Irene

by Pierre Lemaitre

  Camille pondered the relationship between the two men. It seemed cordial. Maleval had joined the brigade a few weeks after Louis. They got along well. They had even socialised occasionally in the early days; Maleval had said, “Oh, Louis might look like an altar boy, but take him out and he’s a sleazy little devil. I tell you, when posh boys slum it, they go all the way.” Louis had made no comment. He simply pushed back his fringe. Camille couldn’t remember which hand he had used.

  Maleval’s voice shook Camille from his thoughts.

  “The image of the human genome has appeared in newspapers and magazines,” said Maleval, “it’s been all over the media. And we might as well forget about the faux cowhide. They’re not exactly fashionable at the moment, but back in the day people snapped them up. It would be impossible to find out where that particular one came from. The wallpaper in the bathroom looks new, but there’s no easy way to tell where it came from. We’d have to contact wallpaper manufacturers …”

  “Sounds like a thankless task for somebody,” Louis said.

  “Tell me about it! As for the stereo, millions of that model have been sold. The serial numbers have been removed. I sent it down to the lab, but they reckon the numbers were burned off using acid. Frankly, I wouldn’t hold out much hope.”

  Maleval looked over for Armand to take over.

  “I haven’t got much either—”

  “Thanks, Armand,” Camille cut him off. “We’re grateful for your input. Most constructive. It’s been very helpful.”

  “But Camille …” Armand said blushing.

  “I’m joking, Armand, I’m joking.”

  The two men had known each other for fifteen years and, having started out in the force together, had always been on first-name terms. Camille thought of Armand as a friend, of Maleval as a prodigal son and Louis as a kind of heir apparent.

  Armand was still flushed, his hands trembled at the slightest little thing. Sometimes, Camille felt a surge of pained sympathy for the man.

  “So …” He gave Armand an encouraging look. “You’ve got nothing for us …?”

  “Actually, I do have something,” said Armand, somewhat reassured, “but it’s a bit thin. The bedlinen in the apartment was standard issue, you can buy it anywhere. Same goes for the braces. The Japanese bed, on the other hand …”

  “Yes?” Camille said.

  “It’s what they call a photon …”

  “I think you mean a futon?” suggested Louis. Armand checked his notes, an operation that took quite some time but was revealing about his character. Nothing could be taken as true until it had been thoroughly verified. He was a rationalist.

  “Yes,” he said, looking up at Louis with vague admiration, “you’re right, a futon.”

  “So, what about this futon?” Camille said. “That’s the thing – it was imported directly from Japan.”

  “From Japan? It’s not uncommon for Japanese things to be imported from Japan, you know?”

  “Well, yeah …” Armand said, “I suppose it is common …”

  A silence settled over the office. Everyone there knew Armand. They knew how dogged he could be. An ellipsis in Armand’s speech could be the result of two hundred hours of investigation.

  “Why don’t you explain, Armand?”

  “So, O.K., it is pretty common, but this particular model comes from a factory in Kyoto. They make furniture mostly, chairs and beds and stuff …”

  “O.K.… ” said Camille.

  “So, anyway, this” – Armand consulted his notes – “futon was made there. But what’s interesting is that the large sofa was made there too.”

  The room was silent again.

  “It’s huge. They don’t sell many of them. This particular model went on the market in January. They’ve sold thirty-seven. The sofa in Courbevoie has to be one of those thirty-seven. I got a list of their customers.”

  “Fucking hell, Armand, couldn’t you have just said that straight off?”

  “I’m not done, Camille, I’m not done. Of the thirty-seven, twenty-six are still with furniture dealers. Eleven were exported from Japan, six of those for Japanese buyers. The rest were bought by mail order. Three of these were shipped to France. The first was ordered by a Parisian dealer for one of his customers, Sylvain Siegel. That’s this one here …”

  From his pocket Armand took a photograph of a sofa that looked exactly like the one in Courbevoie.

  “Monsieur Siegel sent me the photo. I’m going to visit his place to check, but I think we can assume it’s kosher …”

  “And the other two?” Camille said.

