The First Fingerprint (21 page)

“Yes, I know it. But I didn't know there were caves down there containing prehistoric artifacts.”

“The sites lie about twenty-five meters underwater,” Sylvie explained. “Out of sight of daytrippers.”

She carefully put the box back on the shelf, opened a second cupboard and removed an identical-looking one.

“These come from the Trémies Cave on Cape Cacaù, in the Bay of Cassis. They're cut flints …”

She took down two more boxes.

“Here we have bones and coals. These remains were preserved in deposits compacted by concretion. They're from human habitations dating back to Paleolithic times.”

Each item was marked with a number, finely traced in Rotring, and with its place of origin.

“How strange,” he said, to break the silence.

“What?”

“I don't know … all these little pieces of the past! At the bottom of the sea …”

“Oh, you know, there are quite a few sites in this region, from the Italian border as far as Marseille, and probably further on if we looked … the Coral Cave, the Agaraté Cave, Mérou, Deffend, Pointe Fauconnière … they're all near Nice. Closer to us we have Trémies Cave, Devenson, Figuier, Sormiou … and, of course, the famous Le Guen Cave.”

“Famous? I don't think many people in Marseille even remember when it was discovered. The local authorities ought to build a little museum or something.”

“We have to finish excavating it first, and that takes time. But there's a permanent exhibition at the Musée de l'Histoire.”

Sylvie put her boxes away and opened the third cupboard.

“These are more impressive,” she said, pulling out a box which was wider and deeper than the others. “But don't tell anyone I showed you this.”

She put the box down in front of the Baron.

“Do you know where these come from?”

“From Le Guen's Cave,” he declared.

“How did you guess?”

“It's my job to, Sylvie!”

The archaeologist picked up a piece of flint and showed it to him.

“It's a large blade, a sort of knife which must have been used for cutting up meat … When it was found, it was covered with clay and coal dust. I noticed that it had been used, and I'd like to know what for.”

“You have no idea?”

“No, not at all.”

She picked up a second object.

“Here's another blade. It's nine centimeters long by fifteen millimeters. Do you see how the left-hand blade looks polished. In fact, it's been worn down. In my opinion it was used to chop up meat, cutting through flesh and slicing any resistant tissue.”

“But not on men?”

“Maybe! It was a done thing at the time.”

Julia Chevallier's leg had been amputated at the knee, the skin tissue had not been cut through with a knife, the epidermis and dermis both bore signs of having been torn open. De Palma looked at the blade Sylvie was holding, and thought about the flint shard found in Julia's skull, and understood that the murderer was not contenting himself with placing negative hands beside his victims. He was using weapons from the depths of time. Sylvie broke his train of thought:

“I'll show you some photos. They're more impressive than a few old stones. Sit down at the computer.”

She moved the cursor from window to window before opening a file entitled “Le Guen Photos, MR.”

“Here we are.”

She clicked a few times, and the hard drive started to hum.

“Here's the most famous hand from the discovery. Its fingers are intact, and part of the forearm is visible. It's the first one Le Guen saw. And its certainly the most beautiful.”

From
National Geographic
to
Paris Match
, the picture had been on front pages across the world, as well as in all the scientific journals.

“It looks like a woman's hand.”

“That's possible. But we're not really sure … Now I'll show you the mutilated hands … They're the ones that pose the most problems, and they're the source of huge controversy. Look …”

Two hands appeared on the screen, side by side. Both were missing three fingers, the big, ring and little ones.

“These hands were found just above the large flooded shaft, at the far end of the cave.”

She pointed to the mutilations.

“There's been a lot of debate on this subject. Some people claim that it's frostbite, others talk of systematic amputations, or else Raynaud's disease, which is caused by stress and the cold and can lead to necrosis of the body's extremities … And so on.”

“You don't agree, Sylvie?”

“No, I don't. I think these fingers have been bent according to a particular code. A sort of sign language, if you want … Some aborigines still use these kinds of signs when hunting, and also during the handing down of initiation stories. They signal to each other to indicate the presence of this or that game animal.”

