The First Fingerprint

by Xavier-Marie Bonnot

  “How are things, Bérengère?”

  “Fine, Commandant … I mean, so to speak …”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve lost my brother, Commandant. I don’t know why, but he’s in my thoughts a lot at the moment. He wasn’t as bad as all that, you know.”

  “I know, Bérengère, I know …”

  The waiter arrived. De Palma ordered a beer, and Bérengère another mint mineral water. She turned to the policeman and looked at him for a long time. De Palma had the impression that she was trying to read his mind.

  After he had left Mourain, a detail had disturbed his initial certainties. He remembered that the Luccioni family had for some time lived in the Mazargues quartier, like Christine. It might just be a coincidence, but he wanted to check it out. Franck and Christine had been exactly the same age, so they might have known each other at school, or elsewhere.

  He took a photo of Christine Autran out of his pocket.

  “Have you ever seen this woman?”

  Bérengère frowned as she held the photo. She thought for a while, and something seemed to be rising up from the depths of her memory. Then she put a hand to her mouth, and her chest heaved.

  “My God, yes, I do know her! I saw her with my brother a lot. It’s Christine, she was a local girl when we lived in Mazargues. She went to school with him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Definitely, I’m certain. She’s changed, I didn’t recognize her at first … But it’s her alright. They were inseparable when they were young. They were the same age. My brother would be forty-three in …”

  Bérengère looked down, filled her lungs with sea air and rotated her glass in her hand. She seemed overcome by immense distress.

  The murders of Luccioni and Autrane had at last converged. He could no longer believe it was a coincidence. Why hadn’t Jo told him about the friendship between Christine and his son? Why hadn’t Bérengère told him anything before? Questions like these burned in his mind, but he decided to keep them for later.

  “I’ve got some photos of her at home,” Bérengère said. “Do you want me to bring them to you at the station, or do you want to come back with me?”

  “Let’s go to your place. It’ll save time.”

  They passed by the leprous buildings along the coast and soon entered the quiet streets of Pointe-Rouge and the new suburbs. Newly built houses, as regular as cubes, were set amongst pine trees and alongside a shopping center with a multiscreen cinema.

  Bérengère lived on the top two floors of a stone building in a small complex in Le Roy d’Espagne. The flat’s balcony overlooked the Pointe-Rouge quartier and, beyond it, the sea. Planier lighthouse could be seen in the hazy distance. A ferry cruised slowly toward a destination known only to itself, like a tiny, white shoebox on the mother-of-pearl foam. Opposite, lost on the horizon, the solitary lamp of a beacon watched over the comings and goings in the huge bay of Marseille.

  “Can I offer you anything?”

  “No thanks, Bérengère. Do you live on your own here?”

  “Yes, I’m all alone … if that’s what you mean. How about a drop of whisky?”

  “O.K., but no ice.”

  De Palma looked round the flat of Luccioni’s daughter. It was as spick and span as an ideal home exhibition: little knickknacks, a few holiday souvenirs on the Provençal sideboard, a basalt figurine of the Horus falcon, probably haggled over at a market in Egypt between visits to a temple and a royal tomb. There were three white-washed rooms, containing top-quality Provençal country furniture which must have cost a fortune. The wardrobe had acquired the patina of age and was of a simple beauty, carved with ears of corn and a seashell. Where had she found such a piece? Had she inherited it? Unlikely. Was it her pay as her father’s salesgirl? Also unlikely.

  “You have some lovely furniture.”

  “Oh yes, they’re my treasures. When I was a little girl, I dreamed of having a beautiful house in the country, with lovely old furniture. I don’t have the house, but I do have the furniture. That’s something anyway!”

  “Where did you find it all?”

  “Here and there. In antiques stores … My ex-boyfriend was a specialist.”

  “In antiques?”

  A smile flitted over Bérengère’s face. “No, a thief like my brother.”

