‘Right. We were completely naive. We should’ve realized that it couldn’t be that easy. And now we have another corpse on our conscience.’ Frank rammed his fist against the glove compartment. ‘Motherfucker!’
Hulot knew what Frank was going through. He felt the same way. He, too, wanted to hit something. Preferably that bastard’s face, again and again until he had the same bloody mask as his victims. He and Frank were both cops with a great deal of experience, and neither was stupid. But now they felt that their adversary had them exactly where he wanted them and could move them as easily as pawns on a chessboard.
Unfortunately, like a good doctor, no conscientious cop ever dwells on the number of lives he has saved, only those he has lost. The praise and blame of the media, and superiors, and society have nothing to do with it. It’s a personal matter, one each cop faces every morning in the mirror.
The car came to a stop in front of an elegant building on Avenue Princesse Grace, not far from the Jardin Japonais. It was the usual scene, one they had met with far too often recently and had hoped not to see again that night. Forensics and the medical examiner were already parked in front of the building. A few uniformed police officers were standing guard at the front door and several media people were already on the scene. More would arrive shortly. Hulot and Frank got out of their car and headed over to Morelli who was waiting for them at the door. His expression was all they needed in order to complete the picture of general outrage and frustration.
‘What do we have, Morelli?’ asked Hulot as they entered the building together.
‘The usual. A skinned face, the words I kill . . . in blood. Same as the others, pretty much.’ Morelli waved a hand at the lift.
‘What do you mean, pretty much?’
‘This time the victim wasn’t stabbed. He shot him before he—’
‘He shot him?’ Frank interrupted. ‘A gun makes a lot of noise in the middle of the night. Someone must have heard it.’
‘Nothing. Nobody heard anything.’
The lift doors slid open without a sound.
‘Top floor,’ Morelli said to Hulot, who was about to press the button.
‘Who found the body?’
‘Yatzimin’s assistant. Or assistant and confidant. Might also be his lover. He had been out with a group of the victim’s friends, ballet dancers from London, I think. Yatzimin hadn’t felt up to it and insisted that they go without him.’
They stepped out at the top floor to see the door to Gregor Yatzimin’s apartment wide open and all the lights on, in the typical commotion of a crime scene. The forensic people were at work while Hulot’s men were meticulously inspecting the place.
‘Over here.’
Morelli led the way. They walked through the luxurious, understated but glamorous apartment. They reached the door of what was probably the bedroom just as the medical examiner was coming out. Hulot saw with relief that it was Coudin and not Lassalle. The bosses must be very worried if they had sent the top guy. He could imagine the phone calls going on back in the trenches.
‘Good morning, Inspector Hulot.’
‘You’re right, doctor. Good morning,’ Nicolas said, realizing the time. ‘What’ve you got?’
‘Nothing much. As far as the investigation is concerned, I mean. This homicide is completely different to the other three. If you want to take a look . . .’
They followed Frank, who had already gone in. Once again, they were horrified by the scene. They had all seen the like before, with different methods and in other situations, and yet it was impossible to get used to.
Gregor Yatzimin was lying on the bed, his hands crossed over his chest in the usual position of a dead body. If it were not for his grotesquely mutilated face, he would have looked like a corpse laid out by an undertaker before the funeral. On the wall was the usual mocking message written in blood and fury.
I kill . . .
They stood in silence before the corpse. Another body. Another murder without motive or explanation, except in the sick mind of the person who had committed the crime. Their anger was a searing blade, sharp as the murderer’s, twisting inside a painful wound.
Sergeant Morelli’s voice shook them from their trance. ‘Something’s different.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, it’s just a feeling, but this isn’t frenzied like the other murders. There isn’t blood everywhere, and there’s no ferocity. Even the position of the body. It’s almost as if there’s . . . respect . . . for the victim. That’s what’s different.’
‘You mean the beast can feel pity?’
‘I don’t know. It’s probably bullshit, but that’s what I felt when I came in.’
