Blood-Red Rivers aka The Crimson Rivers

CHAPTER 30

Karim, his guts in a knot, had now been driving for almost two hours. He was thinking of that face. A child's face. Sometimes he imagined it as being that of a monster. Perfectly smooth, with neither a nose nor cheekbones, pierced by two shiny white eyeballs. Or then again, he pictured it as being that of a perfectly ordinary cute little boy. So ordinary, that it left no mark on people's memories. Or else, Karim saw a set of impossible features. Wavy, unstable, reflecting the face of the person examining them. A sparkling appearance which mirrored other people's looks, revealing the deepest secrets concealed beneath the hypocrisy of their smiles. The cop shivered. He was now sure about one thing: the key to this mystery lay in that face. And nowhere else.

He had taken the autoroute from Agen to Toulouse and had then driven alongside the Canal du Midi, taking him past Carcassonne and Narbonne. His car was a terrible old jalopy. A sort of coughing fit made of cylinders and rattling parts. He could not get it to go over one hundred and thirty kilometers per hour, even with the wind behind him. He could not stop thinking over this enigma. He was now approaching Sète, along the coast road, and nearing the Convent of Saint-Jean-de-la-Croix. The gray, vague landscape by the sea had a calming effect on him. His foot hard down, he was now mulling over the rational information he had gathered.

His visits to the photographer and the priest had cast new light on the case. Karim had suddenly realised that the documents missing from Jean-Jaurès School could well have been stolen long before last night's break-in. On the road, he phoned back the headmistress. When asked "is it possible that those documents have been missing since 1982 and that nobody noticed during all those years?" the headmistress had answered "yes" When asked "is it possible that their disappearance was only noticed today, thanks to the burglary?" she had answered "yes". When asked "have you ever heard of a nun who was trying to get hold of school photos from that period?" she had answered "no".

And yet…Before setting out, Karim had conducted a final piece of research in Sarzac. Thanks to papers in the registry office – dates of birth and home addresses – he had contacted several former pupils of those two fateful classes: CM' and CM2, 1981 and 1982. Not one of them still had his old school photos. In certain cases, a fire had started in the room where the photos were kept. In others, there had been a burglary. The thieves had stolen nothing except for a few photographs. Or, yet again, though this was rare, people remembered a nun, who had called by to look for the pictures. It had been at night, and nobody was able to describe her. All of these events had occurred during the same short period: July 1982. One month before little Jude's death.

At about half past six in the evening, as he was driving past the Bassin de Thau, Karim spotted a phone box and rang up Crozier. He was now outside his jurisdiction. And it was a feeling he liked. He was casting off. The superintendent yelled:

"I hope you're on your way here, Karim. We did say six o'clock."

"I have a lead, superintendent."

"What lead?"

"Let me follow it up. Every step I take confirms what I suspected. Do you have anything new concerning the cemetery?"

"You're playing at being the lone ranger, and now you expect me to…"

"Just answer. Have you found the car?"

Crozier sighed.

"We have come up with seven owners of Ladas, two of Trabants and one of a Skoda in the départements of the Lot, Lot-et-Garonne, Dordogne, Aveyron and Vaucluse. And not one of them is our car."

"You've already checked the owners' alibis?"

"No, but we found some scraps from the tires near the cemetery. They're extremely low-grade carbon jobs. The owner of our car still uses the original tires and all the ones we've located run on Michelin or Goodyear. It's the first thing people change on that sort of motor. We're still looking. In other regions?"

"Is that all?"

"That's all for now. What about you?"

"I'm advancing backward"

"Backward?"

"The less I find, the more sure I am that I'm on the right track. Last night's break-ins are linked to a much more serious business, superintendent."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. Something to do with a boy. With his kidnapping or murder. I don't know. I'll call you back."

Without giving the superintendent time to ask another question, Karim hung up.

On the outskirts of Sète, he drove through a small village by the sea. Here, the waters of the Golfe du Lion mingled with the earth in a huge area of marshland, bordered with reeds. The policeman slowed down as he passed a strange port, apparently without any boats, but with long, dark fishing nets suspended between the houses with their shuttered windows.

Everything was deserted.

