The First Fingerprint (5 page)

He then learned that Hélène Weill had for the past few years been consulting an “utterly brilliant” psychiatrist, an “extra-ordinary” man on place d'Aix called François Caillol, whose “absolutely dazzling” mansion was on route de Puyricard.

He swallowed the rest of his beer and went for a stroll through the streets of Aix. The sun was beginning to set, cold shadows flittered into the narrow streets of the historic center. He looked at his watch: 4:00 p.m. He decided to go back to Marseille. He had to make plans while he waited for the moon.

He followed Hélène Weill for two days.

She would leave her home in the center of Aix at about 11:00 a.m. to do a little food shopping, then go back home around 3:00 p.m. Then she reemerged to spend the rest of the afternoon going in and out of boutiques.

In those two days, all she bought was a few feminine items: fine silk lingerie, some costume jewelry, two pairs of shoes, a few fashion accessories … And none of it was ever gift-wrapped.

He phoned the number of Dr. Caillol's practice. He was told that the psychiatrist was taking no new appointments until January 3, and that he was fully booked until December 24, but could still be contacted in an emergency. He surmised that Caillot would be staying in Aix over the festive period.

He made a decision. It was now or never. On December 23, he went to Puyricard, parked his motorbike in the village and walked to the doctor's house.

It consisted of a farmhouse, a mansion with a swimming pool and tennis court, as well as a few outhouses. The mansion stood about fifty meters from the farm; the buildings were surrounded by a dozen hectares of vines, which must have produced an unpretentious little Côteaux d'Aix-en-Provence.

After a few days' surveillance, he knew that the doctor never came home before 9:00 p.m.; that his tenant farmer invariably went to the vineyard at about 4:00 p.m. and stayed there until at least 7:00 p.m.; and that the farmer's wife, who ran the Puyricard playschool, never came home before 6:00 p.m.

Which meant that between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m., he had plenty of time.

He decided that this would be the best time to break into François Caillol's house. If he could, he would take the Mercedes, which was always parked in the garage, and bring it back before 9:00. If the worst came to the worst, the farmer would just see his landlord's car drive by.

On December 23, at exactly 4:30 p.m., he observed the premises from the clump of pines and brambles beside the tennis court, and waited for the farmer to vanish, followed by his mongrel, into the vines. He slipped on a pair of latex gloves, leaped up the twelve steps, opened the heavy door without any difficulty and closed it quickly behind him.

Inside, it was dark; only a glimmer of daylight filtered through the shutters. He did not turn on the light and stood for some time in the corridor, until his eyes had become used to the gloom.

The house oozed comfort and smelled of dust, wax and wood-smoke. Beams on the ceiling gave it that old fragrance of rustic charm.

Walking up the corridor to the salon door, he filled his lungs with this scent which reminded him of his childhood.

The mistral rising in the mighty branches of the plane trees carries the children's cries far away. All day, the sun beats down. The night is heavy and dense
.

In the salon, Papa reads his paper, as he does every evening; he goes to sit next to him on the leather sofa and gently lays his cheek on his lap. In front of him is the small leather easy chair, reserved for his mother, and the Persian rug with its geometric patterns and complex arabesques—he imagines high-speed circuits for his toy cars. But he is not allowed to play in the salon
.

He looks up, glances at the knickknacks on the sideboard before lingering over the painting he likes best: a landscape of the port of Marseille in the '30s. He imagines being a naval officer like his grandfather and his great-grandfather, like most of the men in his father's family
.

A naval officer with a spotless uniform and beautiful, gold-stitched stripes
.

Sometimes, his grandfather takes him on cargo ships. Shyly he looks at the old sailors and shakes their gnarled hands, scared by their little laughing eyes, by the huge wrinkles surrounding them—indelible marks of long watches spent on the decks of ships, with only the dazzling gleam of the sea for scenery
.

