The Empire Of The Wolves

7

A little golden sword.

That is how he saw it in his mind's eye. In reality he knew that it was just a copper paper knife, with a Spanish-style carved pommel. At the age of eight, Paul had stolen it from his father's workshop and hidden in his bedroom. He could perfectly remember the atmosphere at the time. The closed shutters. The stifling heat. The calm of the nap.

A summer afternoon like any other.

Except that these few hours would alter the course of his life forever. "What are you hiding in your hand?"

Paul tightened his fist. His mother was standing at his bedroom door. "Show me what you're holding."

Her voice was calm, with just a hint of curiosity. Paul tightened his grip. She advanced into the half-light, the sunbeams filtered through the slats of the shutters, then she sat down on the edge of the bed and slowly opened his hand.

"Why did you take the paper knife?"

He could not see her face in the shadows. "To defend you.”

“To defend me against who?"

Silence.

"Against your dad?"

She leaned over him. Her face appeared in a ray of light. It was swollen, covered with bruises. One of her eyes, white and full of blood, was staring at him like a porthole. She repeated, "To defend me against your dad?"

He nodded. There was a moment of uncertainty, of stillness, then she hugged him in a wave of abandon. Paul pushed her back. It was not tears and pity that he wanted. All that mattered was the coming battle. The promise he had made to himself the previous evening, when his drunken father had started beating his mother until she fainted on the kitchen floor. When the monster had turned around and seen him, a little boy trembling in the doorway, and had warned him: be back. I'll be back to kill both of you!”

So Paul had armed himself and was awaiting his return, sword in hand.

But he never did come back. Not the next day, nor the day after that. By one of destiny's coincidences, Jean-Pierre Nerteaux was murdered on the very night that he had made his threat. His body was discovered two days later, in his own taxi, near the gasoline warehouses in the port of Gennevilliers.

When she learned of the murder, his wife, Françoise, reacted in a strange way. Instead of going to identify the body, she wanted to go to the place of the crime to check that his Peugeot 504 was still in one piece and that there would be no problems with the cab company.

Paul remembered the slightest details: the bus ride to Gennevilliers, the mutterings of his devastated mother, his own apprehension faced with something he did not really understand. But when they reached the warehouses, he was struck with amazement. Huge crowns of steel rose up from the wasteland. Weeds and shrubs sprouted between the concrete ruins. Steel rods were rusting like metal cactuses. It was a landscape for a Western, like the deserts in the comic books he read.

Under a sweltering sky, the mother and child crossed the storage areas. At the far end of these abandoned fields, they found the Peugeot. Half sunken into the gray dunes. Paul soaked up everything that an eight-year-old could understand. The police uniforms, the handcuffs glinting in the sunlight, the muted explanations, the black hands of the servicemen in white light as they busied themselves around the car…

It took him a while to understand that his father had been knifed at the wheel. But only a second to see the lacerations in the back of the seat, through the half-open rear door.

The killer had attacked his victim through the seat.

The child was at once struck by how coherent the event was. A day before, he wanted his father to die. He had armed himself, then revealed his criminal plans to his mother. This confession had acted like a curse:

Some mysterious force had made his wish come true. He might not have held the knife himself, but it was he who had mentally ordered the murder.

From that moment, he had no more memories. Not of the funeral, nor of this mother's complaining, nor of the financial difficulties that marked their daily lives. Paul was completely drawn in on this truth: he was the real murderer.

The true organizer of the massacre.

Much later, in 1987, he enrolled in the law department of the Sorbonne. By doing odd jobs, he had managed to save enough money to rent a room in Paris, away from his mother, who now drank all the time. As a cleaning woman in a supermarket, she was thrilled at the idea that her son was to become a lawyer. But Paul had other ideas.

When he obtained his master's degree in 1990, Paul joined the Cannes-Ecluse police academy. Two years later, he was first in his class and could have chosen one of the jobs most coveted by apprentice police officers: OCRTIS, the temple of dope chasers.

His career looked set. Four years in a central office or an elite unit, then he could take the internal examination to become a commissioner. Before he was forty Paul Nerteaux would have a top-ranking job in the Ministry of the Interior, on Place Beauvau, amid the gilded paneling of headquarters.

But Paul was not interested in such a career. His vocation as a policeman lay elsewhere, still linked to his feelings of guilt. Fifteen years after their expedition to Gennevilliers, he was still haunted by remorse. His career was guided by the sole desire to wash away his crime and recover his lost innocence.

He had had to invent personal techniques and secret methods of concentration to master his anxiety attacks. Thanks to this discipline, he had found the means to become an unbending cop. In his company he was hated, feared and sometimes admired, but never liked because no one understood that his inflexibility and desire to succeed were his defenses, a security barrier. It was the only way for him to control his demons. No one knew that in the right-hand drawer of his desk, he still kept a copper paper knife…

He tightened his grip on the wheel and concentrated on the road.

Why was he digging up that shit again now? Was it the influence of the rain-soaked landscape? Because it was Sunday, the day of death for the living?

On either side of the highway, all he could see were the dark furrows of plowed fields. The horizon itself looked like a final groove, opening out onto the nothingness of the sky. Nothing could ever happen in this region, except for a slow descent into despair.

He glanced down at the map on the passenger seat. He now had to turn off the highway and take the A road toward Amiens. After that, he had to take the D235. Ten kilometers later, he would be there.

So as to chase away his dark thoughts, he focused his mind on the man he was going to see: probably the only policeman he did not really want to meet. At the Inspection Générale des Services, he had photocopied his file and could now recite his CV by heart…

Jean-Louis Schiffer was born in 1943 in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Seine-Saint-Denis. Depending on the context, he was nicknamed either "the Cipher" or "Mr. Steel." The Cipher because of the impenetrable mysteries that surrounded the cases he dealt with: Mister Steel because of his reputation of being implacable-and also for his silvery hair, which was long and silky.

After his leaving certificate in 1959, Schiffer was called up for military service in Algeria, in the Aurès mountains. In 1960, he returned to Algiers, where he became an intelligence agent and an active member of the DOP (Détachements Operationnels de Protection).

In 1963, he returned to France, ranked sergeant. He then joined the police force, first as an ordinary officer, then a sergeant in the territory brigade in Paris 's sixth arrondissement. He rapidly became noticed for his instinctive street savvy and liking for infiltration. In May 1968, he dived into the throng and mixed with the students. At the time, he wore his hair in a ponytail, smoked dope and discreetly noted the names of the ringleaders. During the clashes on Rue Gay-Lussac, he also saved a riot police officer from under a hail of paving stones.

His first act of bravery. His first distinction.

But that was only the beginning. After being recruited by the Brigade Criminelle in 1972, he was made inspector and continued to act heroically, fearing neither fire nor combat. In 1975, he received a medal for bravery. It seemed that nothing could stop his ascent. But then, in 1977, after a short period spent in the famous "anti-gang" squad, he was suddenly transferred. Paul had found a report written at the time and signed by Commissioner Broussard in person, who had noted in the margin unmanageable.

Schiffer then found his true hunting ground in the First Division of the Police Judiciaire in Paris 's tenth arrondissement. Refusing all offers of promotion or transfer, for twenty years he dominated the west of the sector, imposing law and order in an area running from the central boulevards to the Gare du Nord and the Gare de l'Est, including part of Sentier, the Turkish quarter, with its high immigrant population.

