“Concordant testimonies gathered yesterday allow us to think that Roman’s murderer was driving a white SEAT with Spanish plates. The problem is that on the day of Martinez’s murder residents of Moulin-a-Vent saw not a SEAT but a white Clio with Spanish plates.”
“Are the witnesses reliable?” Llach asked. “The two models are pretty similar, if I’m not mistaken.”
“We can assume that they are reliable, yes. We checked.”
“That’s strange,” Lambert commented.
“I don’t see what’s strange about it,” Julie Sadet said. “The murderer could have simply changed cars. It’s unlikely that he used his own vehicle.”
Sebag smiled. Castello’s recruit was proving to be a good one. She’d avoided the trap that he and Molina had stupidly fallen into the preceding day.
“So according to you, where did he get his cars?”
“From a rental agency on the other side of the border, of course.”
“But why would he choose two models that are so similar?”
“He didn’t necessarily choose. Maybe in each case he opted for a widely-sold model and color in order to avoid making himself conspicuous.”
The idea struck the inspectors as judicious. Sebag was jubilant.
“That’s exactly the conclusion that I arrived at last night. The similarity of the models and the Spanish license plates in the two cases prevented us from immediately seeing what now seems obvious to us. At first, we thought that the witnesses were mistaken, and that it must be the same car. Then when we understood that the witnesses were right and that there were in fact two distinct vehicles, we were incapable of imagining this solution which is ultimately very simple.”
“So the killer rents his cars in Spain?” Llach summed up.
“Affirmative,” Sebag confirmed. We can even imagine that that’s where he lives between crimes.”
“Hop, hop, hop,” Molina interrupted vigorously. “Aren’t we moving a little too fast there? You’re now assuming that the old man with the Clio, who was probably responsible for the accident that killed your daughter’s friend, is also the murderer?”
“Yes, I think that’s possible.”
“What old man, what accident?” Llach interrupted.
Sebag rapidly told them about Mathieu’s death.
“Charles Mercader, a resident of Moulin-à-Vent, told us that he’d seen a man at least seventy years old get into the Clio. We can imagine that the murderer was a little nervous after committing his crime, and that in hastening to escape, he ran a stop sign.”
“An old man? That would be Maurice Garcin, then!” Lambert exclaimed. “The barbouze!”
“Hold on, hold on, let’s calm down,” Sebag said. “The fact that the murderer is old doesn’t prove anything. Even if he might want to take revenge for something that happened more than fifty years ago, Garcin isn’t the only survivor of the Algerian War.
“So we’re back to the infamous white hair, then,” Llach remarked. “Did Castello look into that?”
“I don’t know, I’ll have to talk to Pagès.”
“An old gunslinger and hot-rodder who leaves his hair lying around everywhere like Tom Thumb’s pebbles . . . Isn’t all that a little implausible?”
Molina didn’t conceal his ill humor. Sebag hadn’t taken him into his confidence and he was mad about it.
“We have to beware of drawing hasty conclusions,” Sebag conceded. “But it’s by following leads that we make progress.”
“Or go off on the wrong track!”
“Last night, I still had serious doubts about this business of the car, and that’s why I didn’t talk to you about it. But this morning, I’m practically convinced. And even if I’m moving a little fast by attributing to the murderer the responsibility for the accident, that doesn’t mean that it’s stupid to think that our man rented two similar cars from Spanish agencies. And I remind you that I wasn’t the only one who arrived at that hypothesis. Julie did, too. And without my having said a word about it to her.”
“We’re going to be wasting our time,” Molina grumbled again. “There are thousands of car rental agencies in Spain.”
“If, as Gilles says, the murderer is living in Spain, he’s probably based not far from the border,” Julie said.
“So what? Between Le Perthus and Girona, there are at least several dozen agencies . . . And over the past two weeks, each one of them must have rented dozens of Clios and SEATs.”
“But they must not have many customers who rented a Clio and then a SEAT.”
“If our guy is being careful, he wouldn’t have gone to the same agency twice.”
“That’s true,” Julie conceded.
“And in any case, it’s not going to be easy for us to get the information in Spain. We’ll have to go through official channels, and that will take days and days.”
Llach, who had kept silent as they talked, sat up on his chair.
“One of my wife’s cousins works for the Mossos. He could give us a hand. Unofficially, of course. We’ve already done each other some favors when we needed to move fast.”
Sebag turned to Julie, who didn’t seem to understand.
“The Mossos is the police force in South Catalonia. Its full name is Mossos d’Esquadra.”14
“Isn’t the Spanish police the Guardia Civil?”
Sebag, Molina, and Lambert smiled. Julie Sadet had just committed her first big blunder. Llach sighed but agreed to give her a quick explanation.
“The Guardia Civil is in fact the Spanish police, yes, but in South Catalonia it has gradually been replaced by the Mossos. The process has been going on for over twenty years. Today, the Guardia is involved only in matters of terrorism and immigration. All the rest, including criminal cases, is in the jurisdiction of the Catalan police.”
