The Empire Of The Wolves

42

He had gotten rid of the kid, which alone was something.

After the chase at the station and the revelations, Jean-Louis Schiffer had taken Paul Nerteaux to a bar called La Strasbourgeoise, just in front of Gare de l'Est. He had then analyzed once more what was really at stake in this investigation, how it was now a "woman hunt." For the moment, that was all that mattered. Forget the other victims and the killers. They just had to unmask the Grey Wolves' target, the girl they had been looking for in the Turkish quarter for the past five months and had so far failed to find.

Finally, after an hour's heated conversation, Paul Nerteaux had admitted defeat and decided to do a U-turn. His intelligence and ability to adapt never ceased to amaze Schiffer. The kid had then defined their new strategy himself.

First point: have an Identikit portrait of the target done, based on photographs of the three corpses, then distribute it in the Turkish quarter.

Second point: reinforce their patrols, increase the identity controls and searches throughout Little Turkey. Such a tactic might seem derisory, but Nerteaux reckoned that they stood a chance of finding her by sheer good fortune. Things like that happened: after twenty-five years on the run, Toto Riina, the godfather of Cosa Nostra, had been arrested in central Palermo during a routine inspection of ID cards.

Third point: go back to see Marius, the head of the Iskele, and study his files to see if other working girls matched the description. Schiffer liked this idea, but he could hardly return there in person after what he had done to that slave driver.

So he kept the fourth point for himself: go and see Talat Gurdilek, for whom the first victim had worked. They had to finish questioning the murdered women's employers, and he was up for the job.

The fifth and final point was the only one aimed at the killers themselves: launch an investigation in Immigration and Visas to see if any Turkish residents known for their links with the extreme right wing or the mafia had arrived in France since November 2001. This meant sifting through all of the arrivals from Anatolia over the past five months, comparing them with Interpol records and also applying to the Turkish police.

Schiffer did not see the point of such an approach. He knew too well the close relationship that existed between his Turkish colleagues and the Grey Wolves, but he had let the enthusiastic youngster rattle on.

In reality, he did not see the point in a single one of these methods. But he had been patient, because another idea had occurred to him…

While they were on their way to Ile de la Cité, where Nerteaux intended to explain his new plan to Bomarzo, the investigating magistrate, he decided to risk it all. He explained that the best way to advance now would be for them to split up. While Paul was distributing copies of the Identikit portrait and briefing the men in the commissariats of the tenth arrondissement, he would drop round to see Gurdilek..

The young captain had kept his answer to himself until he had seen the magistrate. He had kept him waiting in a bar over the road from the Palais de Justice for two hours, and had even set an orderly to watch over him. Then he reappeared from his appointment as pleased as pie. Bomarzo was giving him free hand to carry out his plan. Apparently, this thrilled him so much that he now agreed to all of Schiffer's requests.

Paul had dropped him off at 6:00 PM on Boulevard de Magenta, near Gare de l'Est, and had arranged to meet up at 8:00 PM at Café Sancak, on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, in order to report.

Schiffer was now walking along Rue de Paradis. Alone at last! Free at last… to breathe the acidic air of the neighborhood, to feel the magnetic force of "his" turf. The end of the day was like a pale, drowsy fever. On each windowpane, the sun placed its particles of light, a sort of gilded talc, which had the macabre grace of embalmer's makeup.

He strode along, psyching himself up for his confrontation with Talat Gurdilek, one of the major mafia bosses of the quarter. He had arrived in Paris during the 1960s, seventeen, penniless and unqualified, and now he owned twenty sweatshops and factories in France and Germany, as well as a good dozen dry cleaners and launderettes. He was a godfather who ruled over every level of the Turkish quarter, official or unofficial, legal or illegal. When Gurdilek sneezed, the entire ghetto caught a cold.

At number 58, Schiffer pushed open a gateway. He entered a dark cul-de-sac, crossed by a central gutter, with noisy workshops and printers' studios on either side. At the end of the alley, there was a rectangular courtyard, with rhomboid paving stones. On the right, a tiny staircase led down into a long ditch, overhung with small, half-deserted gardens.

He loved this hidden place, which was unknown even to most of the inhabitants of the building. A heart within the heart, a trench that disturbed all of the usual vertical or horizontal reference points. An iron door barred the way. He touched the handle. It was warm.

He smiled and knocked vigorously.

After some time, a man opened it, liberating a cloud of steam. Schiffer muttered a few words of explanation in Turkish. The doorman stood to one side to let him in. The cop noticed that he was barefoot. Another smile. Nothing had changed. He dived into the suffocating heat.

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?"

"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 changed. 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?"

"Half an hour later. The boys called me up. I joined them at Gurdelik's place. With a unit of technical officers."

"Was it you who found the girl?"

"No, they'd already found her. She was soaking. You know how those girls work there, it's-"

"Describe her to me."

"Small. Brunette. As thin as a rake. Her teeth were chattering. She was mumbling incoherently. In Turkish."

"Did she tell you what she'd seen?"

"Not a thing. She couldn't even see we were there. The girl was completely traumatized." Beauvanier was not lying. His voice rang true.

Schiffer was pacing up and down the room, constantly peering at him. "What do you reckon happened there?"

"I dunno. Some racketeering, maybe. Some guys putting the scares on.

"Racketeering at Gurdelik's place? No one would try that one on him."

The officer adjusted his leather jacket, as though his neck was itching. "You never know with these Turks. There's maybe a new clan in the neighborhood. Or else it might be the Kurds. That's their business, man. Gurdelik didn't even want to press charges. So we just went through the motions…"

Another thought struck Schiffer. Nobody at La Porte Bleue had mentioned the kidnapping of Zeynep or the Grey Wolves. So Beauvanier really believed in this business about racketeering. No one had ever established the link between this little "visit" and the discovery of the first body, two days later.

