Irene

by Pierre Lemaitre

  Sometime around mid-morning, Camille was surprised to see Professeur Ballanger show up. The frustration he had apparently felt the night before was gone and he sidled into the squad room with a strange reticence.

  “You didn’t need to put yourself to such trouble …” Camille said.

  No sooner had he said the words than he realised that it was prurient curiosity that had led Ballanger to personally deliver the fruits of his labour rather than simply sending an e-mail. Ballanger studied the squad room with the same incredulous amazement as a tourist visiting the catacombs. Camille showed him around and introduced him to Élisabeth, Louis and Armand – the only officers present – pointedly emphasising Professeur Ballanger’s “invaluable assistance” in their investigation.

  “I’ve reworked the list.”

  “That’s very kind,” Camille said, taking the stapled sheets that Ballanger held out to him. There were now fifty-one titles, each followed by a synopsis running from a couple of lines to a quarter of a page. He quickly scanned the pages, stopping at a title here and there: The Purloined Letter, L’affaire Lerouge, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Le Mystère de la chambre jaune. Without thinking, Camille glanced over at the bank of computers. Having been a dutiful host, he was now anxious to be rid of Ballanger.

  “Thank you so much,” Camille said, making to shake his hand.

  “Perhaps I could expand a little on my notes?”

  “Your synopses seem clear to me.”

  “If I may …”

  “You’ve already done more than we could have hoped for. We’re very grateful.”

  Mercifully, the professeur did not take offence.

  “Alright, I’ll leave you to it,” he said, regretfully.

  “Thanks again.”

  The moment Ballanger had left, Camille raced over to Cob.

  “This is a list of classic crime novels.”

  “I can guess …”

  “We need to identify the salient elements of the crimes described in them and look for any cold cases that seem to correspond.”

  “When you say ‘we’ …”

  “I mean ‘you’,” Camille grinned.

  He took a few hesitant steps then came back, looking thoughtful.

  “There’s something else I need you to do.”

  “Camille, I’m going to be tied up for hours on this.”

  “I know that. But there’s something else I need. Something I suspect might prove pretty complicated.”

  It was always best to appeal to Cob’s finer feelings. These feelings – like everything else about him – were essentially computer-related. The only thing more likely to pique his interest than a difficult task was an impossible one.

  “It’s to do with the cold cases. I need all the information we have on the killer’s modus operandi in each investigation.”

  “So what exactly are we looking for?”

  “Logical inconsistencies, baffling details, pieces of evidence that seem unrelated to the case. One-off crimes in which something about the evidence seems improbable. We need to go through the list of classic crime novels, but it’s probable that our killer is choosing books on the basis of his personal taste and there’s no guarantee that those novels will be on our list. The only way to identify them is to look for logical inconsistencies, details that don’t fit with the M.O. because they’ve been lifted directly from a novel.”

  “I don’t have the heuristic algorithms designed for that kind of search.”

  “I know that. If you did, I wouldn’t be asking, I’d do it myself.”

  “Parameters?”

  “Let’s say metropolitan France over the last five years.”

  “Nothing too taxing, then!”

  “How long will it take?”

  “No idea,” Cob said pensively. “First I’ll have to write an algorithm.”

  2

  “You’ve had your doubts about him from the beginning.” Camille smiled.

  “Not particularly, no,” Louis protested. “But he wouldn’t be the first murderer to deliberately contact the police.”

  “I know, you explained.”

  “Yes, but since then I’ve discovered a number of other disturbing facts.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Louis flipped opened his notebook.

  “Jérôme Lesage, 42, single. He inherited the bookshop from his father, who died in 1984. Studied literature at the Sorbonne. His dissertation was on ‘The Oral Tradition in Detective Fiction’. He graduated with distinction. Family: one sister, Christine, she’s forty, they live together.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Absolutely not, they live in the apartment above the bookshop. It’s all part of their inheritance. On April 11, 1985, Christine Lesage marries one Alain Froissart.”

  “All this detail!”

