by Mallock;
But he was as meticulous as he was obstinate, and he jerked the folder open impatiently. Twenty minutes later he closed it, dismayed. He had just seen a glimpse of hell; the belly of the beast. A whole ocean of screams and flesh laid low. This new document was much crueler than Léon’s scrapbooks.
Every page was adorned with grotesque illuminations. Besides the snapshots and horrifying forensic descriptions, there was one morbid detail of the killer’s modus operandi that had never filtered down to the media; a distinctive feature of the ritual, at least with the most recent victims: they had been completely drained of their blood. Exsanguination. Not by a bite in the hollow of the neck in the grand vampirical tradition, but by the use of catheters in multiple strategically-chosen locations. The torturer—or torturers—had to have considerable medical knowledge to get such a perfect result. He would have to keep this information in mind as he pursued his investigation. A surgeon? A doctor or a nurse? A question streaked through his brain.
What had happened to all the blood?
He wouldn’t find out the hideous answer until much later.
Of course, there wasn’t the slightest trace of DNA; not the faintest fingerprint, only a burnt scrap of paper in a fireplace. Still legible was the end of a sentence which, it was believed, might have been written by the murderer: death is life.
Mallock sat up straight. Normally he would have waited, but this was urgent. It was too early; he knew. Dangerous, he suspected; even pointless, but he wanted to try. Starting tonight, against all logic, he would call on his most mysterious abilities—and on the substances that went with them.
To lift his inhibitions and give free rein to what he modestly called his intuitions, he prescribed himself his oldest, most innocent remedy to start with: whiskey and tobacco, as much as he wanted. Three good gulps to start the process and cleanse his mind of parasitic thoughts. Then the first cigar, smoked in little puffs, turning it to ensure slow and regular burning. Three more gulps. Then on to the most dubious part of the process: a sugar lump with three drops of one of his “remedies for melancholy.”
He settled himself deep in an armchair, gazing at the cloud of smoke forming around him, as his whole body began to vibrate gently. Three more swallows of whiskey. Calmly, like other people eased themselves into too-cold water, he began to penetrate the icy universe of the Makeup Artist, taking with him all the data he had gleaned from Léon’s scrapbooks and Dublin’s files along with his own first still-fresh theories. Three more swallows. Cigar smoke like fog on a moor. His mind, skimming the rooftops of the city, disappeared beyond the horizon, into the sunlit sea spray and balmy winds of a waking dream, all above, all inside.
As with each time he plunged into the unknown this way, Mallock perceived strange and sudden things; a mixture of dreams and revelations. This kind of sleep generated images that were difficult to sort and interpret, but which might very well help him, tomorrow, to profile the killer.
The monster was waiting for him. It symbolized the murderer—but in a coded, dreamlike way. Nothing was ever said explicitly during these visions.
Sitting hunched over, damp and reptilian, the thing was writing a curious list of words on little scraps of paper, which it let fall to the ground when they were full—but not without first duly and violently stamping them.
A poppy, some poppies, an elephant, some elephants, a tent, some tents, a horse, some horses, a wop, some pizza-makers . . .
He turned suddenly. A stethoscope hung around his neck. He began talking, absurdly, saying things and then their opposites.
“Death is life. Life is pain. Pain is wine. Wine is blood. Blood is union. Union is death. Death is life.”
Amédée tried to explain to him that he was talking nonsense.
“But Mallock, I’m not the one talking. You are. It’s your dream, isn’t it? So you’re the one talking. It’s your brain spouting this crap.”
He burst out laughing.
“Death, you poor stupid superintendent, is the opposite of life. Life is the opposite of death. Blood is life. Life is God talking to us. Death is emptiness. Life is fullness. Death is emptiness of blood. Blood is death.”
To Mallock, who felt strangely obligated to listen to this torrent of words while trying to assign some meaning to them, it seemed as if the monster was contradicting itself.
“I deny that! If I am contradicting myself it’s because I am many. Like you, Superintendent. Like all of us, isn’t that right?”
Then it screamed: “Look how we swarm!”