He would have liked to have known the port of Marseille in the '30s. To have seen the steam from the ships on their way to Indochina, the Sainte-Marie strait with its massive, black, fat-bellied tugs, strenuously pulling along the mail ships from Asia, the Far East or America; the dark coal-smoke which swathed La Major cathedral; the sailors' sons coming to wave home a father who had been away all these long months. Marseille back then must have smelled of camphor, cinnamon and precious wood, of coke and the heavy fruits of Black Africa
.

He screamed, closed his eyes and let his thoughts drift back into place. Methodically. As always. A few minutes later, he opened his eyes: his childhood had disappeared. He was calm, but his body was now completely drained of energy.

It was time for the hunt. After the long hours, the bird was coming. It was there, a few meters away, behind the tall grasses. It had come to drink from the only pool on the entire, vast plain. The lance with its flint tip had been placed in its stick of hooks. The bird approached. He looked up
.

A good hunter must not miss his first shot
.

The bird was a few paces away, dipping its beak in the water, then stretching its neck. Once, twice
.

In a flash, he launched the lance. The bird took wing…

A great hunter must not miss his first shot
.

Beside the front door, the answering machine was flashing in the half-light. It showed the number eleven, in red batons. Eleven messages. All from patients canceling their appointments between Christmas and the New Year. The eleventh was a woman's voice:

“Excuse me, Doctor, this is Hélène Weill speaking. I'm sorry to disturb you at home, but you never answer your mobile. Anyway, I'd like to cancel my appointment on Thursday 28. And I was wondering if you were available today.”

The night augured well.

He picked up the telephone and dialed. Hélène told him that she really needed him. Christmas was making her feel terribly anxious. She could come now, or any time he wanted, even late that evening. But she simply had to see him, at any price. He suggested taking her to a restaurant, a lovely little place which he knew well. It would be nicer than the psychiatrist's couch.

“I'll pick you up from your house before 8:00. We'll go to Cadenet. I have a friend there who's just opened a little bistro. You'll see, it's a bit of a drive, but it's just perfect.”

It was 6:00 p.m. He glanced at the cast-iron hooks above the telephone: the keys to the doctor's Mercedes were there.

But first of all he had to perform the ritual.

He went up to the first floor, to the psychiatrist's vast study, placed his rucksack on a Chippendale chair, and took out a small bottle of mineral water and a plastic box containing some red powder.

He pulled on a pair of surgical gloves, opened the box, poured a little of the powder into the palm of his right hand, lifted it to his mouth and started to chew carefully before taking a mouthful of
water. He placed his hand on a sheet of white paper, bending his little and ring fingers. He then spat out the liquid over his hand, again and again, until it was covered in red. When he lifted it up, a negative image of his hand had been left on the white paper.

He waited for it to dry, looked at the result of his labors and said aloud:

“Spirit of the hunt

Goddess of life

Here is the hunter's sign

Take her life to fortify mine

May her death be swift

May I not make her suffer

May your spirit guide me in the shadows

May the force of her blood enter into my blood

May her flesh fortify the first man.”

Carefully he slipped the sheet of paper into a green plastic folder and left the mansion.

Hélène Weill lived alone in a flat on rue Boulegon, right in the center of Aix. At 7:30 p.m., he called her from a phone box to say that he was late, and that it was impossible to park in her narrow street, so could she wait on the ringroad, just by the Ford garage.

“Hélène, I'm a bit late,” he said. “I'll send along a friend of mine. Another patient … He'll pick you up in my car. You'll see, he's a wonderful guy. Just won-der-ful! He'll recognize you, don't worry, he's already seen you around in my consulting room. Then you can come and have a drink at my house. How about that?”

Hélène had chosen a rather strict suit. When she got into the Mercedes, he noticed that she had raised her skirt high enough so that he could see between her thighs. He paid no apparent attention and pulled away.

