She was sentenced and ultimately walled up in her own bedroom. She died three years later, in 1614 to be precise.”
Eva’s colleagues stared at her. Leroy leafed through the book in silence, then handed it to Deveraux. He opened it, brows furrowed, and closed it almost immediately.
“I don’t get it. What does a Romanian dyke dead for hundreds of years have to do with our case?”
“You think that our killer is replicating those murders?” O intervened. “That he’s inspired by this Bathory character?”
“I don’t think so,” Eva responded vehemently. “I’m absolutely certain of it. “Last year, when I studied those symbols and inscriptions, I let myself get thrown off by the gibberish the Salavilles had written on the walls. With all possible names of gods we found there, I got my head full of satanic ceremonies, voodoo, African rituals. And all that time, I was looking in the wrong places. The person who perpetrated these barbaric acts wasn’t inspired by any occult rituals as we know them nowadays, but by what Countess Bathory did. He kills and tortures just the way she did.”
Eva paused to let what she intended to say next sink in.
“And it’s possible that this person actually believes she
Her three colleagues kept looking at her, puzzled.
“What you mean here is that the killer could be a woman?” O asked.
“Come on, that’s ridiculous,” Deveraux groaned. “A woman?”
“Why not?” Leroy said.
“Because women don’t use knives!” Deveraux barked. “It’s never been seen!”
“That’s just it, Jean-Luc. I think we’re dealing with a killer the likes of which we’ve never seen before. And if things happen the same way they did last year, the killer is going to keep on striking, again and again until we stop her.”
Deveraux shrugged to show his disdain.
Eva paid him no mind and continued, “As I was saying, Countess Bathory surrounded herself with minions who took care of the dirty jobs for her, like getting rid of the bodies. We have in that case a typical slave-and- master relationship. It is possible that the Salavilles were actually servants at the beck and call of the killer, man or woman.”
“Hence the removal of the faces?”
“I think so. The only thing these girls have in common is that they were all very pretty. And Elizabeth Bathory was a complete narcissist. Other women’s beauty made her jealous.”
“Like the Evil Queen in
“That’s the idea,” Eva said.
“Couldn’t it be simple cruelty?”
“Not with this degree of ferocity, no. There’s an intent to dehumanize these girls. Taking off their faces, that’s negating their status as human beings. And let me remind you that those trophies were never found.”
“Because the killer kept them,” O concluded.
“That’s what I believe. What do you think?” Eva asked.
O sighed.
“That we’re in deep shit.”
III
25
It was barely dawn when Vauvert’s SUV left Highway 61 and sped onto Route 119, heading for the heart of the Ariege mountains. The sun was slowly rising in a charcoal sky above the Pyrenees’ pale outline.
As he drove over the wet asphalt, his mind was somewhere else.
He had just spent another sleepless night. He had tried, of course. He had stared at the ceiling for hours, listening to the sounds of the city, the neighbors’ sighs in their bedrooms, the drunken laughter coming from the street. But sleeping was simply impossible. At four in the morning, he got up, turned the television on again, and started sifting through the files. He immersed himself in the flow of blood the Salavilles had unleashed.
Twenty-four women murdered in less than a year.
Snatched from their own homes. In three different regions.
But how their killers had selected them, that had never been understood. Just as why the two brothers had suddenly started to kill had never been understood.
There was a key. He knew the key was somewhere in front of him, so close at hand, God dammit.
Maybe the key was still somewhere at their farm. A detail that was neglected last year. Something new, anything at all that could be a lead.
Arriving at an intersection, he took a sharp right turn. The SUV sped onto the narrow access road.
It was actually a muddy track because of the torrential rains that had been pouring the past weeks. Bordered by tall fir trees and fences, it twisted up the mountain. Vauvert had the odd feeling that he had driven this road just a few hours ago. But a full year had gone by. One year already. And nothing had changed.
The track was the same reddish scar across the country. It seemed to be running away from the realm of reality, entering the foggy lands bristling with black conifers of the mountains.
Last year, Vauvert had stopped at a crossroad in this very spot, unsure as to which way to go. Inspector Svarta had been with him. They were facing two dirt tracks, one to the right, the other to the left, and both led into the depths of the Ariege’s forest. Vauvert had wondered if they had taken a wrong turn.
Now he knew that they hadn’t. He was heading in the right direction.
He didn’t hesitate for a second this time and turned right. The SUV skidded, spraying rocks in its wake, forging full speed ahead on what was no more than a goat path.
The bends leading uphill were steep now.
Vauvert engaged the four-wheel drive, just as he had the year before.
This time, however, the passenger seat was empty. There was no girl to rescue. It was just a routine expedition to bring fresh eyes to an old crime scene.
Then why wouldn’t this persistent feeling of deja-vu leave him? It was as though the past and the present were converging, blending in a strange and complex manner. Deep down, a small voice seemed to be crying out to him:
He knew what the voice was.
It was his instinct. The voice of his most atavistic sense. Detective Damien Mira, his colleague and friend, had once told him that he believed everyone had a special gift and that his was precisely that: instinct.
Damien was probably right. He would have been an idiot not to understand that if his senses were on such high alert, it could only mean he was going in the right direction. Whether he liked it or not.
He had no choice but to go on.
Suddenly, the farmhouse rose up at the end of the track. Alone and gray. A rectangular hunk of stone with a decrepit balcony on the second floor. All the windows were shut.
Vauvert stopped his vehicle in the driveway. In the same spot as the year before.
He put one foot on the ground, listening, smelling the air.
The farm was perfectly silent, like the landscape. Not a single bird singing. Not a frog was croaking. Even today.
