The Death Mask Murders

by Gabriel Farago

  ‘Before we begin, you should know that it was the Landru case that made me give up my work in crime investigation, withdraw from the world, and come here to Mount Athos. As it turns out, to die.’

  ‘What was it about that case that made you do this?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘Two things. All of my findings and suggestions were stubbornly ignored by the authorities. They just didn’t want to hear what I had to say, except for Francesca and Dupree.’ Brother Acrivos looked dreamily out to sea. ‘They understood,’ he whispered.

  ‘You said there were two things,’ prompted Jack.

  ‘Yes, that’s correct. In all my years of dealing with criminal matters – some of them quite extreme, involving acts of violence and horror too difficult to envisage – I have never come across anything quite like it.’

  Tristan could feel the back of his neck begin to tingle and his stomach contract. It was a familiar sensation he had experienced before, but only in situations of extreme danger.

  ‘What exactly?’ asked Tristan hoarsely.

  Brother Acrivos turned to face Tristan. Their eyes met, and what Tristan saw reflected in those sad, hooded eyes shocked him. It was wide-eyed fear so intense that he had to look away.

  ‘True evil,’ whispered Brother Acrivos and closed his eyes.

  ‘Could you please elaborate?’ said Jack.

  ‘I will, but I have to warn you. Once you hear what I have to tell you, there may be no turning back. I have tried, but it still consumes me. Even now.’

  Brother Acrivos looked first at Jack, and then at Tristan. ‘Are you sure you are ready for this?’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘We are,’ said Tristan.

  ‘Then I will tell you. Just give me a moment to compose myself.’

  7

  Montmartre, Paris: five years earlier

  Acrivos Papadoulis was a light sleeper. He woke with a start and reached for his mobile on the bedside table. Instantly awake, he answered the call. ‘Dupree! Do you know what time it is?’ he said, looking at his watch. It was two in the morning.

  ‘Yes, I do. We got him!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You better get here before the body is removed. I want you to see everything just as we found it.’

  ‘I’m on my way. What about Francesca?’

  ‘I called her as well. She will be here shortly.’

  Papadoulis paid the taxi and got out. The narrow Montmartre laneway was blocked off, and the lights flashing on top of the police cars in front of a dilapidated house looked ominous and eerie in the rain and the dense fog drifting up from the Seine.

  Dupree saw Papadoulis speaking to a police officer, waved and walked over to him. ‘Come, Francesca is already inside. We haven’t much time. The Forensics guys have already gone to work and the cavalry isn’t far away.’

  Deep in thought, Bartolli stood by herself in a corner of the small, dimly lit room on the ground floor. She was processing the crime scene and taking in the finer details that might have escaped a less attentive observer. The shabby furniture and aimless clutter spoke of modest means and a disorganised lifestyle. The Forensics team was testing spotlights that had been set up earlier to illuminate the crime scene.

  ‘I came as soon as I could,’ said Papadoulis. ‘What happened here?’

  ‘Before I tell you what we have found out so far, what do you see?’ asked Dupree.

  ‘Or better still, what do you feel?’ said Bartolli, nodding to Papadoulis.

  ‘I see a well-built, naked man lying on the floor, face up. I cannot see his face because it is covered with what looks like some kind of gooey substance—’

  ‘It’s a negative casting material,’ Dupree cut in, ‘used for preparing death masks. Technically, it’s referred to as dental impression cream. It’s a powdery material you add water to, and then pour over the face. It takes about three minutes to set. It was applied shortly after death. It serves as a mould for the mask, which can then be prepared later, using plaster. When the patrol officers arrived and broke down the door, they found a man kneeling next to the corpse, apparently applying the material to the victim’s face. His hands were covered in the stuff.’

  ‘How bizarre. Caught in the act of making a facial cast of a victim who has just been brutally killed. It takes a special type of person to do this,’ said Papadoulis. ‘There seems to have been some kind of struggle. Look, an overturned table, broken glass, papers on the floor, syringes. Drugs?’

  ‘Yes. Heroin.’

