Karim panted hoarsely:
"If these murders are revenge killings, why are the victims mutilated in such a precise way?"
"It's symbolic. The idea is to wipe out the victims' biological identities, to destroy the signs of their origin. Which also explains why the bodies were positioned in such a way that they were first discovered via their reflections, and not their actual forms. It was another means to dematerialise the victims, to disembody them. Caillois, Sertys and Chernecé robbed people of their identities. And they were made to pay in the same coin. As though it was an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
Abdouf got to his feet and went over to Niémans. The rain-laden wind beat against their ghostly faces. The condensation formed a pale mist around their heads, Niémans's bony crew cut, and Abdouf's long, soaking wet dreadlocks.
"You're one hell of a cop, Niémans."
"No, Karim, I'm not. Because even if I found out the killer's motive, I still don't know who it is."
The Arab sniffed icily.
"No, but I do."
"What?"
"It all fits together now. You remember my own investigation? Those demons who wanted to obliterate Judith's face because it was a piece of evidence, proof against them? Well, those demons were none other than the victims' fathers, Etienne Caillois and René Sertys, and I know why they had to wipe out Judith's face at any price. It was because that face was going to give the game away, to show up the nature of the blood-red rivers and this business of exchanging babies."
It was now Niémans's turn to be astonished.
"Because Judith Hérault had a twin sister, who had been swapped over."
CHAPTER 58
The rain seemed to be abating at the approach of dawn as Karim began his explanations. He spoke in a serious, neutral tone of voice, his dreadlocks hanging down like an octopus's tentacles in the early light.
"You said that the conspirators picked out the babies that interested them according to their parents' profile. They were obviously looking for the strongest, most agile kids the slopes had to offer. They were after mountain creatures, snow leopards. And so they must have noticed Fabienne and Sylvain Hérault, a young couple living in Taverlay, in the heights of the Pelvoux, at an altitude of over five thousand four hundred feet. She was six feet tall, a giantess and splendid with it. A dedicated primary school teacher. A virtuoso pianist. Silent, graceful, vigorous and lyrical. Believe me, Fabienne was already a bit of a strange breed herself.
"As for her husband, Sylvain, I don't have so much info about him. He spent his life on the tops of the mountains, digging precious crystals out of the rocks. A real giant, too, who made no bones about clambering up the highest, most inaccessible peaks.
"And, superintendent, if our conspirators were going to steal one baby from the entire region, then it was obviously going to be this extraordinary couple's kid, whose genes contained the strange secrets of those lofty heights.
"I'm sure that, like true genetic vampires, they waited impatiently for a babe to come along. Then, on 22 May, 1972, the long-awaited night finally arrived. The Héraults turn up at Guernon University Hospital. That enormous, beautiful woman was on the point of giving birth. But after a pregnancy of only seven months. The child is going to be premature.
"Still, the midwives reckon that there won't be any insoluble problems.
"But, things don't go as planned. The child is in the wrong position. They call in an obstetrician. The machines start beeping like crazy. It's two in the morning on 23 May. And the medic and the midwife end up sorting the chaos out. Fabienne Hérault is not about to have one child, but two – a pair of homozygous twins, who are wrapped up together in her uterus like two halves of a walnut.
"They anaesthetise Fabienne. The doctor carries out a caesarean and manages to extricate the babies. Two tiny little girls, as identical as peas in a pod. They've got breathing problems. So they're urgently given to a nurse who takes them away to an incubator. Niémans, I can see in my mind's eye those latex-gloved hands that picked up those girls, just like I was there. Jesus. Those hands belonged to René Sertys, Philippe's father.
"He's totally out of his depth. His job was to make off with the Hérault couple's kid, but now there are two of them. What is he supposed to do next? As he washes those premature twins down, he breaks out into a sweat – they are two perfect miniature specimens, two masterpieces for Guernon's new blood bank. In the end, he puts them in an incubator and decides to swap just one of them over. Nobody's had a good look at their faces yet. In all that gory panic in the theater, nobody's noticed if they really are alike. So Sertys risks it. He plucks one of the twins out of the incubator and exchanges her with a little girl who's been born to one of the academic families, and who more or less resembles the Hérault kids – same size, same blood group, approximately the same weight.
"He now realises that he's got to pluck up his courage and kill the other baby. He's got no choice. He can't let a so-called twin survive, who has nothing at all in common with her sister. So he smothers her, then calls out in fake panic to the doctors and nurses. He plays his part excellently. The remorse… My God, however did it happen? I just don't know… I just don't know… Neither the obstetrician nor the pediatricians have a clear opinion. It's another one of those sudden cot deaths that have been afflicting the mountain villagers for the last fifty-odd years. The hospital staff reconcile themselves to the fact that at least one of the girls has survived. Meanwhile, Sertys has a happy laugh to himself. The other Hérault is now part and parcel of the Guernon clan, via its adopted family.
"I worked all this out thanks to your discoveries, Niéman. Because the woman I spoke to earlier tonight, Fabienne Hérault, still knows nothing about this insane conspiracy. And on the night in question she saw nothing, and heard nothing. She was under the effects of the anesthetic.
"When she wakes up the next morning, she's told that she has given birth to twin girls, but only one of them has survived. Do we grieve for someone whose existence we hadn't even suspected? Fabienne accepts the news with resignation – but she and her husband feel totally confused. A week later, she's allowed to go home along with her little girl, who's now brimming with life.
"Somewhere inside that clinic, Rene Sertys watches the couple as they leave. In their arms, they are holding the double of a baby he's swapped over, but he knows that that wild couple live over thirty miles away and have no reason whatsoever to come back to Guernon. By letting that second child live, Sertys has taken a risk, but it's only a slight one. He supposes that the twin's face will never return to unmask the conspiracy.
But he was wrong about that.
"Eight years later, Taverlay School, where Fabienne teaches, closes down. She is then transferred – the only coincidence in this entire business – to Guernon's prestigious Lamartine School, the place where the children of the university's lecturers go.
"So it is that Fabienne discovers something weird, incredible. In the CE2 class which Judith attends, there is another Judith. A little girl who's the carbon copy of her daughter. When she's recovered from the shock – the school photographer meanwhile has time to take a class photo, in which both of them can be seen – Fabienne thinks things out. And there's only one possible explanation. That identical child, that double, must be Judith's twin sister, who has in fact survived and was, for some strange reason, given to another family.