Irene by Pierre Lemaitre Read Free Book Online

from November 21, 2001. Camille had the file sent up straight away.

14
    The case file that now landed on his desk was also evil to its core. On this point, everyone was agreed. Only an officer with a death wish would have wanted to take over a case which, in its time, had been the subject of so much media attention. Back then, reportershad speculated wildly about the fake fingerprints in black ink found on the toes of the victim. For several weeks, the papers had trotted out the same details, under new headlines: there was talk of the “Tremblay Butcher”, of the “Tragedy on the Rubbish Tip”, first prize going – as so often – to
Le Matin
, which had covered the story under the banner DEATH REAPS A MAIDEN .
    Camille knew as much about the Tremblay case as anyone – no more, no less – but as he considered the horrific details of the crime, he suddenly felt the eye of the hurricane grow smaller. Reopening the Tremblay case would shed a very different light on things. If this killer had been hacking women to pieces all over the suburbs of Paris, new cases would keep turning up until eventually they arrested him. What sort of guy were they dealing with? Camille picked up the phone, called Le Guen and told him the news.
    “Shit,” said Le Guen simply.
    “That’s one way of putting it, yes.”
    “The media are going to love this.”
    “I suspect they’re head over heels already.”
    “What do you mean, ‘already’?”
    “What do you expect?” said Camille. “The
brigade criminelle
is like a sieve. We had reporters showing up in Courbevoie less than an hour after we got there …”
    “And …?” Le Guen sounded worried.
    “And there was a T.V. crew …” Camille reluctantly admitted.
    Le Guen fell silent for a few seconds, which Camille turned to his advantage.
    “I want a psychological profile drawn up on these guys,” he said.
    “What do you mean, ‘these guys’? You mean there’s evidence of more than one killer?”
    “This guy, these guys … what the fuck do I know?”
    “O.K. The case has been referred to Deschamps as
juge d’instruction
. I’ll call her and have her appoint an expert.”
    Camille had never worked with this investigating magistrate, but from their one or two chance encounters remembered her as a woman of about fifty, slim, elegant and astonishingly ugly. The sort of woman who defies description, with a taste for garish gold jewellery.
    “The autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow. If we can get an expert on it quickly, I’ll have whoever it is sent over for the preliminary conclusions.”
    Camille postponed his reading of the Tremblay file. He would take it home. Right now, it was best to focus on the case in hand.

15
    Évelyne Rouvray’s police record.
    Born March 16, 1980, in Bobigny. Mother: Françoise Rouvray. Father: unknown. Left school at fourteen. No known employment. First arrested in 1996 for prostitution, caught
in flagrante
in a car at the Porte de la Chapelle. At the time, the girl was still a minor, more than anything it was just a lot of paperwork, and besides, she was bound to show up on the police radar again. Which indeed she did. Three months later – here we go again – little Miss Rouvray is arrested for soliciting on the boulevard des Maréchaux. Onceagain she is in a car, and again she is
in flagrante
. This time the case goes to court, the judge realises they are destined to meet again and as a welcome gift the judicial system gives the minor (soon to be major) delinquent an eight-day suspended sentence. Curiously, after this point, there is no record of her. This is rare. Usually, the list of arrests for petty offences gets longer over the years – over the months if the girl is particularly industrious; maybe she has a drug habit, maybe she has A.I.D.S., one way or the other if she needs the money she’ll be turning tricks around the clock. But there’s nothing of this in her file. Évelyne gets an eight-day suspended sentence and drops off