Irene

by Pierre Lemaitre

  That night, Camille, I experienced an attack of stage fright. By the time they arrived, everything was in readiness. The tragicomedy could begin. Life would finally imitate art. Better yet, art and life would, thanks to me, finally become one. During the early part of the evening, my impatience was so keen that I feared my young companions would think me too nervous. The three of us indulged in foreplay, I served champagne and I asked of them only what was strictly necessary for my plan.

  After an hour of sexual congress during which I directed them to perform precisely those acts detailed by B.E.E., the moment finally came and I felt my chest tighten. I had to draw on all my skill and patience to coax their bodies into precisely the same pose as the characters on which I modelled them. From the moment I ripped out Évelyne’s labia with my teeth, from the moment she let out her first howl of terror, everything happened precisely as it had in the book, Camille. That night, I experienced a triumphant success.

  Yes, that is how I felt that night. A triumphant success. And I think I can say my success was shared by my two young co-stars. If you could have seen how Évelyne wept, the sincere, beautiful, lingering tears, when, much later that night, she saw me coming towards her with a steak knife! And I know that had B.E.E. deigned to leave her lips intact at this point of the tragedy, Évelyne would have smiled, I know that she would have felt what, after my long years of patience, was now our shared triumph. I offered her the opportunity of becoming a living part of a work of art and, beyond the pain, utterly sublimated at the acme of this drama, I know that some part of her, the deepest, most mysterious part of her, gloried in that moment. I dragged her from her pitiful existence and elevated her miserable fate to the rank of destiny.

  Nothing is more intense, as any lover of art will attest, than the emotion conveyed to us by artists. The means by which I access such sublime emotions is by serving such artists. I know that you will understand. Everything was meticulously executed. Down to the last detail. The scene as you discovered it is an exact likeness of the original.

  Imbued with every word, every comma of the book, I felt like an actor who when liberated from the text finally becomes himself. You will see it for yourself someday, since I filmed the scene using the “Minox L.X. ultra-miniature camera that takes 9.5 mm film” stipulated by Ellis. The screenplay made no provision for leaving it at the scene, hence you have been deprived of the film. It is a pity, but that is how the artist conceived it. When you finally see it, you too will be astounded by the truth, the “bitter truth” of the scene. You will hear the Traveling Wilburys play as I struggle to sever the fingers with a pair of nail scissors, you will feel the diabolical power of the scene where I, Patrick Bateman, cut off Évelyne’s head with a saw and walk around the room carrying the head on my tumescent penis and the scene I never tire of, where, with my bare hands, I rip open the girl’s belly. It is magnificent, Camille, I assure you, utterly magnificent.

  Have I said all I need to say? Have I forgotten anything? Do not hesitate to ask if you require further information. Besides, I feel sure that we will have many other opportunities to correspond.

  Your obedient servant

  P.S.: In retrospect, and without wishing to offend, I hope you will agree that it is touchingly appropriate that you were chosen to investigate the case of the Black Dahlia, whose real name, as you know, was Betty “Short”. A subject about which you know something. I append this post scriptum for your superior officers in case they should have the disagreeable idea of removing you from the case (we are TOGETHER in this, you and I, as you well know). Tell them in no uncertain terms that, without you, any hope that they might hear from me again is fruitless … but that my work will continue.

  Judge Deschamps set down the letter, stared at it for a moment, then picked it up and handed it Le Guen.

  “I confess I do not care for your behaviour, commandant …”

  “Really?” Camille said. “Compared to our killer, I’m …”

  Seeing the look on Deschamps’ face he trailed off.

  “If you could excuse me for a few minutes, monsieur le divisionnaire,” Deschamps said to Le Guen, as though Camille had suddenly ceased to exist, “I will need to discuss this with my superiors.”

  Le Guen finished reading the letter in the corridor. He smiled.

  “I had a feeling you would bounce back. But I didn’t think it would happen quite like that.”

  4

  “Good trip?” Armand said, sucking in acrid smoke with the relish of a tramp.

  “Difficult landing, Armand. It was touch and go.”

  Armand stared at the stubby cigarette butt between his fingers and was forced to accept he would not get another drag out of it. Regretfully, he extinguished it in an ashtray emblazoned with the logo OPTIQUE MODERNE DE CHâTEAUROUX.

  “I’ve got news. And it’s not good …”

  “Oh …”

  They heard Louis out in the corridor.

  “This is absolutely the last time!” he was saying, his voice firm and quite loud.

  Camille got up and stepped out of the office to find Louis glaring at Maleval.

  Both men turned and smiled awkwardly. Whatever it was about, the argument had come at a bad time. Camille decided to remain neutral and behave as though he had heard nothing.

  “Come on, Louis, action stations, I need you to get everyone together,” he said, heading towards the photocopier.

  When the team were assembled, he handed them copies of the letter sent by the killer. They read in reverential silence.

  “Le Guen is prepared to provide us with operational backup,” he announced. “They should get here tomorrow or the day after, he’s not sure, but we’re definitely going to need them.”

