“In a cemetery, white hairs must not be very rare. In short, you haven’t got anything that would allow us to identify the perpetrator or perpetrators?”
The words had been uttered without aggressiveness. As a simple observation. But Sebag felt as if he had been slapped.
“We’ll have a DNA analysis of the hair made anyway, since we’ve already found one in the victim’s apartment that seems not to have been his own. Otherwise, in view of the easy access to the cemetery and the simple nature of the tools used, we can assume that an individual could have acted alone. Even a relatively elderly individual.”
“Do you really believe that we’re dealing with an elderly vandal?”
Sebag weighed his words:
“I don’t believe, I investigate. I’m looking for clues or proofs, and sometimes I’m able to find them and solve a few cases.”
Sabine Henri did not react, but Sebag saw her round chin tremble. He felt that the young woman was trying to use her coldness to compensate for her lack of experience. That it was no more than a pose adopted to impose her authority, in spite of her age and her sex, in the very masculine universe of the prefecture. The cabinet director managed to put a very discreet smile on her lips.
“I’ve heard about you, Lieutenant Sebag.”
She slowly turned toward the superintendent.
“And in the other case, the murder, have your men made progress?”
Castello coughed:
“Uh . . . I don’t know yet, we haven’t yet had time to take up the question. I sent one of my men to Marseille to consult with a historian specializing in the OAS. He’s the one who confirmed that the victim did in fact belong to the organization—Hello, Ménard, are you still there?”
The flying saucer began to emit a few broken sentences.
“Michel Sonate . . . interviewed . . . Bernard Martinez in January . . . 2011 in Perpignan for the pur . . . pose of writing a book about . . . the former members of the OAS. I was . . . able to listen to the whole inter . . . view but Martinez didn’t mention . . . his motivations. At no time . . . ”
The sentence was lost in a terrible burst of static. Castello shook the flying saucer.
“We couldn’t hear you very well, François, could you repeat the last things you said?”
“Martinez had nothing . . . to say about the actions he’d led in Algeria.”
“And your historian has no idea of what Martinez might have done at the time? Or about the identity of any of his victims?”
“For the moment . . . no. But he’s doing research and . . . correlating his data. The hardest part is that . . . members of the OAS . . . used . . . pseudonyms for each other.”
Sabine Henri seemed astonished.
“Do you mean, Superintendent, that you think the motive for the crime might go back to the last years of the Algerian War?”
“That’s one of the hypotheses, yes. I must say that it’s even the only one.”
“But that’s so far back . . . If it’s a question of revenge, why so long afterward? It’s fifty years this year!”
Sebag began to smile. Obviously to a young woman of twenty-five, the 1960s seemed almost prehistoric.
“Some hatreds recognize no statute of limitation,” Castello explained.
“But why wait so long?”
Sebag found that question pertinent. Plunging straight ahead, he hadn’t yet asked it himself. One of the keys to the mystery might lie in the answer to that question. He wrote down this idea in his notebook and didn’t hear Castello’s response. The superintendent had already moved on to another aspect of the investigation.
“Since the murder appeared to be connected with the victim’s membership in the OAS, and thus with the community of the former French of Algeria, we wondered if there hadn’t been other murders of Pieds-Noirs elsewhere in France, other settlings of accounts. I assigned Joan Llach and Thierry Lambert to look into that possibility. Gentlemen . . . ?”
Lambert held back to let his colleague take the initiative. Llach didn’t have to be asked twice.
“We searched the national data banks of the police and the gendarmerie, and up to this point we’ve found three murders of French nationals born in Algeria at the time of the French occupation: a pharmacist in Cannes, a retiree in Paris, and a restaurant owner in Nantes.”
From the tone Llach had adopted everyone had understood that no great revelations were to be expected. But since all police work requires a detailed report, he was allowed to continue:
“The pharmacist in Cannes was killed during a holdup of his dispensary a year and a half ago, the retiree was stabbed to death by his wife, and the restaurant owner in Nantes, who was probably connected with the mafia, was shot down by henchmen whom the local police have not yet been able to identify. In these three cases, no reference to the OAS was found at the scene of the crimes.”
“Do you think you’ve dealt with this question, or do you need to continue?” Castello asked.
“I lack a few bits of information, but I should be able to finish up alone tomorrow. Uh . . . I’ll no longer need Thierry.”
“Fine, fine. That’s it, I think . . . Ah no, wait, Molina . . . Usually you open your mouth to say absolutely nothing, and this time you haven’t said anything much at all. Can I hope that when you keep quiet, it’s because you have some new evidence to give us?”
“I just might . . . ”
Molina had a satisfied look on his face that intrigued Sebag.
“I made my little investigation into the activists in the Collective Contra Nostalgeria and I found a guy whose profile is particularly interesting: Émile Abbas was born fifty-four years ago in Algeria, of an Arab father and a French mother.”
To make the greatest effect, he took the time to look around his audience. Normally, Castello would have been irritated, but the presence of the cabinet director led him to show patience.
“You’re keeping us waiting, Monsieur Molina.”
“Émile Abbas’s father was murdered in Algiers in February 1962 by an OAS commando,” the inspector finally said.
