“Put this on, it should fit you. We’re going into a white, windowed rectangle more than a thousand square feet, in which the air is filtered five times over, the temperature is kept a constant seventy-two degrees, and the rooms are washed down with bleach several times a day.”
Lucie did as instructed. To make an impression and add to her role as cop, she took her pistol from her jacket.
“Can I keep this? Any metal detectors or things like that?”
Fécamp swallowed, staring at the compact weapon.
“No, go right ahead. Is it loaded?”
“What do you think?”
Lucie stuffed the small semiautomatic in the back pocket of her jeans, along with her cell phone.
“The policeman’s ideal arsenal.” Fécamp sighed. “Pistol and telephone. I hate mobile phones. We’re getting too far ahead of nature and changing our behavior because of those miserable contraptions, and one of these days we’re going to pay the piper.”
The type who likes to spout off life lessons, Lucie thought to herself. Without answering, she pulled on the coveralls and paper overshoes, the latex gloves, and the surgical mask and scrub cap.
“So what exactly is paleogenetics?”
Fécamp seemed to be putting on his protective gear very slowly, with precise, inch-perfect movements that he must have repeated day after day.
“We analyze the genomes of past biodiversity, in other words the cartography of genes from ancient DNA that we get from fossils, which sometimes are several hundred million years old. Thanks to the organic parts of bones and teeth, which resist the effects of time, we can travel back centuries and understand the origins of various species, their filiations. I’ll give you a concrete example. Because of paleogenetics, we now know that more than three thousand years ago, Tutankhamen died from malaria combined with a bone disease. His DNA revealed that he was not in fact the son of Nefertiti, but rather of his father Akhenaton’s sister. Tutankhamen was purely and simply the fruit of incest.”
“The tabloids would’ve eaten that up. And with all this technology, I guess you’re not too far away from bringing back the dinosaurs. You just scrape up the DNA from some fossils, a little cloning, and presto, is that right?”
“Oh, we’re still light-years away from anything like that. Fossil DNA is often extremely degraded and scarcely available. What can you do with a thousand-piece puzzle when you’re missing 990 of the pieces? Each new discovery puts us in front of a real obstacle course. Still, with the ice men, we really hit it lucky, since they were in such remarkably good shape, much better than the Egyptian mummies or Ötzi, the famous sapiens sapiens found near the Italian Dolomites in 1991. The fact that the cave was completely sealed off and largely deprived of oxygen slowed down the proliferation of bacteria and protected them from bad weather and climate changes. DNA is a stable molecule, but it doesn’t last forever. Its degradation begins the moment the individual dies. It breaks up, and some of the letters that compose the genetic information gradually get erased.”
“The famous G, A, T, C.”
“Exactly. The rungs of the ladder get broken. For instance, the sequence T G A A C A on a bit of DNA can become T G G A C A through alteration, and this entirely distorts the genetic code, and therefore its interpretation. The same as with words, which can change meaning entirely when one letter gets erased, like ‘slaughter’ and ‘laughter.’ In particularly unfavorable conditions, a mere ten thousand years is enough to ruin every last molecule of DNA. But in the present case, it was more than we’d ever hoped for.”
Once in their blue coveralls, they proceeded to the laboratory. The entrance door was like the airlock in a submarine.
“You’ll experience an unpleasant sensation in your ears. The air in the lab is highly pressurized to prevent contaminant DNA from entering. I can’t think of anything more horrible than to spend weeks studying DNA that turned out to be ours! Hence the reason for these sterile garments as well. You sure you want to go on?”
“Of course.”
After the scientist had placed his badge over the sensor, they went in. Lucie felt a pain in her ears, then heard a screeching sound, like the kind a train makes when it enters a tunnel. Four lab technicians, bent over powerful microscopes, were filling pipettes or adjusting DNA sequencers, far too absorbed in their work to notice the newcomers. On the benchtops, which were also protectively wrapped, lay various labeled objects: a tooth from a cave-dwelling bear, some Gallo-Roman amber with an insect carcass, ancient excrements from a Madagascan elephant bird. Passing by a freezer with glass doors, Lucie stopped short.
