Amédée had meant to spend his Sunday at the office, but his friends decided otherwise. Six of them descended on his apartment. They had all read the papers, and they were absolutely furious. None of them had a single doubt about their Amédée’s morals, and they had plotted together to come and cheer him up.
“We’re sick of not having any news, and of not seeing Your Majesty much anymore, so we decided to come harass you a bit.”
“I’m thrilled to see you, but . . . ”
“No discussion, no debate; I don’t care if you’re Chief Superintendent. Put on your swimming trunks and some casual clothes and follow us.”
Mallock didn’t try to argue. He knew this outing with his friends would do him a lot of good. This wasn’t the first time the clan of seven had come beating on the hermit-superintendent’s door. Their friendship had often been the best remedy for the miseries he suffered. For a long time he had taken care of himself, preferring to believe that you can and must pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. When Thomas died, he had given up the fight. You needed other people. And his friends had risen to the challenge with tenderness and discretion. They had done everything anyone could do in that type of situation. Made sure he knew they were there, and that they loved him. The simple fact that Mallock was still alive today was proof of their delicate effectiveness.
With what had happened to Amélie, he really needed them now.
He went into his bedroom to change, thinking that sometimes it was nice to obey without discussion, to let himself be carried along by the will of others. All he asked was for them to stop by his office so he could give instructions to his team. At ten o’clock, leaving his colleagues to work and not without feeling guilty, he got back into one of his friends’ two cars. Without asking him anything, either about his preference of restaurant or the case that was on the front page of every newspaper, they headed for the Bois de Boulogne.
They had a long ramble and then a wonderful meal with wine at Pétrus, followed by a film. At five o’clock they decided to go swim a few laps before heading back. When they split up, Amédée decided to stay in the water a little longer.
The pool was practically deserted and, through a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, he could see snow drifting lazily onto the street. What would his friends think if they knew the exact nature of his dreams? For days now, he had been giving the hardest part of the investigation over to the night. Before falling asleep, in the little coma that preceded drowsiness, he went over all the horrors he had seen since the start of the investigation. Once asleep he visited a terrible world, populated with evil and terrifying fantasies. In the morning he wasn’t sure anymore what came from the killer and what was just the expression of his own impulses. But he had learned a few small things which, put together, were beginning to yield results.
This cocksucker wasn’t just highly intelligent; he hadn’t committed all of these crimes alone. He had also sensed around the Makeup Artist an idea of cleanliness, a great ugliness, the color green, and the haunting presence of a cross. There were also the bags, and the piece of furniture with the buttons. A snake.
He couldn’t tolerate the visions this investigation was forcing on him anymore. For them, and for all the innocent people who had been sacrificed, he bore the Makeup Artist a burning hatred. Outside, the night and the snow had covered up the warmth of the automobiles. After one last lap, Mallock pulled himself easily out of the water. His towel was rough. He dried himself off slowly, sloshing through the water pooled on the tiles.
He would never have moved so calmly if he’d known about Julie.