I put the sheets back in the envelope and slipped it into the glove compartment of the Fiat 500.
So the two cases, of Morgane Avril and Myrtille Camus, had become one.
And within a year the case had been closed.
As I started the Fiat, I couldn’t help smiling. This latest information would be useful to me.
Carmen Avril would welcome me with open arms. I had come to tell her that, ten years on, her daughter’s murderer had emerged from his lair.
A few minutes later, I parked the car a hundred metres past the Gîtes de France sign. A woman was walking along the embankment, bent under the weight of three satchels. She was pulling a string of three children towards a cluster of new houses.
“I’m looking for Carmen Avril.”
The weary woman puffed.
“Down that driveway. You can’t miss it. Hang on, there she is, out on her terrace.”
She pointed to a blue silhouette among the branches of the pollarded trees, then set off like a locomotive, towing her children behind her.
I set off down the driveway. The Dos-d’Âne was an old longhouse. The dressed stones of the building were in perfect harmony with the grey of winter, but it looked as though they would be covered in spring by wisteria or the blossom-covered branches of the big apple tree that stood in the middle of the courtyard.
On the terrace a stout woman armed with a hammer was busy straightening the screw bar of what I took to be an old apple press. A collector’s item, which seemed to be in its rightful place in this garden which resembled a museum of Normandy’s arts and crafts.
Carmen hammered away with force, energy, and precision.
From behind, she looked like a man.
Suddenly the hammer paused in mid-air and Carmen spun round, as if she had sensed my presence.
“Who are you looking for?”
“Madame Avril?”
“Yes?”
My heart began pounding as I delivered, as naturally as possible, the speech that I had practised in my head ten times over since Yport.
“I’m Captain Lopez. Fécamp police station. I’d like to talk to you.”
She looked me up and down. A question seemed to be burning on her lips—“They’re recruiting cripples in the police these days?”—but she managed to restrain herself.
“What do you want from me?”
“I’ll get right to the point, Madame Avril. It’s about the murder of your daughter, Morgane. Something . . . something new has come up.”
The hammer crashed to the tiles of the terrace before Carmen could stop it. Her red face, as faded as an apple forgotten at the bottom of a basket, seemed to crack. Relief flooded through me.
Piroz hadn’t contacted her!
Which was odd, given the number of similarities between Magali Verron and Morgane Avril, but I’d been gambling on Carmen Avril not having heard from the police.
“Something new?”
“Nothing concrete, Madame Avril, I don’t want to raise any false hopes. But a series of disturbing events have taken place in Yport over the last few days. Can I come in?”
The interior of the building was level with the landscaped garden. With its exposed beams, a fireplace in which you could have roasted a calf, and rustic touches like the old cartwheel that had been converted into a table, it was the perfect rustic setting for tourists passing through the area.
Carmen invited me to take a seat on a sofa that smelled of leather. For a moment I wondered how a woman had managed to keep this place running single-handed. Then I launched into my account of everything that had happened.
The suicide of Magali Verron, the rape that preceded it, the Burberry cashmere scarf found around her neck.
I omitted to mention one detail: that Magali had bumped into a jogger at the top of the cliff.
Carmen Avril listened to me open-mouthed for almost a quarter of an hour.
“The bastard’s back,” she muttered between her teeth.
I took from my rucksack the “Magali Verron” file that I had stolen from Piroz’s office. The red, white and blue headers and official stamps lent credibility to the information that I was about to give Carmen.
“You’ll have to listen to me without interrupting, Madame Avril. Only then will I ask you for an explanation. If you have one . . .”
She nodded excitedly. Her daughter’s killer had resurfaced, she was willing to listen to anything. I took a deep breath and listed all the things I had learned about Magali Verron.
Born on May 10th, 1993, in Neufchâtel, Canada. Attended school in the Paris region, at the Claude Monet primary school, Albert Schweitzer middle school and Georges Brassens high school, before going on to become a medical student. Raqs sharqi dancer. Fan of seventies rock.
Carmen’s excitement turned into bafflement.
What could be the meaning of this? The same birthday as her daughter, born in a town of the same name, attending schools of the same name, sharing the same tastes.
Sheer insanity.
