Blood-Red Rivers aka The Crimson Rivers

by Jean-Christophe Grangé

  The young cop strode over to the door. His fingers were on the handle, when the superintendent called to him:

  "You'll see. I'm just sure that your looks are going to go down a storm with the skins."

  Karim slammed the door on the old veteran's guffaws.

  CHAPTER 10

  A good cop needs to know his enemy thoroughly. Inside and out. And Karim was a world expert on the subject of skinheads. During his years in Nanterre he had fought several bloody battles with them. Then he had written a report about them while at the police academy. As he drove at high speed toward Caylus, the Arab ran through what he knew. It was a way to work out what his chances were against those bastards.

  The first thing that crossed his mind was the uniforms worn by the two main branches. All skinheads were not extreme right-wingers. There were also the Red Skins, on the extreme left. Multi-racial, highly trained and following a code of honor, they were as dangerous as the neo-Nazis, if not more so. The Fascists wore their pilot's jackets the right way round, green side uppermost. The Reds, on the other hand, wore theirs inside out, fluorescent orange side uppermost. The Nazis tied their Docs with red or white laces. The Lefties with yellow ones.

  At about eleven o'clock, Karim came to a halt in front of the disused warehouse, "The Waters of the Valley". With its high walls made of corrugated plastic, the depot faded away into the clear blue sky. A black DS was parked in front of the gate. After a moment's preparation, Karim leapt out. The skins were presumably inside, sleeping off their beer. As he walked over to the warehouse, he forced himself to breathe calmly while reciting the words which would determine his immediate destiny: green jackets and white or red laces meant the Nazis; orange jackets and yellow laces, the Reds.

  Only then would he have a chance to get out of there without a fight. He took a deep breath and slid the door along its rail. He did not need to look at their laces to know where he had ended up. The walls were tagged with red swastikas. Nazi symbols were daubed alongside pictures of concentration camps and blow-ups of tortured Algerian POWS. Beneath them, a gang of cropped-hair kids in green jackets was observing him. Their steel-capped Docs gleamed in the darkness. Extreme right-wing, militant tendency. Karim knew that all these characters had the word "SKIN" tattooed on the inside of their lower lips.

  Karim concentrated on his own movements and looked round for their weapons. He knew what sort of arsenal these crazies usually had: American knuckledusters, baseball bats and pocket revolvers with a double magazine of buckshot. The bastards probably also had some pump-action shotguns stashed away somewhere, loaded with rubber bullets.

  What he then saw looked even worse.

  Girls. Female Skins, with shaved heads, except for tufts sticking up over their foreheads and locks dangling down over their cheeks. Fattened up bitches, dowsed in booze and probably even more violent than their men. Karim swallowed hard. He now realised that what he was up against was no group of bored street kids, but a genuine gang which was presumably hiding out there while waiting for some new contract to go and beat someone up. He reckoned his chances of getting out in one piece were diminishing rapidly. One of the girls had a swig from her beer, then opened her mouth to burp. For Karim's benefit. The others burst out laughing. They were all as big as the cop.

  The Arab forced himself to speak loudly and clearly:

  "All right you lot, I'm a cop. I'm just here to ask you a few questions."

  They came over toward him. Cop or not, Karim was first and foremost an Arab. And an Arab's hide was not worth shit in a warehouse full of these bastards. Nor even, perhaps, as far as Crozier and the rest of his fellow officers were concerned. The young lieutenant trembled. For a split second, the earth seemed to fall away from under his feet. It felt as if he was up against an entire town, a country, even the 'world.

  Karim took out his automatic and pointed it toward the ceiling. This gesture stopped his attackers in their tracks.

  "I repeat: I'm a cop and I want to play this fair and square with you."

  He slowly placed his gun down on a rusty barrel. The skins watched him.

  "I'll leave my piece here. And no one'll touch it while we all have a nice little chat."

