Bible of the Dead

Chapter 16

‘She was about to send this email? To me?’

‘Yes.’

‘But how…’

‘The murderer reached her first. However, she was using webmail. The draft message was, therefore, automatically saved. We retrieved it yesterday.’

Rouvier set down his absurdly large cup of latte, untouched.

Julia had to ask.

‘So what did it say?’

‘Let me show you.’

The French detective reached into his case. Julia watched, passive and mute, trying not to reveal her deep disquiet. She was truly scared now; she had been weeping on and off for two days, since she’d first heard.

Ghislaine’s death had been ghastly enough, but she was not close to her boss. She was also able to rationalize that crime, to a certain extent: she had convinced herself his death was a unique if horrible atrocity. An ex lover taking mad revenge, maybe. Or just a robbery gone wrong. No more than that.

But Annika? Julia liked Annika, Julia was emotionally involved with Annika, they had been good friends. This murder grieved Julia, badly. Even worse, the brutal murder of Annika, following the brutal murder of Ghislaine, that meant a chain, a continuance, a series of crimes – perhaps interwoven with all those mysterious secrets. And a chain also implied further links.

Further killings.

Rouvier laid the document on the wooden table. They were in a suitably discreet corner of the cafe. Julia had suggested Starbucks, by the Gare du Nord, because Rouvier had said he was en route to London by Eurostar. She’d also chosen Starbucks quite deliberately, because it was so bland and non French and it reminded her of Toronto.

This is what she wanted right now. Canada, maple leaves, ice hockey, Hortons. And this place was the closest she could get: the sofas, the menus, the vast and oversweet cinnamon buns: they were comforting, so very North American. Insipidly safe. Nursery food for the soul.

Rouvier gazed at her, knowingly, as if he could see her fear.

‘Miss Kerrigan, I do not think the killer is after you.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Why not read the email?’

She snatched up the sheet of paper.

Dear Julia…

Engaging with the puzzle – shunting emotion aside – Julia deconstructed the information.

Three years year ago, she learned, an academic colleague of Ghislaine’s and Annika’s, an older man called Hector Trewin, had been killed in his Oxford college. The murder had attracted a brief but intense flurry of interest, because this semi-retired professor had been tortured before he was killed. Electric shocks had been applied to his hands and his scalp and elsewhere. The slaying was apparently motiveless. No suspects were named or located. No one was arrested. The unsavoury murder soon disappeared from the news.

However, as Annika’s email put it, at the time Ghislaine and I were suspicious that the killing could have been linked to our trip to Cambodia – Democratic Kampuchea – in 1976. Because of the nature of the brutalities, we thought: perhaps it was someone taking revenge for…

The email ended there. Where Annika had been… interrupted. Julia set the piece of paper on the table, next to her undrunk cappuccino. Trying not to imagine the ensuing scene in the little cottage on the Cham des Bondons. She fought back a surge of near-tears, calming herself with deep breathing.

She said, slowly,

‘I know the name, Hector Trewin. He is, or he was, quite old, a Marxist anthropologist at Balliol. Respected. Famous in his time, in the 1960s and 70s.’

Rouvier nodded:

‘Yes. I am meeting the English police today to go over such matters. But yes, you are quite right about Trewin. Furthermore, Annika Neuman speaks correctly of their shared connection. Our researches prove this. Decades ago, Hector Trewin, Ghislaine Quoinelles and Annika Neuman were all part of a…’ he paused momentarily ‘… a kind of mission, a team, an invited party. Most of them were French, there were also some Americans and Britons as well, perhaps a German. They were invited by the Chinese and Cambodian governments to visit Beijing and Phnom Penh in 1976. The party comprised biologists, anthropologists, archaeologists – thinkers and scientists. And all of them were committed Marxists.’ Rouvier hesitated, then continued: ‘More importantly, they were all supporters, or at least fellow-travellers, if I have the phrase correctly, of the Pol Pot regime and the Maoists in China.’

Julia gestured at the document:

‘But what does this bit mean. This word revenge?’

