Bred to Kill

by Franck Thilliez

“In 1986, Terney gets divorced and leaves for Reims. Right afterward, he enters into contact with Amanda Potier and becomes her gynecologist. In January ’87, he delivers Grégory Carnot, while the mother dies in childbirth. Highly vascularized placenta, which contradicts the diagnosis of preeclampsia. Terney collects samples of the baby’s blood. The blood has his DNA. Is the DNA hiding something? Phoenix?”

  “Hold on, just a second . . . There, okay.”

  “Nineteen-ninety, Terney returns to Paris. Neuilly clinic. I don’t know a lot about that.”

  “They’re looking into it at number thirty-six. Interviewing his colleagues and friends. Unfortunately we won’t have access to the info.”

  “We can do without it for now. Let’s move on.”

  Sharko nodded.

  “Okay, my turn now. Two thousand six, publication of The Key and the Lock, with the help of a young autistic—who by the way is never acknowledged in his book. Terney hides seven genetic fingerprints in it. Carnot, Lambert, and five others who, if they follow the pattern, must also have the same morphological and genetic characteristics.”

  He fell silent for a few seconds, then added:

  “Most likely seven left-handers, big, strong, and young. Lactose intolerant. Prey to bouts of sudden, extreme violence when they reach adulthood. Even if Terney didn’t deliver every one of them, he probably met them when they were small. In your view, how can seven individuals present such similar characteristics?”

  “Genetic manipulation? Seven mothers who unwittingly received special treatments during their pregnancy? Amanda Potier and Terney were close. He treated her as a patient. She was depressed and alone. He could have given her whatever he wanted. What’s to say he didn’t do the same with the other mothers? He or some other doctor? Maybe people he’d met through his lectures on preeclampsia. Why not other eugenicists? Those guys might have gotten together like a little sect.”

  Sharko nodded energetically.

  “Apart from the sect business, it holds up.”

  “Yes. When we look at the bottom line of our two investigations, it does hold up. Terney might not have delivered every one of those babies, but he was in contact with the mothers. He, or those two other fanatics working with him.”

  Sharko segued immediately.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes, something important. Beginning of 2010, theft of the Cro-Magnon and its genome in Lyon.”

  The inspector picked up the photo of the three paintings. He concentrated on the one showing the close-up of the prehistoric man lying on a table.

  “Right. What was really behind that theft? We haven’t quite figured that out yet.”

  “We haven’t had time. Maybe now’s the moment, since we’re on a roll.”

  She took out the photos she’d gotten from the genome center in Lyon and laid them on the table.

  “Here’s a crime scene from thirty thousand years ago. Cro-Magnon, left-handed, age pinpointed between twenty and thirty, slaughters three Neanderthals with a harpoon. Terney stole the Cro-Magnon, then photographed it and mounted the photo in a frame.”

  Sharko looked carefully at the photos, one by one.

  “I wonder where that mummy is now.”

  “Doesn’t this crime scene remind you of something?” asked Lucie.

  “It’s exactly what happened at the Lamberts’ the other day.”

  “Or what happened with Carnot and Clara a year ago.”

  Sharko paused a moment, thinking, then finally said:

  “The same inexplicable fury. An explosion of pure violence.”

  Lucie nodded.

  “And we can assume Terney didn’t deliver the Cro-Magnon.”

  They exchanged brief smiles. Lucie continued:

  “Let’s look at the seven profiles in the book. For reasons we don’t know yet, Terney, in the 1980s, studied a group of children with certain genetic traits in common, including lactose intolerance. Children who are predisposed to violence and begin murdering people when they reach adulthood. At the time, Terney is interested in their blood and DNA. He seems to be looking for something in particular.”

  Sharko popped a piece of salmon sushi into his mouth.

  “The mythical violence gene?”

  “We already talked about that—it doesn’t exist.”

