by John Booth
“It is irrelevant, he is not the killer. When we interviewed him, he claimed some vigilantes attacked him with sticks.”
“Is that a reasonable claim?” Monde asked. He had not heard of people taking the law into their own hands over this killer.
“We’ve had some reports of pimps punching the odd customer if they didn’t like the look of him. Some of the prostitutes have taken to carrying weapons.”
“That is a long way from men with sticks, Antoine.”
“He is a dead end, Charles. But waste your time chasing dead ends, if you like. I shall tell the Chief Inspector you are going your own way, as usual.” Morin turned away from Inspector Monde and walked out of the room in disgust.
“The Inspector is right, Inspector. It is a waste of time,” Bernache said as Monde turned again to look at the map.
“I hate loose ends, Louis. They can tell you so much about what is going on when you finally clear them up.” Monde sighed and turned to face his former assistant.
“Tell me about this last murder. I have heard it was different.”
“Not really,” Bernache replied and walked over to the latest photograph on the wall.
“This is the girl. She was seventeen years old and rather pretty as you can see from the photograph. Her real name was Catherine Perrault though that wasn’t the name she used. You know these girls; they adopt false names so their parents can’t trace them.”
“I thought that this time, the victim was killed in plain sight?” Inspector Monde asked.
“She was killed on a street where there were witnesses, if that’s what you mean. A pimp and another prostitute saw a short man in a duffle coat approach the girl and lift her into the air by her throat. By the time they got to her, the girl was dead and the man had vanished into the night.”
“How could this man have done that?” Inspector Monde asked. “Did they not give chase?”
“They said he stood by the girl’s body and then vanished in front of them. That’s probably why the Commissioner has insisted you come on the case. But the witnesses were certainly lying,” Bernache said wearily. “Not every crime in this city requires a ghost you know.”
“So, as I said earlier, this murder was unlike the other ones.”
Bernache dropped the notes he was holding onto the desk with a thump. “No Inspector, all the other girls were strangled, just like this one. We had many reports of a suspicious man in a duffle coat and hood associated with the other murders. It is the same killer.”
“Not true, Louis. In the other murders, the killer made sure no one saw him commit the crime. In two of the cases, the bodies lay for days before they were found. The murderer killed in quiet secluded places until this murder. And that is ignoring the other most obvious difference.”
The Inspector stopped speaking and looked at Bernache waiting for him to point out the difference. When he did not, the Inspector waved at the other photographs.
“Look at the bruises on their throats, man. The other girls were strangled while they were kneeling and the thumb marks of the murderer turn down. The last girl was lifted in the air and the thumbs marks point upwards. You don’t need to know about ghosts to spot such an obvious difference. Your team should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Inspector Monde walked out of the room leaving Bernache staring at the photographs in astonishment.
III
“Go away! I am sick and tired of being interviewed by the police,” the man in the bed shouted.
Inspector Monde looked him over with interest. According to the file, Joseph Gauthier was an ideal candidate to be the mass murderer.
He was a loner, going his own way and not making any friends. He was married for a short time some years before, but it didn’t last. His wife left him and took their three month old child with her. Since then, he’d been arrested for assault and twice for attacking prostitutes.
Joseph worked as a joiner, making made-to-measure furniture, predominantly for a famous store in the center of Paris. He was self-employed and worked alone. According to the buyer in the store, he was dependable, but never socialized.
Physically, he was a strong man with large muscles, not too surprising given that he worked all day with his hands. At one hundred and seventy four centimeters tall, he was only a centimeter shorter than the Inspector. He was taller than the man who killed the latest victim.
Joseph lay in bed with his legs raised and bandaged. According to the nurse Monde spoke to before he entered the room; Joseph Gauthier would be released tomorrow.
“You do not like the prostitutes?” the Inspector asked, ignoring Joseph’s demands.
“I can take them or leave them,” Joseph replied in a disinterested manner.
“But you have punched two of them in the last year. That suggests an emotion more intense than mere indifference.”
Joseph rolled over so he could look at the Inspector directly. “They assaulted me, put their hands where they shouldn’t as I walked past them. I gave as good as I got.”
“Many men would be flattered by their attention.”
“They just wanted my money. That’s all women want anyway, your money. Once they have that, you become nothing in their eyes.” Joseph glowered at the Inspector.
“So why were you looking for one the night you were attacked, if I might ask? The place you were found is far away from your home or usual haunts and is known to be a place that prostitutes gather.” The Inspector kept a close look on Joseph’s eyes.
“I was out for a walk when I was attacked by a group of men carrying sticks. They smashed my legs and left me in the gutter to rot. I never went near any prostitutes.”
The Inspector noted that Joseph blinked rapidly as he spoke, an almost certain sign he was lying.
“Did they also steal your duffle coat?”
“I don’t know what you mean?” Joseph seemed taken aback by the question.
“You were seen leaving your house wearing a duffle coat with the hood raised over your head at half past ten in the evening. You were found on the street at just past midnight on the same evening without your duffle coat. What happened to your coat, Monsieur Gauthier? This is not meant as a trick question.”