A pungent smell filled the atmosphere, not of the sea, but rather of some sort of fertiliser, laden with acid and excrement.

Karim Abdouf was nearing his destination. The direction of the convent was now indicated. The setting sun lit up the sharply glinting saline pools on the surface of the marshes. Eight miles further on, he noticed another road sign, indicating a tarmac lane leading up to the right. He drove on, taking the winding bends which were bordered by a confusion of reeds and furze.

At last, the buildings of the cloister emerged. Karim was astonished.

Between these dark sand dunes and rampant weeds stood two massive churches. One of them had finely sculpted towers topped by fluted domes, like monumental cream-cakes. The other was large and red, made of a multitude of small stones, culminating in a wide tower with a flat roof. Two cathedrals which, in that salty sea air, made him think of pieces of flotsam. The Arab just could not understand what they were doing in such a lonely, desperate place.

As he approached, he saw that a third building stretched out between them. A one-storey construction with a rank of narrow, over-ornate windows. Presumably it was the convent itself, which was seemingly drawing in its bricks so as to avoid any contact with the two churches.

Karim parked. He thought how he had never before been so closely confronted by religion – at least, not so often in such a short period of time. This reminded him of a piece of reasoning he had once heard. At the Cannes-Ecluse police academy, senior officers sometimes came to lecture about their experiences. One of them had made a deep impression on Karim. He was tall, with a crew cut, and small iron-rimmed spectacles. His talk had been fascinating. The officer had explained how a crime is always reflected in the minds of the witnesses or loved ones. That they should be seen as mirrors, with the murderer hiding in one of the dead angles.

The officer had sounded crazy, but the students had all been riveted. He had also spoken about atomic structures. According to him, when even apparently trivial details or elements regularly reappeared during the course of an enquiry, then it was necessary to pay attention to them, for they certainly concealed a deeper meaning. Each crime was an atomic nucleus and the recurrent elements were its electrons, revolving around it and drawing out a subliminal truth. Karim smiled. That cop with metal spectacles had been right. It was a good description of this present investigation. And religion had now become a recurring element. It no doubt contained some part of the truth which he was going to have to dig out.

He walked over to a small stone porch and rang the bell. A few seconds later, a smile appeared in the doorway. It was an ancient smile, framed in black and white. Before Karim even opened his mouth, the nun drew back and said:

"Come in, my son."

The cop found himself in a dark hall. On one of the white walls, a crucifix could be made out, over a somberly glinting painting. To his right, Abdouf could see gray light coming out of a few open doors down a corridor. And, through a nearby opening, he noticed lines of varnished chairs, a floor covered with linoleum – the impeccably harsh appearance of a place of prayer.

"This way," the nun said. "We are having dinner."

"At this time?"

The nun stifled a slight laugh. She seemed as wicked as a little girl. "You don't know the Carmelites' daily routine? Every day, we go back to prayer at seven o'clock.”

Karim followed her. Their shadows flitted across the linoleum, as though over the waters of a lake. They then reached a large room, where about thirty nuns were eating and chatting away in a brutally strong light. Their faces and veils had a slightly cardboard look about them, like communion wafers. Some of them glanced or smiled at the policeman, but none of them interrupted their conversations. Karim made out a number of different languages, French, English and a Slavic tongue too, perhaps Polish. Karim did as he was told and sat down at the end of the table, in front of a bowl full of lumpy yellow soup.

"Eat, my son. A big boy like you needs feeding…"

"My son", again…But Karim did not have the heart to snap at the nun.

He looked down at his bowl and remembered that he had not eaten since yesterday. He swallowed the soup in no time, then devoured several pieces of bread and cheese. Each part of the meal had that particular taste of homemade food, concocted with whatever was to hand. He poured himself some water, from a stainless steel jug, then looked up. The nun was watching him, and exchanging a few observations with her neighbors. She murmured:

"We were talking about your hair-do…"

"And?"

The nun giggled.

"How do you go about making those plaits?"

"They're natural," he replied. "Frizzy hair naturally goes into plaits like this. In Jamaica, they're called dreadlocks. The men never cut their hair and never shave. It's against their religion, just like with rabbis. When the locks are long enough, they fill them up with earth to make them heavier and…"

Karim came to a sudden stop. The reason for his visit had just forced itself back into his mind. He opened his mouth to explain what he was investigating, but the nun got in first:

"Why did you come here, my son? And why do you have a gun under your jacket?"

