Schiffer stood back in front of the desk. "Watch the door," he said to Paul, without looking back at him.
"Wh-what?"
"The door."
Before Paul had time to react, Schiffer had leapt onto Marek and crushed his face against a corner of the desk. The nose bone snapped like a nut in a cracker. The cop lifted up Marek's head in a shower of blood and pushed it against the wall. "Give me the files, you cunt."
Paul rushed over, but Schiffer shoved him away. He was about to take out his gun when the dark maw of a Manhurin.44 Magnum froze him. The Cipher had dropped the Turk and drawn at the same instant.
"Just watch the door.
Paul was horrified. Where had that gun sprung from? Marek was sliding off his chair and opening a drawer.
"Behind you!"
Schiffer swung and hit him full in the face with the barrel of his gun. Marek spun around full circle on his chair and landed amid the piles of handbills. The Cipher grabbed him by his shirt and stuck his gun under his throat.
"The files, you fucking Turk. Otherwise, I swear to you I won't leave you alive."
Marek was shaking. Blood was oozing out between his broken teeth, but his joyful expression remained in place. Schiffer put his gun away and dragged him to the guillotine.
Paul then drew and yelled. "Stop it!"
Schiffer raised the guillotine and placed the man's hand beneath it. "Give me the files, you shit heap."
"Stop or I’ll shoot!"
The Cipher did not even look up. He slowly pressed down the blade. The skin of the phalanges started to give way under the edge. Black blood was bubbling up in places.
Marek screamed, hut not as loudly as Paul: "Schiffer!"
He crouched with both hands on the grip of his gun, aiming it at the Cipher. He had to shoot. He had to.
The door opened violently behind him. He was thrown forward, rolled over and came to a stop at the foot of the iron desk, his neck and head at right angles.
The two bodyguards were drawing their guns when a spray of blood covered them. The screaming of a hyena filled the room.
Paul realized that Schiffer had finished his work. He got up onto one knee, pointing his gun at the Turks. "Pull back!"
The men, hypnotized by the scene in front of them, did not move. Trembling from head to foot, Paul raised his 9-mm up to their faces. "Pull back, fuckers!"
He shoved the barrel into their chests and managed to force them back over the threshold. He closed the door with his back and could at last take a look at the nightmare.
Marek was on his knees, sobbing, his hand still trapped in the guillotine. His fingers had not been completely severed, but the phalanges had been exposed, the flesh cut from the bone. Schiffer was still holding the handle, his face deformed by a sardonic grin.
Paul put his gun away. He had to control this madman. He was about to charge when the Turk pointed his good hand toward the silvery filing cabinets beside the photocopier.
"The keys!" Schiffer yelled.
Marek tried to take hold of the ring fixed to his belt. The Cipher grabbed it from him and presented the keys, one by one, before his eyes. With a nod, the Turk indicated the one that would open the door.
The old cop started rummaging through the files. Paul took the opportunity to release the wounded man. He gingerly raised the blade, which was sticky with red stains.
The Turk collapsed onto the floor, rolled up and groaned, "Hospital… hospital…"
Schiffer turned around, his eyes shining. He was holding a cardboard folder, tied up with a cloth strap. He flung it open to reveal the files and snapshots of the three women.
In a state of shock. Paul realized that they had won.
26
They took the emergency exit and ran to the Golf. Paul shot off at once, nearly hitting a passing car.
He kept his foot down, swerving right into Rue Lucien-Sampaix. He then suddenly realized that he was going the wrong way up a one-way street. He quickly took the next left onto Boulevard Magenta.
Reality was dancing before his eyes. Tears added to the rain on the windshield, blurring everything. He could just see the traffic lights, which were bleeding like wounds in the downpour.
He crossed one intersection without braking, then another, setting off a flurry of skidding cars and blaring horns. At the third light, he finally stopped. For a few seconds, his head spun, then he knew what he had to do.
Green.
He accelerated without releasing the clutch, stalled and swore.
He was turning the ignition key when Schiffer said, "Where are you going?"
"To the station," he panted. "I'm arresting you, you bastard."
From the far side of the square, the Gare de L'Est shone like a cruise ship. He was about to pull off when the Cipher shifted his leg over to the other side and stamped on the accelerator.
"Fucking hell…"
Schiffer grabbed the wheel and spun it to the right. They shot down Rue Sibour, a side road that ran beside Saint-Laurent Church. Still using one hand, he turned again, forcing the Golf to bounce over the separations of the cycle path and come to a halt against the pavement.
Paul took the wheel in his ribs. He hiccupped, coughed, then melted into a burning sweat. He clenched his fist and turned toward his passenger, ready to smash his jaws.
The man's pallid face dissuaded him. Jean-Louis Schiffer looked twenty years older once more. His entire profile was melting into his flabby neck. His eyes were so glassy they looked transparent. A real death's-head.
"You're a lunatic," he panted in disgust. "A fucking sicko. You can count on me to make the charge sheet look good. You're going to rot in prison, you fucking torturer!"
Without answering, Schiffer found an old map of Paris in the glove compartment and tore off a few pages to wipe the blood from his jacket. His blotchy hands were trembling. His words hissed from between his teeth: "There's no other way to deal with the fuckers."
"We're police officers."
"Marius is a shit. He manipulates whores over here by having their kids mutilated back home. An arm, a leg. It calms down the Turkish mothers."
"We represent the law" Paul was getting his breath and his poise back. His eyesight was also returning, showing him the flat black wall of the church, the gargoyles over their heads, standing like gallows, and the rain still assailing the night.
Schiffer threw away the reddened pages, opened the window and spat. “It's too late to get rid of me."
"If you think I'm scared to answer for what I've done… then you've got another thing coming. You're headed behind bars, even if I have to share your cell."
Schiffer raised a hand to switch on the roof light, then opened the folder on his lap. He removed the papers concerning the three women: they were loose laser-printed leaves, with a Polaroid photo stapled to each one. He tore off the photos and placed them on the dashboard, as if they were playing cards. He cleared his throat again and asked, "What do you see?"
Paul did not move. The light from the streetlamps was making the pictures glisten above the steering wheel. For two months, he had been looking for these faces. He had pictured them, drawn them, wiped them out again and started all over again a hundred times… Now that they were in front of him, he felt as nervous as a virgin.
Schiffer took him by the scruff of the neck and forced him to look. "What do you see?" he said huskily. Paul opened his eyes wide. Three women with gentle features, slightly stunned by the flashlight, were staring at him. Their broad faces were rimmed by red hair.
"Do you notice anything?" the Cipher insisted.
Paul hesitated. "They look alike, don't they?"
Schiffer burst out laughing and repeated, " 'They look alike'? You mean they're carbon copies!"
Paul turned toward him. He was unsure if he had understood. "And so?"
"So you were right. The killer is after a particular face. A face that he both adores and detests, which obsesses him and provokes contradictory impulses. As for his m
otive, anything is possible. But we now know that he's pursuing an objective."
Paul's anger turned into a feeling of victory. So his intuitions had been right: they were illegal immigrants, with identical looks. Was he also right about the ancient statues?
Schiffer continued: "These photos are a huge step forward, take my word for it. Because they also provide us with a vital piece of information. The killer knows this neighborhood like the back of his hand."
"That's nothing new."
"We figured that he's Turkish, not that he knows every sweatshop and cellar around here. Can you imagine the patience and perseverance you need to find girls who look that much alike? The bastard must have eyes everywhere."
Paul said, more calmly, "Okay. I admit that I d never have got hold of these photos without you. So I'll spare you the station. I'll just take you straight back to Longères without passing by the police."
He turned the ignition key. but Schiffer grabbed his arm. "Don't be silly, kid. You need me now more than ever."
“It's all over for you."
The Cipher picked up one of the pieces of paper and held it under the light. "We haven't just got their faces and identities. We've also got the addresses of their workshops. That's a solid lead."
Paul released the key. "Maybe their colleagues saw something?"
"Remember what forensics said. Their stomachs were empty. They were going home after work. We'll have to question women who go the same way every evening. And also the bosses of the workshops. But to do that, you need me, my boy."
Schiffer did not have to press the point. For three months, Paul had been banging his head against the same wall. He imagined himself starting his inquiries again on his own and obtaining an infinite series of zeros.
"I'll give you one day." he conceded. "We'll go around to the workshops. We'll question their colleagues, neighbors and partners, if there are any. Then you go back to the home. And I'm warning you: the slightest fuckup, and I'll kill you. This time, I won't hesitate."
His partner forced a laugh, but Paul sensed that he was scared. Fear now gripped both of them. He was about to start the car up when he paused once more-he wanted everything to be clear. -Why were you so violent with that Marius?"
Schiffer looked up at the gargoyles, which rose into the darkness. Devils curled around their perches, incubuses with turned-up noses, demons with bat's wings. He remained silent for a while, then murmured, "There was no other way. They've decided not to speak."
"Who do you mean by 'they'?"
"The Turks. The whole neighborhood's gone dumb. We're going to have to rip out each scrap of the truth."
Paul's voice cracked, rising up a tone. "But why are they doing that? Why don't they want to help us?"
The Cipher was still staring at those faces of stone. His pallor competed with that of the roof light.
"Don't you get it? They're protecting the killer."
PART V
27
Between his arms, she had been a river.
A fluid, supple, open energy. She had breezed through the nights and days like a ripple touches underwater greenery, without ever altering its languid pace. She had flowed between his hands, crossing shadowy forests, beds of moss, dark rocks. She had risen up in the clearings that burst into her eyes when pleasure came. Then she had abandoned herself once more, in a slow shift, translucent beneath his palms…
Over the years, there had been distinct seasons. Light, laughing rivulets of water. Manes of foam shaken by anger. Fords, too, truces during which their physical contact ceased. But such pauses were sweet. They had the lightness of reeds, the smoothness of bare pebbles.
When the current picked up again, pushing them again to the farthest shores, beyond sighs, their lips apart, it was to reach at last the ultimate pleasure, where everything was one and the other was all.
"You understand, Doctor?"
Mathilde Wilcrau jumped. She looked at the Knoll couch, just two yards away-the only piece of furniture in the room that did not date from the eighteenth century. A man was lying there. A patient. Lost in a daydream, she had completely forgotten about him and had not listened to a word he had said.
She concealed her embarrassment by saying, "No, I'm afraid I don't. You're not being very clear. Can you try and put it another way please?"
The man launched into another explanation, his nose facing the ceiling, hands crossed on his chest. Mathilde discreetly took a jar of moisturizing cream from a drawer. The freshness of the product on her hands brought her back to herself. Such moments of abstraction were becoming increasingly frequent and profound. She was now pushing the neutrality of the analyst to its extreme: she was quite literally no longer there. In the past, she used to listen to her patients' every word. She observed every slip of the tongue, hesitation and excess. They formed a thread that allowed her to find a path back through their neuroses and traumas… But now?
She put the cream away and continued to rub it into her hands. Nourish. Hydrate. Soothe. The man's voice was now just a murmur, rocking her profound melancholy.
Yes, between his arms she had been a river. But the fords had multiplied, the truces grown longer. At first, she had refused to worry, to see in these pauses a sign of a falling away. She had been blind with hope and faith in love. Then a taste of dust settled on her tongue, a sharp pain had gripped her limbs. Soon, even her veins seemed to have dried up, like lifeless mineral deposits. She felt empty. Even before their hearts had put a name to the situation, their bodies had spoken.
Then the breakup burst into their minds, and their words finished off the motion: their separation became official. The period of formalities began. They had to see a magistrate, calculate the alimony, organize the move. Mathilde had been irreproachable. Ever alert. Ever responsible. But her mind was already elsewhere. As soon as she could, she tried to remember, to travel within herself, in her own story, amazed to find so few traces in her memory, so few instants from the past. Her entire being was like a burned desert, an ancient site where only some meager ridges among the overly white stones still gave a sign of what had been.
She reassured herself by thinking of her children. They incarnated her destiny, were her last source of life. She devoted herself to them. She abandoned herself completely during the final years of their education. But they too, had ended up leaving her. Her son had vanished into a strange town, both tiny and huge, made up entirely of chips and microprocessors, while her daughter had found her path in traveling and ethnology or so she claimed. All that she was sure of was that her path lay far away from her parents.
So Mathilde now had to take an interest in the only person she had left: herself. She denied herself nothing-clothes, furniture, lovers. She went on cruises and trips to places that had always fascinated her.
In vain. Such extravagance seemed merely to hasten her downfall into old age.
Desertification was continuing its ravages. Lifeless sand spread ever farther inside her. Not only in her body but also in her heart. She became harder, harsher toward others. Her judgments were abrupt, her opinions strong and final. Her generosity, understanding and compassion deserted her. The slightest indulgent gesture cost her an effort. Her feelings became paralyzed, making her hostile to other people.
She ended up arguing with her closest friends and found herself alone, really alone. Having run out of enemies, she took up sports so as to confront herself. Her achievements included mountain climbing, rowing, hang gliding, shooting… Training became a permanent challenge for her, an obsession that drained way her anxieties.
Now she had gotten over such excesses, but her life was still dotted by frequent exertions. A hang gliding course in the Cevennes, the yearly climbing of the Dalles near Chamonix, the triathlon event in the Val d'Aosta. At the age of fifty-two, she was fit enough to make any teenager green with envy. And, every day with a hint of vanity she looked at the trophies that shone on her authentic Oppenordt School chest of drawers.
In reality, w
hat delighted her was a different sort of victory: an intimate, secret triumph. During all those years of solitude, she had never once resorted to drugs. She had never taken a single tranquilizer or antidepressant.
Every morning, she looked at herself in the mirror and recalled this achievement. The jewel in her crown. A personal certificate of endurance that proved that she had not exhausted her reserves of courage and willpower.
Most people live in hope of the best.
All that Mathilde Wilcrau feared was the worst.
Of course, in the middle of that desert, there was her work. The consultations at Sainte-Anne Hospital and appointments in her private practice. The hard style and the soft style, as they say in the martial arts, which she had also practiced. Psychiatric care and psychoanalytic attention. But after a time, these two poles had ended up merging into the same routine.
Her timetable was now marked by several strict, compulsory rituals.
Once a week, when possible, she had lunch with her children, who spoke only of success for themselves, and the failure of her and their father. Every weekend, she visited antiques shops, between two training sessions. Then, on Tuesday evening, she attended the seminars at the Society of Psychoanalysis. where she would still see a few familiar faces. Particularly former lovers, whose names she had even forgotten and who had always seemed bland to her. But perhaps she was the one who had lost the taste for love. As when you burn your tongue and can no longer taste your food…
She glanced at the clock. Only five more minutes before the end of the session. The man was still talking. She wriggled on her chair. Her body was already prickling with the sensations in perspective-the dryness in her throat when she pronounced the concluding words after a long silence; the smoothness of her fountain pen on her diary when she jotted down the next appointment; the rustling of leather when she got up…
A little later, in the hallway, the patient turned around and asked her anxiously, "I didn't go too far, did I. Doctor?"
The Empire Of The Wolves Page 13