Autumn, All the Cats Return

by Philippe Georget

  “Why aren’t you asking me why I’m so interested in that night?”

  Albouker looked at him. The bags under his eyes were trembling.

  “Don’t take me for a fool. I suppose that’s the night the OAS monument was destroyed.”

  “That’s exactly right.”

  “Even if I did go out that night, that doesn’t suffice to make me a suspect.”

  “I completely agree with you. If there were only that, I wouldn’t have bothered you. But that plus . . . plus the rest, is disturbing. Fortunately, I have other evidence.”

  “Why would I have done that? It’s ridiculous!”

  The door to the office opened and Molina came in. Perfect timing, Sebag said to himself, up to this point everything is going as planned. Next to the plastic bag containing the white hair found near the monument, Jacques tossed another bag that also contained a white hair. Sebag picked them and up compared them. One of the hairs was grayish white, the other bluish white. But at a certain distance, the illusion was perfect. He held them for a few seconds before putting them in a drawer. Then he turned to Molina.

  “Well?”

  “The analysis is conclusive. They’re the same.”

  Sebag sat back in his chair and affected an air of satisfaction. He slammed both hands down on the desk.

  “So there we are! Now I have what I need to call the prosecutor.”

  Albouker fidgeted on his chair.

  “Can . . . can you explain?”

  “With pleasure.”

  Sebag rapidly took the hairs out of the two plastic bags, one by one.

  “When my colleague put his hand on your shoulder a little while ago, he picked up one of your hairs. He has just had our lab run a DNA analysis on it. And as you’ve just heard, that analysis is conclusive.”

  “What does ‘conclusive’ mean?”

  “That it’s the same DNA!”

  “I thought DNA tests took longer than that.”

  Sebag noticed that Molina had started. Their eyes met. They were both thinking the same thing. If he’d been innocent, Albouker should have first been astonished and then protested and screamed that that wasn’t possible, that he’d not been in the Haut-Vernet cemetery recently, that the hair couldn’t be his. Instead, he’d asked that question about the supposed length of time required for DNA analysis.

  “In fact, the rapidity of a DNA test depends chiefly on the priority it is given. And then I also have to acknowledge that here we have carried out a quick analysis which is not 100 percent reliable. But what is its reliability, Jacques? 91 percent? 92?”

  Surprised, Molina didn’t know what to say. But he recovered and played his role.

  “For this precise analysis, our experts told me 92.3 percent.”

  “92.3 percent,” Sebag repeated. “At that level, can we still talk about a genuine doubt, Monsieur Albouker?”

  The president of the Pied-Noir Circle did not reply. His chin was trembling and his forehead was shining with sweat. All the wrinkles on his face, normally cheerful, had sagged. He looked ten years older. Sebag decided the time had come to conclude.

  “There are only a few ways this can go, Monsieur Albouker. If you tell us everything now, and then I send you to the prosecutor for indictment, in that case, you’ll be released this afternoon. But if you persist in denying your responsibility, we begin with police custody and after that, I warn you, you’re in the system. You’ll be put in a cell to give you time to reflect, and we’ll proceed to make more refined analyses. We’ll have two days for more intensive and certainly less pleasant interrogations. Moreover, I’ll be replaced by colleagues who won’t be as well disposed toward you as I am. In short, all that to end up at the same conclusion forty-eight hours later: an indictment for destroying funeral monuments, making threats, and a false claim of having been attacked. But in that case, you will not only be indicted but put into detention. At least for a few days. But I prefer to warn you: in general, the first days are the hardest . . . ”

  Sebag had gone all out, and watched Albouker’s face complete its collapse. He’d become livid. His upper lip was jerking uncontrollably.

  “But . . . really . . . why would I have done that? It makes no sense.”

  Sebag seized the opportunity he’d been given. However, he didn’t think it would be useful to mention the television report on the Israeli extremists. He’d already had occasion to note that when he tried to explain the origin of his intuitions, he confused people more than he enlightened them.

  “I began to have doubts last night, and I spent part of the night tracing the sequence of events and our various conversations. I didn’t sleep very much, I have to tell you. And it was when I said to myself that my night was spoiled that I recalled your wife’s reflections on your bouts of insomnia. That gave me the first serious lead. The rest came later. First, your passion for your culture and your roots. According to Jean-Pierre Mercier, those are the only things that can make you really intransigent.”

  Albouker tried to laugh but it rang false.

  “If that kind of evidence is enough for you, you’ve got hundreds of thousands of suspects in our community.”

  “Ah, your community . . . You cherish it, don’t you? And you have one great worry: that it might fall apart and that the repatriates might one day no longer feel themselves to be Pieds-Noirs. Above all, you don’t want it to be assimilated into French society. On that Sunday you said that if your wounds were healed, not only your Algeria would disappear, but you yourselves would disappear as a community. That’s your obsession, isn’t it? So what to do? That, too, you told me, at our very first meeting. I reread my notes last night and I found it.”

  He opened his blue notebook, flipped through it, and stopped at a dog-eared page.