"I'm a police officer. I need to talk to Sister Andrée. Badly."

The nuns went on chatting, but the lieutenant saw that they had heard his request. The woman declared:

"We'll go and call on her." She signaled discreetly to one of her neighbors, then turned back to Karim. "Follow me."

The cop bowed to the table in a sign of farewell and gratitude. A highwayman thanking those who had offered him their hospitality. They went back down the bright corridor. Their footsteps made not a sound. Suddenly, the nun turned to him:

"You have been told, I suppose?"

"About what?"

"You can speak to her, but you cannot see her. You can listen to her, but you cannot go near her."

Karim examined the edges of the veil, arched up like a shadowy vault. It reminded him of a nave, an illuminated azure dome, the churches protruding on the Rome skyline, the sort of clichés which come into your mind when you try to put a face to the God of the Catholics.

"Darkness," she whispered. "Sister Andrée has made a vow of darkness. We have not seen her now for the last fourteen years. She must be blind by now."

Outside, the last rays of sunlight were disappearing behind the huge edifices. A wave of cold surged over the empty courtyard. They were walking toward the church with high towers. On its right-hand side, there was a small wooden door. The nun searched through the folds of her robe. Karim heard the clinking of keys, scratching against the stone.

Then she left him in front of the half-open door.

The darkness seemed inhabited, peopled by damp smells, fluttering candles, worn stones. Karim took a few steps inside then raised his eyes. He could not make out the top of the vault. The scattered gleams from the stained-glass windows were already being consumed by the dusk, the flames of the candles seemed to be prisoners of the cold, overwhelming immensity of the church.

He walked past a font, shaped like a seashell, then the confessionals and alcoves, which seemed to be hiding secret religious artifacts. He noticed another dark candelabrum, supporting a large quantity of candles burning in pools of wax.

The place reawoke vague memories in him. Despite his origins and the color of his skin, his subconscious was drenched in the Catholic faith. He remembered the chill Wednesdays in the children's home, where the afternoon TV session was always preceded by catechism. The suffering of the Way of the Cross. Christ's goodness. The feeding of the five thousand. All that bullshit…Karim felt a wave of nostalgia rise inside him and a strange sensation of tenderness for the staff at the home. He hated himself for such sentiments. The Arab wanted no memories or weaknesses from his past. He was a son of the present. A being of the here and now. Or, that was at least how he liked to imagine himself.

He paced on under the vaults. Behind a wooden trellis, at the back of the alcoves, he could make out some dark rugs, white rubble, pictures woven in gold. A scent of dust enveloped him as he went. Suddenly, a low sound made him spin round. It took him a few seconds to distinguish the shadow from the surrounding darkness – and to release the grip of his Glock, which he had instinctively seized.

In the hollow of an alcove, perfectly motionless, stood Sister Andrée.

CHAPTER 31

She lowered her head, and her veil completely obscured her features. Karim realised that he would never be able to see that face, and he had a flash of inspiration. Perhaps both the nun and the little boy bore a sign, a mark which revealed their kinship. The nun and the little boy were perhaps mother and son. That thought sank like a dagger into his mind, to such a point that he did not hear the woman's opening words:

"What did you say?" he whispered.

"I asked you what you wanted."

Her voice was deep, but pleasant. The horsehair of a bow sweeping across the strings of a violin.

"I am a police officer, sister. I want to talk to you about Jude." The dark veil did not move.

"Fourteen years ago," Karim went on, "in a small town called Sarzac, you stole or destroyed all of the photographs featuring a little boy called Jude Ithero. In Cahors, you bribed a photographer. You tricked children. You created accidents, committed burglaries. And all with the intention of obliterating a face on a few photos. Why?"

The nun remained motionless. Her veil formed an arc of nothingness.

"I was obeying orders," she finally declared.

"Orders? Who from?"

"From the boy's mother?”

Karim felt pinpricks all across his skin. He knew that she was telling the truth. At once, he gave up his sister/mother/son hypothesis.

