Jean-Christophe Grangé - The Empire Of The Wolves

Sema knelt down. This was her second murder after Schiffer. But from the confidence of her movements, she realized that she had killed before. And in this way. With a handgun. at point-blank range. When? How many times? She had no idea. On that point, her memory was still a sterile zone.

She looked at Kürsat. lying motionless among the poppies. Death had already smoothed out his features. Innocence was slowly rising back across his face, which was free at last.

She searched the corpse. Beneath his smock, she found a cell phone. One of the numbers in its memory was labeled Azer. She stuck it in her pocket, then stood up. The rain had stopped. Darkness had taken hold of the place. The gardens were breathing at last. She looked up toward the mosque. The drenched domes seemed like green ceramic, the minarets about to take off for the stars.

Sema remained for a few more seconds beside the body. Inexplicably, something clear and precise surged up inside her. She now knew why she had done what she had done. Why she had fled with the dope.

To be free, of course.

But also to avenge a particular wrong.

Before proceeding any further, she had to check that. She had to find a hospital. And a gynecologist.

All night spent writing.

A letter of twelve pages, addressed to Mathilde Wilcrau, Rue Le Goff, Paris, fifth arrondissement. In it, she told her life story in detail. Her origin. Her education. Her job. And the last consignment.

She also provided names: Kürsat Milihit, Azer Akarsa. Ismail Kudseyi. She placed each person, each pawn on the chessboard. Describing their precise roles and positions. Putting back together each fragment of the puzzle…

Sema owed her these explanations. She had promised her in the crypt at Père-Lachaise, but above all she wanted to make her story intelligible to the psychiatrist who had risked her life for nothing in return.

When she wrote Mathilde on the white hotel notepad, when she maneuvered her pen around that name, Sema said to herself that she had perhaps never possessed anything so solid as those letters.

She lit a cigarette and paused to remember. Mathilde Wilcrau. A tall, sturdy woman with a mane of black hair. The first time she had observed her bright red smile, an image had come to mind: the poppy stalks she used to burn so as to conserve their color.

Today, now that she could recall her origins, the comparison had recovered its full meaning. That sandy landscape did not belong to the French moors, as she had thought, but to the deserts of Anatolia. The flowers were wild poppies-a hint of opium already… Sema used to shiver with excitement and fear when burning those stalks. She had sensed a secret, inexplicable link between the dark flame and the bright blooming of the buds.

That same mystery scintillated in Mathilde Wilcrau. A burned region within her reinforced the absolute redness of her smile.

Sema finished her letter. She hesitated for a moment. Should she add what she had learned in the hospital a few hours before? No. That was nobody's business but hers. She signed the page, then slid it into an envelope.

Four o'clock flashed on the radio alarm clock in her bedroom.

She thought over her plan one more time. Kürsat had said: You can't come back empty-handed. Neither Le Monde nor the television news had mentioned that there had been heroin scattered around the crypt. So it was quite likely that Azer Akarsa and Ismail Kudseyi did not know that it had been lost. Thus, Sema had a virtual object to bargain with…

She put the envelope by the door, then went to the bathroom.

She turned on the tap in the basin and grabbed a cardboard box, purchased earlier that evening in a hardware store in Beylerbeyi.

She poured the pigment into the sink, contemplating its reddish swirls that faded in the water and froze into a brown mash.

For a few seconds, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her smashed face. broken bones and stitched skin. Under her apparent beauty lay another lie…

She smiled at her reflection, then murmured, "I have no choice." Gingerly, she dipped her index finger into the henna.

Five o'clock. Haydarpasa station. A point of arrival and departure for both boats and trains.

Everything was just as she remembered. The central building, a U surrounded by two huge towers, open onto the straits like a greeting in welcome to the sea. Then, all around, the seawalls forming lines of stone, digging out a labyrinth of water. On the second one, a lighthouse stood at the end of the jetty. An isolated tower, placed above the channels.

At that time of the morning, everything was dark, cold, empty. Only a weak light wavered from inside the station, through the windows covered with a reddish, intermittent steam.

The kiosk of the iskele-the departure pier-was also glistening, reflecting a blue stain in the water, which was weaker still, almost mauve.

Shoulders high and collar up, Sema walked beside the building, then alongside the seawall. This sinister scene suited her. She had been counting on just this inert, silent desert, weighed down by frost. She went toward the jetty used by pleasure boats. The insistent slapping of the cables and sails followed her.

Sema examined each yacht, each skiff. Finally she spotted a boat whose owner was asleep, curled up under a tarpaulin. She woke him up and started negotiating at once. The haggard man accepted the sum on offer. It was a fortune. She assured him that she would not go out farther than the second seawall, that he would never lose sight of his boat. He accepted, started up the engine without a word, then stepped out onto land.

Sema took the bar. Drawing away from the pier, she maneuvered the boat between the other vessels. She followed the first wall, swerved around its far end, then went along the second one, as far as the lighthouse. There was not a sound as she passed. The only presence that broke through the shadows came from a single distant cargo ship. Under the lights of the projectors, beaded with dew, shadows flittered. For a second, she felt at one with these gilded ghosts.

She drew the boat up by the rocks, moored it and went over to the lighthouse. Without any difficulty, she forced open the door. The interior was cramped, icy and hostile to any human presence. The lamp was automatic and did not seem to need anyone's help. At the top of the tower, the huge projector revolved slowly on its pivot, giving off long groans.

Sema turned on her flashlight. The circular wall beside her was filthy and damp. The floor was dotted with puddles. Sema could hear the rushing of the water beneath her feet. It made her think of a stone question mark at the end of the world. A place of total solitude. The ideal location.

She grabbed Kürsat's phone and punched in Azer Akarsa's number. There was a ring. Then an answer. Silence. After all, it was only five in the morning…

In Turkish, she said, "It's Sema."

The silence continued. Then Azer Akarsa's voice sounded in her ear. "Where are you?"

"In Istanbul."

"Do you have anything to suggest?"

"A meeting. Just you and me. On neutral ground."

"Where?"

"At Haydarpasa station. On the second seawall, there's a lighthouse."What time?"

"Now. You come alone. By boat."

There was a smile in his voice. "So you can pick me off like a rabbit?”

“That won't solve my problems."

"I don't see what can solve your problems."

"You'll find out when you get here."

"Where's Kürsat?"

The number had presumably flashed up on the screen. There was no point lying.

"He's dead. I'll be expecting you. At Haydarpasa. Alone. And rowing."