Blood-Red Rivers aka The Crimson Rivers Read online

  "You mustn't harm her."

  "Superintendent, this case goes far deeper than a simple profanation of a cemetery. There have been murders."

  "I know."

  "You know?"

  "It was all over the TV. On the late night news."

  "So you know that there's a series of murders, the bodies mutilated and set in macabre positions, the works!…Crozier, tell me where I can find Fabienne Hérault!"

  In the darkness, Crozier's face was knotted with tension. His gun was still pressing against the Arab's torso.

  "You mustn't harm her."

  "No one's going to harm her, Crozier. But now Fabienne Hérault's the only person who can shed a bit of light on this chaos! Everything points to her daughter, right? Everything points to Judith Hérault, who should be there in that tomb!"

  A few seconds more under that overpowering deluge then, slowly, Crozier lowered his gun. The Arab knew that if he was going to solve a case once in his life, then this was the one. Finally, the superintendent said:

  "Fabienne lives about twelve miles from here, on the Herzine hill. I'm coming with you. If you harm her, I'll kill you."

  Karim smiled and pulled back. Then he swung round and kicked the superintendent full in the throat. Crozier was thrown back against the marble monument.

  The Arab leant down over the unconscious old man. He did up his hood and pulled him under the shelter of a granite tombstone. Then he silently apologised.

  But what he needed right now was a free hand.

  CHAPTER 52

  "It's hot stuff, Abdouf. Very hot stuff."

  Patrick Astier's voice broke through a whirlwind of interferences. The cell phone had rung while Karim had been driving across a veritable steppe of gray rock. The cop had leapt out of his skin and narrowly avoided skidding off the road. Astier went on enthusiastically:

  "Your two missions were time bombs waiting to go off. And they both blew up on me"

  Karim felt his nerves harden into steel beneath his skin.

  "Go on," he declared, pulling onto the side of the road and switching off his headlights.

  "Firstly, Sylvain Hérault's accident. I found the police records. And got confirmation of what you'd been told. Sylvain Hérault was killed on his bicycle, on the D17, by an unidentified car. A shifty case. And left unsolved. At the time, the gendarmerie conducted a routine enquiry. No witnesses. No motive that could have suggested another explanation…"

  His intonation indicated that he was waiting for a question. So Karim dutifully asked it:

  "But?"

  "But," the chemist went on, "Since that distant period, we have made giant strides in the treatment of photographs."

  Karim sensed that another science lecture was about to start. He butted in:

  "Please, Astier, just get to the point, will you?"

  "OK. So I found some photos in the file. Black-and-white prints taken by a local hack. In them, you can make out the tyre-tracks of the bike, mixed in with the traces left by the car. They're all so small and out of focus that you wonder why they bothered to keep them."

  "And?"

  The scientist paused, for dramatic effect.

  "And, Grenoble University boasts a state-of-the-art optical laboratory."

  "For fuck's sake, Astier, get on with it!"

  "Hang on a sec. Those guys can do things to a photograph that you would just not believe! They make a digital analysis, blow it up, contrast it, get rid of any imperfections, change the angles…to cut a long story short, they can dig out things that are invisible to the naked eye. They're good friends of mine. So I thought it might be a good idea to wake them up and get them onto the case. I used the fingerprint analyser as a scanner and sent them the photos. Even when woken up in the middle of the night, those guys are still absolute geniuses. They treated the film straight away and…"

  "AND WHAT?"

  Another one of Astier's pregnant pauses.

  "Their analysis tells quite a different tale from the official version. They blew up the tyre-tracks of the bike and the car. By heightening the contrast, they were able to examine the direction of the prints on the tarmac. Their first conclusion is that Sylvain Hérault was not on his way to work, up in the mountains, as it says in the file. The tyre-prints run the other way round. Hérault was cycling toward the university. I've checked that on a map."

  "But…What about his wife Fabienne's testimony?"

