Irene

by Pierre Lemaitre

  Camille’s heart began to hammer, the pounding echoed in his head. He almost clung to Maleval for support, but instead closed his eyes and dispelled the teeming images from his mind.

  He asked the woman to recount the scene. Twice. What she had seen could be summed up in a few words, confirming what Camille had suspected some minutes earlier as he surveyed the street. At about 4.35 p.m., a dark-coloured car had pulled up outside the building. A tall man, whom she had only glimpsed from behind, got out and moved one of the barriers so that he could park without holding up the traffic. When she had looked out at the street again, the back door of the car was open. A woman was getting in. The shopkeeper had only seen her legs as the man helped her into the car before closing the door. She had been distracted for a moment and when she looked again, the car had gone.

  “Madame Antanopoulos, can I ask you to go with my colleague?” Camille said, nodding towards Élisabeth, “We’re going to need your help. We need you to remember.”

  The shopkeeper, who felt she had said all she had to say, looked at him in surprise. This eventful afternoon would provide enough gossip to last her for weeks.

  “And you,” he said to Maleval, “I want you to go from door to door all the way down the street. And I want you to track down the road workers. They knocked off early. Get in touch with the contractor. And keep me informed.”

  15

  Bereft of officers, since they were all out working on the case, the squad room seemed as though it were in a state of suspension. Behind the bank of monitors, Cob went on with his search, poring over maps of the city, lists of public works contractors and the register of employees at the Clinique Montambert and relaying information to the various teams.

  Louis and a young officer Camille did not recognise had already completely rearranged the room, the noticeboards, the flip-charts, the case files. He was sitting at a vast table on which he had laid out all the open files, and half the time he spent on the phone, passing on information to the various officers working the case. He had called Dr Crest the moment he got back to the brigade criminelle and had asked him to join them as soon as possible. Crest would no doubt have his own agenda, and was probably worried about the support Camille would need in the hours ahead.

  As soon as Camille arrived, the doctor got up and with great gentleness went to shake the commandant’s hand. Crest’s face was like a mirror; in that calm, attentive expression Camille saw himself, the deep lines and the dark circles etched into his face by terror, his whole body taut and rigid.

  “I’m so sorry …” Crest said in a calm voice.

  The words Camille heard were different, futile. Crest returned to his chair at the end of the table, where Louis had cleared a space for him to lay out the three letters from the Novelist. In the margins of the photocopies, Crest had scribbled notes, arrows and footnotes.

  Camille noticed that Cob had added to his panoply of equipment and was now wearing a hands-free headset, so that he could talk to officers who called without having to stop typing. Louis came over to suggest something, but seeing the grim expression on Camille’s face he baulked.

  “We’ve got nothing yet,” he said. The hand moving to push back his fringe stopped, hovered in mid-air. “Élisabeth is in an interview room with the shopkeeper. She doesn’t seem to remember any more than what she told you earlier, nothing has come back to her. A man, about six foot tall, wearing a dark suit. She doesn’t know the make of the car. There’s a gap of about fifteen minutes between when she saw him park the car and when it disappeared.”

  “And Lesage?” Camille said, thinking about the interview room.

  “The divisionnaire had a word with Deschamps and I was given orders to release him. He left about twenty minutes ago.”

  Camille looked at his watch: 8.20 p.m.

  Cob had drawn up a rapid report on what each of the teams had been doing.

  At the Clinique Montambert, Armand had learned only that Irène had apparently left by herself and of her own free will. To set his mind at rest, Armand had taken the details of the two nurses and two attendants on duty at the time. He had not been able to speak to them because by now they had finished their shift, but four teams had been dispatched to their homes to question them. Two of the teams had already called in to say that noone remembered seeing anything unusual. The door-to-door enquiries on the rue des Martyrs had turned up nothing either. Other than Madame Antanopoulos, no-one had seen anything. The man she saw had moved in a cool, calm manner. Cob had traced contact details for a number of the roadworkers and three teams had been sent to talk to them. So far there was no news.

