“Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal cohabited for eight thousand years, and the period in which these individuals lived corresponds to the last years of Neanderthal’s existence. What you’re seeing here are pretty much the last representatives of the species. Various clues and careful research have allowed us to reconstruct their final hours . . .”
Lucie listened closely, incredulous. She was about to hear the analysis of a thirty-thousand-year-old crime scene. Modern CSI teams couldn’t have done better.
“First of all, fossil DNA analyses proved that these were indeed a family of Neanderthals: father, mother, and son, whose DNA contained the genetic material of the two creatures next to him. The man was roughly thirty-three years old, which was about the age limit at that time.”
“Young.”
“They reproduced very early, usually between fifteen and twenty. The characteristics of biological evolution being to . . .”
“. . . To perpetuate the genes and ensure the survival of the fittest, if I’ve understood right.”
“Correct. At the time, however, it was rare for an individual to live past the age of seven. Living conditions were brutal, and most illnesses and injuries proved fatal. For each member of this family, we detected traces of rickets, arthritis, dental abscesses, and various bone fractures, and yet they’d somehow managed to survive. They were solidly built. Analysis of pollen fossils found in their intestines showed that it was beech pollen. Combining this result with the isotope analyses, we were able to reconstruct where the family spent much of its life: in the Southern Alps, near the Italian border. We believe they were in migration, perhaps because of the great cold. They had probably taken shelter in that cave to wait out the bad weather . . . and then the intruder came.”
“Cro-Magnon.”
“Yes. Our future modern, civilized man. Homo sapiens sapiens . . .”
Her tone was now tinged with bitterness.
“We don’t know what this isolated individual was doing in that place. Had he spotted footprints in the snow and followed them? Was he also in migration, or perhaps fleeing something? Had he been banished from his village, sentenced to exile? The fact is, he had very little equipment with him, unlike the Neanderthals. Just an itinerant. An outsider.”
Tassin spoke with passion, as if living her story. Lucie had no trouble visualizing the distant scene: the horrific weather conditions, hunched creatures squaring off against the howling wind and snow. Hunters who often died of hunger or cold, if injuries or infections didn’t get them first.
“The fire, the smell of drying meat or freshwater fish, may have attracted him. When he entered the cave, the male Neanderthal stood up and grabbed a weapon. Recent research in paleontology and paleoanthropology has demonstrated that Neanderthal man was not the retarded, grotesque creature we make the butt of our jokes. He buried his dead, played music, and cultivated a certain form of primitive art. We don’t believe he started the fight.”
Tassin pointed to close-ups of the frozen bodies.
“Look here. The three Neanderthals, including the child, show defensive wounds on their forearms. They weren’t taken unaware but were attacked frontally by Cro-Magnon. They were literally massacred, without restraint. Struck again and again with the harpoon. Arms, sides, legs—everything.”
Lucie could imagine the scene: A family gathered around the fire. A shadow approaches. A confrontation, then the slaughter: first the man, then the woman. The terrified child is huddled in a corner. The shadow comes closer, raises its weapon . . . She turned away, shaken by the similarity with her own recurrent nightmares.
“Are you all right, Miss?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Please go on.”
“For his part, Cro-Magnon showed very few signs of injury. He dominated the fight. And yet Neanderthal was no weakling. Five foot three, a hundred seventy-five pounds of muscle—these were exceptional hunters, very strong, with heavy, powerful limbs, but they were slaughtered by an individual who was taller and much more savage than they. After that comes an episode we’re having difficulty understanding. I’m speaking of the upside-down cave painting.”
“So it’s Cro-Magnon who painted it?”
“Probably after the killings. He used pigments and calmly went about his work while the corpses lay at his feet. I’d never seen such a painting in my life. A pure scientific curiosity. And no one has yet come up with a satisfactory answer.”
“Painted by a left-hander, yet again.”
Tassin cocked her head.
“Eva Louts said the same thing. You seem to have the same reactions as she did.”
“I’m trying to put myself in her head—it helps my investigation.”
“I can confirm that he was left-handed, as indicated by the negative handprints he painted on the cave walls. Cro-Magnon clearly wanted to take possession of the cave. But we think that soon after, the avalanche occurred, which trapped the sapiens inside and quickly froze the bodies, preventing the DNA from being degraded. The layers of ice that were blocking the entrance are exactly the same age as our mummies. Cro-Magnon died either from the cold or from hunger, in the dark, surrounded by the carnage he’d inflicted for a reason we’ll probably never know, but that proves he was already not the peaceful, unwarlike creature that some still maintain. It challenges a fair number of our assumptions and supports the contention that the extinction of Neanderthal was the result of domination by Homo sapiens.”
She sighed, stacking up some papers.
“At least we know who our ancestors were. While many things have evolved, violence is one thing that’s remained unchanged down through the millennia.”
“You mean it’s transmitted genetically? Like the so-called violence gene, passed from father to son?”
The scientist jerked as if she’d been stung.
“The violence gene is a myth, maintained by the deliria of a few individuals. It doesn’t exist.”
