Maxim Jakubowski - Paris Noir

Her heart beating so hard she thought it was going to burst, Julie ran up to the fourth floor, the last, charging into the narrow corridor of the attic rooms. The fluid, quick steps were coming up the stairs, closer and closer. She grabbed the keys from her bag, trembling, had trouble inserting the right key in the lock. The second the door was finally open, a shape rushed at her and shoved her roughly inside. Julie stumbled, with a squeal. The door slammed.

‘Don’t shout. Don’t move.’

Some groping around, then the man found the switch. Light shone from the ceiling, revealing the North African man in his jean jacket. Julie opened her mouth, tried to scream ( The ones who got away, Claire repeated, were the ones who screamed their heads off. The man ran for it …), but couldn’t. No sound came out.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ Guy Georges declared. ‘I don’t mean you any harm. I just need a roof for the night, that’s all. I’ll be off early in the morning.’

She nodded, her eyes filled with tears.

‘You see, when I saw you in the Métro, I fell for you straight away. I need help, you’re beautiful, you look kind. I’m homeless, my landlord threw me out because I’m three months behind with the rent…’

Julie went on nodding her head, sniffing.

‘Don’t cry. Take off your coat.’

She obeyed, still trembling. Threw the coat over the corner of the sofa that she and Claire had gone to buy last week, at Ikea.

He sat on a chair, lit a cigarette.

Julie stammered: ‘What… What’s your name?’

‘Florent. My mother’s French, my father’s Algerian.’

Her heart sank. Florent… Flo. Doubt was no longer possible. The name he’d given Elisabeth before she escaped. She was in the presence of Guy Georges. The prisoner of Guy Georges. The Beast of Bastille…

Now she knew what was in store. Claire had told her enough times:

He ties the girl up, trying to reassure her. Then he takes out a knife and rips her clothes. His usual method is to slice the bra between the cups. That’s his serial killer ‘signature’. Then he slashes her knickers, on the side. He tells the girl to suck him, then he rapes her. Finally, he starts stabbing, violently, going for the neck…

Since she couldn’t scream, Julie attempted to soften him up.

Seem friendly. Human. That way, maybe…

The ones who were nice to him, who did whatever he said – like Catherine Rocher who gave him her credit card, with the pin number – it was no use. They’re all dead.

‘Would… Would you like a coffee?’

Guy Georges smiled. ‘Good idea.’

Shaking, Julie went to the kitchen area. She took out an aluminium saucepan, turned on the tap, poured in cold water. Lit the gas (she broke four matches before managing to light one). Then, standing on tiptoe, she took the packet of coffee from the cupboard.

‘Do you want a hand?’

‘N-no thank you.’

My forensic medicine professor performed the autopsies on three of the victims. He told me that to reach the vertebrae, having gone through the throat, required tremendous strength…

Or a tremendous hatred of women. Of women, or the whole world…

Julie struggled to open the filter and put it in the plastic cone over the coffee pot. Poured ground coffee into the filter. Poured in double the amount before she realised.

‘What do you do?’ asked Guy Georges, behind her.

‘G-graphic designer for a magazine… You?’

‘I was working in a Japanese restaurant, washing up… But I got sick of it, I didn’t go back and they fired me. Can I help with the cups?’

She moved aside.

‘No, stay there… Please.’

In Julie’s handbag, the phone began to ring. Beating her to it, Guy Georges fell on the bag, opened it, found the mobile, pressed the red button. The ring tone broke off. He put the phone in the top pocket of his jean jacket.

‘You can call your friends back tomorrow,’ he smiled. ‘After I’ve gone…’

The water was boiling in the pan. Julie turned off the gas, poured the water onto the coffee. She took two cups and two saucers from the kitchen cabinet and two spoons from the drawer. She turned back to the centre of the tiny studio flat and, making the spoon quiver, put a cup and a saucer on the coffee table, in front of the sofa.

What would he use to tie her up?

Usually, he finds shoelaces in the flat. And he brings his own gaffer tape…

The coffee had almost finished filtering. Julie threw the filter into the sink and picked up the pot of black, boiling liquid.

Which pocket was he hiding the gaffer tape in? And the knife? And when would he say ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to tie you up and gag you for the night’?

After the coffee?

Guy Georges, still with his reassuring smile (but his eyes were cold), raised his cup towards her, holding the edge of the saucer. Julie flung the contents of the coffee pot straight into his face.

He let out a howl. Leapt up from the chair, which toppled over behind him. He lurched forward, his face dripping with black streaks and his skin visibly reddening. He walked forward, hands out in front of him. His big killer’s hands…

Julie turned back to the cooker, grabbed the enormous iron frying pan given her by Grandma Coray, who lived on the Brittany coast.

And brought it down, with all the strength she possessed, on the Bastille killer’s shaved head. Again and again. A red mist passed before her eyes. The man had fallen to his knees, and uttered a groan between every thud of metal to his skull.

By the time Julie Coray had recovered her wits, Guy Georges was no longer moving. A large pool of blood was seeping across the carpet, mixed with the spatterings of coffee.

Julie went to vomit in the sink. Nor having eaten, all she brought up was a little bitter bile. Wiping her mouth and face with a cloth, she went back to the lifeless body.

A wallet was sticking out of the front pocket of the killer’s jeans.

Overcoming her revulsion, Julie tried to find a pulse on the man’s right wrist. Nothing. She placed her fingers on the carotid artery. Nothing there either. Finally, she decided to pull out the wallet, and opened it.

She found an identity card in the name of Florent Chétoui, born 22 September 1967 in Blida (Algeria). And a pay slip from the restaurant Delices d’Osaka, rue de la Croix-Nivert, Paris 15, with a short letter of dismissal.

Julie’s mobile began to ring again. In the front pocket of Florent Chétoui’s jacket. Fighting waves of nausea, the young woman turned the inert body over and retrieved the phone. Big blisters were swelling the face, turning it a purplish red.

‘Julie? You OK?’

Claire.

‘Yes, well… I’m OK. I think…’

‘It didn’t sound like it. Your message, on my voicemail…’

‘Yes, I’m OK… Better.’

‘Did you see, they got him, huh?’

‘What? Got who?’

‘Guy Georges of course! Didn’t you listen to the news? Two cops recognised him and caught him, softly softly, early in the afternoon. He was coming out of Blanche Métro station, went into a Monoprix… They cornered him by the perfume counter,’ she chuckled.

‘…’

‘Apparently he didn’t struggle or anything…’

Stepping over the body, Julie rushed to the TV, pressed the button. She caught the start of the late-night news on TFI. First the presenter’s voice, then his smiling face:

… freely confessed to the murders of Pascale E, in 1991, and Magali S, in 1997. Police are continuing to question him. According to the police, Guy Georges is not North African but mixed race, Afro-European, and only vaguely resembled the two photofits…

Julie had another urge to vomit. She turned down the volume and picked up the mobile again.