‘Miss Neuman’s intention is, to me at least, quite clear.’ Rouvier placed his fingertips on the piece of paper, gently pinning it down. ‘Lewin was electrocuted, in various parts of the body, while he was alive. He was finally despatched with a terrible blow to the back of the head, with a metal bar. Victims of the Khmer Rouge were tormented and then killed in precisely this way.’

The puzzle cohered; the logic emerged.

‘So the murderer is a Cambodian, a survivor maybe, of the Khmer Rouge?’

‘Very possibly.’

‘I get it! The killer is taking revenge, on these old academics, old communists, who went to Phnom Penh in 1976. It’s vengeance!’

‘It seems something of that nature. Yes.’

Julia was gratified by this solution. It made so much sense. The murders were just basic human revenge, exacted on old western communists, by a victim of the most evil of com munist regimes. She could almost understand it, she could almost empathize. If the murderer hadn’t brutally killed her friends and colleagues.

She also liked this solution for the most selfish of reasons: because she was cut out of the picture. She wasn’t a target. It had nothing to do with her job, her discoveries, the skulls and the bones.

And yet, a still persistent voice inside her told her the skulls and the bones were connected. Why had Ghislaine and Annika been so odd, so evasive, on this subject? There must be a link? But a link meant a link to Julia herself. She was conflicted, she was frightened, she sipped her milky coffee.

Rouvier sat forward. ‘But there is more. There are several aspects to these murders that still puzzle me.’

The coffee was sickly – going cold already. Julia stammered.

‘Aspects? Aspects like – like what?’

‘For a start, there is the skill of the intrusion, the enormous strength, the necessary athleticism – we believe the killer gained entry through a small cottage window at Miss Neuman’s house.’

Julia remembered the window. It was small. How did the killer get through that? A slender young woman could do it, or a boy, maybe; a small Asian man.

‘Are you guys sure it is a woman?’

Rouvier smiled approvingly, as if Julia was an elder daughter who had asked a clever question.

‘A most important point. Our sole reliable description is of a pale woman with long dark hair. But the kind of expert ise we see here must surely come from training, the army, maybe special forces. And a man is much more likely to have this kind of strength and background, this capability. So a man, or a woman. Or what? Who is this?’

Rouvier was frowning through the window at the grand stone façade of the Gare du Nord. It was a bright Autumn day in Paris, the streets busy with taxis and tourists.

He turned.

‘Miss Kerrigan, this is where you come in, once more. When I considered all this yesterday, I recalled our conversation outside the hospital that night. Your questions.’

‘Our conversation?’

‘Cast your mind back. You asked me about the research of Ghislaine’s grandfather, the great professor. I told you it was about crossbreeding, between men and animals.’

Julia took another quick sip of her enormous cappuccino. It was completely cold now. She put the coffee down, and protested.

‘But I was feeling kinda disturbed, that evening. Just asking questions for the sake of it.’

Rouvier smiled, very soberly. ‘Exactly so, Miss Kerrigan, but it is a notion that has some folkloric resonance, in Lozère. The werewolves of the Margeride! The beast of Gevaudan! Therefore, two days ago, as I thought of the animal savagery of the attacks and so forth, I recalled your question. This is why I asked my assistant to investigate the backgrounds of these academics, these communists who went to Cambodia.’

‘Their backgrounds?’

‘Here. I have a photo.’ Rouvier was reaching for his briefcase once more. He extracted a large scanned colour photo and laid it on the table, facing Julia.

It was like a school photo, a group photo: a party of people, with some sitting, some standing behind, all smiling at the camera.

The photo was so obviously taken in the 1970s: it ached with nostalgia. Lots of flared trousers, wide neckties, short vivid dresses on the women. The faces were mostly young; all of them were keen, hopeful, idealistic, squinting a little, in the sun. So many years ago.

Julia touched the photo. There: she could see Annika. Beautiful, blonde, Dutch-Belgian, in a summer dress and sandals. Ghislaine was next to her, his arm around her, slightly awkward, slightly proud. His hair did not look absurd. Leaning closer to the photo, Julia tried to assess where it was taken: the sun was harsh, tropical. Behind them was an eerily deserted city street, shadows cast by palm trees. It was Cambodia, surely: one of the empty desolate boulevards of Phnom Penh. How could they be smiling?