  Karim's automatic was a Glock 21 – one of the newest ultra-light models, made of 70% polymer. It had fifteen rounds in its magazine, plus one in the barrel, and a phosphorescent sight. He was sure that they'd never seen one before. He had got them.

  "Who's the boss round here?"

  Silence for an answer. Karim took a few steps forward and repeated: "Who's the frigging boss? We're wasting time here."

  The biggest one came forward, his entire body pent up ready to launch into the attack. He spoke in the rocky regional accent. "What does this little runt want with us, then?"

  "I'll forget you said that. Now, let's talk."

  Nodding, the skin walked over to him. He was taller and broader than Karim.

  The Arab thought of his dreadlocks and what a handicap they were. In a fight, they made for a perfect handhold. The skin kept coming, his hands open, like metallic wrenches. Karim did not budge an inch. A glance to his right: the others were approaching his gun.

  "So what does our little Arab want…"

  The head-butt shot out like a missile. The skin's nose was flattened into his face. As he doubled up, Karim span round and kicked him in the throat. The hooligan took off and landed again six feet away, rolling in agony. One of the skins grabbed the gun and pressed the trigger. Nothing. Just a click. He tried to load the breech, but the charger was empty. Karim took out a second automatic, a Beretta, from a holster behind his back. With one foot on his victim, he aimed his gun at the gang and yelled:

  "Did you really think I was going to leave a loaded gun lying around with little fuckers like you?"

  The skins were petrified. The man on the ground gave a strangled groan:

  "Fair and square, eh? You cunt."

  Karim kicked him in the groin. He screamed. The cop knelt down and twisted his ear. The cartilage cracked between his fingers.

  "Fair and square? With shitheads like you?" Karim laughed nervously. "You gotta be joking…Now, you bunch of cunts, turn round! Hands against the wall! The bitches too!"

  He shot out the neon lights. They went up in a blue flash, the metal casing ricocheted against the ceiling before crashing down onto the ground in an explosion of firecrackers. The hoodlums were now running round left, right and center. Pathetic. Karim yelled fit to bust a gut:

  "Empty your pockets! One move, and I'll knee-cap you!"

  The room was now a vibrant darkness. Karim stuck his gun into the leader's ribs and quietly asked him:

  "What are you lot on?"

  The man was spitting blood.

  "Wh…what?"

  Karim dug deeper with his gun.

  "What junk are you getting off on?"

  "Speed…glue…"

  "What sort of glue?"

  "Di…Dissoplastine."

  "What? For bicycle punctures?"

  The skin nodded dumbly.

  "Where is it?" Karim went on.

  The hooligan rolled his bloodshot eyes.

  "In the trash bag…over there by the fridge…"

  "One move, and I'll kill you."

  Karim backed off, staring round the room as he went, pointing his gun at the wounded skin, then at the motionless figures facing the wall. With his left hand, he tipped over the bag: thousands of tablets spilled out, as well as some tubes of glue. He picked up the tubes, opened them and walked across the room. He squeezed out gluey snail trails onto the floor, just behind the cornered skins. As he went, he kicked them in the legs and the kidneys while pushing away their knives and other implements to a safe distance.

  "Turn round."

  Their Docs shuffled uneasily.

  "Now, you're all going to show me how many press-ups you can do. The bitches as well. Right on the glue."

  Their hands squelched down into the Dissoplastine, which oozed up between their
clenched fingers. After three pushes, their palms were stuck firmly. The skins slumped down, chests on the floor, twisting their wrists as they hit the concrete.

  Karim went back to his initial attacker. He sat down, cross-legged in the lotus position and breathed deeply to get his calm back. His voice became more relaxed:

  "Where were you last night?"

  "It…it wasn't us."

  Karim's ears pricked up. He had humiliated these skins as a challenge and was now asking them questions as a matter of form. He was sure that these shitheads had had nothing to do with desecrating the cemetery. But now this skin seemed to know what he was after. The Arab bent down.

  "What are you talking about?"

  The leader leant on his elbow.

  "The cemetery…it wasn't us."