The nun opened the wooden gate which separated her from Karim. She walked in front of him then strode over toward some cane-bottomed chairs. She knelt beside a column on a prayer-stool, with her head bent down. Karim went along the next row and sat in front of her. A smell of woven straw, of ashes and incense assailed him.

"Go on," he said, while staring at that patch of darkness where her face should have been.

"She came to see me one Sunday evening, in June 1982."

"Did you know her?"

"No. This is the very place where we met. I did not see her face. She did not tell me her name, nor give me any other information. She just told me that she needed me. For a particular task…She wanted me to destroy the school photographs of her son. She wanted to wipe out all trace of his face."

"Why did she want to do that?"

"She was mad."

"Come on. You can do better than that.”

"She said that her son was being pursued by demons."

"By demons?"

"Those were her very words. She said they were looking for his face…"

"She didn't explain it more clearly?"

"No. She said that her son was cursed. That his face was proof, a piece of evidence which reflected the evil of those demons. She also said that she and her son had gained two years' reprieve from the curse, but that the evil had caught up with them and now the demons were on their heels again. It made no sense at all. She was mad. Totally mad."

Karim drank in every word. He did not understand what this business about "proof" meant, but one thing at least was clear: those two years' reprieve had been the ones spent in Sarzac, in the most absolute anonymity. So where had this mother and son come from?

"If little Jude was really being pursued by dangerous people, then why give this secret mission to a nun who everybody would remember?"

The woman did not reply.

"Please, sister," Karim whispered.

"She said that she had tried everything to hide her child, but the demons were far more powerful than she was. She said that the only thing left now was to exorcise his face."

"What?"

"According to her, I had to be the one who obtained the photographs then burnt them. It would be an exorcism. In that way, I would free her son's face."

"This is all totally beyond me, sister."

"I told you. She was mad."

"But why you? For heaven's sake, your convent is over a hundred and twenty-five miles away from Sarzac!"

The nun remained silent, then said:

"She had searched for me. She had chosen me."

"What do you mean?"

"I have not always been a Carmelite. Before receiving the call, I was a mother. I had to abandon my husband and my son. The woman thought that this would make me likely to accept her request. She was right."

Karim stared on into that pit of darkness. He pressed her:

"You're not telling me everything. If you thought she was mad, then why did you do as she asked? Why cover hundreds of miles to get a handful of photos? Why lie, steal, destroy?"

"Because of the child. Despite that woman's madness, despite her wild words, I…I sensed that the child was in danger. And that the only way to help him was to carry out his mother's instructions. Even if it just served to calm her down."

Karim swallowed hard. The pinpricks were covering his skin once again. He approached her and adopted his sweetest tone of voice:

"Tell me about the mother. What did she look like?"

"She was very tall, and big. She must have been at least six feet. Her shoulders were broad. I never saw her face, but I remember that she had a gleaming, black, wavy head of hair. She also wore glasses, with thick frames. She was always dressed in black. In pullovers made of cotton, or wool…"

"What about Jude's father? Did she ever mention him?"

"No, never."

Karim gripped the wood of the prayer-stool and bent further over. Instinctively, the woman pulled back.

"How often did she come here?" he asked.

"Four or five times. Always on a Sunday. In the morning. She gave me a list of names and addresses – the photographer, and families that might possess the photographs. During the week, I set about obtaining the pictures. I went to see the families. I lied. I stole. I bribed the photographer with money she had given me…"

"Did she then take the photos away?"

"No. I've already told you. She wanted me to burn them… When she came here, she simply crossed off the names on her list…When all the names had been gone through, she seemed relieved. Then she completely disappeared. As for me, I took the path of the shadows. I chose darkness, isolation. The only eyes I can bear are God's. Since that time, I have prayed for the little boy every day. I…"

She broke off, apparently suddenly catching onto something. "What brought you here? Why all these questions? My God, Jude isn't…"

Karim stood up. The incense was burning his throat. He suddenly realized that he was panting, with his mouth agape. He swallowed hard, then glanced at Sister Andrée.

"You did what you could," he said blankly. "But it served no purpose. A month later, the kid was dead. I don't know how. I don't know why. But that woman wasn't as mad as you think. And yesterday, in Sarzac, Jude's grave was desecrated. I am now practically certain that the demons she was afraid of were the persons responsible. That woman was living in a nightmare, sister. And that nightmare has just been resurrected."

