Abduction (14 page)

“How about if you went on your own?” I tried, making no attempt to hide my loathing. “Perhaps I'd be more useful here?”

The face paled, the eyes hardened.

“I really need your help,” the old man insisted.

I was already in the doorway when Meriem called me back.

“You're sure we shouldn't call the police? What if we're wrong about this?”

Overwhelmed, I held out my empty palms in a sign of ignorance. I looked down to avoid her gaze. I shut the door behind me like a robber while my mother-in-law carried on reciting the prayer against the whispering devil that concludes the Koran:
“…Against the mischief of the stealthily withdrawing whisperer, who whispers in man's breast against djinn and men.”

At the local grocer's shop, Mathieu selected, almost at random, some fruit and vegetables, bread, coffee and a kilo of frozen meat. Each time the old man asked for an item in Arabic, the shopkeeper answered him brazenly in French. “It's really working, eh, your genuine Aurès peasant's hat?” I whispered maliciously, picking up a packet of rice. At the till, Mathieu held out two thousand-dinar notes, but I brushed his money aside.

“Let's go to your car,” he said, basket in hand, as I made for the block of flats.

“OK,” I mumbled, “but make it quick.”

We jumped into the car. He pushed aside the bag that I had forgotten to put back in the boot and then put the basket between his feet. Running his tongue over his lips, he stared anxiously at me, then his eyes left mine and roamed aimlessly for a few seconds.

“Well?”

“The man on the telephone…”

“Yes?”

“I don't think he's a terrorist, an Islamist from the GIA or some other group. His language, the jokes he cracks… It's true that he spoke like an Islamist at first, lots of
Allahs
and
Sidna Mohammads
all over the place. But then he changed register. He sounded like he was making fun of himself and of religion, as if he were taunting us with the idea that maybe he wasn't the crazy terrorist we thought he was. I might be wrong though…”

“Oh really? And what difference does it make to us, Mathieu? Whether he's an Islamist or not, whether he's acting in the name of God or of the devil, the result is the same: he's still taken my daughter!”

I don't know. I told you he gave my father's name.”

“Maybe he works for the civil service or at the public records office? You must have had to give some details about your family – father, mother, things like that – when you filled out your naturalization forms.”

He remained silent. I heard him swallow down his saliva. I sensed that he hadn't yet told me the most important thing. He got out a cigarette, but didn't light it.

“Actually, he said something else just before her hung up. “Do you remember M'sila?”'

“What's this about M'sila?”

“It's up on the High Plateaux…”

“Because now you're going to explain to me where M'sila is?” I said with a vulgar snigger.

“No, but it's where I did my military service.”

I gave a start.

“What do any of your veteran's stories have to do with us?”

“Nothing, probably.”

He blinked, then looked away, too quickly, leaving me with the unpleasant feeling that he was lying.

“Say what you've got to say, Mathieu.”

“He also said something about Tahar.”

“Tahar?”

“Yes, Latifa's first husband.”

“Meriem's father?”

He wagged his chin to say yes.

“That's all common knowledge,” I protested, “especially as Meriem's father's a war hero. There's even a road named after him in a town up in the Aurès mountains!”

Mathieu's eyebrows arched helplessly.

“Of course, but he also mentioned the place where I arrested Tahar.”

“You arrested Meriem's father?”

“Yes, when I was in the French army. You won't have forgotten that I'm a good old Breton and that, at the time, a guy my age from my country had no choice but to enlist under the French flag and do his bloody military service fighting your people. The
fellagha
and their kind, if you see what I mean, son…”

His voice was full of dark humour. I didn't pick him up on either the scornful ‘son' or ‘
fellagha
', which sounded even more contemptuous when spoken by a Frenchman to an Algerian.

“And what was the place called?”

“It happened not far from a
douar
called Mechta Kasbah.”

“Doesn't ring any bells. Should it?”

A sarcastic twinkle glittered in his eyes.

“I see that you really know your country's history
well
, like all Algerians.”

I reached for the door handle, exasperated by his condescension. I had more urgent things to do than to subject myself to the barbs of some stupid old fool, even if he was my father-in-law. The Frenchman's gaze, both evasive and beseeching at the same time, made me break off my gesture. The man decided to light the cigarette he had been abusing for some time.

“There's probably no link. I don't think so, anyway.”

He took a first nervous drag and then a second before throwing the cigarette out of the window.

“I've been smoking non-stop since yesterday. I feel like there's tar in my mouth,” he said, justifying himself.

“Mathieu, what exactly are you hiding from me?”

The vertical wrinkles that had formed between his eyebrows were now so pronounced that they reminded me of gashes with a scalpel.

“This man knows me too well to be a simple criminal.”

“What is this crap? So there's some link between you and this bastard?”

“Or… between him and Meriem's father?”

“But he's been dead for ages…”

I looked at him in disbelief.

“That's it?”

“Yes, that's it. But it's incredible, all of this.”

His evasive attitude fuelled my exasperation. I tapped on the steering wheel with my index finger.

“Sorry to rush you, but I've got things to do. Go home, and I'll catch up with you later.”

“Where are you going?”

“Urgent errand.”

“What errand can be that urgent on the day your daughter was kidnapped? Your wife needs you.”

My voice shook with impatience.

“I don't need any lessons from you, Mathieu. I know better than you how I should behave towards my wife. Hurry up, please!”

My father-in-law did as he was told with bad grace. The basket was heavy, but I didn't help him. Just as he was about to slam the door, he called out slightly breathlessly, “He didn't make any particular demands?”

I hesitated, my cheeks burning.

“Er, no… He got in touch with me just to tell me that Shehera was in his hands. He didn't make any demands, apart from keeping everything quiet from the police. Let's wait for a ransom request, either today or tomorrow.”

