The Métro (part5)

"Inspector Dutruelle?" said the voice at the other end.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Sorry to disturb you at this time of the morning, Monsieur l'Inspecteur. It's the Préfecture."

"Never mind the time," said Inspector Dutruelle with as much irritation as his whispering voice could convey. "I'm off duty today."

"Well, that's the point, Inspector. The Préfet's ordered us to call you specially. He appreciates you're not on duty, but he wants you anyway."

"It's quite impossible."

"I'm afraid he insists, sir."

"Why?"

"He insists you come on duty immediately, sir. We're sending a car round for you."

"Yes, yes, I understand, but why?"

"It's the Métro again, sir."

"The Métro?"

"Yes, sir. They've found another corpse on the line, decapitated again."

Inspector Dutruelle did not reply. He was cursing to himself. He was cursing the Préfet, the police, this homicidal maniac, his wife. Why today? Why ever today?

"Sir? Hello sir? The car'll be with you in five minutes."

"Yes, all right. I'll be ready in five minutes."

The big black Citroen was soon speeding away from Rue Dauphine and heading north across Pont Neuf. Inspector Dutruelle looked at the winter mists rising from the Seine. His dreams, it seemed, were evaporating just as surely.

"You'd better brief me on this as quick as you can," he said wearily to the Detective Sergeant he had found waiting for him in the car. "Where was the body found?"

"Barbes Rochechouart, sir."

A cold shiver passed through the Inspector.

"I presume it's the same as the others?" he asked.

"Well, in as much as there's nothing to go on, it's the same, sir. Otherwise it couldn't be more different. For a start, we've just heard they've found two of them now. And this time they're women. One white, in her forties, and one black. A young black girl - still in her teens, by the look of things."

But Inspector Dutruelle was not listening. He was staring blankly through the glass to his right, and as they turned at Place du Châtelet the empty streets were no more than a cold, grey blur to him. The car swung onto the broad Boulevard de Sébastopol and accelerated northwards to cover the three kilometres to Métro Barbes Rochechouart. It was the route he should have been taking in his own car.

Outside the station, now closed to passengers, people were standing around under the street lights with their collars up. Inspector Dutruelle got out of the car. He hesitated. He glanced towards Rue Beldamme (just a stone's throw away across the bleak Boulevard de Rochechouart) where the Professor would be waiting for him. He shrugged and went down the station steps.

Underground, on the number four line, there was an air of gloom. Both bodies lay where they had been spotted by the first train-drivers through that morning. Inspector Dutruelle looked impassively at the first one. It was the body of a middle-aged woman, quite unexceptional, coarse and wiry, like his wife.

"She's forty-seven, Monsieur l'Inspecteur," said somebody beside him. "French. Name of Madame Catherine Dubur. Not like the other one."

"The other one?" said the Inspector blankly.

"I told you in the car, sir," said the Detective Sergeant at his ear, "there's two of them."

"You'd better show me."

They strolled in their overcoats to the other end of the platform and went down the little steps that led to the track. A uniformed policeman pulled back the blanket that covered the second body, which lay on its back. Inspector Dutruelle stared dispassionately at the stiff, black limbs that stuck out awkwardly across the railway lines. Suddenly he shuddered in alarm. Even in the dim lights of the train that was pulled up beyond you could see the resemblance to Vololona.

"Identity?" he asked. He tried to control his voice.

"We don't know, sir - this is all we found," said a policeman, handing him a tattered greetings card. Inside, in large, green handwriting, were the words: "Happy Nineteenth Birthday, from Everyone in Antananarivo."

"D'you think she's Malagasy, sir?" asked the policeman. The Inspector shrugged his shoulders, then held out an open hand.

"Your torch, please," he said.

He played its beam over the body, up and down the long, slender legs, across the clothes. At least he did not recognise the clothes. Yet the body's size, its build, its colour, everything pointed to Vololona. He bent down and flashed the light onto the fingers of the left hand and laughed weakly to himself as he saw the tawdry rings that glinted back at him. He stood up in relief. That was certainly not Vololona. Yet it was uncanny how this body reminded him of her - and the other of Agnes, for that matter. Even the ages were the same.

He smoked as he stood staring at the headless corpse. He could not understand. Was the magic of Madagascar really so strong that now he saw Vololona everywhere? And what of Agnes? How would Professor Dhiakobli explain that? How could he explain it, when you came to think of it? When you came to think of it, he had explained very little. He had been happy enough to take the money, and free enough with his words - all those grandiose notions of mission and sacrifice and spiritual tête-à-têtes . . .

Inspector Dutruelle gasped.

"The devil," he muttered to himself. Suddenly he understood everything.

"The what, sir?" said somebody beside him.

"Never mind," he answered quietly, putting his hand to his breast pocket. His heart had started to pound with a sense of danger and his head suddenly ached with questions. He took out his cigarette case and lit another Gauloise. Through its curling blue smoke, back-lit by the lights of the train, the black limbs were splayed out in a grotesque dance, while beside him men's voices were thrumming in his ear. Why was there no time to think, to extricate himself from this nightmare? He cursed himself. How could he have been so stupid? He cursed his wife and Vololona. And Professor Dhiakobli. What madness had driven him to this? Then he cursed himself again, and turned abruptly to one of the men babbling at his side.

"What time is it?"

"Six-fifteen, sir."

For a moment, he hesitated. Then he called for the Detective Sergeant who was with the photographer at the other body.

"Écoute Guy, when he's got his pictures they can move the bodies and fix things up," he said. "Now get me the Préfet."

The Préfet was beside himself with rage at this further disturbance to his sleep, and he exploded with indignation when Inspector Dutruelle offered his resignation.

"Are you insane, man? You're in the middle of an investigation!"

"The investigation is over, Monsieur le Préfet."

"So, you have the killer at last!"

"In fifteen minutes, monsieur, in fifteen minutes."

"Then why in the name of God are you asking to be relieved from duty?"

"Monsieur le Préfet, my position is impossible. On this occasion it was I that paid the killer," he answered calmly as he took another cigarette from his silver cigarette case.

© Josef Essberger 2002