  She went into the kitchen and came back with two glasses, then opened the sideboard, produced a bottle of Bushmills Pure Malt and poured out two treble measures.

  “Cheers, Michel.”

  She emphasized his forename, as though to let him know that she wanted to remember.

  “I’ll go and get the photos. They’re in my bedroom.”

  De Palma knocked back his whisky and went out on to the balcony. Waves as far as the eye could see; the horizon was trembling, moved by an invisible force.

  “Look, Michel, here’s a photo of my brother, and there she is just beside him, Do you recognize her?”

  In the picture, Christine must have been seventeen or eighteen. She already had a willful, goody-goody look which made her seem a little cold.

  “And then in this one they’re a bit older. They must be about twenty. Look, that’s her there.”

  “Did they go out together?”

  “I don’t know. My brother really loved her. But I’m not sure it was mutual.”

  New line: Autran—Luccioni. Childhood friends, found dead in the same place.

  “The last time you came to see me, at the station, you told me about a man on a motorbike. Try to remember. Was he wearing glasses? Did he have blue eyes?”

  “I’ve already told you. He was wearing glasses and his eyes were really blue. That’s all I could see because of his helmet.”

  “No, you didn’t tell me.”

  “Didn’t I? Strange, I can really remember the way he looked at me.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  A new character had now entered the scenario: a man with blue eyes. Intuitively, the Baron sensed that this was the murderer of Luccioni and Autran.

  “You know what happened to Christine?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s been in all the papers.”

  “I don’t read the papers.”

  “She was found dead, in the same place as Franck.”

  Bérengère held her face in her hands.

  “But why?” she said with a sob. “WHY?”

  “I don’t know, Bérengère. I don’t know …”

  A long silence descended. Sounds from the city drifted up from time to time, carried on gusts of wind. Bérengère was no longer crying. Her eyes were vacant, open on to a huge empty space.

  “Did your father know Christine?”

  “No, he never met her. He was never around. And then he went to prison. No, my father … he knows nothing about his children. Nor does my mother, for that matter … Christine never came to our house.”

  “What do you know about their relationship? Was he still seeing her last year?”

  “Maybe, but I can’t guarantee it. Franck was very secretive. Too secretive even. And I never asked any questions. It wouldn’t be right … I don’t think they saw each other very often, but that’s all I can tell you.”

  She looked at him with her big, green eyes; they told him a secret, a part of her inner self and invited him into a forbidden space in her past.

  “Michel, you know, over the years I’ve often thought about you … you can’t imagine how often. Even though it was you who arrested my father. No, really! I’ll always remember that day, the way you took his handcuffs off so that he could kiss me goodbye, like a father should. You weren’t like the others. Please don’t laugh. It really isn’t funny.”

  “But I’m not laughing, Bérengère. I’m really touched by what you’ve just told me … I … I don’t know what to say …”

  “Then don’t say anything.”

  She took his hand and squeezed it.<
br />
  De Palma thought about the visiting rooms, the slamming of heavy doors, the bright lights in concrete corridors, the urine-like yellow of the thick walls. The sounds, the metallic clangs. Tannoys. Keys. Clinical colors. Prison car parks, here in the brilliant sunlight, or up north, in a sad drizzle. Fortresses of fury, prefabricated citadels: Baumettes, Luynes, Fresnes, Santé, Clairvaux, Fleury-Mérogis, Douai …

  A strange pain ran through him, a sword in his guts pushed up to its hilt.

  *

  A sound: the harsh wood-paneling in the courts of justice. A murmur, too, classroom chatter, the babble of people re-judging what has just been judged.

  The magistrates, the vultures, the hacks weighing one another up … Luccioni leaves the box. Twelve years.

  Soft, white packets, an air pump, acid filling the air in a little mountain chalet … Hoods staring at one another in the back rooms of society.

  Transfer of inmates at the end of the night. No-one should be disturbed. The elite brigades, armed like Hollywood S.W.A.T.s. Balaclavas. POLICE written in capital letters. Children, their eyes puffy from sleep, yelling: “Dad, we’re here with mum, we love you.”