“A baby mammoth?”
“Good eye. That’s Lyuba. She was found in the Siberian permafrost by a reindeer breeder. She’s forty-two thousand years old.”
“She looks like she could have died yesterday.”
“She’s in an extraordinarily good state of preservation.”
Lucie stood agape before the animal that she had seen only in textbook drawings. This place was like an Ali Baba’s cave of Prehistory. They walked on. Arnaud Fécamp continued his explanations about DNA.
“Usually, we grind up the bones, teeth, or tissues into fine powder, which we then let incubate for several hours in a buffer that facilitates the degradation of undesirable elements, such as limestone or parasitic proteins. Then we’re left with the pure DNA. Since generally it’s broken into too many bits for our machines to analyze, we ‘photocopy’ the fragments in billions of copies, thanks to an amplification technique called PCR, so that we can manipulate them more easily.”
He opened the door.
Lucie felt a slap of icy air on her face.
A refrigeration chamber.
Once inside, she opened her eyes wide and paused for a moment, with a curious feeling in the pit of her stomach. Never would she have imagined such a spectacular case of mummification by cold. Completely nude and wrapped in clear plastic film, the three members of the Neanderthal family were lying next to one another, slightly curled up. The small one was between the male and the female. Behind his empty eye sockets, with his limp, emaciated jaws, he seemed to be screaming. The most impressive part was their prominent brow, their skulls pulled back as if into a hair bun, the face receding from the prominent nose. Their bone structure was massive, with short limbs and squat, stocky bodies. Their teeth showed evident signs of wear, and some of them were broken and black. Lucie went closer, shivering uncontrollably, and leaned toward them. She squinted. On the dead, desiccated bellies, she noticed wide, deep gashes, like furious mouths. Not even the child had been spared.
“Those look like lacerations,” she said questioningly from behind her mask.
The scientist nodded toward another table, to Lucie’s left.
“Yes. That’s the tool the Cro-Magnon used to murder them.”
Lucie felt her muscles stiffen and adrenaline whip her blood.
A triple murder.
This family had been massacred. It now seemed so clear. The wounds had been too numerous, too violent. The slashes howled on the dehydrated skin. Lucie was in the presence of one of humanity’s oldest crimes, an episode of violence from the most distant ages that had come down through the millennia intact.
Fécamp showed her the weapon, which she examined intently. It was about as long as a forearm and extremely sharp.
“It’s a harpoon made of deer antler, with barbs meant for catching and ripping the intestines. It’s incredibly resistant, able to pierce thick layers of hide or blubber. You can imagine its effectiveness. Truly formidable.”
Lucie looked at the finely honed weapon, which seemed to have been fashioned with only one purpose: violent killing. Was this what had led Eva Louts here, and to the criminals in prison? This expression of violence from the past? And yet, supposedly, she wasn’t working on serial killers, or criminals in general, or violence. Just a study of left-handedness, Sh
arko had assured her.
Disturbed by this ancestral barbarity, Lucie turned around.
“Where’s the Cro-Magnon?”
Arnaud Fécamp flinched, then let out a long sigh.
“He’s been stolen.”
“What?”
“He’s gone, along with all the results of his genome sequencing. There’s nothing left. Not one scrap of data. It’s a disaster—for the first time, we actually possessed an almost complete sequence of the genes of our ancestor from thirty thousand years ago, Homo sapiens sapiens. A sequence of A, T, G, C’s that we only had to read in order to take his genetic inventory.”
Lucie folded her arms, shivering with cold. The more she discovered, the deeper the mystery seemed to grow. Questions crowded to her lips.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“We try not to let the information get around. We were very fortunate that the media didn’t latch on to the story.”
“How did the thief even get in here?”