“I must have left it… I mean, lost it during the scuffle.” Joseph looked wary, as though he had remembered where it was and didn’t want to tell the Inspector.
“You said you were attacked where you were found. I can assure you that even our most ineffectual gendarme would have noticed your coat if it was there.” Inspector Monde pointed out.
“You’re right, Inspector. My attackers must have stolen it,” Joseph said and rolled over, turning away from the Inspector. “I’m very tired. I’ve been severely injured, you know.”
The Inspector walked out of the room and found the nurse he had spoken to earlier.
“I told you he is a nasty piece of work, didn’t I,” she said.
“And you were not wrong, my dear. Do you believe this man is capable of murder?”
The nurse looked at Monde and glowered. “You’re all capable of it. That’s what makes you a man. But that man has eyes so cold they burn when he watches me, and the way he looks makes me shiver. He would enjoy hurting a woman, I’m sure.”
“You have my phone number?” the Inspector asked. The nurse fumbled in her pocket and brought out the Inspector’s card, nodding her head. “I want to know when this man leaves the hospital. I gather you use specialist taxis for those who are in wheelchairs?”
“Yes, that is correct. You’re going to watch this man, aren’t you, Inspector? I am a little afraid, now that he knows my name and the hours I work.”
“He will never attack you,” the Inspector said, putting a hand lightly on the nurse’s shoulder. “I guarantee it.” The nurse smiled back uncertainly.
“I only saw the girl working on the street. I happened to be passing when it all went down, Inspector,” Nicolas Ouellet told Inspector Monde. Since Nicolas had a record as long as the Ins
pector’s arm for pimping, this last statement was a little disingenuous, to say the least.
They stood on the threshold to Nicolas’s apartment. The man was obviously not going to invite the Inspector to come inside. Given the smell coming from the apartment, the Inspector was happy to acquiesce to Nicolas’s desire.
“I do not work for the vice squad and do not care that you are a pimp, Monsieur Ouellet. But you are lying to me over a murder and I will not tolerate it,” the Inspector said with menace in his voice. “If you don’t tell me the truth I’ll find a way to put you in prison. Do I make myself clear?”
Nicolas Ouellet looked into the Inspector’s eyes and made a decision that was a first. He decided to tell the Inspector the truth.
“It was horrible Inspector. This fiend had superhuman strength and lifted poor Caren as though she was a feather. He crushed the life out of her and vanished, as God is my witness.”
“Caren, Catherine Perrault was one of your girls?” the Inspector asked sharply.
“I only ever knew her as Caren, but yes she’s been working for me for nearly two years,” Nicolas became defensive. “I treat my girls well, Inspector. I kept them off the streets for over two weeks when the murders started, but a man has to live. I have expenses.”
“After Jackie disappeared, I kept the girls in the apartment for five days, until I became desperate. This was their first night out since, and we agreed I would be on the streets with them. They would do the business where I could watch and protect them. I was doing my best to protect them.”
Nicolas finished his long tirade, almost shouting. In the Inspector’s eyes, he was a man strung out through a lack of drugs. The Inspector believed he kept the girls off the street until his addiction betrayed him.
“Who is this Jackie?” the Inspector asked and saw a wary look reappear in Nicolas’s eyes.
“She went off with a client two weeks ago tomorrow. She didn’t come back.”
“You did not think to inform the authorities?” The Inspector noted that the day was the same one that Joseph Gauthier was found. “She could be lying hurt somewhere.”
“Dealing with the police has not proved a pleasant experience,” Nicolas replied. “My girls wanted to call the police, but I ordered them not to. They made some silly promise to Jackie not to let her disappearance go unnoticed.”
“She expected to become a victim?”
“She didn’t like the thought of her body rotting somewhere,” Nicolas shuddered. “I understand why she said it, but once you’re dead you’re dead. The corpse feels nothing, only the living feel pain.”
“I need to speak to your other girl. Sabria, isn’t it?”
“I will take you to her, Inspector. Be gentle. She has lost her best friends in the last two weeks.”
Inspector Monde followed Nicolas into his apartment. He looked at his watch. He had much to do over the next twenty four hours if he was to bring this to a satisfactory conclusion. Joseph Gauthier would be leaving hospital tomorrow evening and he had to be prepared. Most importantly of all, he had to find this girl, Jackie.
IV
Inspector Monde dragged himself into the police station at six o’clock the next morning. Louis Bernache had been in for almost an hour and watched the weary Inspector enter his office. Ten minutes later Bernache knocked on the Inspector’s door carrying two cups of strong coffee.
“Come in, Louis.”
“How did you know it was me?” Bernache asked as he placed the cups of coffee on the Inspector’s desk and pulled up the hated interview chair to sit down. The chair groaned ominously, but Bernache had learned to ignore it.
“I saw you in the murder room. Your colleagues do not seem so eager to be working on the case.”
“You’re right about the murders. There are two murderers on the loose, one of whom is a copycat. The Commissioner will not be happy when he finds out,” Bernache said wryly. “Inspector Morin is going to tell him later today. The rest of the team are disheartened by the news.”
