Abduction (41 page)

Overwhelmed, the man dabbed his face with his handkerchief.

“I'd saved up a fair amount of money over the course of my life and it was of no use to me anymore because I had no family left. So I put it towards the only cause that mattered to me before being devoured by worms – to find you, every last one of you, and present you with the bill! To begin my hunt, I turned to the organisation for veteran mujahideen. Before she remarried, your mother had received a pension as the widow of a war veteran. I obtained a first address – money, as usual! A year ago, I located your mother's flat. At first I wanted to kill Latifa and that damn Mathieu who lived with her. I didn't immediately recognise the Frenchman who went by the name of Ali. I made enquiries, with lots of baksheesh. I was stunned by what I discovered; while he was a soldier, Mathieu had helped his prisoner, Tahar, to escape from a French army prison! That was when I clearly realised that the hand of God was guiding my steps towards you, perhaps to make up for what He had inflicted on me in the past. By poking around a little more, I found out about you. By killing you first, I wanted to cause as much grief as possible to your mother before I went after her and that thug Mathieu. I followed you one afternoon with a pistol in my pocket to liquidate you. And then I almost went crazy: a teenager as pretty as springtime came to meet you. You called her Shehera, she ran up to you and hugged you, laughing…”

He shook his revolver violently.

“That was the day I decided that I would start with the youngest; she, of course, was to set Tahar's family's labour of grief in motion! For weeks I gathered information about each of you: telephone numbers, jobs, habits… Then I planned my operation, sparing no expense to buy this shitty flat on your shitty estate, hiring the services of a hard-up, amnestied terrorist, kidnapping the girl on her birthday, blackmailing you with her death, etc.”

A bad-tempered groan escaped him.

“How dare you give your daughter the name of the poor girl that your father and his kind had murdered! That was utter sacrilege for me! I had the impression that my daughter was dying even more. One Sheherazade replaces another and Bob's your uncle! Your father recommended the name to you, didn't he?”

“Yes,” Meriem conceded in a neutral voice, her face marbled with blotches of colour. “My father isn't the murderer you describe. I believe all he wanted was to perpetuate your daughter's memory.”

“You disgusting sow! You hope I'll be satisfied with a trick like that? That my daughter isn't dead because your daughter's lucky enough to be alive? Yet every moment your daughter lives is an insult to the memory of my own!”

He had advanced towards Meriem, arm raised, and Aziz had in turn started to move sideways to protect his wife. The old man bit his lip before lowering his hand, which was still holding the revolver.

“Do you want to show me that you love your wife – to the point of risking your life for her? That's easy, son. What I want, though, is for one of you to kill the other out of love. So, who's going to go for the pistol? No volunteer?”

He opened his mobile, dialled a number and waited, favouring them with a mocking pout. A voice, a young one, crackled over the loudspeaker.

“Who is it? Is it you?”

“Yes. Give me the girl.”

“Shall I take her down?”

“No, just take the sticky tape off her mouth. For a few seconds, just for a chat.”

“OK. Hey, when do we get rid of her?”

“The plan hasn't changed – you act in half an hour. For the moment you wait, is that understood?”

“Understood! If we take too long, they'll find us in the end. I'm fed up of being locked up indoors…”

“Not another word. The loudspeaker's on and I've got visitors. The girl – quick!”

Aziz knew that what he was going through was real. Nevertheless, despite the evidence of his senses, part of him kept repeating that this was so absurd that it couldn't be part of reality. A little to reassure himself, he gazed lovingly at his shattered wife, her frame crumpled, her eyes red.

Reality…

The old man still had the mobile in his hand. The loudspeaker initially transmitted some muffled sound, maybe footsteps, then faint breathing, followed almost immediately by a grunt, from the accomplice, threatening her: “Scream and I kick the tins over! Understand?”

A female voice – which chilled the couple – agreed with difficulty.

“All right, I'm going to hold the telephone up to your ear and you talk. Don't move or it's all over…”

“Who do I have to talk to?” asked the small, exhausted voice.

