When de Palma got up after a short sleep, the hills of Saint-Loup were crowned with a heavy black beret, a sign that another series of thunderstorms was going to rip open the sky and bring the temperature down by a few degrees.
He had slept badly. The growing tension in his relationships with his two team mates was starting to create difficulties. That night, he had woken up in a sweat. An old memory which had been haunting him for years had just resurfaced.
September 27, 1982. For over a year, Sylvain Ferracci, or “The Dustman” as he was called by a leading journalist on Le Méridional, had been taunting a dozen inspectors and Commissaire Parodi, who had been given the job of putting him behind bars. His victims were always alike: secretaries in strict suits who were strangled and raped before being sliced into three parts: the head, the torso and the legs. The killer put each part of the body into a dustbin liner, which he then left in a particular place, like an infernal paper trail in which the police were forced to participate; at the end lay unadulterated horror and a feeling of powerlessness that set their nerves on edge.
It was during the debate about the death penalty, and the case had taken on an unprecedented importance. The right wing was bellowing, the left complaining about political exploitation. Gaston Defferre made it a personal issue during the lead-up to the election. This sadist, now splashed across all the front pages, was still methodically slicing up secretaries in strict suits with a circular saw.
De Palma had spent entire nights trying to understand the killer, entire nights exhausting his eyes over the huge pile of notes and documents which had built up on his desk and that of his team mate, Seitboun. Nothing doing. Then, on September 26, a witness formally identified Sylvain Ferracci from an identikit picture which had been widely published in the press. He had seen the murderer coolly walking up rue de Rome, in the town center, with his wife at his side. Ferracci had been pinpointed.
September 27, 6:10 a.m. Things were moving quickly. The head of the murder squad arrived at his home address, accompanied by a dozen plain-clothes inspectors and an escort from the city brigade in crisp suits, with their MAC 50s and their kepis down over their eyes. But Ferracci had not come home that night. They had to raise the siege and wait, discreetly.
De Palma, stationed at the top of rue Dragon, spotted him first and went after him alone. As he ran, Ferracci dropped his P.38, the preferred weapon of O.A.S. veterans. De Palma picked it up. Finally, at the end of a chase which had seemed interminable, the policeman had found himself alone and completely out of breath in the basement of a detached house on rue Breteuil, face to face with the Dustman, who was frenetically rubbing his arms and erect penis and repeating in a high-pitched, scarcely audible voice: “Not that, not that …” as though he was quietly invoking the clemency of the gods of murder.
De Palma slowly went over to the sadist, who was looking at him like a guilty dog. He put the bronze-colored steel barrel over his mouth, as if to say “Hush.” Oddly enough, the Dustman looked relieved; his face relaxed, wrinkle after wrinkle, until it was as smooth as marble. His eyes seemed to be saying a prayer. Then, suddenly, his sphincter and bladder let go. A smell of piss and shit filled the dusty air. De Palma could think of nothing but the monstrous images which had been haunting him for months: the flickering striplights in the autopsy theater; the bodies of dismembered women, sliced methodically; their puffy faces, violated vaginas, gaping bellies, pubis half eaten through. The image of his brother, a close-up of his soft, fine eyes, then replaced all the others.
De Palma rammed the barrel into the Dustman’s mouth, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger once. The report of the P.38 filled the cellar with its dull thunder, blood exploded like a splash of ink into the middle of the room, propelled by the final contractions of the sadist’s ventricles.
Life had gone.
It was now just a thin, dark stream vanishing into the ground, absorbed by the earth floor.
De Palma did not understand. Another person had killed, not him. Another person had committed the irreparable.
He pulled himself together. He carefully took out his handkerchief to wipe the fingerprints off the gun, then placed it in the still-quavering hand of the corpse, closed its fingers around the grip and stuffed it into the Dustman’s mouth. He went back up to street level. In a haze. He had just opened the door on to the stinking corridors of his soul.
The head of the brigade considered his state of mind worrying, and incompatible with the responsibilities of a police officer on the murder squad. He requested a physical and mental checkup.
The conclusion of the specialist’s four-page report read:
… Michel De Palma is in good general health. However, he is showing symptoms of depression, quite common among the police. This may be temporary. He switches between periods of anxiety and nervous attacks. In addition he has an occasionally violent personality. This violence can sometimes be of an obsessive nature, especially when heightened by feelings of guilt.
