Blood-Red Rivers aka The Crimson Rivers

by Jean-Christophe Grangé

The last two syllables rhymed. He thought for a moment then, with his hand, wiped out what he had just written in the dust. He started again, this time separating the syllables:

  JU DI THE RO

  Then:

  JUDITH HERAULT

  He almost roared in triumph. Jude Ithero's real name was Judith Hérault. The little boy was a little girl. And her mother had definitely been her school teacher. She had readopted her maiden name and masculinised her daughter's first name, so as not to confuse her child or run the risk of her making mistakes in company.

  Karim clenched his fists. He was sure that that was how things had been worked out. The woman had been able to change her child's identity at the school, because that was where she taught. This hypothesis explained everything: the ease with which she had fooled everyone in Sarzac, the discreet way in which she had made off with the official documents. His voice trembled, as he asked the headmistress:

  "Could you obtain some more information about that teacher, from the education board?"

  "This evening?"

  "Yes, this evening."

  "I…Well, I do have friends there. Maybe I can. What do you want to know?"

  "I want to know where Fabienne Pascaud/Hérault moved after leaving Sarzac. And I also want to know where she taught before arriving in your town. Dig out some people that knew her. Do you have a cell phone?"

  The woman gave him her number. She sounded a little out of her depth. Karim went on:

  "How long will it take you to go to the board, and find all that out?"

  "A couple of hours."

  "Take your cell phone with you. I'll call you back in two hours." Karim ran out of the hut and waved good-bye to the fire-eaters, who had started up their St Vitus's dance once again.

  CHAPTER 34

  Two hours to kill.

  Karim adjusted his woolly hat and strolled back to his car. The shadows were being swept away by a wind laden with maritime miasma which seemed to freeze the earth and the tarmac. Two hours to kill. He wondered if this region had given up all of its secrets yet.

  He tried to imagine Fabienne and Judith Hérault, those two lonely people coming here each Sunday during that summer. He pictured the scene exactly, replaying it from different angles, searching for a clue that might reveal a new lead for him to follow up. He could see the mother and her daughter in the morning light, walking cautiously through a region in which nobody would recognise them. That determined woman, obsessed by her child's face. And the androgynous child itself, locked up in its fear.

  Abdouf did not know why, but he imagined that strange couple to be united by their common distress. He saw them hand in hand, walking in silence…How did they get here? By train? By road?

  The lieutenant decided to pay a visit to all the nearby railway stations, service stations on the autoroutes and gendarmerie headquarters, in search of a trace, a police report, a memory…

  Two hours to kill. There was nothing else he could do.

  He drove off under a sky that was reddened by the last fires of the setting sun. The October nights were already beginning to lengthen into a shriveled darkness.

  He found a phone box and called the Rodez police in the hope of finding a car registered under the name Fabienne Pascaud or Hérault in the départements of the Lot in 1982. In vain. Nobody by that name was on record. He got back into his car and started looking round the local railway stations, while still keeping open the possibility of a privately owned vehicle.

  He visited four stations. And drew four total blanks. Abdouf lapped up the miles, in concentric circles, around the convent and the amusement park. All he saw in the beam of his headlamps was the tall, ghostly shapes of trees, rocks, tunnels…He felt good. Adrenaline was warming his limbs and the excitement was keeping all of his senses alert. The Arab was back with the sensations he loved, of the night, and of fear. Those sensations he had discovered in the middle of car parks when, hidden behind the pillars, he had filed down his first set of keys. Karim was not afraid of the dark. It was his world, his cloak, his deep waters. It made him feel safe, as tense as a tightrope, as powerful as a predator.

  At the fifth station, all the cop found was a freight loading zone, full of ancient wagons and blue turbines. He drove off at once, but then immediately braked. He was on a bridge, above the autoroute, at the Sète (west) exit. He gazed down at the little toll-booth, three hundred yards away. His instinct told him to check it out.

