The First Fingerprint (32 page)

Great Reindeer kneels in the snow. His life slowly flows from his wounds. The old man approaches and with his ax hits him sharply on the nape of his neck, at the root of his antlers. Great Reindeer slumps down
.

The convulsions were shaking him more violently. White, acidic saliva was dribbling from between his clenched teeth. He writhed like a wounded animal to expel the pain.

Great Reindeer has vanished, engulfed by the silence. A young woman lies there instead. Her long hair is as dark as a raven's wings and her burning eyes are open, lifeless, looking at the snowy sky
.

He screamed. The vision faded.

In the distance, he could hear children playing.

“This case is really getting to me. I thought there was another man in her life, and that it was obviously him who'd strangled her. Now she comes back alone without the guy. So what the hell were they doing in Sugiton at night, in a Zodiac? Making fish soup?”

The Baron was fuming. He had had high hopes for the boat investigation, and now one door had closed while another had opened. Moracchini went to the window and pressed her nose to the glass.

“I've no idea what they were doing there at night,” she mumbled wearily.

“And to cap it all we've got Luccioni acting as a fence for Cro-Magnon artworks. I'm completely lost!”

“So are we, Michel,” Moracchini sighed.

“Vidal, do you remember what Palestro said?”

“Yes,” he said frostily. “He followed her on November 30.”

“And he saw Christine set off in hiking clothes, without her car.”

“Which means?” Vidal asked.

“It means she was going to Sugiton! Where do you think she was going, to church? But there's one thing which doesn't hang together.”

“What's that?” Moracchini asked from the window.

“First, if what Palestro says is true, why didn't he follow her all the way? It's absurd. She's dressed in hiking clothes, she takes a tram—why didn't he guess that she was heading for Le Guen's Cave? By car he could have got there first. Secondly, I'm still wondering what she was doing there at night. See what I mean?”

“We should bring him in.”

“You're right, Vidal. But we can't just hold him on suspicion.”

“Why not?” Moracchini asked, turning away from the window.

“That's not the way I like to work,” de Palma murmured.

“O.K., Michel. But your professor is going to have to tell us everything he knows.”

“Go and bring him in. Today, after his afternoon lecture. I think he finishes at about 3:00 p.m. Find him and bring him here, but softly does it. If he puts up any resistance, then press the point. This business has to be clarified. I'll call Barbieri to get his agreement. Have you seen Paulin today?”

“No, not yet,” replied Moracchini, as she picked up her jacket. “Right, while you two go to Aix, I'll try to see Sylvie Maurel. We could use her insight this afternoon.”

Sylvie Maurel was tidying away her things and was about to go out to lunch when de Palma burst into the laboratory at Fort Saint-Jean. The bells of Les Accoules chimed twelve, soon followed by the angelus.

She glared at him.

“I have to say, Michel, I didn't at all appreciate being questioned in the police station by that little brat. It was atrocious!”

“He was doing his job, Sylvie.”

“That boy is a real pain … Why weren't you there?”

“I …”

De Palma did not want to admit that he had intentionally avoided the formal questioning so as to preserve the atmosphere of trust which had been created.

“Are you here to question me?”

“No … Well, yes.”

“So out with it, let's get this over with,” said Sylvie, throwing her bag on the table.

“I don't want to question you, but rather to ask your opinion.”

Sylvie sat down. She was wearing a miniskirt and black tights. As she crossed her legs, she caught the policeman looking at her.

“I have no idea what Christine went to Sugiton creek for. Is it possible to do research there, or something like that?”

“No, not at all. There's nothing on the surface. Le Guen's Cave is entirely underground …”

“Well I don't get it … It's a mystery. I think they must have managed to open the cave, in one way or another.”

“No, it's not that,” she said dryly.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Christine must have been looking for a second entrance.”

Sylvie picked up a pen and rolled it between her fingers.

“One day, I overheard a conversation between Autran and Palestro in their office at the university. They were talking about the presence of air in the cave—I don't know if you're aware of it, but in most caves sealed by the sea, the air is unbreathable.”

She pointed to a cupboard on which had been pinned a cross section of Le Guen's Cave. Sugiton's small pebble beach lay just above the underwater passage.

“In Le Guen's Cave, what strikes specialists is the quality of the air. It's far better than in Lascaux or Niaux! You have the impression that it circulates there. I often spoke to Palestro about it, but he was always rather vague on the subject.”

De Palma ran his fingers over the diagram of the cave. He needed time to think. Palestro was the only man who knew the secret of this cave—if there was one.

Sylvie came and stood beside him. With a slender finger she showed him a kind of rocky passageway which led back up to the surface.

“You shouldn't go by this diagram. It's extremely imperfect. Even I noticed that there's a black hole in the ceiling.”

With a varnished nail, she tapped on the glossy paper at the place marked “Large mural of hands.”

“No-one has ever been inside this black hole. It's complicated, because it's about ten meters from the ground. Beneath it, you're in water up to your belt.”

“And do you think …?”

“I have no idea. All I can tell you is that Christine was looking for something, and Palestro didn't like it. He wouldn't tell her anything.”

De Palma tried to piece everything together in his mind. But it seemed that each time anything became clearer, another problem arose in its place. Everything remained a muddle. Sylvie went back to the table and picked up her bag.

“That's all I know, Commandant. Can I go now?”

All of a sudden her cold beauty made her inaccessible.

“Sylvie, I don't want there to be any misunderstandings between us! I …”

“You suspected me, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

He was expecting a scornful look, but all he saw in her eyes was extreme disappointment. She shook her long, black hair.

“I'm sure all these murders are linked to Le Guen's Cave,” he said, trying to soften his voice.

“Do you still suspect me?”

“No.”