  ‘And the limbs of the deceased are – how will I put this? – contorted. Unnaturally so. They look “arranged”, wouldn’t you say?’ continued Papadoulis.

  Bartolli nodded in agreement. She had come to a similar conclusion.

  ‘And over there, next to the head, is what looks like a long wire with a piece of wood attached on each end; a garrotte?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, it certainly looks like one. Crude, but effective,’ said Dupree.

  ‘Lying in a pool of blood.’

  ‘You told us what you see,’ said Bartolli, turning to Papadoulis. ‘Now please tell us what you feel.’

  Papadoulis looked at Bartolli standing next to him just as the bright floodlights came on, making the room look like some kind of film set for a cheap horror movie. What Bartolli saw reflected in Papadoulis’s eyes shocked her.

  ‘I have felt this only once or twice before, but never quite this strongly,’ whispered Papadoulis.

  ‘What exactly?’ asked Bartolli.

  ‘Tell you later.’

  ‘What are these two doing here?’ said Lapointe as he stormed into the room – breathless, his face flushed – followed by the prosecutor in charge. He pointed impatiently to Papadoulis and Bartolli. ‘Get them out of here at once!’

  Dupree shrugged and turned to Papadoulis. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I hope you saw enough.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Enough for what?’ asked Bartolli.

  ‘To uncover what really happened here, not what we’ll no doubt read in the papers tomorrow morning,’ said Papadoulis and turned to leave.

  Dupree hurried over to a doorway to get out of the driving rain, and lit a cigarette. ‘Lapointe isn’t thinking straight,’ he said. ‘He’s been under enormous pressure lately. He believes he has caught his man at last. A lot is riding on this, as you can see.’

  ‘Understandable,’ said Bartolli, wiping her face with a handkerchief and shaking her wet hair. ‘The question is, has he?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Dupree.

  ‘Got his man.’

  ‘You are not convinced?’

  ‘Before I answer that, tell us what you’ve found out so far.’

  ‘Well, the local police received a call from a concerned neighbour hearing screams coming from the house here. A patrol car was dispatched to investigate. When the officers got here, a couple of excited neighbours were standing outside at the front door. To cut a long story short, the police broke down the door, went inside and found a confused man with his hands covered in blood and goo, kneeling next to the victim. We believe he was high on drugs. He’s been taken to hospital, under guard, for testing. The rest you know.’

  ‘I appreciate there hasn’t been much time, but do we know anything about the victim?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, we do. He’s a male prostitute. Apparently, well known around here. It’s that kind of neighbourhood.’

  ‘And do we know anything about the man you arrested? Do we know who he is?’

  ‘We do. He had his wallet on him with his driver licence, credit cards, the lot.’

  ‘Very convenient. Who is he?’ said Papadoulis.

  ‘His name is Maurice Landru. He’s a professor; lectures at the Sorbonne.’

  ‘What in; do we know?’ asked Bartolli, surprised.

  ‘Not yet. But I can tell you he has no criminal record. Seems to be a pillar of society.’

  ‘A crumbling one,’ commented Papadoulis.

  ‘Hm.
Acrivos, what was it you could feel inside just before we were evicted?’ said Bartolli. ‘I saw your troubled face. You really scared me.’

  Papadoulis took his time before replying and kept watching the rain. Then, taking a deep breath, he turned to face Bartolli. ‘What I could feel, was a presence. The presence of evil, true evil—’

  ‘Hardly surprising, bearing in mind what we’ve just seen,’ interjected Dupree.

  ‘You don’t understand. I have seen many crime scenes before, some of them much more violent and shocking than this one. What I felt had nothing to do with the crime scene as such.’

  ‘What then?’ asked Bartolli.

  ‘A lingering presence. A presence of pure evil filling the room with malevolent energy so strong that it made my head spin, and my heart miss a beat.’

  ‘Could that have been left behind by the man who was arrested, do you think?’

  ‘That’s the really weird thing here. I don’t think so. This evil force was still there, hovering.’

  Dupree shook his head. ‘I don’t know what to make of this.’

  ‘I do,’ said Bartolli.