‘You’re right.’ Frank placed a hand on Morelli’s shoulder. ‘This one is different from the others. What you’re saying isn’t bullshit. It’s the first thing that’s made any sense tonight.’
They glanced at the corpse of Gregor Yatzimin, the eternal dancer, the ‘mute swan’ as critics all over the world called him. Even in that funereal pose, horribly disfigured, he still looked graceful, as if his talent had remained intact even in death.
‘Well, what have you found, Doctor Coudin?’ asked Hulot, with little hope.
The medical examiner shrugged. ‘There isn’t much. Aside from the mutilation, which I think was done with a fairly sharp instrument, a scalpel most likely, there’s nothing to see. We have to examine the wounds on his face in a more appropriate setting. Although, at first glance, I’d say it was done with considerable skill.’
‘Our friend has had some practise.’
‘Cause of death was a firearm, shot at close range. Again, I can only speculate for the moment, but it was large, something like a nine-calibre. A single shot to the heart, almost instantaneous death. From the body temperature, I’d say it was a couple of hours ago.’
‘While we were wasting our breath on that jerk Stricker,’ Frank muttered.
Hulot looked at him in agreement.
‘I’m finished here,’ said Coudin. ‘You can take away the body, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll let you know the results of the autopsy as soon as possible.’
Hulot had no doubt about that. They had probably lit a fire under Coudin’s backside. And that was nothing compared to what he could expect.
‘Fine, doctor. Thank you. Good morning.’
The medical examiner looked at the inspector to see if he was being sarcastic. He met only the dull gaze of a defeated man.
‘You too, inspector,’ he called over his shoulder as he left the apartment. ‘Good luck.’ They both knew how much he needed it.
At Hulot’s nod, two men went into the bedroom with a body bag.
‘Let’s talk to this assistant, Morelli.’
‘I’ll have a look around in the meantime,’ said Frank, pensively.
Hulot followed Morelli to the end of the hall to the right of the bedroom. The apartment was divided into living and sleeping space. They went through rooms covered with posters and images of the apartment’s unfortunate owner. Gregor Yatzimin’s assistant was sitting in the kitchen with a policeman.
His eyes were red; he had obviously been crying. He was practically a boy, a delicate type with pale skin and sandy hair. A box of tissues and a glass with amber-coloured liquid were on the table in front of him.
He stood up when he saw them.
‘I’m Inspector Nicolas Hulot. Sit down, please, Mr . . .?’
‘Boris Devchenko. I’m Gregor’s assistant. I . . .’ He spoke French with a heavy Slavic accent. Tears came to his eyes again and he sat back down. He bent his head and reached for a tissue without looking. ‘I’m sorry, but what happened is so horrible.’
‘There’s no reason to apologize,’ Hulot reassured him, pulling up a chair and sitting down. ‘Mr Devchenko, try to calm yourself, if you can. I need to ask you a few questions.’
‘It wasn’t me, inspector.’ Devchenko’s tear-stained face suddenly shot up. ‘I was out with friends. Everyo
ne saw me. I was very attached to Gregor and I could never have . . . never have done . . . something like that.’
Hulot felt infinite tenderness for the boy. Morelli was right. They were almost certainly lovers. That changed nothing in his approach. Love was love, however it showed itself. He knew homosexuals who lived their relationships with a delicacy of feeling that was hard to find in more conventional couples.
‘Don’t worry, Boris.’ He smiled. ‘Nobody’s accusing you of anything. I just need some information to help us understand what happened here tonight. That’s all.’
Boris Devchenko seemed to relax at the knowledge that he was not a suspect.
‘Some friends arrived from London yesterday afternoon. Roger Darling, the choreographer, was supposed to come too, but at the last minute he had to stay in England. Gregor was supposed to dance the role of the adult Billy Elliot, but then his vision got worse, suddenly.’ Hulot remembered seeing the movie with Céline. ‘I went to pick them up at the airport in Nice. We came here and had dinner at home. Then we suggested going out, but Gregor didn’t feel up to it. He changed so much when his eyesight got worse.’