“W
ith Mummy,” Meriem answered, eyeing the telephone intently. “With your mummy.”

“Is that you, Mummy?”

“Yes, my darling, it's me, your mummy who loves you so much.”

Tears were running down Meriem's cheeks, but Aziz noted, with pain and admiration, that she maintained a virtually normal intonation. Parents should never show their children that they are scared, she had once told him; it just terrorises them even more.

“Have they hurt you, baby?”

“Yes, Mummy, a lot. And now…”

Shehera started sobbing and her sniffing prevented her from regaining her breath.

“And now… now… they… wa… want to hang me… at my age… I haven't done… anything…”

“Daddy and me won't let it happen, baby…”

The strangled cry rang out: “Help, Mummy, don't let them, don't…” before being consigned to the void by the phone lid snapping shut.

The woman walked towards the man. With one hand she brushed aside the revolver pointing at her. She poked the old man hard in the chest with her index finger.

“You can't do this, you madman… You can't do this… You can't…”

Even as he retreated, the old man spat out furiously, “Now you understand! It hurts, eh? I shouted like you at the time: those nutters couldn't have done something like that – they couldn't have done
that
! But they did it… They did it!”

He spat on the floor – probably to stop himself crying.

“They did it… So now it's my turn to be mad! You will pay for everyone in Algeria…”

Aziz now spoke, his tone shrill, although he tried to strengthen it by coughing.

“What is your deal exactly?”

Meriem started. Knitting her brows, it looked as if she was about to protest. The kidnapper gave a knowing wink before bending down to pick up the old pistol and throwing it to her husband.

“Finally a serious conversation. You kill your wife, then you kill me and, with a bit of luck, you free your daughter.”

“How can I be sure that you'll tell me where she is?”

“You don't really have a choice. Hurry up, you've only got 25 minutes left. After that, everyone, without exception, will be dead.”

“I want something more concrete than just idle talk. Your price is high,” Aziz retorted, forcing himself to talk as if he were in a business negotiation, “and you don't offer any guarantees about the rest of the contract.”

The man Meriem had called the devil let out a snigger.

“Some keys – would that be acceptable?”

“Keys?”

“The keys to her prison, for example.”

The man rummaged around in a drawer and pulled out a bunch of keys.

Aziz didn't reach out for them.

“First you have to swear to me on the soul of your dead daughter that those keys really do unlock my daughter's prison.”

The man scowled. He thought hard for a few seconds, fiddling with the bunch of keys. Then, shrugging his shoulders, he threw the keys into the open drawer. He took two other keys out of his pocket, one small, one big, the two tied together with a piece of string.

“Fine. I swear on my daughter's soul that
these
keys really do unlock your daughter's prison.”

“What if you're still lying?”

“Don't ever say that word again when I swear by my daughter, please, otherwise I'll kill you here and now, one after the other.”

Aziz searched for his wife's eyes, but her head was hanging and she refused him any sight of her face. The old man became impatient.

“I'm not going to wait for the coming of the Messiah with you. Are you ready to kill your wife now?”

“First give me the keys. What's more, for
all this
(he gestured towards the old pistol and then his wife) to mean anything, I have to be certain that the cell is accessible in under two minutes – on foot of course – and that the survivor will have a good chance of freeing Shehera. Can you guarantee that?”

The old man sucked on the inside of his cheek before blurting out, “It can be done…if you're quick.”

“Will you swear on…”

“On my daughter's soul I swear. Here are the keys. Are you satisfied?”

The kidnapper's eyes now exhibited an almost childish excitement.

“Well, let's get it over and done with! Your wife has gone all pale; she can't stand waiting at the abattoir door any longer. And I'm in a hurry to meet up with my family again.”

Meriem had sat down again. Keeping her eyes obstinately lowered, she had put both hands on her lap after straightening her dress. Apart from one of her legs vibrating, she betrayed none of her emotions.

