Syndrome E Read online

  Lucie leaned in as close as she could to the film. To think those images had crossed through her sight without her knowing it. A few feet later, on the translucent strip, she saw the same woman positioned like a corpse. Then again and again after that, as Claude unspooled the film between his fingers.

  “At each of the actress’s appearances, roughly every two hundred frames, there’s an additional wound, spreading from the black circle on her stomach. As if in temporal continuity. Until it forms…”

  He started cranking the handle again, halted on the unbelievable scene in which the bull stood facing the girl. The following image was completely different.

  “…an eye.”

  Lucie had trouble understanding what she’d got hold of. Little by little, someone had lacerated the woman in every direction, radiating from her navel like a sun of gashes. Open wounds on her white body frozen on the thick grass. In appearance, the slits formed a pupil with its iris. A hidden, malevolent eye that observed you, transfixed you, made you want to turn away. To not see anymore. Lucie felt as if she were looking at crime scene photos: the victim of a twisted, sadistic killer.

  “That can’t be trick photography,” she stated. “It’s so…real.”

  Claude removed his glasses and wiped them with a chamois. Without the magnifying lenses, his face regained its balance, its features refined despite the deep wrinkles.

  “That’s the very definition of trick photography when it’s done well. I have no doubt it’s the case here.”

  The black and white amplified the violence of the image, dissociated the mutilated body from its environment. Lucie still couldn’t get over it.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because we’re dealing with the movies, dear miss, not with reality. The seventh art is an art of magic, subterfuge, optical illusion. The woman could very well be a model. In able hands, some makeup and a few staging effects would do perfectly well. Nothing is real. One thing for certain, our director seems to be obsessed with eyes and the effect of images on the mind. A precursor, as you said, when today we see to what extent images inhabit our lives and flood it with violence. Our children confront more than three hundred thousand images a day—do you have any idea what that means? And do you know how many of them are related to violence, death, and war?”

  The eyes of the woman Lucie privately called “the victim” stared up at the sky, devoid of any sign of life. A bit shaken, the cop turned back to face Claude.

  “Do you think this film was ever shown in a theater?”

  “I doubt it. The condition of the sprocket holes, especially near the beginning of the film, is impeccable. This copy, at least, was never shown on a large scale.”

  “So why the subliminal images, then? Why all that staging?”

  “Private projections, perhaps? A film that the director showed to a few select individuals? Who knows. A personal fantasy? You know, subliminals can be incredibly strong. They’re a direct line between the image and the subconscious, unmediated by any form of censorship. They take an image and jam it straight into your brain—bam! An ideal way to convey violence, sex, and perversity by alternate routes. These days, that all happens online, in visual and audio. Bands that pass subliminal messages in their songs, for instance. Perhaps our director enjoyed that kind of wild idea? When I think that it was only 1955…You’ve got to hand it to him—the guy’s no lightweight.”

  Claude switched off the screen. Lucie couldn’t take her eyes off the reel. Thousands of images one after the other, imprinting life or death. She imagined a gleaming, magnificent river that churned up in its depths a host of invisible, deadly parasites.

  “Is that all we can get out of this film?”

  Claude hesitated. “No. I think it’s a vehicle for something else. For starters, why fifty frames a second? And what’s the point of that white circle in the upper right? It’s present on every frame. On top of which”—he shook his head, lips pinched—“there are those areas of fog, parts of the screen that are very dark, that omnipresent dullness, like a kind of film over the lens. The cameraman seems to be playing with contrast, light, things unsaid. I felt the same anxiety as you when I watched this. The porno images, or even the ones of the woman being tortured, aren’t enough to create such a powerful unease. And besides, let’s not forget that Ludovic is in a psychiatric ward because of this film. There must be something I’ve missed. I have to look at it all again very carefully. Every frame, every bit of every image. But that could take days…”

  Lucie couldn’t manage to shake the vision of that maimed woman. A fat, black eye, like a gaping wound on her abdomen. She might have been holding the proof of a murder. Even if the case was more than fifty years old, she wanted to get to the bottom of it. Or at least understand.

