The Empire Of The Wolves Read online

  The Cipher bent down over the wounds that spread out over the chest-there were strange black halos there, suggesting love bites. When Paul had noticed this detail on the first body, it made him think of the devil-a creature of fire who had salivated over this innocent form.

  "What about those?" Schiffer pointed. "What are they exactly? Bites?"

  At first sight, they do look like love bites. But I've found a rational explanation for them. I think the murderer uses a car battery to inflict electric shocks. To be more precise, I reckon he uses standard serrated clips on them. The marks have been left by their teeth. In my opinion, he probably dampens the body to increase the power of the shock. Which would explain these black marks. There are over twenty of them on this one. It's all in my report." He brandished his wad of paper.

  Paul knew all this. He had read over and again the first two autopsy reports. But every time, he felt the same disgust, the same rejection. There was no way of entering into empathy with such craziness.

  Schiffer stood beside the victim's legs-her bluish-black feet were bent at an impossible angle. "And this?"

  Scarbon moved to the other side of the corpse. They looked like two topographers studying the contours of a map.

  "The X-rays are spectacular. The tarsi, metatarsi and phalanxes have all been shattered. There are approximately seventy shards of bone stuck in the flesh. No fall from any height could have done such damage. The killer went at her feet with a blunt object. An iron bar or a baseball bat, probably. The other two got the same treatment. I checked. This is a specifically Turkish torture technique, called felaka or felika. I can't remember."

  In a guttural accent, Schiffer spat out: "Al-Falaqua."

  Paul remembered that the Cipher spoke fluent Turkish and Arabic. "From memory" he went on, "I could cite ten countries that use this method."

  Scarbon pushed his glasses back up his nose. "Yes, well. It's all highly exotic, anyway"

  Schiffer moved up toward the abdomen. Once again, he seized one of the blackened, puffy hands.

  The expert said: "The nails were torn out with pliers. The tips were burned with acid."

  "What sort?"

  "Impossible to say"

  "It was something done after death, to remove the fingerprints?"

  "If it was, then the killer messed up. The dermatoglyphs are perfectly visible. No, I think it was more like another form of torture. This killer isn't the sort who messes up anything."

  The Cipher laid the hand back down. All of his attention was now focused on the gaping vagina. The doctor also looked at the wound. The topographers were now starting to look like vultures.

  "Was she raped?"

  "Not in the sexual sense, no."

  For the first time, Scarbon hesitated. Paul lowered his eyes. He saw the gaping, dilated, lacerated orifice. The internal parts-labia majora, labia minora and the clitoris-were all turned inside out, in an unbearable twisting of flesh.

  The doctor cleared his throat and started: "He pushed in some kind of truncheon, decked with razor blades. You can see the lacerations here, inside the vulva, and there, along the thighs. It's absolute carnage. The clitoris was severed, the labia cut away. It set off internal bleeding. The first victim had exactly the same kind of wounds. But the second .." He hesitated once more.

  Schiffer tried to meet his stare. "What?"

  "With the second one, it was different. I think he used something… that was alive."

  "Alive?"

  "Yes, a rodent. Or something like that. The internal genitalia were bitten and torn as far as the uterus. Apparently torturers use this kind of technique in Latin America…"

  Paul's head was spinning. He knew every detail, but each of them hurt him, made him want to be sick. He walked back to the marble basin. Absentmindedly, he dipped his fingers in the scented water, then remembered that his partner had done just the same a few minutes before. He quickly removed them.

  "Go on," Schiffer ordered in a husky voice.

  Scarbon did not reply at once. Silence filled the turquoise room. The three men seemed to realize that there was no going back. They now had to confront the face.

  "This is the most complex part," the expert at last went on, framing the disfigured face with his two index fingers. "There were several steps to the violence."

  "What do you mean?"