  "How do you know about it then?"

  "We…we were over that way…"

  Karim suddenly caught on. Crozier had a witness. That morning, somebody had tipped him off that the skinheads had been seen round the cemetery the previous night. The superintendent had then packed him off without saying a word. Karim would settle that score later.

  "Go on."

  "We was hanging round there…"

  "What time?"

  "I dunno…about two o'clock, maybe…"

  "Why? "

  "I dunno…for a bit of fun…we was looking for building site caravans…to beat up a few blacks…"

  Karim shuddered.

  "And then?"

  "We went by the cemetery…and the fucking gate was open…we saw these shadows…some guys was coming out of one of the graves…"

  "How many?"

  "T…two, I reckon."

  "Can you describe them?"

  The skin sneered.

  "We was out of it, man."

  Karim gave him a clip round his shattered ear. He stifled a cry, which came out like the hissing of a snake.

  "What did they look like?"

  "I dunno…it was pitch dark!"

  Karim thought it over. If there was one thing he was sure of, then it was that this had been a professional job.

  "And then?"

  "It fucking freaked us out…so we beat it…I just knew they'd fucking pin this one on us…'Cos of what happened in Carpentras…"

  "Is that all? You didn't notice anything else? Any other details?"

  "No…nothing…at two in the morning, that dump's totally fucking dead."

  Karim imagined the loneliness on that little road, with its solitary streetlamp, a white gash in the night drawing moths. And the gang of skinheads, jostling along, glued out of their minds, singing Nazi songs. He repeated:

  "Think again."

  "It was…a bit later…I think we saw one of them East European motors, a Lada, or something like that, it was speeding down the road…from the cemetery…on the D143…"

  "What color was it?"

  "Wh…white."

  "Nothing else?"

  "It…it was covered in mud."

  "Did you get the registration number?"

  "What do you think we are? Fucking pigs, or something?"

  Karim's heel shot into his guts. The man writhed, blood gurgling from his mouth. The lieutenant got to his feet and dusted off his jeans. There was nothing more to be learnt there. He heard the others groaning behind him. By then, they must have had third or fourth degree burns on their hands. Karim concluded:

  "Do me a favor and go along to Sarzac police station later today and make a statement. Tell them I sent you and they'll roll out the red carpet for you."

  The skin's panting head nodded; he had the eyes of a cowed animal.

  "Why…why you doing this, man?"

  "So as you'll remember. A cop is always a headache. And an Arab cop is a fucking migraine. Go out beating up on niggers again and your head will be splitting…" Karim gave him a last kick "…fit to bust"

  The Arab backed off, picking up his Glock 21 as he went.

  Karim drove off rapidly and then stopped in a small wood a few miles away to let the calm flow back into his veins and think things through. So, the profanation had happened before two o'clock. There were two grave robbers and they were driving – probably – an Eastern European car. He looked at his watch. There was just enough time to get all that down in writing. Enquiries could now get seriously under way. They would have to send out an APB, trace the car, talk to people who lived on the D143…

  But his mind was already elsewhere. He had carried out his mission. And Crozier was going to have to give him a free hand. The enquiry could now be run his way. And the first step would be to find out what had happened to a little boy who had died in 1982.

  PART III

  CHAPTER 11

  "An examination of the anterior facet of the thorax revealed large longitudinal incisions, doubtlessly caused by a sharp instrument. Other lacerations made by the same instrument were also found on the shoulders, arms…"

  The forensic pathologist was wearing a rumpled calico coat and small glasses. His name was Marc Costes. He was young, with sharp features and vague eyes. Niémans had taken a lilting to him at first sight, for he immediately saw that he was a dedicated investigator, lacking in experience perhaps, but certainly not in enthusiasm. He was reading out his report in a slow, methodical voice:

  "…multiple burns: on the torso, shoulders, sides and arms. Approximately twenty-five such marks were located, many of which run into the incisions previously described…"

  Niémans butted in:

  "Which means?"