  “I mention it because it’s relevant: her husband died in a car crash ten days later, on April 21, leaving her a sizeable fortune he had inherited from his family: for generations they owned woollen mills in northern France before successfully moving into off-the-peg clothing. Froissart was the sole heir. In the years that followed Christine spend a period in a psychiatric clinic and there were several stays in sanatoriums. In 1988, she came back to Paris and moved into her brother’s apartment. She still lives there.

  “Now, our killer is obviously well off, and Lesage has access to a lot of money, that’s the first point. Point two, the timeline. On July 10, 2001, Grace Hobson was murdered in Glasgow. Lesage’s bookshop was closed for the month of July because brother and sister were on holiday in England – Lesage has a friend in London and they stayed with him for two weeks. But London to Glasgow can only be – what? – an hour by plane.”

  “It all sounds a bit far-fetched.”

  “Maybe, but it’s possible. Manuela Constanza was murdered on November 21, 2001. Right here in Paris. Lesage could have done it, he’s got no alibi. Nor does he have an alibi for the Courbevoie murders on April 6. Paris, Courbevoie, Tremblay, they’re all within an hour’s drive, meaning Lesage had opportunity.”

  “It’s all circumstantial.”

  “He told us about two of the three books. He contacted us in the first instance. And we don’t know what his motive was for leaking information to the press. He claims he was tricked into it, but if he’s our killer he could just as easily have done it because he wanted the publicity.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “He subscribes to Nuits Blanches,” Louis said, waving the list he had requisitioned from the publisher.

  “Oh, Louis!” Camille said, snatching the list and thumbing through it. “He’s a specialist bookseller – he probably subscribes to every magazine going. Look, there are dozens of bookshops on this list. There’s all sorts in here: booksellers, journalists, libraries, newspapers. It’s entirely possible my father is on this list … Bingo! There he is! And anyone with internet access can read the classified ads, there’s no paywall.”

  Louis held up his hands in surrender.

  “O.K.,” Camille continued, “what do you suggest?”

  “Check his finances. It’s a bookshop, so there’ll be a lot of cash transactions. We’d need to take a detailed look at his accounts, earnings, expenditure, look for any substantial unexplained withdrawals. After all, these murders have to be pretty expensive undertakings.”

  Camille thought for a moment.

  “Get me Deschamps on the phone.”

  Saturday, April 19

  1

  10 p.m. at the Gare de Lyon.

  Seeing her waddle towards him, Camille was surprised to note that Irène’s face was rounder, her stomach more swollen even than when she left. He insisted on taking her suitcase, kissed her awkwardly. She looked utterly drained.

  “Good break?”

  “You’ve heard the highlights,” she said, breathless.

  They took a taxi, and the moment they arrived home, Irène collapsed onto the sofa with a sigh of relief.

  “
Can I get you something?” Camille said.

  “Tea would be nice.”

  Irène talked about her time away.

  “My father talked and talked and talked, he went on and on and on about himself. I don’t know why I’m surprised, it’s the only subject he knows anything about.”

  “Sounds exhausting.”

  “They’re very sweet.”

  She asked about the investigation. He gave her a copy of the letter sent by the killer which she read while he went downstairs to fetch the post.

  “Are you here for dinner?” she asked when he reappeared.

  “I don’t think so …” Camille said, his face ashen. In his hand was an unopened letter. The postmark read: Tremblay-en-France.

  Dear Commandant,

  I am honoured that you have taken such an interest in my work.

  I know that you and your team have been busy and that my missives have generated a lot of activity and undoubtedly left you exhausted. For this I apologise. If I could lighten your load, I would do so in a heartbeat, believe me. But I have my own work to accomplish and I know you understand that.

  Here I am, rambling on, when doubtless you are anxious for me to get to the point.

  So: The Black Dahlia.