"So what did you do with Sema Gokalp?"

"At the station, we gave her a tracksuit and some blankets. She was trembling all over. We found her passport sewn into her skirt. She didn't have a visa or anything. So straight to Immigration. I faxed them a report. Then I sent another fax to headquarters, Place Beauvau, just to cover myself. So all I had to do then was wait."

"And?"

Beauvanier sighed, sliding his finger under his collar. "She just kept on trembling. It was getting worrisome. Her teeth were chattering. She couldn't eat or drink. At five AM, I decided to take her to Sainte-Anne's."

"Why you and not a patrolman?"

"Because they wanted to put her in a straitjacket. And then… dunno, there was something about her… So I filled out a 32-13 and took her along…"

His voice was fading. He was now constantly scratching his neck. Schiffer noticed deep acne scars. A druggie, he thought to himself.

"The next morning, I called up the boys at Immigration and told them to go to the hospital. At lunchtime, they phoned back. They hadn't found the girl."

"She'd run away?"

"No. Some policemen came and took her away at ten in the morning.”

“What policemen?"

"You're not going to believe this."

"Try me."

"According to the doctor on duty, they were from the DNAT.”

“The antiterrorist division?"

"I checked myself. They had a transfer order. Everything was aboveboard."

For a return to his precinct, Schiffer could not have hoped for a better fireworks display. He sat on a corner of the desk. Every time he moved, he gave off a whiff of mint.

"Did you contact them?"

"I tried to. But they weren't very forthcoming. From what I understood, they'd picked up my report at Place Beauvau. Then Charlier issued his orders."

"Philippe Charlier?"

The captain nodded. The entire story seemed to be right under his nose. Charlier was one of the five commissioners of the antiterrorist division. An ambitious officer, whom Schiffer had known since joining the anti-gang squad in 1977. A real bastard. Maybe smarter than he was, but just as brutal.

"And then?"

"And then nothing. Not another word."

"Don't bullshit me."

Beauvanier hesitated. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. He lowered his eyes. "The next day Charlier called in person. lie asked me loads of questions about the case. Where we'd found her, in what circumstances, and so on."

"What did you tell him?"

"What I knew."

In other words, nothing, dickhead, thought Schiffer.

The baseball-capped cop concluded: "Charlier told me that he'd now be dealing with the case. Seeing the magistrate, going to Immigration Control, the usual procedure. He hinted that I'd do well to keep quiet about it."

"Do you still have your report?"

A smile slipped over that panicked face. "What do you think? They came and picked it up that very day"

"What about the daybook?"

The smile turned to laughter.

"What daybook? Listen, man, they wiped out every trace. Even the recording of the radio message. They made the witness vanish. Just like that."

"Why?"

"How the hell should I know? That girl couldn't tell them anything. She was completely out to lunch."

"And you, why didn't you say anything?"

The cop lowered his voice. "Charlier's got a hold on me. An old story…"

Schiffer punched him on the arm, in a friendly manner, then stood up. Pacing around the room once more, he digested this information. Amazing as it might seem, the removal of Sema Gokalp by the DNAT belonged to another affair, which had nothing to do with the series of murders committed by the Grey Wolves. But that did not reduce the importance of this witness in his case. He had to find her because she had seen it all happen.

"Are you back on service?" Beauvanier hazarded.

Schiffer adjusted his drenched clothes and ignored the question. He noticed one of Nerteaux's Identikit pictures on the desk. He picked it up, like a bounty hunter, and asked, "Do you remember the name of the doctor who took charge of Sema at Sainte-Anne?"

"Of course. Jean-François Hirsch. We have a little arrangement about prescriptions and…"

Schiffer was no longer listening. His stare came to rest on the portrait. It was a skillful synthesis of the three victims. Smooth, broad features, shyly beaming out from under red hair. A fragment of Turkish poetry suddenly crossed his mind: The padishah had a daughter / Like the moon of the fourteenth day…

Beauvanier asked again, "Does that business at La Porte Bleue have anything to do with this girl?"

Schiffer pocketed the picture. He grabbed the officer's cap and turned it around the right way.

"If anyone asks, you can always give them some rap, man."

45

Sainte-Anne's Hospital. 21.00 hours.

He knew the place well. The long wall of the enclosure, with its serried stones; the small doorway at 17 Rue Broussais, as discreet as an artists' entrance; then the vast, undulating, intricate mass of buildings mingling different centuries and styles of architecture. A fortress, enclosing a universe of madness.

But that evening, the citadel did not seem as well guarded as all that. Banners hung up on the first façades announced the situation:

SECURITY ON STRIKE!

JOB CREATION OR DEATH!

Farther on, others added:

NO TO OVERTIME! MAKE-UP DAYS

FIDDLE! BANK HOLIDAYS STOLEN!

The idea of Paris 's largest psychiatric hospital being left to its own devices, with its patients running around in complete freedom, amused Schiffer. He could just picture such a bedlam, in which the lunatics had taken over the asylum and replaced the doctors on night duty. But as he entered, all he found was a completely deserted ghost town.

He followed the red signposts directing him to neurosurgical and neurological emergency admissions, looking at the names of the various alleyways as he went. He had just taken Allée Guy de Maupassant and was now in Sentier Edgar Allan Poe. He wondered if this was a symptom of the hospital planners' sense of humor. Maupassant had lost his reason before dying, and the alcoholic author of "The Black Cat" could not have had all his wits about him by the end either. In Communist neighborhoods, the streets were named after Karl Marx or Pablo Neruda. Here they commemorated the great lunatics.