Behind it, in the shadows, a dozen forms were jeering.
“God has multiplied us, as he did with the bread and wine. Every day that God makes, we dance and piss on piles of cunts.”
Then it turned suddenly serious again: “Perseverance is a great fighter.”
And it picked up the chant once more: “Wine is blood. Blood is money. Money is fullness . . . ”
Back in the apartment, on the other side of the dream, Mallock’s cigar, having no one to smoke it, had mournfully gone out. The ice cubes in their tray had turned liquid again. And, in the stone fireplace, two poplar logs continued to consume themselves, whispering stories of the forest.
In his nightmare, Mallock found himself wearing clunky, mud-covered shoes and standing on a staircase decorated with photos of children and beaches. On the upstairs landing was a doll dressed in chiffon with hair in two braids, and three stacks of white masks. A low, hoarse voice that sounded like it came from a pus-filled throat was singing in the next room: “Little holes, little holes, more little holes, little holes, little holes . . . ”
Before venturing into the room, Mallock turned around to look for help. He realized that he was alone, and that he had left large pieces of dried mud all over the steps and the new carpet of the pretty house. The monster, emerging from the next room covered in blood, was mocking him:
“I always clean up after I visit pretty ladies.”
When he finally woke up, Amédée thought they might be dealing with a case of multiple personality disorder in their killer: several individuals imprisoned in one bodily envelope. A dissident group of assassins was another possibility. Thinking about it, both theories seemed equally plausible.
After drinking a cup of coffee, Mallock went in search of the vacuum, to deal with the ceramic dust that still glittered on the carpet outside the bathroom. He was annoyed with himself. He usually treated his possessions with great care—he even talked to them sometimes, and they talked back. They’d always given him good advice, and been loyal companions when he was a child.
Amédée went into the living room. It was Sunday, and he didn’t have anything much planned. The fire had gone out after struggling valiantly most of the night. Filled with sudden resolve, he began raking out the ashes choking the fireplace. His little Tom was there, among the cold grey cinders. He had truly believed he would never recover from his son’s death. The pain had stunned him, reduced him to a grief-stricken object. Incapable of rising up against the tragedy, he had found himself prostrate, bone-thin, with tears that never stopped flowing and an uncontrollable trembling that had shaken his body for almost a month.
The memory of Toto’s cremation was worse than any nightmare—a series of horrifying images, a life crumbling to agonized bits. And the grief was always there, would always be there.
“Your death, Thomas . . . you, dead? How can I live with that monstrous thing?”
For a long time Mallock hadn’t known what to do with his arms, or with all that love that he couldn’t give anymore. Three years later, he hadn’t recovered—only begun to get used to the idea that Toto would never be there again.
As he put his thoughts in order, Amédée had reached the bathroom. He shook a tablet and two capsules into his left hand and swallowed them with a mouthful of water straight from the tap. Leaning against the side of the sink, he rubbed his forehead with a
bit of tiger balm and essential mint oil, then ran a bath.
Waiting for the tub to fill, he went back to the kitchen. He would stew himself a guinea fowl. Fuck it—it was Sunday!
Lots of leeks, some turnips, two big slices of pumpkin. An onion with three cloves stuck in it. Two little hot chili peppers. A quick stuffing made of chicken liver, port, and bread soaked in milk. A few morsels of black truffle between the skin and flesh of the bird. It reminded him of a black-and-white mask at a Venetian carnival. Half-mourning—that was the gastronomic term.
An unexpected idea occurred to him. Originally, and despite what people thought these days, the purpose of masks was to show another face, not to hide the face of the person wearing it. Another piece of information floated up from the depths of his memory: the Italian word maschera, meaning false face, fancy dress, or disguise. Mallock loved it when he received this kind of mysterious message, even though it sometimes took a while to figure out all the significance of it.
Was it possible that the killer—or killers—was putting a kind of mask on his victims by covering them with that bizarre makeup? And if so, was he veiling them, or assigning them another appearance? If so, which one? Was he erasing something, or presenting something to be seen?
