Avril–Camus case—spring 2007
The regional crime squad were officially taken off the Avril–Camus investigation on June 9th, 2007. Commander Léo Bastinet hadn’t come up with any new leads in almost a year and no one had looked at any of the three thousand pages of the case file. Judge Paul-Hugo Lagarde, with Léo Bastinet’s agreement, suggested passing the management of the Avril–Camus file to the Fécamp brigade until the statute of limitations ran out.
The Fécamp police had been the first to investigate the murder, they had remained involved in the investigation, and Captain Grima, who had been sidelined after the second murder, would probably see it as a small personal revenge when the case came back to him, after all the efforts of the regional crime squad had come to nothing.
Captain Grima accepted the case, and the files of the double investigation were transferred from Caen to Fécamp on Friday, June 15th, 2007. The next day he received a visit from Carmen Avril. She came back a few days later, and then almost every week during the summer. Then Grima worked out that Judge Lagarde hadn’t just given him a case that had reached a dead end, he had lumbered him with a pain in the neck who had been hassling the legal system and the police for years.
Never forget.
Time had done nothing to diminish the determination of the president of the Fil Rouge Association, who was now in sole charge since the double suicide of Charles and Louise Camus.
Three years later, Grima received his transfer to the police in Saint-Florent, a small port town in Corsica, wedged between Cap Corse and the Agriates desert. Perhaps he had grown weary of the assaults of the waves that crashed against the sea wall of Fécamp, or perhaps it was the assaults of Carmen Avril that drove him away. The police captain and the proprietor of the Dos-d’Âne had never got on. Before leaving, Grima handed the keys of the case to the oldest officer in the station, an experienced detective who had been responsible for interviewing the witnesses who’d encountered the stranger with the red scarf. Sonia Thurau, the cloakroom girl, Mickey the bouncer, Vincent Carré, the chemistry student.
Captain Piroz.
A methodical worker, and one that Carmen Avril actually liked. Piroz had immediately agreed with her: they should be looking for a stranger who had been in Yport and Isigny on the dates when the murders occurred. He was not alarmed by the prospect of having to sift through lists of several thousand individuals to find the one name common to both lists. On the contrary, Piroz had a tenacity bordering on obsession. An old bachelor. No children. No talent or liking for football, detective novels, or dominos. He spent his evenings going through the case the way others might build models of the Benedictine Palace out of matchsticks.
All for nothing . . .
Piroz came no closer to the identity of the killer than Captain Grima, Commander Bastinet or criminal psychologist Ellen Nilsson.
After the death of Louise and Charles Camus, Carmen Avril held the reins of the Fil Rouge association, even though it now had no reason to exist but a duty of memory celebrated every year at a gloomy AGM.
Carmen Avril, mother of Morgane Avril, president
Frédéric Saint-Michel, fiancé of Myrtille Camus, vice president
Océane Avril, sister of Morgane Avril, secretary
Jeanine Dubois, grandmother of Myrtille Camus, deputy secretary
Alina Masson, best friend of Myrtille Camus, treasurer
The rare meetings of the association were an opportunity for Alina to get closer to Océane. They had both lost a twin sister, whether the tie was emotional or one of blood. Amputated from the other half of themselves. They got on, even though Océane had inherited from her mother, and probably from the rape of her sister, a stubborn hatred of men that she struggled to contain during their long nocturnal conversations. For the first time Alina opened up and dared to expose the doubts that had eaten away at her for years. Océane listened to her and didn’t talk to anybody, not even her mother, then advised Alina to resume contact with the police who had investigated Myrtille’s murder. With Ellen Nilsson rather than Bastinet. The criminal psychologist knew the file as well as the commander did, but would be more likely to understand. Perhaps.
Ellen Nilsson refused to talk to Alina Masson. The Avril–Camus file had been closed for four years, and she claimed to have other more pressing cases to deal with.
Ten phone calls didn’t change anything.
They would have to go through Piroz, who in turn put pressure on Judge Lagarde to make the criminal psychologist agree to see the police captain and Myrtille Camus’s best friend at her Paris office on Rue d’Aubigné. Piroz growled his way through a journey on the dirty, stinking Métro, nearly got knocked over at Place de la Concorde, cursed again as he crammed his belly into the wrought-iron lift that went up to Nilsson’s office on the fourth floor, south facing, view of the Seine.
Alina said nothing.
When Ellen in person opened the heavy oak door, wearing a Ralph Lauren dress that revealed her brand-new cleavage, she almost turned and left.
Likely to understand?
Piroz, visibly impressed by the customised curves, stood blocking her retreat.