However, Inspector de Palma has a great deal of control over his impulses. This officer is extremely sensitive, highly intuitive, and very intelligent. While his condition requires treatment, it is not incompatible with his responsibilities on the murder squad …
After Ferracci’s death, instead of confessing, he had looked for absolution in his job as a policeman, in the combat against what he had been taught to look upon as evil. It was light versus darkness. He had sold himself a pack of lies about the justice of his mission, even though he knew deep down that all he wanted was to enjoy the fruits of darkness. His favorite plants in the shadowy jungle of the human psyche were carnivorous, devouring dreams and innocence.
By screwing his conscience, he had managed to convince himself that he wanted to fight against those who destroyed innocence. And yet the truth lay at the opposite extreme, in the dubious adventures he courted at the margins of society, in his quest for heroism.
But the police force does not produce heroes, and he knew it.
He slipped on some jeans and a T-shirt, gulped down a coffee and joined the morning traffic; an invisible force seemed to be drawing him toward headquarters.
When he emerged from the lift on the second floor, a dozen men from the serious crime squad were rushing around in the corridor. From their excitement, de Palma could see that an important page in Marseille’s history of organized crime was being written. Captain Zuccarelli came over to him, looking like an old wrestler. De Palma saw that he could barely contain his emotions.
“There was an armored car in the north of the city. Just beside the old shipyards … Richard and Jean-Pierre were on the case … They tried to intervene, and …”
De Palma said nothing. He met Zuccarelli’s gaze.
“Richard is in a coma. The quacks won’t tell us anything. Jean-Pierre’s in hospital too, but he should pull through. It’s terrible, Michel.”
“What about the fuckers who did it?”
“They’ve been tracked down to a villa in La Viste. The special branch and the flying squad are on to them. We’re on our way. See you later, Michel.”
“Take care of yourself.”
He watched Big Zuccarelli vanish into the lift, then opened the door of his office and slumped into his chair. He did not even notice Moracchini and Vidal standing by the window. When he sensed their presence, he said:
“I want him before the end of the summer …”
“Do you want a sitrep now, or shall we wait?” Moracchini asked.
“Why wait? We’ll have some coffee and start at once.”
There was a strained atmosphere in the room. Vidal attempted to catch his boss’s eye, but de Palma was trying to conceal his anger and look calm by rifling through some files. Moracchini broke the silence.
“We’re in shock, Michel. I don’t think we’re going to do much useful work today.”
“Whether you’re in shock or not, we need to keep going,” remarked the Baron simply.
“I can’t understand you sometimes, Michel. We might have lost a colleague, and another is fighting for his life, and you talk to us as if …”
“AS IF WHAT?” he yelled, slamming his hand on his desk. “I knew Richard when you were still at school. He was a friend, and he isn’t dead yet as far as I know. I’ll cry about him this evening, but right now I’m doing what society wants me to do. There are only three of us looking for this guy, and there should be twenty. And what’s more, they’ve offloaded the Ferri couple on us! Duriez prefers gangland killings—the Maire must have told him that they need cleaning up; that it’s bad for the city’s image. After the next elections, our Maire may be a minister; he’s already hustling for the Intérieur. So Duriez, our big boss, is shitting himself. There are three of us, and three we’ll remain. So, get that into your heads, because we’re on our own until the end. O.K.?”
“Loud and clear. Maistre has phoned several times,” Vidal said. “Maybe your mobile doesn’t work.”
“I’ll call him later. Right now, I don’t want anyone to disturb us. So, I’m all ears, Maxime. What’s new?”
“Nothing.”
“And you, Anne?”
“Yes, I do have one thing.”
“Go on.”
“Yesterday evening, I went to see someone who knows the art market well, and he told me that he’d heard about an association of American fanatics who were buying prehistoric art works. Apparently, they’re rolling in it. They’re based in New York State … it’s a kind of cult.”
“Nice work, Anne. Really nice. I see you work like I do. Doing little investigations on the side … Personally, that doesn’t bother me.”
De Palma waited for her reaction. It didn’t come.
“Look both of you, we can’t keep scrapping like this. I treated you badly, and I’m sorry.”
“Oh, that’s a bit too easy,” Moracchini said. “You treat us like dogs, then apologize!”
“I mean it, sincerely.”
“Apology accepted, team mate, you’re as stubborn as a mule, but I still like you.”
Vidal went out to the coffee machine. De Palma strode after him.
“I couldn’t care less about your apologies, Michel.”
De Palma poked his index finger into Vidal’s shoulder.
“Listen kiddo, just don’t forget one thing: I’m in charge of this case. You stab me in the back, and I’ll make your life hell.”
“O.K., I’ve got the message,” said Vidal, drawing away.