  Shortly before 9 p.m., Bergeret arrived in person to bring the preliminary results from the scene. The man had not used gloves. Aside from those belonging to Irène and Camille, they had found a number of as yet unidentified fingerprints.

  “No gloves, nothing, he took no precautions. He doesn’t give a shit. It’s not a good sign.”

  Immediately realising what he had just said, Bergeret looked flustered.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry …” he muttered.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Camille said, patting his shoulder.

  “We ran the prints through the system straight away.” Bergeret struggled to find the words. “The guy’s got no police record.”

  It had not yet been possible to reconstruct the scene entirely, but a number of facts had emerged. Given his recent slip-up, Bergeret was now weighing every word, sometimes every syllable.

  “It’s likely that he rang the doorbell and your w … and Irène went to answer it. We think she had just set down her suitcase in the hall when … well … we think … we’re fairly sure it was a kick that—”

  “Listen,” Camille interrupted, “we’re not going to get anywhere at this rate. Not you, not me. So, let’s just refer to her as ‘Irène’, and for the rest, just give it to me straight. A kick … where?”

  Relieved, Bergeret went back to poring over his notes and did not look up again.

  “He must have struck Irène the moment she opened the door.”

  Camille felt his heart lurch into his throat. He clapped his hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut.

  “I think it might be best,” Dr Crest intervened, “if Bergeret gave the details to Monsieur Mariani. In the first instance.”

  Camille was not listening. His opened his eyes again, let his hand fall from his face and got to his feet. As the three men watched, he walked over to the drinking fountain, drank two glasses of ice-cold water, then came back and sat next to Bergeret.

  “He rings the doorbell. Irène answers. He kicks her. Do we know exactly how it happened?”

  Bergeret looked wildly to Crest for approval and, seeing the doctor nod, he continued.

  “We found traces of bile and saliva. She obviously felt queasy and doubled over.”

  “Is there any way of knowing where he hit her?”

  “No, there’s no way we can tell.”

  “And then?”

  “She must have run back into the apartment, probably to the window. She was the one who pulled the curtain down. The man ran after her and knocked over the suitcase, which popped open. There’s no sign that either of them touched the contents. Then, Irène would have run into the bathroom, which is where we think he cornered her.”

  “The blood on the floor.”

  “A blow, probably to the head. Not particularly severe, but enough to stun her. She bled a little, either when she fell or as she was struggling to get to her feet. It was Irène who knocked all the things off the bathroom shelf. After that, we don’t know exactly what happened. All we know for certain is that he dragged her to the door. We found heel marks from her shoes on the wooden floor. The man had a look around the apartment. We assume he did this just before he left. He was in the bedroom, the kitchen, he touched a number of things.”

  “What things?”

  “He opened the cutlery drawer in the kitchen. We also found his prints on the window ca
tch and on the handle of the fridge.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He was nosing around, waiting for her to come to. His fingerprints were found on a glass in the kitchen, and on the tap.”

  “Did he use it to bring her round?”

  “I think so, I think he gave her a glass of water.”

  “Or threw it in her face.”

  “No, I don’t think so. There was no sign of water being spilled. No, I think she drank it. We found a number of Irène’s hairs, we think he had to hold her head up. After that, we don’t know anything. We swept the stairwell, but it was pointless. Too much traffic, too many people coming and going, we found nothing useful.”

  Rubbing his forehead, Camille tried to imagine the scene.

  “Anything else?” he said finally, looking up at Bergeret.

  “Yes, we have a number of hair follicles belonging to the intruder. He has short, light-brown hair. We’ve sent them down to the lab. And we know his blood group.”

  “How?”

  “Irène must have scratched him while they were struggling.

  *

  We found traces in the bathroom and on a towel he must have used to wipe himself. Obviously, we cross-checked against yours just in case. His is O positive, it’s pretty common.”

