The old man was driving slowly down the avenue bordering the long beach at Canet. The Mediterranean, normally so calm, was roaring under the driving rain and throwing up heavy, foamy waves onto the quiet sand. Battered by the wind off the sea, the high, straight palms flailed their torn arms as if they were trying to keep their balance. Before he arrived at the marina, he turned first to his left, then left again thirty meters farther on. He found a parking place and took it.
Now he had to wait.
A thick mist gradually covered the windows of his little car, hiding him from the eyes of the people who lived on the street. The car radio was playing golden oldies at low volume. The man massaged his painful hands. The Catalan autumn wasn’t a season for him.
His target lived in an opulent house in the residential quarter of Canet-en-Roussillon. Pink stuccoed walls, blue shutters, Mediterranean tile roofs, pink and red oleander hedges behind an unstuccoed wall. A little bit of paradise. Even with all this rain.
He kept his eyes on the big white gate, hardly a hundred meters in front of him. He was waiting for it to open.
His target was returning from a week’s vacation in Tunisia. He’d made an appointment with him before he left and they had agreed to meet as soon as he got back. He’d introduced himself under a false name and claimed that he was putting together a collection of testimonies on the French of Algeria, but he had at first met with an absolute refusal. He thought he’d understood that his target had just been approached by a historian making the same request and that he had rejected it.
He’d had to argue for a long time, but he’d finally succeeded by explaining that his work would not be a neutral history: he wanted to produce a militant book that would do justice to the courageous fighters for French Algeria.
“Come see me on Sunday morning, as soon as I return,” his target had agreed with a sudden enthusiasm. “My wife has to go to her yoga class. I prefer her not to be there: she doesn’t like me to talk about certain pages of our history.”
“That will be perfect,” he had replied. “If you want, you don’t even need to tell her that I’m going to visit you.”
“We’ll have an hour and a half to talk, will that be enough?”
“I think so. Otherwise we’ll meet again later.”
“Thanks for your understanding.”
Luck was on his side. The bad weather made the headlines and journalists seemed already to have lost interest in Martinez’s murder. His second target probably suspected nothing.
Besides, he wondered if his target had been afraid when he heard the news. For these bastards, this all happened a long time ago. Did they even remember everything they’d done at that time?
He saw an orange light flashing on the wall of the house that he’d been keeping an eye on for a good half hour. The heavy gate slowly opened to allow a luxurious Audi to pass through it. He waited another five minutes before starting the engine. He drove around the neighborhood once and then came back and parked in front of the house.
Getting out of the car, he pulled up the collar of his raincoat. What weather, he sighed as he walked up to the gate. On the first floor of the house, the lights had been turned on and he could see the living room through the large picture window without curtains. He saw a stooped figure and stepped back. He pulled his raincoat’s hood over his head.
The old man was ready to put his gnarled index finger on the button to ring the doorbell when he jumped. Behind the window, a second silhouette came into view. Small, joyful, and bouncy. A young child. He swore. There was a kid in the house. A young kid. Less than ten years old. Hardly any older than his Gabriella.
He’d have to postpone the operation.
He returned to his car, simultaneously disappointed, annoyed, and touched. Gabriella . . .
He thought about his target again and gripped the steering wheel with his hands, triggering an acute pain all the way back to his wrists. An idea occurred to him. He took out his cell phone and called the house.
“Hello, it’s Mr. Malpeyrat. I’m sorry, but something has come up at the last minute and I won’t be able to come this morning. Could we possibly meet this afternoon?”
“The problem is that this afternoon my wife will be here.”
“Oh, yes, that’s true.”
“Next week?”
No, the next week was too far off. It would become increasingly dangerous. He could take some risks for his third target, but not now.
“Unfortunately, that would be too late. My editor is pressuring me, he wants me to send him the manuscript as soon as possible. It’s too bad; your testimony would have been invaluable.”
“It’s really too bad, yes . . . ”
He said no more and waited. Not for long.
“I could meet you somewhere else tomorrow if you want.”
The old man grimaced. He was ready. It was supposed to be today. Tomorrow would be too complicated. Too risky.
“Sorry, my plane leaves early tomorrow morning.”
Another pause.
“I can arrange it for this afternoon, I’ll find a pretext.”
“How about 5 P.M.?”
“Fine. Where?”
“On the beach road between Canet and Saint-Cyprien, for example. I happen to have an appointment not far from there. What kind of car will you be driving?”
“A blue Audi A8. And you?”
He hesitated. It had to happen in the target’s car.
“I don’t know yet. But I’ll be able to find you easily.”
