“The cave is fairly large, about thirty yards deep. It’s in there, all the way in back, that some Italian mountain climbers found the ice men.”
Lucie narrowed her eyes. Had she heard right?
“Ice men? How many?”
“Four. Remarkably well mummified and preserved by the subzero temperatures. From what I’ve been told, it was as if they’d been in a freezer for thirty thousand years.”
“That all?”
“That’s a drop in the bucket on the evolutionary scale.”
“Still . . .”
He took a slug from his water bottle.
“With the dry air, all the water had evaporated from their bodies, their eyes were gone, but the muscles had barely receded, just become black and desiccated. The near absence of oxygen prevented decaying. They still had their hair, remains of furs, some hand tools nearby. It was as if they’d dried out . . . like raisins.”
They moved forward, bending down to enter a low passageway.
“If I recall my history right, these would have been Cro-Magnons?”
“It’s more complicated than that. I’m not an expert and I wasn’t there when they were discovered, but the paleoanthropologists who came here almost certainly identified one Cro-Magnon male and a family of Neanderthals: a man, woman, and child. Unfortunately I can’t tell you much more than that. The scientists acted fast, doing their best to preserve the area so as not to damage the mummies. All I know is that the mummies, the remains of clothing, and the tools gathered here were carefully wrapped up and airlifted out under strict hygiene and temperature conditions. Then they were brought for analysis to the paleontology lab at the college in Lyon.”
“Lyon isn’t exactly next door. Why not Chambéry or Grenoble?”
“I think Lyon’s the only facility in France that handles this kind of situation and has equipment advanced enough for this type of study. The scientists took photos of the site at the time, which you can see if you go there.”
His words echoed strangely against the cave walls. Lucie felt as if she were intruding upon a narrow crypt, violating some ancestral secret, one buried in layers of ice in the heart of the mountains.
“I didn’t remember, or actually, I hadn’t known that Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals had coexisted.”
“They did for several thousand years. The Neanderthals died out while Homo sapiens continued to evolve. We’re not sure exactly what the reasons were for the Neanderthals’ extinction, though there are theories. Mainly having to do with his inability to adapt to the cold. But Eva Louts had her own belief. She was convinced the Neanderthals had been exterminated by the Cro-Magnons.”
“Exterminated? You mean like genocide?”
“Exactly.”
Genocide . . . The word came surging forward again, in the middle of a new investigation. The expression of human folly, which Lucie was encountering once more, a year later. She banished the memories that tried to flood in and made an effort to concentrate.
“A prehistoric genocide . . . Is that plausible?”
“It’s a theory among others, upheld by certain paleontologists. For Louts, Cro-Magnon was taller and more aggressive. And the more aggressive ones naturally reproduce better, because they eliminate the competition as fast as they can.”
They passed by small heaps of black ash, which seemed about to scatter at the slightest breath of wind. The vestiges of a fire as old as eternity. Lucie imagined the reddened, almost simian faces, the bodies with their wild beast stink, covered in animal pelts, gathered around the flames and uttering guttural grunts. She could see the fat beads of sweat covering their gnarled bodies, their grotesque shadows stretching across the cave walls. In a moment of anxiety, she turned around: the translucent wall from the glacier had vanished, along with all traces of light. A veritable leap into prehistory. Her imagination was on overdrive. And what if some sudden landslide trapped them here, her and Marc? What if she were never to see her daughter again? What if . . . ?
She rushed forward, close behind her companion, who had already gone ahead. She had to talk.
“Excuse me, Marc, but I assume those ice men are no longer here?”
“No, of course not.”
“In that case, what are we doing here? Why did Eva come all this way to see a place she knew was empty?”
Marc turned around and looked her in the eye. Small white clouds drifted from his mouth.
“Precisely because this cave isn’t exactly empty.”
Lucie felt a chill invade her throat and occupy every one of her arteries. Her head began to spin. The effort, the altitude, the enclosure . . . She would give herself just ten more minutes in here, because images of burial were beginning to stifle her. Marc noticed her discomfort.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, fine . . . Let’s keep moving.”
Finally they reached the back of the cave. A large, circular area, like a dome. The guide aimed his flashlight toward a side wall.
Lucie’s eyes widened.
Hands painted in negative appeared. Dozens of thick, frightening hands, transferred in red and ochre pigments. Marc went up to one of them and placed his own hand over the print.
“This is the first thing Eva Louts did when she got here.”
“Right hands . . . tons of right hands . . .”
“Indeed. Prehistoric men spread out their right hand and blew out pigments from a tube that they held in their dominant hand. The ones here were therefore left-handed.”
Lucie stared at the depictions, her nose buried in her jacket, arms folded to keep warm. She imagined these Stone Age, primitive men, already moved by a desire to transmit their knowledge, their tribal culture, by leaving a trace of their passage. A collective memory, dating from tens of thousands of years ago.
“Louts just took a few photos. But this discovery was only the appetizer, so to speak. What really interested her is what’s behind you, on that other wall.”