During that time, he headed a network of informers, put a check on illegal activities-gambling, drugs and prostitution-while maintaining ambiguous but effective relations with the leaders of the various communities. He also obtained a record success rate in the solving of cases.

According to a widely held opinion in high places, it was thanks to him and him alone that a relative calm reigned in that part of the tenth arrondissement from 1978 to 1998. Schiffer even enjoyed the exceptional honor of prolonging his time on the force from 1999 to 2001.

In April of that year, he finally retired officially. He had been decorated five times, including with the Order of Merit, and could boast of two hundred thirty-nine arrests and four deaths by shooting. At the age of fifty-eight, he had never risen higher than the rank of inspector. He was a cop on the beat, devoted to fieldwork in a single territory.

So much for Mr. Steel.

His Cipher side emerged in 1971, when he was caught beating up a prostitute on Rue de Michodière, by the Madeleine. The official inquest and investigations by the vice squad led to nothing. No one wanted to testify against the man with silver hair. Another complaint was made in 1979. It was rumored that Schiffer was racketing whores on Rue Jérusalem and Rue Saint-Denis.

Another inquiry another failure.

The Cipher knew how to cover his tracks.

Things turned really serious in 1982. A stock of heroin disappeared from the Bonne-Nouvelle station, after the rounding up of a network of Turkish dealers. Schiffer's name was on everyone's lips. He was put under investigation. But a year later, he was cleared. No proof, and no witnesses.

As the years went by, suspicions mounted: percentages gleaned from protection rackets, or from illegal gambling syndicates, fiddles involving local bars, or pimping… Apparently, he had a finger in every pie, but no one managed to trap him. Schiffer had his sector in a grip of steel. Even inside the force, internal investigators were confronted by the silence of their fellow officers.

Yet everyone still saw the Cipher more as Mr. Steel. A hero, a champion of law and order, with a prestigious career behind him.

But one last scandal nearly brought him down. In October 2000, the body of Gazil Hemet, a Turkish illegal immigrant, was found on the tracks of the Gare du Nord. The day before, he had been arrested by Schiffer himself as a suspected drug dealer. When accused of excessive violence, Schiffer riposted that he had freed the suspect before the end of the legal period of detention-which was rather unlike him.

Had Hemet been beaten to death? The autopsy gave no clear answer, because the body had been torn to pieces by the 8:10 express from Brussels. But an independent forensic report spoke of mysterious wounds on the Turk's body, which could have been caused by torture techniques. This time, it looked as though Schiffer's career was going to finish behind bars.

Then, in April 2001, the prosecutor decided to drop the charges again. What had happened? Who was pulling strings for Jean-Louis Schiffer? Paul had questioned the officers charged with the internal police investigation. They were so disgusted they did not want to reply. Especially because, a few weeks later, Schiffer personally invited them to his farewell drinks party.

He was bent, a bastard, and cocky with it.

Such was the shit that Paul was about to encounter.

The highway exit to Amiens brought him back to the present. He turned off and took the A road. There were just a few more kilometers to go before he saw the sign to Longéres.

Paul drove down the side road as far as the village. He crossed it without slowing down, then spotted another road that led down into a waterlogged valley. While driving between the tall grasses, brilliant from the rain, he had a sort of revelation. He suddenly realized why he had thought of his father while driving to meet Jean-Louis Schiffer.

In his own way the Cipher was the father of all cops. Half hero, half demon, he alone incarnated the best and the worst, rigor and corruption, Good and Evil. A founding father, a Grand Old Man, whom Paul admired despite himself, just as he had admired, from the depths of his hatred, his violent alcoholic father.

8

When Paul saw the building he was looking for, he nearly burst out laughing. With its enclosing wall and two clock towers shaped like lookout posts, the Longéres police officers' retirement home looked just like a prison.

On the other side of the wall, the comparison became even clearer. The yard was surrounded by three main buildings, laid out like horseshoes, each pierced by galleries with dark arcades. Some men were braving the rain and playing boules. They wore overalls that recalled the dress of the inmates in all the world's prisons. Just near them, three uniformed officers, presumably visiting a relative, were playing the part of wardens.

Paul savored the irony of the situation. Longères, financed by the National Police Mutual Association, was the largest retirement home open to officers. It welcomed all ranks so long as they "suffered from no psychosomatic disorder based on or resulting in alcoholism." He now discovered that this famous haven of peace, with its enclosed spaces and masculine populace, was just another prison house. Return to sender, he thought.

Paul reached the entrance of the main building and pushed open the glass door. A very dark, square hall led to a staircase topped with a dormer window of frosted glass. The place was as hot and stifling as a terrarium, and it stank of medication and urine.

He turned toward the swinging doors to his left, from which a strong smell of food was wafting. It was noon. The inmates were presumably having lunch.

He discovered a refectory with yellow walls and a floor covered with bloodred linoleum. On the long lines of stainless-steel tables, the plates and cutlery were carefully arranged. Vats of soup were steaming. Everything was in place, but the room was deserted.

Noises came from the next room. Paul approached the din, feeling his heels sink into the sticky floor. Every detail added to the overall atmosphere of gloom. He felt himself age with every step he took.

He passed the door. About thirty pensioners in shapeless tracksuits were standing with their backs to him, concentrating on the TV. "Now Hint of Joy has gone past Bartok…" Horses were galloping across the screen.

As Paul approached, he noticed a single old man sitting in another room to the left. Instinctively, he craned his neck to get a better look at him. Slumped over his plate, the man was toying with a steak at the end of his fork.

Paul had to face facts: this debris was his man.

The Steel and the Cipher. The officer with two hundred and thirty-nine arrests.

He crossed the room. Behind him, the commentary was blaring: "Hint of Joy, it's still Hint of Joy." Compared with the last photos Paul had seen of him, Jean-Louis Schiffer had aged twenty years.

His regular features had shriveled over his bones, as though stretched on the rack. His gray, scaly skin hung loose, especially around his neck, making him look like a reptile. His eyes, which had once been chrome blue, were barely visible beneath his heavy eyelids. The former officer no longer had the long hair that had made him famous. It was now short, almost in a crew cut. The silvery mane had given way to an iron skull.

His still-powerful frame was obscured in a royal blue coverall, whose collar divided into two wavy wings over his shoulders. Beside the plate, Paul spotted a stack of betting slips. Jean-Louis Schiffer, the street legend, had become the bookmaker for a crew of retired traffic cops.

How had he ever imagined that such a wreck could help him? But it was too late to turn back now Paul adjusted his belt, gun and handcuffs and put on his most impressive look-eyes ahead, and jaws clenched. The glassy eyes had already located him. When he was only a few paces away, the man said straight off: "You're too young to be a cop's cop."

"Captain Paul Nerteaux, first section, tenth arrondissement." He rattled this off in a military tone that he at once regretted.

"On Rue de Nancy?"

"That's correct."

This question was an indirect compliment. It was the address of the neighborhood station. Schiffer had recognized the investigator in him, the cop on the beat.

Paul grabbed a chair, glanced around automatically at the gamblers, who were still stuck in front of their television. Schiffer followed his eyes and laughed.