  “Short brown hair, blood type O positive, what else?”

  “That’s it, Camille, we haven’t be—”

  “O.K., thanks. Excuse me.”

  16

  When all the teams had arrived back at the brigade, there was a general debriefing. The results were meagre. At 9 p.m. it seemed as though they were no further advanced than they had been at 6.30. Crest had studied the last letter from the Novelist and for the most part confirmed what Camille knew already or what he had intuited. Le Guen, enthroned in the only armchair in the squad room, listened gravely to the psychological profiler’s report.

  “He enjoys toying with you. He weaves a little suspense into the beginning of the letter, as though this is a game. A game both of you are playing. This further confirms what we suspected at the start.”

  “That this is personal?” Le Guen said.

  “Indeed,” Crest said, turning to him. “I think I can see what you’re getting at, but I wouldn’t want you to misinterpret. In my opinion, this didn’t start out as a personal grudge. In other words, I don’t believe we’re dealing with an offender previously arrested by Commandant Verhœven or anything like that. No, it’s not personal in that sense. It became personal, probably from the moment he read the first classified ad. The fact that the commandant adopted an unorthodox approach, signed the ad with his initials, gave his home address.”

  “I’ve been such an idiot,” Camille muttered to Le Guen.

  “There’s no way anyone could have known, Camille.” The divisionnaire pre-empted the psychologist’s response. “Besides, what difference would it have made? It’s not as though people like you and me are difficult to track down.”

  For a brief instant, Camille reflected on his rashness, on the arrogance of acting as he had, of having himself made this case personal, as though he could take the killer on, man to man. He thought again of the conversation in Juge Deschamps’ office when she had threatened to take him off the case. Why had he been so determined to prove himself? A pathetic piece of point-scoring that had cost him much more than a defeat.

  “He knows what he’s doing,” Le Guen went on. “He’s known from the start and no matter how we handled things, it wouldn’t have changed anything. We know that because he says it here in black and white: ‘you are flailing and floundering in a labyrinth of my devising – one from which you will be freed when and as I decide.’”

  “I know, I get that part, but it never occurred to me that he intended to target me, to target Irène.”

  “I’m not sure it would have occurred to me either,” said Crest. Though his tone was conciliatory, Le Guen and Camille could clearly detect a hint of reproach. This last letter had not been passed on to the doctor until late in the day. Too late.

  “The most important part of the letter is the last section, the one where he quotes at length from Gaboriau.”

  “Where he talks about his goal, his great monument, I know.”

  “You see – and this is where I might surprise you – I don’t believe it.”

  Camille turned to stare at the doctor, as did Louis, who was now sitting next to Le Guen.

  “The thing is, it’s too obvious. He overdoes it. In acting terms, you’d say he’s hamming it up. Some of the phrasing is deliberately pompous.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying he’s not insane, he’s simply warped. He’s playing a role for your benefit, the role of the deranged psychotic who can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality, between fiction and fact, but I think that’s just one more ploy on his part. He’s nothing like the character depicted in his letters. Oh, he wants you to believe he is, but that’s a different matter.”

  “Why would he do that?” Louis said.

  “I’ve no idea. The long digression about the needs of humanity, about art transfiguring reality, is so mannered it’s almost a caricature. He’s not saying what he thinks, he is pretending to think these things. But I couldn’t tell you why.”

  “To throw us off the scent?” Le Guen said.

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps he has some higher reason.”

  “Such as?” Camille said.

  “Perhaps it’s simply part of his plan.”

  *

  The various case files were distributed to the team. Two officers were assigned to go through each case, to start again from the beginning, examine every scrap of evidence, every statement. At 9.45 p.m., maintenance arrived to instal four more telephone lines and three more computers which Cob quickly hooked up so that they were all connected to the database on which he had stored all available information. The room hummed as Camille’s team fielded questions from the newly assigned officers as they came across some fresh detail.