He looked at the inspector who nodded, confirming that he knew the story of Gregor Yatzimin. Exposure to the Chernobyl radiation had caused irreversible degeneration of the optic nerve, which had led to total blindness. His career was cut short when he could no longer move across the stage without assistance.
‘We went out and left him alone. If I had stayed at home he might still be alive.’
‘Don’t blame yourself. There’s nothing you could have done in a case like this.’ Hulot did not point out that, if he had stayed at home, there might be two bodies instead of one. ‘Did you notice anything unusual over the last few days? Someone you saw on the street a little too often? A strange phone call? Anything out of the ordinary? Anything at all?’
Devchenko was much too upset to hear the desperation in Hulot’s voice.
‘No, nothing. I was taking care of Gregor all the time and it took all my energy. Caring for a blind man is extremely tiring.’
‘Any servants?’
‘None that lived in. The cleaning woman comes every day, but she leaves in the middle of the afternoon.’
Hulot looked at Morelli.
‘Get her name. Although I doubt it’ll get us anywhere. Mr Devchenko . . .’ The inspector’s voice softened as he turned back to the boy. ‘We’ll have to ask you to come to headquarters to sign a statement and remain available to help us. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t leave the city.’
‘Of course, inspector. Anything to make sure that whoever killed Gregor pays for what he did.’
From the way he said those words, Hulot was confident that Boris Devchenko would have risked his life to save Gregor Yatzimin, had he been there at the time. And that he would have died for it. Hulot stood up and left the young man to grieve with Morelli. He returned to the living room where the forensic people were finishing up. The two policemen came over to him.
‘Inspector . . .’
‘What is it?’
‘We questioned the neighbours below. Nobody heard anything.’
‘But there was a shot.’
‘It’s an elderly couple directly below. They take sleeping pills at night. They told me they don’t even hear the fireworks for the Grand Prix, so they wouldn’t have heard a shot. There’s another elderly woman who lives alone in the apartment opposite theirs, but she’s away right now and her grandson from Paris is there. A young guy about twenty-two. He was out all night clubbing. He came back as we were ringing the bell. He didn’t see or hear anything, obviously.’
‘And the apartment opposite this one?’
‘Vacant. We woke the doorman and he gave us the keys. The killer probably got in through there, climbing over the balcony that’s connected to this apartment. But there are no signs of a forced entry. We didn’t want to contaminate anything, so we didn’t go in. Forensics will go over there as soon as they finish in here.’
‘Good,’ said Hulot.
Frank returned from his tour of inspection. Hulot realized that he wanted to be alone for a while to cool off. And to think. He knew that they wouldn’t find any real trace of the killer in the apartment. Instead, he was analysing by instinct, letting his unconscious flow over what the crime scene conveyed, aside from normal sensorial perception. Just then, Morelli came out of the kitchen.
‘Your intuition was right, Morelli.’ They looked at Frank in silence, waiting for him to continue. ‘Aside from a few stains on the bedspread, there’s no trace of blood anywhere in the house. Not a trace. But a job like this produces a lot of blood. As we have seen.’
Frank was back to normal. The night’s defeat seemed to have had no effect on him, although Nicolas knew that it had taken its toll. It could hardly be otherwise. Nobody could forget so soon that he could have saved a life and didn’t.
‘Our man cleaned the house perfectly after doing what he did. A luminal test will show the bloodstains.’
‘But why? Why didn’t he want to leave any blood?’
‘I have no idea. Maybe for the reasons Morelli said.’
‘Why would an animal like that feel pity for Gregor Yatzimin? If pity was really the motive?’
‘It doesn’t change anything, Nicolas. It’s possible, but not important. They say that Hitler loved his dog.’
They fell silent, moving towards the entrance. Through the open door, they could see the assistant medical examiner sealing Yatzimin’s body in a green canvas body bag. They were taking it into the lift to avoid carrying the body down six flights of stairs.