  “How could we find that woman?”

  Claude didn’t appear surprised by the question. After all the films he’d handled, most of them lost or anonymous, he must have been used to this kind of request.

  “I think you’d have to look in France. She’s wearing a Chanel suit, the 1954 model, in other words one year before the film was developed. My mother had the same one.”

  Shot in France, developed in Canada? Or else, had the actress moved there—assuming she even was an actress? And why? How had someone convinced her to appear in this sick film? One more oddity to add to the pile, in any case.

  “Large bust, pear-shaped hips…this is smack dab in the Bardot era, when filmmakers finally dared show women. Her face doesn’t ring any bells, but I can contact a film historian who specializes in the fifties. He’s in touch with all the film archives and revival houses in the country. The porno and erotica milieu was very closed off and censored at the time, but there was a circuit even so. If this woman ever appeared in any other films, my friend will find her.”

  “Can you make me photocopies of the subliminal images off the film?”

  “I can do you one better—I’ll digitize the whole thing for you. My 16-mil scanner can churn through two thousand frames an hour in low res. Don’t worry, the quality will be excellent, as long as you don’t try to show it on a movie screen. When I’m done, I’ll put it on a server, and you can download it from your computer.”

  Lucie thanked her host warmly and dropped her business card in the basket.

  “Call me as soon as you find out anything.”

  Claude nodded and squeezed her hand between both of his.

  “I’m doing this for Ludovic. It was thanks to his parents that I met my wife. Her name was Marilyn, like the other one…” He sighed, a sigh full of nostalgia. “I’d really like to know why this damn film drove him blind.”

  Once outside, Lucie glanced at her watch. Almost noon. Her meeting with Claude Poignet had made her feel sick. She thought about those subliminal images, inside her now against her will. She felt them vibrating somewhere inside her, without knowing precisely where. The scene of the sliced eyeball had shocked her, but at least she’d been aware of seeing it. But the others…Just perverted filth that had been lodged in her brain, without any possible defense.

  Who had seen this insanity? Why had it been made? Like Claude Poignet, she sensed that the cursed filmstrip still harbored sinister secrets.

  Her head full of questions, she went to retrieve her car at the République parking garage. Behind the wheel, before turning the ignition, she took out young Szpilman’s want ad, which Ludovic had given her: “For sale: old films, 16 mm, 35 mm, silent and sound. All genres, short and full length, 1930s and after. 800+ reels, including 500 spy thrillers. Make offer on site.” The son might know something. It might be worth making the trip to Liège. But first, she was going back to the hospital to have lunch with her mother and Juliette—though calling that hospital food “lunch” was a stretch.

  She was already missing her little daughter something fierce.

  11

  Sharko, beside himself, yanked open the toilet stalls at Rouen police headquarters one after another to make su
re no one was inside. Sweat was pouring down his temples and the cursed sun streamed through the windows. It was awful. He spun around suddenly, his eyes full of salt and fury.

  “Leave me the fuck alone, Eugenie, okay? I’ll get you your cocktail sauce, but not now! I’m at work, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  Eugenie was sitting on the edge of the sink. She wore a short blue dress and red shoes with buckles, and her hair was tied with an elastic. She was taking mischievous pleasure in coiling a lock of it around her fingers. She wasn’t sweating a drop.

  “I don’t like it when you do those things, dear Franck. I’m scared of skeletons and dead people. Eloise was scared of them too, so why are you starting up again and putting me through this? Didn’t you like it in your office? Now I don’t want to go away alone. I want to stay with you.”

  Sharko paced back and forth, hot as a pressure cooker. He ran to the sink and stuck his head under the freezing tap. When he stood up, Eugenie was still there. He tried elbowing her aside, but she didn’t budge.