  Explore every avenue. Always.

  He took the approach road and at once turned right, passing between some privet hedges. Behind them were several prefabricated huts: the offices of the toll company. Not a single light. But, by some nearby sheds, he spotted a man. He braked again, parked his car and marched straight toward the figure, which was busying itself at the back of a tall truck.

  The bitter wind doubled in intensity. Everything was dry, dull, dusty, as though enclosed in an envelope of sea air. The cop clambered over the road signs, the buckets, the plastic sheeting. He banged on the side of the lorry – a consignment of salt – producing a loud metallic din.

  The man jumped. All that was visible through his balaclava was his eyes. His graying brows frowned.

  "What's all this? Who are you?"

  "The Devil."

  "What?"

  Karim smiled and leant against the container.

  "Only joking. I'm from the police, grandpa. I need some information?”

  "Information? There's nobody here till tomorrow, I…"

  "Autoroute toll-booths are open round the clock."

  "The collector's in his booth, and as for me, I work here…"

  "That's just what I said. Now, the two of us are going into the office. You're then going to get yourself a nice cup of coffee, while I take a look at the computer."

  "The computer?…What for?"

  "I'll explain once we're nice and warm inside."

  The offices resembled the rest of the establishment: cramped and makeshift. Thin walls, cardboard doors, formica-topped desks. Everything was switched off. Dead. Apart from the computer which was humming away in the shadows. It contained the central information unit which continued to run, day in day out, relaying everything that needed to be known about the local autoroute network. Every accident, each breakdown, all the toings and froings of the autoroute services were recorded in its memory.

  The old man was all for handling the computer himself. He pulled up his balaclava and Karim whispered into his ear:

  "July 1982. Dig out the whole lot for me. Accidents, repairs, the number of users, the slightest thing out of the ordinary. The works."

  The old man took off his gloves and blew on his fingers to warm them up. He tapped on the keyboard for a few seconds. A list appeared for the month of July, 1982. Figures, data, breakdowns. Nothing of any interest.

  "Can you do a name search?" Karim asked, leaning over his shoulder.

  "Spell it."

  "I've got several: Jude Ithero, Judith Hérault, Fabienne Pascaud, Fabienne Hérault."

  "Is that all?" the man grumbled, entering the names into the machine.

  But, after a couple of seconds, an answer flashed up. Karim bent nearer.

  "What's happening?"

  "There's something on record under one of those names, but not in July 1982."

  "Keep looking."

  The man touched a few more keys. The information arrived in glowing letters on the dark screen. The cop's body stiffened. The date sprang out into his face: 14 August, 1982. The same as the one on Jude's grave. And the name on the file was also the same: Jude Ithero.

  "I couldn't remember the name," the old boy panted. "But I do remember the accident. It was awful. Just near Héron-Cendré.”

  The car skidded. It went straight through the central divide and smashed into the corner of a sound-proofed wall just opposite. We found them, the mother and her son, crushed inside the bodywork. But only the kid didn't make it. He was in the front seat. The mother escaped with a few cuts and brui
ses. There was a stream of blood across both sides of the road. Two times three lanes, can you imagine it?"

  Karim could no longer control his trembling limbs. So this was how Fabienne and Judith Hérault's years on the run had ended. At eighty miles per hour, against a roadside wall. It was that absurd. That simple. He choked down a cry of anger. He just could not believe that the whole adventure, all the precautions that that woman had taken, had been wiped out by a skidding car.

  And yet, he had known it right from the start: Judith had died in August 1982, just as her grave indicated. All he was now doing was finding out the exact circumstances of her death. Tears welled up under his eyelids, as though he had just lost someone he loved. Someone he had loved for a mere few hours, but with a raging violence. Beyond words and years. Beyond space and time.

  "Go on," he commanded. "Describe the body of the child?”