Schiffer sniggered to himself, trying to keep up his usual appearance of a hard cop. But he already felt panic biting into him. There were too many memories, too much agony behind these walls…

It was in one of these buildings that he had ended up on returning from Algeria, when he was only just twenty. Traumatized by what he had seen and done. He had remained as an inpatient for several months, dogged by hallucinations and suicidal tendencies. Others, who had fought by his side in the Détachements Operationnels de Protection, did not hesitate. He remembered one youngster from Lille who had hanged himself as soon as he got home. And another from Brittany who had cut off his right hand with an axe on his father's farm-the hand he had used to plug in the electrodes and then to press heads down in bathtubs…

Emergency admissions was deserted.

It was a large, empty space, covered with scarlet tiles-the pulp of a blood orange. Schiffer pressed the bell, then saw a traditionally dressed nurse arrive, with her white coat done up at the waist with a belt, her hair in a bun, and bifocals on her nose.

The woman looked ill at ease when she saw his gaunt appearance, but he quickly flashed his card at her and explained the reason for his visit. Without a word, she set off in search of Dr. Jean-François Hirsch.

He sat down on one of the seats that were attached to the wall. The ceramic tiles seemed to be growing darker. Despite all his efforts, he just could not chase away the memories that were surging up from the depths of his skull.

1960

When he had arrived in Algeria, as an intelligence officer, he had not attempted to evade the brutality of his work or escape from it by using alcohol or pills from the infirmary. On the contrary, he had gone at it hammer and tongs, day and night, convinced that he was still master of his own destiny. War had forced him to make the big decision, the only choice that mattered: which side he was on. He could no longer change his mind or turn his coat. And he had to be in the right. It was that or blow your brains out.

He tortured people twenty-four hours a day. He dragged confessions out of the local populace. First by using the traditional methods of beatings, electrocution and drowning. Then he had come up with his own techniques. He had organized fake executions, dragging hooded prisoners out of the town, watching them shit themselves as he pressed his gun against their heads. He had devised cocktails of acid, which he had forced them to drink, by pushing funnels down their throats. He had stolen medical instruments from hospitals in order to vary the treatment, for example, the stomach pump that he used to inject water into their nostrils.

He shaped and sculpted fear, always giving it new forms. When he decided to bleed his prisoners, both to weaken them and give their blood to victims of terrorist attacks, he felt strangely light-headed. It was as if he were becoming a god. holding the right to give life or death to humankind. Sometimes, in the interrogation room, he would laugh out of context, blinded by his power, staring with wonder at the blood covering his fingers.

A month later, he had become completely mute and had been repatriated. His jaw was paralyzed. He was incapable of pronouncing the slightest word. He had been admitted to Sainte-Anne, in a unit entirely devoted to traumatized combatants. The sort of place where the walls echoed with groans, where it was impossible to finish your breakfast before one of your neighbors had vomited over it.

Enclosed in silence, Schiffer lived a life of pure terror. In the gardens, he lost his sense of direction, no longer knowing where he was, asking other patients if they were the detainees he had tortured. When he walked in the galleries of the main building, he inched along the walls so that his "victims wouldn't see him."

When he slept, nightmares took over from his hallucinations. Naked men writhing on chairs, testicles sparking below the electrodes, jaws cracking against enamel sinks, bleeding nostrils blocked with syringes.. In fact, they were not visions but memories. Above all, he pictured the man hung upside down, whose skull he had smashed with a kick. Then he woke up, covered in sweat, feeling those brains splash out over him once more. He looked around the interior of his room and saw the smooth walls of a cellar, the bathtub that had been taken down there, and, on the table in the middle, the generator and ANGRC-9 radio..

Doctors explained to him that it was impossible to repress such memories. Instead, they advised him to confront them, to allot a moment of close attention to them every day. Such a strategy fitted with his personality. He had not drawn back when out in the field, and he was not going to fall to pieces now, in these gardens full of ghosts.

He had signed himself out and returned to civil existence.

He applied to become a policeman, concealing his psychiatric problems, and emphasizing his rank of sergeant and his military decorations. The political context played in his favor. There were more and more terrorist attacks by the OAS (Organisation de l'Armée Secrète) in Paris. They needed more men to track down those responsible. They needed experienced field operatives… And there, he was in his element. His street savvy had astonished his superiors. His methods, too. He worked alone, without anyone's help. All that mattered to him were the results, no matter how they were obtained.

His existence would henceforth be in this image. He would rely on himself and only on himself. He would be above the law, above human considerations. He would be a law unto himself, drawing from his own willpower the right to deliver justice. It was a sort of cosmic pact: his word against the shit heap of the world.

"What can I do for you?"

The voice made him jump. He stood up and took in the new arrival.

Jean-François Hirsch was tall-over six feet-and slim. His long arms ended in massive hands. To Schiffer, they looked like two counter weights to balance his slender frame. His head also was large, rimmed with brown curly hair… another counterweight. He was wearing not a white coat but a heavy green one. Apparently, he was on his way home. Schiffer introduced himself without producing his card. "Chief Lieutenant Jean-Louis Schiffer. I have a few questions to ask you. It will only take a few minutes."

"I was on my way out. And I'm late. Can't it wait till tomorrow?" The voice was yet another counterweight. Deep. Stable. Solid.

"Sorry," Schiffer said. "It's important."

The doctor looked him up and down. The smell of mint drifted between them like a barrier of freshness. Hirsch sighed and sat down on one of the bolted seats. "Okay, so what's the problem?"