  "Fabienne Hérault lied. I've read her statement. She just confirmed what the gendarmerie suspected, that the crystaller was going to work on the Belledonne. Which is totally untrue."

  Karim clenched his teeth. Another lie. Another mystery. Astier went on:

  "But that's not all. My experts also took a look at the tire-prints made by the car." Another pause, and then: "They go in both directions, Abdouf. The driver ran over the body once, then reversed over it a second time. It's a flicking murder. As cold-blooded as a snake in its egg."

  Karim was no longer listening. His heart was now beating against his chest. This, then, was the motive for the Hérault family's vengeance. Apart from the escapades of the mother and daughter, that life spent in fear of pursuit, which had indirectly brought about Judith's death, there had first been a murder. Sylvain Hérault. The demons had begun by wiping out the "strong man" of the family, and had then pursued the women.

  Fabienne Hérault. Judith Hérault. Abdouf's thoughts were sparking wildly.

  "What about the hospital?" he asked.

  "That's time bomb number two. I looked at the list of births for 1972. The page corresponding to 23 May has been torn out."

  This story sounded rather too familiar to Karim – a déjà vu from another life that he had lived out in a mere few hours.

  "But that's not the strangest part," Astier continued. "I also looked through the archives, in the section where children's medical records are kept. It's a real labyrinth and it's starting to get damp. This time, I found Judith's file easily enough. So you see what that means, don't you? Something else happened that night. Something which was noted down in the main register, but not in the child's personal records. That page has been torn out to hide this mysterious event, not to conceal the birth of your Judith. I asked a few nurses about it, but they were all dropping off to sleep: What's more they were too young to bother with Uncle Astier's stories…"

  Karim realised that the chemist was playing the fool to chase away his own fears. He could sense it, despite the interference on the line. He thanked him and hung up.

  He could already see the large, grassy Herzine hill jutting up four hundred yards away from him.

  On those shadowy slopes, the truth was waiting for him.

  CHAPTER 53

  Fabienne Hérault's house.

  The top of a hill. Stone walls. Dark windows.

  Pale clouds fluttered across the thick sky. The rain had stopped. Flurries of mist floated slowly along the emerald slopes. All around, the lonely horizon drew away. A heap of stones. Nothing and no one in a radius of twelve miles.

  Karim parked his car and clambered up the grassy flank. The house reminded him of the place she had lived in near Sarzac – those fat stones gave it the look of a Celtic burial mound. Near the building, he spotted a huge white satellite dish. He drew his gun. And noticed that a bullet was already in its breech. He found that fact reassuring.

  Before going up to the front door, he checked the garage, which contained a five-door Volvo under a pale tarpaulin. It was not locked. He opened the bonnet and, in a series of rapid gestures, demolished the fuse box. Now, whatever happened, if things went wrong, Fabienne Hérault was not going anywhere.

  He strode up to the door and knocked lightly. Gun in hand, he stepped back from the threshold. A few seconds of silence, then the door opened. Noiselessly. Without any click of a lock. Fabienne Hérault evidently no longer felt in danger.

  Karim stood in the light and concealed his weapon.

  He was confronted with a figure as tall as he was, whose e
yes were drilling into him. Shoulders like cliffs, a translucent perfectly-formed face, ringed by a brown head of curls, that were almost fuzzy. Glasses with frames as thick as walking sticks. Karim would have been incapable of describing that dreamy, almost absent face.

  He controlled his voice:

  "Police. Lieutenant Karim Abdouf."

  No sign of astonishment from the woman. She was looking at Karim over her glasses, her head gently swaying. Then she lowered her gaze to the hand which was concealing the Glock. Through those lenses, Abdouf thought he detected a wicked gleam. "What can I do for you?" she asked warmly.

  Karim remained motionless, petrified in the nocturnal silence of the countryside.

  "Come in. For a start."