Head down, the nun groaned. Her veil was a cascade of black-and-white silk.

Karim went on, his voice growing louder and louder. His harsh tones rose up in the church and he no longer knew on whose behalf he was speaking, for her, for himself, or for Jude.

"I'm an inexperienced officer, sister. I'm a thug, and I work as a loner. But, in some respects, that's bad news for last night's bastards?” He grabbed the prayer-stool again. "Because I promised that kid something, understand? Because I come from nowhere and nothing, and nobody's going to stop me. This is personal business, now, get it? Personal business!"

The policeman leant down. He felt the wood crack into splinters beneath his fingers.

"It's time for you to get thinking, sister. Come up with something, anything that will put me on the right track. I have to get to Jude's mother?”

Still bent over, the nun shook her head.

"I don't know anything."

"Think! Where could I find that woman? Where did she go after Sarzac? And before all that, where had she come from? Give me a detail, a lead, to help me continue my enquiries!"

Sister Andrée was swallowing back her tears.

"I…I think she came here with him."

"With him?"

"With the boy?”

"Did you see him?"

"No. She left him in town, near the station, in an amusement park. The fairground is still there, but I have never worked up the courage to go and see the stall-keepers. Perhaps…Perhaps one of them might remember the boy…That's all I know…"

"Thank you, sister?”

Karim ran off. His steel-capped shoes rang like pieces of flint across the huge courtyard. He stopped in the icy air, as stiff as a rake, and stared up at the sky. In a fleeting moment of panic, his lips mumbled:

"Jesus Christ…where am I?…Where the fuck am I?"

CHAPTER 32

The amusement park stretched out in the dusk beside a railway line, on the limits of that small, deserted town. The stands spat out their light and music into nothingness. There was not one single idler, not one family that had come out for a stroll there that Monday evening. Far off, the dark sea opened its white jaws in a succession of violent waves.

Karim walked on. A big wheel was slowly rotating. Its spokes were dotted with little fairy lights which were alternating, one lot on, the other lot off, as though in the throes of a series of short circuits. Musical horses cantered riderless around the carousel; identical-looking attractions, covered with tarpaulin, were being whipped by the wind: bran tubs, arcade games, pathetic amusements…Abdouf would have been unable to say whether he found the church or this fair the more depressing.

Without hoping for much, he started questioning the stall-keepers. He mentioned a kid called Jude Ithero, then the date: July 1982. Generally, the faces remained as inscrutable as mummies. Sometimes he got a negative grunt. On other occasions, signs of incredulity: "Fourteen years ago! Whatcha expect?" Karim felt increasingly discouraged. Who was likely to remember? How many Sundays had Jude in fact spent there in all? Three? Four? Five?

Telling himself that the kid might well have taken a lilting to one attraction in particular, or become friendly with a stall-keeper, he stubbornly asked round the entire park…

But he completed his circuit without the slightest success. He stared at the coast. The waves were still spitting out their tongues of foam around the piles under the seafront. It looked like an ocean of tar. He felt as if he had entered a no-man's-land, where nothing whatever was to be learnt. A childhood memory resurfaced in his mind: the magical town in Pinocchio, to which all the naughty little boys were drawn by wonderful attractions, before being captured and then turned into donkeys.

What had Jude been turned into?

He was about to go back to his car when, across the wasteland, he spotted a small 'circus.

He told himself that, in the name of his enquiry, he was going to have to explore every possible avenue. Shoulders slouching, he marched over to the canvas dome. It was not a real circus – more like a shabby tent containing a series of miserable turns. Above the entrance, a plastic banner announced, in twisted lettering: "The Fire-eaters". With two fingers, the cop raised the piece of cloth that served as a door.

He stopped dead before the blinding spectacle inside. Flames. Dull sounds of scraping. The smell of gasoline in the air. The lieutenant had a fleeting image of a souped-up machine, made of muscle and fire, of brands and human torsos. Then he realised that, under the pale stage lights, he was watching a sort of waltz of the fire-eaters. Men with bare chests, gleaming with sweat and gasoline, were exhaling their inflammable breath onto the crackling torches. They then formed themselves into a menacing-looking semi-circle. Another swig of gasoline. More flames. Some of them bent down, while others leapt over their backs, spitting out a further dazzling incantation.