They took a seat. Leather armchairs. Low glass table. Panoramic view of the Île Saint-Louis and the constant ballet of the bateaux-mouches. Alina felt suddenly dizzy. How could she progress towards the truth without damaging the memory of Myrtille?
Ellen crossed her perfect legs and wrinkled her smooth forehead into the best frown that she could muster.
“You wanted to see me, Mademoiselle Masson?”
Alina had no choice but to dive in.
“You remember,” she managed to say at length, “the first time we met at the regional crime squad in Caen, just after Myrtille’s murder. You asked a question. One that took me by surprise.”
“Which one was that?” said Ellen, who clearly hadn’t reviewed the notes on their meeting six years ago.
“You asked why Myrtille was wearing such a sexy outfit on the day she was raped. A short, sky blue dress with hibiscus flowers. Matching mauve underwear. Not the usual outfit for a camp activity leader.”
“That’s possible. We pursued so many theories . . .”
“What were you thinking at that moment?” Alina pressed.
Ellen delved into her memory, then replied wearily:
“Nothing specific. If I remember correctly, Bastinet thought we should be focusing on potential culprits, not the victims. Basically he was right, both Myrtille Camus and Morgane Avril were victims chosen at random.”
Piroz yawned.
“I’ve thought a lot about that question over the years,” Alina went on. “To tell the truth, I’ve never stopped thinking about it. You were right: Myrtille didn’t usually dress like that.”
“But Myrtille died on her day off! As I recall, that’s what you told me at the time.”
“Even on a day off, Myrtille wouldn’t have dressed like that.”
Ellen’s frown deepened.
“What do you mean, Mademoiselle Masson? Are you suggesting that she knew her rapist? That . . . that she had arranged to meet him, is that it?”
Alina hesitated. Hanging on the wall, in a glass frame, was a huge photograph of a naked woman on her knees, her face hidden by a cascade of blonde hair.
Ellen?
It was plainly supposed to look that way.
“Yes,” Alina said at last. “Myrtille had arranged to meet someone. A man. Probably her murderer.”
“Wasn’t she engaged to that guy who played the guitar?”
Alina’s face turned pink. She had said nothing during all those years for one reason. To protect Myrtille. Not to tarnish the image that her family kept of her. Perfect. Faithful. Loving.
“Yes . . .”
“Chichin, something like that?”
“Chichin was his nickname. His name is Frédéric Saint-Michel.”
For the first time the criminal psychologist leaned over the file on the low table in front of her. She flicked through a few pages and then looked up.
“So Myrtille was the victim of a womaniser, something like that? A charmer who had turned her head? You know, Mademoiselle Masson, your conviction corresponds precisely to Captain Grima’s original theory. Morgane Avril wasn’t the victim of a stalker who came out of nowhere, but a seducer who lured her.”
Alina nodded and didn’t say a word. Of course, she knew . . .
“Which changes nothing,” Ellen Nilsson went on. “Charmer or predator, how does that get us any closer to identifying the murderer? Unless, of course, we know who Myrtille had arranged to meet. Do you have any idea, Mademoiselle Masson?”
“No.”
“Could it have been Olivier Roy, the guy with the Adidas cap who was prowling around her at the camp in Isigny? The one who disappeared a few months after the murder?”
For the first time, Piroz spoke. Ellen, surprised, turned towards the police captain.
“Impossible! Olivier Roy had a cast-iron alibi for the evening of Morgane Avril’s murder. And his DNA doesn’t correspond to that of the rapist.”
“Exactly,” the criminal psychologist concluded. “That was why poor Bastinet’s investigation ran aground. An appointment with whom, them?”
“I don’t know,” Alina said.
Tears glittered in the corners of her eyes, and she took a paper handkerchief from her pocket. Ellen bent over the file for a long time. Piroz took advantage of the fact to twist his neck around and compare the breasts of the blonde displayed on the wall with the ones he could make out beneath the psychologist’s forget-me-not dress. When she straightened up, Piroz abruptly diverted his gaze towards the bateaux-mouches. A child caught in the act. Ellen’s eyes, on the other hand, moved towards the photograph and stopped there as if before a mirror, then she flicked away a piece of invisible dust that had fallen between her breasts.
“I have to admit,” she went on, “that even after all these years, some details are still disturbing. The sexy dress that Myrtille didn’t usually wear, for example. The blue Moleskine notebook that was never found, when everyone stated that Myrtille recorded her most secret thoughts in it, and perhaps even the identity of the man she had arranged to meet. This Olivier Roy, of whom there is still no sign in spite of the posters with his face distributed all over the region, who disappeared forever as soon as the police net began to close in on him. And the little pair of panties, too.”