‘Yes,’ said Rouvier. ‘It is Phnom Penh, 1976, a few months after Year Zero, after the genocides had already begun. Rather disturbing, no?’

The policeman laid a finger on the photo. ‘This is Hector Trewin.’

Julia frowned. She vaguely recognized the face: it provoked distant memories of textbooks, maybe an ancient, pompously serious BBC TV programme. Trewin was older than most of the others in the photos; but he was also smiling. His smile was even more ardent.

Rouvier indicated another face, a young man, sitting at the front. ‘This is Marcel Barnier. From Sciences Po.’

‘And?’

‘He was, and maybe still is, an expert in animal science, in hybridization.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Expert in breeding between species.’

Julia gripped her coffee spoon. Hard.

‘You’re saying… you’re surely not saying?’

Julia couldn’t even begin to enunciate it. The idea was insane. But the faces smiled at her, in the bright Phnom Penh sun, in the dark heart of all that evil, as millions died around them, smiling.

Rouvier sat back.

‘I’m certainly not claiming that la bête de Gévaudan has returned to prey upon us.’ He shook his head. ‘No. That is clearly absurd. But then, what are we to think? There is this strange network of facts. It cannot be disputed.’

The policeman took up the sheets of paper, folded them carefully, and returned them to his briefcase.

‘Now I must meet my junior. We catch the train for London. I hope I have not unnerved you?’

She shook her head.

He nodded, gravely.

‘Good. That is good. You are staying in Paris?’

‘Alex’s brother has a flat here. It’s empty. We’re here to do some, y’know, research. Archaeology.’

Julia wondered if she should tell Rouvier about their pursuit, the hunt for Prunieres. Maybe she should tell him about the skulls, the trepanations, the wounds in the ver tebrae. The needling and insistent evidence was speaking to the trepanations, and to the injuries to Annika’s head. But maybe it was coincidence; possibly her idea was insane. Probably it was irrelevant?

Whatever the answer, she didn’t have the emotional energy to explain her findings and theories and anxieties now. Not the energy, nor the time, nor the courage. She just wanted to get out.

Rouvier was scraping back his chair, preparing to go.

‘Let us stay in touch, Miss Kerrigan?’

The policeman opened the door of the cafe, to allow Julia exit. The morning air was mild, early November-ish, wistful. He shook her hand. Then he said:

‘There is one more curiosity.’

Julia had somehow expected this. She already sensed there was more; with a creeping sense of dread, she asked:

‘OK?’

‘I was prepared to dismiss the crossbreeding as sheer speculation. A fanciful idea. But then, yesterday, my junior made another discovery.’ His smile was bleak. ‘It seems there was a serious attempt in the 1920s to crossbreed man and animals, man and the higher apes specifically. And Professor Quoinelles, the grandfather, he was part of that. The leader, indeed.’

A flock of dirty city pigeons clapped into the air behind Rouvier, as if applauding this revelation.

‘Why? Why the hell would you do that?’

‘Military purposes. Supposedly they wanted to create a soldier with the brain of a man and the strength of a wild animal. A real killer. They actually made the attempt! We must remember this was the 1920s, different morals would apply, eugenics was still permissible. But the lengths they went to – they are still incredible, repulsive. They used apes imported from French Guyana and human women. They seized African women, imprisoned them, and tried to impregnate them with animal sperm. We know this happened.’

‘The French army did this? The French government? My God.’

‘Ah no, not the French. I have misled you, sorry.’ He hesitated, then explained: ‘Albert Quoinelles, Ghislaine’s grandpere, was another well-known leftist. A sympathizer with Bolshevism. Quoinelles did his experiments for Stalin, he was recruited by Moscow. He did his experiments for the communists.’

He bowed her away, then turned and crossed the busy street, heading for the dark, mouthlike arches of the Gare du Nord.