Blood-Red Rivers aka The Crimson Rivers Read online

"And no one knows why she left Sarzac so suddenly?"

  "No, no one."

  "Or Guernon, two years before?"

  "No. I suppose we would have to ask there, I…" The woman hesitated, then dared ask her question. "Now listen, lieutenant…You could at least tell me what the connection is between this investigation and the robbery in my school, I…"

  "Later. Are you going home now?"

  "Urn…yes, of course…"

  "Take everything that concerns Fabienne Pascaud with you, and wait for my call."

  "I…All right. When do you think you can call?"

  "I don't know. Soon. I'll explain everything then."

  Karim hung up and took another long look at the cars in the car park. There were some Audis, BMWs, Mercedes, shiny, fast – and chock-full of alarms. He looked at his watch. It was just after half-past eight. And time to confront the old lion. The lieutenant dialled Henri Crozier's personal number. A voice immediately roared:

  "For fuck's sake, WHERE ARE you?"

  "I'm pursuing my enquiries?”

  "I hope you're on your way back to the station."

  "No. I have to pay one last call. In the mountains."

  "The mountains?"

  "Yes, to a small university town near Grenoble. Called Guernon:" There was a moment's silence, then Crozier said:

  "You'd better have a good reason for…"

  "An excellent one, superintendent. The lead I've got points that way. I reckon that's where I'll find the desecrators?”

  Crozier did not respond. Karim's nerve seemed to have left him speechless. Taking advantage of the silence, the lieutenant pressed on: "Do you have any news about the vehicle?"

  The superintendent hesitated. Karim raised his voice:

  "Do you have any news, yes or no?"

  "We've found the vehicle and its owner."

  "How?"

  "A witness on the D143 road. A farmer who was going home on his tractor. He saw a white Lada go by, at around two o'clock. All he could remember was the code of the départements. So we checked it out. A Lada has just been registered over there. And, during its test, it still had its original East European tires. You can be about eighty per cent certain that she's our car."

  Karim thought it over. This piece of information seemed too convenient, and hence suspect.

  "Why did the witness come forward?"

  Crozier chuckled.

  "Because Sarzac's in a frenzy. The regional squad's arrived, with its usual absolute damn discretion. They're playing it as if it was a full-scale profanation, like at Carpentras." Crozier cursed. "The press has turned up too. It's a fucking mess."

  Karim clenched his teeth.

  "Give me the name and the town, quick!"

  "Don't talk to me like that, Karim, I'll…"

  "The name, superintendent. Don't you realise yet that this is my enquiry? That I'm the only person who knows the real reason for this mayhem?"

  Crozier paused for a moment, the time he needed to recover his calm. When he spoke again, his voice was impassive:

  "Karim, in all my years on the force, nobody has ever spoken to me like that. So, I want an update on `your' enquiry. And be snappy about it. If not, I'll put out an APB on your ass."

  The tone of his voice made it clear that this was no time to try and negotiate. Karim briefly told him what he had found out. He recounted the story of Fabienne and Judith Hérault, the two loners on the run. He described the crazy path they had taken, the changes of identity, the car accident that had killed the child. At the end, Crozier sounded perplexed:

  "Quite a story you've got there?”

  "Death is a story, superintendent?”

  "Yeah…if you say so. Anyway, I don't see the connection between your yarn and our business of last night…"

  "This is what I think, superintendent. Fabienne Hérault was not mad. Some people really were pursuing her. And I think the same ones came back to Sarzac last night."

  "What?"

  Karim took a deep breath.

  "I think they came back to check something. Something that they knew, but which a recent event had given them cause to doubt"

  "What are you on about? And who are these people supposed to be?"

  "No idea. But I reckon that the demons are back, superintendent."

  "That's bullshit."

