First Blood (26 page)

How could he have forgotten?

He remembered the winding road through the fields lined with houses that had fences made of odds and ends. Here and there, the high mountains looked like cut-out faces and the shapes of giants lying on the horizon. A voice came back to him.

“See the profile of the mountains in front of you? It looks like Napoleon
’
s head, doesn
’
t it? The peak is called the Emperor
’
s Nose.”

It was Damien Mira’s voice, from fifteen years earlier. They were in another car. It was another winter, but it was the same snow-covered landscape. Alexandre Vauvert had just joined the Toulouse police force and was a detective. It was his first homicide. The seasoned cop had taken him along to train him. At the time, Damien Mira was not thin, but he weighed a good forty pounds less than he did today. Vauvert remembered that he was already wearing his huge tortoiseshell glasses.

“That is where we are going,
” Mira had said with a chuckle,
“You will be able to say you saw the Emperor
’
s Nose on your first day
.”

His first day. There was a snowstorm. A bloody murder high in these mountains. He could not have dreamed of a better way to start his career with the unit.

Vauvert sighed.
Had it already been fifteen years?
The Emperor’s Nose was still there, and it still looked like that famous Corsican.

The road started twisting as he passed the empty fields and climbed higher into the mountains. He remembered the horse farm. And mostly, he remembered the owner’s body, with his guts exposed.

That first crime scene was unforgettable. The man was found hanging in the middle of the stable. All the animals had been poisoned. The culprit had not stopped there. He had cut open the man’s belly and removed his intestines. He was clearly motivated by anger. Vauvert tried to remember the name. Dujardin, maybe.
No, it was Dupin. The victim’s name was Elie Dupin.

For once, the culprit had been easy to identify. A certain Renaud Garnier, who lived in the neighboring village, had just filed a complaint against Dupin. Garnier was a small-time con man who had been charged with bank fraud a number a times. Several times he had wormed money out of Dupin. They were fairly decent sums that he said he would use to play the market, but he had actually spent the money at the casino in Barbazan. When Dupin sued him, Garnier came to confront him, and the fight went south. Garnier murdered his neighbor and then poisoned the horses in a fit of rage. It was the first time Vauvert had seen such violence. It was far from the last.

In any case, Vauvert felt great satisfaction in arresting that sorry individual. It was a good start. Six months later, even before the trial, Garnier hanged himself in the Seysses Prison showers. Nobody missed him.

Vauvert had been promoted to inspector not long after. Years later, he was leading a squad. He had not thought back to this story until now.

The road climbed higher in the mountains, along a steep slope covered with evergreens. Wild waterways tumbled into the valley below. Snowflakes falling in a blanket in front of his headlights forced him to take the turns slowly. The windshield wipers were having trouble clearing the snow. Returning to this place felt familiar and strange at the same time.

He was not surprised that the property had fallen into ruins. After that terrible incident, people had said the place was haunted. The Dupin family never set foot there again. When they decided to sell, there were hardly any offers.

If Loisel bought it, he did so knowing that nobody would come around snooping. Because there were few cell towers in the mountains, Vauvert checked his phone often and called in as soon as he found reception. He got Mira’s voice mail.

“Damien, you’ll never guess where I’m going. I think Loisel is hiding out at the Comminges horse farm. Do you remember the Dupin case? I don’t know if I’ll find anything up there, but I’ll never know until I try.”

He ended the call.

The road was covered with snow. His tires were skidding on the sharp turns. He had a powerful SUV, but he did not have snow tires.

Vauvert drove carefully.

After miles of climbing through the pine trees, he finally reached the property. There was a large gate that had once been red and was now covered with snow. There was also a no-trespassing sign.

He parked the SUV, keeping the lights on, and got out. His boots sank into four inches of snow. A cold wind stung his face. The night was as black as ink. Even with the headlights, he could not see much beyond ten feet. He remembered that the buildings were not far from the fence at the end of the driveway. But he could not see them in the darkness.

