knew it somewhere in my head. It wouldn’t go away. And still, I closed my eyes. I didn’t concentrate on why the Salavilles mutilated and murdered all those girls. I investigated like Jean-Luc would have. And here’s the result. Our man is at it again. He had a one-year break. His psychosis must have reached an advanced stage by now.”
“If that’s the case, then we all missed it, Eva. You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.”
“Tell that to Rudy,” she sighed.
The elevator came to a stop. The doors slid open.
Their faces grim, they made their way through the main lobby, now crawling with officers, then out to the avenue, crowded with reporters who were shouting out questions and taking photos. Eva swiped the mikes away as Leroy and she hurried by.
Their cars were parked on the sidewalk, next to the rest of the official vehicles. An officer was guarding them. All around, pedestrians were streaming past, only one or two of them stopping to wonder what was going on in the building.
Eva studied the faces of the passersby. It was not uncommon for murderers to return to the scene of their exploits to relive the high, the ecstasy. But what type of killer were they dealing with this time?
A new type of killer?
Suddenly, in the middle of the pedestrians, Eva spotted the little girl with white hair.
A six-year-old girl in a black dress.
Her eyes like two chasms of blood.
Eva felt a cold sweat on the back of her neck. She felt as though a heavy hand was pressing on her heart.
The little girl turned her head. A woman leaned toward her to help her blow her nose. This was no ghost who’d come to terrify her on the sidewalk. Through the screen of her sunglasses, her eyes were playing tricks on her again. The girl’s dress was pale blue, not black. Her hair wasn’t white, either, but blond and frizzy. As for her face, it was sprinkled with freckles. Even from afar, she looked nothing like Justyna. Her mother grabbed her hand, and they walked through the doors of the shopping mall.
“Eva?” It was Leroy’s voice. “Eva? You okay?”
She detected a hint of worry in her colleague’s tone. She turned to him. He was scrutinizing her.
“Is anything wrong?”
“No, no. Sorry, my mind just got away from me for a second.”
Still, she watched the sidewalk for a few more moments.
There never had been any.
Nowhere, except in her own head.
“I’m sorry. I kind of lost it there. I’ve been away from work for two months, I just need a little time to readjust.”
“I can’t blame you for being affected,” Leroy said. “Those murders, they’re a real bloodbath.”
The word struck Eva.
“A bloodbath, right. That’s what the pathologist said too. The killer literally bathed in the blood.”
“Yes, so what?”
“Maybe it’s stupid, but I’ve got to check something out,” Eva told him.
“Need any help?”
“No thanks, you’re sweet. I’ll catch you back at Central this afternoon. And if you need to reach me…”
“I know,” Leroy said. “You’re always reachable.”
“Night and day.”
The officer returned to the building.
Eva got into her car. She was still thinking.
She believed she was dealing with a new type of killer, yes. But what if she were wrong? What if the killer, on the contrary, was abiding by a very, very old ritual?
Why the hell hadn’t she thought of it before?
22
Alexandre Vauvert was struggling in a nightmare when the harsh morning light filtering through the blinds jerked him away.
He massaged his temples. How long had he slept? Probably no more than an hour or two. He was on the couch, as usual. The volume on the television was turned way down. He fumbled for the remote and flipped through the music videos, cartoons and infomercials until he found a news channel running a weather report. Rain and more rain. Great.
As he sat up, his ill-treated spine sent a bolt of pain down his back.
“Holy shit,” he grumbled, trying to stretch.
The memory of his nightmare was dissolving. Still, the unpleasant sensation lingered at the edge of his mind.
Was that it? Yes. He had dreamed of eyes that shone like crimson flames. They were stalking him from behind a maze of mirrors. He had dreamed of lithe figures with glistening fur.
He shivered.
His phobias were coming back. Those old fears were looking for a crack in his mind where they could get in and take over. He did not intend to let them do that. He figured he might mention the nightmare to Christophe, the precinct shrink, at his annual consult.
Until then, he would avoid thinking about it. He really hated those four-legged beasts.
Off the couch, he set to gathering the empty beer cans. He piled them in a box that he would take downstairs for the recycling later. He turned on the coffee machine and made his way to the bathroom.
On the television, a reporter was covering a murder in Paris. A body had been discovered in the thirteenth
Alexandre Vauvert, his head under the scalding spray of the shower, was not paying attention.
Fifteen minutes later, dry, shaved, and still wrapped in his bathrobe, he was back on the couch. He set his coffee mug on the table and popped two aspirins. Then the image on the screen caught his attention.
That was her all right. Inspector Eva Svarta, on television.
She was wearing the same black leather jacket she had last year. Her white hair was a bit shorter now, curling around her porcelain face and framing those dark glasses.
She was elbowing past reporters, walking with a colleague, a young guy in a beige knee-length leather coat.
Vauvert fished under a cushion for the remote and turned up the volume.
The camera panned several police cars parked on the sidewalk before focusing back on the reporter, a blond bimbo with too much makeup and teeth too white to be real. She brandished an enormous mike with unwavering enthusiasm. Behind her was what appeared to be the entrance to a building blocked off by a police