“Well, well, that’s certainly interesting,” the superintendent conceded. “Have you called him in?”
“Yes, for tomorrow morning at headquarters, but I don’t know if he’ll agree to come. For the moment, he and his friends have not been very cooperative.”
“He’ll have an interest in being more flexible. He’s a simple witness now, but he could become a suspect. If he doesn’t come, Molina, go pick him up at his home or at his workplace.”
The cabinet director nodded in agreement, but added a little cautionary note.
“Be careful not to go too far. Let’s avoid handcuffs, for example. That might make us look bad if he’s not the right man.”
With that incitement to be prudent, Sabine Henri abruptly stood up.
“I beg you to excuse me, but I have to leave you. I can’t stay any longer. The whole region, as you know, is on severe storm watch because it’s supposed to rain until 10 P.M. today and I have a press conference at the prefecture’s crisis center. Let’s not make our friends the journalists wait. They haven’t yet gotten excited about this matter of the monument, and that’s so much the better.”
The young woman made a little sign with her hand and left. Castello had only to conclude the meeting, which he did by assigning everyone a task for the following day. He ended with Sebag:
“Gilles, you’ll be with Molina tomorrow to receive Abbas.”
Sebag hid a grimace. Shit! Molina had mentioned 9 A.M., and that was precisely the time he had a meeting with Clément Ollier, the witness to Mathieu’s accident. Castello’s tone was categorical, there was no way he could get out of it. Too bad! He didn’t have a choice. Once again, he would be obliged to play truant. It wasn’t the first time, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Molina would un
derstand perfectly, Sebag had no doubt of that. They’d worked together and arranged the tasks to suit them for so long that they’d lost count: it was impossible to know which of them was indebted to the other.
CHAPTER 15
Algiers, December 12, 1961
It’s slowly getting light in Algiers. The day before, a gentle rain fell on the white city, but this morning it has finally given way to the sun. The timid rays lick the pavement and make the dampness rise from the ground. The gardens of the villas on Rue Sévérine are exhaling in abundance their aromas of cypress, boxwood, and pine.
The commander of the OAS has put one of the villas under high surveillance because a dozen suspect individuals are in it. Cops, soldiers, or simple civilians—it isn’t yet entirely clear—they arrived from metropolitan France two weeks before and have since been conducting clandestine actions against partisans of French Algeria. Two cafés have been destroyed by attacks that this time had nothing to do with the FLN. Degueldre, the leader of the OAS commandos, has been clear: there is no question of letting those scum act as they want in Algiers.
Sigma shivers. He has spent the night in the Dauphine, accompanied by Bizerte and Omega, dozing off from time to time. His body is stiff with cold despite the blanket he threw over his shoulders. At dawn, Babelo joined them, bringing coffee and fresh bread. As well as his famous American cigarettes. He has handed them out generously to his buddies and thick smoke is now stagnating in the car.
Shortly after nine o’clock, they see a figure slip through the junglelike garden of the villa they’re watching. A man in his thirties opens the gate and comes out cautiously. He has no difficulty spotting the Dauphine and its four phantoms. He puts his hand inside his jacket to make sure his gun is there.
Another man soon joins him, a gorilla well over six feet tall and weighing nearly two hundred and fifty pounds. The two men exchange a few words as they look toward the Dauphine. Then the colossus walks off and gets into a big Mercedes.
A delivery van passes the two cars and stops about fifty meters farther on. The driver gets out and immediately disappears into a nearby house. The driver of the Mercedes puts the car in reverse and slowly backs up to get the second man. Now they hesitate.
The van is still blocking traffic, and Rue Sévérine is too narrow to make a U-turn. They decide to back up all the way to Rue Mangin.
Everything is going as planned.
The Mercedes backs down the street. As it passes the Dauphine, its two occupants are paying no attention to the OAS men. The car reaches the intersection, where it can finally turn around. Omega wipes the condensation off the windshield and starts the engine. Babelo, Bizerte, and Sigma cock their submachine guns. They’re ready. Omega drives slowly and stops ten meters from Rue Mangin.
In the middle of the intersection, the Mercedes is no longer moving. They know why. Another car is blocking its way. Babelo and Bizerte roll down their windows while Sigma gets out of the car and lies down on the street.
The submachine guns start firing.
Their heavy fire echoes that of the other commando unit positioned on Rue Mangin. Despite the crossfire, the occupants of the Mercedes fire back. The younger of them jumps into the street and fires in their direction. Sigma takes refuge in the car. Babelo throws a defensive grenade, but not far enough, and it explodes on the street without damaging the Mercedes.
Before the street fills with smoke, Sigma has time to see the massive silhouette of the driver slump behind his steering wheel.
Omega rapidly backs the car into Rue Sévérine. As if by enchantment, the van has disappeared. Omega takes advantage of a wide place in the street in front of a luxurious villa to make a quick turnaround and the Dauphine takes off. It soon resumes a normal speed in the streets of Algiers.