"You spend your life putting crooks behind bars, then what happens? You end up doing time yourself"

He raised a piece of meat to his lips. His jawbones went to work beneath the skin like fluid, alert machinery Paul revised his judgment. The Cipher was not as far gone as all that. All he had to do was blow the dust off the mummy.

"What do you want?" the man asked, after swallowing his meat.

Paul adopted his most modest tone. "I've come to ask you for some advice."

"What about?"

"About this." He removed a brown paper envelope from the pocket of his parka and placed it next to the betting slips. Schiffer pushed aside his plate and unhurriedly opened it. He took out a dozen color photographs.

He looked at the first one and asked: "What is it?"

"A face."

He turned to the next pictures.

Paul added, "The nose was sliced off with a box cutter. Or a razor. The lacerations and tears on the cheeks were made using the same instrument. The lips were cut off with scissors."

Without a word, Schiffer turned back to the first photo.

"Before that," Paul went on, "there was a beating. According to the forensic scientist, the mutilations were done postmortem."

"Who was she?"

"We don't know. Her fingerprints aren't on record."

"How old was she?"

"About twenty-five."

"What was the actual cause of death?"

"You've got a choice. Blows. Wounds. Burns. The rest of the body's in the same state as the face. Apparently she underwent more than twenty-four hours of torture. I'm expecting more details. The autopsy's being carried out now."

The old man raised his eyes. "Why are you showing me this?"

"The body was found at dawn yesterday, by Saint-Lazare Hospital.”

“So what?"

"So, that was your territory. You spent over twenty years in the sector."

"But that doesn't make me an expert on faces."

"I think the victim is a Turkish working girl."

"Why Turkish?"

"First because of the area. Then there are her teeth. They have traces of gold fillings that are now used only in the Near East." He then added: "Do you want the names of the alloys?"

Schiffer moved his plate back in front of him and started eating again. "Why an immigrant worker?" he asked after a long chew.

"Because of her fingers," Paul replied. "The tips are crisscrossed with scars typical of certain types of sewing work. I've checked."

"Does her description match anyone reported missing?"

The old man was pretending not to understand.

"No reported disappearance," Paul muttered patiently "No one came asking after her. She's an illegal alien. Schiffer. Someone with no official status in France. A woman no one will come to the police about. The ideal victim."

The Cipher slowly and calmly finished his steak. Then he dropped his knife and fork to pick up the photos again. This time, he put on his glasses. He observed each image for a few seconds, attentively examining the wounds.

Paul could not help looking down at the pictures. He saw, upside-down, the dark sliced opening of the nose, the lacerations in the face, a purple, horrific harelip.

Schiffer laid down the packet and grabbed a yogurt. He carefully raised the top before plunging in his spoon.

Paul sensed that his reserves of calm were quickly running out.

"I've been doing the rounds," he went on. "The sweatshops, the homes, the bars. Nothing doing. No one's gone missing. Which is normal, because no one really exists. They're illegal aliens. How can you identify a victim in an invisible community?"

Schiffer silently scooped up his yogurt.

Paul pressed on. "None of the Turks have seen anything. Or else they won't tell me. In fact, no one's been able to tell me anything. Because none of them speaks French."

The Cipher continued toying with his spoon. Finally, he deigned to add, "And so, someone mentioned me…"

"Everyone mentioned you. Beauvanier, Monestier, the inspectors, the boys on the beat. If they're to be believed, you're the only person who can make this damned case advance."

Silence again. Schiffer wiped his lips with a napkin, then grabbed his little plastic pot. "That's all a long time ago. I'm retired, and I've got other things on my mind." He pointed to the betting slips. “I now devote myself to my new responsibilities."

Paul grabbed the edge of the table and leaned over it. "Listen, Schiffer. He smashed her feet to pulp. The X-rays show over seventy shards of bone sticking in her flesh. He sliced off her breasts so that you can now count her ribs through her skin. He rammed a bar covered with razor blades into her vagina.^-He banged the table. "He's got to be stopped!"

The old cop raised an eyebrow. " 'Got to be stopped'?"

Paul wiggled on his seat, then clumsily removed the file that was rolled up inside pocked of his parka. Reluctantly, he added, "We've got three of them."

"Three?"

"The first one was found last November. Then a second in January. And now this one. Every time, in the Turkish quarter. And always tortured and disfigured in the same way"

Schiffer stared at him in silence, spoon in midair.

Paul started yelling, drowning out the cries from the racecourse. "Jesus Christ, Schiffer, don't you understand? There's a serial killer in the Turkish quarter. Someone who attacks only asylum seekers. Women who don't exist, in an area that isn't part of France anymore!"

At last, Jean-Louis Schiffer put down his yogurt and took the file from Paul's hands. "You should have come to see me before."

9

Outside, the sun had come out. Silvery puddles enlivened the large gravel courtyard. Paul was pacing up and down in front of the main entrance, waiting for Jean-Louis Schiffer to finish packing.

There was no other solution. He had realized that right from the start. The Cipher could not help from a distance. He could not advise him from his retirement home, nor help him out over the phone when Paul had run out of ideas. No. It was necessary for the former officer to question the Turks alongside him and exploit his contacts by returning to the neighborhood he knew better than anyone else.

Paul shivered at the possible consequences of what he was doing. No one had been informed, neither the magistrate nor his superiors. And it wasn't good practice just to let loose such a bastard, known for his violent, unrestrained methods. He was going to have to keep him on a very short leash.

He kicked a pebble into a puddle, thus disturbing his own reflection. He was still trying to convince himself that he had had the right idea. How had he come to this? Why was he so obsessed by this case? Why, since the first murder, had it seemed that his entire existence depended on the outcome?

He thought for a moment while staring at his troubled image. Then had to admit to himself that this rage had just one sole source. Everything had started with Reyna.

MARCH 25, 1994

Paul had started out in narcotics. He was getting good results in the field. Leading an ordered existence, studying for the examination to become commissioner and was even noticing that the lacerated leatherette seating was sinking into the depths of his consciousness. His cop casing was acting as a solid defense against his old panic attacks.

That evening, he was transferring a North African dealer, whom he had questioned for over six hours in his office in Nanterre, to the Paris Prefecture. A routine procedure. But when he arrived at headquarters. He discovered total chaos. Police vans were arriving in droves, containing hordes of screaming and gesticulating youths. Riot police were running around in all directions along the riverbank, while sirens constantly blared as ambulances surged into the courtyard of Hotel-Dieu.

Paul asked around. A demonstration against a job reinstatement plan-a proposed minimum wage for young people-had degenerated. On Place de la Nation, there were apparently over a hundred police officers wounded, plus several dozen demonstrators and millions of francs' worth of damage to property.

Paul grabbed his suspect and legged it down to the basement. If he could not find any room downstairs, then he could always go to the Prison de la Santé, or even farther afield, with his prisoner handcuffed to his wrist.

The detention center greeted him with its usual din, but this time multiplied a thousand fold. There were insults, screams, spitting. Demonstrators were hanging off the bars, yelling out curses, to which the police replied with their truncheons. He managed to off-load his dealer and headed off at once, fleeing the racket and spittle.

He was about to leave when he spotted her.

She was sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees, apparently disdainful of the surrounding chaos. He went over to her. She had prickly black hair, an androgynous form, a sort of Joy Division look straight from the 1980s. She even had a blue-checked head scarf, like the ones only Yasser Arafat still dares to wear.