  “We know that now. But couldn’t he have believed in it in the eighties? And regardless, aren’t we dealing with some kind of hidden impulse, an outburst of violence that seems to come out of nowhere? It makes you wonder.”

  Lucie stared at him for a few seconds before answering.

  “To tell you the truth, I have no idea. But . . . let me play this out. So, imagine that the discovery of the cave and that prehistoric massacre comes to Terney’s attention. He makes an immediate connection: what if what he was looking for in those seven children—or what he’d noticed, or what he’d artificially induced by giving the pregnant women some kind of medicine—had been naturally present in that Cro-Magnon man? So with the help of those guys at the racecourse, or maybe acting alone, he gets in touch with a biologist at the genome center in Lyon, waits until they decode the genome, then steals the data at just the right moment, without leaving a trace.”

  Lucie raised her finger, eyes alight.

  “Imagine how important this genome is for Terney. Now he’s got not only the genetic profile of the seven children, but also the entire, decoded DNA molecule of an ancestor going back more than thirty thousand years. An ancestor who butchered an entire family, and who falls into precisely the same category that Terney seems to be studying.”

  “Another of his ‘children,’ so to speak.”

  “Exactly. This is a major discovery for him, monstrous as it is. Perhaps the great discovery of his life.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  She looked at the photo of Cro-Magnon in its frame.

  “The gynecologist was an extremely cautious man, meticulous, and more than a little paranoid. He always protected his discoveries but left hidden clues, as if he couldn’t resist having his little joke on the world: the genetic codes in his book, the phoenix and placenta paintings, and those tapes he kept locked away in his study.”

  “And that he stashed under the floorboards in his house.”

  “Right. So don’t you think he would have preserved the information about the Cro-Magnon genome somewhere? Wouldn’t he have protected it like all the rest?”

  “That’s why his killer took all his computer equipment.”

  Lucie shook her head.

  “No, no. Terney wouldn’t have been satisfied with a simple computer backup. It was too obvious, and too easy to steal. All the virus protection in the world can’t keep that stuff safe, and hardware can fail—he was too smart for that. And too extravagant as well.”

  “You’re thinking of that third picture, is that it? The Cro-Magnon photo?”

  “Of course. But . . . how do we figure it out? I know there’s a logic to it somewhere.”

  After a moment’s reflection, Sharko bounded from his chair and snapped his fingers.

  “Good lord, that’s it! The key and the lock!”

  Lucie frowned.

  “What about the key and the lock?”

  “I think I’ve figured it out. Are you ready for a quick trip to Paris?”

  • • •

  Sharko had easily popped the seals on the door to Terney’s house. Lucie waited in the street, hidden from sight, watching to make sure no one should catch them unaware. Quickly, he crept upstairs, heading for the library. With his gloved hands, he unhooked the frame with the photo of Cro-Magnon, rolled the picture up, and squeezed it in his hand. Two minutes later, he was back outside.

  And heading for the fourteenth arrondissement.

  • • •

  Daniel Mullier was now wearin
g a tracksuit, but otherwise he had barely moved since the last time. The same box of pens, same lit computer, same Volume 342. Sharko had warned Lucie to prepare for a shock when she saw that strange room, where a man’s life came down to several miles of paper. At the threshold, she looked quietly around, while Vincent Audebert, the director, approached Daniel alone. Sharko remained silently in the background.

  Audebert entered the autistic’s visual field, said a few words to gain his attention, then slid the photo of Cro-Magnon and some blank sheets of paper in front of him. At that point, Daniel interrupted his incomprehensible task. With a slightly awkward movement, he picked up the photo and stared at it fixedly. Slowly, as if the whole thing were following an irrefutable logic, he took a blank sheet of paper without looking away, changed his pen for a red one, and spontaneously began jotting down series of letters.

  Audebert discreetly backed away, rubbing his chin with one hand.

  “I can’t get over it—it worked. The photo is a trigger. Stéphane Terney used Daniel like . . .”