“With my badge, I’m afraid. Two guys in ski masks attacked me one night as I was leaving. They forced me to come back here and give them access to our findings on the sapiens. They took it all: the hard drives, the backups, the printouts, even the mummy. And when they were through, they pistol whipped me and left me for dead.”
“Isn’t the building under surveillance?”
“We have cameras and alarm systems. The cameras are always on, but some of the alarm systems are deactivated by the badges, so we can have free access to the laboratory when we work here at night. The two men are on the security tapes, but apart from their masks, there’s not much to see.”
“When did this happen?”
“About six months after the cave was discovered. The police came—it’s all in the report.”
“Any leads?”
“None. It remains unsolved.”
Lucie went back to the Neanderthals. Their empty sockets seemed to be staring at her. The child had such small hands. How old could he have been—seven? eight? He looked like a wax effigy, hideous, disfigured by the ravages of time. But like her daughter Clara, he had been murdered. Lucie thought of what the mountain guide had said about Eva Louts’s theory: the genocide of the Neanderthals by Cro-Magnon man.
“Why didn’t the thieves make off with these as well?”
“Perhaps because they aren’t modern man’s ancestors. They don’t have any direct relation to our species, and in that regard their genome is much less interesting. Actually, that’s just a supposition. I really have no idea why they didn’t.”
“Did Eva Louts know about the theft before she came here?”
“No. She was as surprised as you are.”
Lucie paced back and forth, rubbing her shoulders to warm up.
“Forgive me if I still haven’t understood all the subtleties, but . . . why would they steal Cro-Magnon’s genome?”
“It’s absolutely essential to understanding the secrets of life and the evolution of Homo sapiens sapiens, our species.”
He approached the mummies and gazed at them with an odd tenderness.
“Don’t you see? We had in our hands the DNA of our genetic forebears. Hundreds of millions of genetic sequences that contain the secrets of prehistoric life. DNA is the fossil map of evolution—like the black box in an airliner. What genes did Cro-Magnon have that we don’t? Which ones mutated during those thousands of years and which remained intact? What was their purpose? Did the mummy carry any known or unknown pathogens which would have given us a glimpse into the health levels of the time, for example, or let us discover ancient viruses, which would also have been fossilized in the DNA? By comparing our genome to Cro-Magnon’s, letter by letter, we would have had a much better understanding of evolution’s grand strategy over the past thirty thousand years.”
Lucie didn’t yet grasp all the fine points of these explanations, but she could appreciate that the scientific import was enormous. She preferred to get back to concrete matters.
“I’d like to try to put myself in Eva Louts’s shoes for a few moments. So she’s here, looking at the Neanderthal mummies. What was her reaction? What was she looking for, exactly?”
Fécamp put his fingers on the plastic, passing over the gaping wounds.
“She was just a student, you know, apparently fascinated by morbid things. It was the extreme violence of the scene that grabbed her, nothing more. The discovery was an excellent opportunity to drag a theory about the disappearance of the Neanderthals back into the spotlight.”
“Their extermination by Cro-Magnon, you mean. The theory Louts was trying to prove.”
Fécamp nodded, then glanced at his watch.
“Yes, but I don’t share her view. I think it’s too simplistic, and an isolated case shouldn’t lead to generalities. Let’s say she came here looking for some good material to shore up her work. Unfortunately I can’t tell you much more than that. She took a few notes, some photos of the wounds and the weapon, as a way of filling out her thesis and getting a good grade. Then she left. That’s all.”
“Did she allude to the upside-down drawings? Did she mention a certain Grégory Carnot? Prisoners? Anything about left-handers?”
Fécamp shook his head.
“As far as I can recall, none of that. Well, it’s very cold in here . . . Will you also need any photos for your investigation?”
Lucie looked sadly at the massacred family, then back at the scientist.
“No, that’ll be all.”
She moved away from the group while the researcher opened the door, then halted in the middle of the room, undecided. She couldn’t just let herself abandon the trail, leave without an answer.
