Sebag had spent the afternoon at police headquarters. First he wrote up a report on that morning’s interview with the officials of the Pied-Noir Circle, and then read his colleagues’ reports as they came in. Molina, for his part, was interviewing the winegrowers in Terrats. This task had been assigned the day before to Raynaud and Moreno, but the inseparable duo had ended up working on another case.
Lambert and Llach had talked with Josette Vidal, the victim’s woman friend, who had hurried back from Barcelona. Born in Prades seventy-two years before, she had gone to work in one of the Bella doll factories when she was sixteen, and remained there until the firm went bankrupt and closed in 1984. Then she and her husband had taken over a tobacconist’s shop in Moulin-à-Vent. That was how she met Bernard Martinez, initially as a customer. After her husband died in 2002, they had naturally become closer and finally became intimate. “Intimate”—the word made Sebag smile. The report said no more about it. The term had probably been used by Josette Vidal herself. Had they been talking to a younger witness, the policemen would certainly have asked her to explain the nature of their relationship more precisely. The question “Were you lovers?” would surely have been asked. But Llach and Lambert had remained very discreet. Sebag didn’t hold that against them; he would probably have done the same thing.
Josette Vidal wasn’t aware of anyone who might be her “companion’s” enemy. She hadn’t noticed that he seemed worried recently, and knew nothing about his past in Algeria, not to mention about any possible ties to the OAS. The lady’s statements left hardly any doubt regarding her antipathy toward Pieds-Noirs in general—“people who are always brooding on their misfortunes.” Martinez was the only one she liked. Go figure. Love has its mysteries, and in that respect, age doesn’t change anything.
Llach and Lambert had taken Josette to Martinez’s apartment, but she hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Nothing was missing. She was categorical about that.
Sebag reread the report. The policemen’s conventional expressions and standard formulas nonetheless conveyed a glimpse of a strong personality, but they told him nothing about the atmosphere in which the conversation had taken place. He picked up the receiver of his office telephone and dialed the number of Llach’s cell phone.
“What did you think of our double widow?”
“The old lady’s a tough cookie. She doesn’t mince words. At first I thought she wasn’t upset at all, but that was just a façade. As soon as we got to the apartment, she broke down. Especially when she saw the bloodstain in the living room.”
“She really doesn’t know anything about the OAS?”
“No, nothing at all. There’s no reason to doubt what she says. She dislikes Pieds-Noirs so much that when he was with her Martinez must have acted as if he’d been born in Perpignan.”
“And where does that hostility come from?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t ask her.”
Llach interrupted himself and paused for a few seconds.
“You know, they are a little odd, those people. They left Algeria fifty years ago and they still haven’t gotten over it!”
“As a Catalan, how would you feel if you’d had to leave your native country?”
“You can’t make that comparison, it’s completely different!”
“It is? Why?”
“Algeria wasn’t their country!”
“They were born there, and their parents and grandparents, too, sometimes.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t change anything: it wasn’t their country. It couldn’t last. The crusades didn’t last either. They should have known that.”
Sebag didn’t know what to reply. He said goodbye to his colleague and hung up. Then he plunged into Ménard’s report.
Ménard had talked with a professor at the University of Perpignan who had outlined for him the Algerian War and more particularly the OAS. Its birth in February 1961. Its historical leaders, Susini, Lagaillarde, Salan, Gardy. The soldiers it lost, Degueldre, Sergent, Bastien-Thiry, and a few hundred more. Its targeted assassinations of French policemen, FLN militants, and Pieds-Noirs it considered too moderate. And then above all its blind terrorist attacks: car bombs, plastic explosives, and assaults on Arab immigrants. It even used mortars to bombard a Muslim neighborhood on March 25, 1962: on that day, about forty people died, including women and children.
