by Cédric Sire
Inspector Svärta stayed in Toulouse for only a few days before returning to Paris to chase other horrors, as she put it. There would always be other cases, other psychopaths to catch, and other nightmares that the human species loved inflicting on its own kind. It was her crusade, for reasons known only by her secret heart and the private wounds behind her ruby gaze. Vauvert remained the official in charge, stuck with facing the press onslaught, vultures armed with mikes and cameras.
This period of borderline hysteria lasted for a month or so. During that time, there was not a paper, radio or television station that did not suck the “vampire” vein dry. Some even went as far as including long clips from horror movies.
The first days, though, Vauvert was surprised at how politely he responded to the requests from the press. It did not last. He soon became fed up with the sensationalism and withdrew into his usual silence. He ignored the paparazzi camped on the sidewalk and started parking in the underground garage at headquarters to avoid the reporters. At night, he drove straight home to his big loft and did not go out. He kept the blinds closed. All he had to do was wait until the dust settled. He lived alone anyway and spent most of his hazy sleepless nights sprawled on the couch, either watching television or going through his case files.
He had talked to Eva again, but their phone calls were brief and professional. They discussed the few developments in the case and ended their conversations with trivialities.
On each one of these occasions, Vauvert wound up staring at the cell phone in his huge hand, drowning in his thoughts. There were things he wanted to say to Svärta. He wanted to talk about his behavior when they first met and the way he had underestimated her. He felt compelled to apologize. Except he had never been much of a talker, especially not with women. And especially, especially not with the ones he was really interested in.
He also wondered why she had bothered to call him several times at the very beginning, when she could just as easily have checked the files herself. Then she stopped calling. Why? Often, when the evening came, he would stare at his cell phone, scroll through the numbers until he got to hers, and then he would hesitate, his thumb on the call icon, his mind blank. What would he say to her? Nothing. Probably nothing.
He would put the phone aside and light a cigarette.
Loneliness was an old friend. At least he knew what to expect.
Besides, the media turmoil had started to die down. He could breathe again, even though the case was still officially open.
As far as the Salaville brothers were concerned, the forensics unit did not uncover anything more than what they already knew. The brothers had kidnapped those girls for reasons that remained unknown, and they had tortured them, one after another. With no exception, they had ripped the skin off their faces before bleeding them like livestock.
Nobody could begin to understand why they had committed such atrocities, why they had drawn pentacles and covered the walls with esoteric inscriptions. The men’s past, as their medical files pointed out, was but a pitiful series of stays in correctional facilities and psychiatric institutions. According to all of the specialists who had seen them, both had manifested behavioral problems for a long time. It was a congenital syndrome that ensured their whole lives would be spent on psychotropic drugs.
What the hell had they done with their victims’ blood? That was a total puzzler.
The disappearance of the faces, which had been peeled off the victims while they were still in agony, was a more haunting matter. But after six months, the Homicide Unit had no choice but to move on to other cases. The only two suspects were deceased.
There was nothing left to do. Meanwhile, other news—a radioactive leak up north—riveted the journalists’ attention. The Black Mountain Vampires gradually slipped into the oblivion of old nightmares, and were buried there.
Vauvert did his best to shake an uneasy feeling of incompleteness and avoid lingering in the nauseating twists of the grisly story.
Until he was pulled back into it.
Thirteen months later, precisely.
When the murders started again.
Identical.
II
THE MASK
13
Paris
Friday, 10 p.m.
Long after the sun dipped below the rooftops and disappeared, lightning lit the sky. The first raindrops plopped, almost timidly, against the expansive window. Then the splashing became blasts. There was no shyness about it. It was a tempest beating down with a rage.
Comfortable in her armchair, Audrey Desiderio shut her eyes and let the alcohol warm her. The boardroom was deserted. At this time of night, the entire staff was gone. Only she remained. She did not feel like leaving just yet. She was the boss and had every right to stay. Lately, she had even taken to lingering behind.
Tonight more than any other night, she needed to unwind. The magazine had gone to press. The week had seemed like it would never end, and she was worn out, mentally, as well as physically.
In such moments, nothing topped the pleasure of having no responsibility in the world beyond holding a glass of whisky, taking in the peaty fragrance, and feeling the cold of the ice cubes. She could lose herself in the whirl of her thoughts without worrying about the sales of the two publications she was responsible for, about editorial meetings and childish ego wars, battles over the price of every photo, and freelancers’ delays and excuses. She could escape, if only for a few moments, from the massive responsibilities that weighed on her shoulders and crushed her a bit more each day.
Audrey Desiderio felt old. How on earth do you feel old at only thirty-nine? Oh, she knew very well how. All she had to do was glance at the boardroom walls. All these covers with fourteen-year-old models who had no need yet for the blush and eyeliner on their faces. And the teasing captions on the covers: “Pink Goth—The Innocent Look for Bad Girls,” “The Five-Day Fast: When You Need Results Right Now,” “Dream Chick or Worst Nightmare? Which Girlfriend Are You?”