Llach added, not without pride:
“It’s one of the oldest police forces in Europe. It was created at the beginning of the eighteenth century.”
“Fine, fine, I’ll go to bed less ignorant this evening. Thanks, Joan.”
“Should I call my cousin in the Mossos, then?” Llach asked.
“That would be good . . . ”
“And I suppose that I should bring in Charles Mercader to do an Identikit picture?” Molina asked reluctantly.
“If my hypothesis is valid, Mercader is the only person who saw the murderer. I’m going to try to get a photo of Maurice Garcin. We have to show it to Mercader. We’ll ask François to dig us up one.”
Sebag gave the signal for dismissal, while Jacques sent another text message to Ménard. Llach, Lambert, and Julie Sadet stood up, but the young woman cop didn’t follow her colleagues out the door.
“Did you have something else you wanted to say, Julie?” Sebag asked her.
“I had an idea. A hypothesis, to use your vocabulary.”
“Let’s hear it, please.”
“It occurred to me that the killer could have taken his car back to an agency different from the one where he rented it. That’s a pretty common practice.”
“Yes, it happens quite often. But why would he have done that?”
“I don’t know. Because it was convenient, or to try to hide his tracks.”
“That’s possible. And where does this line of argument take us?”
“We might imagine that he returned his vehicle to a French agency.”
Sebag’s eyes narrowed. His brain was calculating all the consequences of that supposition.
“That means that we could follow that lead right away, without waiting for the help of our colleagues in South Catalonia. It also means that we won’t be flooded with suspects: there can’t be too many customers who rent a car in Spain and return it in France. Bravo! You should be the one to look into this, of course. Ask Llach or Lambert to help you.”
Julie t
urned on her heel and joined her colleagues in the street. Molina put his cell phone back in his jacket.
“She’s pretty good, our new recruit,” Sebag remarked.
“Yeah.”
Sebag looked hard at Molina. He was expecting further comments, but none came.
“You’re either pouting or you’re getting old!”
“I’m not pouting.”
“So you must be getting old!”
“What do you mean, getting old? What are you talking about?”
“You have nothing more to say about our young, pretty Julie? No comments on her lovely eyes, her nice little ass, and God knows what else?”
“It’s just that . . . well, no!”
“That’s exactly what I said, you’re getting old: you’re not even trying to put moves on her.”
“I’m not that heavy-handed. I don’t shoot at anything that moves, after all.”
“In any case, you try . . . ”
Molina laughed.
“Yes, it’s true, I’m a little heavy-handed sometimes.”
“But here, nothing! What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, I’m not feeling anything.”
“Why? Don’t you like her?”
“Are you kidding? She’s super hot.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know. The old hunter’s instinct, probably. She’s not in my league.”
“She’s too good for you?”
“Oh please, don’t give me that. I’ve had some who were just as good, or even better. But I’m not getting any vibes off her: she’s not on the market, that’s all!”
“That’s a very classy way of putting it . . . ”
“That’s how I see things. And I’m saying it as best I can. She’s very . . . not distant, no, it’s not that, she’s just . . . withdrawn. You can’t understand, you haven’t tried to pick up a woman since you met Claire at the university, but those of us who do can sense these things. In my opinion, Julie’s got a boyfriend and she’s very much in love. And she’s probably very faithful. If you see what I mean . . . ”
“I have some vague sense of what you’re driving at, yes,” Sebag replied.
He suddenly wondered when Claire had . . . put herself back on the market, what signals she might have sent out and what “predator” had picked them up. A pang of jealousy bored into his stomach followed by another even more treacherous—a pang of fear. And what was the situation now? Now that her summer fling seemed to be over—if it ever existed—was Claire on that infamous market again?
He suddenly raised his hand to order another coffee. One more little treat and he’d immerse himself in the investigation again. That would be more useful than his eternal, painful, sterile ruminations.
*
Around the middle of the morning, he telephoned Gérard Mercier.
“I was just about to call you,” the brother of the Pied-Noir Circle’s treasurer said. “The photo you sent of our two boys with Lieutenant Degueldre helped me. I talked to some of my contacts—they’re old friends—and I’ve got new information for you. Do you have something to write with?”
Sebag was sitting at his desk, with his notebook lying open in front of him.
“Go ahead, I’m all ears.”
“There were in fact four of them who made up what was called the Babelo commando, after the name of their leader, or rather his nickname. Around Babelo we see Sigma, Bizerte, and Omega . . . ”
“You have only pseudonyms?” Sebag said with concern.
“Omega was Bernard Martinez. Sigma was a young guy named Jean Servant, and Bizerte . . . I suppose you’ve guessed who Bizerte was?”
Sebag remembered that André Roman spent part of his childhood in the city of Bizerte, in northern Tunisia.
“They didn’t go to a lot of trouble to find their pseudonyms,” he said.