The cop thought of the demons that had been pursuing Jude's mother.

Every element in this long nightmare kept up the same atmospheric pressure, the same disturbing deadliness.

"Each crime is an atomic nucleus," the cop with the crew cut had said.

Karim sat down on one of the wooden benches and contemplated these apprentice dragons for a while. He sensed that he should wait there, then question these men. But why, he had no idea. At last, one of the fire-eaters deigned to notice his presence. He stopped his performance and, holding his blackened torch which was still spitting with fire, walked over to him. He must have been under thirty, but the lines on his face seemed to have been dug out by twice that number of years. Thanks to a spell inside, no doubt. His hair was brown, his skin brown, his eyes brown. And the piercing stare of someone who was always on the look-out for trouble.

"You one of us?" he asked.

"What?"

"A traveler. You looking for work?"

Karim pressed his hands together.

"No, I'm a cop."

"A cop?"

The fire-eater approached and propped one heel on the bench just below Karim.

"Well you sure don't look like one."

The Arab could smell the man's flaming torso.

"What's a cop supposed to look like?"

"What are you after? It can't be illegal immigrants, can it?"

Karim did not reply. He glanced round the patchwork canvas dome, the performers in the ring, then the thought occurred to him that this character must have been about fifteen in 1982. What were the chances of his having run into Jude? Zero. But he just had to ask.

"Were you already here fourteen years back?"

"Yeah, probably. This circus belongs to my folks?”

Karim said, in one breath:

"I'm on the trail of a little boy who might have come here round that time. In July 1982, to be precise. On several successive Sundays. I'm looking for someone who might remember him."

The fire-eater searched for the truth in Karim's eyes.

"You're not serious, are you?"

"Don't I look it?"

"What was this kid's name?"

"Jude. Jude Ithero."

"And you really expect someone to remember a kid who might have dropped into our circus fourteen years back?"

Karim stood up and strode over the benches.

"Forget it."

The young man suddenly grabbed him by the jacket.

"Jude came here a few times. He used to stay sitting there while we were rehearsing. Like he was hypnotised, or something.”

"What?"

The man climbed up a row and stood beside Karim. His breath stank of gasoline. He went on:

"It was one hell of a hot summer, that one. Like you could fry eggs on the sidewalk. Jude turned up here four Sundays in a row. We were about the same age. We played together. I taught him to spit out fire. It was kid's stuff. What's the big deal?"

Karim stared at the young fire-eater.

"And you remember him, just like that, fourteen years later?"

"That's what you were hoping, isn't it?"

The cop raised his voice:

"A11 I want to know is why you remember?”

The man leapt down onto the circle of beaten earth, clicked his heels together and raised his torch to his lips. He sprinkled it with saliva tinged with gasoline. A shower of sparks flew out.

"It's because there was something a bit special about Jude."

Karim trembled.

"Something about his face?"

"No, not his face."

"What then?"

The young man spat out another volley of flames, then cackled: "Listen, man, Jude was a girl?”

CHAPTER 33

Slowly, the truth was taking shape.

According to the fire-eater, the child he had met on four occasions was a young girl, carefully disguised as a boy. Hair clipped short, boyish clothes, boyish manners. The man was categorical:

"She never told me she was a girl…It was her secret, see? But I noticed at once that something was odd. First off, she was really beautiful. A stunner, in fact. And then there was her voice. And her shape. She must have been about ten, or twelve. And it was beginning to show. Then there were other things. She had lenses in her eyes that changed their color. They were dark, but as black as ink. Artificial looking. Even though I was a kid, I still spotted that. And she was always complaining that her eyes hurt. They were stinging right into her head, that's what she said…"

Karim gathered the evidence. Jude's mother's greatest fear was that the demons were going to destroy her child. Which is presumably why she had left her town and ended up in Sarzac. Once there, she must have adopted a new identity. And Karim should have realised that before. She had changed her child's name, thoroughly altered its appearance, and even its sex. That way, nobody could possibly find her out. But, two years later, the demons had turned up again in her new town, Sarzac. They were still looking for the child and were about to unmask him.