For years, she had felt so superior. When she actually was in control of her life. But now? In less than six months, she would turn forty. All this work over inconsequential magazine content designed to sell shampoos and shoes, and designer labels and all this watching anorexic kids dressed up like porn stars filled her with just one desire. To look like them. For just a few moments still.
Though she fully understood the impossibility of her desire, Audrey Desiderio was consumed by frustration.
There was no cure for the course of time, was there?
In her job, she kept rushing ahead. Yet the evenings would come, and she would find herself alone in the boardroom, yearning to be held in someone’s arms and to feel all small and protected again. Well, as for someone’s arms, she did wind up in plenty of those. Anonymous faces, scents and skin textures, all so different and all so totally alike in the end. She embraced the bodies with intensity in the backrooms of night clubs, on the desks in her very office building, on anonymous tables covered with cocaine residue.
It did not do anything to solve her problem. She was thirty-nine. She felt old.
She sipped her whisky.
She knew she was looking for a cure in places where there was not any. But she was addicted to her pleasures.
Like Barbara.
In the end, it was she who was the cause of her anguish.
If only she had known! She never imagined that it was possible to become hooked to such an extent. She had not seen it coming. But could anyone ever see that kind of thing coming? At first, it was a game, of course. Just a simple challenge to prove to herself that she was still attractive, that she was able to seduce a girl half her age. A youthful plunge in the arms of someone of the same sex. The kind of useless plunge that she took more and more often. The kind that was fated to end up crushing body and soul.
In Barbara’s arms, she felt as if the time flow had stopped. Oh, so briefly, it was true. But how precious, those few minutes of youth.
She grabbed
her phone on the boardroom table. This week, she’d left her three voicemails. On her fourth call—that was last night—Barbara finally picked up.
But she did not talk to her.
Not a word.
Audrey just heard her breathing in the earpiece.
She had asked Barbara if she was all right. What was going on, why she did not want to talk to her?
She got no answer. Only that breathing. Animal-like. Abnormal.
Then Barbara hung up.
What was that supposed to mean?
Was that her way of letting her know that it was all over between them?
They had not even had any arguments. Quite the opposite, actually. They had planned to spend the weekend together.
Was it some kind of game? Was she really supposed to forget about her just like that?
If only that were possible.
Audrey clutched the phone, her knuckles turning white. She had put up with that kind of thing with so many men. They had left her for other lovers. What did those other women have that she didn’t?
She knew what. They were so much younger than she was.
Do not call her again.
Audrey tossed the phone of the table and gave it a spin. She watched it twirl, a small plastic top, before it slowed and came to a stop.
Did Barbara want to play with her nerves? Was that it?
Fine. Audrey could play. She took a swallow of whisky. Even the clinking ice cubes seemed to be laughing at her. She wanted to scream, to hurl the glass, to do something brutal. Why was Barbara making fun of her this way? And why was she letting herself be humiliated? Why was she groveling before that kid?
To hell with her, yes.
After two more gulps of whisky, she grabbed the phone again. She scrolled down the screen until she reached Barbara’s number.
But then the intercom at the far end of the boardroom table, rang out.
Audrey Desiderio jumped. Then was intrigued. Who the hell would want in the building at this hour?
The intercom chimed a second time.
She got out of the chair and pressed the speak button.
“Yes?”
“Let me in,” a voice whispered.
“Barbara?”
There was breathing.
The same strange breathing she’d heard on the phone the night before.
“Barbara?” she repeated. “Is that you?”
Of course it was Barbara. It could only be Barbara, and she was playing a game with her. Audrey had told her to never come to her office. Under no pretext whatever. She had been very clear about it. Now Barbara was getting back at her.
Audrey turned the situation over in her mind. It was late. Except for her presence, the building was deserted. The cleaning women would not be around before four in the morning.
Barbara and she really had to talk. Might as well do it here and now.
Audrey hesitated, then pressed the button.
“Come in. I’m on the eighth floor.”
Through the intercom, she heard the main door open and slam closed.
She straightened. She was crazy, letting Barbara up here. But at the same time, she could not help looking at the leather armchairs around the boardroom table. What would it feel like to be stark naked in these chairs? What would it be like to try them out, one after the other, knowing that her prissy colleagues would be sitting in them on Monday morning?
And if it made her young again, to behave like some reckless college kid, what was the harm? A few hours of youthful fun were worth it, wasn’t it?
She crossed the room, stopping in front of the chrome-framed mirror.
In it she saw her reflection, a take-charge woman in a Chanel suit and designer heels. Her makeup was still fresh. Her impeccably highlighted hair was perfectly coiffed.
But then she saw something else in the mirror.
She saw a wolf. The beast was watching her with deep red, attentive eyes.