Masks had two completely opposite functions. Hiding and showing.
Lost in his metaphysical wonderings, Mallock dropped the guinea fowl into the pot of stock, almost gently. Sometimes he surprised himself by murmuring a word of thanks, like an Indian after the hunt; an apology, a kind of prayer to the food he was preparing. Only with meat, though, not vegetables—no need to go overboard.
The murdered creature would be ready in an hour. Until then he would simmer in a bath of his own, just like a plump chicken. First, though, he swallowed a double whiskey in a single gulp. Bottoms up.
Too much alcohol to fight too much sadness. It was an equal exchange.
He chose a book from his library at random and put on Brian Eno for background music; then sank into the warm water with a murmur of bliss.
4.
Monday, December 27th
Arriving at Number 36 on Monday, Mallock felt a sense of apprehension, which he took for exhilaration. The guard on duty, a hulk in blue uniform and flat cap, greeted the two of them—the superintendent and his dread—with the kind of fearful respect that troubles more than it comforts. In the lobby the huge Christmas tree was already shedding its needles. The pine scent permeated the large stairway, replacing the permanent rubbery odor of worn linoleum. At the top of the building, overlooking the Seine, between the drug squad and the crime division, was his department—the kingdom of Dédé the Wizard. The only department furnished almost like new in the whole building, Fort Mallock occupied the very top in terms of reputation, mystery, and—already—legend.
The oldest and youngest of his colleagues, Bob and Francis, were on duty.
“Good morning, Guv.” The ever-ceremonious Robert Daranne welcomed him by bringing two fingers to his forehead in a rough version of a military salute. As vain as a young man despite his almost sixty years, he claimed vague Irish roots, insisting people call him “Bob” and addressing Mallock as “Guv” rather than “Boss.” To be fair, it was a bit hard on a man’s pride to call someone “Boss” who was fifteen years younger than you, and who’d taken orders from you for a long time. He had acted as a kind of sensei to Amédée in his early days.
Bob was the index finger on the hand of Mallock’s immediate team. A former army corporal and then captain, he had come to the police force late in life and by chance, finding himself promoted—thanks to age and merit—to the rank of chief inspector. Habitually dressed in a brown suit and too-wide pie-server tie, five feet five inches tall, redheaded, mustachioed, and short-tempered, Bob was fundamentally brave and viscerally narrow-minded. He favored no one but his superintendent. His obsessive authoritarianism made him the best person to relay the boss/guv’s orders and ensure their perfect execution. He was a dedicated colleague, but also kind of a nuisance. The role of index finger fit him to a tee.
“How was your Christmas Eve dinner?” Mallock had asked the question because he knew they were waiting for him to ask it—for his permission to talk about it, really.
Bob launched into a recitation. “Oh, fine, fine, I managed to pull it off this year. Four out of six showed up. That’s more than usual. Normally three is the record. You should have seen them; all dressed up with their hair brushed, like when they were younger. Say what you will, but family . . . that means something.”
Amédée had a brief vision of a lineup of redheads; particularly the last one, Hélias, whose godfather he was. The one Bob persisted in calling “Alas,” because he thought it was funny, and because the boy hadn’t turned out exactly like his father would have preferred. He was too skinny, too intellectual, and he was late too much. This last pregnancy had been planned by Madame Daranne without the agreement of the paterfamilias, and seven years later His Majesty was still angry about the unauthorized use of the royal sperm.
Watching Bob was like looking back in time at the way men treated women in the 1950s. Bob was a chauvinist jackass, Mallock often thought, whom guard dogs annoyed almost as much. He imagined the four grown Daranne children, together for once to make the old man happy, wearing expressions of resigned impatience mixed with fear.