De Palma took his eyes off the photo and turned toward Sylvie. She stared back at him for some time, as though guessing each of his thoughts. Close-up, he noticed the tiny emerald specks which stood out against her dark irises, the fineness of her lashes, her discreet eyeliner and mother-of-pearl eyelids. Something deep inside him had just caught fire and he knew that this tiny flame, born in the darkness of his being, would sooner or later become a blaze to consume his entire body.

He turned back toward the photo.

“I'll show you one more. It's my favorite. It's a black left hand, with its little and ring fingers bent over. It looks really beautiful, like a child's hand.”

“True enough,” de Palma said. “When does it date from?”

“Twenty-seven thousand years ago,” Sylvie replied.

“Twenty-seven thousand years …”

“Oh yes … when Palestro first dated them, the Parisian set at the Musée de l'Homme dragged him through the mud. They said that it was impossible, and some even claimed that they were fakes …”

“I can remember that. In your opinion, why did they think they were fake?”

“They don't like us, that's all there is to it.”

Sylvie paused, as though hypnotized by the hand in front of her. After a while, she reemerged from her daydream and looked at de Palma apologetically.

“I wanted to say sorry for last time. I was rather badly behaved.”

“Don't worry about that, Sylvie.”

De Palma stood up and went back to the box of flints. He took one in his hand and ran the tip of his thumb across the blade.

“Palestro told me about the theft of some prehistoric objects,” he said softly, without taking his eyes off the knife.

Sylvie moved the mouse to one side of the computer and put her hands up to her mouth.

“Goodness, he told you about that?”

“Yes, he told me that some articles were missing. He didn't want to accuse anyone and he didn't mention any names.”

“Well, well, well, and I thought Palestro was able to hold his tongue …”

“As I said, he hasn't pointed to anyone! But it seemed to be weighing on his conscience.”

“And with good reason! He wanted to avoid a scandal.”

“That's what he told me. But I didn't really believe him … What scandal could there be about two pieces of stone?”

“You're wrong about that. In scientific circles, it's not at all done to lose items which have been found during a dig. Even if they're pieces of secondary importance.”

“I suppose not … any ideas about the thief?”

“No, not at all.”

De Palma approached Sylvie, without taking his eyes off her.

“There was a murder last night, and preliminary evidence suggests that it was committed using flint weapons.”

The Baron's voice hit Sylvie hard. She shivered.

“For the moment, I have no proof that the killer was in possession of the flints which were stolen from here. But that's what I think.”

De Palma paused to allow her to speak, but she just stared at him in terror.

“I'm going to ask you one thing, Sylvie. Has anyone other than the staff been in here?” “I … I don't think so. Really. We know all the people who come here.”

“I'm going to have to question them. All of them.”

A malaise drifted like heavy smoke through the laboratory. Outside,
the
Danièle-Casanova
blew two siren blasts as it passed through the Sainte-Marie strait.

“Could you show me where those flints were kept?”

Sylvie went to the middle cupboard to remove a box, and placed it on the table. De Palma read the labels and observed that an ax head and a large knife blade were indeed missing. He thanked Sylvie and left the laboratory at Fort Saint-Jean.

To avoid the city center and to take a break, de Palma drove toward the coast road. The police radio in his Clio started screaming out code words such as “
Pétanque de Solex
….” So he opened the glove compartment and turned it off. The traffic was getting heavier. In Anse des Catalans, the cars were crawling along. “Damn that match,” he muttered between clenched teeth.

All of a sudden he placed his siren on the dashboard, switched it on and swerved to his right with his foot hard down on the accelerator. The front wheels spun before gripping the tarmac. One way or another, the tension which had built up during the day was going to have to be worked off. He sped away with clenched jaws, narrowly avoiding the cars which were trying to get out of his way.

