"And that isolation is enough to explain the outbreak of genetic diseases?"
"Yes, I think so."
Niémans failed to see how this information might be of importance. "What else did you tell Joisneau?"
Champelaz tilted his head, then declared in his booming voice: "I also told him about a particular point of interest. Something rather odd."
"What's that?"
"Over the last generation, families with this weakened blood have been producing radically different children. They are intellectually brilliant, but they are also possessed of an inexplicable physical strength. Most of them win all the sports competitions while at the same time gaining the highest academic distinctions."
Niémans remembered the portraits in the vice-chancellor's antechamber, young radiant champions carrying off all the cups and medals. He also recalled the photographs of the Berlin Olympics and Caillois's door-stopper about the good old days of Olympia. Could all of these elements really fit together into the overall design?
Playing dumb, the 'policeman asked again:
"You mean, all of those children should really be sick?"
"It's not that straightforward, but it must be said that they should have weak constitutions and suffer from recursive conditions, like the children in this home. But they don't. On the contrary, it is as if these little supermen had made off with the entire community's genetic wealth and left all its genetic poverty to the others" Champelaz glanced awkwardly at Niémans. "You're not drinking your coffee."
Niémans remembered that he had a mug in his hands. He took a scalding sip. He barely felt the heat. It was as if his entire being was tensed up, ready to pounce on the slightest sign, the slightest glimpse of the truth. He asked:
"Have you made an in-depth study of this phenomenon?"
"About two years ago I did look into it, yes. I started by checking to see if the champions really did come from the same families, and same blood-lines. I went to the local registry office and…All the children in question are of the same stock. After that, I took a closer look at their family trees. I checked their medical records at the maternity clinic. I even went through their parents' records and their grandparents', too, in the hope of digging out some sort of explanation. But I found nothing conclusive. Some of their ancestors were even carriers of the same hereditary diseases as the ones I now treat…It was all decidedly odd."
Niémans drank in every detail. Without knowing why, he once again sensed that this information was going to be of vital importance.
Champelaz was now pacing up and down the kitchen, making the stainless steel echo icily.
"I questioned the doctors and obstetricians at the university hospital, who informed me of another fact which astounded me. Apparently, over the last fifty years, the families in the villages, up on the slopes of the mountains around the valley, have experienced an abnormally high rate of infant mortality. Cot deaths, immediately after delivery. But such children are, generally, extremely healthy. We seem to be witnessing a sort of inversion, you see? The children of the university families have magically become extremely strong, while the offspring of the country folk have become corrupted…So I examined the medical records of those farmers' and crystallers' children who had suddenly died. I discovered nothing of interest. I discussed the matter with the hospital staff and some of the medical researchers who specialised in genetics. Nobody could come up with a reasonable explanation. So I let the subject drop, but remain dissatisfied. How can I put it? It is as if the children of the university were robbing their little neighbors of their life force."
"My God, what do you mean?"
Champelaz immediately drew back from this dangerous territory.
"Forget I said that. It's hardly scientific. And totally irrational."
Irrational maybe, but Niémans now felt certain that the mystery of those highly gifted children was not a matter of chance. It was one of the links in the nightmare. He asked hoarsely:
"Is that all?"
The doctor hesitated. The superintendent's voice went up a tone: "Is that really all?"
"No," Champelaz winced. "There is something else. Last summer, this story took a strange turn, which was at once trivial and disturbing…In the month of July, the Guernon hospital was totally refurbished, which also meant computerising its archives. Specialists went through the basement, which is brimming over with old dusty files, in order to estimate how long the job would take. Their task also led them to investigate the cellars of the original university building, and in particular the pre-1970s library." Niémans froze. Champelaz went on:
"And the experts made a curious discovery during their investigations. They found some birth papers, that is to say the first pages of the newly-born babies' medical records, covering a period of about fifty years. But these pages were on their own, without the rest of the files, as though…as though they had been stolen."
"Where were these papers found? I mean, where exactly?"
Champelaz paced back across the kitchen. He was struggling to maintain a detached tone, but agitation was breaking into his voice.
"That's the strangest part of all…They were all stacked together in files belonging to one man, a member of the library staff." Niémans felt the blood accelerating in his veins.
"And his name was?"
Champelaz glanced nervously at the superintendent. His lips were trembling.
"Caillois. Etienne Caillois."
"Rémy's father?"
"Exactly."
The policeman sat up.
"And it's only now you tell me that? With the body we found yesterday?"
The director bridled.
"I do not like your tone of voice, superintendent. Please do not mistake me for one of your suspects. In any case, this was a mere slip-up in the paperwork. What on earth could it have to do with the Guernon murders?"
"I'm the one who'll decide that."
"So be it. Anyway, I already told all of this to your lieutenant. So calm down. What is more, this whole story is certainly no secret. Everyone in town knows about it. It is public knowledge. It was even in the local press."
At that precise moment, Niémans would not have liked to see his face in a mirror. He knew that his expression was so harsh, so tense, that the mirror itself would not have recognised him. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and said, more coolly:
"I'm sorry. This case gives me the creeps. The killer has already struck three times and will again. Every minute, every scrap of information counts. Where are those old records now?"
The director raised his eyebrows, relaxed slightly and leant once more on the stainless steel table.
"They were put back in the hospital basement. The archives are to be kept together until they have been fully computerised."
"And I suppose that those papers included records of our little supermen…?"
"Not directly – they date back to before the 1970s. But some of them did include their parents or grandparents. That was what I found strange. Because I had already examined their records myself, during my research. And the official files were all complete, you follow me?"
"Had Caillois simply made some copies?"
Champelaz started shifting around again. The weirdness of his story seemed to electrify him.
"Copies…or else the originals. Caillois had perhaps replaced the genuine notifications of birth in the records with false ones. Which is to say that the real ones were discovered in his files."
"Nobody mentioned this to me. Did the gendarmes look into it?"
"No. There was no big scandal. It was just an administrative slip-up. What is more, the only possible suspect, Etienne Caillois, had died three years before. In fact, I'm the only person who seems interested in all this."