Jean-Christophe Grangé: Blood-Red Rivers aka The Crimson Rivers

Niémans grabbed the death certificate, which Barnes had handed him. He glanced over the typed text. It had been written by the head of the hospital in person. The doctor made no pronouncement concerning the time of death. He simply described the visible wounds and concluded that death had been caused by strangulation. For further information, it would be necessary to unfold the body and perform an autopsy.

"When will forensics be here?"

"Any minute now."

The superintendent approached the victim. He leant down and examined his facial features. He was young, rather handsome, his eyes closed and, most importantly, there was no sign of any blows to the face.

"Has anyone touched his face?"

"No one, superintendent."

"So his eyes were closed?"

Barnes nodded. With his thumb and index finger, Niémans gently opened one of the victim's eyelids. Then the impossible happened: a gleaming teardrop slowly fell from the right eye. The superintendent started up in disgust. The face was crying.

Niémans scrutinised the others. No one else had noticed this extraordinary detail. He kept his calm and, still out of sight of the others, looked again. What he saw proved that he had not gone mad and that this murder was what every policeman dreads or longs for throughout his career, according to his character. He stood back up and swiftly covered the body once more. Then he whispered to the magistrate:

"Tell us how the investigations are to proceed."

Bernard Terpentes rose to his full height.

"Well, gentlemen, you understand how this business may turn out to be difficult and…unusual. Which explains why the public prosecutor and I have decided to call in the local Grenoble brigade and also the gendarmerie rationale. I have also called in Superintendent Niémans, here present, from Paris. I am sure his name is not unknown to you. The superintendent is currently part of a high-ranking section of the Paris vice squad. For the moment, we know nothing about the motive for this murder, but it may well be a sexual one. And it is clearly the work of a maniac. Niémans's experience will be of great use to us. Which is why I should like him to lead this investigation…"

Barnes agreed with a swift nod of his head, Vermont likewise, but less enthusiastically. As for Joisneau, he answered:

"That's fine as far as I'm concerned. But my fellow officers will soon be here and…"

"I'll put them right," Terpentes cut in. He turned toward Niémans.

"Well, superintendent?"

The whole business was starting to get on Niémans's nerves. He longed to be out of there, getting on with the investigation and, above all, alone.

"How many men do you have, Captain Barnes?" he asked. "Eight. No…I mean, nine."

"Are they used to questioning witnesses, collecting evidence, organising road-blocks?"

"Um, well…that's not the sort of thing we…"

"What about you, Captain Vermont? How many men do you have?"

The gendarme's voice cracked out like a ten-gun salute: "Twenty. And experienced, all of them. They'll fine-toothcomb the area around where the body was found and…"

"Fine. I suggest that they also question everybody who lives near the roads leading to the river, that they call into service stations, railway stations, houses beside bus stops…Young Caillois sometimes slept in refuges when out trekking. Find them and search them. Maybe he was kidnapped in one."

Niémans turned toward Barnes.

"Captain, I want you to put out a request for information across the entire region. By noon, I want a complete list of all the area's prowlers, petty crooks, tramps and what have you. I want you to check who's just been released from prison in a two-hundred-mile radius. Thefts of cars and thefts of any kind. I want you to ask questions in hotels and restaurants. Fax them a questionnaire. I want to know the slightest strange occurrence, the slightest suspect arrival, the slightest indication. I also want a list of all the events that have occurred here in Guernon over at least the last twenty years which may or may not have something to do with this business."

Barnes noted each request on his pad. Niémans turned to Joisneau:

"Get hold of the Special Branch. Ask them for a list of the cults, gurus and other similar nut cases in this region."

Joisneau nodded. Terpentes too, in a sign of superior agreement, as though all these ideas were being plucked straight out of his head.

"That should keep you busy till we get the results of the autopsy," Niémans concluded. "I don't need to add that this has got to be kept hush-hush. Not a word to the local press. Not a word to a single soul."

They parted company on the steps of the University Hospital, striding off through the morning mist. In the shadow of that huge edifice, which looked at least two hundred years old, they got into their cars, heads down, shoulders hunched, without a word or a glance.

The hunt was on.

Pierre Niémans and Eric Joisneau went straight to the university, which was on the edge of the town. The superintendent asked the inspector to wait for him in the library, in the main building, while he paid a call on the university vice-chancellor, whose office took up the top floor of the administrative block, a hundred yards away.

The officer entered a vast 1970s construction, which had already been renovated, with a lofty ceiling and walls of different pastel colors. On the top floor, in a sort of antechamber occupied by a secretary and her tiny desk, Niémans gave his name and asked to see Monsieur Vincent Luyse. While waiting, he looked at the photographs on the walls, showing triumphant students brandishing cups and medals, on ski slopes or in raging torrents.

A few minutes later, Pierre Niémans was standing in front of the vice-chancellor. A man with wiry hair, a flat nose, and skin the color of talc. Vincent Luyse's face was a strange mixture of Black African characteristics and anaemic pallor. A few sunbeams shone through the stormy gloom, slicing through the half-light. The vice-chancellor asked the policeman to take a seat, then started nervously massaging his wrists.

"So?" he asked in a dry voice.

"So what?"

"Have you discovered anything?"

Niémans stretched his legs.

"I've just got here, vice-chancellor. I need a little time to settle in.

Meanwhile, just answer my questions."

Luyse stiffened in his chair. His entire office was made of wood, dotted with metallic mobiles reminiscent of flower stalks on a steel planet.

"Have you had any other tricky incidents in your university?" Niémans asked calmly.

"Tricky? No, not at all."

"No drugs? No thefts? No fights?"

"No."

"There aren't any gangs, or cliques? No youngsters giving each other funny ideas?"

"I don't understand what you mean."

"I'm thinking about role-playing. You know, games full of ceremonies and rituals…"

"No. We don't have any of that sort of thing. Our students are a clearheaded crowd."

Niémans remained silent. The vice-chancellor sized him up: crew cut, big build, grip of an MR73 sticking out of his coat. Luyse wiped his face, then said, as though trying to convince himself:

"I've been told that you are an excellent policeman."

Niémans responded by staring back at the vice-chancellor. Luyse turned away his eyes and went on:

"Superintendent, all I want is for you to find the murderer in as short a time as possible. The new academic year is about to begin and…"

"So there are no students on the campus yet?"

"Only a few boarders. They live on the top floor of the main building over there. Then there are also a few lecturers who are preparing their courses."

"Can I have a list of them?"

"Why…" a hesitation, "of course…"