  A LONG SENTENCE

  He placed his hand on Bérengère’s shoulder and hugged her. Hard. Very hard. Twenty-five years on the force and he still did not know where the borderline lay.

  Planier lighthouse vanished into the light.

  De Palma went home at the end of the afternoon. On the way, he received a call from Vidal.

  “I’ve been trying to contact you since this morning.”

  “Sorry, kid, I turned off my mobile. What’s new?”

  “Nothing at all. I saw the priest in Saint-Julien. He’s got a cast-iron alibi, and I looked like a complete idiot.”

  “Calm down a bit!”

  “I am calm, but you could have phoned me this morning to let me know they’d got the psychiatrist.”

  “Sorry, Maxime.”

  Vidal then told him how the fingerprints taken from the plastic bag de Palma had handed to Palestro had spoken that afternoon: they were the same as the ones the technicians had lifted in Autran’s flat. But those found in Julia Chevallier’s house were completely unusable.

  “Have you got anything more on the knife and lamp?”

  “No, nothing. We decided that was about Luccioni, and so it could wait.”

  “Not any more. Luccioni and Autran knew each other.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, I went to see his sister, and she told me.”

  “But how did you make the connection?”

  “It would take too long to explain now … It was silly, in fact. I just remembered that Luccioni used to live in Mazargues when he was young.”

  “So, that means more work for us.”

  “Indeed it does! And tomorrow we’re going to have to start questioning staff at the archaeology lab. So take it easy, you’re going to be up to your neck.”

  “O.K., Michel.”

  “See you tomorrow, kid.”

  Three messages were waiting for him on his mobile.

  The first was from Maistre:

  “Hi there, old fellow. I’ll be in your chic neighborhood to get my car fixed. I’ll call by to see you around 7:00 p.m. End of message.”

  The second was from his mother, who was worried about his silence. He realized that he had not contacted her for days. The third was from Sylvie Maurel, whose voice trembled slightly. She sounded out of breath.

  “Michel, I didn’t go to work today. I don’t know why, but I didn’t feel up to it. This morning, when I went out, I didn’t feel good. So I went back to bed. I’m in town now. If you’re free this evening, I’d like to see you. I’ve got something to tell you. It’s 5:00 p.m. I’ll call you back in an hour.”

  De Palma looked at his watch. It was 5:30. He thought for a moment. He had trouble admitting to himself that he really wanted to see Sylvie. It was a compulsion he could not chase away. He called Maistre and invented an appointment to put him off for the evening. Then he phoned Sylvie and arranged to meet her at 8:00 p.m. in a café on cours d’ Estienne d’Orves. That would give him enough time to go home first.

  As he entered his flat, he realized that everything about the décor reminded him of his wife: the colors, the odd, dusty knickknack. She had certainly not left his life yet.

  Did he really want her to?

  *

  Marie has come to his flat for the first time. She immediately notices his collection of books on criminology. Out of curiosity, she goes over to them, reading out the titles: The Criminal Personality, Clinical Criminology, A Criminology Handbook, Crime and Criminals …

  He simply says: “It’s a trade, Marie. Each to his own field of studies, and mine’s crime. I’m on the murder squad. And reading is as important as fieldwork. I know everything about murder.”

  She picks up a door stopper entitled: The Scene of the Crime: the First Elements in an Investigation. It is illustrated, and de Palma has left a sheaf of notes inside it. In the central section, Marie comes across a series of photographs.

  Horror.

  “What’s this? It’s awful, it looks like …”

  “A naked nine-year-old child who has been beaten to death, raped, and tied up with electric cable. The case has never been solved. Don’t look at it. The human mind couldn’t dream up anything more horrific.”

  “Have you ever seen anything like that?”

  “All the time. It’s my job.”

  Marie closes the book and stares at de Palma, distressed.