  “That’s where it gets interesting. The other two were bought online direct from the factory. Sales to private individuals take longer to trace. The whole thing is done by computer – you have to find the right people to contact, you have to hope the guy knows his stuff, you need to track down the relevant files … The first was ordered by someone called Crespy, the second by someone called Dunford. Both are based in Paris. I haven’t managed to contact Crespy, I’ve left a couple of messages, but he hasn’t called back. If I don’t hear anything by tomorrow, I’ll drop in there. But we’re not likely to turn up much, in my opinion …”

  “In your ‘humble’ opinion?” Maleval sniggered.

  Engrossed in his notes or his thoughts, Armand did not rise to the bait. Camille glanced wearily at Maleval. This was no time for jokes.

  “I managed to talk to his cleaning lady. She said the sofa is there. That leaves only Dunford. Now he” – Armand looked up – “might well be our man. There’s no trace of him. He paid by international money transfer, he had the sofa delivered to a self-storage company in Gennevilliers. According to the manager there, some guy with a van picked it up the day after it arrived. He doesn’t remember anything much about him, but I’m going round to take a statement tomorrow morning so we’ll see if anything else comes back to him.”

  “There’s nothing to say he’s our man,” Maleval said.

  “You’re right,” Camille said, “but at least it’s a lead. Maleval, I want you to go to Gennevilliers tomorrow, with Armand.”

  The four men stood for a moment in silence, but they were all thinking the same thing: it was all a bit sketchy. The leads they had went precisely nowhere. The murder was not simply premeditated, it had been planned with great care; nothing had been left to chance.

  “We’re going to be run ragged chasing down the details. Because that’s all we can do, because that’s the game. But we can’t let this grunt work distract us from the most important thing. The most important thing is not how, it’s why.” Camille thought for a moment. “Anything else?”

  “The second victim, Josiane Debeuf, lived in Pantin,” Louis said, leafing through his notes. “We checked it out, but the apartment’s empty. She worked the streets around the Porte de la Chapelle and sometimes around Porte de Vincennes. Noone knows anything about her. She doesn’t seem to have had a boyfriend. We’ve got nothing much on her.”

  Louis handed Camille a sheet of paper.

  “Ah yes, I’d forgotten about that,” said Camille thoughtfully, putting on his glasses and skimming the list detailing the contents of the suitcase the killer had left behind. “Everything a well-travelled businessman could possibly need.”

  “And it’s pretty classy stuff,” Louis said.

  “Really?” Camille said hesitantly.

  “Well, I think so …” Louis said. “But it bears out what Armand was telling us just now. Ordering a huge sofa from Japan just to hack women to pieces is pretty weird to say the least. But so is leaving behind a Ralph Lauren suitcase worth at least €300. Not to mention the contents – the Brooks Brothers suit, the shoehorn from Barneys New York, the Sharp portable photocopier … it all adds up. A rechargeable electric razor, a sports watch, a leather wallet, a top of the range hairdryer … All this stuff would have cost a packet …”

  “O.K.,” Camille said after a long silence. “That just leaves the fingerprint. Even if
it was made using a rubber stamp, it’s still a very distinctive clue. Louis, can you make sure it’s checked against the European database?”

  “That’s already been done.” Louis flicked through his notes. “On 4 December, 2001, during the Tremblay investigation. Nothing came up.”

  “O.K. We should probably rerun the search. Can you have all the necessary info resent to Europol?”

  “It’s just …” Louis began.

  “Yes?”

  “That’s a decision for the investigating magistrate.”

  “I know. Submit the new request for the moment. I’ll sort out the paperwork later.”

  Camille handed out a brief memo he had written the night before which summed up the main points in the Tremblay case. Louis was tasked with going over all the witness statements in the hope of piecing together the young prostitute’s last days and following up any leads on regular punters. Camille always found it entertaining to send Louis into seedy dives. He could just picture him climbing the sticky carpeted stairs in his perfectly polished shoes, stepping into sultry flophouse rooms in his dashing Armani suit. A sight for sore eyes.