“You’re going to call up Ron Hoskins, the F.B.I. agent in Lyon. He covers the whole of France. Tell him that you’re calling on my behalf. He’s an old friend. Ask him what they know about an association in New York State interested in prehistoric art. If he’s uncooperative, tell him it’s urgent and hint that I’m going to put him on to a market of ancient artifacts being exported to the U.S.A. Is that clear, Maxime?”
“Crystal.”
“Do it now.”
De Palma returned to his office and went over toward Moracchini, who could not help recoiling slightly as he neared her.
“If we leave aside Agnès Féraud, the murders start with Luccioni’s. The deaths of Autran, Weill and Chevallier followed on from that one.”
“True,” Moracchini said, tapping her right cheek with a pencil. “There’s just one thing that surprises me …”
“What?” asked the Baron, glancing at her.
“Yesterday, when I was thinking back over the reports, I remembered that Autran was taller than her corpse. According to her identity papers at least. There’s a difference of three centimeters, to be exact. Forensics told me that the cold water must have made her shrink, that her scalp had been eaten away, and so on … But three centimeters is a lot.”
“I see what you mean,” said de Palma bitterly. “But on identity papers, people’s height is often a bit approximate.”
The phone rang. Moracchini answered it.
“It’s for you, Michel.”
It was Maistre. They exchanged a few words.
“I’ll see you at 6:00 p.m., at your place,” the Baron said, before hanging up.
He looked at his teammate for a long time.
“You’ve just given me an idea. But before I tell you about it, I need to sort something out this afternoon.”
“There you go again.”
De Palma decided to come clean.
“I’m going to see the Luccioni girl.”
“And may I ask why?”
He noticed a hint of anger in her voice.
“Because I’ve got a vague idea which I need to check out. That’s all.”
“And what is this vague idea?”
“I think she might be able to tell me who Autran used to see.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all. If I’m wrong we’ll have to go through everyone Autran, Luccioni, Féraud, Weill and Chevallier knew, which will do our heads in. We just don’t have enough staff, my lovely. My intuition might spare us all that work. So let’s be friends. Don’t try to screw me up, just trust me,” he said bluntly to put an end to his teammate’s awkward questions.
At 2:00 that afternoon, de Palma rang Bérengère Luccioni’s doorbell.
“Sorry to disturb you. Aren’t you working today?”
Bérengère welcomed him with a sunny smile tinged with a wicked gleam. She took his hand gently. As her long, soft fingers touched his, he felt as if a wave of heat had lifted him off the floor. He walked into the salon, then turned toward her. She was barefoot, dressed in a simple dress of crimson shirting.
“I know I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I think you’re extremely beautiful.”
She blushed and tidied away an electricity bill which was lying on the table, to hide her embarrassment.
“I wanted to see you because I need to ask a few questions.”
“Are these the last ones?”
“I hope so …”
He went out on to the balcony. A storm had just blown by, leaving behind a shattered sky. Beyond the islands, blue patches pierced the gray, while a white light sank into the tin surface of the sea.
“I wanted to talk to you about your brother’s private life … Apart from Christine, who did he hang around with?”
“People I didn’t know. He had friends, but I couldn’t name any.”
“What kind of people were they?”
“What do you expect? Crooks, like him!”
“And did you see Christine often?”
“No, not often. She didn’t live in our neighborhood any more. But I think they still saw each other regularly.”
“Even just before he died?”
“Yes, I think so. If he’d fallen out with her, I think he would have told me. When it came to that, Franck and I told each other everything.”
Franck’s violent death was still a gaping wound. Bérengère’s eyes were full of tears. She offered the Baron a drink, which he refused.
“And do you know anything about the Autran family?”
“Not much. Except that her mother was completely mad. And I mean completely.”
“That’s what I heard. Apparently she abused her son.”
“Not half! Anyway, they’re all dead now …”
All of a sudden, de Palma had an odd feeling, deep down, an idea which was starting to shift around in the jungle of his brain.
“Did you know her brother?”
“A bit … But Franck knew him well. They were the same age, and they often used to play together. Christine’s brother—his name was Thomas—was totally crazy. I mean really, an utter loony. When I was little, he used to scare me. We didn’t see him very often. After their mother’s death, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital, the Edouard Toulouse … I remember because Franck went to see him several times.”
“You wouldn’t have a photo of him, would you?”
“Sorry, no.”
“Never mind.”
De Palma sensed that the pieces of a complex edifice were now coming together, one after the other, like in a child’s game. But he could not master the rules while the overall structure remained imperfect. Many scraps of truth were still missing.
“Did her brother have blue eyes?”
“Yes, really blue. Like his sister.”
The man on the motorbike. Luccioni’s bakery. De Palma felt his guts tighten.
“Do you remember the date of Thomas’ death?”
“No, I don’t … My brother told me about it … It was so long ago.”