  “Do all policemen read books?”

  “No, far from it. Let’s just say that I’m a specialist. I try to understand killers.”

  “And do you?”

  “I think so.”

  Marie puts down the book and gazes around the room. On the sideboard, she notices a chrome frame with a black-and-white photograph which has turned sepia over the years.

  “You were a very handsome young man!”

  “It’s not me. It’s my brother,” he replies in a somber voice.

  “He looks so much like you!”

  “We’re twins.”

  “Really, I didn’t know you had a twin brother!”

  “He died, in an accident … I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize …”

  She casts her eyes around the room, trying to escape the horrific expression on his face.

  “I’ll be back,” Marie had said. It had been months now. For de Palma, they had flown by … He had not heard from her at all for the past fortnight. He did not want to know the reason why. He would phone her parents that weekend, to try to find out more.

  Sylvie was waiting for him on the terrace of Le Pythéas. When she saw him coming, she stood up and waved.

  “You look tired.”

  “This job is wearing me out.”

  “Do you want a drink?”

  “I’ll have a beer.”

  Sylvie peered at him. She was more beautiful than ever. He did his best to hide the fact that, just then, he was the least relaxed man in Marseille.

  His beer arrived, and he knocked back half of it in one.

  “I got some bad news this morning,” she announced all of a sudden.

  “Nothing serious, I hope?”

  “Nothing personal. But I read in La Provence that you’d arrested François Caillol.”

  “We didn’t arrest him. It was the gendarmes. And why is that bad news?”

  “I know him.”

  “Personally?”

  “No, not really. He’s a psychiatrist specialized in neuropsychology … And he’s interested in prehistory. I’ve seen him on several occasions at conferences. Apart from his consulting work, he studies hallucinatory phenomena. Christine knew him better than I do. They worked together on shamanism.”

  “So?” de Palma murmured, pretending not to be falling from another planet.

  “They were studying shamanistic practices in var
ious tribes in an attempt to understand certain prehistoric rituals. It’s a bit complicated, and to be honest I’m not sure that work of this kind is valid. Anyway, people like that are all half crazy!”

  “But not because he’s a psychiatrist! The enigma of violence is associated with the uncertainty of our human condition: the greater the uncertainty, the greater the violence. That’s what my old criminology teacher used to say, and then he’d add: ‘Crime is natural, what’s artificial is virtue. It’s taken thousands of years, plus a whole bunch of gods and prophets, for humanity to learn this truth.’”

  “How true. So do you think Caillol’s a murderer?”

  “Who knows? A psychiatrist is generally speaking sane. They have fewer doubts about the human condition than we do. But, in the end, you never know …”

  De Palma stared down at the foam on the amber surface of his beer. He would have preferred Sylvie to talk to him about something other than Christine Autran, even though she had just advanced his investigation significantly.

  “Michel …”

  “I’m the best, Sylvie. I always get my man. Sooner or later, I get them all. I’ve got the gift!”

  “And you’re modest with it!”

  “I, too, am a great hunter.”

  “You’re off the rails, Michel. He’s been arrested.”

  “I know I’m off the rails. If I wasn’t, then you wouldn’t be here right now. I can’t explain it all to you. This investigation is hard enough as it is. But I have this crazy idea that our psychiatrist isn’t the murderer. That’s what I think. If you’d seen everything I’ve seen in my life, you wouldn’t even trust yourself.”

  “But if they’ve arrested Caillol, they must have evidence!”

  “Oh, they always have evidence. So much so that they don’t need a confession! An intelligent man, a pervert, and a psychiatrist to boot, who kills then leaves behind a trail of clues that gets him arrested straight away. I mean, really …”

  De Palma stood up and called to the waiter.

  “If this psychiatrist has also studied prehistory, and therefore cave painting, he wouldn’t leave a reproduction behind so that he could be identified at once, especially given that the victim was one of his patients. See what I mean?”