Lucie knew something about this violence gene: in the 1950s, scientists had advanced the hypothesis that a number of criminals, particularly violent ones, had an extra Y chromosome. These days, the theory had largely been discredited, as evidenced by Tassin’s reaction. She let it go.
“Did Eva Louts tell you she’d seen an upside-down drawing in a prison cell?”
“She did mention it. It was apparently what brought her to this laboratory. She too wanted to know the information I’ve just given you. What captivated her more than anything was the violence and strangeness of the scene, the apparent lack of logic.”
Lucie thought again of Carnot’s cell, the terror she’d felt when she’d discovered the drawing.
“Things are rarely logical when it comes to crime. And . . . your employee, Arnaud Fécamp, was he present when she told you about the prison drawing?”
“Naturally. We met with her together. Louts was extremely curious. She wanted to know all about the discovery. She even taped our interview. A very thorough investigation. Like yours today.”
Lucie sat back in her chair. Fécamp had lied to her about several things. First the drawings, which he claimed not to know about, then Louts’s interest in this story. Why? What was he hiding? Lucie thought through everything that had happened since she’d arrived at the institute. The scientist had made sure to see her alone, had tried to give her only a quick tour of the place and a few purely technical explanations to dazzle her, then send her on her merry way without even showing her the mummies. Maybe he’d been caught short by a visit from a cop ten days after Louts’s disappearance.
“Arnaud Fécamp told me the results about Cro-Magnon were stolen just before you could start analyzing them, is that right?”
“Sadly, yes. Shortly after the sequencing of his genome.”
“The thieves came just at the right time, so to speak.”
“Or just at the wrong time.”
Lucie didn’t add
anything, but an idea was forming in the back of her head. She stood up and shook hands with the laboratory director. Before leaving, she asked one final question.
“What time do your employees usually finish work?”
“They don’t really have a schedule, but usually around seven or seven thirty. Why?”
“Just asking.”
Another hour to wait, concealed in her car. If Fécamp was hiding something, he would probably react.
“One last thing: could you please photocopy those crime scene photos for me, if I can call them that? I’d like to take them with me.”
The woman nodded and did as asked.
When Lucie returned to the hallway a few minutes later, she found she wouldn’t even have to wait until seven o’clock.
Dressed in his street clothes, at the other end of the hall, the chubby little redhead had just vanished into the elevator.
He looked like he was being chased by the devil himself.
19
An erupting volcano.
Blue-and-red pennants whipped the air.
Sporting scarves in the same bright colors, fans were crowding toward Gerland Stadium for the midweek match, wearing the emblem of the Olympique Lyonnais soccer club. Loud voices, alcohol-laden breath, eyes red with excitement. The area was teeming with men, women, and children choking sidewalks and clogging the streets: amid honking horns and smoking exhaust pipes, the hapless drivers had no choice but to wait.
Fraying a passage through the crowd, Arnaud Fécamp walked quickly. Lucie followed as best she could, first in the same direction as the masses, then against the tide once they’d passed the stadium.
Suddenly, the scientist veered across Avenue Jean-Jaurès just as the traffic light turned green. In the blink of an eye, he vanished into the Stade de Gerland subway stop, which was spewing out further batches of stadium-goers. Lucie began slaloming among the shapes and dodged into the traffic, triggering insults from the aggravated drivers.
Difficult to get down the stairs. She elbowed her way through, mumbling excuses. People were shouting, singing, shoving, indifferent to her small presence. She rushed into the narrow corridor. No trace of the redhead. No chance of finding him in such a ruckus. Distraught, Lucie cast around for signs, burrowed through the tempest toward a subway map. Luckily, the station was at the end of the line. Which meant that Fécamp could only be waiting for one train, the one heading back toward Charpennes. With no time to waste, Lucie crushed in behind a woman entering the turnstile and managed to get through just as the Plexiglas barrier slammed shut behind her. She started running.
The redhead was there, at the edge of the platform. When the subway rolled forward and opened its doors, he rushed in and took a seat. Panting, Lucie stepped into the next car, keeping her eyes on him. Discreetly, through the windows, she watched his profile: he was looking undeniably anxious. He stared at the floor, eyes vacant, jaws clenched.
The man got off at Saxe-Gambetta and transferred to Line D, toward Vaise. The cars were packed, which for once worked in Lucie’s favor. With a rumble, the train entered the tunnel, sinking into a furnace of burning steel. Odors of rancid sweat and burned rubber.
Six stops later, another end of the line. Gare de Vaise, one of six train stations in Lyon. Fécamp got off and resumed his hurried pace. Hidden by the barriers of arms and legs, Lucie again followed in pursuit. She let herself fall farther behind in quieter streets to make sure she wasn’t spotted. The moment he turned a corner, she ran to the intersection, then again let him gain some distance. Despite the adrenaline, Lucie began to feel her exhaustion. Sweat poured down her back. The glacier, the highway, running through the streets of Lyon . . . too much for one day, and her muscles were rebelling. In just half a week, her life had made a complete turnaround.