Carmen Avril rose to her feet without a word; only a slight imbalance in her gait betrayed the effect my words had had on her. She went into the adjacent room and returned with a “welcome” tray, the sort she might offer her guests. Local biscuits, glasses, a jug of water, orange juice, and cold milk. The tray vibrated in her trembling hands. She set it down on the low table before addressing me in a hesitant voice.
“Captain Lopez, what can I say? Everything you have told me seems incredible. Absolutely incredible. Who is this girl? This . . . Magali Verron?”
I poured myself a glass of milk before delivering my next bombshell.
“I haven’t yet told you everything, Madame Avril. Magali Verron looked like your daughter. A most unsettling resemblance—”
I was debating whether to bring up the in vitro fertilisation of her daughter, and the possibility that Morgane and Magali might have been half-sisters, via their father. Carmen, as if reading my thoughts, cut in:
“A resemblance, Captain Lopez? That’s ridiculous. Morgane didn’t have a younger sister! And neither did she have a cousin ten years younger than her. Just me and her sister Océane.”
I shook my head as if trying to come up with another possible explanation. In truth, I was playing for time. If I was going to catch this fish, I would need to reel her in slowly. I flicked through the “Magali Verron” file again, to the page with details of her DNA.
“Madame Avril, we know that you are the keeper of the Fil Rouge Association’s archives. I’ve come here today because there’s something I need to check with you.”
Carmen was bound to take the bait. If all I had read about her was true, she would be ready to pursue any trail that might lead her to her daughter’s murderer. However far-fetched it might sound.
I carelessly picked up a biscuit, and then pushed the page towards her.
“I’d like to compare Magali Verron’s DNA with Morgane’s.”
The line went taut. Carmen’s voice hardened. For ten years, she had learned to be suspicious of the police.
“You didn’t keep my daughter’s file in your own archives?”
I flailed for a second.
“Yes. Yes, of course. But to access that file would involve a lengthy bureaucratic procedure, obtaining the permission of the examining magistrate and various other parties. I thought it would be quicker to come straight to you.”
I couldn’t tell from her expression whether she believed me. I was hoping she would seize upon my explanation as further proof of the incompetence of the police.
“Do you work with Captain Piroz?” she asked.
I went on steadily chewing the biscuit. Honey and almond. Slightly sticky. On the way to Neufchâtel I had run through all the possible question in my head, but stupidly I hadn’t predicted that one.
I swallowed, buying a few more seconds to decide on my answer.
“Yes, of course. He sent me here.”
Her cheeks flushed crimson. For the first time Carmen Avril seemed to be relax.
“O.K., come with me to the office. Piroz is the only honest policeman in Normandy.”
I wasn’t about to tell her I didn’t share her opinion. She led me into an office, then commanded,
“Wait for me here.”
Madame Avril disappeared into an adjoining room, presumably the one where she archived all her information about the Avril–Camus case. During her absence I took a good around me. It seemed to be a nursery that Carmen had converted into an office. The wallpaper pattern was made up of aeroplanes and balloons. Everywhere I looked there were pictures of Morgane as a child. Morgane playing at being a doctor. Morgane playing at being a cowboy. Morgane playing at being a fireman.
Strangely, I didn’t see a single photograph of her sister Océane.
Carmen returned with a box that she set down on a table balanced on a pair of trestles.
“I will leave that here for you to consult, Captain, and I’ll be back with you in a minute.”
She disappeared into the adjacent room again while I pounced on the box. After feverishly flicking through some loose pages, I stopped on the photocopy of a document from Fécamp police station.
DNA results—Morgane Avril—Monday, June 7th, 2004—Regional Forensic Service, Rouen
I set the other page down alongside it. The presentation and the font used by the regional crime squad had changed since 2014, but the logos, the headed paper, and the stamps were the same.
DNA results—Magali Verron—Thursday, February 20th, 2014—Regional Forensic Service, Rouen
The first column indicated blood group. Both Morgane and Magali were group B+. Not the most common group, from what I remembered of the biology course I had taken at the Saint Antoine Institute. Less than ten percent of the French population.
Another coincidence.
Shivers ran down the back of my neck. My eyes fell to the figures that made up the genetic code of the two girls.
I stopped on two graphics, annotated with long series of letters and numbers.