“That’s for sure, with this weather there won’t be anyone at the beach.”
“Then we can do what we need to do without being disturbed,” the old man concluded, a predatory smile on his lips.
His little SEAT Ibiza was buffeted as he drove down the road between the Mediterranean and Canet Lake. The wind off the sea was blowing a sticky mixture of water, salt, and sand onto the windshield. White with anger, the waves merged with the sky not far off the coast.
The old man hunched over the steering wheel, leaning far forward to see the road. In spite of the poor visibility, he had no trouble spotting the blue Audi, the only car parked that Sunday morning on the ten-kilometer stretch between the seaside resorts of Canet and Saint-Cyprien.
He stopped his car next to the Audi. He was late, but on purpose. It was important that his target get there first, that he be comfortably settled in his car, and especially that he stay there. That was also why he hadn’t said what car he’d be driving. If the target had any doubts, even small ones, regarding who was in the car that stopped alongside his, he wouldn’t venture into the storm to find out.
Once he’d gotten out of the Seat, the old man looked quickly around. He could pick out the headlights of another vehicle coming toward them. He walked up to the Audi and looked at the backseat before knocking on the passenger door. The door opened. He got in. The other car with its lights on passed by them and disappeared in the direction of Canet.
Once he was inside the car, he held out his hand to his target. He hadn’t changed much, despite his features deepened by age and swollen by good food and luxury. The target hesitated for a second, then mechanically shook his hand while he sifted through his memories.
“It’s funny, your face seems familiar, but I don’t think we’ve already met. Your name doesn’t ring a bell: Jean Malpeyrat, that’s it, right?”
André Roman was still looking at him trying to recognize his face disguised by the mask of time. His memory was slowly coming back to him.
He opened his eyes wide, and then his dumbfounded mouth murmured:
“It can’t be . . . ”
His eyes slowly moved from the old man’s face to his hand. It was already holding a gun. A Beretta. His astonishment increased.
“It must be a dream . . . ”
“A nightmare, you mean.”
“What do you want?”
“To kill you. I’ve come a long way to do that.”
“But . . . why?”
“You know very well why, you bastard.”
Fear crept into André Roman’s eyes.
“That was so long ago . . . ”
“Not that long, really.”
The rain was drumming on the car’s roof, and like a metronome, it emphasized the sobriety of their conversation. Their mouths were emitting vapor that clung to the windows in an opaque shroud.
“What about the others?”
“One of them is already gone.”
André’s eyes narrowed and his mouth puckered.
“Who?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. You’re going to see him in Hell.”
Roman’s breathing accelerated, this was serious. But there might still be hope. He had money, he was rich, he’d invested his nest egg well.
He didn’t have time to make an offer. He heard a voice from the past, dry and determined.
“I don’t want your money.”
This time, André understood that there was no way out. In a few seconds, the light was going to go out forever. He squirmed on his seat and managed to slip his left hand discreetly into the pocket of his overcoat. He’d have liked to be able to warn his former boss, but the latter had long since burned his bridges. Feeling his way, he tapped in the shortcut for his home phone. He could also have called the police, he said to himself afterward. Too late. He wouldn’t be able to try again.
The old righter of wrongs had seen what he was doing but didn’t care. He was in control of the timing, and the hour had rung.
“Adieu.”
Without waiting for a response, he fired.
André opened his eyes wide. He took his hand out of his overcoat pocket and put it on his torn belly. Strangely, it didn’t hurt, but a terrible cold was overtaking him. He lifted his eyes toward his killer and then his head sank. He would have liked to understand.
The shooter raised the barrel of his gun slightly. A car passed close to them on the coast road. He waited until it was far away before firing a second time. Right in the heart. Roman’s body collapsed, held upright only by his seatbelt. An odor of gunpowder filled the car.
He took a deep breath.
A child’s voice made itself heard in the Audi.
“Hello . . . Grandpa? Grandpa? My Dédé?”
The voice moved farther away.
“Mama, it’s my Dédé, he’s not saying anything.”
He went through his victim’s pockets, found the cell phone, and turned it off. He had trouble swallowing. War didn’t do you any favors. Not now and not in the past, either.
He took out his can of spray paint. He still had to sign his act.
Then he got back into his own car. He’d completed the second part of his mission. The third would be more difficult because now the target was more likely to be on his guard. Even if he didn’t succeed in killing the last criminal, he knew that his life was already over. Fear would haunt him right to the end.
In a bar that was open in the port of Saint-Cyprien, he drank a pastis, shivering. In the late afternoon, he crossed the border again.