Irene (3 page)

Before it had clotted, someone had used the victims’ blood to daub on the wall in huge letters: I AM BACK. It was obvious from the long drips at their base that a lot of blood had been used. The characters had been scrawled using several fingers, sometimes together, sometimes apart, so that the inscription seemed somehow blurred. Camille stepped over the mangled body of a woman and went to the wall. At the end of the sentence, a finger had been pressed against the plaster with great care. Every ridge and whorl was distinct; it looked just like the old-style I.D. cards when a duty officer would press your finger against the yellowing cardboard, rolling it carefully from one side to the other.

Dark sprays of blood spattered the walls all the way to the ceiling.

It took several minutes for Camille to compose himself. It would be impossible for him to think rationally in this setting – everything he could see defied reason.

*

There were about a dozen people now working in the apartment. As in an operating theatre, to outsiders the atmosphere at a crime scene can often seem quite relaxed. People are quick to laugh and joke. It was something Camille loathed. Conversation between S.O.C.O.s was full of crude jokes and sexual innuendo, as though they needed to prove they were blasé. A common attitude in professions that are predominantly male. To a forensics officer accustomed to dissociating horror from reality, the body of a woman – even when dead – is still a woman’s body, a female suicide victim can still be described as “a good-looking woman” even when her face has bloated and turned blue. But the atmosphere in the apartment in Courbevoie was very different. It was neither grieving nor compassionate, but hushed and powerful, as though even the most hard-bitten officers, caught off guard, were wondering how they could possibly make light of a body that had been disembowelled beneath the sightless gaze of a head nailed to the wall. And so, in silence, the forensics team took measurements, collected samples, redirected the spotlights as they snapped photographs, documenting the scene with an almost religious stillness. Though Armand was an experienced officer, his face was deathly pale as he stepped over the crime-scene tape with a ritualised slowness, as though fearing that a sudden movement might rouse the furies that still haunted this place. As for Maleval, he was still puking his guts out into a plastic bag; he had twice tried to join his team only to immediately back away, literally suffocated by the stench of excrement and rotting flesh.

*

The apartment was huge. Despite the mess, it was clear that great care had been taken in decorating it. As in most warehouse apartments of its kind, the front door opened directly onto the living room, a vast space with whitewashed concrete walls. The right-hand wall was filled by an enormous print. You had to step back to get a sense of it. It was an image Camille felt he had seen before. Standing in the doorway, he racked his brains, trying to remember.

“The human genome,” Louis said.

That was what it was: a reproduction of the human genome reworked by an artist in ink and charcoal.

A large picture window looked out onto a development of semi-detached houses in the distance, screened by trees that had not yet had time to grow. A faux cowhide was tacked to one wall, a long rectangular piece of leather daubed with distinctive black and white markings. Beneath it was a black leather sofa of astonishing proportions, probably a bespoke piece of furniture custom-made to the precise dimensions of the wall, but it was impossible to know – this was not a home but a different world, one where people hung giant pictures of the human genome on the wall and hacked young women to pieces after first eviscerating them … Lying on the floor beside the sofa was an issue of
GQ
magazine. To the right was a well-stocked bar and to the left a coffee table with a cordless phone and an answering machine. Nearby, on a smoked-glass cabinet, was a large flat-screen television.

Armand was kneeling in front of the unit. Camille, who given his height was usually in no position to do so, laid a hand on his shoulder and, gesturing to the V.C.R., said, “Let’s have a look at what’s in there.”

The cassette was rewound. The video showed a dog – a German shepherd wearing a baseball cap – peeling an orange
gripped between its front paws and eating the segments. It looked like something from one of those T.V. shows of “hilarious” home videos, the filming amateurish, the framing predictable and crude. In the bottom right-hand corner was a logo for “U.S.-Gag” featuring a smiling cartoon camera.

“Let it run,” Camille said. “You never know.”

He bent over the answering machine. The music on the outgoing message seemed to have been dictated by the zeitgeist. A few years ago, it would have been Pachelbel’s “Canon”. Camille thought he recognised “Spring” from Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”.

