The two cops had rushed into the forensic lab on Quai de l’Horloge. The place was divided into different departments, such as Toxicology, Ballistics, and Document Analysis. A concentration of technology, a labyrinth of machines each more costly than the last, which analyzed blood, cigarette butts, explosives, hair follicles, you name it. Confessions extracted through science.
Jean-Paul Lemoine, the head of the molecular biology lab, was waiting for them in a narrow office. Age about forty, with short blond, almost gray, hair and heavy eyebrows to match. His job, and that of his team, was to operate huge machines, such as thermal cyclers and sequencers, which copied, cut up, and analyzed bits of DNA.
He offered the two men a seat, looking a bit embarrassed.
“Microsatellites . . . Your man is right. They were buried in the mass of information that book contains. We’d probably have found them eventually, but lord knows after how many days, or weeks.”
He looked at the open book in front of him.
“In any case, it was clever of him to hide genetic codes in a published book. When it came out, Terney sent unsolicited copies to universities and prominent scientists. A kind of propaganda for eugenics behind a smokescreen of mathematical data.”
He slid the book toward Sharko.
“What else can I tell you? The exact procedure we use to establish a genetic profile?”
“Not really, no. We came here to see if we could start a search for the seven genetic fingerprints in the national database.”
That had been Sharko’s idea. The French national DNA database, or FNAEG, stored genetic information on everyone who’d been convicted of a sex crime since 1998, and since 2007 they’d been able to add almost every offender that the police had ever brought in for questioning. A match between DNA in the database and DNA found on a crime scene could pinpoint a suspect.
Lemoine looked skeptical.
“Uh . . . I’d have to enter the letters of the sequences into the computer by hand—normally it’s all automated. We usually get a saliva sample to analyze, or clothing with sperm on it; we put the sample in the machine and the individual’s barcode comes up. But here, we don’t have any samples, just . . . paper. Look at these pages, you saw as well as I did: a genetic fingerprint can run up to a thousand letters. It would take hours to enter all that, and that’s assuming there isn’t a single mistake. It would take a huge amount of concentration, and we’d have to do it seven times over. I was already up all night working on this, and I’ve kind of had it.”
He shrugged sheepishly. He obviously had only one wish right now, and that was to go home.
“You know, Inspector, the FNAEG contains less than a million and a half genetic profiles of defendants, not even two percent of the French population. That’s French, Inspector, not worldwide. And besides, there’s no guarantee the genetic fingerprints in this book are even real. They could be . . .”
“People have been killed over this,” Sharko interrupted. “These fingerprints are real, I’d stake my life on it. Terney put them in his book and established a friendship with an idiot savant so that one day, if anything happened to him, people would find out. Even if Daniel Mullier hadn’t been present at the crime scene, it’s obvious we would have found him eventually, one way or another. He was like . . . like a key, meant to open this particular lock. Please—just do it.”
After a moment’s reflection, the scientist set down his empty cup and acquiesced with a faint groan.
“All right. I’ll try. I’ll need someone to read it to me as I type.”
He picked up the book and handed it to Sharko, who passed it to Levallois.
“You’re on. I didn’t sleep last night and my eyes are burning.”
Levallois grunted. “Do I look like I got much sleep?”
With a sigh, the lieutenant sat down next to Lemoine.
“Most of all, there can be no mistakes,” the scientist warned him. “I’ll tell you where to start.” He circled a specific letter. “Okay, begin reading from here. Slowly but steadily.”
“AATAATAATAATGTCGTC . . .”
Levallois began reading while Lemoine typed. After about twenty minutes, he breathed a sigh of relief—“Finished!”—and the biologist hit Enter. They waited a few seconds. The first genetic fingerprint was instantly compared with the millions of others stored on secure servers.
A phrase appeared onscreen: “No matches found.” Disappointment showed on their faces.
“First fingerprint unknown. It looks like your theory doesn’t pan out, Inspector. Shall we quit?”
“Keep going.”
They started up again. Second fingerprint: no match. Coffee, a cigarette for Levallois, a lot of pacing for Sharko. Third fingerprint: no match. Fourth fingerprint . . . purring of the processors, hum of the fan. Lemoine’s eyes widened.
“I don’t believe it. We’ve got one!”
Sharko leaped from his chair and rushed across the room. Lemoine read aloud what the screen had brought up. First and last name, date of birth.
“Grégory Carnot. Born January 1987.”
Sharko felt as if he’d taken a bullet in the gut. Levallois stared at the screen as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Good Christ, what does that mean?”
“Do you know him?” asked the scientist.
The young lieutenant nodded.
“The girl who was murdered, at the start of this investigation—she went to see him in prison. At least, I think she did.”
He looked Sharko in the eye.
“Am I wrong, Franck? Eva Louts did go to see Carnot, didn’t she? He was on that list of prisoners, wasn’t he?”
Sharko anxiously placed his hand on the other’s shoulder.
“Go stretch your legs a bit, I’ll take over from here.”
“Your eyes look like raisins. You can’t make a single mistake. Sure you can do this?”
“What do you think I am, brain-dead?”
Levallois got up from his seat. The inspector sat down, eyes glued to Carnot’s genetic profile. Why had Terney hidden the killer’s identity in his book? What was the relation between the two men? He shook his head and concentrated on the letters as if on a crossword puzzle.
“Shall we?” said the biologist.
“Let’s get started.”
Sharko began reciting the rows of letters, meticulously following them with his index finger. Inwardly, he struggled not to slip into distraction. Lemoine typed in silence. The hands of the clock slowly advanced.
Fifth profile: unknown. Levallois returned with three cups of coffee from the vending machine. Unfortunately, the sixth didn’t yield any results either. The men took a breather. Sharko yawned and rubbed his eyes; Lemoine cracked his knuckles, at wits’ end.
“Come on, one more, before our brains give out.”
On the seventh and last profile, the result sent back by the FNAEG exploded in their faces.
Results found.
But it gave no name or photo. Lemoine clicked on the link for more details.
“The record was sealed by the police. It’s a trace that’s been in the system for only three days, unidentified. Which means . . .”
Sharko sighed, rubbing both hands over his face.
“. . . that it’s from DNA gathered at a crime scene, but that its owner hasn’t been arrested yet,” he completed. “It also means that the perpetrator has probably committed his first serious crime, since he wasn’t in the database before. I think I know the answer, but can you tell me what sort of crime we’re dealing with here?”
The biologist answered in a blank voice.
“Homicide.”