  The shutters were down, most of the furniture was covered with striped cloths. A television screen gleamed darkly, and the lacquered notes of a piano glinted. Karim noticed the score which was open above the keyboard: Frederick Chopin's Sonata in B-flat minor. The whole room was plunged into the darkness of ten fluttering candles.

  Following the lieutenant's eyes, Fabienne Hérault murmured:

  "I have left behind the world and time. This house is in my image" It reminded Karim of Sister Andrée and her retreat into the shadows.

  "What about the satellite dish?"

  "I have to keep contact. I have to know when the truth will come out"

  "It's on its way out right now, madame."

  Without any change of expression, she nodded. The policeman had not been expecting this calm, smiling woman, with her comforting voice. He raised his gun and felt ashamed as he threatened her.

  "Listen, lady," he panted. "I don't have much time. I need to see the photos of Judith, your daughter."

  "The photos of…"

  "Please. I've been looking for you for more than twenty hours. I've been reconstructing your story, and trying to understand. Why did you organise that scheme? Why did you obliterate the face of your child? For the moment, I'm sure of only two things. First, that Judith was no monster, as I first suspected. In fact, I reckon she was a real beauty. But the second fact is that her face somehow gave away the keys to a nightmare. A nightmare which, long ago, forced you to run away and which has just reawoken like a dormant volcano. So, show me the photos and tell me your story. I want dates, details, explanations, the lot! I want to know how and why a little girl who died fourteen years ago is now massacring people in a university town in the Alps!"

  The woman remained motionless for a few seconds, then strode down a corridor with her giantess's gait. Clutching his gun, Karim followed her. Other rooms, other sheets, other colors. The house was a mixture of a morgue and a carnival.

  At the far end of a small bedroom, Fabienne Hérault opened a wardrobe and removed a metal box. Karim stopped her hand, and opened it himself. Photographs. Just photographs.

  The woman gave Karim a questioning look, then turned it over, making it shine in the light, as if she were plunging her hand into a stream of clear water. Finally, she lifted a photo up in front of him.

  He could not help smiling.

  A little girl was staring out at him, her dark face was oval, ringed with brown short-cropped curls. Bright blue eyes shone from beneath the shadows of her brows, emphasised by her long lashes, which were almost too luxuriant. That slightly masculine touch went with her slightly over-aggressive gaze.

  Karim examined the picture. He felt as if he had known that face for a long time, a very long time, for ever.

  But the miracle refused to happen. He had been hoping that her face would, somehow or other, reveal the path of truth to him. Fabienne whispered in her warm tones:

  "It was taken a few days before she died. In Sarzac. She had short hair, we were…"

  Karim looked up.

  "That doesn't wash. This picture, her face, ought to tell me something. Act as a clue. All I can see is a pretty little girl."

  "It's because this photograph is incomplete."

  He started. The woman now handed him a second picture. "This is the last school photograph taken in Guernon, at Lamartine School, in CE2. Just before we left for Sarzac"

  The cop examined the children's smiling faces. He spotted Judith, then grasped the unbelievable truth. He had been expecting this. It was the only possible explanation. But still he did not fully understand. He whispered:

  "So Judith wasn't an only child?"

  "Yes and no."

  "Yes and no? What…what the hell's that supposed to mean? Explain yourself."

  "I can't explain anything, young man. All I can do is tell you how something inexplicable destroyed my life."

  PART XI

  CHAPTER 54

  The basement contained a veritable sea of paper. A tidal wave of bulging files tied up in bundles was splashed crazily all over the walls. On the floor, heaps of cardboard boxes blocked most of the aisles. Further on, the neon lighting revealed more shelves weighed down with documents, fading away into the distance.

  Niémans clambered over the stacks and headed down the first corridor. The endless files were being held in place by long pieces of netting, of the sort used to stop cliffs from crumbling. As he wandered past these registers, he could not help thinking about Fanny, and the dream-like hour he had just spent with her. The young woman's smiling face in the half-light. Her wounded hand putting out the lamp. The contact of dark skin. Two tiny bluish flames gleaming in the shadows – Fanny's eyes. It had been an intimate, discreet tableau, with soft motion, gestures and murmurs, instants and eternities.