Schiffer remained standing. "It's about a young Turkish woman you examined on the morning of November 14, 2001. She had been brought in by Lieutenant Christophe Beauvanier."

"What about her?"

"It would seem that there were some procedural irregularities."

"What department are you from?"

The cop played double or nothing. "It's an internal inquiry. I'm from the Générale Inspection des Services."

"I warn you right from the start that I'll tell you nothing about Beauvanier. Ever heard of professional ethics?" The quack had misunderstood the point of the inquiry. Obviously he must have helped Mr. Universe get over one of his drug problems.

Schiffer got on his high horse. "My inquiry does not concern Christophe Beauvanier, even though you put him on a course of methadone."

The doctor raised an eyebrow-Schiffer had guessed right-then adopted a lighter tone: "So what do you want to know exactly?"

"What interests me about the Turkish girl are the policemen who took her in the next day"

The psychiatrist crossed his legs and smoothed down his trousers.

"They arrived about four hours after she had been admitted. They had a transfer order and an expulsion certificate. Everything was in order. Almost too much so, I'd say."

"Why?"

"The forms were stamped and signed. They had come directly from the Minister of the Interior. And this was only ten in the morning. It was the first time I'd seen so much red tape pulled over an anonymous asylum-seeker."

"Tell me about her."

Hirsch stared at the tips of his shoes. He was getting his thoughts together. "When she arrived, I thought she was suffering from hypothermia. She was trembling and breathless. But when I examined her, I found that her temperature was normal. Nor had her respiratory system been damaged. Her symptoms were caused by hysteria."

"What do you mean?"

He smiled in superiority "I mean that she had the physical symptoms, but none of the physiological causes. It all came from here." He pointed a finger at his temple. "The head. That woman had received a psychological shock. And her body was reacting as a result."

"What sort of shock do you think it was?"

"Terrible fear. She had all the signs of exogenic anxiety. A blood test confirmed it. We detected traces of a high discharge of hormones. There was also a particularly sharp rise of cortisol. But all this is getting a little technical for you…" The smile widened.

The man's superiority was starting to piss Schiffer off.

The doctor seemed to sense this, adding in a more neutral tone, "That woman had suffered enormous stress. So much so, you could say she had been traumatized. She reminded me of soldiers you sometimes see after battles, on the front. Inexplicable paralysis, sudden asphyxia, stuttering, that kind of-"

"I know Describe her to me. I mean physically."

"Brown hair. Very pale. Very thin, almost anorexic. With a Cleopatra haircut. A very harsh look, but it didn't detract from her beauty. On the contrary. In that respect, she was rather… impressive."

Schiffer was beginning to picture her. Instinctively, he sensed that she could not have been just a plain working girl.

`And you treated her?"

"I started by injecting a tranquilizer. Her muscles then relaxed. She began to laugh and chatter incoherently. It was a fit of delirium. What she said was meaningless."

"But she was speaking in Turkish, wasn't she?"

"No, in French, like you and me."

A completely crazy idea crossed Schiffer's mind. But he decided to push it into the distance so as to keep a cool head. "Did she tell you what she'd seen? What had happened at the Turkish baths?"

"No. She just came out with unfinished sentences, senseless words.”

“For example?"

"She said that the wolves had got it wrong. Yes, that's it… she talked about wolves. She kept saying that they'd taken away the wrong girl. It was incomprehensible."

The idea flashed back forcefully into his consciousness. How had that working girl known that the kidnappers were Grey Wolves? How did she know that they had hit the wrong target? There was only one answer. Their real prey was her.

Sema Gokalp was the woman to be hit.

Schiffer fitted the pieces of the puzzle together with ease. The killers had a lead: their target worked at night, in Talat Gurdilek's sweatshop. They had arrived in the laundry and taken away the first woman who looked like the photo in their possession: Zeynep Tütengil. But they had made a mistake. The real redhead had taken the precaution of dying her hair brown.

Another idea occurred to him. He took the Identikit portrait from his pocket.

"Did she look at all like this?"

The man leaned over. "No. Why the question?"

Schiffer pocketed the picture without answering.

A second flash. Another confirmation. Sema Gokalp-or the woman who was hiding behind that name-had taken her metamorphosis even further. She had altered her face. She had resorted to plastic surgery. A classic technique for those who burn their bridges thoroughly. Especially in the world of crime. Then she had adopted the identity of a simple working girl, in the steam of La Porte Bleue. But why had she stayed in Paris?

"It wasn't about racketeering."

"Oh no?"

"No, the Grey Wolves are back, Charlier. They were the ones who raided the baths. That night, they kidnapped a girl. The corpse that we discovered two days later."

Charlier's bushy eyebrows seemed to form two question marks. "Why would they bother slicing up a working girl like that?"

"They have a contract. They are looking for a woman in the Turkish quarter. You can trust me on that score. And they've got the wrong one three times now."

"What connection is there with Sema Gokalp?"

It was now time to lie a little.

"That night at the baths, she saw everything. She's a vital witness."

A twitch passed across Charlier's eyes. He had not been expecting that. Not at all. "So what do you think it's all about? What's at stake?"

Schiffer lied once more. "I don't know. But I'm looking for the killers, and Sema could put me on the right track."

Charlier leaned back into his chair. "Give me just one reason to help you."

The cop finally sat down. The negotiation had begun. "I'm feeling generous," he said, and smiled. "So I'll give you two. The first is that I could reveal to your superiors that you spirit away witnesses in a murder case. That's not bad for a start."

Charlier smiled back at him. "I've got all the paperwork. I can provide her expulsion order and her plane ticket. Everything's in order."

"Your arm is long, Charlier, but it doesn't stretch as far as Turkey. With just one phone call, I could prove that Sema Gokalp never arrived there."