  "He…he was completely crammed inside the wreckage. A mess of flesh and bodywork. Jesus Christ! It took them more than six hours to…I mean…I'll never forget it…His face was…I mean…He didn't have a face any more, no head, nothing?”

  "What about his mother?"

  "His mother? I don't even know if it was his mother. Anyway, she didn't have the same name as…"

  "I know. Was she injured?"

  "No. Like I said, she got away with just cuts and bruises…Nothing really. What happened was the car span round, see? It hit the wall bang on the passenger side. Typical on that bend and…"

  "Describe her to me.”

  "Who?"

  "The woman."

  "I'm not likely to forget her. She was very tall. With brown hair and a big face. And enormous glasses. All dressed in baggy black clothes. It was really weird. She didn't cry. She seemed very distant. Maybe she was in shock, I dunno…"

  "What was her face like?"

  "Pretty?”

  "Meaning?"

  "With sort of chubby cheeks…I dunno…And very white skin, almost transparent?”

  Abdouf changed tack.

  "You keep a file on each accident, don't you? A report, with the death certificate and so on?"

  The bristly old man looked at Karim. His eyes were sparkling in the darkness.

  "What exactly are you after, buddy?"

  "Show me the file."

  The man wiped his hands on his anorak and opened a filing cabinet with doors like shutters. Karim watched him read his way through the names of the victims, mumbling them out loud.

  "Jude Ithero. This is the one. But I'll warn you, it's not a…"

  Karim seized it and flicked through the pages. Reports from witnesses, certificates, police particulars, insurance claims. The whole scenario. Fabienne Pascaud had been driving a hired car, which she had rented in Sarzac. The home address was the same as the one he had been given by Dr Macé – that lonely ruin in a rocky valley. Nothing new there. But what was surprising was that the mother had declared her child's death under the name of Jude Ithero, sex male.

  "I don't get it," the cop said. "So the child was a boy?"

  "Urn, yeah…" The old man was looking at the file over Karim's shoulder. "That's what she said, anyway…"

  "You don't remember there being any problem about that?"

  "Problem? What on earth do you mean?"

  The cop struggled to control his voice:

  "Look, all I'm asking is: was it possible to determine the sex of the child?"

  "Hey, I'm no doctor! But really, I don't reckon it was. The body was in pieces…A real autoroute smash…" He wiped his hand over his face. "…Look, bud, I'm not going into details…Lord knows how many accidents I've seen in the last twenty-five years…And it's always the same bloody mess?” He waved his hands in the air, miming layers of fog. "It's like an underground war, get me? Which breaks out from time to time in horrific violence."

  Karim understood that the state of the body had allowed the mother to keep her secret, even to the grave. But what had been the point? Had she still been afraid? Even now her little girl was dead?

  The lieutenant grabbed the file once more and looked through the photographs of the accident. Blood. Twisted metal. Lumps of flesh, scattered limbs sticking out from the bodywork. He went on rapidly. It was more than he could take. Then he came across the death certificate, the doctor's description, which confirmed that the characteristics of the body were highly abstract.

  Feeling dizzy, Karim leant back against the wall. Then he looked at his watch. He had now thoroughly killed his two hours.

  And they had killed him, too.

  He forced himself to take a last look at the pages in the file. Some fingerprints were stuck in blue ink on a sheet of cardboard. He gazed at these prints for a few seconds, then asked:

  "These are his prints?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "These are the child's fingerprints?"

  "I don't see what you're driving at…But, yes, of course they are…I was the one who held the inkpad. The rest of the body was under the blankets. The doctor pressed down on the little hand. It was covered in blood. Jesus! We were all in a hurry to get it over with. Look, I still get nightmares about it even today…"

  Karim stuck the file under his leather jacket.

  "OK. I'm going to hang on to this."

  "Do. And good luck to you?”

  The lieutenant set off again. He was feeling all in. Stars were dancing under his eyelids. When he was on the steps outside, the old man called after him:

  "Watch out for yourself."