Beneath her punkish hair, her face was of a startling regularity: as even as an Egyptian figurine cut in white marble. Paul thought of the sculptures he had seen in a magazine. Naturally polished shapes, both heavy and soft, ready to slip into the palm of your hand or stand up on a finger in perfect balance. Magical stones, signed by an artist called Brancusi.

He talked with the jailers, checked that the girl's name had not yet been put in the daybook, then took her to the narcotics squad offices on the third floor. While climbing the stairs, he mentally went through his good and bad points.

In terms of strengths. He was a reasonably good-looking. That was at least what he heard from the prostitutes who whistled at him and called to him when he went through the red-light districts looking for dealers. He had the smooth black hair of an Indian. His features were regular, his eyes brown. A dry yet vibrant figure, not very tall, but posed on thick-soled Paraboots. As he looked so cute, he had adopted a harsh stare, which he worked on in front of his mirror, and a three-day growth that concealed his boyish looks.

In terms of weaknesses, there was just one. A huge one. He was a cop.

When he checked the girl's records, he realized that this obstacle was likely to be a major one. Reyna Brendosa, age twenty-four, living at 32 Rue Gabriel-Péri in Sarcelles, was an active member of the extreme wing of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire. She had links with the Tutte Bianche, or "White Overalls," an Italian antiglobalization group that practiced civil disobedience. She had been arrested several times for vandalism, disturbing the peace and assault and battery. A real hell-raiser.

Paul turned from his computer and looked once more at the vision staring back at him from the other side of his desk. Just her dark irises, emphasized by eyeliner, knocked him out more thoroughly than the two Zairian dealers who had given him a beating at Chateau Rouge, on one evening of inattention.

He toyed with her identity card, as all cops do, and asked her: "So you like smashing things, do you?"

No answer.

"Isn't there a better way to demonstrate your ideas?"

No answer.

"You get off on violence, do you?"

No answer. Then, suddenly, a slow deep voice: "Private property is the only real violence. The robbing of the masses. The alienation of minds. And worst of all, written down and authorized by law."

"Those ideas are a bit past it. Hasn't anyone told you?"

"Nothing and nobody will prevent the fall of capitalism."

"In the meantime, you're in for three months behind bars."

Reyna Brendosa smiled. "You're playing at soldiers, but you're only a pawn. If I blow, you'll vanish."

Paul smiled back. Never had he felt such a mixture of irritation and fascination for a woman; such a violent desire, mingled with fear.

After their first night, he asked to see her again. She called him a "fucking pig." A month later, she was sleeping at his place every night, so he asked her to move in with him. She told him to go fuck himself Even later, he mentioned marriage. She burst out laughing.

They got married in Portugal, near Porto, in her native village. First at the Communist town hall, then in a little church. A syncretism of socialism and sun. It was one of Paul's best memories.

The following months were the happiest in his life. He was constantly amazed. Reyna seemed ethereal, immaterial, then a moment later a gesture or expression gave her an unbelievable presence and an almost animalistic sensuality. She could spend hours talking about her political ideas, her utopian dreams, quoting philosophers he had never heard of. Then, with just one kiss, she could remind him that she was a full-blooded, organic, vibrant being.

Her breath smelled of blood-she kept biting her lips. Wherever she went, she seemed to capture the spirit of the world, to move with nature's fundamental mechanics. She had a sort of internal perception of the universe: something hidden, an underground stream that linked her to the vibrations of the earth and the instincts of the living.

He loved her slowness, which gave her the gravity of a death knell. He loved her suffering when faced with injustice, misery, the desperation of humanity. He loved the martyr's life she had chosen and that raised their daily existence to the level of a tragedy. Living with his wife was like asceticism before an oracle. A transcendently religious path of discipline.

Reyna, and a life of fasting… This feeling was a hint of the future. At the end of the summer of 1994, she told him she was pregnant. He felt betrayed. His dream had vanished. His ideal had now slumped down into the banality of bodies and family life. Deep down, he sensed that he was going to lose her. At first physically, then emotionally. Reyna's vocation was obviously going to change. Utopia for her was going to reincarnate itself in her internal transformation…

And that was exactly what happened. From one day to the next, she turned over in bed and refused his touch. She reacted only vaguely to his presence. She became a kind of Forbidden City, closed around her one idol-her child. Paul might have been able to follow this shift, but he then sensed a deeper lie that he had been blind to before.

After the birth, in April 1995, their relationship froze forever. They both stood there on either side of their daughter like strangers. Despite the presence of their newborn baby, the morbid atmosphere of a funeral parlor hung around them. Paul realized that he had now become totally repulsive to Reyna.

One night, he could no longer stop himself from asking. You don't want me anymore?"

"No."

"You never will again?"

"No."

He hesitated, then asked the fatal question: "And you never have?”

“No, never."

His policeman's flair had deserted him on that score… Their meeting, life together. Marriage had been a pure fraud, an illusion.

A setup with the sole aim of having a child.

The divorce took only a few months. In front of the judge, Paul felt as if he was hovering. He heard a raucous voice being raised in the office, and it was his. He felt sandpaper biting into his face, and it was his own beard. He was gliding through the room like a ghost, a phantom in a comedy. He said yes to everything, to the alimony and custody: he did not put up the slightest fight. He did not give a damn, and instead dwelled on how much he had been taken in. He had been the victim of a rare form of collectivization: Reyna the Marxist had taken over his sperm. She had practiced a Communist-inspired in vitro fertilization.

The funniest thing of all was that he could not bring himself to hate her. On the contrary, he admired her as an intellectual, free from desire. He was sure that she would never again have a sexual relationship. Neither with a man nor with a woman. And the idea of this idealist who wanted quite simply to give life, without the slightest physical pleasure or desire, left him drained, without any idea about what she was doing.

It was then that he started to drift, like wastewater looking for its sea of sludge. At work, he began to wander. He never showed up at his office in Nanterre. He spent all his time in the roughest neighborhoods, hanging around with the lowest of the low, smoking endless joints with pushers and druggies, sinking into the dregs of humanity.

Then, in the spring of 1998, he agreed to see her.

She was called Céline and she was three. The first weekends were terrible: parks, rides, cotton candy, terminal boredom. Then, bit by bit, he discovered an unsuspected presence. Something transparent in the child's movements, face, expressions, with their supple bounding whimsical shifts, whose turns and turns-about he observed.

A tightly clenched fist to emphasize what was obvious, the way she leaned forward then rounded off the movement with an impudent grin, her husky voice with its own special charm that made him tingle as though touched by some material or bark. A woman was already lurking there within the child. It was not her mother-absolutely not-but another unique, sparkling being.

There was something new under the sun: Celine was there.

Paul changed completely, and now started to relish the time they spent together. Those days spent with his daughter brought him back to life. He struggled to regain his self-respect. He dreamed of himself as a hero, an untouchable supercop, washed clean of any stain.

A man whose gaze would make his morning mirror glisten.

For this recovery, he chose the sole territory that he knew: crime. He forgot about taking the exam to become a commissioner and instead applied for a job in Paris 's Brigade Criminelle. Despite his bout of depression, he became captain in 1999. He then turned into a determined, inspired investigator. And started to hope for a case that would take him to the top-the sort of inquiry that all motivated officers long for: the pursuit of a beast, a face-to-face duel with an enemy who was up to his expectations.