  “We don’t really have the manpower.”

  “Louis, I am awed by your command of understatement.”

  As Louis pushed back his fringe with his right hand, Camille continued reflectively, “Though obviously you’re not wrong.”

  He checked his watch.

  “O.K. Nguyên promised me his preliminary findings by end of play today. Which is very convenient. Ever since my thick skull showed up on the ‘Nine O’Clock News’, and especially since this morning’s stories in the newspaper, the juge d’instruction has been getting a little impatient.”

  “In simple terms?” Maleval said. “In simple terms, she’s summoned us to her office at 5 p.m. for an update.”

  “Ah …” said Armand. “An update … So what do we say?”

  “That’s rather the problem. There’s not much to say, and what we can say is not exactly dazzling. This time we’ll have the benefit of a little diversion. Dr Crest will be giving a psychological profile and Nguyên will be delivering his preliminary findings. But we’re going to have to find something to go on.”

  “Any ideas?” asked Armand.

  The brief silence that followed was very different from those that preceded it. Camille seemed suddenly disoriented, like a hiker who has lost his way.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea, Armand. Not a clue. But there’s one point we can all agree on. We’re in deep shit.”

  6

  Camille travelled in the car with Armand for the meeting with the investigating magistrate. Louis and Maleval said they would see them there.

  “So, Juge Deschamps,” Camille said. “Have you met her?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “In that case, you’ve definitely never met her.”

  The car weaved through the traffic, using the bus lanes wherever possible.

  “What about you?” Armand asked.

  “Oh, I remember her!”

  Juge Deschamps enjoyed an uncontentious reputation, which was quite a good sign. Camille remembered a woman of about his age, slim to the point of gauntness, with an asymmetrical face whose features – eyes, nose, mouth, cheekbones – could, considered separately, have seemed normal, even harmonious, but they looked as though they had been randomly thrown together, giving her an expression at once intelligent and – quite literally – chaotic. She wore expensive clothes.

  Le Guen was already there in her office when Camille showed up with Armand and the pathologist. Maleval and Louis arrived immediately afterwards. Firmly ensconced behind her desk at the controls, the investigating magistrate was a little younger and much slimmer than Camille remembered her, though otherwise unchanged. Her face radiated refinement rather than intelligence and her clothes were not simply expensive, they were exclusive.

  Dr Crest arrived some minutes later. He brusquely shook Camille’s hand, gave him a vague smile and took a seat by the door as though not intending to stay any longer than necessary.

  “We’re going to need everyone’s skill on this one,” the judge said. “You’ve watched the television, you’ve seen the papers, this case is all over the news. So we need to move quickly. I’m under no illusions, and I’m not going to ask the impossible, but I want to be kept updated on a daily basis and I would ask you all to be exceptionally discreet in matters relating to this investigation. Journalists are bound to buttonhole you, but I plan to take a hard line on any breach of judicial confidentiality. I hope I make myself clear … In all likelihood, the media will be waiting for me when I leave this meeting, and I will have to give them some details. I need to hear what you have to say before deciding what and how much can be released to the press. In the hope that it might calm things down a little …”

  Le Guen was nodding vigorously as though he were spokesperson for the group.

  “Very well,” the juge said. “Dr Nguyên, we’re all ears.”

  The young pathologist cleared his throat.

  “We won’t have the full results back for several days. However, the autopsy has given us sufficient information to put forward some conclusions. Contrary to appearances and to the extent of the damage inflicted, it seems we are dealing with a single killer.”

  The silence that followed this initial remark positively quivered.

  “A man, in all probability,” Nguyên continued. “He used a range of tools – an electric drill fitted with a wide masonry bit, hydrochloric acid, an electric chain saw, a nail gun, several knives, a lighter. Obviously it is difficult to produce an exact timeline of the events; some elements seem, shall we say … confused. Generally speaking, traces were found on both victims to indicate sexual activity – oral, anal and vaginal – both with each other and with an unknown male partner, whom we can presume is our killer. Given the rather … uninhibited nature of these activities, we were surprised to find evidence of condom use. A rubber dildo was also used. From the information we have so far on the actual killings, it is not yet possible to determine the sequence of events. There are some conclusions we can draw, however. For example, it would be impossible for the killer to ejaculate into the skull before severing the head of the victim.”