“It was more a game than a necessity. Especially since among the Pieds-Noirs, everything always came out anyway. But the pseudonyms gave certain groups the feeling of being in the Resistance.”
The comparison startled Sebag but he refrained from making any commentary that might annoy the former member of the OAS.
“What about Babelo?”
“That comes from Bab-El-Oued, which means ‘Door of the River.’ It was a working-class European neighborhood in northern Algiers. It was also one of the bastions of the OAS. The leader came from there.”
“And do you have his real name?”
No response, only silence.
“Hello, are you still there?”
“Yes, yes, I’m here.”
“Do you have his name, or didn’t your ‘contacts’ give it to you?”
“Yes, they gave it to me. According to them, Babelo wouldn’t like being bothered by the police for such old matters.”
“Nonsense! Did you tell them that it was chiefly a matter of saving his life?”
Mercier chuckled.
“They weren’t impressed; they told me he could take care of himself.”
“That’s ridiculous. I have to contact him. You have to give me his name.”
Gérard Mercier resisted.
“I don’t have to do anything! I told you at the outset that if I helped you it would be mainly to protect our guys. And anyway, Babelo is not in your jurisdiction: he didn’t return to metropolitan France.”
“Where does he live?”
“Elsewhere . . . Don’t worry, I’ll try to contact him myself and he’ll be on his guard.”
Sebag conceded defeat for the moment. He had to avoid antagonizing his interlocutor because he had other questions to ask him. He reread his notes.
“And the last guy—his name is Jean Servant, right?’
“Yes, that’s right. But he isn’t in your jurisdiction, either.”
“Come on!” he replied, overcome by annoyance.
“He didn’t return to France either, after the war,” Mercier explained. “He didn’t have the chance to. He died in Algiers. He was killed in the bombing of a bar in June, 1962.”
Sebag noted down this information. The investigation was coming to an abrupt end: there was now only one potential victim and he couldn’t do anything to help him. He felt both disappointment and relief.
“O.K., then! Let’s see if we can find out a little more about the murderer’s motives. Do you have any idea of what the Babelo commando did back then?”
“The Babelo group was one of the famous Delta commandos that were under the direct control of Lieutenant Degueldre, the OAS’s chief operations organizer.”
Mercier’s voice trembled slightly as he uttered Degueldre’s name.
“It was a very active group that carried out spectacular, daring actions . . . ”
“I got that impression, yes,” Sebag said ironically.
Horrible things, Mathilde Roman had said before talking about the murder of the French police officer and innocent Arabs. Mercier pretended to not to have heard what Sebag said.
“They began by taking over Radio Algiers. We liked that kind of operation. We cut the programming of the official radio station and replaced it with our own. That way our compatriots got real news that was very different from what the government told them.”
“But the Babelo group didn’t limit itself to that, right?” Sebag interrupted.
He immediately sensed discomfort at the other end of the line. He had to encourage Mercier to go on again.
“Hello, are you still there?”
“I’m still here. I’m thinking about how I can explain to you something that you can’t understand.”
“I can try.”
“I don’t doubt your goodwill,” Mercier sighed, “but it’s always a matter of putting everything in its historical context. Even if it wasn’t acknowledged as such, the Algerian War
was a real war, a kind of civil war, and especially a terrible war.”
He paused to take a breath.
“Let us recall first that it was the FLN that started the fighting in November 1954. And the fellaghas never limited themselves to military targets. They killed civilians, women, and children, too. Slit their throats, disemboweled them. You must have seen lots of corpses in your work, but how many have you found with their testicles in their mouths? By damn, that makes one hell of an impression, believe you me.”
He spoke faster and faster.
“Personally, I was twenty-two when I got in contact with the OAS. At the time, I was full of hatred, we all had someone close to us who’d been killed by the FLN. That doesn’t encourage clemency, I can tell you that.”
His Pied-Noir accent took over as he grew more heated.
“It was war. And in wartime points of reference and values are not the same as they are in peacetime. When everything’s calm it’s easy to have generous ideas and great moral principles. But during a war, it’s entirely different.”
“All this in order to say what?” Sebag pressed him.
“To say that the Babelo group didn’t commit just nice actions like taking over the radio.”
“Did it kill a French police officer, for example?”
“For example. I see that you are already well-informed.”
“I don’t know his name, or the date.”
“It was Inspector Michel. Executed in Algiers in December 1961.”
Sebag noted the choice of terms: “executed.” That was something quite different from “killed” or “murdered.”
“They also ‘executed’ defenseless Arab workers.”
Gérard Mercier was breathing heavily.
“I told you that you couldn’t understand.”
“I’m having difficulty, in fact.”
“I think I know what operation you’re referring to. In November 1961, Babelo’s men waited for workers at the exit from a bottling factory and shot them down without warning. There were six dead. The workers were unarmed, they weren’t necessarily members of the FLN. But they were Arabs, and at the time that was enough for us.”
Autumn, All the Cats Return Page 23
