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

Niémans eased himself to his feet and followed the moss trail.

He staggered, stumbling over the clods, feeling his heart beating in his throat. Puddles, bark, boughs full of needles crashed past him. His feet slid over pebbles, flint sanctuaries, holes full of spines, mattings of light vegetation. He went on following the lichen. On other occasions he plunged into swamps of crackling ice, which dug out brackish furrows on the slopes of the hills. Despite the fatigue, despite his injuries, he was gaining speed, gasping in strength from the drifting scents on the air. He seemed to be walking in the very breath of the downpour, which had just stopped to draw in another breath.

At last, he stumbled across a road.

Gleaming tarmac. The road to freedom. Once again, he examined the snug growths along the side of the track in order to ascertain the correct direction. Then, suddenly, a gendarmerie van appeared round the bend, its headlamps full on.

It braked immediately. Men leapt out to help Niémans who, still clutching his gun, slowly collapsed.

He felt the grip of the gendarmes. He heard their murmurs, their shouts, the rustling of their oil-skins. The headlamps danced obliquely. Once inside the truck, a man yelled at the driver:

"The hospital! And fast!"

Semiconscious, Niémans stammered:

"No, the university."

"What? Haven't you seen the state you're in?"

"The university. I…I have a date there."

The door opened to reveal a smile.

Pierre Niémans lowered his eyes. He saw the woman's powerful, muscular wrists. Just above them, he noticed the close stitch of her heavy pullover, then he followed it up to the collar and her neck, where her hair was so fine that it formed a sort of misty halo. He thought of her marvelous skin, so beautiful and so immaculate that it magically transformed each material, each garment that it touched. Fanny yawned:

"You're late, superintendent."

Niémans attempted a smile.

"You…you weren't asleep?"

The young woman shook her head and stood aside to let him in. As he advanced into the light, her expression froze. She had just noticed his blood-covered face. She palled back to get a good view of the damage, his shattered body, blue coat in ribbons, torn tie, singed cloth.

"What happened? Did you have an accident?"

Niémans nodded curtly.

He glanced round the living-room. Despite the temperature he was running, and the blood that was pounding through his veins, he was pleased to be in her little flat. With its spotless walls and pastel shades. A desk buried beneath a computer, books and papers. Stones and crystals lined up on the shelves. Climbing equipment, piles of day-glo clothing. The flat of a young woman who was at once sedentary and sporty, home-loving and adventurous. The memory of that expedition into the glacier flashed through his blood vessels like a shower of sparkling ice.

Niémans slumped down onto a chair. Outside, it had started to rain again. He could hear drops hammering on the roof somewhere above them and the hushed noises of the neighbors. A creaking door. Footsteps. A hall of residence full of worried, cramped students.

Fanny pulled off the superintendent's coat, then carefully examined the open wound on the side of his head. She did not seem the slightest bit put out at the sight of caked-up blood and dark, gaping flesh. She whistled between her teeth:

"Quite a nasty cut! I hope that the temporal artery hasn't been severed. It's rather hard to tell. The head always gushes blood like that and…How did it happen?"

"It was an accident," Niémans repeated brusquely. "A car accident."

"I'm going to have to take you to hospital."

"No way. I've got work to do."

Fanny disappeared into the other room, then came back laden down with lint, drugs and vacuum packs containing needles and serum. She ripped several of them open with her teeth. Then she screwed a needle into the body of a plastic syringe. He tensed and grabbed the packaging:

"What is this?"

"An anesthetic. It'll kill the pain. Don't panic."

Niémans seized her wrist.

"Wait."

He read through the description of the product. Xylocain. An adrenaline-laced painkiller which should reduce the aches without knocking him out. With a gesture of agreement, Niémans dropped his arm.

"Don't worry," Fanny whispered. "This stuff will also help stop the bleeding."

With his head down, he could not see exactly what she was doing. But it felt as if she was making several injections around the wound. A few seconds later, the pain had already diminished. "Can you stitch me up?" he murmured.

"Of course I can't. You'll have to go to hospital. You'll start bleeding again soon and…"

"Tie a tourniquet, or something. I've got to stay on the case, and keep my wits about me."

Fanny shrugged, then sprayed an aerosol onto some pieces of lint. Niémans looked over at her. In her tight jeans, her thighs formed two curves' of force which he found vaguely arousing, despite the state he was in. He wondered at her contrasting qualities. How could she be so nymph-like and so concrete? So sweet and so hard? So near and so distant? He found the same contradiction in her stare: the aggressive flash of her eyes and the incredible gentleness of her brows. Breathing in the acrid smell of the antiseptic, he asked:

"Do you live alone?"

Fanny was cleaning his wound in short, precise dabs. The painkiller was now flowing, so he scarcely felt any sensation of burning. She grinned:

"You really don't miss a trick, do you?"

"Sorry, um…Am I being nosy?"

Close beside him, Fanny concentrated on the job in hand. Then she whispered into his ear:

"Yes, I live alone. And I don't have a boyfriend, if that's what you mean."

"I…um…But why in the university?"

"I'm near the lecture halls, the labs…"

Niémans turned his head. Tutting, she at once shifted it back into position. Then, his face tilted down, he remarked:

"That's right, I remember…the youngest PhD in France. Daughter and granddaughter of emeritus professors. Which means you're one of those children who…"

Fanny butted in:

"One of those children who what?"

Niémans swiveled round slightly.

"Nothing…What I meant was…one of the campus's superheroes who's also a sports champion…"

The woman's expression hardened. A sudden note of suspicion broke into her voice.

"What are you insinuating?"

Despite his burning desire to question Fanny about her family background, the superintendent did not answer. Was it done to ask a woman where she got her genetic riches from or what was the source of her chromosomes? It was Fanny who spoke next:

"Superintendent, I have no idea why you dragged yourself along to my flat in this sorry state. But if you have something to ask me, then please come out with it."

The tone of this command was biting. Niémans was now no longer in pain, but he would have preferred that gnawing agony to the lashing of her voice. He smiled in embarrassment:

"I just wanted to talk to you about that university magazine you write for…"

" Tempo? "

"That's right."

"And?"

Niémans paused. Fanny put the lint back into one of the plastic packets, then strapped a bandage around his head. Feeling the pressure rising round his skull, the superintendent went on:

"I was wondering if you had written anything about a strange occurrence in the university basement last July…"

"What do you mean?"

"Some birth papers were discovered in a file belonging to Etienne Caillois, Rémy's father."

Fanny shrugged.

"Oh, that?"

"So did you write an article about it?"

"A couple of lines, perhaps."

"Why didn't you mention it to me?"