  "Maybe it is, but just look at the facts: Jean-Jaurès School was definitely burgled and Jude Ithero's grave was definitely desecrated. So, superintendent, would you please give me the desecrator's name and where he lives? I'd like to know if it's in Guernon, because that's where I think the key to this nightmare lies…"

  "Got a pen? His name is: Philippe Sertys. 7, Rue Maurice-Blasch." Karim's voiced quavered:

  "And the town, superintendent? Is it Guernon?"

  Crozier let him sweat for a moment.

  "Yes, it's Guernon. Christ knows how you managed to work that one out, but you're certainly the one who's onto the hottest lead."

  PART VII

  CHAPTER 36

  The German photographer's pictures had taken on flesh.

  Athletes with shaven heads were running in the pre-war Berlin stadium. Nimble. Powerful. The race had fallen into the rhythm of an old flickering movie, with grainy images, colored like the covering of a tomb. He watched the men run. He heard their heels on the track. He sensed their hoarse breathing, beating in counterpoint to their strides.

  But soon other confusing details appeared. Their faces were too somber, too rigid. Their brows were too strong, too prominent. What lay behind their staring eyes? As a deep, hysterical cheering started up among the spectators, the athlete's eyes suddenly seemed to have been ripped out, their sockets were empty, but this did not stop them from seeing, or from running on. Instead, within those gaping wounds, things were apparently swarming around…tongues clicked…scales gleamed…

  Niémans woke up covered in icy sweat. He was immediately dazzled by the white light from the computer, as though it was playing at interrogating him. He quietly pulled himself together and looked round: nobody had noticed that he had nodded off and that terror had ripped into his dreams in the form of those photos he had noticed in Sophie Caillois's flat. The pictures taken by that Nazi film director, whose name he had now forgotten.

  Half past nine.

  He had slept for only forty-five minutes. After his visit to the warehouse, Niémans had immediately sent everything he had found (the exercise book, the wire meshes, the packets of white powder) to Patrick Astier, the scientist in Grenoble, by way of Marc Costes, who was still awaiting the arrival of the frozen corpse in the hospital.

  Then Niémans had come here, to the library, to start a word search using the terms "blood-red" and "rivers” His first thought had been to check the maps of the area to see if there was not a network of waterways that bore this name. After that, he had consulted the computer index in search of a book, a catalog or a document which contained this expression. But he had found nothing and, while reading, had suddenly dozed off. Almost forty hours without sleep and his nerves had abruptly dumped him, like a puppet with its strings cut.

  The superintendent glanced round the main reading-room again. Around the tables and carrels, ten policemen were continuing their research, picking their way through books which contained references to evil, purity or eyes…Two of them were drawing up a list of those students who had regularly consulted some of these, supposedly suspect, titles. Another one was still reading Rémy Caillois's thesis.

  But Niémans no longer believed in a literary connection. And neither did those police officers, who were waiting to be relieved. For the last two hours, everybody knew that, because of the lack of results of the Niémans/Barnes/Vermont team, the Grenoble regional crime squad was going to take over the investigation.

  It was true: their enquiries had not progressed one inch, despite all of the means put at their disposal. Three hundred soldiers had been requisitioned from the Romans military base to help Captain Vermont's units search t
he area around the Pointe du Muret, then the western slopes of the Belledonne. They had arrived by truck at about seven o'clock and had at once begun their nocturnal explorations. Apart from these soldiers, the captain had also called in two companies of CRS riot police, based in Valence. Over three hundred hectares had now been examined. For the moment, this close search had revealed nothing and, Niémans was convinced, would reveal nothing. If the killer had left any clues behind, then they would already have been discovered. And yet, the superintendent remained in radio contact with Vermont and had personally traced out, on an ordnance survey map, the crucial points of the investigation: the places where the first and second bodies had been found, the position of the university, Sertys's warehouse, the location of the various refuges, and so on.