It was then that he heard about the first body.

A redhead who had been tortured and disfigured then dumped in a doorway off Boulevard de Strasbourg on November 15. 2001. No suspects. No motive, and an almost nonexistent victim… The body did not match any person who had been reported missing. The fingerprints were not on record. The squad had already closed the case. Just another bust-up between some whore and her pimp. The red lights of Rue Saint-Denis were not even two hundred yards away. But Paul instinctively sensed that there was something else. He read the file -the witness who had found the body, the forensic report, photos of the stiff. At Christmas, while his colleagues were with their families, and Céline had gone to see her grandparents in Portugal, he studied the file in detail. He immediately saw that this had been no usual murder. Neither the diversity of the torture methods nor the mutilations to the face fitted with the idea that it had been a pimp. What was more, if the girl had really been in the game, then her fingerprints would have been identified-all the whores of the tenth arrondissement were on record.

He decided to keep an eye on events in the Strasbourg-Saint-Denis area. He did not have to wait long. On January 10, 2002, a second body was found in the courtyard of a Turkish sweatshop on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis. The same type of victim a redhead who had not been reported missing. The same marks of torture. The same lacerations to the face.

Paul forced himself to stay calm, but he was sure that he now had his serial killer. He rushed to see Thierry Bomarzo, the investigating magistrate, and was put in charge of the case. Unfortunately the leads were already cold. The local cops had made a mess of the scene of the crime, and forensics had found nothing.

Deep down, Paul sensed that he should track the killer on his own turf, by infiltrating the Turkish community. He got himself transferred to the local police station on Rue de Nancy and demoted to the rank of plain sergeant in the Service d’Accueil de Recherche d'Investigation Judiciaire (the SARIJ). He rediscovered the routine of a lowly cop, dealing with robbed widows, shoplifting in grocery stores and neighbors from hell.

The month of February passed by. Paul was champing at the bit. He was both fearing and hoping for another corpse. His life alternated between moments of excitement and days of utter gloom. When things could not get any worse, he visited the anonymous tombs of the two victims in the paupers' cemetery in Thiais, Val-de-Marne.

While staring at the stone slabs with just a number on them, he swore that he would avenge the victims and find the madman who had massacred them. Then, in the back of his mind, he also made a promise to Céline. Yes, he would catch the killer. For her. For himself. So that everyone would see what a great cop he was.

On the dawn of March 16, 2002 another body was found.

The boys on night duty called him up at five in the morning. The garbage collectors had phoned in: they had come across a corpse in a ditch by Saint-Lazare Hospital, a disused brick building off Boulevard Magenta. Paul ordered that no one should go there for another hour. He grabbed his coat and headed for the scene of the crime. He discovered a deserted zone, without a single officer or flashing light to disturb his concentration.

It was a miracle.

He was going to be able to sniff out the trace of the killer, to enter into contact with his scent, his presence, his craziness… Once again, he was disappointed. He had been hoping for some material clues, a particular disposition that would reveal a modus operandi. But all he had was a corpse in a concrete trench. A livid, mutilated body topped by a disfigured face beneath a ginger mane.

Paul realized that he was caught between the silence of the dead and the silence of the quarter.

He went back home in desperation, even before the police van arrived. He wandered down Rue Saint-Denis and watched Little Turkey wake up. The shopkeepers opening their stores, the workers running to their sweatshops, the thousand and one Turks going about their business… He felt sure that this immigrant neighborhood was the forest in which the killer was concealed, a dense jungle where he had fled to seek refuge and security.

There was no way Paul could unmask him alone.

He needed a guide to light the way.

10

Jean-Louis Schiffer looked better in civvies.

He was wearing an olive green Barbour hunting jacket and lighter green corduroy trousers that tumbled down over his Church-style shoes, which glistened like chestnuts.

These clothes conferred a certain elegance on him, but without diminishing the brutality of his figure. His broad back and chest, along with his arched legs, gave him an aura of power, solidity and violence-someone who could certainly take the recoil from the official Manhurin.38 without budging an inch. His posture even suggested that he had already taken its recoil and incorporated it into his gait.

As though reading Paul's mind, the Cipher lifted his arms: "Search me if you want, kid. I'm not carrying."

"I hope not," Paul replied. "Just remember, there's only one serving officer around here. And I'm not a kid."

Schiffer clicked his heels together to mimic standing at attention. Paul did not even grin. He opened the car door, got in and pulled off at once. Trying to swallow his apprehensions.

The Cipher said nothing during the journey. He was absorbed in the photocopy of the file. Paul knew it by heart. He could recite everything that was known about the bodies, which he had now baptized his "Corpuses."

When they had reached the outskirts of Paris, Schiffer asked, "Searching the scenes of the crimes didn't turn up anything?"

"No."

"Forensics didn't find a single dab, a single trace?"

"Not one."

"Not on the bodies either?"

"Especially not on the bodies. Forensics thinks the killer cleans them with industrial detergent. He disinfects the wounds, washes their hair and cleans under their nails."

"And what about your neighborhood inquiries?"

"I've already told you. I've questioned workers, shopkeepers, whores and the garbage collectors near the scene. I've even spoken to tramps. No one's seen anything."

"What do you reckon?"

"I think the killer goes around in a car and dumps the bodies as soon as he can, at dawn. A lightning raid."

Schiffer flicked through the pages. He stopped at the photos of the corpses. "What do you reckon about the faces?"

Paul took a deep breath. He had thought about those mutilations for nights on end. "There are several possibilities. Firstly, the killer might just be trying to throw us off the track. The women knew him, and if we identify them, then we could get to him."

"Why not mess up their teeth and fingers, then?"

"Because they're illegal immigrants and not on any records."

The Cipher accepted this point with a nod of his head. "And secondly?"

"A more… psychological motive. I've read a few books on the subject. According to the specialists, when a murderer destroys the means of identification, it's because he knows his victims and can't stand the way they look at him. So he takes away their status as a human being. He keeps them at a distance by reducing them to mere objects."

Schiffer leafed through the papers again. "I'm not much of a one for the trick-cyclists. And next?"

"The murderer has a thing about faces in general. Something in the faces of these redheads scares him, brings back a trauma. He has to kill them but also disfigure them. I reckon these women looked alike. It's their faces that spark off the attack."

"That sounds even more iffy"

"You haven't seen the bodies," Paul replied, raising his voice slightly. "This is a real sicko. A pure psycho. So we've got to think as crazy as he does."

"And what's this here?"

He had just opened a final envelope, which contained photographs of antique sculptures. Heads, masks and busts. Paul had cut them out of museum catalogues, tourist guides and magazines such as Archaeologia and the Bulletin du Louvre.

"It's an idea I had." he replied. "I noticed that the cuts look like cracks, notches, marks in stone. Then there's the fact that the noses and lips have been sliced off and the bones filed down, as though worn by time. I wondered if the killer might be inspired by old statues."

"Come off it."

Paul felt himself blush. His idea was a little far-fetched, and despite all his research he had never managed to find a single detail that was in any way reminiscent of the wounds of the Corpuses. Nevertheless, he blurted out: "For the killer, these women are maybe goddesses, to be hated but also respected. I'm sure he's Turkish and up to his eyes in Mediterranean mythology."