To unmask her.

The mother had panicked. She had destroyed all the documents, all the school registers, all the files that contained her daughter's assumed name. And, in particular, the photographs. Because, if the demons did not know her child's new name, they certainly knew her face. It was, in fact, the face they were looking for. The proof of her identity. That was why they must first have wanted to examine the school photos so as to pick out the features they were after. But where had these pursuing demons come from?

And who were they?

Karim questioned the young fire-eater, who was still brandishing his torch:

"And did this little girl ever say anything about demons?"

"Demons? No, the demons…" He pointed at the troop and chuckled. "…that was us. And Jude didn't say a lot. I told you, we were kids. I just taught her to spit out fire…"

And that interested her?"

"Not half. She said she wanted to learn…so as to protect herself. And protect her mum, too…A bit of a funny kid."

"She didn't say anything else about her mother?"

"No…And I never saw her either…Jude stayed with us for a couple of hours then, all of a sudden, she was gone…Like Cinderella.

She vanished like that a few times, then never came back."

"Do you remember anything else? A detail I could find useful?"

"No."

"Her name, for instance…She never told you her name, her real one, I mean."

"No, but now I stop and think, there was something…"

"What?"

"I started by calling her 'Joode', like in the Beatles song. But that wound her up. She insisted on being called 'Ju-de', with a French pronunciation. I can still see her little mouth pouting: 'Ju-de'."

The fire-eater smiled nostalgically, his eyes seemed to mist over. Karim figured that this dragon must have been head-over-heels in love with the girl. The man then asked him a question:

"So what are you investigating? What's up with her? These days, she must be at least…"

Karim was no longer listening. He was thinking of little Jude, who had been to school for two years under an assumed name. How had the mother managed to fake her identity papers and enroll her in that school? How had she managed to pass her off as a little boy and so fool everyone, in particular the teacher she saw every day?

He had a sudden idea. He looked up and asked the human torch: "Is there a phone round here?"

"Course there is. What do you take us for, bums?"

Abdouf followed him as he led the way.

He then found himself in a small shed of painted wood at the end of the ring. There was a telephone on a small shelf. He dialed the number of the headmistress of Jean-Jaurès School. The wind was slapping against the edges of the tent. In the distance, the fire-eaters continued their rehearsal. It rang three times, then a man's voice answered.

"I'd like to speak to the headmistress, please," Karim explained, mastering his excitement.

"Who shall I say is calling?"

"Lieutenant Karim Abdouf."

A few seconds later, the woman's breathless voice panted into the receiver. The policeman asked point-blank:

"Do you remember the teacher you mentioned, who left Sarzac at the end of the 1982 school year?"

"Of course."

"You told me that she'd taken CM1 in 1981, then CM2 in 1982."

"That's correct."

"So, she followed Jude Ithero from one class to the next?"

"Yes. You could put it that way. But, as I told you, it's common practice…"

"What was her name?"

"Hang on, I'll look at my notes…"

The headmistress rummaged through her papers.

"Fabienne Pascaud."

This name, of course, meant nothing to Karim. What was more, it had nothing in common with the child's assumed name. With each new piece of information, he ran up against a brick wall. He asked:

"Do you have her maiden name?"

"That is her maiden name."

"She wasn't married?"

"She was a widow. Or, according to my files, she was. How odd. She seems to have started to use her old surname again."

"What was her married name?"

"Hang on…There it is: Hérault. H.E.R.A.U.L.T."

Another dead end. Karim was barking up the wrong tree again. "OK. Thanks, I'll…"

There then came a blinding flash. If he was right, if this woman really was Jude's mother, then the little girl's surname must originally have been Hérault. And her first name…

Karim thought again of the fire-eater's remark about the pronunciation of the kid's name. She had been adamant that it should be pronounced in the French way. Why? Because it reminded her of her real name? Her real, girl's name?

Karim panted into the receiver:

"Hang on a second."

He knelt down and, his hand shaking, wrote the two names in the sand, in block capitals, one above the other:

FABIENNE HERAULT JUDE ITHERO

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 bruises. 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 new 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."