  ‘You do? Tell me.’

  ‘I think what Acrivos is telling us is this: there is another party involved here, apart from the victim and the alleged killer; isn’t that right, Acrivos?’

  Papadoulis nodded.

  ‘How can he possibly know this?’ said Dupree. ‘Everything here points to—’

  ‘That’s exactly the problem here, can’t you see?’ said Bartolli. ‘The circumstances don’t fit the facts!’

  ‘What are you telling me?’ demanded Dupree. ‘What facts?’

  ‘What we’ve just seen. In there. I don’t think the man who was kneeling next to the victim is the real killer here.’

  ‘That’s absurd!’ Dupree scoffed and threw the cigarette stub into the gutter. ‘How can you say that, after all you’ve just seen? Where’s your evidence?’

  ‘The profile we’ve built up by carefully examining the other cases does not work here. It doesn’t fit. It looks as if it does, but once you—’

  ‘Francesca’s right,’ interrupted Papadoulis, looking agitated.

  ‘I’ll prepare a report if you like, and set out my arguments and my reasons,’ said Bartolli. ‘Would you like me to do this?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘What about you, Acrivos?’ asked Bartolli.

  ‘I will do the same, although I suspect it will fall on deaf ears,’ said Papadoulis quietly, shaking his head. ‘The police seem convinced they have their man.’

  ‘It’s late. There’s nothing more we can do here tonight. Go home and think about it,’ said Dupree.

  ‘We will, don’t worry,’ said Bartolli and put her hand on Dupree’s shoulder. ‘And you should at least try to keep an open mind.’

  ‘I can’t pretend that I like what you’ve just told me, but I will certainly do that, I promise. I’ll ask one of the guys to drive you home.’

  A man standing in the shadows on the opposite side of the lane watched the police car drive past with Bartolli and Papadoulis in the back. Then he turned up his collar, pulled the brim of his hat down to cover his face, and slowly walked to the end of the lane, where he turned left. Satisfied that his instructions had been followed to the letter, he melted into the rain like a ghost.

  8

  Fleury-Mérogis Prison, Paris: 3 October; first visit

  Jack approached the meeting with Landru with trepidation. What Papadoulis had told him at Mount Athos about the case was not only unsettling, but went much further. Jack couldn’t quite define the feeling, but a shiver of fear coated with some kind of irresistible curiosity came close. Jack could still hear Papadoulis’s words ringing in his ears: Once you hear what I have to tell you, there may be no turning back.

  Bartolli had called Jack the day before, but before giving him her answer, she first wanted to know how the meeting with Papadoulis had gone. Only after Jack had provided a detailed account did she tell him that she had decided to accept his invitation to become involved in the case. She also told him that she would like to meet Landru, if possible. A personal meeting, she argued, would give her a much better opportunity to evaluate the matter. Just like Jack, Bartolli was being irresistibly drawn into the mystery by a seductive magnet reaching out from the past, impossible to ignore. Also like Jack, she could sense that a big story was out there waiting to be discovered.

  Dupree and Jack met Bartolli at the airport and drove straight to the Fleury-Mérogis Prison in the southern suburbs of Paris.

  ‘The meeting is at three,’ said Dupree. ‘It’s all arranged. One prison guard will be present. Rules. I won’t come in, of course. Strictly no police, remember? He insisted.’

  ‘How do you think he will react if I suddenly show up with Jack?’ asked Bartolli.

  ‘Not sure,’ replied Dupree.

  ‘I will make it clear to Landru that I will only listen to what he has to say if Francesca can be present,’ said Jack. He looked at Bartolli sitting next to him in the car and smiled. ‘I think I know how to persuade him to agree,’ he said.

  ‘If you say so,’ said Dupree, unconvinced.

  All prisons are intimidating. That’s part of their function. The huge Fleury-Mérogis Prison with its four thousand inmates was no exception. As soon as Jack and Bartolli walked through the security gates, they stepped into a different, alien world, where freedom was a distant memory, relentless routine was king, and unquestioning submission to mindless rules that crushed the spirit and extinguished the last spark of independence, the only way to survive.