  “Quit talking about Eloise. Get lost. You should have gone away with the treatment, you should have disap—”

  “So then let’s go back to Paris, right away. I want to play with the trains. If you’re mean to me and go see those skeletons again, things won’t be so easy for you. That big dummy Willy can’t come bother you anymore, but I still can. And whenever I want to.”

  Worse than a pot of glue. The inspector held his head in his hands. Then he rushed out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. He veered into a hallway. Eugenie was sitting cross-legged in front of him, on the linoleum floor. Sharko walked around her, ignoring her presence, and straight into the office of Georges Péresse. The head of Criminal Investigations was juggling his landline and his cell. Papers had piled up in front of him. He put his hand over the receiver and jerked his chin toward Sharko.

  “What is it?”

  “Any news from Interpol?”

  “Yes, yes. The form was sent to Central last night.” Péresse returned to his conversation. Sharko remained in the doorway.

  “Can I see that form?”

  “Inspector, please! I’m busy.”

  Sharko nodded and went back to his desk, a small area they had allocated him in an open space where five or six police functionaries bustled about. It was July, blue skies, holidays. Despite the importance of the ongoing case, the precinct was running at half speed.

  The cop sat in his chair. Eugenie had set his nerves on edge; he hadn’t been able to channel her like at his office in Paris. She came back, her rucksack stuffed with old memories and obsessions that she loaded into his head. She knew perfectly well which buttons to push, and he knew what to expect: basically, she punished him the moment he became too much of a cop again.

  He dove back into his files, pen in hand, while the little girl played with a letter opener. She was making noise incessantly, and Sharko knew there was no use stopping up his ears: she was inside him, somewhere under his skull, and wouldn’t clear out until she was good and ready.

  Naturally, Sharko did everything he could to make sure no one noticed anything. He had to appear normal, lucid. That was how he’d managed to keep his ass covered in the Nanterre office. When Eugenie finally beat it, he was able to study his notes.

  The cops had made good progress in forensics and toxicology. Further analyses of the bones, notably under the scanner, had shown old fractures on four of the five skeletons—wrists, ribs, elbows—with signs of healing, which meant they’d been sustained less than two years previous, and before death, since they were colored. So these unidentified men weren’t the type to rot behind a desk. The injuries might have resulted from falls or hazards of their trade, or from contact sports like rugby, or from fights. Earlier that day, Sharko had suggested cross-checking with the various hospitals and athletic clubs in the area. The investigations were under way.

  Despite the lack of head hair, tox screens of the pubic hairs had been extremely fruitful. Three of the five individuals, including the Asian, had been users of cocaine and Subutex, a heroin substitute. Analyzing cross sections of the pubes after cutting them into sections had shown that, for all three, narcotics use had at first strongly declined, then disappeared altogether in the weeks before death. Crushing the insect pupae hadn’t revealed anything: if the men had taken drugs in their final hours, traces of it would have been found in the keratin of the insects’ shells. Given this, the chief inspector had made a note to check releases from detox centers and prisons, as Subutex was a common drug on the inside. Perhaps they were dealing with ex-cons, dealers, or guys who’d gotten mixed up in something to do with drug trafficking. He couldn’t ignore any potential lead.

  One final point: the small plastic tube found around the clavicle of the best-preserved corpse. Analysis had not shown the presence of chemo drugs. Alongside the ME’s hypotheses, the report stated that the sheath might also have served to link fine electrodes implanted in the brain to a subcutaneous stimulator. They called this technique deep brain stimulation, and it was used to treat severe depression, limit tremors from Parkinson’s disease, or suppress Tourette’s. That was a key discovery, since the killer seemed to be interested in his victims’ brains.

  “Whatcha writing?”

  Eugenie had returned. Sharko pointedly ignored her and tried to pursue his thoughts. The little girl tapped on the table with the letter opener, louder and louder.