  “Uh-huh,” Armand, Maleval and Louis agreed as they finished reading.

  Camille gave them a moment.

  “This guy’s a fucking nutcase,” Maleval said.

  “I’ve asked Dr Crest to revise his psychological profile. But in principle I’d have to agree, he’s a nutcase. That said, at least we have a lead.”

  “We can’t be sure it’s from him …” Armand said. “I mean, all the stuff he comes out with has already appeared in the papers.”

  “I suspect that in a few hours’ time, we’ll have found Cottet’s body. That should be enough to convince you.”

  “The letter confirms everything we already know, but he doesn’t tell us much that’s new,” Louis said.

  “I thought the same. The guy is careful. But let’s go through the details anyway. The wallpaper is American. Armand, you know what you have to do. We also know he visited a lot of apartments. That’ll be more difficult. We’ll need to run a check in Paris and the suburbs of housing developments likely to have fitted his criteria. The letter confirms that Josiane Debeuf was introduced to him by Évelyne Rouvray. We’re not likely to turn up anything on that front. We might be able to find something on the Minox camera he says he used …”

  “I’m in no hurry to see the film,” Maleval said.

  “No-one is, I’m sure, but we need to add it to our list. Maleval, can you go round to the furniture warehouse in Gennevilliers and see if the security guard can identify Cottet from a recent photograph? And … I think that’s everything.”

  “It’s not much, is it?”

  “Oh yes, there’s one more thing: the letter was posted in Courbevoie, right next to the crime scene. The man’s got style.”

  5

  A peaceful, melancholy expanse of woodland, the forêt de Hez is a lethal place for property developers.

  The local gendarmes sealed off the area and a full forensics team from identité judiciaire was dispatched. The burial site was secluded, sheltered from passing ramblers, and easily accessible by road which made it probable that Cottet had been killed elsewhere and his body dumped there. The forensics officers had already been working for more than an hour under the glare of spotlights powered by a generator; they conducted a painstaking fingertip search of the area be
fore those tasked with exhuming the body were allowed to move in. Towards 9 p.m. it turned bitterly cold. The bright arc lamps and the police lights flashing blue beams through the budding leaves gave the dark forest an almost ghostly atmosphere.

  By 10 p.m. the body had been exhumed without complications.

  Cottet’s corpse was dressed in a fawn suit and a pale-yellow shirt, and it was clear from the moment it was disinterred that he had received a shot to the head. Clean. It was agreed that Camille would call Madame Cottet and arrange for the body to be identified; Maleval would attend the autopsy.

  Wednesday, April 16

  1

  “I’m going to ask one of my colleagues to take your statement, Madame Cottet. But in the meantime, I have a question.”

  They were standing in the corridor leading to the mortuary.

  “I believe I’m right in thinking your husband was a fan of crime fiction.”

  Strange though the question must have sounded, Madame Cottet did not seem surprised.

  “Yes, he read little else. That was about the limit of his intellectual ambition.”

  “Is there anything more you can tell me?”

  “Not really. My husband and I have barely been on speaking terms for a long time, and when we do talk, it’s not about his choice of reading matter.”

  “Forgive me for asking, but … was your husband a violent man? I mean, was he ever violent towards you?”

  “My husband was not a brave man. He was … physical, certainly, and he could be a little brutish, but not in the sense that you mean.”

  “Let me be more precise, then. What was he like … sexually?”

  *

  Camille was weary of euphemisms and decided to be blunt.

  “Rapid.” Madame Cottet seemed determined to needle him. “In fact, perfunctory, if I recall. He was not kinky, he had a limited imagination. He was utterly ordinary. He preferred oral, though was curious about anal, what more can I tell you?”

  “I think you’ve told me enough.”

  “A premature ejaculator.”

  “Thank you, Madame Cottet. Thank you.”

  “Not at all, Monsieur Verhœven, not at all. It’s always a pleasure to talk to a true gentleman.”

  Camille decided to let Louis conduct the interview.

  2

  Camille invited Louis and Le Guen to lunch. Louis was wearing a petrol-blue suit, a sober striped shirt and a midnight-blue tie with the crest of an English university. Le Guen invariably looked upon Louis as an anthropological curiosity. He seemed astonished that nature, having exhausted every possible combination, was still capable of producing such a specimen.

  “Right now,” Camille said, tucking into his leeks, “we’re dealing with five victims, three staged crime scenes, three novels and two missing persons.”

  “Not to mention the press, the investigating magistrate, the public prosecutor’s office and the minister,” Le Guen added.

  “If you want to be really pedantic, yes.”

  “Le Matin was ahead of the pack yesterday morning, but every other rag has caught up by now, as I’m sure you’ve seen—”

  “I prefer to avoid the tabloids.”

  “You’re wrong to. If things carry on like this, this ‘Novelist’ of yours is likely to win the Prix Goncourt. I was talking to Deschamps earlier. You’ll laugh.”

  “Try me.”

  “Apparently the minister is ‘deeply troubled’.”