Lucie turned around.
Her flashlight beam revealed something unimaginable.
The rock fresco depicted a troupe of aurochs. Twelve galloping animals, in red, yellow, and black hues, apparently fleeing some hypothetical hunter. The line quality was clear, precise, very different from the archaism often associated with prehistoric man.
The aurochs had all been painted upside down.
Just like in Grégory Carnot’s prison cell.
Dumbstruck, Lucie moved forward and slid her fingers over the smooth surface. Those primitive beings, located at the other end of the human scale, suddenly seemed much closer to her. As if they were whispering in her ear.
“When did you say this cave was first discovered?”
“During ski season. January of this year. Those paintings are curious, aren’t they? How could a Cro-Magnon or some Neanderthal—I’m not sure which—have had such lucidity of mind? And especially, why paint them upside down? What was the point of that?”
Lucie thought with all her might. The cave had been discovered in January 2010 . . . Grégory Carnot had been jailed in September 2009. And according to the psychiatrist, he’d already been making upside-down drawings. There was no way he could have known about this fresco.
She had to face the facts. Two individuals, more than thirty thousand years apart, had been afflicted with the same symptoms. And both, at first glance, appeared to be left-handed.
A strange case, never before seen in neurology, the hospital psychiatrist had said. Lucie had discovered two in less than two days. Two cases separated by thousands and thousands of years.
Full of questions, Lucie went back toward Marc.
“Did Eva Louts tell you anything further?”
“No. She took pictures of the drawings, then we went back down. She paid me and went on her way. I never saw her again.”
Lucie thought for a f
ew moments, feeling doubtful, trying to put herself in Louts’s shoes. Would she have gone directly back to Paris after just this visit and a few photos? Wouldn’t she have been curious enough to go instead to the paleogenetics lab to see these prehistoric creatures? Especially since Lyon was on the way back?
As far as she could tell, the student had engaged in a sinister face-off with the four beings from another age, who had crossed through eternity and buried their secrets in the shadows of a cave that was never meant to see the light of day.
16
The Paris Botanical Gardens, at the edge of the fifth arrondissement, afford a magical spectacle on September mornings. Reddish light, the kind that spells the end of summer, falls obliquely on the foliage of thick, venerable cedars and drips onto the leaves. Joggers disappear down paths still damp with the previous evening’s rain, while gardeners begin trimming shrubs in preparation for the harsher seasons. Everything is conducive to calm and relaxation. At that time of year, school groups haven’t yet taken over the park and its museums.
Sharko and Levallois entered the foyer of the Hall of Evolution, a massive building straight out of another era. Above them, the huge glass roof filtered an orangey light, which spread across the three levels organized around a central nave. Without even penetrating into the center of the museum, one could discern strange skeletons, stuffed giraffe heads, hundreds of display cases harboring animal species. Here in particular, life was laying itself bare.
Clémentine Jaspar was waiting at the reception desk, a thick folder in her hands. In her brown pleated trousers and a khaki shirt with large pockets, the primatologist could easily have been mistaken for a guide or some hiker lost in the middle of the capital.
The cops greeted her. Sharko gave her a sincere smile.
“How’s Shery?”
“She’s still having trouble expressing herself. It will take her a while to fully recover, at her age. And there aren’t any shrinks for chimpanzees.”
She quickly changed the subject.
“And how’s your investigation coming?”
“Not bad for the moment. We’re gathering up as much information as we can before drawing any conclusions.”
The inspector nodded toward the folder.
“I’m especially counting on what you can tell me about this thesis.”
Jacques Levallois, who had remained a few steps back, gave his colleague a light tap on the shoulder.
“I’m going to go find the director or someone who can clue me in about the fossil. See you in a bit.”
Jaspar watched him walk away, then headed toward the turnstiles.
“Let’s go into a gallery, if that’s okay. I can’t think of a better place to explain all this to you.”
As Sharko reached for his wallet to buy a ticket, she handed him one.
“I’ve got a few privileges here. It’s a bit like my second home.”
The inspector thanked her. He had lived in the area for more than thirty years and yet he’d never set foot in the museum, or in most Paris museums, for that matter. His habits ran more toward prisons, courtrooms, psychiatric wards. A macabre round of institutions that had punctuated his life.
They went through the turnstile and entered the nave. They wandered among life-size reproductions of sharks, elephant seals, giant rays. Most impressive was the hanging, outsized whale skeleton, which clearly exhibited the mysteries of nature. By what magic secret had those giant ribs been formed, until each was almost as big and heavy as a man?
Jaspar climbed a flight of steps to the first level, devoted to land species. In the middle, scores of jungle animals seemed to be fleeing an imaginary fire. Buffalo, lions, hyenas, antelopes, all frozen in flight. The primatologist skirted several cases, then stopped in front of the one containing Lepidoptera. Hundreds of flying insects, pinned to cork, numbered and precisely identified: phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. She sat on a bench, inviting Sharko to join her, then opened the fat green folder.
