Ingrid Steinert was standing in the shade of the mauve wisteria that spilled down over the patio, between the rambling roses which were back in bloom. She was wearing a tight cotton dress, stretched by her thighs and breasts and fastened with a knot behind her back.
When de Palma came over to her, she took a final drag of her cigarette before flicking it into the garden. She held a limp hand out.
She had cut her hair quite short, like a schoolgirl’s from the 1940s. That gave her a curl over each ear and a straight fringe, which made her look extraordinarily young. De Palma remembered that Isabelle had exactly the same haircut in the last known photograph of her.
“How are you, Michel?”
“I must admit that I’m happy to see you again … and a little embarrassed too.”
She gazed at him as if to examine his conscience. In the distance, a tractor could be heard coming and going across the fields. On the road from Eygalières, he had noticed a group of grape-pickers in a vineyard that must belong to La Balme. Because of the heat wave, the harvest was early that year.
He raised his eyes and peered at the hills of the Alpilles, looking for Bérard’s sheep.
“What an awful way to go, don’t you think so Michel?”
Weighed down by memories, he did not reply. He simply nodded and waved a hand in the air.
“So the grape-picking has started?”
“Not today. It rained last night, a heavy thunderstorm. The farmers have gone to inspect the vines to see if there hasn’t been too much damage. We’ll start in a few days’ time when it’s all dried out.”
The noise of the tractor stopped. Everything turned calm again. A cool breeze, still charged with the vicious mood of the storm, caused the heavy leaves of the plane trees to flutter.
“I’ll have to go back to my autumn collections,” she said. “My life’s in a terrible mess. I’ll also have to deal with the olive trees. Nothing has been done for months.”
Laura, the housekeeper, came out of the living room.
“I’ll have to do some shopping in Arles, Madame. Do you mind being left on your own?”
“No, not at all.”
The sky above the Alpilles was turning red, with blue flames piercing the clouds like blasts from a blowtorch.
“Are your husband’s papers here?” De Palma asked.
She hesitated. Her eyes scanned his face.
“Quite a few of them. As a matter of fact, I was wondering when you’d ask if you could look at them.”
“I think the time has come.”
“What exactly are you looking for?”
“Everything.”
“I’ve been through them and tried to sort them out. I’ve set all his letters aside, and what you call his papers in a big box. It’s upstairs. If you want, we can go and take a look.”
There were documents dating back over many years. De Palma tried to organize them chronologically. The oldest came from the Sixties and read like everyday thoughts in a diary kept by a foreign tourist in Provence. There were also some poems and a lot of notes about birds. De Palma read through them in detail. He had in mind the white spoonbill that the wiretap had revealed.
“Do you remember William ever talking about a bird called the white spoonbill?”
“Particular memories, no. He said it was very rare, and getting rarer. He was always very glad when he managed to photograph them. You know, he adored the birds of the Camargue.”
De Palma dipped back into the ornithological notes. They included precise accounts of nesting locations and maps to show observation points, but none concerned the places he had already located. Steinert had inserted photographs with descriptions written on the back: velvet scoter, red-breasted merganser, great skua, yellowhammer … William Steinert had been a gifted photographer.
She came over to him, he could almost hear her breathing. A second bundle included a notebook on recycled paper. On the first double spread, Steinert had jotted down a date, 1990, which was no doubt the start of its use. Overleaf, there was a picture of a water rail lurking in the quiet of the marshland, its red beak brilliant against the green and gold of the rushes. On the facing page, Steinert had written:
Water rail. Rallus aquaticus.
One nest with 5 eggs on March 23, 1990. Samphire field north of Le Vigueirat, thirty meters from observation point 18.
One nest and two chicks on March 14, 1997. Samphire field of La Sigoulette, 43°30/4°28.
The chicks will not be flying in August.
On the fourth page, there were the same kind of notes about a common crane, taken the following year. De Palma flicked through the book rapidly, then stopped about halfway through.
White spoonbill. Platalea leucorodia.
Two specimens. August 17, 1995. 07:30. Marshes of St. Seren.
