Kohler stepped into the shade and at once the coolness of the cave beckoned. ‘A broken femur, Louis.’
Wolf, cave bear, Merck’s rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, reindeer and wild boar came quickly to mind, a smattering from across the ages.
‘A deer, I think. It’s a bit charred,’ said Kohler.
‘The red deer, a preferred food, as was the horse of those days, though it looked more like the Mongolian horse of the present or a large and shaggy pony.’ Reverently the Surete took it from him and ran a finger over its length. ‘Our victim,’ he said, and Kohler could detect the sadness in his partner’s voice. ‘These three, parallel incisions just above the knuckle.’ He held the bone upright with the knuckle down. ‘These are the marks made by a stone chopper as the meat was removed.’
Oh-oh. ‘Was she butchered that way?’
Yes, I think so.’
‘The bone was smashed after a brief roasting, Louis, and … and the marrow sucked out.’
‘But when? Thirty thousand years ago, or one hundred thousand?’
It was only when they began to examine the walls of the innermost benches that they saw that some layers contained worked flints, ashes and bones, while others contained none of these but were of sand that had been blown or washed in or debris that had fallen from the roof of the cave. All of the layers had been cemented by lime that had been deposited from percolating groundwaters.
Beyond the benches, the floor of the cave remained littered with broken bones, flints, ashes, sand and bits of stone but this litter was shallow and lessened as the floor extended into deeper darkness. Lights would be needed to probe it further. Lights and ropes.
The roof was perhaps three or, in places, even four metres high, the walls curved outwards and perhaps ten metres apart. A cave of long but not always continuous habitation then, thought St-Cyr, one that would have formed the home base for several people at a time. Neanderthals first and then, more recently, Cro-Magnons.
They shared a cigarette as they stood in the cool darkness looking out towards the entrance. They began, as they so often did in such instances, a rapid exchange of thoughts. ‘Madame Fillioux leaves Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne by train, Hermann, perhaps four or five days ago. Let us give putrefaction its chance but concede that the heat of summer would have speeded things up.’
‘She gets off at a siding, dressed in everyday clothes and with stout walking shoes, her coat, picnic hamper and basket in hand. She must have been seen by several people yet no one has thought to mention this nor has anyone reported her missing.’
‘Madame Fillioux then walks along the tracks following the departing train but soon turns into the woods and begins to climb. She knows her way – she has done this before many times.’
‘She must have, mustn’t she?’ The cigarette was passed back.
‘Yes, yes, of course. She collects mushrooms, becomes completely absorbed in the task – ah, some edible morels are deep in the refuse of a rotting stump.’
‘Fly agaric and death cap go into the collecting bag. She feels a sense of what, Louis? Relief at finding them – she’d been so worried there wouldn’t be any – guilt, fear, you tell me.’
St-Cyr inhaled deeply. ‘It’s too early for such things. She reaches the valley, had stopped collecting at some point distant from it.’
‘She lays things out for the picnic, has a bathe and puts on the dress.’
‘And the pearls. Pearls that are really quite valuable but were ignored by her killer. Hey, it’s your turn with the cigarette. Don’t take all of it.’
‘I won’t. You can trust me. She crosses the stream and follows it downstream a little, Louis, then goes into the woods, leaving the valley, climbing its gentler slope. She passes through the woods and up a little hill, then down into a shallow hollow and through the forest to another hill. There are trees and underbrush all the way until she comes at last to that glade.’
‘To find her assailant waiting for her, Hermann. She pauses. She does not retreat in fear.’
The cigarette was handed back. ‘Did he watch her having a bathe? Did he follow her but reach the glade from the other direction?’
‘Apparently she knows this person and suspects nothing. Nothing! She advances towards the assailant, is hit hard and goes down. She is hit again and again, and then … then is crudely butchered with … with one of these, I think, though I cannot yet say for certain nor can I yet fully come to grips with the horror of it.’
Plucking at his partner’s sleeve, St-Cyr pulled him forward until they had reached the innermost bench. There he knelt and ran a forefinger over one of the layers of habitation. ‘A stone tool, Hermann. A handaxe, perhaps. Something with both sharp and ragged edges, a point as well but also blunt.’
Kohler swallowed dryly. Champagne always did that to him. Louis found his pocket-knife and, opening it, began to pick at the layer but all he got were little bits of flint, ash and sand.
The cigarette clung to his lower lip until it had burned down to all but nothing and had finally gone out. A half hour of struggling ensued before he had what he wanted. ‘Ah nom de Dieu, de Dieu, Hermann, it’s magnificent.’
Almond shaped and showing clearly the shallow, conchoidal hollows where the flint had been spalled away when struck hard by a hammer stone, the handaxe was no more than seven centimetres in length, perhaps four or five in width and two or three in thickness.
With it there had lain a smaller flint, much more finely worked and with a convex cutting edge that was serrated. There was also a scraper that had once been used to clean the flesh from animal hides. ‘Pressure flaking,’ mused the Surete, ‘with a bone or wooden stylus that had first been hardened by fire. This handaxe is far too small for what I want. It’s of too recent an origin – perhaps only twenty thousand years. For our murder weapon, we must go back in time to those lower layers where the tools are simpler, the handaxes far chunkier, yet still very effective.’
From the cave entrance they looked down over the valley and off towards the site of the murder. Shadows now cooled the lower slopes. Night was coming but would take its time. At peace with the world and left largely to itself, the little valley exuded only the gentle hush of its waterfall and then the sound of birds awakening after the heat.
Kohler sensed his partner needed this moment. They were standing in the footsteps of ancestors who would have looked out on a quite different valley, yet it was the same. Pristine.
Louis heaved a sigh. Kohler held his breath. It was at times like this that the bond between them only grew stronger, more welcome, more.…
A scream shattered the silence. Long and hard and high pitched, it was ripped right out of the person who uttered it. Again and again it came, shrill as it raced across the trees to them.
For perhaps ten seconds there was a pause. Eyes riveted on the distant spot, their whole attention focused, they waited. Then again it came. Again! Anguish and despair and then … then … ‘MAMAN! MAMAN! AH NO! NO!’
They leapt off the edge and went down the talus flinging their arms out for balance, racing … racing … No time … no time … Got to find her. Got to stop her. Got to get her away from that thing. That thing.…
2
Dawn came at last, and from the river far below the ancient fortified town of Domme, mist in tendrils hugged the lowlands along the Dordogne.