  “I wrote it down verbatim. You told me that two things still bound the Pied-Noir community together, and I’m going to quote what you said. The first is ‘the love of our lost country.’ In that respect, no problem, it’s clear, it’s explicit, it’s the goal of your association. The second—and here I’m quoting you again—is ‘the incomprehension and even hostility of other French people.’”

  He abruptly closed his notebook.

  “There, your main concern is that after fifty years that hostility has nonetheless greatly decreased. So you wanted to make everybody think it was still very much alive.”

  Albouker stopped moving. He seemed even to have stopped breathing.

  “So you organized these marks of hostility yourself: you destroyed the monument, you stabbed yourself—bravo, that takes courage—and you put a threatening letter in your friend Mercier’s mailbox. You went to see him at his home, didn’t you, the day after he’d discovered that letter?”

  Albouker didn’t answer. His Saint-Bernard head was nodding mechanically like those of the plastic dogs people put in the rear windows of their cars. He was staring vaguely at his feet without seeing them. The world around him had ceased to exist. It was no more than a formless mass of sounds and colors.

  Sebag reflected. Albouker was ready but he still had to get him to spit out the truth. For the moment, the file contained only suppositions and a phony analysis; without a confession, it would remain empty. Sebag signaled to Molina to go get a glass of water at the fountain in the corridor. Twenty seconds later, Jacques put his hand on Albouker’s shoulder and set a plastic glass in front of him.

  “Drink, Monsieur Albouker,” Sebag said. “It will do you good.”

  The president of the Circle raised his head. His dazzled eyes blinked. For him, light suddenly returned to the room. He took the glass, brought it to his trembling lips, and emptied it without taking a breath first. His eyes recovered a little life.

  “You have to tell me everything now, Monsieur Albouker. You’ll see, you’ll feel better afterward.”

  The haggard man shook his head as if to
resettle his mind. He gave Sebag a sad and stunned look.

  “What can I tell you that you don’t already know?”

  His hand still on Albouker’s shoulder, Molina massaged it a little.

  “You know everything, you’re very smart,” the president of the Circle told him. “Too smart for me, in any case. It’s as if you’d put a microphone in my brain.”

  Sebag looked at Molina, then at his computer. Jacques understood and sat down in front of his monitor. His hands hovering over the keyboard, he was ready.

  “I have the impression that you decided to act very quickly,” Gilles began in a soft, calm voice.

  “Yes, right after your first visit . . . I was already thinking about it very seriously.”

  He licked his dry lips.

  “My friends’ initial reactions convinced me. When they were told about your questions regarding the OAS, they screamed that it was provocation and persecution, and even talked about injustice. I said to myself that all it would take was a little push from fate . . . ”

  “Do you think your community is eroding that much?”

  Albouker ran his hand over his thighs, then raised his head and looked Sebag in the eyes for the first time.

  “There are only old people in our association, you could see that yourself at our lunch. Why do you think I was elected president? Because I’m the youngest, that’s all! But over the past couple of days a dozen new members have joined, including three who are under fifty years old. My idea wasn’t all that stupid . . . ”

  He shrugged.

  “And then, after all, I didn’t harm anyone. Except for myself!”

  Sebag did not agree, but gave him a sympathetic smile.

  “Why did you begin with the monument?”

  Albouker lowered his eyes again.

  “Can it really be said that I ‘began’ with the monument? In fact, I didn’t plan anything, and I didn’t foresee what would come next. The monument is an important symbol for us, but it’s very controversial. Destroying it would necessarily make our people angry without eliciting others’ compassion. And then it was an easy target. The Haut-Vernet cemetery is not guarded and the perimeter wall is not very high. I’ve never been athletic, but it wasn’t difficult to climb over.”

  Sebag glanced over at Molina. He was waiting until Jacques had finished typing before continuing with Albouker.

  “How did you decide to pull the crazy trick of stabbing yourself?”

  Albouker sat up straight. Of that act, he seemed prouder.

  “I’m not sure I understand that myself. A psychiatrist would say that I wanted to punish myself. There’s probably some truth in that, I had to pay a personal price. And then who else? I wasn’t going to stab Jean-Pierre, after all!”

  Sebag let a shiver run down his spine.

  “I have a hard time imagining sticking a knife into my own belly . . . ”

  “It often happens, you know, that people held in prison cut off one of their own fingers to attract the attention of the judicial system or the media. And they do it with whatever tools they can find. I bought a good quality, well-sharpened knife and carefully disinfected it. Then for half an hour I held an ice pack to the place I was going to stab. I don’t know if I really succeeded in reducing the pain.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  “It was excruciating. I’ve always been a softie.”

  “You must be joking! I’d like to be a softie like you,” Molina chimed in.

  Albouker couldn’t repress a nervous laugh that ended in sobs. Long sobs punctuated by grimaces. He had to hold his stomach with both hands to control the pain. Sebag took advantage of this sudden decrease in tension.

  “On the other hand, I’m sure that you enjoyed writing the threatening letters.”

  “Of course,” Albouker said, still sobbing. “As a teacher of French, it was a first to deliberately make spelling errors.”

  “And sending one to your treasurer, that was amusing too?”