"And no one knows why she left Sarzac so suddenly?"

"No, no one."

"Or Guernon, two years before?"

"No. I suppose we would have to ask there, I…" The woman hesitated, then dared ask her question. "Now listen, lieutenant…You could at least tell me what the connection is between this investigation and the robbery in my school, I…"

"Later. Are you going home now?"

"Urn…yes, of course…"

"Take everything that concerns Fabienne Pascaud with you, and wait for my call."

"I…All right. When do you think you can call?"

"I don't know. Soon. I'll explain everything then."

Karim hung up and took another long look at the cars in the car park. There were some Audis, BMWs, Mercedes, shiny, fast – and chock-full of alarms. He looked at his watch. It was just after half-past eight. And time to confront the old lion. The lieutenant dialled Henri Crozier's personal number. A voice immediately roared:

"For fuck's sake, WHERE ARE you?"

"I'm pursuing my enquiries?”

"I hope you're on your way back to the station."

"No. I have to pay one last call. In the mountains."

"The mountains?"

"Yes, to a small university town near Grenoble. Called Guernon:" There was a moment's silence, then Crozier said:

"You'd better have a good reason for…"

"An excellent one, superintendent. The lead I've got points that way. I reckon that's where I'll find the desecrators?”

Crozier did not respond. Karim's nerve seemed to have left him speechless. Taking advantage of the silence, the lieutenant pressed on: "Do you have any news about the vehicle?"

The superintendent hesitated. Karim raised his voice:

"Do you have any news, yes or no?"

"We've found the vehicle and its owner."

"How?"

"A witness on the D143 road. A farmer who was going home on his tractor. He saw a white Lada go by, at around two o'clock. All he could remember was the code of the départements. So we checked it out. A Lada has just been registered over there. And, during its test, it still had its original East European tires. You can be about eighty per cent certain that she's our car."

Karim thought it over. This piece of information seemed too convenient, and hence suspect.

"Why did the witness come forward?"

Crozier chuckled.

"Because Sarzac's in a frenzy. The regional squad's arrived, with its usual absolute damn discretion. They're playing it as if it was a full-scale profanation, like at Carpentras." Crozier cursed. "The press has turned up too. It's a fucking mess."

Karim clenched his teeth.

"Give me the name and the town, quick!"

"Don't talk to me like that, Karim, I'll…"

"The name, superintendent. Don't you realise yet that this is my enquiry? That I'm the only person who knows the real reason for this mayhem?"

Crozier paused for a moment, the time he needed to recover his calm. When he spoke again, his voice was impassive:

"Karim, in all my years on the force, nobody has ever spoken to me like that. So, I want an update on `your' enquiry. And be snappy about it. If not, I'll put out an APB on your ass."

The tone of his voice made it clear that this was no time to try and negotiate. Karim briefly told him what he had found out. He recounted the story of Fabienne and Judith Hérault, the two loners on the run. He described the crazy path they had taken, the changes of identity, the car accident that had killed the child. At the end, Crozier sounded perplexed:

"Quite a story you've got there?”

"Death is a story, superintendent?”

"Yeah…if you say so. Anyway, I don't see the connection between your yarn and our business of last night…"

"This is what I think, superintendent. Fabienne Hérault was not mad. Some people really were pursuing her. And I think the same ones came back to Sarzac last night."

"What?"

Karim took a deep breath.

"I think they came back to check something. Something that they knew, but which a recent event had given them cause to doubt"

"What are you on about? And who are these people supposed to be?"

"No idea. But I reckon that the demons are back, superintendent."

"That's bullshit."

"Maybe it is, but just look at the facts: Jean-Jaurès School was definitely burgled and Jude Ithero's grave was definitely desecrated. So, superintendent, would you please give me the desecrator's name and where he lives? I'd like to know if it's in Guernon, because that's where I think the key to this nightmare lies…"

"Got a pen? His name is: Philippe Sertys. 7, Rue Maurice-Blasch." Karim's voiced quavered:

"And the town, superintendent? Is it Guernon?"

Crozier let him sweat for a moment.

"Yes, it's Guernon. Christ knows how you managed to work that one out, but you're certainly the one who's onto the hottest lead."