The OAS had committed its last attacks on territory that was by then Algerian in July, 1962. It had later carried out other actions in metropolitan France, aimed almost exclusively at its sworn enemy, General de Gaulle. Its principal leaders had been arrested; some were given death sentences, others were given long prison sentences. A few had succeeded in going into exile, usually in Spain, but sometimes as far away as Argentina. Finally, in 1968, an initial amnesty had been promulgated, supplemented by a second in 1974.
The name of Bernard Martinez had meant nothing to the Perpignan university professor. But he was not a specialist on the OAS, and had advised Ménard to contact one of his colleagues who taught in Marseille. Thus Ménard hoped to learn more the following day.
Around 5:30, Sebag suddenly felt ravenously hungry. After talking to Pascal Lucas, he’d gulped down only one portion of pizza and a couple of pieces of fruit, but he hesitated to go out to buy himself a treat. Since he’d turned forty, he found that he had a tendency to gain weight. And despite his running, he had to watch what he ate.
The ring of his cell phone provided a welcome diversion.
The call was from Guy Albouker.
“Excuse me for bothering you, but after our conversation I had an idea.”
“Did you remember something important concerning Mr. Martinez?”
“No, it’s not that. I think I told you everything about Bernard. I didn’t know him that well.”
“So?”
“It has to do with the common conflation of the Pieds-Noirs and the OAS, you remember, I talked to you about that . . . ”
“Yes, I remember.”
Molina entered the office noisily, threw a paper bag on his desk, and slumped into his chair. Distracted for a moment, Sebag had to ask Albouker to repeat what he’d just said.
“It doesn’t matter,” the president of the association said, “I think it wasn’t clear anyway. In fact, I don’t know how to explain it to you . . . I might be sending you on a wild-goose chase, but it occurred to me that since people always lump OAS and Pied-Noir together, the murderer might have done that, too.”
Albouker stopped there.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Sebag said. “Could you explain a little further?”
“Well, I was thinking that the murderer might not have had it in for Martinez in particular, or even for the OAS, but for Pieds-Noirs in general.”
This time Sebag understood, and he was beginning to see the disturbing consequences of such a hypothesis.
“Aren’t you being a little paranoid, Mr. Albouker?”
“Yes, I know, and it’s probably absurd. But I couldn’t get the question off my mind and wanted to mention it to you. I don’t know whether I should have done that.”
“Yes, yes, you did the right thing. We have to explore all hypotheses. Has anything happened recently that would lead you to have such a . . . concern? Threats, hostile letters?”
“No, nothing like that. At least not at the Circle. But we’re not the only association of Pieds-Noirs in the region, and you’d have to ask the others. You must know that the situation in Perpignan has been rather tense for a few years with all the more or less violent controversies over some of our monuments . . . ”
Sebag preferred not to venture onto a terrain that he still didn’t know very well. Castello had mentioned the subject the day before, but hadn’t given any details, as if everyone already knew all about it. Sebag remembered only that there had been stormy debates about a stele or a wall, he didn’t quite know. He’d have to work up the subject for tomorrow.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Albouker, we’ll look into everything. Besides, we have a meeting tomorrow with some of your opponents.”
“Wait a minute, I didn’t say that it was they. I haven’t accused anyone.”
“I know, Mr. Albouker, I know. I’ve noted your concern and your hypothesis. And for your part, if you hear anything about recent threats made against your community, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Sebag, and thanks for your understanding. Excuse me for having bothered you. But we arouse so much hostility each time we speak out that I’ve always feared that some day we’d be the victims of fanatics or extremists.”
“No one can know the future, but for the moment, we have no information that would justify that kind of concern.”
“You’re right, I’m probably being a little paranoid. Anyway, there’s nothing we can do for the moment, so as we used to say over there: Insha’Allah!”
Albouker excused himself again and hung up.
In the meantime, Molina had booted up his computer. He looked up.
“What’s going on?”
Sebag briefly summed up the conversation.
“Pure fantasy,” Molina commented. “And fortunately for us. Can you imagine, if he were right . . . ”
“Even if he’s wrong, it could cause a lot of problems if that worry spread. All it takes is for certain people to believe it.”