“Was it before or after their mother died?”
“After, I think … At the time, Franck was …”
Bérengère could no longer hold back her tears.
“… was in prison. So … it must have been after their mother’s death …”
De Palma looked away to hide his emotion. Bérengère was right next to him. She put her hand on his shoulder. He quivered.
“Why did you become a policeman?”
Her question took him unawares. He would have liked to reply that, as a boy, he had wanted to be a great conductor, a lead violinist or a seafaring captain. He heard himself describing how he pictured the ideal man.
“I thought it was the perfect job for a man. I wanted to be useful to society. I wanted to have a purpose.”
“And do you still think that?”
“I dunno.”
“I think you do.”
Her words were reassuring. Something in the way her lips trembled showed that she understood his inner truth. They spent the rest of the afternoon deep in conversation. She told him about her childhood, her hardships and occasional moments of joy, despite everything … She laid out her painful past, her dislocated life, heavy as a limp body.
They went their separate ways at about 5:00 p.m.
De Palma drove aimlessly for a while, plagued by contradictory thoughts. Then he picked up his mobile and called the office.
“Anne, has Maxime got in touch with Hoskins? Good. Leave that aside for the moment and head straight to the Edouard Toulouse to see if they treated a certain Thomas Autran in the ’80s … Sometime after 1982. Do it quick, then call me.”
Moracchini placed her tricolor card on the reception counter in the psychiatric department of the Edouard Toulouse hospital and clacked her signet ring on the Formica. It was one way of showing her claws, and it made the receptionist contact the head of the department. She was so unpleasant that Dr. Bentolila turned up within five minutes.
“Good evening, Madame. How can I help you?”
“Anne Moracchini, murder squad. I want to know if you treated a certain Thomas Autran in the early ’80s.”
The psychiatrist rolled his eyes and whistled, then stared long and hard at his watch. It was nearly 6:30. He frowned behind his tiny spectacles.
“I’d like to help you, but this would mean going through the registers. I didn’t work here at the time. Can I ask why you need to know?”
“It’s part of a murder investigation … several murders in fact,” Anne stressed. “Your former patient might be able to give us some vital information.”
Given Bentolila’s reluctance, Anne laid it on with a trowel. She spoke of investigating magistrates, legal procedures and even threatened to spend the night going through the archives herself.
“O.K., O.K. … I’ll see what can be done. Come with me.”
He led her down a corridor which ran alongside the drug addicts’ unit. It was cluttered with chrome-plated trolleys and three muscular nurses—one male, two female—were loading them with nocturnal medication; multi-colored horse pills to knock out head-cases.
Dr. Bentolila shoved open a heavy door and they entered a room lined with files from floor to ceiling.
“Here we are. It was 1980, was it?”
“No, a bit later. Let’s start with 1982. A-U-T-R-A-N, Autran.”
The doctor grabbed a ladder and clambered up to the middle of the left-hand wall.
“You must be surprised that a departmental manager also works in records?”
“Well, yes, a bit.”
“We’re short of staff. It’s a pity, but that’s the way it is. Quite apart from our problems with care nurses … it’s an utter catastrophe.”
A few moments later, Bentolila came down with a huge folder.
“This is for 1982.”
Moracchini reached for the file, but the doctor drew back.
“Some of this information is confidential. I’ll have to check first.”
He sat down at a white wooden table in the middle of the room and flicked through the folder, his glasses perched on the end of his nose. A few minutes later, he came across a plastic slip file and stopped.
“I think I’ve found what you want. Thomas Autran, arrival September 21, 1982 … Departure January 6, 1985. Dr. Caillol’s department. He no longer works here.”
Moracchini had been expecting anything and everything from the records at Edouard Toulouse hospital except that name. Caillol.
“And was it Caillol himself who treated him?”
“Yes. He signed his release form in 1985.”
“Can you tell me why Thomas Autran was interned here?”
Dr. Bentolila shook his head in disapproval. Moracchini realized that pressing the point would be a waste of time. This was something she could sort out later. She asked if the file mentioned an address for Thomas Autran after his release.
“Let’s see. He went on to a Catholic institution here in Marseille for some kind of convalescence, the Saint-François institute in Château Gombert. It’s just round the corner.”
The doctor explained how to go there. It was five minutes away. She thanked him before driving straight to the institute. On the way, she tried calling de Palma on his mobile, but all she got was his answerphone.
*
The Saint-François institute was hidden behind high stone walls. Only an absurdly small door and a gleaming brass plaque indicated that this was indeed the right place. Moracchini parked her car a few meters away from the entrance and rang the doorbell.