"You've got too much imagination."

"Haven't you ever followed your intuition?"

"I've never followed anything else. Just take my word for it. All this psycho stuff is off the point. What we have to do is concentrate on the technical problems he has."

Paul was not sure if he understood correctly.

Schiffer went on: "We have to think through his modus operandi. If you're right, and these women really are illegal immigrants, then they're Muslims. And not Muslims from Istanbul in high heels. They're peas ants, timid souls who keep themselves to themselves and can't speak a word of French. To catch them, you need to know them. And speak Turkish. Our man maybe runs a sweatshop. Or else is a shopkeeper. Then there's the question of timing. These working girls live underground, in cellars and hidden workshops. The killer must grab them when they resurface. When? How? Why do they agree to go with him? It's by answering questions like those that we'll identify him."

Paul agreed. But such questions merely revealed the depth of their ignorance. Quite literally, anything was possible.

Schiffer took a different tack: "I suppose you've checked out any other similar homicides."

"I've looked at the new Chardon archives. And also Anacrime, the gendarmerie's records. I've quizzed everyone in the squad. There's never been anything this weird before in France. I also checked out the Turkish community in Germany. Nothing doing there, either."

"And in Turkey itself?"

"Zero there, too."

Schiffer changed subjects. He wanted a full situation report. "Have patrols been increased in the area?"

"We made an agreement with Monestier, the commissioner at Louis-Blanc. There's an increased police presence, but a discreet one. We don't want to panic everyone."

Schiffer burst out laughing. "Don't be daft. All the Turks know what's happening."

Paul paid no attention.

"In any case, up till now, we've avoided any media attention. That's the only guarantee I have if I want to go it solo. If word leaks out, then Bomarzo will put other people on the case. Right now, it's just a business with Turks, so no one gives a damn. I've got a free hand."

"Why isn't the Brigade Criminelle on a case like this?"

"That's where I used to be. And I still have contacts there. Bomarzo trusts me."

And you haven't asked for more men?"

"No."

"You haven't set up a team?"

"No."

The Cipher could not help smirking. "You want him just for yourself, don't you?"

Paul did not reply.

Schiffer brushed some fluff from his trousers. "Never mind what you want. Never mind what I want either. We'll nail him. I promise you that."

11

On the bypass. Paul drove west, toward Porte & Auteuil.

"Aren't we going to La Rapée?" Schiffer asked, surprised.

"The body's in Garches. At Raymond-Poincaré Hospital. There's a forensics unit there that does autopsies for the courts in Versailles."

“I know. Why there?"

"For reasons of discretion. To avoid the hacks and amateur profilers that are always prowling round the Paris morgue."

Apparently Schiffer was no longer listening. He was observing the traffic in fascination. Occasionally, he would half close his eyes. As though getting used to the light. He looked like a con on conditional release.

Half an hour later, Paul crossed the Suresnes bridge and drove up Boulevard Sellier, then Boulevard de la République. He then went through the town of Saint-Cloud before reaching the outskirts of Garches.

The hospital finally appeared at the top of the hill. Fifteen acres of buildings, surgical theaters and white rooms. It was like a town, inhabited by doctors, nurses and thousands of patients, most of them victims of car accidents.

Paul drove toward the Vésale Unit. The sun was high and sparkled off the fronts of the brick buildings. Each wall offered a fresh tone of red, pink or cream, as though it had been carefully baked in an oven.

As they went on, they passed groups of visitors carrying flowers or cakes. Everyone walked with stiff, almost mechanical seriousness, as though contaminated by the surrounding rigor mortis.

They had now reached the inner courtyard of the unit. The gray-and pink building, with its porch supported by thin columns, looked like a sanatorium, or a spa concealing mysterious curative powers.

They walked into the morgue, following a corridor of white tiles. When they got to the waiting room, Schiffer asked: "Where are we now?"

It was not much, but Paul was pleased he could pull a little surprise on him.

A few years before, the Garches forensic unit had been renovated in rather an original way. The first room was painted entirely turquoise. The color covered the floor, walls and ceiling indifferently, thus wiping out any sense of scale or reference points. It was like plunging into a crystal sea, giving off a tonic limpidity. "The quacks in Garches called in a contemporary artist," Paul explained. "We're not in a hospital anymore, we're in a work of art."

A male nurse appeared and pointed to a door on their right. "Dr. Scarbon will join you in the departure hall."

They followed where he led, through further rooms that were also blue and empty, sometimes topped by a rim of white light, projected a few inches away from the ceiling. In the corridor, marble vases had been placed high on the walls, providing an array of pastel shades: pink, peach, yellow, ecru, white… Everywhere, there seemed to be a strange desire for purity at work.

The last room made Schiffer whistle in admiration.

It was a single rectangle of about a hundred square yards, absolutely empty and covered entirely in blue. To the left of the entrance, three high bay windows brought in light from outside. Facing these luminous forms, three arches had been cut into the opposite wall, like vaults in a Greek church. Within, a line of marble blocks, like huge ingots, which had also been painted blue, seemed to rise directly out of the floor.

On one of them, the shape of a body could be seen beneath a sheet. Schiffer went over to a white marble basin that stood in the middle of the room. Heavy and polished, it was full of water and resembled a plain holy-water basin of classical design. Moved by a pump, the sparkling water spun around, giving off a scent of eucalyptus, intended to lessen the stink of death and the smell of formaldehyde.

The officer dipped his fingers into it. "All this doesn't make me feel any younger."

At that instant, Dr. Scarbon could be heard approaching. Schiffer turned around. The two men looked each other up and down. Paul at once saw that they knew each other. When he had phoned the doctor from the retirement home, he had not mentioned his new partner.

"Thank you for coming, Doctor," Paul said, saluting him.

Scarbon nodded curtly, without taking his eyes off the Cipher. He was wearing a dark woolen coat and was still holding his kidskin gloves in his hand. He was old and emaciated. His eyes were constantly blinking, as if the glasses he wore on the tip of his nose were of no use to him. His bushy mustache filtered the Gallic tones in his drawling voice, as though he were a character in a pre- World War II movie.

Paul gestured toward his protégé. "Let me introduce you to-"

Schiffer butted in. "We know each other. Hi, Doctor."

Without answering, Scarbon took off his coat and put on one of the white coats that were hanging beneath a vault, then slipped on some latex gloves whose pale green color went well with the surrounding blue. Only then did he fold back the sheet. The smell of decaying flesh spread through the room, driving everything else out of their minds.

Despite himself, Paul looked away. When he had worked up the courage to look, he stared at the heavy white body, half hidden by the folded sheet.

Schiffer had stepped under the arch. He was now slipping on his surgical gloves. Not a trace of disgust could be seen on his face. Behind him, a wooden cross and two black iron chandeliers stood out against the wall. He murmured in hollow voice: "Okay, Doctor, you can begin."

12

"The victim is a Caucasian female. Her muscular tonicity indicates that she was between ages twenty and thirty. Rather plump. One hundred and fifty-four pounds and five foot three inches tall. If we add that she has the white pigmentation characteristic of redheads, and the hair to go with it, then it can be asserted that physically she matches the profiles of the first two victims. That's the way our boy likes them: thirtyish, plump, redheaded." Scarbon's voice was monotonous. It sounded as if he were mentally reading out the pages of his report, lines written during a sleepless night.

