Behind Eva, Leroy let out a curse. She saw Deveraux slip away.
God, she so hated that moron.
She tried to stay focused. It was always the same problem. There were too many people. It interfered with her thinking and brought back her little-girl fears. She tried her best to dispel those intrusions, to concentrate on the victim and her adult work. It was all she knew how to do, and she did it better than anybody else.
And so, instinctively, the process started. For her, profiling was nothing abstract. She was blessed with a very real sense of empathy, which was a major asset in her line of work. Nevertheless, such a talent, which bordered on the irrational, had always doomed her. Spiteful guys like Deveraux could not comprehend what she did.
Cops like Deveraux had been taught to consider the facts and the facts alone. They were in a rush to catch the perpetrator, that was all. But Eva put herself in the place of the victim. And at that very moment, a part of her mind that was wordless and imageless, impalpable and universal, started making its way, ever so slowly, into the motionless body of Barbara Meyer. As she slid under the skin and into the very being of the victim, she became both Eva Svarta and Barbara Meyer, who lay there, restrained on that bed. The inspector swallowed before asking, “Any chance this is the weapon used to mutilate the victim?”
“It’s possible,” the pathologist admitted. “But I can’t confirm anything before the tests are done. Whoever did that to that girl was relentless. At the very least, there must be forty lacerations. I’m going to have to analyze every one of those wounds.”
Eva took a long look at the victim, the slender legs held by the chains, the ghastly open wounds. Her senses absorbed the smell of the spilled blood, the fragrance of incense that lingered in the air, the bloody streaks on the walls and furniture.
“I noticed bruises that seem older,” the pathologist added. “She’s got several of them on her thighs and arms. Maybe she was abused.”
Eva examined the studio’s decor, thinking. A lot of black, purple and lace. She could see several vinyl corsets, a poster of the famous stripper Dita Von Teese, and books on Japanese bondage carefully lined up on a shelf.
“No. My guess is that this girl was into fetish. Handcuffs, spankings, that sort of things. That can leave bruises.”
“A pervert, was she,” Deveraux said from the doorway. “No wonder it got out of hand.”
Eva turned around and shot him a furious look.
“This girl is dead, Jean-Luc. If you can’t manage to be useful or to shut your face, go downstairs and help Garenne’s men check the garbage.”
“You’re not my superior, honey, and screw you too.”
“Hey, hey,” Leroy said. “Why don’t both of you cut it out? Please.”
Deveraux huffed before heading back toward the hallway.
“You dumb…” he mumbled into his beard.
Eva did not bother trying to hear the rest of what he was saying. She turned to the pathologist, who stared at her, wide-eyed, not daring to intervene.
“Sorry about that, Pauline. Let’s get back to it.” Her eyes landed on the rings screwed into the ceiling beam, through which the chains were running. “Erwan, you check out this setup? It was already here. All this stuff belongs to the victim. The killer used it, but these were her own toys.”
“What are you thinking? Crime of passion?” he asked. “A BDSM session gone bad?”
“No. This kind of brutality isn’t the result of bondage. It’s the work of a highly organized killer. Pauline, do you think…” She hesitated. “Do you think that the victim was drained of her blood intentionally?”
The pathologist shrugged.
“Sure looks like it. What’s certain is that a huge quantity of the blood is missing. Look at this.”
Pauline Chadoutaud pointed at trails on the floor. A heavy object had been dragged through the blood, and, whatever it was, the object was no longer in this room.
“Some sort of container, right?” Eva asked.
“Precisely. Looks to me like the killer filled it with blood and took it with him.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Eva said. “We need the autopsy today.”
“Well, I had a feeling you’d say that,” Chadoutaud answered.
She gestured at her team to come help her.
The men in white suits set to work. It took them several minutes to free her limbs and place her body in a bag, which they laid on the gurney.
On the mattress, the imprint of Barbara Meyer’s agony was all that was left. The forensics team gathered the chains and took them away for their analysis.
The victim’s blood was everywhere, like waves, some brown, some black and some still bright red, shining like diamonds on the walls, the furniture and the floor.
What the murderer had not taken with him, anyway.
18
“So? What do you think?” Leroy asked.
Eva walked into the apartment’s tiny bathroom.
“That our killer had a precise and well-oiled modus operandi.” She scanned the room. The makeup next to the sink, all the cosmetics carefully arranged. The shower was sparkling clean. “Come take a look at this, Erwan. He took a shower here before he left. If he did things right, we’ll never find any trace of evidence. He did leave us something, though.”
As her partner peeked though the doorway, Eva pointed to the shattered mirror. One single blow, right in the middle, had split the glass into thousands of fragments.
“Oh,” Erwan said. “We’ve seen that before, haven’t we?”
The inspector nodded.
“A year ago. Down south,” she said.
“The two brothers who slaughtered about twenty girls?”
“Exactly. We’ve got the same MO.”
“But, those guys were stopped from causing harm, right?”
The euphemism Leroy used made her smile in spite of herself.
“Oh yes. I was there when the pathologist cut them open. I can assure you they’re not the ones who butchered this kid.”
“Then we’ve got a copycat,” Leroy said.
Eva considered it.
“Maybe.”
“You know,” her colleague insisted, “the press gave so much coverage to those Black Mountain Vampires. It might have inspired some other nutcase. Don’t you think?”
“The media never said anything about the broken mirrors. They didn’t say anything about the inscriptions, either. Look.”
Leroy directed his attention to where she was pointing.