A shrill female voice emerged from the intercom.
“Anne Moracchini. I’m a police officer.”
The door opened to reveal a gravel driveway which ran between lawns dotted with exotically scented trees, before finishing several hundred meters away at an austere nineteenth-century manor.
Father Bouvier was waiting for her at the end of the avenue, between two ancient olive trees.
“Good afternoon, Madame,” he said in a baritone voice with an unidentifiable, slightly harsh accent. “So you’re from the police?”
“Yes, Father. My name is Anne Moracchini, from the murder squad.” She showed him her card.
Father Bouvier was about sixty and completely bald, with little sparkling eyes behind national health glasses.
“And how can I help you?”
“We’re looking for a man who was here between 1985 and a date which is at present unknown to us. Does the name Thomas Autran mean anything to you?”
“Thomas Autran? Yes indeed. He was here until 1988.”
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about him.”
“Go ahead. I’ll be pleased to help. But I must ask you to remain discreet.”
“Don’t worry, Father. I just want to know how he behaved when he was here.”
With a wave of his hand, the friar invited her to stroll with him through the olive trees, yews and cypresses in the institute’s garden. Some way off, residents were playing football in the ochre light. Two men were leaning against the wall of the manor, staring into space and chain-smoking.
“Thomas behaved extremely well. He was a tormented soul when he arrived.”
“Did he tell you about his past?”
“No, never. All I know is that there had been some sort of a family tragedy, but he never really spoke about it. He almost lost his sanity after his mother’s death, but that’s all I know. And he loved his father more than anything. They were very close.”
“You never noticed anything abnormal in his behavior?”
“‘Abnormal’ is a fairly meaningless term here. We take in people who are convalescing after hospital treatment, and often it’s extremely severe. Thomas was a case in point. He came to us from the Edouard Toulouse, if I remember correctly, where he’d spent three years on particularly strong medication. In the beginning he was very edgy, sometimes even violent. Then, with time, he recovered his sanity. At first he refused to communicate, rather like someone with autism. But gradually he recovered his speech.”
“So you think he was cured when he left here?”
“Yes, I think so. But with that kind of illness, you can never be sure.”
“What was he suffering from?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“He was schizophrenic, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Father Bouvier stopped next to a bed of rose bushes in bud. He put out a hand and gently stroked the tips.
“Why are you asking about Thomas?”
“His sister has been murdered.”
“Oh, so that’s why!” he said, glancing at her furtively. “I read about it in the papers. Poor Christine, I prayed for her several times.”
“Did you know his sister?”
“Christine? Of course I did. She used to visit him two or three times a week. She was his twin. They seemed inseparable.”
Father Bouvier set off again.
“They used to spend hours in the gardens here. In the beginning, Thomas got into a terrible mood every time she went home. It was as though he had shut himself in. But this got better over time. He even managed to accept the separation. I should also tell you that, little by little, he came to know Jesus. He found his vocation.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, after he left, he came back to tell me that he wanted to leave France to help those people who were suffering the most.”
“You mean, in poor countries?”
“That’s right … though not only in poor countries, rather in places where people suffer the most. He’d contacted various Catholic institutions like ours, and I think the Church accepted his request, because a year later I got a postcard from Australia. It said that he was in a program to help Aborigines.”
“And then?”
“And then, nothing. I must admit that’s a little surprising, when I think about it. It is rather odd that he hasn’t been in touch again after all this time. Especially now that his sister is dead. He should have come to see me.”
“Yes, that is odd. Do you remember where he went exactly?”
“No, not exactly. I’ll have to look for the postcard.”
“It doesn’t matter, Father. Just try to remember. Any inkling?”
“No, really, I have no idea. But I’ll call you if I remember anything, or if I find the postcard.”
“Thank you, Father.”
The sun had just disappeared behind a hedge of cypresses, and a cold shadow fell across the Saint-François institute. The football match had finished.
“You seem to remember Thomas extremely well. Is it the same for all your residents?”
“No, I’m afraid not! If only it were so. But I’m like everyone else. I only remember people who are out of the ordinary.”
“And Thomas was out of the ordinary?”
“He was an extraordinary person. With exceptional intelligence. I singled him out at once when he arrived here.”
“Why?”
“It’s hard to explain … For example, he devoured every book in our library. Whenever I ran into him, he’d ask me questions about all sorts of subjects, such as the scriptures, or history. I didn’t always have the answer, in fact, because his questions were so precise.”
“Did he talk to you about prehistory?”
“A great deal. It must be in the family. He asked me about Teilhard de Chardin, Leroi-Gourhan … and also a lot about Lévy-Strauss. His sister brought him lots of books.”