  “A living memory,” Sharko completed. “An anonymous autistic, lost inside a rest home. The key to open the lock.”

  He and Lucie watched the young man work in silence. The red ballpoint flew over the paper. Daniel was hunched over, concentrated, writing at breakneck speed. After half an hour, the young autistic pushed the sheets and the photo to one side and seamlessly returned to his earlier task.

  The director of the home picked up the sheets and handed them to Sharko.

  “A DNA sequence,” he whispered, “written from that mummy’s photo. Does this mean you have the genetic code that belonged to an actual Cro-Magnon?”

  “Seems like it,” answered Sharko. “Does this sequence mean anything to you?”

  “How could it? It’s just a succession of letters, and this time it doesn’t even look like a genetic fingerprint. I’m not well versed enough to know what it means. You’ll have to ask a geneticist.”

  Lucie also looked carefully at the papers.

  “This might be the famous hidden DNA code. The key to this whole business.”

  The two ex-detectives thanked the director, who accompanied them to the exit.

  “Good-bye, Daniel,” murmured Lucie, who had stayed behind with the young autistic for a few seconds. But Daniel didn’t hear, encased in his bubble. Lucie finally left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

  Once they were in the parking lot, Sharko stared at the sequences with a worried face.

  “We’re getting too carried away, Lucie. We’ve got the data, but . . . what do we do with it? We can’t access the case files anymore.”

  “Why, because you’ve been suspended? So what? Listen . . . I know it’s serious, I didn’t mean it like that, but . . . it shouldn’t keep us from moving forward. We can keep going without them. We’ve got this DNA sequence, the tape from the Amazon, and we can get all of it to the right experts first thing tomorrow morning. A geneticist for the sequence and an anthropologist for the tape.”

  “And what if we did, Lucie . . . ?”

  “Don’t be defeatist, we’ve got work to do. Félix Lambert and his father are dead, but they had family. We should question his mother about her pregnancy, her time in prenatal care. We try to find out if she was given any medicines, something unusual while she was expecting. If we find a connection with Terney, that’ll already be a huge step. Maybe we can even track down those guys from the racecourse. We’ll keep moving forward the best we can.”

  Lucie looked at the three mysterious sheets of paper.

  “I need to know what Phoenix was about. I’ll go as far as I have to, with or without you.”

  “Would you go all the way into the jungle and risk your life? Just for some answers?”

  “Not just for some answers. So I can finish grieving for my daughter.”

  The inspector heaved a long sigh.

  “Let’s go home. You can polish off the sushi and recharge your batteries. You’re going to need it.”

  Lucie gratified him with a wide smile.

  “So we’re on? You’re coming with me?”

  “I wouldn’t be smiling if I were you, Lucie. There’s nothing funny about what we’re likely to do or find. People have been killed over this.”

  He looked at his watch.

  “Let’s head to the apartment and grab a bit of rest. At ten o’clock, we hit the road again.”

  “Ten o’clock? Where are we going?”

  “To get some answers at the forensic institute.”

  37

  The section of Paris that looked out onto Quai de la Rapée was dozing peacefully. Small yellowish lights floated in the cabins of the barges. Orange reflections danced on the water, disappeared, formed again elsewhere, in perpetual motion. Despite the apparent calm, a screech of iron and rubber regularly disturbed the tranquility of the place: the few riders of the elevated metro line were being carried toward their homes or heading out to meet Paris by night.

  Ten thirty p.m. Jacques Levallois, Nicolas Bellanger, and another officer had just come out of the forensic building. Hidden in the Peugeot several yards away, Sharko and Lucie could clearly make out the red tips of their cigarettes floating in the dark like fireflies.

  “They’re with a cop from Major Case,” murmured Sharko. “They were the ones investigating the murders in Fontainebleau and we pulled the rug out from under them. I’ll bet the shit hit the fan over that.”

