going to be reprimanded in front of all his colleagues and that made him furious. Especially since he boasted of being the only one who hadn’t falsified his figures.

  “I’ve just received the last results that hadn’t yet come in. First of all, the autopsy: Bernard Martinez was in fact killed by a bullet shot at point-blank range and his death occurred last Wednesday, probably in the afternoon. I’ll spare you the bullet’s trajectory and the damage done to the brain’s vital functions; you can find all that, if you want, in the copies of the medical examiner’s report that I will have sent to you.”

  He caught his breath before continuing.

  “The ballistics expert also confirms that Martinez’s murderer was standing behind his victim when he fired. From the angle of the shot, our experts conclude that the murderer is of . . . medium height, between 5’9” and 5’10”. You will see the importance of this fundamental advance in the investigation! Otherwise, the weapon used was a Beretta 34 9 mm short, a weapon that came out in the 1930s and was used especially by the Italian police up until the early 1980s. But it circulated widely in Europe, especially after the Second World War, because it was also used by the Wehrmacht. There, that’s about all I had to say to you.”

  “What about the white hair Pagès found?” Ménard asked, eliciting a smile from Molina.

  “The DNA analysis is still underway. It may take a while because it wasn’t considered a priority. It’s mainly our head of the forensic police who seems to take an interest in it, and our friend is on reduced time for a few days. Since he didn’t retire as planned, he’s taking days off!”

  “He could be usefully replaced by his assistant,” Molina said ironically.

  “Thank you for that brilliant comment, that really advances our work. You don’t have any new information to give us about the investigation?”

  Molina reported with persistent bitterness on the morning’s interview with the activists from the Collective Contra Nostalgeria. Castello then gave the floor to Lambert and Llach, who had interviewed almost all the tenants in Martinez’s apartment building without gleaning any interesting information. In fact, Ménard was the only one who had contributed something new. Castello started pacing around the room, circling his team.

  “More than ever, then, it’s the lead of an old settling of political accounts that has to be followed. Any objections?”

  No one responded. The inspectors all remained stock-still, not far from standing at attention. Sebag thought again about Albouker’s telephone call the day before and his paranoid notion, but didn’t think it would be useful to mention it.

  Castello abruptly stopped walking.

  “Gentlemen, forgive me the expression, but we’re in deep shit!”

  The superintendent looked at them one by one. Ménard, Molina, Sebag, Lambert, and Llach. As usual, Raynaud and Moreno were “busy” with another case.

  “We’re in deep shit because this first answer leads us to immediately ask ourselves another question: is this settling of accounts over and done with, or do we have to fear that there will be other victims? Gentlemen, your opinions?”

  People exchanged grimaces. To compensate for his inefficiency that morning, Sebag decided that for once he would be the first to speak up.

&nbs
p; “We might think so, and even fear it, but we don’t want to complicate matters too much, because the investigation has turned up nothing that allows us to give a categorical answer to that question.”

  “That’s my feeling as well,” Castello said, without waiting for the others’ opinions. “Whatever happens over the following days, we’ll need a kind of map of the Pied-Noir milieu: I want to know who, here in Perpignan, used to belong to the OAS. Ménard, you get back in contact with your historian and make him cough up all this information.”

  “It won’t be easy . . . ”

  “Why? Is he another one who doesn’t want to collaborate with the police? We’re going to have to find another word—’collaborate’ is necessarily pejorative.”

  “Cooperate?” Ménard suggested.

  “Voilà, that’s perfect, cooperate. So, your historian François, he doesn’t want to . . . cooperate?”

  “That’s not the question, it’s just that there’s a practical problem: he’s based in Marseille.”

  “So?”

  Ménard was caught off guard and stammered:

  “Well . . . it’s that . . . I . . . I’m in Perpignan.”

  “Do you have something against trains?”

  “Uh . . . no. Absolutely not.”

  “Then find one for tomorrow morning and by noon you’ll be there. Other objections? Do you want me to help you look up the departure times?”

  Ménard blushed and frowned.

  “No, that’s O.K. Thanks, Superintendent.”

  “Great.”

  Castello turned to Sebag.

  “Gilles, you’re going to completely immerse yourself in the Pied-Noir community in the area, I want you to meet each of its members. You, too, will have to find out who used to belong to the OAS and who knew Martinez’s past. You will remain in permanent contact with Ménard and as soon as he gives you a name, you will meet with that individual. But don’t wait for his information, start fishing on your own end.”

  Sebag, as a good soldier, approved with a nod of his head. Castello then addressed Jacques.

  “Molina, you will sift through this milieu of anti-Pied-Noir leftists. Quietly at first. Inform yourself about each of them, but I want a list ready by tomorrow evening. This case is going to get out, and we have to be ready to react. Lambert will help you.”