Aziz cocked the pistol. He was amazed that he was so calm. Were their lives destined to be shattered in such ignominious fashion? Was there nothing to be done to avoid this unimaginable gunshot?

Her breathing shallow, Meriem held her arms across her chest, hunching over as if trying to reduce the area of flesh exposed to death. The old man's eyes lit up with eagerness.

“Still hesitating, son?” he whispered in slight disappointment. “Abraham hesitated too, but when he had to do it, he did it!”

“You take me for Abraham? And yourself for God?”

Aziz's tone was one of amused astonishment.

“But I'm not Abraham,” he murmured to himself. “You can both piss off, you and your Abraham!”

He looked longingly at his wife, who had pulled her head down into her shoulders and was waiting for the deathblow. Her raincoat was open; the dress suited her particularly well and Aziz regretted not having complimented his wife on it.

Aziz's heart melted with pain. He thought, with the ridiculous hope that she might hear him: “Sweetheart, how could you think for one moment that I would put my life above yours?”

Meriem raised her head, surprised at the silence that reigned in the room. For a second, Aziz allowed himself a smile at her, before pulling himself together.

He held out the gun to the slumped woman.

“Here you are, Meriem… It was my job to defend you… Come on, get up… Take the gun and the keys… Shoot quickly, don't think… Don't laze around like that… Stand up and turn towards me. Aim at my forehead. Afterwards, ask him for the place and run there to free our daughter…”

He took Meriem by the shoulders, manhandling her roughly.

“Hurry up. You haven't got much time left…”

The woman tottered on her feet and she had to catch hold of her husband's arm. She threw a horrified glance at the weapon that had been placed decisively in her hand. She beseeched him silently. Aziz shook his head, still wearing the same smile that chilled one part of her soul and warmed another.

“Meriem, you have honoured me by living with me and by giving me a child. That's sufficient for my life not to have been a failure.”

The old man said sarcastically, “Maybe I ought to apologise for being here, but the clock is ticking, lovebirds.”

Frightened and angry, Aziz yelled, “Shoot, for God's sake, shoot. Otherwise, our daughter will be hanged. You can't let that happen. Mathieu would have died for nothing, and your mother too!”

She levelled her arm at him. But the trembling of her lips showed that she hadn't yet made her mind up to shoot. A tear welled up in her eye, then a second. She wagged her head in a gesture of helplessness.

Aziz started cursing her – and night the colour of pitch invaded his heart.

“I can't,” she whimpered. “You're my husband…”

“Are you going to shoot or not, you slut? Shoot, you idiot, you bitch! Do you want our daughter to die?”

A furrow appeared on Meriem's forehead. He noticed a small crease of anger between her eyebrows, so he heaped even more insults on her.

“You whore… you dirty louse…”

He heard a first
click
, then a second.

She had fired
. And he wasn't dead.

With feverish eyes, she pulled the trigger again. The same sinister click. He read utter shame in her eyes:
I've killed my husband and yet he's still here staring at me!

Their host's laughter rang out thunderously.

“The old peashooter is jammed…That bloody Mathieu! A damned nuisance even from beyond the grave!”

Meriem muttered, “Oh, jeering at us, are you…”

She dropped the useless gun. She was breathing spasmodically, as if she'd just surfaced after a long time underwater.

“You devil! I kill my husband and you burst out laughing…”

She bent down over the table, her back hiding her hands. She leaped forward with a grunt.

The knife plunged into the madman's chest while he was still shaking with laughter. Even under the impact, the man didn't lose his balance. Grabbing Meriem by the hair, he twisted her neck round and, with no hesitation, shot her in her exposed temple at pointblank range.

The sound was strangely quiet, little more than the
pop
of a cork from a champagne bottle. Meriem fell to her knees in a strange position as if she were praying to her murderer. Then the body slid over to one side.

“Ah…”

Aziz pushed the man over backwards with one violent kick.

“Ah…” he growled, his whole being reduced to this single sound.