The commissioner seemed to weigh less heavily on his chair. "Who'd believe a crooked cop? Ever since your days in the anti-gang, you've been collecting skeletons in your cupboard." He opened his hands, indicating the room. And I'm at the top of the pyramid."

"That's the advantage of my position. I have nothing to lose.”

“Give me the second reason."

Schiffer leaned his elbows on the desk. He now knew that he had won. "The stiffening of security measures in 1995. When you let yourself go on those North African suspects in the Louis-Blanc station."

"Are you blackmailing a commissioner?"

"Or else getting it off my conscience. I'm retired. I might feel like making a clean breast of it. Of my memories of Abdel Saraoui, whom you beat to death. If I open the way, the boys at Louis-Blanc will all follow. Believe me, they still haven't digested the howls that came from his ell that night."

Charlier was staring at the paper knife in his huge hands. When he next spoke, his voice had changed. "Sema Gokalp can't help you anymore."

"You mean you-"

"No, she underwent an experiment."

"What kind of experiment?"

Silence.

Schiffer repeated, "What kind of experiment?"

"Psychic conditioning. A new technique."

So that was it. Psychic manipulation had always fascinated Charlier.

Infiltrating terrorists' minds, conditioning consciousnesses, that kind of crap… Sema Gokalp was a guinea pig, the subject of some crazy experimentation.

Schiffer thought over the absurdity of the situation. Charlier had not chosen Sema Gokalp; she had quite simply fallen into his hands. He did not know that she had altered her appearance. Nor did he know who she really was.

He stood back up, charged with electricity from head to foot.

"Why her?"

"Because of her mental state. Sema was suffering from partial amnesia, which made her all the more suitable to undergo the experiment." Schiffer leaned forward, as though he had problems hearing. "Are you telling me that you brainwashed her?"

"Yes, the program did use such treatment."

Schiffer banged his fists on the table. "Fucking idiots. That was the last memory you should have wiped out! She had things to tell me!" Charlier raised an eyebrow "I don't understand what you're going on about. How could that girl have anything of importance to reveal? She just saw a few Turks making off with a woman, that's all."

Onward again. "She's got some information about the killers," Schiffer said at last while prowling around the room like a caged beast. "I also think she knows the identity of the target."

"The target?"

"The woman the Wolves are looking for. And have not yet found.”

“Does it really matter?"

"Three murders, Charlier. They're starting to mount up, aren't they? And they'll go on killing until they find her."

"And you want to hand her over?"

The movement of Charlier's shoulders almost split the stitches in his shirt. Finally he said. "Anyway. I can no longer help you."

"Why?"

"She's escaped."

"You're kidding!"

"Does it look as if I am?"

Schiffer did not know whether to laugh or scream. He sat back down, grabbing the paper knife that Charlier had just dropped. "Bloody incompetent, as usual. What happened?"

"The aim of our experiment was to alter a personality completely. Something never attempted before. We managed to transform her into a middle-class Frenchwoman, married to a top civil servant. A simple Turkish girl, can you imagine that? There's now no limit to conditioning. We're going to-"

"I don't give a shit about your experiment." Schiffer said, butting in. "Just tell me how she got away"

The commissioner frowned. "Over the past few weeks, she'd been having attacks of forgetfulness, or hallucinations. The new personality we had given her was starting to break up. We were about to hospitalize her when she split."

"When was that?"

"Yesterday. Tuesday morning."

Unbelievable. The target of the Grey Wolves was back on the streets. Neither Turkish nor French. With a mind like a sieve. From the bottom of this darkness, a light shone.

"So her original memory is coming back?"

"We don't know But she certainly didn't trust us anymore."

"Where are your men at?"

"Nowhere. They're searching Paris. And still haven't found her."

It was the moment to play his ace. He stuck the paper knife into the wooden desk. "If her memory's returning, then she'll react like a Turk. And that's my area. I stand the best chance of copping her."

The commissioner's expression changed.

Schiffer pressed his point: "She's a Turk, Charlier. A special sort of game. You need someone who knows that universe and who will act discreetly"

He could follow the idea that was making its way through the giant's brain. He stepped back, as though taking aim. "Here's the deal: You give me twenty-four hours. If I find her, then I'll hand her over to you. But I get to question her first."

Another pregnant silence. Finally, Charlier opened a drawer and produced a pile of documents.

"Her file. She's now called Anna Heymes and-"

In a single bound, Schiffer grabbed the cardboard folder and opened it. He flicked through the typed pages, the medical reports, and found the target's new face. Exactly as Hirsch had described her. There was not a single feature in common with the redhead the killers were tracking. From that point of view, Sema Gokalp had nothing more to fear.

The antiterrorist warrior went on: "The neurologist treating her is named Eric Ackermann, and-"

"I couldn't care less about her new personality or who did what to her. She's going to return to her origins. That's what matters. What do you know about Sema Gokalp? About the Turk she used to be?"

Charlier wriggled in his chair. Veins were beating at the base of his neck, just above his shirt collar. "Nothing at all! She was just a working girl with amnesia-"

"Did you keep her clothes, her papers, her personal effects?"

Charlier swept the question away with his hand. "We destroyed everything. At least I think we did."

"Check."

"They were just scruffy rags. Nothing of any interest for-”

“Just pick up your fucking phone and check."

Charlier grabbed the receiver. After two calls, he groaned. "I don't believe it. Those useless asses forgot to destroy her clothes."

"Where are they?"

"In a deposit box at headquarters. Beauvanier had given her new threads. And the boys at Louis-Blanc sent the old ones to the prefecture. No one thought of going to fetch them. So much for an elite brigade…”

“What name were they registered under?"