“When you read about his sister’s death in the press, did you try to contact him?”
“Yes, I did. I contacted the institute he’d been with, and they told me they would do what they could. But I haven’t heard from them since.”
“Try to find out everything you can, Father, and call me as soon as possible.”
Moracchini gave him her card and left.
It was nearly 7:00 p.m. For the past two days, Sylvie Maurel had been phoning the Baron, asking to meet up. He had not responded because he did not want to give her any false hopes. But the previous evening, he had agreed to see her. His mobile rang just as he was parking on rue Caisserie, about a hundred meters from the marine archaeology laboratory.
“Michel? It’s Anne. I’ve just been to the Edouard Toulouse.”
“And?”
“They definitely treated a Thomas Autran between 1982 and—hold on to your hat—1985!”
“So?”
“1985! Wake up Michel, 1985!”
“Jesus Christ!”
“They wouldn’t tell me exactly what was wrong with him. But they reckoned he’d been cured, because they let him go. Then there’s a second piece of news.”
“I’m all ears!”
“It was Dr. Caillol who treated him.”
“WHAT?”
“You heard me: Caillol.”
“Have you got anything else?”
“Yes. I went to a Catholic institute for convalescents. He stayed there after leaving the Edouard Toulouse. Until 1988.”
“1988!”
“That’s right … Anyway, I’ll explain it all tomorrow. But tell me, was it the Luccioni girl who gave you this lead?”
“Yes.”
“I must admit, you’ve got incredible intuition.”
“It was just luck, Anne.”
“It’s odd we didn’t think of it earlier!”
“That’s probably my fault … What can I say? There are only three of us on the case … Anyway, it would have come out sooner or later. Now we have to find him. They didn’t tell you anything else at the Edouard Toulouse or at the institute?”
“Yes, they did. But the rest is less important. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“Nice work, Anne. I’m lucky to have you with me.”
“Keep your compliments to yourself, Michel.”
He hung up.
When he got to the tower at Fort Saint-Jean, he could hear Sylvie calling to him from the quayside. He turned and saw her on the deck of the L’Archéonaute, a thirty-footer used for marine exploration.
“Do you want a guided tour?”
She smiled at him broadly and he stammered something incomprehensible.
“Come on board.”
When he was on deck, Sylvie held out her hand and looked at him shyly. A man came out of the boat’s bridge.
“May I introduce Lieutenant Laffitte?”
The man looked at him and gave a nod before disappearing back into the bridge.
“This is the boat we used when we investigated Le Guen’s Cave in 1992. I remember how choppy the sea was; it was awful staying on board all day. We’d set up a video link which meant we could follow the work in the cave as it happened.”
The lieutenant was sitting in front of a radar screen in the bridge, turning knobs this way and that. He didn’t bother to look up when they came in, so they continued on down to the mess.
“This is one of the areas we use as a laboratory and meeting room when we’re out on a mission. We keep all our equipment here: microscopes, measuring instruments, and so on … everything we need.”
“Do you often go out on missions?”
“For me it’s quite rare, because I’m a prehistorian. You don’t find something like Le Guen’s Cave every day! But the boat’s used a lot for Greco-Roman archaeology.”
They could hear Laffitte calling from the bridge.
“Sylvie, it’s time to go.”
“O.K., Sylvain … it’s a shame you didn’t get here earlier. You could have seen the whole boat. Maybe some other time!”
“If you want.”
Laffitte’s voice grew more insistent.
“Sylvie, I’m locking up!”
It was busy on the quay: there were pensioners soaking up the last rays of the sun, and executives walking home briskly having taken the ferry across the water. A group of tourists were photographing one another in front of La Bonne Mère, and kids on bikes were chasing each other, weaving between the passers-by.
They strolled toward the town hall in silence. As they passed the Fishermen’s Association, de Palma lingered in front of a stripped-down Marseille fishing boat on blocks. A man was busy sanding the hull.
“I’d like one just like that, if they weren’t so expensive!”
“They’re lovely boats,” Sylvie said.
“They’re the loveliest.”
They walked on for another twenty meters, with Sylvie glancing at him timidly, like a teenager. He just managed to avoid a kid on rollerskates who was wiggling his hips and swerving between the walkers. When they got to the old riggers by the town hall, de Palma went over to a forty-ton schooner.
“This one’s my favorite, Le Caprice des Vents.”
“What a nice name for a boat.”
De Palma touched the hull of Le Marseillois, a three-master, then stepped back as though estimating its tonnage. The rigging and yards stood out against the hill of Notre-Dame de la Garde.
He gazed at Sylvie, and she looked back at him tenderly. After a long silence, he said:
“You know, I’ve just found out that Christine had a brother.”