  "First there's the hematoma. The face is one big bruise. The killer beat her savagely for some time. Perhaps with brass knuckles, and certainly with something metallic and more accurate than a bar or truncheon. Then there are the cuts and mutilations. The wounds did not bleed. They were made postmortem."

  They were now standing by the mask of horror. They could see the depth of the wounds in all their savagery and without the distance of the camera. Cuts crossed the face, making stripes on the forehead and temples, crevices in the cheeks. And the mutilations, the sliced-off nose, the split chin, the blackened lips.

  "You can see as well as I can what he cut, filed and tore off What is interesting is how focused he was. He took time over his work. It's his signature. Nerteaux thinks he's trying to copy-

  "I know what he thinks. What about you?"

  Scarbon retreated slightly, his hands behind his back. "The murderer is obsessed with these faces. For him, they are both a source of fascination and fury. He sculpts them and fashions them, while at the same time destroying their humanity" Schiffer's shrug showed his skepticism.

  "In the end, what did she die of?"

  "I've told you: internal hemorrhaging set off by the butchering of the sexual organs. She must have bled dry onto the floor."

  "And the other two?"

  "The first, also from internal bleeding, unless her heart gave out before. As for the second, I'm not exactly sure. Probably quite simply from terror. To sum up, you can say that all three of them died in agony. We're analyzing her DNA, but I don't think it will tell us any more than for the previous victims." Scarbon pulled the sheet back up, with an overhasty yank.

  Schiffer paced up and down for a moment before asking: "Can you deduce a chronology of events?"

  "I couldn't give you a detailed timetable, but I would say she was kidnapped three days ago, on the evening of Thursday. She was probably going home after work."

  "Why?"

  "Her stomach was empty, as was the case for the first two. He must jump them on their way home."

  "Let's leave your suppositions out of it."

  The doctor puffed with irritation. "Then she endured twenty-four hours' nonstop torture."

  "How can you judge the duration?"

  "She struggled. Her bonds made friction burns on her skin and bit into her flesh. The wounds became septic. We can gauge the time thanks to the infection. If I say between twenty and thirty hours, then I can't be far from the mark. In any case, at such a pitch, that's the limit of human endurance."

  As he walked. Schiffer stared at the blue mirror of the floor. "Do you have any indication of the scene of the crime?"

  "Maybe.."

  Paul butted in. "What?"

  Scarbon clicked his lips like a clapboard. "I had already noticed it with the first two. But with the third, it's even more obvious. The victim's blood contains nitrogen bubbles."

  "Meaning?"

  Paul took out his notepad.

  "It's rather odd. It could mean that, while still alive, the body was subjected to a greater air pressure than that of the surface of the earth. Like the pressure found at the bottom of the sea."

  It was the first time that the doctor had mentioned this particularity. "I'm no diver," he went on. "But it's a well-known phenomenon. The deeper you go, the higher the pressure is. The nitrogen in the bloodstream dissolves. If you go up again too quickly, without respecting levels of decompression. then the nitrogen suddenly turns back to gas and forms bubbles inside the body."

  Schiffer looked extremely interested. "And that's what happened to the victim?"

  All three of them. Nitrogen bubbles have formed and explode
d throughout their bodies, causing lesions and, of course, more suffering. This is by no means sure, but these women may well have gotten the bends."

  While jotting this down, Paul asked, "They were immersed at a great depth?"

  didn't say that. According to one of my assistants, who goes diving, they must had undergone pressure of at least four bars. Which corresponds to a depth of about a hundred twenty feet. It seems to me a bit tricky finding so much water in Paris. So I think they were in fact placed in a high-pressure chamber."

  Paul was writing feverishly.

  "Where do you find things like that?"

  "You'll have to ask around. There are tanks that professional divers use to decompress, but I wouldn't think there are any in the Paris region. There are also chambers used in hospitals."

  "In hospitals?"

  "That's right. To oxygenate patients suffering from bad circulation-diabetes, high cholesterol… High air pressure makes it easier to distribute oxygen in the organism. There must be three or four machines like that in Paris. But I shouldn't think your killer had access to a hospital. You'd do better to check out industry"

  "What sectors use this kind of technology?"