"Sema Gokalp, of course. When we fuck up, we don't do things halfway." He picked up another form, this one blank, which he started to fill in. An open sesame to the prefecture.

Like two predators sharing the same prey, Schiffer thought.

The commissioner signed the paper then slid it across the desk.

"You've got all night. If you fuck up. I'll call in the Special Branch." Schiffer pocketed the pass and stood up. "You won't saw off the branch. We're sitting on the same one."

47

It was time to come clean with the kid.

Jean-Louis Schiffer went back up Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and turned onto Avenue Matignon, where he spotted a phone booth just by the traffic circle on the Champs-Elysées. His cell phone's battery was dead again.

After just one ring, Paul Nerteaux yelled, "Jesus Christ, Schiffer. Where the hell are you?" His voice was trembling with rage.

"In the eighth arrondissement, with the bigwigs."

"It's nearly midnight. What on earth have you been doing? I waited for hours at Sancak's and-"

"A crazy story but I've got plenty of news."

"Are you in a phone booth? I'll find another one and call you back. My battery's dead."

Schiffer hung up, wondering if the police might one day miss the arrest of the century because of a lack of lithium. He half opened the door of the booth-he was stifling himself with his own mint stench.

The night was mild, with no rain or breeze. He observed the passersby, the shopping malls, the gray stone buildings. An existence of luxury, of comfort that had eluded him but was perhaps now back in his reach…

The phone rang. He did not give Nerteaux time to speak.

"Where are you at with your patrols?"

"I've got two vans and three cars," he replied proudly. "Seventy patrolmen and officers from the BAC are combing the area. I've declared the entire neighborhood an emergency zone. I've given the Identikit portraits to all the commissariats and police units in the tenth. All the homes, bars and associations have been searched. There isn't a single person in Little Turkey who hasn't gotten the picture. I'm about to go to the police station in the second and-"

"Forget all that."

"What?"

"This is no time to play soldier. We've got the wrong face.”

“What?"

Schiffer took a deep breath. "The woman we're looking for has had plastic surgery. That's why the Grey Wolves can't find her."

"Do you… do you have proof?"

"I've even got her new face. Everything fits. She shelled out several hundred million francs in order to wipe out her previous identity. She completely changed her physical appearance. She's dyed her hair brown and lost twenty kilos. Then she hid out in the Turkish quarter six months ago."

Silence. When Nerteaux next spoke, his voice had lost several decibels. "Who… who is she? How did she get the money for the operation?"

"No idea," Schiffer lied. "But she's no simple working girl."

"What else have you found out?"

Schiffer thought for a few seconds. Then he told it all. The raid by the Grey Wolves, who had grabbed the wrong target. Sema Gokalp in a state of shock. Her detention at Louis-Blanc, then admission to Sainte-Anne's. The kidnapping organized by Charlier and the grotesque treatment. Finally, the woman's new identity: Anna Heymes.

When he stopped talking, Schiffer could almost hear the cogs turning at full speed in the young officer's brain. He imagined him completely stunned in a phone booth, lost somewhere in the tenth arrondissement. Like him. Two coral fishermen suspended in their lonely cages, in the middle of the ocean's depths…

Finally, Paul asked skeptically, "Who told you all this?"

"Charlier in person."

"He confessed?"

"We're old pals."

"Bull shit."

Schiffer burst out laughing. "I see that you're starting to understand what sort of world we're in. In 1995, after the explosion in the Saint-Michel RER station, the DNAT-which was still called the Sixth Division-was decidedly nervous. A new law allowed them to detain people longer, without charge. It was real hell. I know, because I was there. There were roundups all over town, in Islamist groups, and especially in the tenth. One night, Charlier turned up at Louis-Blanc. He was sure that he had the right suspect-a certain Abdel Saroui. He went at him with his bare fists. I was in the office next door. The next morning, the guy died of a ruptured liver in Saint-Louis Hospital. So this evening, I reminded him of the good old days."

"You're so corrupt that you're almost coherent."

"Who cares, so long as we get a result?"

"I had a different idea of my crusade, that's all."

Schiffer opened the booth door again and took a breath of fresh air. "So now," Paul asked, "where's Sema?"

"That's the icing on the cake, son. She's just escaped. She lost them yesterday morning. She must have found out what they were up to. Her original memory must be coming back."

"Shit…"

"Exactly. There's a woman wondering around Paris right now with two identities, with two groups of bastards chasing her, and with us in the middle. In my opinion, she must be investigating her own past. She's trying to find out who she really is."

Another pause from the other end of the line. Then: "So what do we do now?"

"I've made a deal with Charlier. I convinced him that I was the best placed to find the girl. Turks are my specialty. So he's handed me the case, for one night. He's on a knife's edge. His project was illegal. And it could blow up in his face. I've got his file on the new Sema, and two leads. The first one's for you, if you're still in the race."

He could hear the sound of pages turning. Nerteaux was taking out his notepad.

"Go on."

"Plastic surgery Sema paid big money for one of the best surgeons in Paris. We have to find him, because he was in contact with the real target, before her operation, before she was brainwashed. He must be the only person in town who can tell us anything about the woman the Grey Wolves are looking for. Are you up for it?"

Nerteaux did not reply at once; he was presumably writing this down. "There must be hundreds of names to go through."

"Not at all. You have to go to see the best, the real virtuosos. And among them, the ones who lack scruples. Having your face completely redone is never innocent. You've got all night. At the speed things are going, we won't be alone on this lead for long."

"Charlier's men?"