Alina gave a start.
“What little pair of panties?”
The criminal psychologist turned first to Piroz and then to Alina.
“A detail. Of course, I assumed you were aware. No semen was found in Myrtille’s vagina, but there were traces on her panties, which were found about a hundred metres away, in the channel of the Baie des Veys.”
No, Alina wasn’t aware of it. Piroz probably was, but he was distracted once again by the indecent prayer of the girl behind the glass.
“Did the forensic experts have an explanation for that?” Alina wanted to know.
“The rapist must have intended to withdraw before orgasm, but he only managed to do so partially, and ejaculated on Myrtille, or at least on her panties. So we asked ourselves, why would he have wanted to withdraw? Was it because his sperm might get him into trouble?”
“Because,” Alina suggested, “his DNA was registered on the police database in connection with another crime?”
“Except that it wasn’t.”
Piroz lowered his eyes and spoke:
“Perhaps the rapist hoped that Myrtille Camus’s murder wouldn’t be linked with the killing of Morgane Avril.”
“Hardly likely,” Ellen replied. “It would have been difficult not to make the connection between the two crimes, even if the rapist’s DNA hadn’t been a match. Two girls raped, strangled, in the same region, with the same scarf . . .”
Piroz grumbled. “We’re dealing with a deranged mind here . . .”
“Or,” Alina said tonelessly, “there’s a third possibility. Could it mean that he knew Myrtille, that he anticipated police would want to test his DNA?”
Ellen Nilsson let a second pass before replying.
“That’s what we thought at first. We took the DNA of over one and a half thousand individuals—the family of Myrtille Camus, her friends, the inhabitants of Isigny, Elbeuf and the surrounding area. Every single person who might have been close to her. None of them were a match!”
Alina remained silent.
Why would the rapist have wanted to conceal his DNA, a voice repeated in her head, if he didn’t know Myrtille? Did he know Morgane Avril? Everything was getting muddled. The torn dress with the hibiscus flowers, Olivier Roy prowling around her best friend on the beach and off the Îles Saint-Marcouf, the sky-blue Moleskine notebook, that poem sent to Fredéric, crutches and jonquils, caterpillars and fortresses, signed M2O. Marriage 2 October . . .
“And what about your search for the stranger who was in both places?” Ellen asked. “Is that getting anywhere?”
Alina, lost in her thoughts, didn’t reply.
“Slowly,” Piroz admitted. “We’re in no hurry. We have our whole lives—”
“Not entirely,” Ellen corrected him. “You know as well as I do, after ten years without any fresh evidence the case is closed. The rapist will have won.”
“Well?” Alina asked in the lift.
She pressed herself against the wrought iron to avoid contact with Piroz’s body.
“So,” she said again. “What do you think?”
“It’s not her,” Piroz said.
“What do you mean, it isn’t her?”
“It isn’t her in the picture! The pretty naked blonde, it’s not the shrink. She’s messing with us.”
A little later, in the Métro, between Bastille and Saint-Paul, Piroz, jostled by a group of seven-year-old children all wearing the same caps who had just invaded the carriage, pressed himself against Alina. This time she couldn’t avoid it. He whispered in her ear:
“I saw that little smile on your lips earlier when she asked about the search for the stranger. You might think it’s a waste of time, but the one thing we can be certain of is that the killer was in Yport on June 5th, 2004 and in Isigny three months later.”
The children were yelling and Alina had to raise her voice.
“But there were thousands of people passing through. And the killer could have arrived by car or even on foot, without anyone seeing him arrive or leave—without his name appearing anywhere.”
Louvre.
Piroz shrugged. His eye wandered to a poster advertising Dior. Charlize Theron’s naked silhouette reminded him of the one on the shrink’s wall.
“I know,” he admitted. “But pursuing that connection is stopping Carmen and her daughter Océane from going mad. Waiting and hoping, that’s all they have left.”
Concorde.
The kids with the caps, ushered by two teachers, disappeared faster than a flock of pigeons. Alina took a step back and maintained a metre’s distance between herself and the captain.
“Wait for what?” she asked. “For the rapist to start again?”
Six years had passed since Myrtille’s murder.
“Too late,” Piroz replied. “He won’t start again.”
Champs-Élysées-Cemenceau.
More Charlize Therons passed by. Four metres by three. Dior was bludgeoning people’s minds, and Piroz loved it. Alina pursed her lips. Is this how impulses come into being? she wondered.
“He won’t start again,” Piroz repeated, absorbed by a grain of white skin enlarged a thousand times.
Alina thought otherwise.