"Most helpful, vice-chancellor. Thank you."
The superintendent headed off at once, fleeing the smell of fear that pervaded the place.
Books.
Everywhere, in the large university library, numerous racks of books were piled up under the neon lights. Metal shelving holding up veritable walls of perfectly arranged paper. Dark spines. Gold or silver chasing. Labels, all of which bore the crest of the University of Guernon. In the middle of the deserted room stood formica-topped tables, divided into small glass carrels. As soon as Niémans had entered the room, he was reminded of a prison visiting-room.
The atmosphere was at once luminous and stuffy, spacious and cramped.
"The best lecturers teach at this university," Eric Joisneau explained. "The cream of the south-east of France. Law, economics, literature, psychology, sociology, physics…And especially medicine – all the top medics of Isère teach here and consult at the University Hospital, which is in fact where the old university used to be. The buildings have been entirely renovated. Half the people in the département go there when they're ill and all the mountain dwellers were born in its maternity clinic."
Niémans listened to him, arms crossed, leaning back onto one of the reading tables.
"Sounds like you know what you're talking about."
Joisneau picked up a book at random.
"I studied at this university. I started doing law…I wanted to be a lawyer."
"And you became a policeman?"
The lieutenant looked at Niémans. In the white neon light, his eyes were gleaming.
"When I took my degree, I was suddenly scared that I was going to get shit bored. So I enrolled in the police academy of Toulouse. I reckoned that the police meant an action-packed career, full of risks. A career that would have surprises in store for me…"
"And now you're disappointed?"
The lieutenant put the book back on the shelf. His slight smile faded.
"Not today, I'm not. Definitely not today." He stared at Niémans. "That body…How could anybody do that?"
Niémans ducked the question.
"What was the atmosphere like here? Anything special?"
"No. Lots of middle-class kids, full of clichés about life, about politics, about the ideas you were supposed to have…And the children of farmers and workers, too. Even more idealistic. And more aggressive. Anyway, we were all heading for Welfare, so…"
"There wasn't any funny business? No strange cliques?"
"No. Nothing. Except, that is, there was a sort of university elite. A microcosm made up of the children of the lecturers themselves. Some of them were real high fliers. They won all the prizes every year. Even the sports awards. We were completely left standing."
Niémans recalled the photographs of champions in the antechamber of Luyse's office. He asked:
"Did these students make up a real clan? Could they all be working together on some sick idea?"
Joisneau burst out laughing.
"What do you mean? A kind of…conspiracy?"
It was Niémans's turn to get up and wander along the bookshelves.
"A librarian is at the center of a university. An ideal target. Imagine a group of students dabbling in some sort of hocus pocus.
A sacrifice, a ritual…When choosing their victim, they could quite easily have thought of Caillois."
"Then forget about the whiz kids I just mentioned. They were too busy getting firsts in their exams to worry about anything else."
Niémans walked on between the rows of reddish brown books. Joisneau followed him.
"A librarian," he resumed, "is also the person who lends books…Who knows what everybody is reading, what everybody is studying…Maybe he knew something he shouldn't have."
"You don't kill someone like that for…And what sort of secret reading scheme do you imagine these students had?"
Niémans spun round.
"I don't know. But I mistrust intellectuals."
"Have you already got an idea? A suspicion?"
"None at all. Right now, anything is possible. A fight. Revenge. Intellectual weirdoes. Or homosexual ones. Or quite simply a prowler, a maniac, who stumbled onto Caillois quite by chance in the mountains."
The superintendent fingered the spines of the books.
"You see, I'm not biased. But here is where we're going to start. Dig out all the books that could have some bearing on the murder."
"What sort of bearing?"
Niémans went back down the rows of shelving and emerged into the main reading-room. He headed for the librarian's office, which was situated at the far end, on a raised platform, overlooking the carrels. A computer sat on the desk. Ring-binders lay in the drawers. Niémans patted the dark screen.
"In here there must be a list of all the books that are consulted, or borrowed, every day. I want you to put some of your men on the job. The most bookish ones you can find. Get the boarders to help as well. I want them to pick out all the books that deal with evil, violence, torture and religious sacrifices. Look through the ethnology titles, for example. I also want them to note down the names of all the students who have regularly consulted this sort of book. And dig me out Caillois's thesis."
"What about me?"
"You question the boarders. One at a time. They live here night and day, so they must know the university from top to bottom. The habits, the feel of the place, any weird kids…I want to know what the others thought of Caillois. I also want you to find out about his walks in the mountains. Find his fellow hikers. Discover who knew the routes he took. Who could have met him up there…"
Joisneau glanced skeptically at the superintendent. Niémans walked over to him: He was now speaking in whispers:
"I'll tell you what we have on our hands. We have an incredible murder, a pallid, smooth, hunched-up body bearing the traces of unspeakable suffering. The whole thing stinks of craziness. Right now, it's our little secret. We have a few hours, maybe a little longer, to solve this business. After that, the media will get involved, the pressure will build up, and emotions start to run wild. So concentrate. Dive into the nightmare. Give all you've got. That's how we'll unmask the face of evil."
The lieutenant looked terrified.
"You really think that, in a few hours, we can…"
"Do you want to work with me, or not?" Niémans butted in. "Look, this is the way I see things. When a murder has been committed, you have to look at every surrounding detail as though it was a mirror. The body of the victim, the people who knew him, the scene of the crime…Everything reflects the truth, some particular aspect of the murder, see what I mean?"
He tapped the computer screen.
"This screen, for instance. When it's been switched on, it will become the mirror of Rémy Caillois's daily existence. The mirror of his working life, of his thoughts. It will contain elements, reflections that may be of use to us. We have to dive in. Get through to the other side."
He stood up and opened his arms.
"We're in a hall of mirrors, Joisneau, a labyrinth of reflected images. So take a good look. At everything. Because, somewhere inside one of those mirrors, in a dead angle, the murderer is hiding."
Joisneau gaped.
"You seem a bit clever for a man of action…"
The superintendent slapped his chest with the back of his hand. "This isn't abstract theory, Joisneau. It's purely practical."
"And what about you? Who…who are you going to question?"
"Me? I'm going to question our witness, Fanny Ferreira. And then Sophie Caillois, the victim's wife."
Niémans winked.
"The ladies, Joisneau. That's what I call being purely practical."
CHAPTER 5
Under the dreary sky, the asphalt road snaked across the campus, leading to each of its gray buildings with their blue, rusting windows. Niémans drove slowly – he had obtained a map of the university – on the way to an isolated gymnasium. He reached another block of fluted concrete, which looked more like a bunker than a sports center. He got out of his car and breathed deeply. It was drizzling.