Jean-Christophe Grangé - The Empire Of The Wolves

"No."

"You're lying, but never mind. What do you know about this series of murders?"

"They say that the women are tortured, their faces destroyed. That's all I know."

"And the police have never come to see you?"

"No."

"So what's your private police force doing?"

Paul trembled… It was the first time he had heard of such a thing. So the neighborhood had its own force of order.

Tanoi yelled over the machines: "I don't know. They found nothing." Schiffer pointed at the women. "And what do they think?"

"They don't dare go out. They're scared. Allah cannot allow this. The neighborhood is accursed! Azrael, the angel of death, is upon us!"

The Cipher smiled, gave the man a friendly tap on the back and pointed at the door. "Steady, now… you're finally starting to sound human…"

They went out into the corridor. Paul followed them, closing the planks over the machine hell. He had only just done so when he heard a stifled groan. Schiffer had just rammed Tanoi up against the piping.

"Who's killing the girls?"

"I… I dunno."

"Who are you covering for, you fucker?"

Paul did not intervene. He sensed that Schiffer would not go any further. Just a final burst of rage, to save his honor.

Tanoi did not answer; his eyes were popping out of their orbits.

The Cipher released his grip, letting him get his breath back beneath the bare bulb, which was swinging like a hypnotist's pendulum. Then he murmured: "You keep all this under your hat, Tanoi. Not a word about our little visit to anyone."

The sweatshop manager looked up at Schiffer. He had already recovered his servile expression. "My hat has always been in place. Inspector."

The second victim, Ruya Berkes, had worked not in a sweatshop but from her home at 58 Rue d'Enghien. She used to hand-stitch the linings of coats, which she then delivered to the Gozar Halman fur warehouse, at 77 Rue Sainte-Cécile, a road perpendicular to Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière. They could have started with the woman's apartment, but Schiffer decided to go straight to see her employer, whom he had apparently known for some time.

As he drove in silence, Paul savored his return to fresh air. But he was also dreading fresh revelations. He saw the shop windows begin to darken, weighed down with brown materials and languid folds, as the car moved away from Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis and Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin. In each store, the fabrics and cloths were being replaced by skins and furs.

He turned right, onto Rue Sainte-Cécile.

Schiffer pulled at his arm. They had arrived at number 77.

This time, Paul was expecting a sewer full of flayed skin, cages clotted with blood, the stench of dead meat. What he found was a little courtyard, full of light and flowers, whose paving stones looked as if they had been polished by the morning mist. The two officers crossed to the far side, to a building dotted with barred windows, which was the only edifice resembling an industrial warehouse.

"I'm warning you," Schiffer said as he went through the door. "Gozar Halman is a Tansu fanatic."

"Who's that A soccer player?"

The policeman sniggered. They went up a staircase of gray wood.

"Tansu tiller is the former prime minister of Turkey. A degree at Harvard, international diplomacy, minister of foreign affairs, and then head of the government. A model career."

Paul's response was blasé. "A typical career for a politician.”

“Except that Tansu tiller is a woman."

They reached the second floor. Each landing was as vast and dark as a chapel. Paul remarked, "There can't be that many Turkish men who take a woman as their role model."

The Cipher burst out laughing. "Really, if you didn't exist, then someone would have to invent you. Gozar is a woman! She's a teyze, a fairy godmother in every sense of the term. She watches over her brothers, her nephews, her cousins and her workers. She takes care of getting them work permits. She sends people to renovate their hovels. She sends their parcels and money orders for them. And then she gives out bribes to the cops so that they will leave them alone. She's a slave driver, but a benevolent one."

Third floor. Halman's warehouse was a large room with a parquet floor that had been painted gray, scattered with pieces of Styrofoam and crumpled papers. In the middle, planks laid on trestles acted as counters. On them lay piles of cardboard boxes; acrylic shopping bags; pink plastic bags from the local discount store: protective bags for suits, from which some men were removing coats, jackets and collars, examining and then smoothing them out, checking their linings, and finally putting them on hangers suspended from gantries. In front of them, women dressed in head scarves and long skirts, with dark rugged faces, seemed to be wearily awaiting their verdict.

A glazed mezzanine, veiled by a white curtain, overlooked the area an ideal position to supervise the workplace. Without hesitating, or saying a word to anyone, Schiffer seized the banister and started climbing the steep stairs that led to the platform.

At the top, they had to confront a barrier of plants before entering an attic room, which was almost as large as the space beneath it. Windows edged with curtains looked out over a landscape of slate and zinc-the rooftops of Paris.

Despite its dimensions, the workshop's décor made it look more like a boudoir from the 1900s. Paul went inside, drinking in every detail. Doilies protected the modern equipment-computer, stereo, television and sat under the framed photos, glass knickknacks and huge dolls. Everything was drowning in acres of lace. The walls were decorated with tourist posters, singing the praises of Istanbul. Small, brightly colored rugs were hung up like tapestries. Paper flags of Turkey, dotted around all over the place, echoed the postcards that were pinned up in groups on the wooden pillars that supported the roof.

A solid oak desk, covered with a leather blotter, took up the right of the room, leaving the center to a green velvet divan standing on a huge rug. Nobody was there.

Schiffer headed toward an opening hidden behind a bead curtain and cooed, "My princess, it's me, Schiffer. There's no need to doll yourself up."

The only reply was silence. Paul advanced and took a closer look at the photos. In each of them, a short-haired, quite attractive redhead was smiling in the company of a famous president: Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, François Mitterrand. This was presumably Tansu cater.

A rustling sound made him turn his head. The bead curtain opened to reveal the double of the woman in the photos, in person, but even larger than life.

Gozar Halman had accentuated her resemblance to the politician, no doubt to give herself additional authority. Her black tunic and trousers, enlightened by just a few pieces of jewelry, were rather sober. The way she moved and walked was in the same register, expressing the haughty distance of a businesswoman. Her look seemed to draw an invisible line around her. The message was clear: any attempt at seduction was doomed from the start.

But at the same time, her face told a different story. It was as broad and white as a Pierrot Lunaire, framed by red hair, with violently sparkling eyes. Gozar's eyelids were painted orange and dotted with spangles.

"Schiffer," she said in a hoarse voice. "I know why you're here. -"At last, someone with their wits about them!"

Looking distracted, she tidied away some papers on her desk. "I knew that they'd resurrect you sooner or later." She did not really have an accent -more of a light lilt that ran through each sentence, which she seemed to cultivate for its charm.

Schiffer introduced them, temporarily abandoning his sneering tone. Paul sensed that he was going to play it straight with this woman. "What do you know about it all?" he asked at once.