LITMIR.BIZ

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in as well? Ghoulishly, Julia wanted to observe the body. She had never seen a murdered person. She desired the unique experience even as she despaired at her own heartlessness. Poor Annika. Poor Ghislaine.

      The French being spoken was urgent, but whispered, like they were in church, as they walked the long corridor to the mortuary; Julia asked herself why people always whispered in the presence of the dead. The dead, she thought, are also deaf.

      A wide door swung open, automatically. As they crossed the threshold, a man in light blue rubber gloves came over, briefly smiled at Rouvier, scanned the other faces, and met Annika’s eyes with his own. She nodded.

      He motioned: this way.

      It was all happening very quickly, Julia had expected more of a palaver, a prologue, some polite and ritual ablutions. But this was brisk French efficiency, verging on harsh un sentimentality. The four of them filed through a wide overbright room, full of trolleys and the shapes of bodies under plastic sheets.

      Now they paused, but only for a fraction of a second, and then the doctor pulled the top of the plastic sheet down to the neck.

      It was Ghislaine’s face. He seemed almost calm. The eyes were shut, with just a smudge of blood on the nose. The skin was ghastly pale, but the relaxation of death gave the professor, oddly, a more youthful appearance. No longer straining and posing; the absurd hair was tousled, like a young man’s hair, actually unkempt. It looked better that way.

      What a horrible horrible pity. A huge engulfing wave of sadness and pity nearly knocked Julia down, she steadied herself, gripped her feelings. Poor Ghislaine, why had he died? How? Who?

      ‘Oui. C’est lui,’ Annika had spoken; she had identifie le corps. The doctor went to pull the sheet back, but Annika reached out a dignified arm and gripped his wrist.

      ‘Non, laissez-moi voir –’

      She wanted to see the rest of the body. The doctor threw an anxious glance at Officer Rouvier, who hesitated – and then nodded, discreetly.

      The doctor pulled back the sheet. They stared.

      And they flinched.

      Ghislaine had been almost ripped apart. That was the only description: he had been cut up with such savagery it was practically a dismemberment. The blood was splattered on the underside of the plastic sheet; so much blood was smeared on his wounded corpse he looked like he was tattooed red and purple, all over.

      Whoever had knifed him to death had done it with wild anger, lust even. Slashing his arms and legs, plunging a knife into the groin – several times, cutting and slashing. Seeing the corpse was like looking at disgusting pornography. Bestiality.

      Lost in her own thoughts, Julia only now realized, Annika was sobbing.

      Softly, but wrenchingly, the Belgian woman was crying, and trying to hide her flowing tears behind her hands. Rouvier gestured to his junior officer, and requested, in French, that Annika be driven back to her cottage. The junior obeyed, taking Annika gently by the arm. The doctor did his duty and wheeled away the traumatized corpse of Professeur Ghislaine Quoinelles.

      Rouvier and Julia were alone in the mortuary. He sighed.

      ‘These places. Always I think – one day I shall come in here, and I will never come out again. But, let us be thankful, not today.’

      They took the elevator to the ground floor. Rouvier seemed keen to talk, lingering by the front door of the hospital, where a few patients in dressing gowns were smoking the midnight hours under a steel and glass awning.

      ‘There is a machine over there with the most terrible coffee. I believe I need one. And for you?’

      ‘Black. Thanks.’

      Rouvier jangled some coins and went to the drinks machine.

      Julia sighed into the rainy night. In the chaos and con fusion she had left her car at Annika’s. She had quite forgotten. But she couldn’t be bothered to arrange a wearying or expensive lift to the Cham now – especially as she’d just have to drive all the way back, the same night.

      She would sleep here in Mende, in her nearby apartment, and maybe get a lift from Alex in the morning. After all, he would want to go and see Annika. Offer comfort.

      Moreover she was happy to be right here, at the hospital, surrounded by people. She didn’t want to go home alone to her empty rooms, not right now, not immediately. She was actually scared. Who did that appalling killing? The randomness and barbarity was frightening. Julia noticed her hand was shaking as she reached to accept the white plastic cup of coffee from Rouvier.

      She sipped.

      ‘You’re right. It’s disgusting coffee.’

      ‘It is a miracle, non? To make coffee this bad is practically a Biblical event.’

      ‘And stupidly hot, too.’

      He nodded and smiled. She noticed he had very neatly manicured hands. She liked Rouvier: he reminded her of her father at his nicest: clever, gentle, wise.

      It seemed a shame not to take this opportunity to ask him a few questions. Julia’s scientific brain was keen to take control again, to exert a grip on her febrile emotions. That way she could fend off the sadness and fear, and memories.

      ‘Do you have any theories? Any suspects?’

      Rouvier shook his head, blowing cold air on the coffee.

      ‘No. But there are some clues. The arrangement of the knife blows is interesting. He has many many cuts on the hands and fingers.’

      ‘I saw.’

      ‘The distribution of the cuts shows he had his arms, hmm, what is the word . . . elevated. Elevated. To protect himself.’

      This was a little mysterious.

      ‘Protect himself. How?’

      ‘Maybe the killer was trying to stab him high in the head. That is our suspicion. The front of the head. The forehead or the eyes. Naturally there is a reflex: to lift your hands. In that situation.’

      It was a horrible image.

      ‘How do you know it was one killer?’

      ‘We don’t. But I think, just a guess, I think I am right. One big man, frustrated, and then frenzied. Yes that is a very good English word. Frenzied.’

      ‘Who found the body?’

      ‘A neighbour. I understand she is very upset.’

      ‘Not surprised. Jesus. Jesus.’ Julia was gulping her coffee now: it was cooler, and the bitter taste was apposite. ‘So. Do you have any theories about motivations? Did Ghislaine have enemies?’

      ‘Motivations?’ said Rouvier, half smiling, half avoiding her gaze. ‘No. Yes. No. A man with no close family? No girlfriend. No rivals in his small field. Yet a man with a famous name.’

      ‘Famous?’

      ‘OK, perhaps not famous. But well known.’ Rouvier crushed the plastic cup in his hand and chucked it in a bin from a distance; he smiled at the accuracy of his aim. Then he sobered and turned. ‘I knew Ghislaine Quoinelles. He was, perhaps, a little haunted by his surname.’

      ‘How so?’

      ‘His grandfather was a famous scientist.’ Another moue of a shrug. Rouvier was looking ready to leave. ‘I do not know much more. But I often wondered why he came south, to little Lozère. In France a famous surname can be a wonderful advantage. We are meant to be a meritocracy, the great republic! But enarques descend from enarques. The sons of small Hungarians in the Élysées get to run La Défense at the age of twenty-three. Quoinelles was rich and clever and descended from famous men, politicians, scientists – yet he came here to tiny Mende where literally nobody lives! For a Parisian, the Lozère is like Siberia. Maybe he tried to escape the shadow of his surname.’

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