“Why is that odd?”
“She never mentioned him. I always supposed that she was an only child. She was so temperamental and bossy, it seemed obvious.”
The day was coming to an end. Headlights and restaurant signs shimmered blue and red on the gentle lapping of the heavy waters of Lacydon. A dark and humid night was settling in across Marseille.
Sylvie lived at 35, esplanade de la Tourette, on the eleventh and top floors. As de Palma came through the door, she hastened to raise the shutter in the living room. The balcony overlooked the entire port of Marseille. In the foreground was the ferry terminal, then the seawall and, beyond that, the Frioul archipelago.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“Whatever you’re having, Sylvie. I’m easy.”
“Whisky, then. I don’t have any pastis.”
“A whisky would be fine.”
While she was in the kitchen, de Palma took the opportunity to go out on to the balcony.
In the distance to his right, the cranes and scaffolding down in the port glittered in the night, like motionless, steel sentinels bent over the cargo boats. From Arenc to L’Estaque via the Bassins National, Pinède and Président Wilson, the huge port was sending out its fireworks.
Sylvie came and stood so close to him that they were almost touching, and gave him his whisky.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said.
“It’s magnificent. It’s the Marseille I love. My father worked down there, and his father and grandfather before him. They were all sailors. Except me—I became a lousy policeman instead.”
“But that’s also a wonderful profession!”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Sylvie …”
A horn sounded and the El Djézaïr sailed into Grande Joliette dock, heading for Sainte-Marie strait and the open sea, with a pilot ship in its wake. The cargo ship with its Algerian flag slowly cruised past the ruins of huge hangars on the Joliette quayside. These temples of Marseille’s fortune, were marked with a capital J followed by a number. J1, J2 and J3 were no more, now reduced to dust, bulldozed into the depths of the dry docks.
There had been plans for a new harbor, with marinas and the renovation of the Le Panier neighborhood, in the hope that this would rid the “boulevard of crime” of its tawdry inhabitants, thus finishing the work begun by the Germans when they razed the city center in 1943. Bombed and wrecked, could eternal Marseille now rise again, like the demi-gods of Greece who bit the dust but never wanted to die? The Greece of the Republic, the demos, poets and brilliant thinkers; Phocaea and her daughter Marseille, the swarthy-skinned rebel who talked with her hands and enveloped herself in nonsense when she got the blues.
Sylvie touched his shoulder.
“A penny for your thoughts.”
“Nothing special. Do you like opera?”
“I’ve never been.”
“I’ll take you, one day.”
Sylvie stroked the rim of her glass with her index finger.
“I’ll put on some music. It’s a kind of jazz-rock. I don’t know what you like.”
De Palma immediately recognized the ’70s sound of a Telecaster guitar.
“Is that Mike Stern’s latest album?”
“Yes, it is. Do you know his stuff?”
“He used to be in Blood, Sweat and Tears, and he played with Miles Davis once or twice … a really good guitarist, though his style’s a bit conventional.”
“I thought opera lovers only listened to opera!”
“Only fools and sectarians. Music is a whole universe. I’ve got all of the Stones’ albums, real rarities which I bought in London in the good old days … But don’t talk to me about The Beatles or Georges Brassens!”
“A bit sectarian all the same …”
A surging saxophone-and-guitar duet immersed Sylvie’s flat in a soothing atmosphere. They listened to it for a while, without looking at each other. When the second track started, she went over to the hi-fi and turned down the volume.
“I wanted to see you because there’s something I forgot to tell you last time.”
“What’s that?” he asked darkly, worried that she was about to break the charm of the evening.
“I was the one who first told her about Le Guen’s Cave. I knew about the discovery before it was announced in the papers. In fact, I know Le Guen well. We spoke about it a few months before. I was the one who told him that he would have to reveal his discovery. And then …”
The charm had been broken. The Telecaster sounded as though it was light years away.
“Who are you talking about?”
“About Christine … And then there were those divers found dead in the tunnel. Do you remember?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Because something struck me at the time. One day, after their deaths, she was with me at the lab and she said: ‘You see, the first man has got his revenge.’”
“Anything else?”
“No, nothing.”
“It’s rather a silly thing to say.”
“I’m not so sure. Anyway, it struck me. And for several days I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. Why did she say it?”
“I’ve no idea. But people say strange things sometimes.”
“Of course, but what struck me was the expression on her face. I can still see it, there was something lugubrious in the way she said it.”
He thought over what Sylvie had just told him. Without knowing why, he felt certain that it was important.
“I’d like you to tell me about shamans. I’ve been told that Le Guen’s Cave was used for shamanistic rituals, is that true?”