Molina grabbed the paper bag on his desk and held it open for Sebag.
“A little pastry?”
“Is that reasonable?”
“It’s being reasonable that isn’t reasonable. Life is too short.”
“You can see where a maxim like that leads,” Sebag said, pointing to his belly.
“My name is Jacques, Jacques Molina. Not Maxime.”
Sebag chuckled and thrust a hand into the bag.
“I’d planned to go running this evening anyway. So, what did you learn this afternoon?”
“Nothing, or in any case not much. I talked to the mayor and the head of the winegrowers’ cooperative in Terrats, and as might have been expected, there was nothing interesting in that direction. When he returned from Algeria, Martinez bought four hectares of vineyards and a little house. He sold his wine to the co-op. He worked alone, except of course for harvest time. He never made much money and was hit hard by the recession in the sector. He went into debt to improve the quality of his wine, but the revenues didn’t come in. As we already knew, he sold everything in 1997, the house and the land. He had to pull out the vines.”
“That must have been a heartbreaker for him.”
Molina shrugged.
“As it was for everybody who had to do it. You know, when I was a kid, there were vineyards everywhere around here. In twenty years the area in vines has been reduced by half or two-thirds. And these last few years it’s gotten even worse.”
Sebag knew the situation. His usual running paths between Saint-Estève and Baixas passed through former vineyards. Weeds had taken over and were thriving around the giant carcasses of uprooted vinestocks.
“Are you sure, then? Should we drop the winegrowing lead?”
“I don’t claim to have your intuition, but I think we can at least put it on the back burner. What’s next?”
“We have a meeting tomorrow with members of the CCN, the ‘Collective Contra Nostalgeria,’ the people who have organized against the monuments to the memory of the Pieds-Noirs.”
“‘Nostalgeria,’ that’s a pretty good one. And what were those monuments? I don’t quite remember . . . ”
“I don’t either. I have to bone up on that before I go home this evening, and I’ll give you a rundown on it as we’re driving there tomorrow.”
“That’s perfect. If it’s okay with you, I’m going to head home now. I’ve got a date tonight.”
Divorced five years before, Jacques Molina was making up for lost time.
“You don’t stop, do you? Brunette or blonde?”
“Blonde. And you?”
“What do you mean, me?”
“Your noontime date today!”
“Oh yeah, that . . . Big and hairy!”
Molina looked disgusted.
“Yuck,” he muttered as he left the office.
A plastic bag was sailing on the wind, trying vainly to imitate the flight of a turtledove. It slowly rose into the dark sky and was then abruptly blown back to the ground. Its hazardous course ended when it got caught in arms of a gnarled grapevine. With every gust of the north wind, the last vineyard in the area was decorated by such sad garlands.
Sebag quickened his pace. The wind was now blowing in his face.
After giving Claire a kiss, he’d put on his running shoes and sweats and headed for the gravel paths. He’d gone without hesitating, driven by the gusts of wind and the things he had on his mind. Now he had to go home, his mind empty and his legs tired, running into the damp wind. Big clouds were mounting in the sky, heralding the first rains of the autumn. As he was coming home from work, Gilles had listened to the weather on his car radio. Storm warning. Over the next two days, as much water was going to fall as fell on central France in a whole winter. But for all that Gilles, who had worked for several years in Chartres, would not have traded the climate in Roussillon for that of Eure-et-Loir. Rains were like hassles: better that they come all at once, so long as they don’t last.
The first drops fell when he reached the Saint-Estève heights. He still had a few fallow fields to cross before going back down toward his home. Under the heavy sky, the piles of uprooted grapevines no longer made him think of giant carcasses but of tiny, ridiculous slag heaps.
Sebag slowed his pace as he entered his street. He picked up his empty trashcan, which the refuse workers had left lying flat on the ground so that the wind wouldn’t blow it into the middle of the street.