  Camille, Le Guen and Louis studied the whiteboard, reexamining each of the major lines of inquiry, Camille feverishly checking and rechecking his watch. Irène had been missing now for almost five hours. Everybody in the room knew the statistics relating to abductions.

  On the whiteboard, at Camille’s request, Louis wrote up a list of all the locations (Fontainebleau, Corbeil, Glasgow, Tremblay, Courbevoie), next to it, a list of victims (Maryse Perrin, Alice Hedges, Grace Hobson, Manuela Constanza, Évelyne Rouvray, Josiane Debeuf) and finally the list of dates (July 7, 2000; August 24, 2000; July 10, 2001; November 21, 2001; April 6, 2003). The three men stood staring at these lists, searching desperately for some connection, floating theories that came to nothing. Dr Crest, who had been sitting on his own in silence, reminded them that the Novelist was working to a warped literary logic, and it might be worth considering the books he had copied. Louis jotted down another list (Le Crime d’Orcival, Roseanna, Laidlaw, The Black Dahlia, American Psycho), but this did not seem to help.

  “We’re not going to find anything here,” Le Guen said. “This is a list of his ‘earlier works’. He’s moved on.”

  “No, he hasn’t,” Camille insisted. “He’s moved on to the next novel. The question is, which one?”

  Louis went to fetch Ballanger’s list, made enlargements of the pages on A3 sheets and pinned them on the cork-board.

  “That’s a lot of books …” Crest said.

  “Too many,” Camille said. But there has to be a novel on that list – or maybe it’s not on that list – a novel that …”

  He trailed off for a moment and thought.

  “… a novel that involves a pregnant woman. Louis?’

  “There isn’t one.”

  “There has to be one!”

  “I don’t see it.”

  “There has to be,” Camille roared, ripping the original list from Louis’ hands. “There fucking has to be!”

  He scanned the document an
d handed it back.

  “It’s not on that list, Louis, it must be on the other one.”

  Louis stared at Camille.

  “Oh, Christ, I forgot …” He rushed to his desk and dug out the copy of Ballanger’s original list Cob had printed out. In the margin, in Louis’ elegant handwriting, were notes on each of the titles.

  “It’s there,” he said finally, handing Camille the piece of paper.

  Reading through Louis’ notes, Camille had a flashback of his conversation with Professeur Ballanger: “One of my students thought the March 1998 case, the one where the pregnant woman is disembowelled in a warehouse, sounded similar to a book I’ve never heard of. It’s called … Shadow Slayer by someone named Chub or Hub. Never heard of him either.”

  Meanwhile, Louis brought up the list of suspicious cases that had been given to Ballanger to analyse.

  *

  “Yes, I realise it’s late, Professeur Ballanger …”

  Louis turned away and quickly and quietly explained the situation.

  “I’ll hand you over …” he said, proffering the phone to Camille, who briefly reminded him of their earlier conversation.

  “I remember, but as I told you at the time, I’ve never heard of the book. In fact, the student in question didn’t seem entirely sure either. It was just a suggestion. There’s nothing to say that—”

  “I need that book, Professeur Ballanger, I need it right now. Where does he live, this student of yours?”

  “I have no idea. I’d have to check the student records. They’re in my office.”

  “Maleval!” Camille shouted, ignoring Ballanger on the other end of the line. “Take a car, go and fetch Professeur Ballanger and take him to the university. I’ll meet you there.”

  Before Camille had time to respond to the professeur, Maleval was racing for the door.

  *

  Cob had already identified some thirty possible warehouses which Armand and Élisabeth carefully marked up on a map of Paris. Each address, each location, together with whatever details Cob had been able to unearth, were scrutinised. They drew up two lists. The primary list detailed those warehouses that were remote and had been derelict for some time, the second list was of those locations that seemed less likely, but nonetheless fitted the criteria.