TH01 chr 11 6/9. D2 25/29. D 18 16/18
TH01 chr 11 6/9. D2 25/29. D 18 16/18
I ignored the details. Something to do with monozygotic and heterozygotic genotypes that I’d never understood, but I remembered that it was scientifically impossible for two different individuals to have the same markers and frequencies of occurrence. The figures danced in front of my eyes.
VWA chr 12 14/17 TPOX chr 15 9/12 FGA 21/23
VWA chr 12 14/17 TPOX chr 15 9/12 FGA 21/23
The green and blue curves looked like encephalograms, with an accuracy of a tenth of a millimetre. I could have gone on trying to find the slightest difference between the two histograms, but I had already understood . . .
Magali and Morgane’s genetic profiles were identical!
I went on mechanically following the lines with the tip of my index finger, like a mad scientist endlessly rereading a formula that defied the laws of the universe.
D7 9/10. D16, 11/13, CSF1PO chr, 14/17
D7 9/10. D16, 11/13, CSF1PO chr, 14/17
What I was looking at was impossible.
Two individuals, born ten years apart, could not have the same genetic code!
Magali.
Morgane.
Were the two women one and the same?
As insane as the evidence appeared, that had been my conviction since the outset. Morgane Avril hadn’t died ten years ago. She was the one who had spoken to me on Wednesday morning, near the blockhouse, before throwing herself off the cliff. Moreoever, as I considered the startling resemblance between Morgane Avril and the girl who had killed herself in front of my eyes, Magali Verron, it occurred to me that she had seemed a little older than the Morgane in the photographs from 2004. The same face, feature for feature, but a few years older, perhaps as many as ten.
Which brought me back to the same conclusion, even more obvious now: Morgane Avril was alive until two days ago!
Allele frequency D3, 0.0789. Genotype frequency D3, 0.013
Allele frequency D3, 0.0789. Genotype frequency D3, 0.013
I thought again of the huge legal machinery that had been put in place to solve the Avril case. The police, the judges, the witnesses, the journalists, the hundreds of newspaper articles. How had Morgane been able to deceive everyone? To survive? None of it made sense . . .
I went into the adjoining room to tell Carmen.
Her daughter Morgane, alive.
Only two days ago.
Before dying a second . . .
The proprietor of Dos-d’Âne hadn’t heard me come in. She had her back towards me and was talking on the phone, covering her mouth and the receiver with her left hand.
“I’m telling you, I’ve got a colleague of yours here,” she whispered. “For God’s sake, Piroz, what is this nonsense about a lookalike of my daughter committing suicide in Yport the day before yesterday?”
My muscles tensed.
Carmen Avril was talking to the police!
The old bag had wanted to check up on me. She’d told me there was only one cop she trusted: Piroz.
Fuck!
I cursed myself for not being more vigilant. I took a step forward and pressed the speaker button on the base of the cordless phone.
Captain Piroz’s hysterical voice exploded in the room.
“Keep him there, Madame Avril. Keep him there, damn it, we’re on our way!”
Click.
My thumb ended the call. At that moment, almost without thinking, I took from my pocket the King Cobra I had borrowed from Mona’s thesis supervisor and aimed it at Carmen.
“Who are you?” she yelled.
What was I supposed to do now?
Hold those DNA results in front of her until she believed me?
Leave her there and run, outside. And then run some more.
Where to?
Was there any escape from this spider’s web? Wouldn’t it be easier to set the revolver down and wait for Piroz on the living-room sofa?
Carmen leaned forward slightly, muscles taut, like a she-bear ready to leap out of her cave. The walls trembled around me, I struggled to keep the barrel of the King Cobra steady. The room we were standing in was a second nursery, which had been turned into a box room. Photographs of Morgane hung on the walls.
Morgane, three years old, draping Christmas garlands over her mother’s shoulders.
Morgane, six years old, on a tractor.
Morgane, seven years old, climbing in the apple tree in the garden.
Carmen moved forward slightly. The barrel of the King Cobra lowered by a few millimetres, while my eye, on the photograph, moved down to another branch of the apple tree.
It was as if all my thoughts and suspicions had suddenly accelerated, bringing them into a headlong collision my certainties. Then everything exploded in a thousand fragments of shrapnel.
I understood. Everything.
I knew who Magali Verron was . . .
Still clutching the butt of the King Cobra, I couldn’t help letting out a long laugh, the laugh of a madman.