“I think we all have a limit. I’ve reached mine.”
He drew a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and lit one. He breathed in the tobacco, his eyes half-closed and his lips tight around the cigarette. The smoke flowed from his nostrils.
“Damn, I needed that.” He took in the mountain landscape before continuing in a low voice. “I’ve had more than my share of corpses in this fucking job. I’ve seen things so twisted no one would believe me if I told them. But this…” His gaze became distant. “This, Svarta, is beyond everything. It’s beyond what I can stand. There are about twenty victims in that barn. All women, of course. These sick fucks bled them like animals. They ripped their faces off, for fuck’s sake! What kind of a human being does something like that? When I think of all the doctors who had them under their care and who, each time, let them out.”
“They’re not going anywhere now,” Eva said with a trace of a smile.
“Yeah.”
Taking a drag of his cigarette, he watched the members of the forensic unit doing their thing. The first of the refrigerated vans holding the corpses left, lumbering away through the trees.
Then he turned to the Eva again.
“At least, you saved this girl’s life. I wanted to thank you for that. How was she doing?”
Eva shrugged.
“She’ll survive. That’s the main thing. She left with the shrink ten minutes ago. Her family is waiting for her at the hospital.”
“What she went through… I don’t know how a kid can go back to a normal life after something like that.”
“Don’t worry, we manage,” Eva said.
Vauvert studied her for a moment.
“How do
“What makes you think I deal with it? You think it doesn’t affect me, just because they say I’m some kind of heartless machine, a monster hunting monsters?”
Eva took off her sunglasses, revealing the two red embers that were so unlike the blue and brown eyes of most other albinos. Vauvert saw that those scarlet eyes held glistening tears. The woman’s skin was white as chalk; her eyes had dark rings under them.
He gave her an embarrassed smile and nodded to show that he understood.
“For what it’s worth, I know you’re no monster, Eva.”
“Of course I am. But that’s off topic.”
“You don’t like talking about yourself much, do you?”
She put her sunglasses back on.
“You’re absolutely right. We all have a limit. That girl in the house, she had a knife stuck in her vagina.”
“I know,” Vauvert said. He hesitated, then asked, “Is it what was done to you that made you the way you are?”
Eva gave a cryptic smile.
“What makes you think that something was done to me?”
“Because you didn’t just neutralize that son of a bitch. You emptied your clip into his head. I’ve been a cop for fifteen years, you know. I’ve seen behavior affected by stress and panic. But that’s not you. You didn’t lose your cool for a second. What you came here for, it was no job. It was a crusade.”
“Ever thought of becoming a profiler, Vauvert?”
The inspector chuckled.
“Getting into people’s heads? No thanks. This job fucks with my brain enough.”
For the first time that day, she laughed.
“Thank you.”
Vauvert winked at her.
“My pleasure.”
He hesitated, then turned toward her again.
“There’s still something that’s bothering me.”
“What’s that?”
“I was wondering…” He looked around to make sure no one would hear him. “What I’m going to ask might sound strange, but, well, you are really sure there were only two of them, right?”
Eva frowned.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Because…” Vauvert shifted his feet. “I just had an odd feeling.”
“Odd how?”
“I can’t say. There’s something in there that freaks me out. It’s a gut reaction, really. The air in this place makes my hackles rise. We know that those guys were draining their victims of their blood, but to do what? You think they were drinking it?”
“Like vampires?” This made Eva smile, from exhaustion or curiosity or both. “If the brothers rise from the autopsy table, then you’ll have your answer,” she told him.
“Yeah, I know, it’s stupid,” Vauvert admitted.
“Not at all. But you know very well that our bosses are going to close this case as soon as possible. The press is going to come up with some idiotic name for those two serial killers, and in a couple of months, all this is going to be forgotten.. You and I will be chasing other horrors. That’s what we do, isn’t it?”
Vauvert nodded.
“Yeah. But that’s not an answer. You think that this is the end? It’s all really over?”
Eva stared at the Pyrenees Mountains, thinking.
She did not answer.
12
Neither of the brothers rose from the autopsy table. It did not keep the press from labeling them the Black Mountain Vampires and giving more or less accurate accounts of the murderous madness that had gripped the two men. After all, they had killed more than twenty girls in an especially atrocious way over the course of a year, and all that with total impunity. The mystery surrounding what they had done with all that blood-and the faces, which were never found-remained a source of speculation. It was a bonanza for the media.
Inspector Svarta stayed in Toulouse for only a few days before returning to Paris to chase other horrors, as she put it. There would always be other cases, other psychopaths to catch, and other nightmares that the human species loved inflicting on its own kind. It was her crusade, for reasons known only by her secret heart and the private wounds behind her ruby gaze. Vauvert remained the official in charge, stuck with facing the press onslaught, vultures armed with mikes and cameras.
This period of borderline hysteria lasted for a month or so. During that time, there was not a paper, radio or television station that did not suck the “vampire” vein dry. Some even went as far as including long clips from horror movies.
The first days, though, Vauvert was surprised at how politely he responded to the requests from the press. It did not last. He soon became fed up with the sensationalism and withdrew into his usual silence. He ignored the paparazzi camped on the sidewalk and started parking in the underground garage at headquarters to avoid the reporters. At night, he drove straight home to his big loft and did not go out. He kept the blinds closed. All he had to do was wait until the dust settled. He lived alone anyway and spent most of his hazy sleepless nights sprawled on the couch, either watching television or going through his case files.
He had talked to Eva again, but their phone calls were brief and professional. They discussed the few developments in the case and ended their conversations with trivialities.
On each one of these occasions, Vauvert wound up staring at the cell phone in his huge hand, drowning in his thoughts. There were things he wanted to say to Svarta. He wanted to talk about his behavior when they first met and the way he had underestimated her. He felt compelled to apologize. Except he had never been much of a