“Nothing is a hundred percent sure in prehistory, but it is a serious hypothesis … We’ve long tried to understand why Paleolithic man always went into the darkest depths of his caves to paint his frescoes. A great deal of nonsense has been written on the subject, which we’ll ignore … But then ethnology came to our rescue. In Australia, the Aborigines produce wall paintings too, and then draw the same hands as those you saw in the lab and elsewhere … The same goes for South America, in places where initiation rituals are held. You see?”
Sylvie drew away from de Palma and paused for a moment.
“The significant point about our caves is what is depicted, and what is not.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that there are animals, but never any representations of man’s environment. No huts, or landscapes, or the sun and moon … Drawings of men are extremely rare too, which makes us think that there is magic at work in Paleolithic art. Personally I think these hands are signs for entering into contact with the spirits that lie behind the walls. Hence those ideas about shamanistic rituals. They went into the caves and invoked spirits, to treat a sick child for example, or to make the hunt as favorable as possible …”
She sipped at her whisky.
“It’s a little like all religions. God is put to use to soothe the great and small ills of daily life. Shamans are mediators between the real world and the supernatural world. There are many of them still in Siberia, in Africa of course, and in America … And they all have one thing in common: they seek out trance states, hallucinations and visions. Trances allow them to see mythical beings, animals and specters which are invoked to favor the hunt, or to make it rain. We think that it was the shamans who painted the pictures in the caves. And that they also used chants and healing rituals. I saw these kinds of practices among the Bochimans in the Kalahari.”
“Have you heard of the Slain Man?”
“I see that you know more than you’re letting on!” she said, adopting an elegant pose. “Slain men are quite common. But the most interesting examples are in Pech-Merle, Cougnac and Le Guen’s Cave, of course. They seem to be intentionally poor drawings, just line sketches and nothing else. In Pech-Merle and Cougnac, they apparently show lines of vital energy flowing through individuals. In Le Guen’s Cave, on the other hand, there can be no doubt that the Slain Man is a murder victim. Was it a ritual killing? An early form of crucifixion? Or else a bewitchment, like sticking pins in dolls or figurines? Nobody knows. In any case, Le Guen’s Slain Man is unique.”
Another connection formed in the Baron’s mind.
“So you think that these prehistoric shamans might have performed ritual murders?”
Sylvie shook her long, brown hair.
“Yes, I think so. But it’s just one hypothesis among others. In any case, murder is there as a possibility. Those people who think that murder only started during the Neolithic period, along with the concept of property, have got it wrong.”
“Did Christine share your opinions?”
“Completely. We didn’t like each other, but we were in the same school. The Palestro school,” she added, laughing.
“Did she ever talk to you about the Slain Man?”
“The one in Le Guen’s Cave? Of course she did. She thought it was a human sacrifice.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think she was wrong to be so categorical—after all it’s only a drawing. It might be a sacrifice, yes, but perhaps merely a symbolic one in a carving. As you’re beginning to realize, we can’t be sure about anything.”
He went into the living room and took off his jacket. She noticed the gun he was wearing on his hip.
“Do you always have that on you?”
“Almost always. Except when I sleep. Though sometimes I do keep it under my pillow.”
“What a strange existence.”
“What an awful one, you mean! I live with violence and anxiety. They’re my two best friends. We could have had a lovely evening together, but here we are talking about Christine Autran. Death, always death.”
“I’m sorry I spoke to you about her.”
“No, it’s my fault.”
“But I broached the subject. I’ve been clumsy … I wanted to see you in fact.”
“I’ve learned some interesting things.”
Sylvie stood up and poured more whisky into their glasses. She was wearing a simple blouse and a skirt with tiny flowers, as light as a silk veil. His body trembled and he felt disconnected from reality. He breathed deeply. His ideal was there before him. She was beautiful; like those images from his childhood that he had torn up so long ago.
He felt lonely, exhausted by life. He had not touched a woman’s body for ages now. It had been months since Marie had left.
He made love to her slowly. Until the lava trapped in his guts erupted from all the extremities of his being.
In the middle of the night, she stroked the livid, badly stitched scar that crossed his shoulder.
“What is this, a zip fastener?”
“A souvenir from ‘Le Blond.’ A .357 Magnum. It’s an old story. An old story which, in a few days’ time, might be coming out of prison, where my friend Jean-Louis and I sent him.”
“What had he done?”
“Violation of drug laws, to put it technically. Plus the murder of a magistrate.”
“And the one on your thigh?”
“Are you giving me a full examination?”
“No, I already have.”
“I can’t tell you about that one.”