Schiffer asked, "No distinguishing sign?"

"Like what?"

"Tattoos. Pierced ears. Traces of a wedding ring. Things the killer couldn't get rid of."

"No."

The Cipher grabbed the corpse's left hand and turned it over, palm up. Paul shivered. Never would he have dared do such a thing.

"No traces of henna?"

"No."

"Nerteaux tells me that her fingers show that she was a seamstress. What's your opinion?"

Scarbon nodded. "These women had all clearly been doing manual work for some time."

"Do you agree that it was sewing?"

"It's hard to be really precise. There are marks of pinpricks in the lines of the fingers. There are also calluses between the thumb and the index. Maybe from using a sewing machine, or an iron." He looked up across the slabs. "They were found in the Sentier area, weren't they?"

"So?"

"They're Turkish workers."

Schiffer paid no attention to the certitude in Scarbon's tone. He was staring at the corpse. Paul managed to force himself to approach. He saw the dark lacerations covering the flanks, the breasts, shoulders and thighs. Several of them were so deep that they revealed the whiteness of the bones.

"Tell us about all this," the Cipher ordered.

The doctor quickly flicked through a set of stapled pages. "In this case, I counted twenty-seven wounds. Some are superficial; others are deep. It looks as if the killer intensified the torture as time went by. There were about the same number on the other two." He lowered his report to look at his questioners. "In general, everything I am now going to say applies to the previous victims, too. The three women were mutilated in the same way"

"With what sort of weapon?"

"A chrome-plated combat knife, with a jagged edge. The marks of the teeth can be seen on several of the wounds. For the first two bodies, I ordered some research to be done into the size and positioning of the teeth, but we didn't come up with anything of interest. It was standard military equipment, matching dozens of different models."

The Cipher bent down over the wounds that spread out over the chest-there were strange black halos there, suggesting love bites. When Paul had noticed this detail on the first body, it made him think of the devil-a creature of fire who had salivated over this innocent form.

"What about those?" Schiffer pointed. "What are they exactly? Bites?"

At first sight, they do look like love bites. But I've found a rational explanation for them. I think the murderer uses a car battery to inflict electric shocks. To be more precise, I reckon he uses standard serrated clips on them. The marks have been left by their teeth. In my opinion, he probably dampens the body to increase the power of the shock. Which would explain these black marks. There are over twenty of them on this one. It's all in my report." He brandished his wad of paper.

Paul knew all this. He had read over and again the first two autopsy reports. But every time, he felt the same disgust, the same rejection. There was no way of entering into empathy with such craziness.

Schiffer stood beside the victim's legs-her bluish-black feet were bent at an impossible angle. "And this?"

Scarbon moved to the other side of the corpse. They looked like two topographers studying the contours of a map.

"The X-rays are spectacular. The tarsi, metatarsi and phalanxes have all been shattered. There are approximately seventy shards of bone stuck in the flesh. No fall from any height could have done such damage. The killer went at her feet with a blunt object. An iron bar or a baseball bat, probably. The other two got the same treatment. I checked. This is a specifically Turkish torture technique, called felaka or felika. I can't remember."

In a guttural accent, Schiffer spat out: "Al-Falaqua."

Paul remembered that the Cipher spoke fluent Turkish and Arabic. "From memory" he went on, "I could cite ten countries that use this method."

Scarbon pushed his glasses back up his nose. "Yes, well. It's all highly exotic, anyway"

Schiffer moved up toward the abdomen. Once again, he seized one of the blackened, puffy hands.

The expert said: "The nails were torn out with pliers. The tips were burned with acid."

"What sort?"

"Impossible to say"

"It was something done after death, to remove the fingerprints?"

"If it was, then the killer messed up. The dermatoglyphs are perfectly visible. No, I think it was more like another form of torture. This killer isn't the sort who messes up anything."

The Cipher laid the hand back down. All of his attention was now focused on the gaping vagina. The doctor also looked at the wound. The topographers were now starting to look like vultures.

"Was she raped?"

"Not in the sexual sense, no."

For the first time, Scarbon hesitated. Paul lowered his eyes. He saw the gaping, dilated, lacerated orifice. The internal parts-labia majora, labia minora and the clitoris-were all turned inside out, in an unbearable twisting of flesh.

The doctor cleared his throat and started: "He pushed in some kind of truncheon, decked with razor blades. You can see the lacerations here, inside the vulva, and there, along the thighs. It's absolute carnage. The clitoris was severed, the labia cut away. It set off internal bleeding. The first victim had exactly the same kind of wounds. But the second .." He hesitated once more.

Schiffer tried to meet his stare. "What?"

"With the second one, it was different. I think he used something… that was alive."

"Alive?"

"Yes, a rodent. Or something like that. The internal genitalia were bitten and torn as far as the uterus. Apparently torturers use this kind of technique in Latin America…"

Paul's head was spinning. He knew every detail, but each of them hurt him, made him want to be sick. He walked back to the marble basin. Absentmindedly, he dipped his fingers in the scented water, then remembered that his partner had done just the same a few minutes before. He quickly removed them.

"Go on," Schiffer ordered in a husky voice.

Scarbon did not reply at once. Silence filled the turquoise room. The three men seemed to realize that there was no going back. They now had to confront the face.

"This is the most complex part," the expert at last went on, framing the disfigured face with his two index fingers. "There were several steps to the violence."

"What do you mean?"

"First there's the hematoma. The face is one big bruise. The killer beat her savagely for some time. Perhaps with brass knuckles, and certainly with something metallic and more accurate than a bar or truncheon. Then there are the cuts and mutilations. The wounds did not bleed. They were made postmortem."

They were now standing by the mask of horror. They could see the depth of the wounds in all their savagery and without the distance of the camera. Cuts crossed the face, making stripes on the forehead and temples, crevices in the cheeks. And the mutilations, the sliced-off nose, the split chin, the blackened lips.

"You can see as well as I can what he cut, filed and tore off What is interesting is how focused he was. He took time over his work. It's his signature. Nerteaux thinks he's trying to copy-

"I know what he thinks. What about you?"

Scarbon retreated slightly, his hands behind his back. "The murderer is obsessed with these faces. For him, they are both a source of fascination and fury. He sculpts them and fashions them, while at the same time destroying their humanity" Schiffer's shrug showed his skepticism.

"In the end, what did she die of?"

"I've told you: internal hemorrhaging set off by the butchering of the sexual organs. She must have bled dry onto the floor."

"And the other two?"

"The first, also from internal bleeding, unless her heart gave out before. As for the second, I'm not exactly sure. Probably quite simply from terror. To sum up, you can say that all three of them died in agony. We're analyzing her DNA, but I don't think it will tell us any more than for the previous victims." Scarbon pulled the sheet back up, with an overhasty yank.

Schiffer paced up and down for a moment before asking: "Can you deduce a chronology of events?"

"I couldn't give you a detailed timetable, but I would say she was kidnapped three days ago, on the evening of Thursday. She was probably going home after work."

"Why?"

"Her stomach was empty, as was the case for the first two. He must jump them on their way home."

"Let's leave your suppositions out of it."

The doctor puffed with irritation. "Then she endured twenty-four hours' nonstop torture."