  The roads were also being more and more closely watched. The number of road-blocks had risen from eight to twenty-four. They now covered a large circumference around Guernon. All the towns and villages, the autoroute exits and entrances, and the A- and B-roads were all sealed off. The paperwork was piling up, too. Under the responsibility of Captain Barnes, the general requests for information continued. Faxes poured into his office: statements, answers to questionnaires, commentaries…Other forms were then dispatched to the nearby ski resorts. Messages and circulars were sent off. The brigade's switchboard had been equipped with four extra fax machines.

  That afternoon, they had also begun to question everybody who had been in contact with the first victim over the previous few weeks. One team was still questioning the region's top mountain climbers, in particular those who had already gone up the Vallernes glacier. Wild men, who did not live in Guernon, but in the villages high up the slopes, on the rocky flanks that overlooked the university. The gendarmerie station was constantly crammed with people.

  A further team, made up of Vermont's men, was slowly piecing together the probable itinerary Rémy Caillois took during his last expedition, while others still were already beginning to work on the second victim's journey, as well as that of the murderer, up to the summit of the glacier. Their paths were entered into the computer, memorised and compared. In the midst of this tumult, of these rumors of war, Niémans obstinately clung to the personal angle. More than ever, he was convinced that if he could discover the motive, then he would find the murderer. And the motive was, perhaps, revenge. But he was going to have to be very careful about this hypothesis. Neither the authorities nor the general public approved of paradoxes when it came to murder. Officially, a murderer killed innocent people. But Niémans was now trying to show that the victims, too, had been guilty.

  But where could he look? Caillois and Sertys had both died with their secrets intact. Sophie Caillois was not going to say a word, and having her followed had not, for the moment, produced anything of interest. As for Sertys's mother, or his colleagues at work, they had been questioned and clearly knew only the public face of Philippe Sertys. His mother had not even been aware of the warehouse's existence, despite the fact of its having belonged to her husband, René Sertys.

  So?

  So, Niémans's mind was now locked on another mystery, which had begun to swamp all of the others. He switched on his phone and called Barnes:

  "Any news of Joisneau?"

  The young lieutenant, that enthusiastic officer who was dying to acquire the "master's" art, had still not reappeared.

  "Yeah," Barnes growled. "I sent one of my boys to the home for the blind, to find out where he went next."

  "And?"

  The captain's voice sounded tired and strained.

  "And, Joisneau left the home at about five o'clock. Apparently, he was on his way to Annecy, to see an oculist there. A professor at the University of Guernon, who looks after the patients in the home"

  "Have you called him?"

  "Of course. We've tried his business and personal lines. No answer."

  "Have you got his address?"

  Barnes dictated the name of one street: the doctor lived in a house which also contained his surgery.

  "I'll drop in and see," Niémans said.

  "Why? Sooner or later, Joisneau's bound to…"

  "I feel responsible."

  "Responsible?"

  "If the kid's done anything crazy, if he's taken any unnecessary risks, then I'm sure that it was to impress me. See what I mean?" The gendarme adopted a soothing tone.

  "Joisneau will turn up. He's young. He's probably set off on some wild goose chase."

  "Yes, probably. But he might also be in danger. Without knowing it.

  "In…danger?"

  Niémans did not reply. A few seconds of silence ensued. Barnes seemed not to grasp the meaning of the superintendent's words. Then he suddenly added:

  "Oh yes, I was forgetting. Joisneau also phoned the hospital. He wanted to take a look at the archives."

  "The archives?"

  "Those huge underground galleries beneath the university hospital. They contain the entire history of the region, in terms of its births, illnesses and deaths."

  The policeman felt his chest go tight: so, the kid was off following up a lead on his own. A lead which had started at the blind home, continued to that oculist and then to the hospital archives. He concluded:

  "But he hasn't been seen at the hospital?"

  Barnes replied that he had not. Niémans hung up. Then his phone immediately rang again. This was no time for pagers, secret codes and precautions. All the investigators were now working flat out. Costes's voice was quavering:

  "I've just been given the body."

  "Is it Sertys?"