He drove like a madman past the tomb of the unknown soldier and skidded to a halt. A rubbish truck was blocking the road outside the Flots Bleus bar. The Baron reversed, his tires smoking, then drove on to the pavement and continued his journey to nowhere.

A kilometer further on, he slowed as he approached the propeller blade which stood as a monument to repatriated settlers from Algeria. The traffic had thinned out. He forgot about his flat in La Capelette, put away his siren and continued along the coast to the end of Les Goudes, opposite Maire island.

Here was his omphalos, the center of his world.

It was here, in the lapping waves, that he had kissed Marie for the first time, fifteen years ago now, having trodden on her feet all night in a ballroom run by Ange Naldi, an ex-gangster. They had spent the evening dancing the tango and paso doble amongst a group of hoods. They had been the only young people there. The Baron had gone along to kill time, while she was keeping her cousins company. Ange
had placed them side by side, just to see what would happen. It had been the most beautiful day of his life.

On the far side of the bay, Marseille the good-time town was dancing in the lazy reflections of the water, while the lights of a huge cargo ship passed out to sea behind the islands. He would have given anything to be one of the crew, to leave the harbor behind and sail away, nose to the wind, into the evening waves. The lamp of the Planier lighthouse swept the moonlit horizon as though to broaden the destinies of those staring at it.

He went back to the little port of Les Goudes and parked his car like a drifter, between two piles of dustbins and some old fishing nets. The calm, smooth sea was giving off a slight aroma of oil, with a hint of nuoc-mom, scents of dried seaweed, a whiff of varnish and paint, all combined with the dominant fragrance of the still-warm water. A few professional fishing boats, which had been tossed about by the sea breezes further out, were now maneuvering themselves, sails struck, among the pleasure boats which had been baked in the sun.

Maistre and de Palma had sworn to buy a fishing boat when they retired. They wanted an old one, made of wood, with a navy blue hull and coral rail, a little roof at the back and a real Beaudoin motor which went “tot tot tot tot …” without ever getting worked up, just enough to keep its tack while catching the silver bass of the coastline in its dragnet. In fact, retirement was not that far away, and the image of their boat was now becoming fixed in the two officers' minds.

For once, de Palma went home early. When he had closed the door of his flat, images suddenly burst into his mind. He imagined that blood stains were covering his eyes, and that the smell of Julia's corpse had got into his clothes.

He stayed in the shower for a long time.

Vidal parked his car on the pavement of rue Béranger, fifty meters away from the square and the church of Saint-Julien. At 9:00 a.m., the neighborhood was deserted. He tried to imagine the places that Julia Chevallier would have frequented. He eliminated the bar-cum-tobacconist's in the square—Julia had not smoked—and instead headed toward the bakeries, groceries and other stores where the young woman might have been known. Each time, the answers were vague. Newspaper articles had had their effect: everyone knew Julia, but no-one knew very much about her. She was just one anonymous, bourgeois woman among all the other anonymous bourgeois women in this dormitory suburb.

His inquiries in the neighborhood led to nothing, but there was still the parish priest, Father Paul Orliac, who had telephoned the day before to say that he had seen Julia on the evening of her murder. De Palma had not wanted to come along, preferring to concentrate on the latest elements of the case in peace.

Vidal had an appointment with the priest at 10:00. He looked at his watch; it was time to head toward the presbytery.

Despite his coarse features, the priest waiting for him at the door was a friendly individual. They crossed a courtyard containing two huge pine trees, with a basketball pitch at the far end.

“I simply can't believe it, Inspecteur. Just imagine, I left her around 11:00 that night … it's horrific.”

The priest of Saint-Julien settled down in what was presumably the parish's reception room, which was large but half taken up by a huge table covered with an ancient oilcloth. He wore his sixty years lightly, spoke with a heavy Charentes accent and kept rolling his eyes as he looked at Vidal.

“A murder, can you imagine? And such savagery … I can tell you I've seen a lot in my lifetime. I've even been a prison chaplain in America. But this leaves me both sad and disgusted.”