The lieutenant was sitting in front of a radar screen in the bridge, turning knobs this way and that. He didn’t bother to look up when they came in, so they continued on down to the mess.
“This is one of the areas we use as a laboratory and meeting room when we’re out on a mission. We keep all our equipment here: microscopes, measuring instruments, and so on … everything we need.”
“Do you often go out on missions?”
“For me it’s quite rare, because I’m a prehistorian. You don’t find something like Le Guen’s Cave every day! But the boat’s used a lot for Greco-Roman archaeology.”
They could hear Laffitte calling from the bridge.
“Sylvie, it’s time to go.”
“O.K., Sylvain … it’s a shame you didn’t get here earlier. You could have seen the whole boat. Maybe some other time!”
“If you want.”
Laffitte’s voice grew more insistent.
“Sylvie, I’m locking up!”
It was busy on the quay: there were pensioners soaking up the last rays of the sun, and executives walking home briskly having taken the ferry across the water. A group of tourists were photographing one another in front of La Bonne Mère, and kids on bikes were chasing each other, weaving between the passers-by.
They strolled toward the town hall in silence. As they passed the Fishermen’s Association, de Palma lingered in front of a stripped-down Marseille fishing boat on blocks. A man was busy sanding the hull.
“I’d like one just like that, if they weren’t so expensive!”
“They’re lovely boats,” Sylvie said.
“They’re the loveliest.”
They walked on for another twenty meters, with Sylvie glancing at him timidly, like a teenager. He just managed to avoid a kid on rollerskates who was wiggling his hips and swerving between the walkers. When they got to the old riggers by the town hall, de Palma went over to a forty-ton schooner.
“This one’s my favorite, Le Caprice des Vents.”
“What a nice name for a boat.”
De Palma touched the hull of Le Marseillois, a three-master, then stepped back as though estimating its tonnage. The rigging and yards stood out against the hill of Notre-Dame de la Garde.
He gazed at Sylvie, and she looked back at him tenderly. After a long silence, he said:
“You know, I’ve just found out that Christine had a brother.”
“How odd.”
“Why is that odd?”
“She never mentioned him. I always supposed that she was an only child. She was so temperamental and bossy, it seemed obvious.”
The day was coming to an end. Headlights and restaurant signs shimmered blue and red on the gentle lapping of the heavy waters of Lacydon. A dark and humid night was settling in across Marseille.
Sylvie lived at 35, esplanade de la Tourette, on the eleventh and top floors. As de Palma came through the door, she hastened to raise the shutter in the living room. The balcony overlooked the entire port of Marseille. In the foreground was the ferry terminal, then the seawall and, beyond that, the Frioul archipelago.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“Whatever you’re having, Sylvie. I’m easy.”
“Whisky, then. I don’t have any pastis.”
“A whisky would be fine.”
While she was in the kitchen, de Palma took the opportunity to go out on to the balcony.
In the distance to his right, the cranes and scaffolding down in the port glittered in the night, like motionless, steel sentinels bent over the cargo boats. From Arenc to L’Estaque via the Bassins National, Pinède and Président Wilson, the huge port was sending out its fireworks.
Sylvie came and stood so close to him that they were almost touching, and gave him his whisky.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said.
“It’s magnificent. It’s the Marseille I love. My father worked down there, and his father and grandfather before him. They were all sailors. Except me—I became a lousy policeman instead.”
“But that’s also a wonderful profession!”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Sylvie …”
A horn sounded and the El Djézaïr sailed into Grande Joliette dock, heading for Sainte-Marie strait and the open sea, with a pilot ship in its wake. The cargo ship with its Algerian flag slowly cruised past the ruins of huge hangars on the Joliette quayside. These temples of Marseille’s fortune, were marked with a capital J followed by a number. J1, J2 and J3 were no more, now reduced to dust, bulldozed into the depths of the dry docks.
There had been plans for a new harbor, with marinas and the renovation of the Le Panier neighborhood, in the hope that this would rid the “boulevard of crime” of its tawdry inhabitants, thus finishing the work begun by the Germans when they razed the city center in 1943. Bombed and wrecked, could eternal Marseille now rise again, like the demi-gods of Greece who bit the dust but never wanted to die? The Greece of the Republic, the demos, poets and brilliant thinkers; Phocaea and her daughter Marseille, the swarthy-skinned rebel who talked with her hands and enveloped herself in nonsense when she got the blues.
Sylvie touched his shoulder.
“A penny for your thoughts.”
“Nothing special. Do you like opera?”
“I’ve never been.”
“I’ll take you, one day.”
Sylvie stroked the rim of her glass with her index finger.
“I’ll put on some music. It’s a kind of jazz-rock. I don’t know what you like.”
De Palma immediately recognized the ’70s sound of a Telecaster guitar.
“Is that Mike Stern’s latest album?”
“Yes, it is. Do you know his stuff?”
“He used to be in Blood, Sweat and Tears, and he played with Miles Davis once or twice … a really good guitarist, though his style’s a bit conventional.”
“I thought opera lovers only listened to opera!”