“‘Autumn’ …” Louis muttered, staring at the floor. Then, suddenly: “Hello!” – A man’s voice, probably forty-something, the accent refined, educated, the diction strangulated – “I’m sorry but I’m in London right now.” – He is clearly reading a prepared text, his voice is high-pitched and nasal – “Please leave a message after the beep …” – slightly shrill, sophisticated – gay? – “… and I’ll call you as soon as I get back. Speak soon.”

“He’s using a vocoder,” Camille said.

He headed for the bedroom.

*

The far wall was taken up by a huge, mirrored wardrobe. The bed was also covered in blood and faeces. The bloody top sheet had been stripped off and rolled into a ball. An empty Corona bottle lay by the foot of the bed. Next to the head of the bed was a large portable C.D. player and a number of severed fingers laid out like the petals of a flower. Lying beside the player, crushed by the heel of a shoe, was an empty Traveling Wilburys jewel case. Above the bed – one of those low futons with a hard mattress – was a Japanese silk painting whose composition seemed to be enhanced by the arterial blood spray. There were no clothes but
for a pair of braces strangely knotted together. Camille glanced into the wardrobe which the forensics boys had left open: there was nothing but a suitcase.

“Anyone check this?” Camille asked the officers working the scene.

“Not yet,” came the impassive answer. I’m clearly just getting in their way, thought Camille.

He bent down next to the bed, trying to make out the name in red italics on the black matchbook lying on the floor:
Palio’s
.

“Ever heard of the place?”

“No, never.”

Camille called over to Maleval, but seeing the young man’s ashen face in the doorway he gestured to him to stay outside. It could wait.

The bathroom was completely white but for one wall, which was covered with a Dalmatian print wallpaper. The bath was covered with bloody smears. At least one of the girls had got in or out of it in a pitiful state. The sink looked as though it had been used to wash something; maybe the killer’s hands.

*

Maleval was tasked with tracking down the owner of the apartment, and Camille, Louis and Armand left the forensics team to finish documenting the scene and taking samples. Louis took out a cigarillo. When he was with Camille, he refrained from lighting up at the
brigade criminelle
, in the car, in restaurants – anywhere, in fact, except outdoors.

Standing side by side, the three men silently stared out at the housing estate. Freshly emerged from the horrors within, they now found the sinister
Stepford Wives
scene comforting, even vaguely human.

“Armand, I need you to go door to door,” Camille said at length. “Maleval can go with you as soon as he gets back. And try to keep it discreet, O.K.? We’ve got enough shit to deal with as it is.”

Armand nodded, though his eyes were fixed on Louis’ box of cigarillos. He was bumming his first smoke of the day when Bergeret came out to join them.

“This is going to take a while.”

Then he turned on his heel and went back inside. Bergeret had started out in the army. He was clipped and brusque.

“Jean!” Camille called after him.

Bergeret turned. He had the handsome, rather obtuse face of someone who stood his ground against the folly of the world.

“Top priority,” said Camille. “You’ve got two days.”

“Yeah, right …” Bergeret grunted and turned his back on them.

Camille looked at Louis and shrugged.

“Sometimes it works …”

The apartment on the rue Félix-Faure had been renovated by a company called S.O.G.E.F.I. who specialised in real-estate investments.

Quai de Valmy, 11.30 a.m. A striking building overlooking the canal, with acres of marble floors, acres of glass and a receptionist with acres of cleavage. A flash of the warrant card, a flicker of
panic, a quick ride in the lift, then more acres of marble flooring (the colours reversed this time), the vast double door to the cavernous office of a guy with a face like a slapped arse by the name of Cottet – Please, take a seat – cocksure, this was his turf – how can I help you, bearing in mind I can’t spare you much time?

As it turned out, Cottet was a house of cards. He was one of those men who can be unnerved by the slightest thing. He was tall but seemed to inhabit a body he had borrowed. His clothes were clearly bought by his wife, who obviously had her own idea of the kind of man he was – and not a particularly flattering one. She imagined him to be an overbearing company director (the pale-grey suit), decisive (the white shirt with thin blue stripes) and always in a hurry (the Italian leather shoes with pointed toes), but she knew he was simply a middle manager who was brash (the garish tie) and actually a little vulgar (gold signet ring and mismatched cufflinks). Seeing Camille step into his office, he flunked his first test: his eyebrows shot up in surprise, then he quickly composed himself and pretended he hadn’t noticed his arrival. It was the worst possible reaction, thought Camille, and he had seen them all.