He approached the gate and saw that the chain and the lock were brand new.

That was not enough to stop him. He had cutters in the car. He retrieved them, put on gloves, and needed just a few minutes to cut the chain.

He had some trouble opening the gate because of the snow accumulation.

When he got it fully open, he saw movement at the end of the lane.

He froze. Was there someone in the storm
watching him
?

Yet, he couldn’t see anything. The snow was all that he could make out. Already, he felt frozen to the bone.

“Who’s there?” he called out.

The wind moaned like an ensemble of lost souls. He thought about the reputation this place had. It was no wonder that Annie Lavigne had been afraid here.

He got back into the warm SUV and looked at his phone. No bars. The mountain peaks were blocking reception. He hoped that Mira had gotten his message.

“Okay, off we go.”

He pressed the accelerator and climbed up the lane.

The wheels sank in the thick layer of snow.

He neared the buildings. As Annie had said, they were in ruins.

Suddenly, a form ran in front of the headlights. A black flash.

Vauvert jammed on the brakes.

“Hey,” he cried out, lowering the window. He could not see anything.

“Loisel? Is that you?”

He took out his Smith & Wesson and opened the door. He was a few yards away from the abandoned stable. He realized that the roof had collapsed.
Ruins.

He stepped out of the SUV, looking around for Loisel.

He saw the form again in the swirling snow. It was a well-built man wearing a long black coat that gleamed in the headlights. He was heading toward the rundown stable. He seemed to be limping.

“Wait. You there.”

The man stopped. His coat flapped in the wind. Vauvert approached.

“Police! Come here!”

The man nodded and slowly turned around.

At that moment, Vauvert thought his heart was going to stop.

He recognized the man. He looked just the same. But Elie Dupin had been dead and buried for fifteen years.

Yet there he was, standing in front of him in the icy wind. His frost-covered beard glittered in the headlights. He had clear blue eyes set in deep, dark circles. He was holding his stomach, as if he were trying to keep something together under his black coat.

“
It is too late,”
Dupin said. His intestines slipped through his fingers and landed at his feet.

Vauvert felt a retch coming and stepped back. But his boot slipped, and he fell flat in the snow.

“Dammit, no,” he yelled, panic gaining on him.

He rolled onto his side, blinded by the white powder. He pointed his weapon all around him, before realizing that there wasn’t anyone in front of him, just the empty stable.

A ghost.

That was the only explanation.

He had already seen things like that. It had already happened.

And it was starting again, whether he liked it or not.

He rubbed his eyes.

What now?

He looked at the dark stable.

There was no way he was going in there. His hair was bristling at the thought.

He stepped back and brushed the snow off his jacket and jeans. The cold was penetrating.

Vauvert spotted a covered area in front of the main building. Something was in there. He walked over to get a closer look. When he got closer, he realized that it was a vehicle under a tarp. He grabbed the corner of the plastic and pulled it toward him, revealing the vehicle. It was an enormous black BMW. He recognized the license plate number. It was Loisel’s.

Until now, his instinct had been right.

But his heart was pounding.

He took in the darkness around him, and the deep, frosty night. The snow falling in blankets felt stifling. He searched the landscape for the house that had served as a bed and breakfast fifteen years earlier.

Ruins, now.

He saw a flash of light inside.

He turned off his flashlight. Yes, there was a little bit of light filtering through the broken windows.

Vauvert took a deep breath to calm himself. In the darkness, the snowfields around him seemed to be phosphorescent, like a negative image of the world.

He checked his cell phone again. Still no bars. If Mira had not gotten his message, his team would be wondering what he was doing.

He could not waste any time.

The light in the house moved.

Paris

At the end of the day, Chief Ô called Eva Svärta in. She had been expecting it.

“Let me guess. Larusso has already won you over,” she said, on the offensive as soon as she walked into the office.

Ô gave her a weak smile. He had been pouring himself a cup of tea, and the steam was rising in front of his clean-shaven face.