“Only fools and sectarians. Music is a whole universe. I’ve got all of the Stones’ albums, real rarities which I bought in London in the good old days … But don’t talk to me about The Beatles or Georges Brassens!”
“A bit sectarian all the same …”
A surging saxophone-and-guitar duet immersed Sylvie’s flat in a soothing atmosphere. They listened to it for a while, without looking at each other. When the second track started, she went over to the hi-fi and turned down the volume.
“I wanted to see you because there’s something I forgot to tell you last time.”
“What’s that?” he asked darkly, worried that she was about to break the charm of the evening.
“I was the one who first told her about Le Guen’s Cave. I knew about the discovery before it was announced in the papers. In fact, I know Le Guen well. We spoke about it a few months before. I was the one who told him that he would have to reveal his discovery. And then …”
The charm had been broken. The Telecaster sounded as though it was light years away.
“Who are you talking about?”
“About Christine … And then there were those divers found dead in the tunnel. Do you remember?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Because something struck me at the time. One day, after their deaths, she was with me at the lab and she said: ‘You see, the first man has got his revenge.’”
“Anything else?”
“No, nothing.”
“It’s rather a silly thing to say.”
“I’m not so sure. Anyway, it struck me. And for several days I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. Why did she say it?”
“I’ve no idea. But people say strange things sometimes.”
“Of course, but what struck me was the expression on her face. I can still see it, there was something lugubrious in the way she said it.”
He thought over what Sylvie had just told him. Without knowing why, he felt certain that it was important.
“I’d like you to tell me about shamans. I’v
e been told that Le Guen’s Cave was used for shamanistic rituals, is that true?”
“Nothing is a hundred percent sure in prehistory, but it is a serious hypothesis … We’ve long tried to understand why Paleolithic man always went into the darkest depths of his caves to paint his frescoes. A great deal of nonsense has been written on the subject, which we’ll ignore … But then ethnology came to our rescue. In Australia, the Aborigines produce wall paintings too, and then draw the same hands as those you saw in the lab and elsewhere … The same goes for South America, in places where initiation rituals are held. You see?”
Sylvie drew away from de Palma and paused for a moment.
“The significant point about our caves is what is depicted, and what is not.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that there are animals, but never any representations of man’s environment. No huts, or landscapes, or the sun and moon … Drawings of men are extremely rare too, which makes us think that there is magic at work in Paleolithic art. Personally I think these hands are signs for entering into contact with the spirits that lie behind the walls. Hence those ideas about shamanistic rituals. They went into the caves and invoked spirits, to treat a sick child for example, or to make the hunt as favorable as possible …”
She sipped at her whisky.
“It’s a little like all religions. God is put to use to soothe the great and small ills of daily life. Shamans are mediators between the real world and the supernatural world. There are many of them still in Siberia, in Africa of course, and in America … And they all have one thing in common: they seek out trance states, hallucinations and visions. Trances allow them to see mythical beings, animals and specters which are invoked to favor the hunt, or to make it rain. We think that it was the shamans who painted the pictures in the caves. And that they also used chants and healing rituals. I saw these kinds of practices among the Bochimans in the Kalahari.”
“Have you heard of the Slain Man?”
“I see that you know more than you’re letting on!” she said, adopting an elegant pose. “Slain men are quite common. But the most interesting examples are in Pech-Merle, Cougnac and Le Guen’s Cave, of course. They seem to be intentionally poor drawings, just line sketches and nothing else. In Pech-Merle and Cougnac, they apparently show lines of vital energy flowing through individuals. In Le Guen’s Cave, on the other hand, there can be no doubt that the Slain Man is a murder victim. Was it a ritual killing? An early form of crucifixion? Or else a bewitchment, like sticking pins in dolls or figurines? Nobody knows. In any case, Le Guen’s Slain Man is unique.”
Another connection formed in the Baron’s mind.
“So you think that these prehistoric shamans might have performed ritual murders?”
Sylvie shook her long, brown hair.
“Yes, I think so. But it’s just one hypothesis among others. In any case, murder is there as a possibility. Those people who think that murder only started during the Neolithic period, along with the concept of property, have got it wrong.”
“Did Christine share your opinions?”
“Completely. We didn’t like each other, but we were in the same school. The Palestro school,” she added, laughing.
“Did she ever talk to you about the Slain Man?”
“The one in Le Guen’s Cave? Of course she did. She thought it was a human sacrifice.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think she was wrong to be so categorical—after all it’s only a drawing. It might be a sacrifice, yes, but perhaps merely a symbolic one in a carving. As you’re beginning to realize, we can’t be sure about anything.”
He went into the living room and took off his jacket. She noticed the gun he was wearing on his hip.
“Do you always have that on you?”
“Almost always. Except when I sleep. Though sometimes I do keep it under my pillow.”
“What a strange existence.”
“What an awful one, you mean! I live with violence and anxiety. They’re my two best friends. We could have had a lovely evening together, but here we are talking about Christine Autran. Death, always death.”
“I’m sorry I spoke to you about her.”
“No, it’s my fault.”
“But I broached the subject. I’ve been clumsy … I wanted to see you in fact.”