One specimen in flight on June 28, 1999. 18:20. Redon salt marsh.
In Delachaux: observed quite frequently. Around 51 sightings between 1957 and 1979. Quite common in July and August. Very few in winter.
There was something unreal about the photograph. It showed a white spoonbill gliding in the summer heat, borne up on the thermals, its snow-white wings spread wide in the sunlight.
“He also used to mention the black stork. He said that with the white spoonbill it was the most beautiful bird in the region. It’s also very rare. Look at the next page.”
There was a stylish shot of the big bird, strangely majestic in the middle of a meadow in the Camargue, where it seemed to have strayed. De Palma had never seen one before and found it magnificent.
Steinert had noted:
1 specimen. May 19, 1998.
If Texeira is to be believed, this is the first photo taken since 1987! Anyway the only one known.
He leafed through the rest of the book but found nothing else of interest. The only thing that stuck in his mind was Texeira’s name. He telephoned the biologist.
“Any news of white spoonbills?”
“No. Nobody’s seen any for months. At the start of the summer, there was someone who sent me some shots he had taken. I must admit I was rather jealous.”
“Do you know this person?”
“No, I’m afraid not. Why?”
De Palma let a moment’s silence pass by, while he changed gear.
“Have you ever met this visitor?”
“Yes, in fact I have. We’d spoken together, a few days before I got the photos.”
“Do you remember him?”
“Quite clearly. I’m observant.”
“Go on.”
“He’s tall, about 1 m 85. Hair chestnut or black. Aged around fifty. With the look of an old globetrotter, if you see what I mean—scruffy trousers, and a combat jacket … A bit of a hippy, or a dreamer. There are quite a few people like that in the world of birdwatchers. They’re often highly intelligent with it.”
“Describe his clothes …”
He motioned to Ingrid to hand him a piece of paper and a pen.
“Jeans rather grubby, army jacket khaki, and sandals like the leftist militants used to wear in the Seventies.”
“Viet Cong sandals?”
“That’s right.”
De Palma made a note.
“On the other hand his kit was terrific. You could say it was the classic photographer’s kit, but at prices that only the keenest amateurs or professionals will pay. Also he had periscopic binoculars.”
“What are they?”
“They’re like a periscope … you know, as in a submarine: see without being seen. Not many people have those!”
He jotted down this detail in block capitals and underlined it twice.
“And have you seen him since?”
“No, but while we’ve been talking, I’ve been downstairs to check the observation log. The day was June 28th. I received the photos a few days later.”
“And how does that fit with the voices?”
“Well … Jesus, it was practically the same day, or somewhere close. Do you think that …”
“I’m not thinking, Christophe. I’m observing! It could mean nothing.”
“Hang on, you’re starting to scare me!”
“Oh, you’re in no danger. No danger at all!”
Ingrid had stood up and was staring intently at de Palma. Her cotton dress filtered her tall, firm figure in the morning light that slanted through the windows.
De Palma thought hard. All this was not really taking him anywhere, but it had him so excited that gusts of heat were rising inside him. He wanted to act and was desperate for the means to do so, or concrete lines of investigation. He had to admit the truth: he was standing on the threshold of a room in total darkness, and didn’t know how to turn the light on. But another door had just opened.
Ingrid came over, sat down beside him and opened another notebook, which had cardboard covers and was bound like a real book. Their shoulders touched. He was hypnotized by her long fingers as they turned over the pages.
“I looked at this one yesterday,” she murmured. “I think you should look at it, Michel.”
She turned over another three pages and passed him the notebook. He felt her breast lie gently on his forearm for a second.
“When I found this last night, it really scared me.”
She laid her hand on his shoulder.
“Read it, Michel.”
It has been said that the Tarasque, half-human and half-reptile from the Jurassic, symbolizes the Roman dominator settled in Provence over a long period.
For the Vokae who lived on the right bank of the Rhône and the Salluvii who were spread out between Monaco and Marseille, Rome could be symbolized by a monster. It is something one can easily imagine: a beast emerging straight out of the imagination of peoples subjected to the Pax Romana. This monster could symbolize this domineering Rome. But there is more to it than that.