"No. Charlier doesn't even know that she's altered her appearance. I'm talking about the Grey Wolves. They've been held in check for three months now So they're going to end up figuring out that they're not looking for the right face. Plastic surgery will occur to them, and they'll be looking for the quack. We're going to end up on the same track. I can just feel it. I'll leave you the girl's file at Rue de Nancy. with the photo of her new face. Go fetch it, then start working."

"Shall I give the portrait to the patrols?"

Schiffer broke into a sweat. "That's the last thing you should do. Just show it to the doctors at the same time as the Identikit. Got me?" Silence once again saturated the line.

They were, more than ever, like a pair of divers lost in the deep. "What about you?" Nerteaux asked.

"I'll take care of the second lead. Luckily enough, the boys from the DNAT forgot to destroy Sema's old clothes. They might contain a clue, an indication, something to lead us back to her former identity"

He looked at his watch. Midnight. They did not have much time left, but he still wanted to make a final check: "So, nothing new your end?"

"The Turkish quarter is being put to the sword, but now.."

"And Naubrel and Matkowska still haven't come up with anything?"

"No, nothing." Nerteaux sounded astonished by the question. The kid must have thought that the investigation into the high-pressure chambers did not interest him. On the contrary, this business of nitrogen bubbles intrigued him.

When Scarbon had mentioned it, he had added, "I'm no diver." But Schiffer was. In his youth, he had spent ages exploring the Red Sea and the coast of China. He had even considered the idea of dropping everything and opening a diving school in the Pacific. So he knew that high pressure does not just create a problem of gas in the blood-it also leads to hallucinations, a state of drunkenness that divers call rapture of the depths.

At the beginning of their inquiries, when they thought they were tracking a serial killer. this detail puzzled Schiffer. He did not see why a murderer capable of slicing up women's vaginas with razor blades would be bothered to create nitrogen bubbles in his victims' veins. It did not fit. However, in the context of a grilling, this rapture of the depths had a point.

One of the bases of torture was the "nice and nasty" technique. A good beating, then offer a cigarette. A few electroshocks, then a sandwich. It is in fact during these moments of respite that the person generally cracks.

By using a chamber, the Wolves had quite simply applied this alternation while bringing it to its ultimate state. After the most terrible torments, they had suddenly submitted their subjects to an abrupt feeling of relaxation and euphoria brought on by high pressure. They were presumably hoping that the violence of this contrast would make them speak, or that the drunkenness would act as a truth serum…

Schiffer sensed, behind this nightmarish technique, the implacable presence of a master of ceremonies. A genius of torture.

Who?

He chased away his own panic and murmured, "There can't be that many pressure chambers in Paris."

"My men haven't found anything. They've been to the sites where such equipment is found. They've questioned the industrial engineers who conduct tests on resistance. It's a blind alley"

Schiffer heard a strange note in Nerteaux's voice. Was he hiding something? But he did not have time to press the point.

"What about the ancient masks?" he went on.

"Does that interest you, too?" Paul was increasingly skeptical.

"In a situation like this," Schiffer replied, "everything interests me. One of the Wolves might have an obsession, a particular kink. Where are you at now?"

"Nowhere. And I haven't had the time to progress. I don't even know if my boys have found any more sites, and-"

He butted in: "Report back in two hours. And find a way to recharge your battery" He hung up. In a flash, Nerteaux's figure passed before his eyes. His Indian hair, his eyes like grilled almonds. A cop whose features were too fine, who did not shave and who dressed in black to make himself look tough. But also a born policeman, despite his naiveté.

He realized that he liked the kid. He even wondered if he was not starting to go soft, if he had been right to include Nerteaux in what had now become his investigation. Had he told him too much?

He left the phone booth and hailed a cab. No. He had kept back his trump card.

He had not told Nerteaux the most important point.

He climbed into the car and gave the address of police headquarters, Quai des Orfèvres.

He now knew who the target was, and why the Grey Wolves were looking for her. Because he had spent the last ten months looking for her, too.

48

A rectangular box of white wood, seventy centimeters long by thirty deep, struck with the red wax seal of the French Republic. Schiffer blew the dust off the lid and said to himself that the only remaining proof of Sema Golkalp's existence lay in this baby's coffin.

He took out his Swiss Army knife, slid its finest blade beneath the seal, snapped the red blotch and lifted the top. A musty smell rose to his nostrils. As soon as he saw the garments, he just knew that they would contain something for him. Instinctively, he glanced over his shoulder. He was in the basement of the Palais de Justice, in the booth with a filthy curtain where freed prisoners could discreetly check that all their personal effects had been returned to them.

The ideal place to dig up a corpse.

First he found a white coat and a mobcap of creased paper-the standard uniform of Gurdilek's workers. Then her day clothes: a long pale green skirt, a crocheted raspberry red cardigan, a slate blue blouse with a rounded collar. Cheap rags from the cheapest of stores.

The clothes were Western, but their cut, colors and above all context gave them the look of Turkish peasant girls, who still wore baggy mauve trousers and bright yellow or green blouses. He felt sinister desire rising inside him, excited by the idea of stripping, humiliation and servile poverty. The pale body he pictured beneath these clothes bit into his nerves.

He looked at the underwear. A small, flesh-colored bra and a pair of fluffy, black, threadbare panties, whose shiny appearance had been caused by wear. They suggested the figure of an adolescent. He thought of the three corpses: wide hips, heavy breasts. This woman had not just altered her face-she had sculpted her body down to the bone.