Shortly afterward, Omega finds a parking place in the Rue Michelet. The four men hide their submachine guns in the trunk of the car and walk to the Otomatic. A hangout for activist students, the bar’s terrace on the sidewalk is shaded by young plane trees. They sit down at a free table and despite the early hour order four strong anisettes.
For a long time they remain silent, each of them reliving the emotions of the battle. A second glass of anisette loosens their tongues and the first laughs ring out.
“A film with James Stewart and Richard Widmark this afternoon, what do you say to that?” Babelo suggests. “Two Rode Together is playing at the Modern Cinema.”
“Is it good?” Omega asks. He’s getting a little tired of westerns.
“Is it good? The truth is . . . It’s by John Ford, the greatest director of them all!”
“Well . . . if it’s by John Ford!”
At 4 P.M. they meet at the Modern Cinema. When they come out, they learn that their action that morning, despite the risks they took, was only partly successful. Wounded in the left arm and the stomach, the driver of the Mercedes was taken to Maillot Hospital, but will live. The other man, one of the leaders of the group, escaped with only a few scratches. The people at the villa in Rue Sévérine moved out that afternoon.
“Don’t worry,” Babelo reassures them. “They’re going to set up somewhere else, but we’ll soon find out where they are. The battle is just beginning.”
CHAPTER 16
Sebag was drinking a lousy coffee in a little bistro in Moulin-à-Vent. He was early for his meeting and was taking the opportunity to read the newspapers. The local paper’s big headline was about the bad weather. In addition to the fords, several roads had been cut, notably along the coast between Collioure and Cerbère. In Canet, about thirty houses in a subdivision had been evacuated and their residents put up for the night in the community center. The destruction of the monument did get a half-page on the inside of the paper. Illustrated by photos, the article described the damage caused to the monument and then quoted members of the association that had erected it, their opponents, and, finally, the mayor. The state prosecutor, however, had refused to make a statement. Below the article, a box recalled the polemic that had exploded when the monument was put up and the tensions that persisted every time a memorial ceremony was planned there.
Fortunately, the journalists had not yet made a connection with the murder of Martinez. And for good reason: the information regarding the “OAS” painted on the apartment door had not yet been divulged.
But it was only a matter of days, or even hours.
Sebag finished his excessively bitter coffee, paid without leaving a tip, and left. Outside, the clouds were beginning to stop dripping, and under the impact of a vigorous north wind, bits of blue sky were starting to colonize the sky. Sebag chose to walk to the place where he was to meet the witness. He liked to walk in the Moulin-à-Vent quarter. The broad ramblas had pleasant median strips planted with immense palm trees. Regularly re-stuccoed, the apartment buildings were aging well and their white walls naturally harmonized with the green lawns on which prospered not only palm trees but also majestic parasol pines.
Sebag walked fast and soon arrived in front of the church of Saint Paul, a triangle of concrete covered with white stucco and topped with a tuft of red tiles. Built in the late 1960s, this religious edifice might have been confused with an ordinary community center if its pediment hadn’t been decorated with a big cross and the square in front of it provided with a campanile with two bells.
A little bald man was standing across from the church, waiting. The witness.
“Mr. Clément Ollier, I presume?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Lieutenant Sebag. Thanks for having agreed to meet with me despite all the hitches, and especially for having been willing to come here.”
The witness shrugged.
“I live right nearby, in fact. I’ll go to work afterward. It won’t take long.”
“No, I don’t think so. What do you do for a living? I read in the file that you were a sales rep for an import-export firm. T
hat means everything and nothing.”
“That’s true,” Ollier acknowledged. “I work for a firm at the Saint Charles market that imports fruit and vegetables from Spain. I’m leaving this afternoon for Andalusia.”
“On a Friday? Don’t they know about weekends in your business?”
“Oh, but they do,” Ollier replied with a sly gleam in his eyes. “I have to be there on Monday and I’m taking advantage of the trip to spend a weekend with my wife.”
“When it’s possible to combine business and pleasure . . . ”
“I see that policemen have a sense of humor . . . ”
“Yes, I know, too many people think a sense of humor is incompatible with the job.”
Clément Ollier refrained from commenting. He was probably not far from sharing the general opinion. And then he must have thought that the polite chitchat had gone on long enough and that it was high time to get down to brass tacks.
“Tell me what happened, please,” Sebag asked.
“I wasn’t working the Wednesday of the accident, and I had gone out to buy cigarettes. I saw a van coming up the street at a rather high speed. It passed by me and then suddenly swerved to the left. That was when it hit the scooter that was coming in the opposite direction. Bang! The boy went flying and landed three meters farther on. I can still hear the sound. It was a real shock, I can tell you that. In every sense of the term. I still get shivers behind my knees when I talk about it. Poor kid . . . ”
Clément Ollier expressed himself with the accent of a southern area other than Catalonia. Sebag would have bet on somewhere around Toulouse. Ollier’s bald head made him look older, but he was probably not much over forty.
“In your opinion, why did the van swerve like that?”
“I heard on the local radio that the driver claimed that a car had run a stop sign.”
Ollier didn’t add anything more. Sebag was forced to ask him to be more precise.
“Did you see that car?”
Autumn, All the Cats Return Page 12