Sylvie showed him the way out.

“Can you forgive me … I …”

She stared at him with her dark eyes.

“Watch out, Monsieur le Policier, you're becoming painfully clumsy.”

Palestro's gaze was empty and sad. De Palma shook his hand for a long time, staring straight into his eyes. Then he drew his two colleagues to one side and gave them a rapid, whispered summary of his chat with Sylvie. He also asked them not to reveal what Lolo had said about the hand.

“About this man who was with Christine, when did you see him last?”

“I've already told you: the day I went to get my papers from Christine's flat. When I came out, he was lurking around my car.”

“And then?”

“And then nothing. That's what worries me the most. A tram passed by, and he vanished. How can I put it? It was like in a film!”

Palestro was silent for some time.

“That's all I know,” he added in a low voice.

Moracchini walked over and sized him up for a moment. The pre-historian blushed. It looked as if his breath was sticking in his chest.

“I think the best thing,” she said softly, “would be for you to tell us the truth. And I mean the whole truth. Why didn't you tell us that you
followed Christine all the way to Sugiton?”

The professor started, and then stared at them mistrustfully. “Shall I repeat my question?”

“No, there's no need … I admit that I did follow her.”

“And you got to the creek before her?”

“That's right.”

The professor fell silent and peered anxiously at the three officers who were scrutinizing him.

“So?” Moracchini asked.

“When I saw her dressed for hiking, I guessed immediately that she was going to Le Guen's Cave. So I drove out to Luminy, parked my car and—as I walk fast—I got to the creek some time before she did.”

“And then?”

“Then about an hour later, she arrived. I watched her. She took a folding spade from her bag and started digging. At the base of the cliff … That's when I approached her.”

“What did you say?”

“I can't really remember.”

Palestro waved his left hand vaguely, as though to chase away his embarrassment.

“Professor, I'm no fool, you know … Why did you say ‘going to Le Guen's Cave'?”

“Why, what do you call it?”

“I just want to know why you didn't say ‘going to Sugiton'?”

Palestro was at a loss; his defenses were no longer intact.

“It's the same thing!” he exclaimed shrilly.

“No it isn't, and I think you're hiding something. So now you have a choice between leaving this station a free man and spending the night downstairs. Do you know what it's like downstairs?”

Palestro looked up at Vidal and de Palma. He stuck his right hand in his jacket pocket and started fiddling with his keys.

“There's a second entrance,” he stammered.

“And where is this second entrance?”

“Beneath the fallen rocks, to the left of the beach. I'm the only person who knows about it. You have to crawl to get to it. If you want, I'll draw you a map, I can even …”

“We'll see about that later,” Moracchini interrupted. “How did you find it?”

“It was simple. What strikes you when you arrive inside Le Guen's Cave is the quality of the air. I suspected immediately that there must be ventilation. I mentioned this fact in my first research report, but what I didn't say is that if the air is that good, the ventilation has to be considerable.”

“And so you concluded that there must be a large air hole, at least big enough for a man to pass through.”

“Exactly.”

De Palma got up and stood behind Palestro, leaving the professor facing a bare wall.

“So you went back inside via the air hole?” he said.

“Yes.”

“O.K. Let's go on. What happened when you saw Christine in the creek?”

“Christine was furious. She insulted me. She accused me of keeping things to myself. Of not loving her … That kind of thing.”

Moracchini took Vidal's chair and sat down beside the professor.

“I see,” she said slowly. “Christine was angry with you for not trusting her. She was quite right, when you think about it. You find a second entrance, and you keep it to yourself because you know that you're the only researcher who's capable of getting to the cave via the sea entrance. Christine couldn't, and nor could all the idiots who attacked you after its discovery. By saying nothing about this access by land, you were able to control all the research into Le Guen's Cave. It was the pinnacle of your career.”

“I …”

“It was pride, Professor Palestro … pride!”

Palestro's face crumpled. His complexion was like clay.

“So,” Moracchini said, waving her hands in the air. “Tell us everything! You bawl her out, she insults you … then what did you do?”

“We spoke a little longer, then I left her to her search. Strange as it may seem, I went home. No-one could have dissuaded her from doing what she wanted to do. She was extremely stubborn. And I was in despair.”

“Your story is a bit hard to believe when you consider that it's at least a two-hour walk to the car park in Luminy. Especially at night.”

“But it's the truth.”

“Why?”

“Because what she said to me really hurt. I mean, I was the one who
made
Christine, do you understand?”

Palestro looked at his hands. They were trembling. He had lost his orator's confidence, despite his years of experience.

“Yes, I understand,” Moracchini said softly.

“When she started to insult me, I left in disgust. You know, I may be a university professor, but I'm still a bit, how can I put it?”

“Naïve?”

“Yes, perhaps. I thought that my presence would be enough to win her over. And all I got were insults. Among other things, she told me that she had used me. That was hard to bear. She didn't give a damn about my feelings for her.”

“And then?”

“The following Sunday, I went down into the cave. I spent the night there. I checked everything. Nothing had been touched. Nothing at all!”

“Have you seen her since then?”

“No, never.”

“So, at the moment you're the last person who saw her alive, and in a situation which was rather … unusual.”

“You could say that …”

De Palma produced a file of photographs which he had taken from Autran's flat. He spread them out in front of Palestro.

“How odd,” he said, clearly surprised. “These are pictures of the large hand mural. They're …”

“Hands from Le Guen's Cave. That is to say, photographs of hands which we found in Autran's flat. How can you explain that?”

“But … I've never seen these before. Never. I'm certain of it.”

“But they're real!”

“I suppose they are. But it's extremely strange. Only Le Guen and the photographer from the D.R.A.S.M. took pictures. And they're all of far better quality. Incomparable.”