  “Eloise is dea-ead. Your wife is dea-ead. Eloise and your wife are dea-ead. And it shoulda been you instea-ead…”

  The conniving little bitch…It was her favorite song, the one that wounded him to the depths of his soul. The cop ground his teeth.

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  Heads turned toward Sharko. He leapt out of his chair, fists clenched. He rushed over to a desk sergeant who was making photocopies and showed him his police ID.

  “Sharko, Violent Crimes.”

  “I know, Chief Inspector. Can I help you with something?”

  “I need you to go find me candied chestnuts and cocktail sauce. ‘Pink Salad,’ the two-pound jar. Can you do that? For the chestnuts, any brand will do, but for the sauce be sure to get Pink Salad, no substitutes.”

  The other man’s eyes widened.

  “Well, it’s just that…”

  The Paris cop put his hands on his hips and his shoulders swelled. With his added pounds, Sharko, who’d already had a stocky build, commanded respect.

  “Yes, Sergeant?”

  The young cop left his protest hanging and disappeared. Sharko returned to his spot. Eugenie smiled at him.

  “See you later, dear Franck.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Stay home.”

  She started running and skipping, then disappeared behind a cork bulletin board. The inspector took a deep breath, eyes closed. His calm was finally returning. The hum of the computers, the creaking soles of his colleagues. He resumed his thoughts, quickly leafed through the technical data in the various reports. In the end, it was only a partial failure. The absence of records meant that these men might have been marginals, illegal aliens, or just foreigners.

  Later, Sharko went to get a drink from the water fountain, feeling like his brain was mush. He imagined himself outside, at a sidewalk café. The sergeant had brought him back the jar of cocktail sauce and the glazed chestnuts, and since then Eugenie had left him blissfully in peace. In just a few, he’d head back to the hotel, check in with Leclerc, and probably hightail it back home in another day or two. Because the more time passed, the colder the trail got. Nothing from the hospitals. The detectives who’d returned from canvassing the locals had brought back squat. Out of the hundreds of employees and ex-employees who worked in the industrial zone, not one had seen a thing.

  Sharko, plunging one last time into the files, suddenly felt pressure on his shoulder. He turned around. It was Péresse, who stared at the cocktail sauce and chestnuts, then finally said, “We’ve got a real lead. Come take a look.”
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  Sharko walked with him to his office. The chief inspector from Rouen closed the door and pointed to his computer screen. It showed the scan of a handwritten document in English.

  A telegram.

  “We got it from Interpol. You won’t believe how this telegram made its way here. Some guy from their shop, name of Sanchez, calls them from where he’s vacationing, some campsite near Bordeaux. He was watching TV, just having a drink before dinner, not a care in the world, when he sees you where the bodies were discovered, next to the pipeline.”

  “I was on TV? Jesus, they don’t miss a trick.”

  “So at that point, Sanchez calls headquarters to get the lowdown. He wants to know what you’re up to.”

  “I know Sanchez. We worked a few cases together in the late nineties, before he swung over to Lyon.”

  “He hasn’t been watching much TV these last few days and he missed the media hoopla. So his colleagues tell him about it, the sawed-off skulls and so on. And then something in his head goes tilt. He tells them to look into the Interpol archives, and guess what they turn up?”

  “This old telegram.”

  “Exactly. A telegram sent from Egypt. Cairo, to be exact.”

  Sharko jabbed his finger on the screen.

  “Tell me I’m seeing this right.”

  “You are. It’s dated 1994. Three Egyptian girls, all violently murdered in Cairo. Skulls sawed off, ‘with a medical saw,’ as it says there, brains removed, eyes gone. Bodies mutilated, multiple stab wounds from head to foot, including the genital areas…”

  Sharko felt a morbid giddiness grab hold of him. His rib cage tightened, his chest constricted. The monster of the manhunt reared its head. Péresse kept on reading.

  “…All within two days. And no underground burial this time. The bodies were dumped in the open. Our killer wasn’t being particularly subtle.”