“I’ve learned some interesting things.”
Sylvie stood up and poured more whisky into their glasses. She was wearing a simple blouse and a skirt with tiny flowers, as light as a silk veil. His body trembled and he felt disconnected from reality. He breathed deeply. His ideal was there before him. She was beautiful; like those images from his childhood that he had torn up so long ago.
He felt lonely, exhausted by life. He had not touched a woman’s body for ages now. It had been months since Marie had left.
He made love to her slowly. Until the lava trapped in his guts erupted from all the extremities of his being.
In the middle of the night, she stroked the livid, badly stitched scar that crossed his shoulder.
“What is this, a zip fastener?”
“A souvenir from ‘Le Blond.’ A .357 Magnum. It’s an old story. An old story which, in a few days’ time, might be coming out of prison, where my friend Jean-Louis and I sent him.”
“What had he done?”
“Violation of drug laws, to put it technically. Plus the murder of a magistrate.”
“And the one on your thigh?”
“Are you giving me a full examination?”
“No, I already have.”
“I can’t tell you about that one.”
28.
“Today or tomorrow, Sylvie will talk. She knows things.”
He kept repeating this to himself, and it was making him nervous. Everything had been going as planned, or almost. The goddess had not been wrong. The goddess was never wrong.
Yet he was disturbed by what he had seen the night before. It was a policeman, he was sure of it. He had followed them all evening, all the way to her building. When he examined the Clio, he could tell straight away that it was a police car.
He cursed the heavens. Why had this little creep crossed his path? It didn’t really worry him, but this unexpected factor had upset his carefully laid plans.
He had a method, which he kept to. He could not bear it being faulted.
He thought about the risks, but he could not see any. Objectively, there were none. But his instinct told him that he should be wary of this policeman; he seemed to be made of different stuff from the others. He was never wrong about things like that.
In any case, his plans had been carried out according to his characteristic method. And without the slightest slip-up. This policeman would never be able to identify him. He hammered out this truth so as to imprint it on his mind.
Yet the last time, with Julia, he had taken extraordinary risks. Just a few meters from home! But his instincts had again been proved right. He was right to be bold. He had become the best, fed by the strength of his victims. Like the great hunters of prehistory.
François Caillol would try to defend himself. But how? The hunter had no idea. He knew that the doctor would be unable to find an explanation; none of his alibis would stand up to such a huge amount of evidence. No way.
But there was the policeman. He had to be eliminated. He had to be prevented from hanging around Sylvie Maurel and talking to her. His blood began to beat like mad in his temples. His throat swelled. He felt drops of sweat running down his spinal cord.
The goddess had said: “Today or tomorrow, Sylvie will talk. She knows things.” The idea of this devastated him. He sat down on a bench and laid out his thoughts like a pack of cards, trying to devise a strategy with what he had. Sylvie was the only bad card in the hand, like an imperceptible wind that conveys the hunter’s scent and alerts his prey. She had to be eliminated. She had to fall.
He banished the thought for a moment.
But the method would h
ave to come first. And he knew it. Time was short. The goddess had said: “Sylvie has met this policeman. She’ll tell him sooner or later. There is no other answer. Eliminate Sylvie or disappear.”
It was impossible right now.
He took a deep breath. His instincts had gone silent. He felt life biting him, gashing his flesh. Lacerated body tissue. A wound slowly bleeding the meaning of existence.
His mother’s face appeared, cruel and tense with that mocking grin which had so often terrified him. Drops of cold sweat now dotted his forehead. He wiped them away with a sleeve and felt weak. Images suddenly came from nowhere and smacked him in the face: his father’s body stretched out, people crying, a hospital bed, his mother kicking him, his sister’s sweet belly. He could no longer hear children yelling in the distance. The sun had gobbled them up.
The warrior has been hit by an arrow in his belly. He can hardly breathe, his vision is hazy. Beside him lies his lifeless uncle, pierced by a dozen bolts.
The shaman approaches as though in slow motion. He is wearing a rattan breastplate and protective netting hangs from his neck. His nose is pierced with a wooden stick. He pushes aside the other warriors and, moaning softly, bends over the wounded man. Slowly he paces round the body, blowing on each part of it, then he stands and invokes the spirits. For a long time the shaman fights death. He makes small incisions to let the “black blood” flow out and invokes the spirits once more. But the spirits do not come; the warrior’s stare has frozen.
He rubbed his arms hard and looked at the ground. In the gutter, a thin rivulet of water was slowly pushing on a ball of dried chewing gum. It got stuck in a tiny hole and formed a damn. The rivulet swerved round the obstacle and continued on its way. Sylvie’s name hammered in his head, bouncing like a rubber ball against each bone of his skull. Then it infiltrated the painful pathways of his brain.
The shaman takes out a fetish of multi-colored feathers stuck in a cane rod and shakes it over the warrior’s motionless body.
Arrows and lances are brandished with a cry of fury. A band has captured an enemy. The chief approaches him, his ax gleaming in his hand. He strikes once, then twice.
The First Fingerprint Page 28