  The book is a masterpiece, don’t you agree? And my homage to it was also a masterpiece, even if I do say so myself. “My” Dahlia, as you so fittingly refer to her, was a grubby little whore. Graceless and a little vulgar, perhaps. From the moment I saw her, I knew she was better suited to a role in Ellroy’s novel than to standing on street corners. Her body was, shall we say, acceptable. Unfortunately, Ellroy’s descriptions focus on the body in death rather than in life. During my long nocturnal perambulations, I repeated phrases from the novel over and over through the red-light districts of Paris, from rue Saint-Denis to Pigalle, from the Champs-Élysées to the Bois de Boulogne. I began to despair of ever finding such a rare pearl. Then, one night, I found her unexpectedly – or rather, all too predictably – standing on the corner of the rue Saint-Denis dressed garishly in thigh-high red boots, her tawdry undergarments visible thanks to a plunging neckline and a split skirt. It was her smile that won me over. Manuela had a wide mouth and naturally jet black hair. I asked her price, and went upstairs with her. It was an ordeal, Camille, I assure you. The place was squalid beyond belief, the room was pervaded by the stench of sweat, which the scented candle burning on the chest of drawers did little to dispel, and the bed – a mattress on a wooden pallet – was such that no healthy person would have agreed to lie on it. We did the deed standing up; it was the only way.

  Thereafter, I waged a long tactical campaign. Prostitutes are by nature wary, and even if their pimps are not immediately visible, one senses their presence behind the half-open doors, glimpses shadowy figures in the hallways. I was obliged to return on several occasions, to convince her that I was harmless, gentle, undemanding, charming.

  I was careful not to visit this brothel too frequently, nor to always visit at the same time lest my presence be remarked upon; her friends might have been able to identify me later.

  At the close of one of our encounters, I suggested we meet elsewhere, “for the night”. She could name her price. I had not imagined it might require quite so much negotiating. She said she needed to discuss it with her pimp. At that point, I could have changed my mind, looked for some other partner, but I am, I confess, somewhat single-minded and during our trysts I had projected onto the girl all the images from the book. By now, she was the living embodiment of Betty Short, she seemed so perfect in the role that I could not bring myself to give her up. In hindsight, I was lucky, you might say. It was, after all, an unnecessary risk. And so I met with her gorilla Lambert. What a character! I don’t know whether you knew him in life – ah, yes, he’s dead now, but I’ll come back to that. He was … like a character from a novel. Beyond caricature. He treated me with contempt and I allowed him to. That was the game. He needed to “know exactly who he was dealing with”, he told me. The man clearly enjoyed his work. Like any other pimp, he doubtless beat the girls but his tone was protective, almost paternal. To cut a long story short, I explained that I wanted “his girl” for one night. He fleeced me, Camille, fleeced me shamefully. But, as I have said, that was the game. He demanded to know where we would be spending the night, which complicated matters. With the embarrassed reluctance of a married man, I gave him a false address and that seemed to satisfy him. Or at least, so I believed. Manuela and I met the following day. I feared she might stand me up, but, for them, this was a good deal.

  In the area around the rue de Livy, a stone’s throw from the rubbish tip, there are a number of derelict houses which the council have long planned to demolish. Some are bricked or boarded up, but there are two standing empty. I chose 57b. As I drove Manuela there that night, I sensed she was apprehensive but I was so sweet, so awkward, so insecure, that even the most insolent whore would have been convinced.

  Everything had been prepared in advance. As soon as we stepped inside, I delivered a heavy blow to the back of her head and she collapsed without so much as a groan. Then, I brought her body down to the cellar.

  Two hours later, she woke to find herself naked, tied to a chair, in the blinding glare of the spotlight. She was shivering and wide-eyed with terror. I told her what was going to happen and, for the first few hours, she writhed and twisted in an effort to break free, she tried to scream, but the duct tape covering her face made it impossible. I found all this upheaval exasperating. I decided to break her legs first. With a baseball bat. After that, things proceeded more smoothly. She could not stand, she could still crawl, though not for very long. Nor very far. This greatly facilitated my tasks, whether whipping her, according to the description in the novel, burning her breasts with cigarettes (though, as I’m sure you will have noticed, there is no other mention of cigarette burns in Ellroy’s works). The torture was somewhat protracted, but never tedious. The most difficult task was to recreate the smile of the Black Dahlia. Since it had to be done at the first attempt, I could not afford the slightest mistake. In the event, Camille, it was my crowning achievement.

  In my work, you know, every detail is important.