“He doesn’t approve of your exhumation request in Rodez. He even asked that you be taken off the case. I’d say he’s got you in his sights.”

“But you’re not going to give into that asshole,” she shouted. “He’ll be off the case himself in a few hours, when it goes to the investigating magistrate.”

“I’m listening,” Ô said.

He did not have to tell Eva twice. She put her hands flat on the chief’s desk and explained everything all at once. She told him how she had discovered that the child’s death certificate was faked and that only an autopsy of the body—if they found a body—could prove whether the death was due to natural causes. She told him about Guillaume Alban, how he had murdered his own child and how he had been slain barely a year after his release from prison. She explained how the house fire in Guadeloupe was similar to what had happened to Constantin. And finally, she mentioned the albums that referred to “first blood,” the expression that Amina Constantin had used, which meant, without a doubt, the blood of firstborn children—the ritual sacrifice of one’s own child.

“Is that all you have?” the chief asked after listening patiently. “Nothing but suppositions and bad music. You don’t have any concrete proof, do you?”

“Stop, Rudy. They all knew each other, and they were all up to here in the occult,” she said, running her finger across her neck. “We found a sect, okay? We need to find out how far it reaches. If everything I’m guessing is true, then there are others.”

“You mean other people who have killed their children?”

“Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying.”

“And you think that someone is hunting down members of this sect? To kill them?”

Eva was now pacing, unable to contain herself.

“Does that seem so incredible to you? We have an avenger on the loose, taking the law into his own hands. Maybe it’s the child of one of the group members who managed to survive. Or it’s someone who thinks of himself as an inquisitor. What is certain is that it all goes back to when they were in college. Reich, Constantin, and Alban all studied in Toulouse thirty years ago. That is where it started.”

Eva stopped pacing. Her chief drank his tea, unperturbed.

“Well, say something! You know I’m right. We need to do an autopsy of Madeleine Ferrand’s baby, not only to prove that she killed it, but also to get other clues. And shit, Rudy, you can’t just throw me off the case.”

“That never was my intention,” he said.

She looked him in the eye, a little surprised. She had thought she would have a harder time convincing him.

“What? You believe me?”

“Why not? There is just one thing that bothers me in what you’ve said.”

“What’s that?”

Ô opened a drawer and looked through some papers.”

“Since you mention Toulouse, blood, and witchcraft, take a look at this.”

He slid a paper across his desk. Eva leaned over and picked up the missing-person’s report from the Toulouse police. She read it quickly.

“Pierre Loisel?”

“He disappeared two weeks ago. He’s from the region. I didn’t check, but he’s around fifty, which is the same age as Reich and Constantin. That makes me think they could have attended the same school at the same time.”

Eva nodded. She understood where he was going with this.

“I’ll ask Erwan to look through the list of students.”

“I think that is a good idea,” her chief said with a smile. “But that’s not all. The other troubling detail in this case is that Loisel’s wife and kid died in a so-called accident.”

“When was that?”

“Ten years ago.”

“Him too. I told you there were others.”

“If there is truth to your theory, yes. I must admit it is disturbing.”

“But why did you mention blood and witchcraft?”

Ô tilted his head. The smile had returned to his face.

“Your friend Vauvert has a strange relationship with this case. Do you want to read the reports?”

Rudy, you have to call Toulouse right away. I think he’s in danger. Terrible danger.

The gusts of wind and snow were becoming more violent. Vauvert tried the door. It was not locked, and it creaked open.

He shone his flashlight inside the house, onto the dirty tile floor and an old, rotting piece of furniture against the wall. Snow swirled into the doorway as he inspected the entry hall.

No one was there. A hallway led to other rooms.

Vauvert took a deep breath. His heart was pounding a little too hard. Okay, his heart was in his boots, but he did not have a choice. Now that he was here, he had to go in. He entered slowly. The beam from the flashlight went from one wall to the other. The wallpaper was curled and had started to peel. After fifteen years of neglect, this was no surprise. The house was nothing more than a filthy ruin.