  "No idea. You'll have to find out. That's your job. And don't forget, I'm not sure about all this. These bubbles might have a completely different explanation. But if so, I don't know what it is."

  Schiffer said. "And there's nothing about the three bodies that gives us any physical information about our man?"

  "Nothing. He washes them down carefully. Anyway. I'm sure he wears gloves when he's at work. He doesn't have sex with them. He doesn't caress them. That's not his thing. Not at all. He's more clinical. Robotic, even. This killer is… inhuman."

  "Does the madness increase with each murder?"

  "No. Each time, the tortures are carried out with the same rigor. He's an evil obsessive, but he never loses his cool." He smiled wearily "He's an orderly killer, as the textbooks put it."

  "What do you reckon turns him on?"

  "Suffering. Pure suffering. He tortures them diligently, obsessively until they die. It's their pain that excites him. that he feeds off. Deep down, he has a visceral hatred of women. Of their bodies, and their faces."

  Schiffer turned toward Paul and sneered. "Looks like I'm up to my ears with trick-cyclists today."

  Scarbon flushed. "Forensic science always involves psychology. The acts of violence we examine are just the symptoms of diseased minds…"

  The officer nodded but continued to smile. He picked up the wad of typed pages that had been placed on one of the slabs. "Thanks, Doctor."

  He headed for the door that stood out beneath the three bays of light. When he opened it, a violent burst of sunlight shot into the room, like a flood of milk across the blue sea.

  Paul grabbed another copy of the autopsy report. "Can I take this one?" The doctor stared at him silently, then said, "Do your superiors know about Schiffer?"

  Paul grinned back. "Don't worry Everything's under control.”

  “It's you I'm worried about. He's a monster."

  Paul shivered. The scientist went on. "He killed Gazil Hemet."

  The name brought back memories. October 2000. The Turk crushed by the Brussels express, Schiffer accused of murder. Then April 2001. The charges were mysteriously dropped. lie replied in a frozen voice: "The body was flattened. The autopsy didn't prove a thing."

  "It was me who gave the second opinion. The face bore terrible wounds. An eye had been torn out. The temples had been drilled open." He pointed at the sheet. "It was just as bad as her."

  Paul felt his legs go weak. He could not admit such a suspicion about the man he was now working with. "The report just mentioned some lesions and-"

  "They suppressed my other findings. They covered for him.”

  “Who do you mean by 'they'?"

  "They were scared. All of them were scared."

  Paul stepped back into the whiteness outside.

  Claude Scarhon inflated then removed his elastic gloves. "You've teamed up with the devil."

  13

  "They call it the Iskele. Pronounced is-kay-lay.”

  "What?"

  "You could translate it as 'jetty' or 'departure dock.' “

  “What are you talking about?"

  Paul had joined Schiffer in the car but had not yet driven off. They were still in the courtyard of the Vasale Unit, in the shadow of its slender pillars.

  The Cipher went on. "It's the main mafia organization behind getting illegal Turkish immigrants into Europe. They also help get them work and accommodations. They try to organize it so that there are groups from the same region in each workshop. Some sweatshops in Paris contain the entire population of a village in the backwaters of Anatolia."

  Schiffer came to a halt, tapped his fingers on the glove compartment, then continued: "The price varies. The rich take the plane and bribe customs guards. They arrive in France with a fake work permit or false passport. The poor go in cargoes via Greece, or in trucks via Bulgaria. Whichever way you have to pay at least two hundred thousand francs. The family in the village chip in and get together about a third of that amount. The worker then slaves away for ten years to pay off the rest."

  Paul observed Schiffer's clear profile against the brightness of the window. He had been told dozens of times about these networks, but it was the first time he had been given so many details.

