James Jenkins - The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories. Volume 1

Hébiart’s cry was a howl of pain.

‘He ate my ear!’

The cat made a quick getaway between Mélion’s legs. Hébiart made a move to catch it, it or his ear, but finally remained hunched over, one bloody hand stuck to his temple.

‘He ate my ear, fuck!’

‘Let’s get out of here!’ Mélion ordered.

The chief inspector took a step forward to lift him by his armpit. Helped by Despérine, he dragged him five meters to what used to be the living room. In their haste, the flashlight slipped out of Mélion’s hands and rolled across the dusty floor. In front of them, barring access to the front door, and all around them, about twenty cats observed them in silence. Mélion lifted his subordinate up and they all unholstered their revolvers. In the semi-­darkness, Hébiart thought he recognized the ear-­ripper and fired. The bullet missed its target, but, alerted by the detonation, all the cats swooped in on the inspectors like a single wave crashing on a reef.

It was a stampede. Mélion dived to the floor to recover the flashlight and got up whipping the empty air with his arms. Despérine was using his legs, kicking the felines like footballs as soon as one got too close and avoiding those that leapt at him by making little sidesteps. In a fleeting movement of the flashlight beam he thought he saw Hébiart with three cats at his throat. Mélion was two steps from him, worked up like a devil, beating his arms like a baby bird jumping from its nest. With a clumsy gesture, the chief inspector hit Hébiart’s head with his flashlight. The light went out in a sound of broken glass. Despérine considered the situation a lost cause and jumped through the first window opening he saw. He found himself face down on a lawn damp with the night’s coolness.

André Despérine crawled on all fours for several meters and as quickly as possible, with the sole desire of escaping that army of cats. He found refuge in the barn on the other side of the little lawn and hid behind an old tractor that stank of diesel, incapable of thinking up a plan for getting out of this trouble. He had dropped his gun on the grass. For several minutes he heard only Hébiart’s inhuman cries. And then silence fell once more with the dull stamping of a thousand paws disappearing into the night. Despérine took a deep breath. He swore inwardly, his heart wouldn’t stop pounding. And Mélion called him.

‘Despérine, where are you?’

‘In the barn!’

‘Don’t move!’

The stamping of feet resumed: a horde was moving in the dark around the barn. Mélion was walking in the middle of it.

‘Poor fool! You still don’t understand?’

Despérine frowned. No, he didn’t understand. He didn’t understand what the new chief inspector meant.

‘Understand what, Mélion?’

‘I’m going to kill you, Despérine! Like I killed Gontan, like I killed Hébiart. It’s your turn!’

The gate to the shed turned heavily on its hinges. André Des­périne discerned Mélion’s silhouette in the center of the opening and those of the cats, who, furtively, made their way into the wooden building.

‘Good heavens! Are you joking? Gontan died in Africa!’

Despérine was looking for a way to flee, his fingers inadvertently touched the sharp edge of a harrow positioned at the front of the farm vehicle.

‘I was the lion!’ retorted Inspector Mélion. ‘These cats are mine! You must always beware of felines, I told you. There can be only one inspector in Sacqueroy and you’re the last obstacle to my success. You understand?’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘You’re the ridiculous one, Despérine! Since your arrival in Valdecèze, there’s never been anyone more incompetent and opportunistic than you!’

Mélion advanced slowly and Despérine felt like he was being squeezed in a vise; he sensed the cats’ breath at the nape of his neck. He had to react fast and decided to charge full speed ahead. He ran straight forward, ignoring the assaults of the cats that scratched and bit him, and collided head-on with Mélion. He would have liked to knock him backwards – he would have had a small chance of being the first one out of the barn – but the chief inspector was steady on his legs and he absorbed the shock with a disconcerting ease. He sent Despérine sprawling to the floor, throwing him to the back of the nearest nook shrouded in darkness, by the wooden gate.

‘Quit crawling, Despérine. I see you with my cat eyes. You can’t escape.’

Mélion approached again, the felines marching at his heels. Despérine tried again to knock his superior down. The leap was so sudden that it surprised Mélion. The chief inspector stumbled backward over one of the cats. Off balance, he took several recoiling steps and ended by falling heavily on the tractor harrow. It perforated his pelvis straight through.

Surprised at his own action, Inspector André Despérine almost forgot the oppressive presence of the cats. But seeing Mélion on the ground, they turned towards him and rushed forward to devour him.

Despérine left the premises as quickly as he could. It was only when he had returned to the wheel of the police car that he vomited the contents of his stomach on the passenger seat. The Branolin hamlet operation had gone terribly wrong, bringing about the deaths of his two colleagues. But, for the first time in his life, André Despérine found himself in sole command, chief inspector of the Sacqueroy police department.

Police inspector André Despérine was a forewarned man. A witch had predicted his death, he had seen his superiors die, but he had always managed to thwart the Grim Reaper’s­­ plans. And because forewarned is forearmed, Despérine took his work very much to heart. From arrest to arrest and from medal to medal, he had ended by finding himself, on this autumn afternoon, holding a simple scrap of a torn blouse in his right hand. It was here, under this tree, on the edge of Montcalm Park, that everything had finished for the girl, and it was here that Despérine’s investigation had begun. A murky affair like hundreds of others he had been through.

Despite being exactly the right person for the case, Despérine felt there was nothing he could do. His legendary logic was stalled. The kidnapping – if it had been one – had been perfectly orchestrated. No sign of struggle, no tracks, no blood . . . Nothing. Thus no clue, no lead. Only a pointless bit of cloth from one of the victim’s garments. Poor girl. She had been seen for the last time three days ago in front of this beech tree. It was the last place she had known, her final destination, here, under these branches, before disappearing. Bloody hell.

The past two days, the victim’s relatives had become more and more insistent. Nay, demanding. They had realized that in the small county of Valdecèze the only lawful authority who could find their daughter was Chief Inspector Despérine. That, no doubt, is why they got it into their heads to harass him with telephone calls and visits to the police station. No, we’re not making any progress, ma’am. Yes, we’re doing our best, sir. Tears and protests, or even outrage, seemed to be the common character trait of every member of that family. At first sympathetic, Despérine had quickly found himself experiencing pity, then indifference for those people. No, ma’am. Yes, sir. Could one of them have been behind it all? Was one of them the abductor of young Catherine? If that was the case, it had been perfect acting. Or maybe they were all the killers. But why would they have killed her? What was the motive? Despérine found no logic in it. His brain was empty.

No idea of what could have happened wanted to take root in his mind. So he had no explanation and thus would have no tolerance for the killer. Just as the family would have none for him if he failed. He felt truly disarmed facing this investigation and facing the others’ looks. However, he persisted in just standing there, even if all his subordinates had left again after yet another day of investigation. He felt obligated, liable for some moral debt. He had to stay longer and take time to reflect. Around the tree there remained only some yellow plastic banners: DO NOT CROSS. It was forbidden to the public to go any further, but of course he, Chief Inspector of the Sacqueroy police department, could do it. And Despérine wanted to cross the barrier. He had to know, to discover the truth. He felt that the secret wasn’t far. Not very far from this tree. This beech. Alone among all the plane trees in the park.