He continued his search. Worn-out shoes, laddered tights, a shabby fleece coat. The pockets had been emptied. He felt down to the bottom of the box in the hope that their contents had been placed there together. A plastic bag confirmed his hopes. It contained a set of keys, a book of metro tickets, beauty products imported from Istanbul…

He examined the keys. They always fascinated him. He knew each and every type: flat ones, crosscut ones, lever keys, or those with active branches. He was also an expert when it came to locks. Their mechanisms reminded him of the cogs inside the human body, which he loved to violate, torture, control.

He looked at the two keys on the ring. One opened a grooved lock-probably of some home, hotel room or derelict apartment, long occupied by members of the Turkish community. The second was flat and presumably was for the upper lock on the same door.

No interest.

Schiffer stifled a curse. His search had turned up nothing. These objects and garments simply sketched the portrait of an anonymous working girl. Too anonymous, for that matter. It stank of fancy dress, of a caricature.

He was sure that Sema Gokalp had a hiding place somewhere. When you are capable of changing your face, losing twenty kilos, voluntarily adopting the underground existence of a slave, then you must have a place to fall back on.

Schiffer remembered what Beauvanier had said: We found her passport sewn into her skirt. With his fingers, he felt each garment. He lingered over the lining of the coat. Along the lower hem, his fingers came to rest on a lump. A hard, long, jagged protuberance.

He tore open the material and shook it. A key dropped into his hand. A piped key stamped with the number 4C 32.

He thought: It must be a luggage locker.

49

"No, not baggage check. They use codes now."

Cyril Brouillard was a brilliant locksmith. Jean-Louis Schiffer had found his wallet on the site of a break-in, where a supposedly impregnable safe had been opened with the skill of a virtuoso. He had then gone to the address of the owner of the ID papers and come across a young, shortsighted man with shaggy fair hair. When Schiffer gave him back his documents, he told him that he ought to learn to be less absentminded. He had then covered up the break-in in exchange for an original Bellmer lithograph.

"So what is it?"

"Self-storage."

"What?"

"A furniture warehouse."

Since that night. Brouillard had done whatever Schiffer asked. Opening doors for unauthorized searches, turning locks to catch crooks red-handed, safe-breaking to obtain compromising documents. This thief was a perfect alternative to having a warrant.

He lived above his shop on Rue de Lancry -a locksmith's workshop that he had bought, thanks to his nocturnal activities.

"Can you tell me more?"

Brouillard examined the key beneath his desk lamp. He was unlike any other burglar. As soon as he approached a lock, a miracle happened. A vibration. A touch. A mystery that unfolded. Schiffer never wearied of watching him at work. It was like observing some hidden force of nature. The very essence of an inexplicable gift.

"At Surger's," the crook whispered. "You can see the letters engraved on the side."

"Do you know the place?"

"Of course. I've got several cubbyholes there myself. It's open day and night."

"Where?"

"Chateau-Landon. On Rue Girard."

Schiffer swallowed his spit. It seemed on fire. "Do you have the entry code?"

"AB 756. Your key is numbered 4C 32. On level four. The floor with the miniboxes." Cyril Brouillard looked up, pushing back his glasses. His voice waxed lyrical. "The floor with the little treasure troves.

50

The building looked out over the tracks of Gare de l'Est, as imposing and solitary as a cargo ship coming into port. With its four floors, it looked as though it had been renovated and freshly painted. An island of cleanliness harboring goods in transit.

Schiffer went through the first gate and crossed the garage.

It was 2:00 AM, and he was expecting to see a night watchman appear, wearing a black outfit marked SURGER, flanked by an aggressive dog and carrying an electric prod.

But no one came.

He entered the code and opened the glass door. At the far end of the hall, which was plunged in a strange red glow, he saw a concrete corridor, punctuated by a series of metal doors. Every twenty yards, perpendicular alleyways crossed the main axis, creating the impression of a labyrinth of compartments.

He walked straight on, beneath the safety lights, until he reached a staircase at the far end. Each of his steps made an almost imperceptible dull thud on the pearl gray cement. Schiffer savored the silence, the solitude, the mingled tension of power and illegal entry.

He reached the fourth floor and stopped. Another corridor opened up, containing apparently smaller compartments. The floor with the little treasure troves. Schiffer searched in his pocket and removed the key. He read the numbers on the doors, became lost, then finally found 4C 32.

Before opening it, he stood still. He could almost sense the presence of the Other, there behind the barrier-of this woman who still did not have a name.

He knelt down, turned the key in the lock, then swiftly raised the metal screen.

A box measuring three feet by three appeared in the gloom. Empty. He kept cool. He had not been expecting to find a compartment full of furniture and audio equipment.

From his pocket, he took out the flashlight he had pinched from Brouillard. Crouching at the threshold, he slowly played the beam around the concrete cube, lighting up the slightest cranny, each cinder block, until he discovered a cardboard box at the back.

The Other was closer and closer.

He dived into the darkness, stopping in front of the box. He stuck his flashlight between his teeth and started to search.

There were clothes, all of dark colors, and all by famous designers:

Issey Miyake, Helmut Lang, Fendi, Prada… His fingers ran up against some underwear. A clear darkness. That was what came to mind. The material was of an almost indecent softness and sensuality. The watered silk seemed to retain its own reflections. The lace fluttered from the contact of his hands… This time no desire, no erection. The pretentiousness of such lingerie, the haughty pride that could be seen in it, cut away any such thoughts.

He went on searching and found, wrapped in a silk scarf, a second key. A strange, rudimentary, flat key. More work for Monsieur Brouillard. All that was missing now was the final proof.

He looked further, rummaging, scattering.

Suddenly, a golden brooch, depicting poppy leaves, caught the beam of his flashlight, like a magic scarab. He dropped his light, which was dripping with sweat, spat, then murmured into the darkness: "Allaha sükür!' You're back."*

"God be praised!"