Cottet was the sort who took life very seriously. There were business propositions which he might describe as “low-hanging fruit”, those that required “joined-up thinking”, and those clusterfucks that were “learning opportunities”. From the look on Camille’s face it was clear that the present circumstances did not fit into any of these categories.

In such situations, Louis often took the lead. Louis was patient. Louis could sometimes be a little pedantic.

“We need to know how and under what circumstances the apartment was leased. As you can appreciate, it’s somewhat urgent.”

“Of course. Which apartment are we talking about?”

“17, rue Félix-Faure, in Courbevoie.”

Cottet paled.

“Ah …”

Then, silence. Cottet stared at his desk blotter aghast, mouth moving like a fish.

“Monsieur Cottet,” Louis began again in his coolest and most careful tone, “I think it would be best for you and for your company if you were to explain things calmly and in their entirety … Take your time.”

“Yes … yes, of course.”

Then he stared up at them like a drowning man.

“That particular contract was not exactly … how can I put this? … it did not quite conform to best practice, if you see what I mean.”

“Not really, no,” Louis said.

“We were contacted last April. The person in question …”

“Name?”

Cottet looked at Camille, then he seemed to stare out of the window as though looking for help, for solace.

“Haynal. His name was Haynal – Jean, I think …”

“You
think
?”

“Yes, Jean Haynal. He was enquiring about the apartment in Courbevoie. Cards on table …” Cottet said, regaining a little of his cocksureness, “… we’re in a bit of a holding pattern with that particular development … We’ve invested a lot in that patch of industrial wasteland, and we have four units finished, but so far the results have not exactly been compelling. Oh, we won’t be out of pocket, but …”

Camille was irritated by his circumlocutions.

“Cards on table: how many units have you sold?”

“None.”

Cottet stared at him as though the word “none” were a death sentence. Camille would have bet that this little gamble had put him and his company in a very parlous position.

“Please …” Louis said encouragingly, “go on …”

“Regardless, the gentleman in question wasn’t interested in buying, he wanted to rent for three months. He said that he represented a film company. I refused, of course. That’s one industry sector we won’t touch. Too hard to gain traction, tough margins, tight timescales, you see what I’m saying? Besides, we’re in the business of selling developments, not playing at estate agents.”

Cottet spat these last words with a contempt that spoke volumes about the seriousness of the problems that had forced him to become an estate agent.

“I understand,” Louis said.

“But we’re all subject to the laws of reality,” Cottet added, as though this shaft of wit showed that he was sophisticated. “And the gentleman in question …”

“Was willing to pay cash?” suggested Louis.

“Cash, yes, and …”

“And prepared to pay over the odds?” Camille added.

“Three times the market.”

“What was he like, this man?”

“I didn’t really notice,” said Cottet. “Most of our dealings were by phone.”

“What about his voice?”

“Well spoken.”

“So …?”

“He asked if he could visit the property. He wanted to take
photos. We arranged a viewing. I met him on-site. That was the point at which I should have been suspicious …”

“Of what?” asked Louis.

“The photographer … He didn’t seem – how can I put it – very professional. He showed up with some sort of Polaroid. He lined up the photos he took neatly on the floor like he was terrified of getting them mixed up. He checked a piece of paper before every shot, as though he were following instructions he didn’t understand. Even at the time I thought, that guy’s no more a photographer than I am …”

“An estate agent?” ventured Camille.

“If you like,” Cottet shot him a black look.

“Can you describe him for us?” Louis tried to distract him.

“Vaguely. I didn’t stay on-site long. There was nothing for me to do and I wasn’t about to waste two hours in an empty unit watching some guy take photos … I opened up, watched him work for a bit, then left. He left the key in the mailbox on his way out, it was a spare so we didn’t need it immediately.”