80
Soon they had to leave Eva, as more visitors-colleagues from Homicide and other police departments- started showing up. Vauvert and Leroy did not want to crowd Eva.
“Want coffee?” Vauvert asked as they walked down a hallway reeking of bleach.
“Sure,” Leroy answered.
The visitors lobby for that floor was at the far end of the hallway. As they reached the double doors, out came Jean-Luc Deveraux, a cup of coffee in his hand. He was sporting two shiners above his bandaged nose. The battered face looked odd against the sharp suit he was wearing, and the effect was almost comical.
Vauvert gave him a polite nod, but Deveraux just walked past him toward Eva’s room.
“Asshole,” Vauvert muttered under his breath as he pushed open the door to the visitors lobby.
“I told you Deveraux isn’t that bad a fellow,” Leroy said. “This has upset everyone.”
Vauvert kept his mouth shut and ordered two cups of coffee from a machine. The small lobby was empty, which suited him fine. He was so exhausted, he did not have the strength to keep up a conversation with any of Eva’s colleagues. His right eye had developed a tick, and his back ached. He lost himself in thought as he watched the coffee trickle into the paper cups.
Meanwhile, Leroy collapsed into a chair facing the large window. Beyond it, he could make out the see rain-shrouded form of the Austerlitz train station.
He waited for Vauvert to join him.
“What do you think of all this?”
“What do you expect me to think?” Vauvert responded.
He sat down beside Leroy, sighing with relief as his back settled against the soft cushion.
They had to broach the topic. Soon enough, they would be filling out a series of reports, and it was imperative that they put together an account that they both could both agree on. One thing was certain: there was no way they could tell anyone what they’d seen down there. Doing so would cause nothing but endless trouble.
“According to Nadal, we were just momentarily confused,” Vauvert said. “He’s convinced that we were hallucinating, and I bet he’ll come up with some explanation or other for it. A gas leak, flashlights reflecting in the mirrors and tricking us, maybe even simple mass hysteria. He’ll write it all up in a believable way, and everything will be just fine and dandy.”
“How can you be so cynical?” Leroy grumbled. “We were there. We saw what happened.”
“Because I’ve been doing this job for fifteen years,” Vauvert said, taking a sip of his coffee. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been forced to come up with a rational explanation for things I didn’t understand, believe me. Give it enough time, and we’ll be convincing ourselves that we dreamed it all up.”
Leroy shook his head.
“Blood boiling in a trough? Mirrors fucking bleeding? We dreamed that all up, did we? Come on, now!”
He was right, but that didn’t change anything. Vauvert gave a tired smile.
“What do you want me to say? They pay professionals for this. You and I will be sent to an expert shrink. You’d be surprised how those guys can twist your mind around, believe me.” He took another sip of his coffee before adding, “And frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass. Eva’s alive and out of danger. That’s all that matters. And you and I, we got out of this mess in pretty good shape, all things considered.”
Leroy nodded. It had been a very close shave. Getting back to Paris hadn’t been as easy as he’d told Eva. In Rodez, Nadal and his superiors were totally opposed to their leaving. They tried to detain them until they had put together all the facts. It was clear that they wanted to drop the hammer. Leroy and Vauvert owed everything to the intervention of the regional chief of police, an old friend of O’s, who signed the release forms himself and threatened the local boss with demotion if he refused to let them go.
In the distance, a flash illuminated the lead-colored clouds. The storm was still smoldering.
Leroy broke the silence.
“Her ritual. It really did work, didn’t it? This woman summoned things that had been sleeping in the netherworld.”
“Even if that’s the case, we can’t prove anything.”
“So everything we’ve been through, we just keep to ourselves, is that it? You don’t think Eva is going to talk about seeing us in Saint-Clair’s mask?”
“No, I don’t think she will. No more than I intend to tell anyone that I saw her in the mirror in that house. We were four hundred miles away. Nobody would believe it.”
“But it was real!” Leroy said, raising his voice. “And Captain Nadal saw the same things that we did! We were surrounded by those… those black beasts!”
“I know,” Vauvert said. “But it doesn’t do any good to freak out.”
They stared at each other. Fuming, Leroy downed the rest of his coffee.
“They were the same kind of beast I saw at the Salaville farm,” Vauvert said. “It’s like they’re everywhere Saint-Clair has been.”
“So, what do you think they could be?”
“I still don’t have a clue,” Vauvert said. “But I have a hunch that they were human beings once.”
“People who turned into wolves?”
“They say wolves come to take dead people’s souls, right?”
“According to a lot of myths, yes.”
“Maybe that’s what it is,” Vauvert said. “Maybe those things are really carriers of souls. Or maybe they’re spirits that remained in this world in the guise of wolves.”
“Jesus Christ, that’s completely insane.”
Vauvert wanted to make sense of it all for Leroy, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Something else is bugging me big time,” Leroy said.
“What?”
“What if-I hate to say it, but-what if this isn’t over?”
“Eva says she stabbed Saint-Clair to death.”
“She could have stabbed a normal person to death. But someone like this woman?”
“If Saint-Clair is dead, we’ll find her body eventually,” Vauvert said. “And then we’ll know for sure.” He stared at the city through the window. “Only then will I feel better.”
A voice at their backs startled them.
“As of now, anyway, she’s nowhere to be found.”
Turning around, they saw Chief O at the coffee machine. He was ordering a cappuccino as though everything were completely normal.
81
“Oh hi, boss,” Leroy said, chagrined.
“Hi,” Vauvert added.
The chief turned to them, his cappuccino in hand. He looked as tired and drawn as they did. He probably had not gotten much sleep either.
“Hello, gentlemen. But please, enough with the long faces. You came back in one piece, didn’t you?” He took a seat beside them. “The same can’t be said about our two colleagues from Rodez,” he said, staring hard at them in turns.
“Anything new down there?” Leroy asked.
“Depends what you mean by new. They found parts of sixteen bodies in various stages of decomposition. The entire force is on the case. They’ve identified about fifty girls out of the sixty photos. The sixteen bodies are