  The silence was beginning to weigh heavily on the group. Nguyên looked up, adjusted his reading glasses and continued.

  “It is likely that both victims were sprayed repeatedly with some form of poison gas. They were stunned – possibly using the handle of the electric drill or nail gun, though that is only speculation, but we do know the same weapon was used. The blows in each case were of the same force, which was not sufficient to render the victims unconscious for any length of time. In other words, we can hypothesise that while the victims were numbed, suffocated and dazed, they were aware of what was happening to them up until the moment of death.”

  Nguyên looked down at his notes, hesitated for a moment, and then carried on.

  “You’ll find the details in my report. The injuries to the first victim were bite marks. She would have bled profusely. As for the head, Évelyne Rouvray’s lips were cut away, probably using nail scissors. She had deep lacerations to her abdomen and legs, and her stomach and genitals were burned using undiluted hydrochloric acid. The victim’s head was discovered on a dresser in the bedroom. Traces of sperm were found in her mouth, and analysis will almost certainly prove they were post mortem. A few more details before we move on to Josiane Debeuf—”

  “Is there much more of this?” Camille said.

  “A little, yes,” the pathologist said. “Josiane Debeuf was tied to the side of the bed using the six pairs of braces found at the scene. The killer first burned off her eyebrows and lashes using matches. I will spare you some of the more painful details … Let’s just say that the killer forced his hand into her throat, grabbed what he could and pulled everything out through her mouth … It was Josiane Debeuf’s blood that was used to scrawl I AM BACK in capitals on the wa
ll of the apartment.”

  Silence.

  “Any questions?” asked Le Guen.

  “The connection with the Tremblay case?” Juge Deschamps looked to Camille.

  “I read the case file last night. There’s a lot of cross-checking still to be done, but the fingerprint made using a rubber stamp is the same. In each case it appears to have been used as a signature.”

  “That’s not a good sign,” Deschamps said. “It means the guy wants to be famous.”

  “Up to a point, he is a classic sociopath,” Dr Crest said suddenly. It was his first contribution to the conversation and everyone turned to look at him.

  “Forgive me for interrupting …” he said, though from the tone of his voice and the poise with which he delivered the apology this had been carefully calculated and he was seeking no-one’s forgiveness.

  “Please, carry on,” Deschamps said, as if, even though Crest had already taken the floor, he still sought her official permission.

  Crest was wearing a grey three-piece suit. Elegant. His first name, Édouard, fitted him like a calfskin glove, Camille thought as he watched Crest step into the centre of the room. The man’s parents had chosen the name wisely.

  The doctor cleared his throat and scanned his notes.

  “From a psychological viewpoint, we are dealing with a classic case that is archetypal in construction, if a little banal in implementation. Constitutionally, he is an obsessive. Contrary to appearances, he probably does not have murderous fantasies. His fantasies are more likely to be possessive, culminating in destruction. He seeks to possess women, but possessing them does not calm his anxieties. So he tortures them. But the torture does not help, so he kills them. But even murder does not alleviate his desires. He can possess these women, violate them, torture and dismember them, but it does not bring him peace. He feels charged with a mission. Swept along by something greater than himself, he dimly senses that he will never find peace. He will never stop, because his mission has no end. Over the years, he has nurtured an absolute hatred of women. Not because of what they are, but because they cannot bring him peace. Deep down, this man’s tragedy is that he is lonely. He is capable of orgasm, in the everyday sense of the term, meaning he is not impotent, he can achieve erection and can ejaculate but everyone knows that such things have little to do with sexual gratification, in which the participant reaches another level. This man has never known gratification. Or if he ever did, it is now a door forever closed and whose key is lost. And ever since, he has been searching for that key. This is not some cold, unfeeling monster numb to human suffering, a sadist, if you will. He is an unhappy man who tortures women because he himself is tortured.”