Outside in the sun, the cold was tolerable even for Mallock, who wore only a light jacket. He decided to go back to the office on foot. He needed to walk—and, more than that, he needed to let something inside him explode.
Tears or anger—it didn’t matter which.
A sort of nursery rhyme had been running through his mind for several minutes; a song by Gainsbourg, about a wax doll, or a rag doll. He knew he’d never be able to erase the little girl with the braids from his memory. Crossing through the flower market, he was surprised when a sob escaped his lips. He quivered imperceptibly, unbearably full of sadness and rage. His throat tightened.
The first thing he did back in his office was to pour himself a large whiskey. The gold liquid slid down his throat, taking with it the muck that had built up in his heart and his gut. To keep on living as if nothing was wrong—was that even possible? Mallock couldn’t understand how the world hadn’t stopped turning, even just for a second, to weep for this little girl. To say goodbye to her.
There was only one remedy. Work.
He called Bob to give him the samples he had taken in the mysterious little holes from the house in Saint-Mandé. “Take these to the lab and have them test for blood, and if it’s there, see if they can find out whose it is.”
“What should I put on the label?”
“Saint-Mandé/floor holes/second floor.”
Bob muttered an obliging “okay” and left the room.
The day dripped by like a marshmallow hung from a steel hook. Amédée didn’t try to hold it back. There were calls to return, notably from Queen Margot, but he didn’t make any of them. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk—or if he even could.
His colleagues left one by one, popping their heads into his office to call out the traditional “Happy holidays, boss” that they repeated every December thirty-first.
At seven o’clock, weary of the silence, Mallock activated the security system and closed up the central part of the Fort. He only did that twice a year, for May first and the New Year. On the floor below, a team would continue working through the night on the data entry he had requested. He stopped by to say hello to them, partly to keep them motivated, but also out of kindness—though the old grump would never have admitted that.
Outside, the sidewalks carried the scent of oysters and lemon.
The cold had returned, bringing a few drops of rain with it—all the better to spoil the ambience. No matter; it was still a holiday. It was written on the calendar. Civilians were hurrying to celebrate, emitting occasional peals of laughter. Whatever happened, they would celebrate the New Year. And honestly, that obsession had always bothered Mallock a bit, though he had never tried to figure out why.
Those forced parties with mandatory kisses at a predetermined time, those stupid resolutions that never stuck, and the way people made sure to repeat them the following year to anyone who hadn’t died in the meantime. It stressed him out. He thought the holiday was desperate and morbid, and as depressing as a funeral. And they weren’t burying a year; he couldn’t care less about that; it was like burying your childhood, the time you had lost, just shoving it under the carpet, along with the dust and all the regret and remorse. Three, two, one, midnight: now everyone’s happy. They kiss, they throw themselves at each other, and then they ignore each other the next day and go back to the usual routine of hatred, or at best indifference.
Not only that, it reminded him too much of his childhood, and his New Year’s Eves, which were never celebrated.
At home, several voicemails were waiting for him. A dozen “Happy New Year”s and three invitations to come and celebrate—including one from Margot Murât, and one from Amélie.
“If you’re free, maybe we could . . . ”
And how! A few seconds later, his heart thumping, he dialed her number.
“Hello, you’ve reached the home of Amélie Maurel. Unfortunately I’m not in, but don’t leave me wondering who called—leave a message after the beep, please!”
“It’s Mallock . . . Amédée,” babbled the superintendent, and hung up.
Then, for more than an hour, he tried to stand being in his apartment. Around nine o’clock he gave up. Paris was at the table, having dinner. Mallock wasn’t happy being inside or outside. Only Amélie’s presence could pull him out of his funk. The clinking of forks and glasses in the courtyard reminded him that he hadn’t had any lunch that day.
He still wasn’t hungry. Gainsbourg’s song had returned to his head and with it had come sadness, slowly but surely, like a flood. He thought for an instant about calling Margot back. She was often associated with his attacks of spleen, and she was the most effective remedy for them. But it wouldn’t have been fair—not to her, and not to Amélie.
Not wanting to bother anyone, or to feel sorry for himself, he was preparing to begin a long and exhaustive single-malt Scotch tasting back in his apartment when the telephone rang.