  How long had he spent in her arms? Niémans had no idea. But, on his lips, on his bruised flesh, he still felt a sort of mark, a lingering presence that astonished him. Fanny had rearoused forgotten passions in him, ancient secrets whose reawakening he now found disturbing. Had he, in the midst of all that horror, at the end of his enquiries, sipped from a loving cup, been caressed by a flame?

  He tried to concentrate. He knew where the pile of rediscovered papers had been placed – he had contacted the records clerk who, despite being half asleep, had given him a set of extremely precise directions. Niémans walked on, turned, and walked on again. At last, he came across a closed box, caged off behind some chicken wire and protected by a solid padlock. The hospital porter had given him the key. If these papers were really "so unimportant" why were they being so carefully looked after?

  Niémans went inside the alcove and sat down on some old bundles which were lying on the floor. He opened the box, grabbed a handful of papers and started to read them. Names. Dates. Nurses' reports concerning new-born babies. The records contained the surname, weight, height and blood group of each child. The number of feeds and the names of what sounded like medicines, perhaps vitamins or something of that sort.

  He flicked through the sheets – there were several hundred of them, covering more than fifty years. Not one name that meant anything to him. Not one date that seemed promising.

  Niémans got to his feet and decided to compare these papers with the original files of newly-born babies, which had to be somewhere among the archives. He examined the shelves and picked out about fifty files. His face was dripping with sweat. He felt the heat from his arctic jacket radiate onto his flesh. Laying the files down on a metal table, he spread them out so as to be able to see the surnames on the covers. He started to open each file and compare the first page with the other sheets. They were fakes.

  From a rapid examination it was obvious that the sheets contained in the official files had been falsified. Etienne Caillois had imitated the nurses' handwriting fairly convincingly, but not well enough to stand up against a direct comparison with the originals.

  Why?

  The policeman laid the two pages side by side. He compared each column and each line, but found nothing. They were identical copies. He tried other pages. Still he found no difference. He readjusted his glasses, wiped the rivulets of sweat off the lenses, then examined a few more with greater attention.

  Then, at last, he saw what h
e was looking for.

  One tiny detail differentiated the genuine papers from the fakes. THE DIFFERENCE. Niémans did not yet know what it meant, but he sensed that he had unearthed another key. His face was burning like a cauldron and yet – at the same time – an icy sensation ran through him. He checked others to see if they, too, were different in the same way, then stuffed all the documents, the official files plus the sheets Caillois had stolen, into a cardboard box.

  He made off with his prize and left the records office.

  He dumped the box into the boot of his new car – a gendarme's blue Peugeot – then went back inside the hospital, this time to the maternity clinic.

  It was six in the morning and, despite the bright neons which glittered down onto the floor, the place seemed heavy with sleep and silence. He went down to the delivery rooms, passing by nurses and midwives, all dressed in pale coats, hats and little paper overshoes. Some of them tried to stop him, as he was not wearing the standard surgical outfit. But his tricolor card and fraught expression were a highly effective deterrent.

  He finally managed to find an obstetrician, who was just emerging from an operating theater. His face seemed weighed down with all the fatigue of the world. Niémans rapidly introduced himself and asked his sole and unique question:

  "Doctor, is there any logical reason why a newly-born baby should change weight during its first night of existence?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Do babies commonly lose or gain several hundred grams shortly after being born?"

  Staring at the policeman's balaclava and the clothes that were too short for him, the doctor replied:

  "No. If a child loses a lot of weight, then we have to undertake detailed tests immediately, because there is obviously some problem and…"

  "And what if he puts some on? What if he suddenly gains weight during the first night?"

  In his paver hat, the obstetrician looked bewildered. `But that never happens. I don't understand."