  The silver-headed cop gave him more: "You have no idea how well organized they are. They keep records. Everything is written down: each immigrant's name, origin, workshop and outstanding debt. They communicate via e-mail with their opposite numbers in Turkey who keep up the pressure on the families. Meanwhile, they deal with everything in Paris. They look after sending money orders or giving phone calls at lower prices. They replace the post office, the banks and the embassy. You want to send a toy to one of your kids? You ask the Iskele. You need a gynecologist? The Iskele provides you with the name of a quack who's not too bothered about your legal status in France. You've got a problem with your workshop? The Iskele will sort it out. Nothing happens in the Turkish quarter without their knowing about it and putting it in their records."

  Paul at last realized where the Cipher was heading.

  "You think they know about the murders?"

  "If those girls really were illegal immigrants, their bosses will have contacted the Iskele first. One, to find out what happened. Two, to get replacements. More than anything, murdered girls mean wasted money."

  A hope began to form in Paul's mind. "You… you think they could identify the girls?"

  "Each file contains a photograph of the immigrant. Their Paris address. And their employer's name and address."

  Paul hazarded another question, but he already knew the answer. "And you know these people?"

  "The head of the Iskele in Paris is called Marek Cesiuz. But everyone calls him Marius. He has a concert hall on Boulevard de Strasbourg. I was present when one of his sons was born." He winked at him. "Are you starting this car. or what?"

  Paul stared at Jean-Louis Schiffer for a moment. You've teamed up with the devil. Maybe Scarbon was right. But for the kind of game he was after, what better partner could he hope for?

  PART III

  14

  On Monday morning, Anna Heymes discreetly left her flat and took a cab to the Left Bank. As far as she recalled, there were several medical bookshops grouped together around the Odéon crossroads.

  In one of them, she browsed through various studies of psychology and neurosurgery in search of information about biopsies performed on the brain. The expression Ackermann had used still echoed in her mind: stereotaxic biopsy. She soon found some photographs and a description of the technique.

  She saw the patients' heads, shaved, inserted in a square casing. A sort of metal cube that was screwed onto their temples. The frame was topped by a trepan-like a drill.

  She followed the illustrations of each step of the operation: the bit pierci
ng the bone, the scalpel entering the opening and in turn penetrating the dura mater that encircled the brain, the hollow-headed needle going inside the cerebrum. In one of the photographs, the pinkish color of the organ could even be seen while the surgeon was extracting the probe.

  Anything but that.

  Anna had made a resolution. She had to get a second opinion, find another specialist, and quickly, who would suggest a different treatment.

  She rushed into a café on Boulevard Saint-Germain, ran downstairs to the phone and thumbed through the directory. After several fruitless requests to absent or overbooked doctors, she finally came across a certain Mathilde Wilcrau, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, who was apparently available.

  The woman's voice was deep, but her tone was light, almost mischievous. Anna briefly mentioned her memory problems and insisted on how urgent the situation was. The psychiatrist agreed to see her at once. Near the Panthéon, just five minutes away from Odéon.

  ***

  Anna was now sitting alone in a small waiting room full of old, carved and varnished furniture that seemed to come straight from the Chateau de Versailles. She looked at the photographs on the walls. They depicted images of sporting exploits in the most extreme conditions.

  In one of them, someone was taking wing from the side of a mountain, suspended on a hang glider. In the next, a hooded climber was ascending a wall of ice. In another, a sharpshooter dressed in a ski suit and watch cap was taking aim at an unseen target.

  "My exploits of yesteryear."

  Anna turned around toward the voice.

  Mathilde Wilcrau was a large broad-shouldered woman with a radiant smile. Her arms burst out from her suit brutally and almost incongruously. Her long, slender legs were curvaceously muscular. Between forty and fifty, thought Anna as she noticed her wrinkled eyelids and crow's-feet. But this woman was to be evaluated in terms of energy, not age. It was more a question of mega wattage than years.

  The psychiatrist moved aside. "Step this way."