It was Léon. “Amédée, can you come here, quickly?”
“Where? Why?”
“I’m at Saint Paul’s church, with a friend. Understand?”
“Canon Lasalle? Is there some problem?”
Léon didn’t answer right away. Then: “I think he’s your Makeup Artist.”
“The canon?” Amédée laughed. “I’m not surprised; he’s a nasty-looking piece of work.”
“I’m not joking, Mallock. He just struck again.”
“Who?”
“I think it’s the Makeup Artist, but that doesn’t change anything. There’s a body here.”
The air suddenly crackled with electricity.
“In the church?” Mallock’s heart pounded.
“Yes. Get over here; hurry!”
Had the son of a bitch shortened his interval between killings again? Mallock thought back, occupying his mind while he prepared to go. He had previously calculated that it would be four days before the next murder. Saint-Mandé had been on December twenty-eighth, and now it was almost January first. The count was right.
Despite the icy sidewalks and freezing air that took his breath away, it only took him five minutes to reach his destination. Léon was waiting for him at the top of the church’s six-columned forecourt, his face chalk-white. Without saying a word, he slid a large key into the lock and turned it three times. The canon was waiting for them in the ventail, trembling and red-eyed.
“Toward the baptismal fonts. On the right,” he babbled. He indicated a large pillar composed of four columns with his finger. “Just behind there.”
Like in most churches, the air was cold and damp, filled with the odors of incense, mold, and cat urine. Behind him, Amédée heard the key turning three times again in the closed door. The canon was terrified by the thought that a member of his flock might think of coming in to pray.
As he walked toward the spot indicated, Mallock’s breath came faster. The fear of what he might discover was mingled with that of coming across the monster. What if he was still there, hiding behind a column? The Devil in God’s house. He verified the comforting presence of his guns in their holsters, but he thought twice about drawing one of them. This was a church, and the former choirboy in him was reluctant. He contented himself with resting his hand on his little .25 automatic.
A rendezvous with the Devil, in a church, on New Year’s Eve. Only Mallock could have ended up in a situation like this.
Around the curve of the pillar, in a large white marble basin filled to the brim with blood, Mallock discovered a child made up like an angel in a fresco. His chest, a moonlike islet surrounded by purple, floated on the surface of the macabre scallop-shaped bathtub.
For the first time since Thomas’s death, Mallock crossed himself, before taking off his coat and putting it on the floor beneath the font. He took out the small digital camera he always carried on him, just in case.
“Call Number 36,” he instructed Léon, holding out his mobile phone. “Tell them to come and bring technicians.”
Without waiting for a response, he began taking photos of the scene. He turned all the way around, snapping from every angle. He also took wide-angle and close-up shots, bending to take pictures from just a few centimeters away.
Léon was approaching him to relay the response to his phone call, when he saw his friend do something that froze him momentarily in his tracks. It seemed that Mallock couldn’t bear to leave the child in this state, and in full view of everyone.
He saw Mallock bend his large body over the marble scallop shell and, dipping his arms into the blood filling the font, pick up the child’s corpse.
A noise like dripping water. Sweet sadness. A strange fruity smell. Damp distress. Bloody drops falling on the ancient stone slabs.
With infinite care, Amédée set the small, defiled body down on his overcoat. Then he stood there, unmoving, the sleeves of his jacket drenched in blood.
Preserve traces of evidence and clues!—how many times had he screamed that at his chief inspectors? And now he had moved the body! Even though it wasn’t critical, because he had taken every possible photo, it was still a thoughtless move.
He began mentally ticking off what they would find in the blood from the font: Fibers from his own coat. Hairs from Mimi, his housekeeper’s kitten. Traces of whiskey and tobacco leaves. He looked again at the shell-shaped font.
All around it, the floor was spotted with thousands of red drops.
The whole life of an innocent child, fallen like rain.
The canon, who had withdrawn into the sacristy, passed in front of Mallock to place a silver crucifix on the improvised shroud. Still in shock, the three men moved closer to each other, as if to intone a last prayer.
It was midnight.
Laughs and shouts of joy from outside penetrated the church’s walls and echoed in the nave.
“Four! Three! Two! One! HAPPY NEW YEAR!”