“Here’s the copy of Eva’s thesis back. You’ll find my notes in the margins.”
She spoke with gravity, her features drawn and tired.
Sharko focused his attention on his interlocutor.
“Tell me what Louts discovered.”
Jaspar thought for a moment. She seemed to be seeking the best way to broach a complex subject.
“She found a relation between hand dominance and violence.”
Violence.
The word burst like a firecracker in the inspector’s head. Immediately, the image of Grégory Carnot appeared to him. He also thought about Ciudad Juárez, a city of fire and blood, where terror showed itself at its crudest. Violence, everywhere, in every form, that clung to him like a tick.
The primatologist brought him back to earth.
“So that you can fully grasp the essence of her work, I first have to tell you some of the more notable principles of evolution. Listen very carefully.”
“I’ll do my best.”
With a circular movement of her arm, Clémentine Jaspar indicated the species that inhabited the magnificent gallery. Fish, beetles, crustaceans, mammals.
“If these species populate our planet today, if this little dragonfly exists, even though it appears so fragile, it’s because it is much more adapted to survive than a dinosaur. Look at these animals, the shape of their shells and tails, their color. These are clear examples of adaptation to the environment, which all have but one function: attack, defense, camouflage . . .”
She pointed toward one particular display case.
“Those two specimens in front of you are birch moths. Look carefully. Do you notice anything?”
Sharko got up and leaned closer to the glass, intrigued.
“Two identical moths, one with white wings and the other with black wings.”
“Well, now, you see, in the nineteenth century, in England, the pale form was ultra-dominant. During the day, the pale moths could hide on the trunks of birch trees, which ensured their survival. That’s why they were more plentiful: predators didn’t see them. You might object that, on the other hand, black moths wouldn’t be seen at night, but neither were the white ones, since it was too dark.”
“Okay, logical enough. So it was better to be a light moth than a dark one.”
“Correct. If nothing had changed, the dark moths would eventually have become extinct, because they were less adapted to their environment, more vulnerable, genetically less efficient, and thus eliminated by natural selection.”
“My famous lame ducks . . .”
“Absolutely. But today, we’ve noticed that the light-colored variety is becoming increasingly rare, while the dark variety is flourishing. In a hundred years, the ratio has completely inverted.”
She came up and stood next to Sharko. Her eyes shone in the reflection of the glass.
“What effect of natural selection could have changed the distribution to that extent?”
“You tell me.”
“The man-made kind, Inspector. With the advent of the Industrial Age, England experienced a serious problem of air pollution. This pollution caused the color of birch trees to turn from pale gray to dark gray. And so it became increasingly difficult for the pale variety of the butterfly to survive, because its camouflage was no longer effective. You have here a typical example of natural selection influenced by human agency: the better-adapted species, the dark-colored variety, began to increase in number, while the light-colored variety was being eaten by predators. All because of humans.”
“So man and industrialization are able to influence nature’s choices—or even to change them.”
Jaspar pointed toward a graph that charted population growth over time. In the space of several centuries, it went from thousands of individuals to several billion. A veritable human virus seemed to be spreading over the planet. Sharko felt a
chill in his spine.
“The second point to keep in mind is, every human being alive today is a pure product of evolution. You are incredibly well adapted to your environment, as am I.”
“I really didn’t think I was all that well adapted.”
“But you are, I guarantee it. If you’re alive today, it’s because none of your ancestors died before reproducing, and this has been so since the dawn of time. More than twenty thousand generations, Inspector, who sowed their seed all the way down to you.”
Sharko pondered the profusion of shapes, sizes, and colors. Bound by the intrinsic power of Mother Nature, one couldn’t help feeling humble. Little by little, the cop grasped the stakes that biologists grappled with, and could get an inkling of their obsessions: to understand the how and why of life, just as he tried to get inside the minds of his killers.
Comfortably in her element, Jaspar spoke with increasing ardor:
“Your forebears went through wars, famines, natural catastrophes, plagues, the great scourges but still brought babies into the world, who grew up and themselves propagated those extraordinary genes, all the way to you. Do you realize what a hidden combat our ancestors waged, just so you and I could be talking about this today? And it’s the same story for each of the seven billion men and women who populate our planet. Incredibly well-adapted individuals . . .”
Her words echoed particularly loudly in that spot. The cop felt perturbed, touched. He thought of his little daughter, of Eloise, who had been struck by a car and killed. Her blood, her genes, the thousands of years of effort by his ancestors, just to hit a dead end in his lineage. He would die leaving no one behind, without furthering his own flow of life. Was he a failure, ill adapted, the result of exhaustion, which nature, chance, or coincidence had deemed fit only for the trash dump?
Listlessly, he tried to latch on to the primatologist’s words, to his investigation. Only the taste of blood and the smell of the manhunt could still calm him and make him forget everything else.
“Where are you going with this?”
“To Louts’s thesis. If left-handers exist, there is a reason, like the light or dark moths have reasons to exist.”
Bred to Kill Page 12