Where was the researcher going? The neighborhood was nothing like the one Lucie had been in only half an hour before. Construction cranes bristled on the horizon. The buildings were crammed together; the rare balconies were littered with laundry and bicycles. Barely any pedestrians. Straight ahead rose a wall of high-rises, looking as if they had burst from the treetops. Lucie had a hard time imagining the scientist living in this squalid neighborhood.
Arnaud Fécamp turned onto Boulevard de la Duchère. Clumps of teenagers dragged their boots along the sidewalks: caps, hoods, the ample outfits of rappers . . . Quickly, without raising his eyes, the scientist clambered up a flight of steps and disappeared into the foyer of one of the dingy high-rises. Lucie quickened her pace and plunged in after him. The hallways stank of stale cigarette and pot smoke. Shadows sized her up with the usual whistles and crudities. Instinctively, she verified that her pistol was in her pocket and caught herself wondering whether she shouldn’t turn back, go home, be with her daughter and mother. But her cop’s impulses, which she’d tried so hard to suppress, wouldn’t be denied.
In front of her was a decrepit elevator. Above the doors, half-broken diodes lit up sequentially to the fourth floor. Lucie took the stairs, running up two at a time. The burning sensation in her calves returned.
Male voices reached her as she was covering the last few yards. She tried to control her breathing, advanced with caution, and flattened against the wall, already out of breath.
She entered the hallway. A door slammed.
Number 413.
Lucie could hear a baby crying somewhere. Then children laughing, doors closing. She crept forward. Images from old memories came flooding back. Stakeouts, manhunts, pursuits. The misery and decay of the city’s peripheries.
In apartment 413, she could hear two men arguing. Certain words set off shrill alarm bells: murder . . . Louts . . . cop . . .
Suddenly her heart skipped a beat. A cry. Then shattering glass.
Immediately, Lucie yanked the gun from her pocket, turned the doorknob, and gave it a shove, aiming the gun ahead of her.
Arnaud Fécamp was lying on the floor in the middle of the hallway, his head crowned with shards of glass. In front of him, a man was gripping a broken bottleneck. Sweat pants, no shirt, tattoos. About twenty, and all nerves.
“Police! Don’t move or I’ll blow your head off. Drop that bottle!”
Lucie closed the door with her heel. The man stared at her with gaping eyes. Veins bulged on his thin neck. Caught short, he let go of his weapon and raised his hands to about the level of his pecs. His coke-white torso was completely hairless.
“So what the fuck is all this?”
In the narrow hallway, Lucie tried to control her stress level. She prayed her hands wouldn’t shake. Too late to turn back now. She walked forward firmly, straddled the inanimate body, and pushed the young man against the wall.
“Sit down.”
The kid gave her a defiant look and didn’t obey.
“What do you want, bitch?”
Without thinking, Lucie raised her gun and brought the butt down on his right temple. A dull thud. The kid let himself slide down the wall, hands on his face. Stoked by adrenaline, Lucie shot a look at the other rooms. Filthy, a shambles. At first glance, no one.
“Don’t make me tell you twice. You see this weapon, shithead? It’s a semiautomatic Mann pistol, 1919 model, 6.35-millimeter, in perfect working condition. It’s so small and light it goes undetected, but it can make holes in you the size of grapes. I’m alone here. No backup, no nothing. No one to tell me what I can and can’t do.”
The kid let out a sound between a grunt and a whine, then his voice became clearer.
“What do you want?”
“What’s your name?”
He hesitated. Lucie pushed her foot closer to his crotch.
“I said what’s your name?”
“David Chouart.”
She stepped back, knelt down by Fécamp, and felt his carotid artery. Crowned with a bottle of cheap whiskey. Chouart hadn’t gone easy. The tattooed kid lo
oked disheveled, bloodshot eyes, breath like a feral animal.
“You really walloped him. How come?”
The young man rubbed his head with a wince. A lump was already visible.
“I warned the little fuck there’d be trouble if he ever showed up here again.”
“There are nicer ways to show it. Eva Louts, you know her?”
“Never heard of her.”
“Really? Because I just heard her name from down the hall, while you two were shouting at each other.”
Chouart gave the unconscious man a hateful look.
“The guy’s out of his mind. He comes here and accuses me of murder. I’ve got nothing to do with that shit.”
“Maybe he has good reason? Tell me what’s the connection between you two. How did you meet?”
“Nothing to say.”
Lucie stood up and nodded toward the researcher’s immobile body.
“He’ll have plenty to say.”
She took out her phone.
“In less than five minutes, I’ll have every cop in Lyon up your ass. You’re better off keeping this between us.”
Chouart bared his teeth, like an animal trying to face down an enemy.
“I know that trick. You’re going to call them no matter what.”
Lucie dug into her pocket, then tossed a plasticized medallion onto his chest.
“I’m here for personal reasons.”
Chouart looked at the plastic object, the photo inside, then tossed it at Lucie’s feet, an unwholesome smile on his lips.
“Your daughters? What are you, some kind of vigilante mom? Why should I give a shit?”
In an instant, Lucie rushed up to him and jammed the gun against his forehead. She was panting heavily, her face twisted, her finger twitching. Suddenly, the kid’s eyes took on a look of terror. He huddled into himself, clenching his teeth.
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