  The doctor looked up timidly over his spectacles.

  "I think the murderer cauterised the wounds with a flame. He seems to have sprinkled small amounts of gasoline over the incisions before setting fire to them. I would say that he must have adapted some sort of aerosol to do the job, perhaps a steam cleaner."

  Once more, Niémans started pacing up and down the practical studies room, where he had set up his headquarters, on the first floor of the psychology/sociology building. He had decided to hear out the forensic pathologist in this his sanctuary. Captain Barnes and Lieutenant Joisneau were also present, sitting quietly on their school benches.

  "Go on," he ordered.

  "Numerous swellings, bruises and fractures were also detected. As many as eighteen bruises can be counted on the torso alone. There are four broken ribs. Both clavicles have been reduced to splinters. Three of the fingers on the left hand, and two on the right hand, have been crushed. The genitalia are blue subsequent to beating.

  "The weapon used was undoubtedly an iron or lead bar, approximately three inches thick. It is, of course, vital to distinguish these wounds from those which were caused during the transportation of the body and its being `wedged' into the rock, but such post mortem bruising does not behave in the same way…"

  Niémans glanced round at the others: eyes staring, foreheads glowing.

  . To move on to the upper part of the body. The face is intact. No visible signs of bruising on the nape…"

  The policeman asked:

  "No trace of blows to the face?"

  "None. It would even seem as though the killer had avoided touching it."

  Costes looked down at his report and started reading again, but Niémans cut in:

  "One moment. I suppose there's plenty more still to come." Fiddling with his report, the doctor blinked nervously. "Several pages…"

  "Right. We can all go through it later on our own. Just tell us the cause of death. Did the wounds you mentioned kill him?"

  "No. He was strangled to death. There can be no doubt about that. With a metal wire, of a diameter of about a tenth of an inch. A bicycle brake cable I would say, or a piano wire, a cord of that sort. The cable cut into the flesh over a length of six inches, crushed the glottis, sliced through the muscles of the larynx and cut open the carotid causing a hemorrhage."

  "And the time of death?"

  "Hard to say. Because of the crouched position of the victim. This piece of gymnastics upset the natural process of rigor
mortis and…"

  "Just give me an approximate time."

  "I would say…after dusk on Saturday evening, between eight o'clock and midnight."

  "So Caillois was jumped on the way home from his expedition?"

  "Not necessarily. 'In my opinion, he was tortured for quite some time. I reckon that it is more likely that Caillois was captured during the morning. And that the torture session lasted all day."

  "In your opinion, did the victim try to defend himself?"

  "Impossible to say, because of the large number of wounds. But one thing is certain, he was not knocked out. He was tied up and conscious during the entire proceedings. There are clear marks of straps on his arms and wrists. What is more, given that there is no sign of the victim's being gagged, we can suppose that the torturer was sure that no one would hear what was going on."

  Niémans sat down on a window sill.

  "About the tortures, were they professional?"

  "Professional?"

  "Are they methods used in the army? Anything known?"

  "I am no specialist, but I would say probably not. They look more to me like the actions of a…a madman. A lunatic who wanted the correct answers to his questions."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "The killer was trying to make Caillois talk. And Caillois did so."

  "How do you know that?"

  Costes modestly bowed his head. Despite the temperature in the room, he still had not taken off his parka.

  "If the killer had been torturing Rémy Caillois just for sadistic pleasure, then he would have tortured him to death. But, as I have told you, he finished him off in a different way, with a metal wire."

  "Any trace of sexual violence?"

  "No. Nothing at all of that sort. It is clearly not his department."

  Niéman paced along beside the workbench. He was trying to imagine the monster capable of inflicting such torments. He visualised the scene from the outside. He saw nothing. No face, no figure. He then thought of what the tortured man would have seen, when in the throes of suffering and death. He saw savage movements, brown, ochre and red tints. An unbearable storm of blows, fire and blood. What could Caillois's last thoughts have been? He said aloud: