The white light revealed a familiar scene: the tiled corridor, the large heating pipes hanging from the ceiling, wrapped in pale green surgical cloth: the dropping of "tears" onto the floor tiles; the warped metal doors that punctuated each section and that looked like the sides of boilers, whitened with quicklime.
They walked on like this for some minutes. Schiffer felt his shoes slapping in the puddles. His body was already damp with sweat. They turned down another row of white tiles wreathed in mist. To the right, an opening revealed a workshop that sounded like a giant breathing.
Schiffer paused to contemplate the scene.
Beneath the ceiling of pipes and ducts, splashed with light, about thirty women with bare feet and white masks were slaving away over tubs and ironing boards. Jets of steam were shooting up at a regular rhythm. The smell of detergent and alcohol saturated the atmosphere. Schiffer knew that the pumping station of the Turkish Baths was nearby, under their feet, drawing water from a depth of two hundred and fifty feet, circulating through the ducts, its iron removed, chlorine added, heated, then directed either toward the Turkish Baths themselves, or toward this underground laundry. Gurdilek had had the idea of placing them together to exploit a single system of canalization for two distinct activities. It was an economical strategy: not a drop of water was wasted.
As he passed, the cop took a good look, observing the masked women, their foreheads beaded with sweat. Their soaking coats stretched around their breasts and buttocks, which were large and sagging, just as he liked. He noticed that he had an erection. He took this as a good sign.
They walked on.
The heat and humidity continued to grow. A particular fragrance sometimes broke through, then vanished, so that Schiffer thought he had dreamed it. But a few paces farther on, it reappeared and grew clearer.
This time, Schiffer was sure of it.
He started breathing more shallowly. Acrid itching started up in his nose and throat. Contradictory sensations filled his respiratory system. He had the impression of sucking on ice, yet his mouth was aflame. That odor was refreshing and scalding at the same time, aggressive and purifying in the same breath. Mint.
They continued onward. The smell became a stream, a sea in which Schiffer was drowning. It was even worse than he remembered. At each step, he was turning more and more into a tea bag at the bottom of a cup. The chill of an iceberg froze his lungs, while his face felt like a mask of burning wax.
When he reached the end of the corridor, he was almost suffocating, breathing in short gasps. He seemed to be advancing through a giant inhaler. Knowing that this was not far from the truth, he entered the throne room.
It was an empty, rather shallow swimming pool, surrounded by thin white columns, which stood out against the hazy background of steam. Prussian blue tiles marked the sides, like in old Parisian metro stations. Wooden screens covered the far wall, decked with Ottoman ornamentation: moons, crosses and stars.
In the center of the pool, a man was sitting on a ceramic slab.
Heavy and burly, he had knotted a white towel around his waist. His face was drowned in shadows.
In the stifling fumigation, his laughter pealed out.
The laughter of Talat Gurdilek, the mint-man, the man with the scorched voice.
43
Everyone in the Turkish quarter knew his story.
He arrived in Europe in 1961, taking the classic route, beneath the false bottom of a tanker truck. In Anatolia, he and his companions had been closed in behind a sheet of iron, which had then been bolted into place. The illegal immigrants thus had to lie there, without light or fresh air, during the forty-eight-hour journey. The heat and lack of air were oppressive. Then, when crossing the mountain passes of Bulgaria, the cold had seeped in through the metal and pierced them to the core. But the real torture started when they were approaching Yugoslavia, when the tanker, which contained cadmium acid, began to leak.
Slowly, the coffin of metal filled with toxic gases. The Turks yelled, shook and banged at the plate that was weighing down on them. but the tanker continued on its way. Talat realized that no one was going to free them before their arrival point, and screaming or moving would only worsen the effects of the acid.
He remained still, breathing as little as possible.
At the Italian frontier, the travelers joined hands and prayed. At the German border, most of them were dead. At Nancy. where the first drop-off had been planned. the driver discovered a row of thirty corpses, covered with urine and excrement, mouths open in their last gasps.
Only one teenager had survived. But his respiratory system had been destroyed. His trachea, larynx and nasal fossae had been permanently burned-his sense of smell was lost. His vocal cords had been eroded-his voice would now be nothing but the rubbing of sandpaper. As for his breathing. chronic inflammations would mean that he regularly had to inhale steamy fumigations.
At the hospital, the doctor had called in an interpreter to give the young immigrant this devastating diagnosis and inform him that he would be sent back to Istanbul by plane in ten days' time. Three days later, Talat Gurdilek escaped, his face bandaged like a mummy, and walked to Paris.
Schiffer had always known him with his inhaler. When he was still just a young sweatshop manager, he always had it with him and spoke between two blasts. Later, he adopted a translucent mask that imprisoned his hoarse voice. Then his problems worsened, but his financial means had increased. At the end of the 1980s, Gurdilek purchased La Porte Bleue Turkish Baths on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis and took over a room for his own personal use. It was a sort of huge lung, a tiled refuge full of steam laden with mentholated Balsofumine.
"Salaam aleikum, Talat. I'm sorry to disturb you at bath time."
Wrapped in a cloud of steam, the man laughed again. "Aleikum salaam, Schiffer. So you're back from the dead."
The Turk's voice was like the crackling of flaming branches. "It's more the dead that have brought me back."
"I've been expecting you."
Schiffer took off his coat-he was soaked to the bone-then went down the steps into the pool. "Apparently everyone's been expecting me. So what can you tell me about the murders?"
The Turk sighed deeply with a scraping of metal. “When I left my country, my mother poured water after my steps. She traced out a path of chance, which was supposed to make me return. I never went back, my brother. I stayed in Paris and watched the situation deteriorate. Things have never been worse."
The cop was now just two yards from the boss, but he still could not make out the man's face.
"Exile is a hard labor, as the poet said. And I would say that it's getting even harder. In the past, they used to treat us like dogs. They exploited us, robbed us, arrested us. Now they're killing our women. Where will it all end?"
Schiffer was in no mood for such cracker-barrel philosophy "You're the one who sets the limits," he replied. Now three working girls have been killed on your territory, one of them from your own workshop. That's rather a lot."
Gurdelik agreed with an idle gesture. His shadowy shoulders were like a scorched mountain. "We're on French territory here. It's up to your police to protect us."
"Don't make me laugh. The Wolves are here, and you know it. What do they want?"
"I don't know."
"You don't want to know."
There was a silence. The Turk breathed deeply. “I’m the master of this quarter," he said at last. "But not of my country. This business started in Turkey "
"Who sent them?" Schiffer asked more loudly. "The clans of Istanbul? The families of Antep? The Lazes? Who?"
"I swear to you I don't know, Schiffer."
The cop stepped forward. At once, a rustling broke through the fog beside the pool. His bodyguards. He stopped immediately, trying to make out Gurdelik's appearance. But all he could see were fragments of shoulders, hands and torso. A dark, matte skin. wrinkled by water like crepe paper.
"So you're just going to let the massacre go on?"
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"It will stop when they have sorted their business out, when they have found the girl."
"Or when I've found her."
The dark shoulders quaked. "Now it's my turn to laugh. You're no match for them."
"Who can help me find her?"
"Nobody. If anyone knew anything, they would have talked already.
And not to you to them. All that our people want is peace."
Schiffer thought for a moment. It was true what Gurdelik said. It was one of the aspects of the mystery that baffled him. How could this woman have survived so long with an entire community ready to betray her? And why were the Wolves still looking for her in the same neighborhood? Why were they so sure that she was still there?
He changed tack: "What happened exactly in your workshop?”
“I was in Munich at the time and I-"
"Cut the crap, Talat. I want all the details."
The Turk sighed in resignation. "They burst into the workshop on the night of November 13."
"What time?"
"At two AM."
"How many of them were there?"
"Four."
"Did anyone see their faces?"
"They were wearing hoods. According to the girls, they were armed to the teeth. Rifles, handguns. The works."
The Adidas jacket had described the same scene. Warriors in commando getup, at work in the middle of Paris. In his forty years on the force, he had never heard of such a thing. What had this woman done to deserve such treatment?
"And then?" he murmured.
"They grabbed the girl and left. That's all. It was over in three minutes.”
“How did they identify her in the workshop?"
"They had a photo."
Schiffer took a step back and recited: "She was called Zeynep Tütengil. She was twenty-seven. Married to Burba Meng. No children. She lived at 34 Rue de la Fidelité. Originally from the Gaziantep area. Here since September 2001."
"You've done your homework, my brother. But this time, it won't get you anywhere."
"Where's her husband?"
"Back home."
"The other workers?"
"Forget this business. You're too square-headed for this kind of dung heap."
"Stop talking in riddles."
"In the good old days, everything was clear-cut. There were frontiers between the various camps. But now they no longer exist."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Talat Gurdilek paused. Wisps of steam were still concealing his face. He finally said, "If you want to know more, ask the police."
Schiffer started. "The police? What police?"
"I've already told all this to the boys at the Louis-Blanc station." The burning of the mint suddenly seemed more intense.
"When?"
Gurdilek leaned over his tiled block.
"Listen good, Schiffer, because I won't repeat myself. The night the Wolves left here, they ran into a patrol car. They were pursued but managed to lose your men. So they came around here asking questions."
Schiffer listened to this revelation in total amazement. For a fleeting moment, he thought that Nerteaux must have hidden this report from him. But there was no reason for him to have done so. The kid quite simply did not know about it.
The gravelly voice went on: "In the meantime, my girls had made themselves scarce. The cops just noted the break-in and the damage. The workshop manager didn't say a thing about the kidnapping or the commandos. In fact, he wouldn't have said anything at all if there hadn't been the girl."
Schiffer leapt to his feet. "What girl?"
"The cops discovered a worker, hidden away in the machine room in the baths."
Schiffer could not believe his ears. Since the beginning of the affair, someone had seen the Grey Wolves. And she had been questioned by the boys of the tenth arrondissement! How come Nerteaux had never heard about that? One thing was sure, the cops at the station had covered up their discovery. Jesus fucking Christ.
"And what was this girl called?"
"Sema Gokalp."
"How old is she?"
"Thirtyish."
"Married?"
"No, single. A strange girl. A loner."
"Where's she from?"
" Gaziantep."
"Like Zeynep Tütengil?"
"Like all the girls in this workshop. She'd been working here for a few weeks. Since October."
"Did she see the kidnapping?"
"She had a front-row seat. The two of them were checking the temperature in the conduits. The Wolves took Zeynep while Sema hid in the back room. When the cops found her, she was in a state of shock. Half dead with fear."
"And then?"
"Never saw her again."
"They sent her back to Turkey?"
"No idea."
"Answer me, Talat. You must have asked around."
"Soma Gokalp has disappeared. The next day, she wasn't at the police station anymore. She vanished into thin air. Yemim ederim. I swear it!"
Schiffer was still sweating profusely. He forced himself to control his voice. "Who was leading the patrol that night?"
"Beauvanier."
Christophe Beauvanier was one of the captains at Louis-Blanc. A budding Mr. Universe who spent all his spare time in the sports club. Not the sort who would keep a story like this under his hat. Word must have come from higher up… Frissons of excitement were shaking his drenched rags.
The boss seemed to be following his thoughts. "They're covering for the Wolves, Schiffer."
"Don't talk rubbish."
"I'm telling the truth, and you know it. They removed the witness. A woman who must have seen everything. Maybe even the face of one of the killers. Maybe a detail that would allow them to identify them. They're covering for the Wolves, that's all there is to it. The other murders were committed with their blessing. So you can drop your airs and graces of upholding law and order. You're no better than us."
Schiffer avoided swallowing his spit so as not to worsen the burning in his throat. Gurdelik was wrong. The Turks' influence could not possibly rise that high in the ranks of the French police. He was well placed to know that. For twenty years, he had liaised between the two worlds.
So there must be another explanation.
And yet, he could not get one detail out of his mind. A version that could corroborate the hypothesis of a plot in high places. The fact that an inquiry into three murders had been entrusted to Paul Nerteaux, an inexperienced captain just off the last banana boat. Only the kid himself believed that they trusted him that much. It was starting to smell of a setup…
Thoughts surged through his burning temples. If this shit heap was true, if this business really was part of a French-Turkish alliance, if the politicians of both countries really were working for their own interests, at the expense of those poor girls and the hopes of a young cop, then Schiffer would help him all the way.
Two men against the rest. That was the sort of situation he liked.
He turned around in the steam, waved to the old pasha, then without a word went back up the steps.
Gurdilek gargled a last laugh. "It's time to put your own house in order, my brother."
44
Schiffer shoved the door of the commissariat open with his shoulder.
Everyone's eyes focused on him. Soaked to the skin, he stared back, savoring their panicked expressions. Two patrols wearing oilskins were on their way out. Some lieutenants in leather jackets were slipping on their red armbands. The great maneuvers had begun.
Schiffer noticed a pile of Identikit portraits on the counter. He thought of Paul Nerteaux, who was handing out these posters in every police station in the tenth arrondissement, as if they were political handbills, without suspecting in the slightest that he had been set up. Another wave of fury gripped him.
Without a word, he climbed up to the first floor. He dived down a corridor dotted with plywood doors and went straight to the third one.
Beauvanier had not chan
ged. Puffed-up build, black leather jacket and Nike trainers with massive soles. This cop was suffering from an affliction that was becoming rife among his fellows: youth culture. He was nearing fifty but was still trying to look like a trendy rapper.
He was putting on his belt, before heading out on his nocturnal expedition. "Schiffer?" he choked. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"How are things, sweetheart?"
Before he had time to answer, Schiffer grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and rammed him against the wall. Some colleagues were already arriving in rescue. Beauvanier waved to them over his aggressor in a sign of peace.
"It's okay, lads. We're mates."
Schiffer murmured into his ear: "Soma Gokalp. Last November 13. Gurdelik's Turkish baths."
Beauvanier's eyes widened. His mouth trembled. Schiffer banged his head against the wall. The cops rushed at him. Schiffer could already feel them seizing his shoulders. But Beavanier waved his hand again, forcing himself to laugh. "I've told you, he's a friend. Everything's fine!"
The grip loosened. Footfalls receded. Finally, the door closed, slowly almost regretfully.
In turn, Schiffer relaxed his hold and asked, more calmly, "What did you do with the witness? How did you make her disappear?"
"It just happened like that, man. I didn't make anyone disappear…"
Schiffer stepped back to get a better look at him. His face was strangely sweet. The features of a young girl, ringed with extremely black hair and set with very blue eyes. Beauvanier reminded him of an Irish girlfriend he had had in his youth. An "Irish Black," full of contrasts, instead of the classic redhead.
The cop rapper was wearing a baseball cap, visor pointing at the nape of his neck, presumably to look even more like a bad boy.
Schiffer pulled over a chair and sat him down on it forcibly "I'm all ears. I want it down to the last detail."
Beauvanier tried to smile, in vain. "That night. a patrol car ran into a BMW There were these guys coming out of La Porte Bleue baths and-”
“I know all that. When did you come in?"
The Empire Of The Wolves Page 22