  Although they were obviously expected and the purpose of their visit was known to the authorities, Jack and Bartolli were viewed with suspicion, bordering on resentment. They were seen as outsiders intruding into a place where they didn’t belong, and were greeted accordingly: with curt and frosty politeness, disclosing only the barest of information and directives as to how the meeting would be conducted and how long it would last.

  ‘I don’t think we are welcome here,’ whispered Jack as they followed the guard down a stark, dimly lit corridor smelling of cleaning fluid. ‘What do you think?’

  Bartolli shrugged. ‘All prisons are the same: inward-looking and somewhat threatened by outsiders. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘I can’t help feeling uneasy about this.’

  ‘Understandable. It’s not every day you get to meet a convicted killer serving a life sentence, who wants to tell you something important about his crimes. For your ears only,’ added Bartolli, sounding conspiratorial.

  ‘That’s what worries me; why?’

  ‘You are afraid of what he might tell you? Of what you might find?’

  ‘A bit. This reminds me of a prison visit in Fremantle in Western Australia a long time ago. I was trying to find out what happened to my father. That was back in 2002.’

  ‘Your father? And did you?’

  ‘It’s a long story. He died in a prison fire during a riot.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Bartolli, shaking her head. ‘You are a dark horse, Jack.’

  ‘There’s a lot more to all this. It’s complicated. I’ll tell you about it one day.’

  ‘Were you alone when you visited the prison that day?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what reminded me of it. The same feeling.’

  ‘Well, at least this time you won’t be. Alone, I mean. We’ll do this together.’

  Feeling better, Jack shot Bartolli a grateful look as they stopped in front of a steel door, and the guard picked up a phone mounted on the wall.

  ‘Thanks again for, you know …’ he said.

  ‘I’m just as curious as you are.’

  ‘But do we know what we are letting ourselves in for?’

  ‘We will soon; look,’ said Bartolli.

  As the guard put the phone back into its cradle, the heavy door opened silently from the inside. ‘Après vous,’ said the guard, ‘the prisoner is waiting,’ and stepped aside.
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br />   Apart from a shiny steel table that had been relentlessly scrubbed clean for years and a few chairs, the stark room was bare. The table was divided in the middle by a thick glass partition with small holes, separating the prisoner from visitors. A bored prison guard stood by the locked door, staring vacantly into space, the harsh neon light giving the windowless space an unwelcoming appearance where not even one’s thoughts appeared to be private.

  The handcuffed man sitting at the table in no way resembled the notorious killer Jack had been expecting to meet. Clean-shaven, hair cut short, and sitting ramrod straight on a battered chair that was clearly uncomfortable, he looked more like a military man waiting for interrogation than an academic who had once held a prestigious position at the Sorbonne. Even his drab prison uniform looked tidy and hinted at a fastidious man who cared about his appearance, even in a notorious place like the Fleury-Mérogis Prison. In stark contrast to his intimidating surroundings, his demeanour radiated self-confidence and purpose.

  ‘I thought I made it clear I wanted to meet with you alone, Mr Rogan,’ said Landru, sounding strong and confident as Jack approached the table. Landru lifted his handcuffed hands and pointed to Bartolli standing next to Jack. ‘Who’s that?’

  Jack took his time before replying. ‘This is Professor Bartolli, a criminologist. At the time of your arrest, she was the only one who believed that you weren’t the killer,’ he said quietly. ‘Her report is the main reason I agreed to this meeting. She stays, or I go. Your choice.’

  For a while, Landru stared at Bartolli through his thick, rimless glasses as the tension in the room grew by the second. Jack realised the meeting was hanging in the balance, as the contest of wills that could tip the scales any which way was gaining momentum.

  Looking relaxed and at ease, Bartolli confidently held Landru’s gaze without showing any signs of intimidation.

  ‘Very well,’ said Landru at last. ‘Please take a seat. We haven’t much time. There are strict rules here, as you are about to find out. It would be best if you could just listen to what I have to say first. Questions may have to wait for another time. You’ll see why in a moment. Any problems with this?’