  "Yes, it is. No doubt about it."

  The superintendent whistled. So, all the pieces of information he had picked up during the last three hours did fit into the frame. And now he was going to be able to send a special team to conduct a systematic search of the warehouse. Costes went on:

  "There's one very important difference from the first set of mutilations."

  "What's that?"

  "The murderer removed the eyes, but also the hands. He cut them off at the wrists. You didn't notice this because of the fetal position of the body. The stumps were stuck between his knees."

  The eyes. The hands. Niémans glimpsed an occult link between those parts of the anatomy. But he was incapable of deciphering the infernal logic which lay behind these mutilations.

  "Is that all?" he asked.

  "Yes, that's all for now. I'm just beginning the autopsy."

  "How long will it take?"

  "Two hours, at least."

  "Start with the eye-sockets and call me as soon as you find anything. I'm sure there's going to be a clue for us."

  "I feel like I'm a messenger from hell, superintendent."

  Niémans crossed the reading-room. Near the door, he noticed the officer hunched over Rémy Caillois's thesis. He allowed himself a little detour and sat down in front of him, in one of the carrels.

  "How's it going?"

  The officer looked up.

  "I'm sinking fast."

  The superintendent smiled and pointed at the wad of paper. "Anything of interest?"

  The man shrugged.

  "We're still in ancient Greece and the Olympiads, sports events and all that sort of thing: running races, the javelin, wrestling…Caillois goes on about the sacred nature of physical competition, of breaking records…" The officer curled up his lips in disbelief. "As a kind of…of communion with higher forces. According to him, a broken record was, at that time, considered to be a real way of communicating with the gods…For example, the athlon, the ideal athlete, could unleash the hidden powers of the earth by surpassing his own physical limitations. Mind you, when you see the hysteria at some football matches, it really does seem as though sport sets off strange forces…"

  "What else have you picked up?"

  "Caillois says that, in ancient times, athletes were also poets, musicians and philosophers. Our little librarian was very insistent about that point. He seems to miss the days when the mind and
the body were bound together within one single human being. Which also explains the title: `Nostalgia for Olympia'. It's nostalgia for a time of supermen, who were at once cerebral and muscular, intellectuals and sportsmen. Caillois sets that rigorous period against our own century, in which the brainy ones can't lift a pea and the athletes are pea-brains. He considers it to be a sign of decadence, of a separation between the mind and the body."

  Niémans glimpsed once more the athletes in his nightmare. Those blind men in their stony reality. Sophie Caillois had explained how her husband believed that those sportsmen in Berlin had re-established that profound communion between the physical and the intellectual.

  The policeman also thought of this university's champions: the lecturers' children who, in the words of Joisneau, won all the prizes, including the sporting ones. In a way, these gifted youngsters were also acting out the part of the ideal athlete. When Niémans had looked at those photographs of medal winners in the antechamber to the vice-chancellor's office, he had noticed a terrible youthful vitality in their faces. As though it were the incarnation of some physical force, but also of a separate way of thinking. Of some philosophy, perhaps? He smiled at the young officer, who was now staring at him with a worried expression.

  "Well, you seem to have grasped the essential," he concluded. "I'm completely out of my depth. I understand about every other sentence." He tapped his index finger against the tip of his nose. "But I'm relying on my flair. I can smell out a fascist from miles away."

  "You reckon Caillois was a Nazi?"

  "I wouldn't put it that way…It seems more complicated than that…But, his myth of the superman, the athlete with the pure spirit, does sound like the usual claptrap about racial superiority and all that bullshit."

  In his mind's eye, Niémans saw those pictures of the Berlin Olympics again, in the corridor of the Caillois's flat. A secret lay behind those images, and behind the sporting records at Guernon. They were perhaps connected. But how?

  "He doesn't mention any rivers?" he asked at last. "Blood-red rivers?"

  "What?"

  Pierre Niémans stood up.

  "Forget it."