Outside, dawn was breaking. It would be a new day, like all the others they had seen since this story had begun. There would be a sea of reporters in front of Gregor Yatzimin’s building. They would step out into the volley of questions like cannon fire and answer with a flurry of ‘no comments’. The media would go wild again. Hulot’s superiors would explode once more. Roncaille would lose a little more of his tan and Durand’s face would turn green. As they walked down the stairs, Frank Ottobre felt that if anyone blamed them, they deserved it.
THIRTY-FOUR
Frank had left the inspector and Morelli to face the onslaught of reporters who were swarming around the new murder like flies to shit. When they’d spotted Hulot and the sergeant through the car windows, they started pressing up against the police barricades and the officers on duty had difficulty holding them back. It was a repeat of the scene at the harbour when the bodies of Jochen Welder and Arianna Parker had been discovered and the whole nasty business had begun.
The reporters reminded Frank of locusts. They moved in swarms and consumed everything in their path. True, they were only doing their job, but that excuse could be used by anyone. Even the killer, who kept pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes – and they kept following, like sheep. He, too, was doing his job, and Frank hoped he would burn in hell for it.
He had stopped inside the lobby and glanced out of the window at the crowd.
‘Claude, is there a side entrance?’
‘Of course, the service entrance.’
‘Where is it?’
‘The service lift is behind the stairs. Press S and you’ll be in the courtyard next to the ramp that goes to the garage. Turn right, go up the ramp, and you’re on the street.’
Hulot had looked at him, confused. Frank didn’t want to do too much explaining. Not then, anyway.
‘I’ve got a couple of things to do, Nicolas, and I’d like to do it without half the reporters in Europe at my heels. Can I borrow your car?’
‘Sure. Keep it for now. I won’t be needing it.’
Hulot had handed him the keys without another word. The inspector was so tired that he even lacked the strength for curiosity. All three were unshaven and looked as though they had been through a war, all the worse for the fact that they had just lost another battle.
Frank had left them there and followed Morelli’s directions. He had c
rossed the basement that smelled of mould and oil and reached the street. He had gone over to the car that was parked on the other side of Avenue Princesse Grace, right behind the reporters who were bombarding poor Nicolas with questions. Luckily, nobody had noticed him.
Frank parked Nicolas Hulot’s Peugeot in a no-parking zone in front of Roby Stricker’s building. He took the POLICE ON DUTY sign out of the glove compartment and placed it on the rear window under the windscreen wiper. A cop walked towards him as he was getting out of the car, but he saw the sign and raised a hand to show that everything was okay. Frank answered with a nod, crossed the street, and headed over to Les Caravelles.
He pushed the glass doors and went into the building. The doorman was not at his post. Looking at his watch, Frank saw that it was exactly 7 a.m. He fought back a yawn. The lack of sleep was beginning to get to him. First the radio station, then the hunt for Roby Stricker, then standing guard at his house. The hope, the disappointment and, finally, the new murder, the disfigured body of Gregor Yatzimin.
Outside, the sky and sea were tinged with the blue of a new day. How he would have liked to forget everything and relax in his comfortable Parc Saint-Roman apartment, close the shutters and his eyes, and stop thinking about blood and words on walls.
I kill . . .
He remembered the wall in Yatzimin’s bedroom. If they didn’t stop him, that bastard would never stop. There wouldn’t be enough walls to write on or cemeteries for the dead.
It was not yet time to sleep, even if he could. He still had to clear up the unfinished business with Roby Stricker. He wanted to know how and why Ryan Mosse had got in touch with him, although he could probably guess. He had to know how far the general had got with his investigation and what else the soldiers were planning.
Frank looked around. Just then, the doorman came out of what must have been his apartment, buttoning his jacket. He approached, hurriedly chewing something. Caught in the act of eating his petit déjeuner. He went into the guard box and looked Frank over from behind the glass.