The Breton put down his basket. He arranged the baguettes, all the time peering strangely at me.

“You're not fobbing me off?”

“What is this little game, eh? Accusing one another of keeping secrets?”

The suspicious look hadn't left his face. I thought: “Go screw yourself!” as I replied as calmly as possible, “Why would I fob you off? Aren't we both on the same side, our family's side?”

A sordid observer inside me burst out laughing:
There you go, pretending to be such a good boy! You'll need an alibi later on and you can't afford to let this nitwit suspect anything!

Mathieu picked up the basket again, his face twisting with the effort. He took two paces towards the block of flats before suddenly turning round.

“You know, whatever you may think, Tahar was a very good friend of mine.”

He seemed to be weighing up the pros and cons of the confession he was about to make.

“Might even be the only friend I ever had in life. I married his wife, but that's got nothing to do with it. I fell in love with her by accident. She's one of the only things I still love in Algeria – along with Meriem and your daughter.”

His eyes glinted with a sudden sparkle and I caught myself thinking that this apparently timid man, diminished by the humiliations of age, must have been an awkward customer in his youth – and the image of a merciless tracker of maquisards flashed through my mind. He paused slightly, as if stunned by his own candour, before concluding, in a panting, almost furious outburst, “And I love them more than you could ever imagine!”

Standing there in front of the entrance to the tower block, he looked even thinner than usual. “You'll snap soon like a dried-out reed, Mathieu. Whatever made you stay in a country that dislikes you? I don't know what you did for them, but you were well and truly wrong to trust in the fraternity and gratitude of a people intent on forgetting!”

I toyed with this idea for a couple of seconds before deciding that I would postpone a critical examination of my father-in-law's tiny shavings of revelation till later. I checked my mobile's battery and screen; the kidnapper hadn't tried to reach me. My relief was almost immediately transformed into its polar opposite: there was always a chance I'd receive some news about my daughter as long as this nutter got a kick out of threatening me over the phone!

…Are you going to finally make up your mind, you blathering coward!

I felt the foetus of fear in my belly kick out brutally. My God, how could my brain talk to me as if it were lodged in someone else's skull?
He'll cut her to pieces if you don't make up your mind fast! Choose the fine human lamb you'll offer up to this telephone devil quickly, you two-bit Abraham! Right now, he is your all-powerful God! Do you really think old Abraham was any better off than you? If he hadn't resigned himself to killing his beloved son, he and his whole family would have been punished and his son with them, in the cruellest fashion imaginable too, if you want my opinion.

“I don't want your opinion,” I whined.

My voice echoed eerily around the inside of the car. By some absurd reflex, I looked round to check that there was no one in the back.

I didn't have much time left. I had to commit a crime within the next few hours and I didn't have the faintest idea of which ‘procedure' I should follow. I pushed down hard on my bladder with both fists, as my terror was not only giving me a splitting headache but also a constant urge to urinate. Closing my eyes, I tried to regain a semblance of control over my limbs and my bowels – to no avail, of course.

I sighed – and the
efffff
sounded like a groan. I started the car without a clue where I was heading, depressing the clutch with an absent-minded glance in the rear-view mirror. It was just at that moment that he came out of the block of flats – striding ahead, with a broad, toothy grin, engaged in animated conversation with a neighbour.

A great lump of coldness condensed my panic into a sort of ice-axe about to drive a hole through my stomach.

How come I hadn't thought of him?

I
s he the one?

“Yes, he's the one,” I answered myself.

How can you be so sure? If I understand correctly, you've just decided the fate of a human being in the time it took to depress the clutch?

I refused to listen any further. Gritting my teeth, I pulled on the handbrake. The man, now alone, was still in sight.

I massaged my temples vigorously. I got out of my vehicle after pushing the damned bag under the front seat. I blinked. The weather was wonderful. I chuckled through my teeth: “It's a very fine day for killing, my friend Aziz…” and, after some thought, “It's a wonderful day to get killed, my stupid friend.”

I didn't take anything with me as I realised that the murder couldn't take place until after dark. I walked towards the man with the intuition that spontaneity would be my best decoy.

He was buying some peanuts in the local café. For a second, like someone taking a lungful of oxygen before diving deep underwater, I thought of my daughter. Then, extinguishing all lights of humanity in my head, I saw myself only as an animal lying in wait, all its faculties trained on one overriding instinct – to defend its offspring.

I approached the man locals suspected of ‘working' as an informer for shady police or army agencies with a fittingly shy smile, the ‘submissive' smile any beggar in the human horde adopts when the person he is approaching is socially superior to him. And, as normal convention willed it, my interlocutor reacted with a distrustful expression containing a slight trace of smugness that justified my obsequious attitude.

“Hello,
Si
Abdou.”

“Ah, hello
Si
Aziz… How is our chief biologist?” he replied in an almost familiar tone of voice.

I couldn't remember ever having talked about my job in his presence. I immediately stiffened, as though my interlocutor had just confirmed everyone's suspicions. He noticed my confusion and it seemed to amuse him.

We exchanged the usual meaningless phrases about the health of our respective families, the weather and the incompetence of the council departments who weren't getting round to filling in the potholes.

“Well?…” he suddenly interrupted me with a meaningful arching of the eyebrow, “let's get to the point.”

“
Si
Abdou, I need a bit of advice.”

“Oh?” he replied. His inquisitive eyes studied me with the attention of an entomologist hesitating as to whether a new species is dangerous or not.

“I've got a slight administrative… problem.”

“And?”

“And they say you know a lot of people…”

“You know people talk a lot of nonsense.”

The man's face remained impassive. I swallowed hard, making it up as I went along.