  “Absolutely! I’d love to have seen his face when he opened it. Mercier has always annoyed me. He’s belonged to the association for more than twenty years and would have liked to be president. But our members elected me, not him! I think he’s never forgiven me for that.” He abruptly stopped.

  “Obviously, it’s not very hard to guess who the next president will be. Because now I’m going to have to resign.”

  Sebag would have liked to ask other questions, but he decided that Albouker was ready to sign a confession. Relieved to have gotten it all off his chest, the future former president of the Circle had not yet realized that he’d been duped. He mustn’t be given an opportunity to retract what he’d said. Sebag gestured to Molina to tell him to start printing the report. Jacques typed a few more words on his keyboard before the printer started spitting out two double-sided pages. He caught them as they came out and handed them to Sebag with a congratulatory wink.

  Gilles put the report on the interview in front of Albouker and slipped a pen into his hand.

  “You can reread it if you want.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “Then sign at the bottom of each sheet, please.”

  Albouker did as he was told and Sebag could hardly repress a sigh of relief. He picked up the report and gave it to Molina. Jacques immediately left the room, leaving Sebag alone with Albouker.

  “Am I going to go to prison?”

  “No, I don’t think so. My colleague went to show the document to our superintendent, who will then transmit it to the prosecutor. You are going to wait here at police headquarters until the prosecutor can receive you for the indictment. But I’d be surprised if he decided to put you in detention. You’ve been very cooperative.”

  This remark seemed to reassure Albouker. The French teacher was proud to be seen as a good pupil.

  “The only criminal in this case is behind bars,” Sebag went on. “So far as you’re concerned, you harmed chiefly yourself. And I’m not talking about your wound in the stomach.”

  “I’ve hurt my wife as well. The poor thing, when she finds out that . . . ”

  “That aspect of the case does not concern the police or the courts. It will be for you to tell her about it.”

  “I don’t know how I’m going to do that.”

  It was no longer prison that Guy Albouker feared now.

  “What would you advise?”

  “Oof,” Sebag groaned, suddenly getting up. “I’m not the best marriage counselor.”

  This sudden reaction amused Albouker.

  “But you and Claire are a very harmonious couple. The adjective may seem strange to you but it’s the one my wife and I both spontaneously used.”

  “Thank you,” Sebag replied evasively. “I also sensed a great deal of affection and closeness between you and your wife. She loves you, she’ll understand. And she’ll forgive you.”

  Albouker ran his fingers through his white hair.

  “You’re right. After all, for her it’s not as serious as if I’d cheated on her with another woman.”

  “Since you say so . . . ”

  Sergeant Ripoll opened the door of the office.

  “Lieutenant Molina told me that there’s someone here who’s to be put in a cell.”

  The unfortunate expression alarmed Albouker.

  “A cell?”

  “Don’t worry,” Sebag said, glaring at Ripoll reproachfully. “It’s only while you wait to be called before the prosecutor. If it were up to me, I’d have you wait here and we’d just chat for a while, but you can see that that’s not possible.”

  He added with a friendly smile:

  “It’s police headquarters, after all, not a tea room.”

  He held out his hand to ask him to get up. Albouker rose, shook himself, and smoothed out his wrinkled coat.

  “All ri
ght. Maybe we’ll see each other again?”

  “Definitely not in the context of the investigation, my role is over. But somewhere else, another day, why not?”

  Albouker warmly shook his hand.

  “I’m going to say something that is undoubtedly stupid, but what the hell: I wouldn’t have wanted to be unmasked by anyone other than you, not for anything in the world.”

  Sebag chuckled briefly and put his hand on Albouker’s arm. Then he let him follow Ripoll. The office door closed on a puzzled lieutenant. Albouker’s last remark made him pensive, because it was largely the same as the one Jean Servant had made to him the day before. This wasn’t the first case in his career that had ended with mutual esteem between him and the men he’d succeeded in arresting.

  Sebag would have been more comfortable feeling less empathy. But delinquents and even criminals turned out to be more human in life than in films or television series. True psychopaths, child-killers and perpetrators of crimes against humanity were rare. Sebag wondered if he’d ever taken an undivided pleasure in sending someone to rot in prison. He made a quick review of his career. Yes, that had in fact happened two or three times . . . Fortunately!

  He went over to the window of his office and leaned his forehead against the glass. He looked down on the activity in the Rue de Grande-Bretagne without seeing it. A sweet melancholy was gradually taking hold of him. As it did at the end of each investigation. His own form of postpartum blues. It wasn’t getting any easier, either. On the contrary. He thought of something Victor Hugo wrote: “Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.” That note was just right, in perfect harmony with what he felt.

  Inevitably, that state of mind led him back to Claire.

  He imagined his wife sitting in his office as Albouker had been a few seconds earlier, Claire confessing, Claire admitting that she’d had a lover, Claire telling him with a somber smile blurring her shining eyes: “I wouldn’t want to have been unmasked by anyone other than you, not for anything in the world.”

  He banged his head several times against the glass.

  He’d been able to cleverly lead Albouker to confess, but he had no illusions: the president of the Circle was eager to do it. To confess his sins. Claire might also want to do that. If he asked her the question, she would immediately confess. How often had she given him a cue he’d refused to take?