The Tarasque is a reptile. Some have seen in it a representation of mankind’s basest instincts (the reptilian brain), others have seen it as the gods of paganism tamed by Saint Martha.
But can it not also be viewed as the representation of a bane that really existed? Bérard says that the truth lies there and that tarasques existed. Back to Roman times: the Roman legion that occupied and administered the region of Tarascon was based in Nîmes. Its emblem was … a crocodile.
Bérard says that the Romans brought with them those huge reptiles captured in the Egyptian Nile. They are said to have used them as mascots. What is much more certain is that they used them in the arenas of Nîmes and Arles …
What is more, the crocodiles of the Nile could readily adapt to the climate and habitat of the Camargue, in many ways similar to that of the banks of the Nile.
From this point on, Steinert had written fast, his hand so fine and spidery that it was barely legible.
This could explain the spoor I saw yesterday in the marshland of La Capelière. I had never seen anything so big and so impressive. It was not made by an animal listed among the fauna of the Camargue. I mentioned this to Bérard. He told me: “She’s back, I called her and here she is.” The look in his eyes was frightening …
I’m going back into the marshes tomorrow at nightfall to check these marks. I don’t want anyone to spot me. After that, I’ll show it all to Texeira.
NB: Bérard seemed out of his mind.
De Palma looked up from the notebook and let his mind wander through the maze of clues that now lay before him.
He had just read what must be William Steinert’s last words. Ingrid had laid her hand on his arm.
“I don’t know why, but I’ve made the connection with what I’ve been reading in the press. You know, those mutilated bodies. The crocodile, the Tarasque …”
“It’s the presence of Bérard that worries me most. I think we’re in great danger.”
De Palma concentrated. He wanted to burst his head open, the ideas were hurting so much. He mumbled, pointing his index finger at some imaginary point on the table.
“Bérard, the Tarasque, William …”
He wanted to add: “and the Germans,” but restrained himself.
“Bérard, the Tarasque, William, the birds … The Tarasque, the birds … Bérard and the Tarasque.”
She put a hand on his shoulder and gently squeezed the muscle that bulged beneath his shirt.
“Bérard and the Tarasque …”
He looked for an unusual detail. Boyer, his father figure on the murder squad, had taught them that technique: an element that does not seem to fit into the jigsaw and that finally completes it. He rapped his hand on the table.
“Was the shepherd interested in the occult arts?”
She searched in his face.
“I think he was. William used to say that he was a bit of a Zauberer … a sorcerer! He nursed his sheep with plants that he alone knew about. Sometimes he told William about impossible things … William even told me that he had had some incredibly intense esoteric experiences with Bérard.”
“Why haven’t you told me this before?”
She moved even closer to him.
“I don’t know. I never took it very seriously. William was a mystic about nature, I have trouble believing in God.”
De Palma put his arm round her shoulder and hugged her hard. She let her body lean against his chest.
“I believe you, Ingrid.”
He relaxed his embrace.
“Can I offer you something to drink?”
Through the window, he stared at the spectacle of trees under the sun. She smiled at him gently, then produced two glasses.
“I’ve opened another bottle of Muscat, Michel. I know how much you like it.”
They drank the sweet white wine and spoke at length, first about William Steinert, then about the few notions of magic that de Palma possessed. Then the conversation drifted on for over an hour. She opened a second bottle. The wine came from the old vines alongside the Downlands.
They played at exposing their lives, taking care never to say everything, until their minds ran out and a strange sensation of joy arose between them.
She was standing beside the window, and it seemed that the forms of her body had suddenly been highlighted by a watercolorist’s brush. Irresistibly he went over to her, and took her hands. She did not resist and offered him her lips. He lost himself in the warmth of her face. It was as if she had been born from the sun.
Her breasts were hard under the cotton of her dress. He raised his hands along her sides and then her back; her skin was bathed in her woman’s heat.