  “Troubled? A minister? You jest!”

  “Not at all, Camille. To me, a minister who is deeply troubled is deeply troubling in itself. But ministerial anxiety has practical benefits. Everything we were told was impossible yesterday is now top priority. By this afternoon you’ll have a bigger squad room and lot more officers.”

  “Do I get to choose?”

  “Don’t push your luck! Sentimentality does not equal magnanimity, Camille.”

  “I need to enlarge my vocabulary. What, then?”

  “I’ll let you have another three officers. By four o’clock.”

  “Meaning six o’clock?”

  “Give or take.”

  The three men ate for a moment in silence.

  “That said,” Louis ventured, “With that last classified ad of yours, we’ve reclaimed the initiative to some extent.”

  “To some extent,” Camille said.

  “This guy’s got us by the balls,” said Le Guen.

  “Jean, please! We’re gentlemen! At least, that’s how Madame Cottet referred to me this morning.”

  “What’s she like?”

  Camille glanced at Louis.

  “Intelligent,” Louis said, sipping his wine. “Good family. From what she said, she and her husband didn’t so much live together as share a house. They’ve always been from completely different worlds, and over time they drifted even further apart. She claims to know very little about her husband’s private life; they lived separate lives.”

  “It wouldn’t have been hard to outsmart her husband,” Camille said. “Thick as shit …”

  “He was obviously an easy mark,” Louis agreed. “Maleval showed his photograph to the foreman at the self-storage place in Gennevilliers. There’s no doubt it was him.”

  “He was clearly being used, so we still don’t have much to go on.”

  “All we know for certain,” Louis said, “is that our killer is reenacting scenes from crime novels and—”

  “From novels,” Camille interrupted him. “They’ve been crime novels so far, but there’s nothing in his letter to suggest that his ‘masterwork’ is finished. He could throw a woman under a train and claim he’s recreating Anna Karenina, poison some woman in the arse-end of Normandy to restage Madame Bovary in period costume … or …”

  “… drop a thermonuclear device on Japan to play out Hiroshima Mon Amour,” Le Guen said in an attempt to display his erudition.

  What sort of logic drove this man? Why had he chosen these particular books over any others? How many murders had he re-enacted before the Tremblay case? And then there was the elephant in the room: how many more murders might this maniac re-enact before they arrested him?

  “What do you think, Camille?”

  “About what?”

  “What Louis just said …”

  “I’m going to need Cob.”

  “I don’t see the connection …”

  “Listen, Jean, I don’t give a shit which other officers you assign to me, but I need Cob to run computer research.”

  Le Guen took a moment to think about it.

  At forty, Cob was something of a legend in the force. With few academic qualifications, he had joined the newly created Technology Crime Division of the brigade criminelle as a lowly junior. Since he had little chance of passing the cut-throat concours administratifs and would have to rely on promotions based on length of service, Cob seemed perfectly content to remain a junior officer because his computing skills meant he was always assigned to sensitive cases. Every officer in the brigade knew about Cob’s technical wizardry, especially his immediate superiors who were suspicious initially, until they realised that he was not a threat to their positions. Having once been treated like a sort of idiot savant by the departments to which he was assigned, he was now considered a genius. He was constantly in demand. Camille did not really know the man, having run into him only in the canteen, but he liked Cob’s style. Cob’s face was as square and white as a computer monitor and his somewhat sullen manner belied an ironic detachment and a deadpan sense of humour that appealed to Camille. But it was not for his sense of humour that Camille had requested him: the investigation needed a gifted computer expert, and everyone at the brigade knew that Cob was the best.

  “O.K., fine …” Le Guen sighed. “But, to get back to what Louis was saying – what do you think?”

  Camille, who hadn’t been listening to a word of their conversation, looked at his partner and smiled: “I think Louis is always right. It’s axiomatic.”

  3
r />   “Obviously, anything we discuss here is protected by judicial confidentiality.”

  “Obviously,” said Fabien Ballanger, who clearly had only the vaguest idea of how investigations were conducted in the real world.

  Sitting behind his desk, his head resting pensively on one fist like Rodin’s “Thinker”, Ballanger waited for Camille to get to the point, his imploring eyes trying to lighten the commandant’s burden by granting him general absolution.

  “We currently have four murder cases on our hands.”

  “Two more than when we last spoke …”

  “Exactly.”

  “Which, obviously, seems like a lot,” Ballanger said, staring down at his hands.

  Camille gave a brief outline of how each of the crimes had been committed.

  “We have now determined that three of these murders were precise re-enactments of scenes from American Psycho, The Black Dahlia and Laidlaw. Are you familiar with the books?”

  “Yes, I’ve read all three.”

  “Can you think of anything that might connect them?”

  “Not really,” Ballanger said, after giving the matter some thought. “One Scottish writer, two Americans. They work in very different genres. In literary terms Laidlaw and American Psycho are a world apart. I can’t remember precisely when they were published, but I’m pretty certain there’s no correlation in the dates.”