  Karim turned round. In the salt wind, propping open the glass door with his shoulder, the man was observing him. His figure was duplicated in a golden brown reflection in the pane.

  "What?" the cop asked.

  "I said, watch out for yourself. And never mistake someone else for your own shadow?”

  Karim tried to smile.

  "Why not?"

  The man pulled down his balaclava.

  "Because, from what I can sense, you're walking among the dead."

  CHAPTER 35

  "The things you have me do, lieutenant…I went to see the person I know at the education board…"

  The woman's voice was trembling with glee. Karim had stopped at another phone box to call the headmistress on her mobile. She went on:

  "The janitor was good enough to…"

  "What did you find?"

  "All the records relating to Fabienne Hérault, née Pascaud. But it's another blind alley. After her two years in Sarzac, she seems to have vanished. She must have given up teaching."

  "There's no way to find out where she went?"

  "None. Apparently, she worked out her contract with the educational authorities that year, then did not request a further post. That's all. The board never heard from her again?”

  Karim was on the edge of a residential estate in the suburbs of Sète. Through the glass panes of the phone box, he could see a number of parked cars, their bodywork glistening under the streetlamps. He did not find this piece of information particularly surprising. Fabienne Pascaud had disappeared without a trace. Into her mystery. Her tragedy. Her demons.

  "And where had she been before Sarzac?"

  "Guernon. It's a university town in the Isère, just above Grenoble. She taught there only for a few months. Before that, she had been head of a tiny primary school in Taverlay, a village on the slopes of the Pelvoux, one of the mountains in that region."

  "Did you get her personal details?"

  In a mechanical voice, she read out:

  "Fabienne Pascaud was born in 1945, in Corivier, in one of the valleys in the Isère. In 1970, she married Sylvain Hérault and that same year won first prize in the Grenoble Conservatoire piano competition. She could, in fact, have become a music teacher and…"

  "Go on, please."

  "In 1972, she went to the teacher training college. Then, two years later, she started running the Taverlay primary school, still in the Isère. She taught there for six years. In 1980, the Taverlay school was closed down – a ne
w road allowed the children to attend a larger school in a nearby village, even during the winter. Fabienne was then transferred to Guernon. Quite a stroke of luck – it's only thirty-two miles from Taverlay, and a famous place in educational circles. A university town. Very nice. Very intellectual?”

  "You told me that she was a widow. Do you know when her husband died?"

  "I'm coming to that, young man! When she arrived in Guernon in 1980, Fabienne gave her married name – there seems to have been no problem about that. But then, six months later, she presented herself as a widow in Sarzac. So her husband presumably died during her stay in Guernon:"

  "Your file doesn't say anything about him, does it? His age? Or his occupation?"

  "This is an education authority, not a detective agency?” Karim sighed.

  "Go on."

  "Soon after arriving in Guernon, she asked to be transferred – anywhere, just so long as it was far away from that town. Strange, don't you think? She quickly obtained a post in Sarzac, which isn't particularly surprising – nobody wants to come and work in our beautiful region. Once there, she started using her maiden name again. As though she badly wanted to turn over a new leaf."

  "You haven't mentioned her child."

  "True enough. She had a child who was born in 1972. A little girl…"

  "That's what it says?"

  "Um, yes…"

  "What name does it give?"

  "Judith Hérault. But no mention is made of her in Sarzac?” Each fact precisely confirmed the version Karim had suspected. He went on:

  "Have you found anybody who knew her in Sarzac?"

  "I have. I spoke to the then headmistress, Mathilde Sarman. She clearly remembers Fabienne. A strange woman, apparently. Mysterious. Kept herself to herself. Very beautiful. And very tall. Over six feet. With massive shoulders…She often used to play the piano. A real virtuoso. I'm just repeating what I've been told…"

  "Did Fabienne Pascaud live alone when she was in Sarzac?"

  "Yes she did, at least according to Mathilde. In an isolated valley, about six miles outside town."