“You’re a researcher into the ancient past. You spend your days reconstructing prehistoric facts. Can you tell me what happened in that cave thirty thousand years ago?”
With a sigh, the scientist walked toward her.
“I’m sorry, but I . . .”
Another voice rose at almost exactly the same moment—female, and harsh.
“I can. But first, may I see your credentials?”
18
A woman was standing in the doorway to the refrigerated room. Tall, planted firmly on her feet, wearing square-rimmed glasses. She had put on only a face mask and gloves and was staring at Arnaud Fécamp, whose hands were now joined over his stomach.
“When we get visitors here, I at least expect to be notified.”
Fécamp’s jaws tightened.
“I thought you were in a meeting until late this afternoon and . . .”
“It’s not your job to think, Arnaud.”
The researcher remained frozen for a few seconds, a small vein throbbing in the middle of his forehead. Treated like a dog, thought Lucie. He gave his boss one final look, lips pressed tight, then left the room. Facing the tall, brown-haired woman, Lucie tried to maintain her self-assurance.
“And you are?”
“Ludivine Tassin, the director of this laboratory. But I should be asking who you are.”
“Amélie Courtois, Paris Homicide.”
Tassin stood waiting, hands on hips. Everything about her radiated unpleasant authoritarianism. Lucie ostentatiously pulled her pistol from her pocket, then her cell phone. She displayed the contacts list on the phone’s screen, pressing the buttons with her gloved finger.
“My police ID is back at the hotel, but you can call the Homicide bureau at thirty-six Quai des Orfèvres if you wish. Ask to speak with Chief Inspector Franck Sharko.”
The moment of truth. Lucie felt her heart pounding in her chest. The imposing woman finally backed down.
“That won’t be necessary. Kindly put away your weapon. What exactly is it you’re looking for?”
Lucie explained the reasons for her visit, regaining her footing after the brief exchange.
“What I’d really like to know is what happened in that cave thirty thousand years ago, because I believe it has a bearing on my investigation today.”
“Very well. But let’s get out of this room before we freeze.”
Tassin led the way. Decisive gait: every inch the boss. Arnaud Fécamp was sitting in front of an enormous machine, shoulders slumped. Lucie watched him in silence and noticed, from the reflection in a glass case, that he’d begun staring after her once she’d passed by. The odd look on his face put her ex-cop’s senses on alert.
The two women passed through the airlock and headed to the scientist’s office.
“Your lab tech says he was hit pretty hard, the night of the theft.”
“They didn’t go easy on him, that’s a fact.”
“Is he the one who called the police?”
“From the laboratory. That episode caused us an irreparable loss. We’ll never have another opportunity to find such a well-preserved specimen of Cro-Magnon. When I heard the news, it was as if I’d lost an arm. You cannot imagine how it feels.”
In the office, the director took a packet of photos from a cabinet.
“I went to the glacier the same day the bodies were found. As the sponsoring agency of a national project, we were contacted within hours of the event.”
She looked at the photos she must have seen hundreds of times already, then slid them toward Lucie. Her eyes shone, like those of a pirate with a treasure chest.
“What a magnificent find! The Grail for any researcher who has devoted his life to the study of living things. A complete family of Neanderthals and a Cro-Magnon, in a remarkable state of preservation. It was so incredible that at first we all thought it was a hoax. But the dating process and our analyses left no room for doubt: they were authentic. Look . . .”
Lucie spread out the photos, taken in the very first hours after the discovery. A wide angle showed the three Neanderthals on one side, huddled on the ground, jaws open as if they were screaming. In another corner, the Cro-Magnon sat leaning against the rock, just below the upside-down fresco of the aurochs. Despite the desiccated state of the flesh, the morphological differences between the individuals were glaring. Cro-Magnon had a prominent forehead, as well as a long, straight nose, a flattened face, and a smaller brow: the same characteristics as modern man.
Bred to Kill Page 14