  Like a jigsaw puzzle, which achieves formal perfection only when it has been assembled, each tiny piece has its precise place. Should a single piece be missing, the finished work would be different; neither more nor less beautiful, but different. My mission is to ensure that the fictional worlds of great writers are scrupulously brought to life just so. It is that scrupulousness which crowns my work with greatness, and as a result the smallest detail must be studied, its every consequence calculated. Hence the crucial importance of recreating that smile, and doing so perfectly. My art is imitation; I reproduce, I am a copyist, in the manner you might say of a medieval monk. My self-abnegation is total, my devotion boundless. I have dedicated my life to the service of others.

  As I inserted the blade next to her ear, as close as possible to the scalp, gripping her hair to hold the head in place, as I carved a deep gash extending to the corner of her mouth in a single fluid arc, I knew from the animal howl that rose from the very depths of her to emerge from this new half-mouth that shed blood like long, viscous tears, that I had achieved my aim. I was more careful still as I began the second part of our smile, though the gash was perhaps a little too wide. Nonetheless, recreating the Dahlia’s smile was, as you can imagine, infinitely rewarding. In that magnificent smile I suddenly saw distilled all the beauty of the world. Once more I was reminded how much my masterwork depended on a scrupulous attention to detail.

  Once Manuela was dead, I cut her up, as described in the book, using a butcher’s knife. I am no specialist in anatomy and more than once I had to consult the medical textbook I had been studying so that I might identify the organs I needed to excise from my Black Dahlia. The intestines were obvious, as were the liver and the stomach, but would you be able to locate the gall-bladder?

  To wash the twi
n halves of the body, I had to take them upstairs and, since the water supply had long since been cut off, I used water from a rain barrel the previous residents had left in the back garden. I was careful to wash the hair thoroughly.

  By the early hours of morning, dawn had begun to break so I could not venture to the rubbish tip there to put the finishing touches to my composition. Fearing I might encounter some passer-by, I preferred to return home. I was more exhausted than you can imagine, exhausted yet exultant. The following day, as soon as it grew dark, I went back to finish my work by disposing of the two sections of the body exactly as prescribed by the book.

  My only error, if I might call it that, was to drive past the house again. Only as I arrived home did I realise that a motorbike had been following me. I had glimpsed it behind me as I drove back to Paris but, as you can imagine, my customary vigilance was compromised by the exhilaration I felt at having completed my work, by the deep sense of satisfaction. I was opening my front door as the driver, his face obscured by his helmet, briefly turned to stare at me. In that moment I realised I had been caught in a trap. That Manuela had not reappeared that day would not have concerned her pimp since she worked only at night, but when she had not reappeared the following evening … I concluded that, unbeknownst to me, I had been followed the previous night. Manuela’s pimp, having returned to the scene of my crime, had passed me near the house and followed me. That hulking brute Lambert now knew where I lived; I was at his mercy, my accustomed self-possession was shattered. I immediately left Paris. I was gone only one day, but it was a day of the purest terror, a dread only those who have experienced it can understand. The following day, I was reassured. I read in the papers that Lambert had been arrested for his part in an armed robbery. Unlike the police who arrested him and the juge who sentenced him, I knew that Lambert was playing a long game, that he had played no part in the crime for which he had been sent to prison. Eight months. The prospect of serving a third of his sentence was, in his eyes, well worth what he hoped to extort from me on his release. I waited calmly for him. For the first few weeks, I did nothing to elude the rigorous surveillance Lambert had organised from his prison cell. The most prudent course of action was to carry on as normal and give no hint of my concerns. My subterfuge paid off. Convinced that I believed myself safe, he was reassured. That was his undoing. When I learned that he was about to be released on parole, I took a few days’ holiday. I went to stay in a house I own in the country, one that I seldom visit since I have never enjoyed my stays there. Though I enjoy the grounds, the house itself is too big, and too remote now that the surrounding villages have been abandoned. There I waited for him. He was obviously overconfident and impatient; he came almost immediately, accompanied by one of his goons. After dark, they crept into the house through the back door, intending to take me by surprise, and each got a blast from my shotgun full in the face for their pains. I buried them in the grounds. I hope you are in no hurry to find them …