It took them fifteen minutes to get out of Aix. The streets were jammed in a late rush-hour of people who had being doing last-minute Christmas shopping. He managed to win her trust by inventing a few problems for himself and an imaginary therapy. Hélène told him of her hallucinations, dwelling on an image that had recurred
constantly in her nightmares since her last visit to the psychiatrist: being raped by three scouts. And the nights she spent smoking joints and masturbating. He listened to her without a word, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

They left Aix. Hélène talked about herself non-stop, into a vacuum. He was not listening any more.

When they had passed the village of Puyricard, he slowed and turned down a forest track. He drove on for a good hundred meters, then stopped the car.

“Get out,” he ordered firmly.

Hélène smiled limply, her chest rose, her thighs drew apart.

“Get out,” he ordered even more forcefully. “And wait for me there, in front of the car. I won't be long.”

She obeyed at once, got out of the car and took a few steps in the white light of the headlamps. He opened the boot of the Mercedes without listening to the romantic chat the woman was serving him up. He put on his latex gloves and picked up a strange object shaped like a tomahawk: a rudimentary ax, with a wooden handle measuring about fifty centimeters and, at the tip, a huge piece of biface flint, perfectly sharpened and held in place with dried gut.

Slowly, he approached Hélène, his eyes on fire. She heard him recite out loud, in a calm voice:

“I am the hunter

Give me your blood

May the spirits of the dead guide you through the night

May your flesh fortify the first man …”

Hélène gasped.

“But, what do you …?”

She stepped back, falling over a tree trunk on the ground, her legs spread.

He grabbed her arm, yanking her upward while repeating through gritted teeth:

“May your flesh fortify the first man.”

The flint ax lodged itself deep in the skull of his prey. He hit her again coolly, like a butcher. Small shards of bone and scraps of gray brain flew into the air. Then there was silence.

He examined the prostrate body: Hélène, her face crushed, looked like a crazed puppet. Her muscles were still twitching. He dipped his finger in the blood which was foaming out of her mouth and tasted it.

“May your flesh fortify the first man.”

He pulled up her skirt and tore off her stockings. The nylon soughed, and an acrid smell rose up. He stood back to get a good look at the slaughtered flesh still quivering at his feet.

It was at that moment that he started to howl like a beast, and bit into the still-warm flesh of her thigh.

Once. Twice.

Then he went back to the car to fetch a long, narrow piece of flint, as sharp as a kitchen knife, kneeled down between Hélène's thighs and began to slice her up. When he reached the femur, he struck it with the ax with one swift movement, as precise as a horse butcher.

Five minutes later, he was holding Hélène's left leg at arm's length, swinging it to and fro in a broad arc to empty it of what was left of its blood. He then paused for breath before wrapping the mass of wobbly flesh in several bin-liners and putting it in the boot of the Mercedes.

He returned to the body, placed the sheet of paper with its negative hand under Hélène's right arm, then disappeared into the night.

He was in no hurry.

At around noon on January 4, de Palma and Jean-Louis Maistre walked into Le Zanzi, the squad's local bar on rue de l'Evêché. Dédé the landlord yelled thunderously as he served up the rounds of pastis and J&B:

“Watch out, here come the real men!”

Dédé was the only person who found this funny. De Palma and Maistre let him get on with it. Two Ricards arrived almost at once, along with the landlord's big, fat, sweaty hand, which they had to shake.

Dédé had been running Le Zanzi for the past four years. He served on average fifty meals a day and hundreds of drinks, and could get the parking tickets of his friends and family written off in return.

“O.K., boys?”

“As ever.”

“You're looking off-color, Baron. Like you're miles away.”

“No, I'm fine … I just had a bad night's sleep. And I don't like pastis.”

“So why do you drink it?”

“To be like everyone else …”

Dédé had not yet cleaned the Christmas decorations off the window of Le Zanzi, even though the illustrations were no better than last year's. With “genuine snow” spray, he had tried to sketch out a tree, then squirted out a Santa and added stars here and there, like jewels. Large, back to front, joined-up writing read:

“Saturday December 20, Grand Lottery at Le Zanzi, big prizes, Xmas hampers, a DVD player to be won …”