“A buddy of mine and I treated ourselves to dinner at Taillevent. I won’t bore you with the details.” Slimmer than Mallock, with crew-cut hair and a waistline beginning to thicken with age, Francis was a bit of a flake, taciturn and chatty at the same time. He tended to veer between one and the other, like sun and rain on the Normandy coast. “It was to die for,” he continued in blatant contradiction of what he’d just promised. “All of it, amazing—except for the goddamn crappy wine. Ahhh-mazing. Cost us a hundred and fifty euros each. Not bad, eh? For the first course, I had . . . ”
Francis Tremolha, nicknamed “Volunteer,” always seemed as if he were trying to make up for lost time. He invariably dressed in black from head to toe, as if in mourning for his terrible childhood. Laughing one relaxed evening after three Irish coffees, he had stunned everyone with a precise and detailed comparison of the impacts of the slaps and punches delivered by his mother and father. The blows rained on him with a shoe by his mother seemed to have left as much of a mark on him as his father’s complicit impassivity during these infamous “heel sessions,” as he called them.
Amédée, without thinking, had taken Francis under his wing, just because the little dodo had crossed his path. “Talk about a stroke of luck,” the younger man was fond of saying. At twenty-eight years old, recently promoted to chief inspector, he was just discovering all the small and large pleasures in life—especially the immeasurable freedom that money could buy.
“And for dessert,” Francis continued, “we had crêpes Suzette with all the bells and whistles; the flaming Grand Marnier and the waiter in a tuxedo with the whisk and the pan and the forks. Unforgettable. And you, boss? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“I got a hell of a gift, and not from just anyone. From Dublin himself.”
“A tie?” asked Bob, stupidly.
“No, you idiot. I bet he finally gave that bizarre murder case to the Superintendent,” said Francis.
“Bingo. But let’s slow it down a little, lad. We’re not officially on the case until Tuesday.”
“Yes!” exclaimed the young chief inspector, pumping his fists like a tennis player after a winning serve.
Mallock couldn’t hold back a smile.
“Be nice; go and see if Grimaud is here yet. But don’t antagonize him, whatever you do. He’s still in charge, and he’s a bit touchy. Just tell him I’m here and available; he should understand.” He turned to his longtime colleague. “Bob, go yell at IT. I need three extra terminals hooked up to everything that moves; Europe, the United States, and the East. And get some Mac Pros. I want
as much power as we can get, to process images and films.”
“How many?”
“Ken will give you the details. If you need a lucky charm, come back and get it here, okay?”
“Consider it done, Guv.”
Turning back toward the window, Mallock rubbed his hands together, almost content. Sometimes everything became simple. A mission turned up like a gust of wind and blew everything else away. He was one of the good guys, on the trail of the bad guys. Forgetting his own pain for a while, he would be in the service of the people, worthy of what he wanted to be: a good and courageous man. There was a lot of Cyrano, of course—his hero—but also some Jean Valjean in Amédée. The same physical strength, the same pride and anger, the same sentimental weakness. Like Victor Hugo’s hero he had a kind of monstrous destiny, the kind you could only fight with a shrewd mixture of resistance, resilience, and resignation.
For his happiness to be complete now, he only needed his two other captains: Julie, as sharp as she was pretty; and Jules, a straight, solid guy. The two of them were maintaining a long-distance romance. They’d been separated in the outside world, but not at Fort Mallock. The superintendent needed those two crazy kids . . . he just hoped they could stay discreet.
Outside, weak sunlight was filtering through the winter fog. He lingered for a few minutes, gazing at the view, trying not to think about anything at all. It was his way of wiping his hard drive, reformatting the data in his brain. Simply doing nothing, blocking out the slightest bit of information or faintest idea or smallest image from getting in.
After ten minutes of repairing authorizations, defragging, and throwing things in the trash, Mallock’s brain was ready. He went back on the attack, and in three hours had torn through a heap of current business: all the incoming mail, a quick meeting with Dublin, and then a discussion with his team about three cases assigned to them: today, one rape, a disappearance, and an apartment burglary with violence. Tonight, like almost every other night, he would have to slog through a mountain of paperwork. He had decided one exasperated day to reread and sign all documents that left the Fort; he was responsible for them, so he wanted to know what they were. Aside from these pressures, which he’d brought on himself like a big boy, he did mostly what he wanted.