Startled, she glanced over her shoulder to make sure she was all by herself. The boardroom was absolutely deserted. She must have picked up a reflection, lightning from the storm outside, maybe. Her imagination had gotten away from her.
She turned back toward her reflection.
The wolf was still there.
Except it was not a reflection.
The wolf seemed to be on the other side. Inside the mirror. It was staring at her with its crimson eyes.
No fucking way. Okay, the alcohol was screwing with her mind. She may have had a few more drinks than she had realized. What would Barbara think when she got here? Would she smell her breath and leave?
The wolf remained perfectly still. Watching her.
But Audrey Desiderio was not a woman easily impressed.
“Hey, I’m not scared of you.”
She took a step toward the mirror, challenging this hallucination.
The wolf lunged at her.
14
Toulouse
In the dark of night
Vauvert realized he would not sleep.
Not with that storm outside. Thunder was rolling over the city, making the walls of his apartment shudder.
“Shit.”
He was exhausted, yet he knew that if he went to bed now, he would never fall asleep. He had been prone to such bouts of insomnia ever since he was a child. No medication had ever done a thing. And he had tried dozens. He had finally given up on the meds, and he was tired of using earplugs. He had simply come to accept his fate. Two out of three nights, he did not sleep, and that was it.
Tonight, like every other sleepless night, he just stayed on the couch. There was a German cop show on television. It was mindless enough to make him smile and occupy his attention for a few hours.
He brought his cigarette to his lips and took a last drag before dropping the butt into an empty beer can.
There was a short time in his life when he was able to sleep. When he was with Virginie, when he held her and felt her soft body, her curves where he could lose himself and forget about everything else. Yes, back then he had actually rid himself of the stress that devoured him, and sleep welcomed him at last. The simple illusion of not being alone was finally enough to permit him to let go.
That was ten years ago. When Virginie was his wife. When he believed in the illusion.
Insomnia had returned with the divorce.
And it was worse than before.
Vauvert sighed.
The German television show ended. He flipped through the channels and settled on an erotic flick from another age with faded colors and a cheesy soundtrack.
He got to his feet in no hurry, stretching his six-foot-seven-frame, which had once been all muscle. Now he had a small paunch. He headed to the fridge to get the beer and pulled another pack of cigarettes from the desk drawer.
He looked at his desk—or, actually, the chaos of papers and folders heaped on top of it. He was in the habit of copying his papers from work and bringing them home in case he needed to check them.
When was the last time he had sorted through the mess? Months ago? Or was it just last week? His own life was a reflection of this desk. He was overwhelmed by the chaos of his job. There were so many unsolved cases and missed opportunities. He could not see his way out.
Mechanically, he opened one of the folders and realized it contained his reports on a doctor who had kept a child in his basement for three years. The man had murdered several people in order to protect his macabre secret. It had been one of the strangest cases in his career. Still, it had been solved a while ago. All these documents had no reason to sit there anymore.
He put them on a chair, which itself held a teetering pile of papers.
His laptop was still nowhere to be seen. It was buried under the files on his desk. Including the file of the Salaville brothers.
Vauvert had been through this one quite often, both at the office and during his lonely hours. He could quote every last bit of evidence from memory, as well as the name of each victim. Not
that it had been of any use. Nothing more had surfaced in the case. The magistrate had closed the investigation. But Vauvert was not satisfied.
“God dammit, it’s been a year already.”
He opened the thick cardboard folder as he had done so many times before, glancing with a distracted eye at the medical files and the countless press clippings. In many of them, he himself appeared.
And there also was the photo that ran in Le Temps Réel, a double-page spread. The picture showed him talking with Eva Svärta at the farm. The paparazzi had been kept at a distance, but the telephoto lens had captured their features with great sharpness. Inspector Svärta was putting her sunglasses on after showing him her tears. Vauvert remembered the moment well. It could have happened just yesterday. He had felt like taking her in his arms. He wondered if anything would be different today if he had actually done it. He knew full well that the answer was no.
Then he wondered if the inspector also had a copy of the newspaper. And if so, what had she thought about that picture?
Truth was, he knew nothing about her personal life. Did she have a family? Did she have children to hold in her arms? They never talked about their personal lives during their brief phone calls.
All of a sudden, he wanted to talk to her. To talk the storm and the night away with someone who could understand him. Someone who knew how it felt to shoot another person, hating yourself for it but having no damn choice. Someone who knew how helpless it felt to be confronted with the despair of families, to take on their anger and be able to do nothing to help.
Realizing how stupid his thoughts were, he grabbed the Salaville folder, along with several other older files, and stuffed them all into the garbage can.
That’s where they belong.
“And all is well that ends well,” he said.
He settled back on the couch, in front of the erotic movie, and raised his beer to his mouth as thunder shook his apartment windows again.
15
Blood.
All this blood.