"How can you judge the duration?"

"She struggled. Her bonds made friction burns on her skin and bit into her flesh. The wounds became septic. We can gauge the time thanks to the infection. If I say between twenty and thirty hours, then I can't be far from the mark. In any case, at such a pitch, that's the limit of human endurance."

As he walked. Schiffer stared at the blue mirror of the floor. "Do you have any indication of the scene of the crime?"

"Maybe.."

Paul butted in. "What?"

Scarbon clicked his lips like a clapboard. "I had already noticed it with the first two. But with the third, it's even more obvious. The victim's blood contains nitrogen bubbles."

"Meaning?"

Paul took out his notepad.

"It's rather odd. It could mean that, while still alive, the body was subjected to a greater air pressure than that of the surface of the earth. Like the pressure found at the bottom of the sea."

It was the first time that the doctor had mentioned this particularity. "I'm no diver," he went on. "But it's a well-known phenomenon. The deeper you go, the higher the pressure is. The nitrogen in the bloodstream dissolves. If you go up again too quickly, without respecting levels of decompression. then the nitrogen suddenly turns back to gas and forms bubbles inside the body."

Schiffer looked extremely interested. "And that's what happened to the victim?"

All three of them. Nitrogen bubbles have formed and exploded throughout their bodies, causing lesions and, of course, more suffering. This is by no means sure, but these women may well have gotten the bends."

While jotting this down, Paul asked, "They were immersed at a great depth?"

didn't say that. According to one of my assistants, who goes diving, they must had undergone pressure of at least four bars. Which corresponds to a depth of about a hundred twenty feet. It seems to me a bit tricky finding so much water in Paris. So I think they were in fact placed in a high-pressure chamber."

Paul was writing feverishly.

"Where do you find things like that?"

"You'll have to ask around. There are tanks that professional divers use to decompress, but I wouldn't think there are any in the Paris region. There are also chambers used in hospitals."

"In hospitals?"

"That's right. To oxygenate patients suffering from bad circulation-diabetes, high cholesterol… High air pressure makes it easier to distribute oxygen in the organism. There must be three or four machines like that in Paris. But I shouldn't think your killer had access to a hospital. You'd do better to check out industry"

"What sectors use this kind of technology?"

"No idea. You'll have to find out. That's your job. And don't forget, I'm not sure about all this. These bubbles might have a completely different explanation. But if so, I don't know what it is."

Schiffer said. "And there's nothing about the three bodies that gives us any physical information about our man?"

"Nothing. He washes them down carefully. Anyway. I'm sure he wears gloves when he's at work. He doesn't have sex with them. He doesn't caress them. That's not his thing. Not at all. He's more clinical. Robotic, even. This killer is… inhuman."

"Does the madness increase with each murder?"

"No. Each time, the tortures are carried out with the same rigor. He's an evil obsessive, but he never loses his cool." He smiled wearily "He's an orderly killer, as the textbooks put it."

"What do you reckon turns him on?"

"Suffering. Pure suffering. He tortures them diligently, obsessively until they die. It's their pain that excites him. that he feeds off. Deep down, he has a visceral hatred of women. Of their bodies, and their faces."

Schiffer turned toward Paul and sneered. "Looks like I'm up to my ears with trick-cyclists today."

Scarbon flushed. "Forensic science always involves psychology. The acts of violence we examine are just the symptoms of diseased minds…"

The officer nodded but continued to smile. He picked up the wad of typed pages that had been placed on one of the slabs. "Thanks, Doctor."

He headed for the door that stood out beneath the three bays of light. When he opened it, a violent burst of sunlight shot into the room, like a flood of milk across the blue sea.

Paul grabbed another copy of the autopsy report. "Can I take this one?" The doctor stared at him silently, then said, "Do your superiors know about Schiffer?"

Paul grinned back. "Don't worry Everything's under control.”

“It's you I'm worried about. He's a monster."

Paul shivered. The scientist went on. "He killed Gazil Hemet."

The name brought back memories. October 2000. The Turk crushed by the Brussels express, Schiffer accused of murder. Then April 2001. The charges were mysteriously dropped. lie replied in a frozen voice: "The body was flattened. The autopsy didn't prove a thing."

"It was me who gave the second opinion. The face bore terrible wounds. An eye had been torn out. The temples had been drilled open." He pointed at the sheet. "It was just as bad as her."

Paul felt his legs go weak. He could not admit such a suspicion about the man he was now working with. "The report just mentioned some lesions and-"

"They suppressed my other findings. They covered for him.”

“Who do you mean by 'they'?"

"They were scared. All of them were scared."

Paul stepped back into the whiteness outside.

Claude Scarhon inflated then removed his elastic gloves. "You've teamed up with the devil."

13

"They call it the Iskele. Pronounced is-kay-lay.”

"What?"

"You could translate it as 'jetty' or 'departure dock.' “

“What are you talking about?"

Paul had joined Schiffer in the car but had not yet driven off. They were still in the courtyard of the Vasale Unit, in the shadow of its slender pillars.

The Cipher went on. "It's the main mafia organization behind getting illegal Turkish immigrants into Europe. They also help get them work and accommodations. They try to organize it so that there are groups from the same region in each workshop. Some sweatshops in Paris contain the entire population of a village in the backwaters of Anatolia."

Schiffer came to a halt, tapped his fingers on the glove compartment, then continued: "The price varies. The rich take the plane and bribe customs guards. They arrive in France with a fake work permit or false passport. The poor go in cargoes via Greece, or in trucks via Bulgaria. Whichever way you have to pay at least two hundred thousand francs. The family in the village chip in and get together about a third of that amount. The worker then slaves away for ten years to pay off the rest."

Paul observed Schiffer's clear profile against the brightness of the window. He had been told dozens of times about these networks, but it was the first time he had been given so many details.

The silver-headed cop gave him more: "You have no idea how well organized they are. They keep records. Everything is written down: each immigrant's name, origin, workshop and outstanding debt. They communicate via e-mail with their opposite numbers in Turkey who keep up the pressure on the families. Meanwhile, they deal with everything in Paris. They look after sending money orders or giving phone calls at lower prices. They replace the post office, the banks and the embassy. You want to send a toy to one of your kids? You ask the Iskele. You need a gynecologist? The Iskele provides you with the name of a quack who's not too bothered about your legal status in France. You've got a problem with your workshop? The Iskele will sort it out. Nothing happens in the Turkish quarter without their knowing about it and putting it in their records."

Paul at last realized where the Cipher was heading.

"You think they know about the murders?"

"If those girls really were illegal immigrants, their bosses will have contacted the Iskele first. One, to find out what happened. Two, to get replacements. More than anything, murdered girls mean wasted money."

A hope began to form in Paul's mind. "You… you think they could identify the girls?"

"Each file contains a photograph of the immigrant. Their Paris address. And their employer's name and address."

Paul hazarded another question, but he already knew the answer. "And you know these people?"

"The head of the Iskele in Paris is called Marek Cesiuz. But everyone calls him Marius. He has a concert hall on Boulevard de Strasbourg. I was present when one of his sons was born." He winked at him. "Are you starting this car. or what?"

Paul stared at Jean-Louis Schiffer for a moment. You've teamed up with the devil. Maybe Scarbon was right. But for the kind of game he was after, what better partner could he hope for?