  Under the caress of the streetlamps, the three men talked, yawned, paced back and forth, clearly agitated. After five minutes, they got into their respective cars and drove off. The two ex-cops scrunched down when the headlights swept over them. They gave each other a complicit look, like two misbehaving kids trying not to get caught.

  “Look what you make me do,” whispered the old cop. “With you, I feel like a teenager again.”

  Lucie was nervously fingering her cell phone. She had called Lille an hour before, but Juliette was already sleeping. Her mother had all but hung up on her, furious at her long absence.

  They waited a bit longer, then got out and walked into the night. Sharko had a shoulder bag in which he’d stashed the three sheets with Daniel’s markings. The institute stood before them, a kind of great whale that gobbled up every corpse within a ten-mile radius. The main door opened like a huge maw ready to swallow you whole, to suck you into a belly filled with stiffs of every variety: accidents, suicides, murders. Lucie suddenly stopped walking. Her fists jammed into her sides, and she froze at the building’s austere entrance. Sharko went back toward her.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve barely said a word since before. If it’s still too hard to go into a morgue, just say so.”

  Lucie took a deep breath. It was now or never: she had to chase the old images out of her head and work past her suffering. She resumed walking.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Stick close. And don’t say a word.”

  They went through the entrance and immediately the temperature dropped. The thick redbrick walls let nothing filter through, especially not hope. Sharko felt relieved when he recognized the same night watchman he’d often seen in the past: he wouldn’t have to use that stupid fake police ID Lucie had made for him.

  “Evening,” he said in a flat voice. “The double autopsy—what room’s it in?”

  The man gave Lucie a quick glance, then jerked his head without asking questions.

  “Number two.”

  “Thanks.”

  Side by side, the two ex-detectives entered the shadowy tunnels with their parsimonious lighting. The building was vast, the walk endless. Just then Lucie caught sight of a small square of yellow ahead, the lighted window in the security door, and without warning she was transported one year back. She was in the Carnot house, with the SWAT team. She saw Grégory Carnot flattened to the ground by the c
ops, while she ran up the stairs, breathless . . .

  Suddenly a voice broke through, close to her ear.

  “Hey! Hey, Lucie! Are you with us?”

  She realized she was leaning against the wall, her forehead in her hands.

  “I . . . I’m sorry. Something . . . weird just happened. I saw myself in Carnot’s house, running upstairs to find Juliette.”

  Sharko looked at her silently, encouraging her to continue.

  “The strange thing is that I have no memory of actually entering the house.”

  Her eyes grew troubled.

  “The men entered Carnot’s. I got there a bit later, with the second team. They told me to stay downstairs, they kept me from going in. Then one of the officers came back to the entrance, holding Juliette . . .”

  Lucie raised her hands to her head, eyes half closed.

  “It’s so strange. It’s . . . it’s like there are two different realities.”

  Sharko gently took hold of her wrist.

  “Come on, I’ll bring you back to the car.”

  She resisted.

  “No, I’m fine. Let me come with you. Please.”

  After a moment, Sharko let go of her wrist. Reluctantly he walked ahead of her, entering the room first.

  Paul Chénaix was standing between two empty dissection tables, rinsing the floor with a water jet. Another ME whom the inspector had seen before was sticking labels on tubes and specimen jars. Indifferent, he greeted them with a nod and a tired “Hey.” After at least three hours of autopsies, the two men must have been exhausted.

  Chénaix interrupted his rinsing and looked at his watch in surprise.

  “Franck? Your boss said you weren’t coming this evening.” He shot a glance at Lucie. “There are more romantic places to bring a date. Are you all right, Miss? You don’t look like you’re feeling too well.”

  Lucie walked forward unsteadily and held out her hand.

  “I’m feeling fine. I’m . . .”

  “A friend and colleague from Lille,” Sharko interrupted.

  “Colleague from Lille?”

  A thin smile above the man’s perfectly trimmed goatee.