“The murders will end tonight, Louis. I can guarantee it. However, it is better if you know nothing more about it. You have your future career to think of.”
Bernache sipped at the hot coffee and felt its thick black liquid ooze down his throat and put a warm feeling in his stomach. “You plan to do something that is not strictly legal, Inspector?”
“I intend to bring justice to those dead girls, Louis. Justice and the law only align occasionally on full moons, if at all.”
“I want to help,” Louis said. Inspector Monde searched the young man’s eyes and saw he was sincere.
“I thought you had had enough of the supernatural?”
“We put the whole responsibility for such things onto your shoulders, Inspector. It is not right or proper. Look how tired you are.”
“I spent the night searching for someone. You would never believe how many abandoned buildings there are in the center of Paris, Louis, how many places it is possible to hide the truth.”
“But you have found who you were looking for?”
The Inspector nodded his head.
“Then I want to help.”
It was late in the afternoon as Joseph Gauthier rolled himself out of the hospital in his wheelchair. The nurse tried to help him but he knocked her hands away.
A specially adapted taxi waited for him outside the hospital. A metal ramp allowed the wheelchair to roll into the interior of the taxi where there were straps to stop it from moving once it was inside.
A young Moroccan taxi driver stood by the vehicle and Joseph allowed the young man to push him up the ramp and show him how the straps operated.
“My name is Rico and I plan to get you exactly where you need to go,” the taxi driver told him. Joseph grunted in response. He disliked foreigners almost as much as he hated women.
When the taxi began to move Joseph paid no attention to its route. The taxi was funded by the hospital and so he did not care whether it took the shortest route or not. After a few minutes of travel, he was flung violently to one side as the taxi turned into a narrow alley and speeded up.
“What are you doing, you idiot?” Joseph shouted.
“We don’t want the police following us, now do we?” Rico told him from the front of the cab. He turned around to speak to Joseph, ignoring the fact he was driving and grinned. He had amazingly white teeth.
“What does it matter? They know where I live.”
“But they don’t know where I’m taking you. Come to think of it, neither do you.” Rico turned back to watch the road. He closed the window between the front and back of the cab and locked it.
Joseph began to feel afraid. He was being kidnapped. Was the man driving the taxi a relative of one of his victims? It was possible; Joseph never discriminated against killing a girl based on the color of her skin. They all deserved to die. He clutched at the straps holding his wheelchair as the taxi rocked. If he undid the straps, he could try to get to the window. Or he could get out of the wheelchair and walk. He might manage a few steps before the pain became too great.
Rico was driving down the back streets of Paris like a lunatic and the taxi swayed from side to side. Joseph looked around for something to use as a weapon. There was a hanger for a fire extinguisher but the fire extinguisher was missing.
In the end, he sat and waited, trying to keep the wheelchair upright as the taxi swerved violently. Joseph decided to wait until the taxi stopped to try to turn the tables. Provided he was only up against Rico, he might get a chance to strangle him. Assuming Rico was foolish enough to come close. Joseph flexed his hands in anticipation.
Sabria shivered as the sun set. She was following Inspector Monde’s orders. She stood at the same spot where Jackie stood with her punter the night she disappeared. His instructions were crystal clear. She was to wait until the punter who killed Caren appeared and then call out a request before the punter got close to her.
Sabria shivered again. The Inspector told Nicolas to stay in
his apartment and lock his door if he wanted to live. Sabria did not doubt the Inspector knew what he was talking about. He had given them their instructions with such conviction in his voice.
The hooded figure appeared as if out of nowhere. Sabria’s first attempt to speak failed as her throat was so dry, but she managed to get the words out on the second attempt.
“Take me to Jackie. I want to see her. Take me to see Jackie.”
The figure in the hooded coat stood perfectly still while Sabria held her breath. Then a hand waved for her to follow and the man began walking down the street. Sabria ran to catch up, her high heels click-clacking against the cobbles as she hurried down the road.
Joseph Gauthier was not having a good day. When the taxi stopped, he found it parked beside where he had been injured. It was a building he never wanted to see again. The driver jumped out of the cab and ran off down the road.
It took Joseph a little while to figure out how to unfasten his wheelchair from the straps. A quick look through the glass showed him that Rico had taken the keys with him. After a considerable amount of fumbling, Joseph managed to open the cab door and push down the hinged ramp for the wheelchair.
As he maneuvered his wheelchair down the ramp, a familiar voice drifted across the alley.
“Well done, Joseph, you would not want to be late for the main event.”
“Inspector, I’ve been kidnapped. You must help me to get home.” Joseph demanded, but he was already sure the Inspector would do no such thing.
“I am sorry, Monsieur Gauthier. We would like you to accompany us into the warehouse, if that would not be too much trouble?” It was a rhetorical question coming from a second voice.
It took Joseph a few seconds to remember where he had heard the new voice before. “You are also a policeman. You interviewed me with the other Inspector, the stupid one.”
“Louis Bernache at your service,” Louis said and gave a little mock bow. Both he and the Inspector moved to stand in front of Joseph’s wheelchair, blocking any possibility of escape. “I don’t think police ranks are appropriate tonight.”