In a guttural accent, Schiffer spat out: "Al-Falaqua."
Paul remembered that the Cipher spoke fluent Turkish and Arabic. "From memory" he went on, "I could cite ten countries that use this method."
Scarbon pushed his glasses back up his nose. "Yes, well. It's all highly exotic, anyway"
Schiffer moved up toward the abdomen. Once again, he seized one of the blackened, puffy hands.
The expert said: "The nails were torn out with pliers. The tips were burned with acid."
"What sort?"
"Impossible to say"
"It was something done after death, to remove the fingerprints?"
"If it was, then the killer messed up. The dermatoglyphs are perfectly visible. No, I think it was more like another form of torture. This killer isn't the sort who messes up anything."
The Cipher laid the hand back down. All of his attention was now focused on the gaping vagina. The doctor also looked at the wound. The topographers were now starting to look like vultures.
"Was she raped?"
"Not in the sexual sense, no."
For the first time, Scarbon hesitated. Paul lowered his eyes. He saw the gaping, dilated, lacerated orifice. The internal parts-labia majora, labia minora and the clitoris-were all turned inside out, in an unbearable twisting of flesh.
The doctor cleared his throat and started: "He pushed in some kind of truncheon, decked with razor blades. You can see the lacerations here, inside the vulva, and there, along the thighs. It's absolute carnage. The clitoris was severed, the labia cut away. It set off internal bleeding. The first victim had exactly the same kind of wounds. But the second .." He hesitated once more.
Schiffer tried to meet his stare. "What?"
"With the second one, it was different. I think he used something… that was alive."
"Alive?"
"Yes, a rodent. Or something like that. The internal genitalia were bitten and torn as far as the uterus. Apparently torturers use this kind of technique in Latin America…"
Paul's head was spinning. He knew every detail, but each of them hurt him, made him want to be sick. He walked back to the marble basin. Absentmindedly, he dipped his fingers in the scented water, then remembered that his partner had done just the same a few minutes before. He quickly removed them.
"Go on," Schiffer ordered in a husky voice.
Scarbon did not reply at once. Silence filled the turquoise room. The three men seemed to realize that there was no going back. They now had to confront the face.
"This is the most complex part," the expert at last went on, framing the disfigured face with his two index fingers. "There were several steps to the violence."
"What do you mean?"
"First there's the hematoma. The face is one big bruise. The killer beat her savagely for some time. Perhaps with brass knuckles, and certainly with something metallic and more accurate than a bar or truncheon. Then there are the cuts and mutilations. The wounds did not bleed. They were made postmortem."
They were now standing by the mask of horror. They could see the depth of the wounds in all their savagery and without the distance of the camera. Cuts crossed the face, making stripes on the forehead and temples, crevices in the cheeks. And the mutilations, the sliced-off nose, the split chin, the blackened lips.
"You can see as well as I can what he cut, filed and tore off What is interesting is how focused he was. He took time over his work. It's his signature. Nerteaux thinks he's trying to copy-
"I know what he thinks. What about you?"
Scarbon retreated slightly, his hands behind his back. "The murderer is obsessed with these faces. For him, they are both a source of fascination and fury. He sculpts them and fashions them, while at the same time destroying their humanity" Schiffer's shrug showed his skepticism.
"In the end, what did she die of?"
"I've told you: internal hemorrhaging set off by the butchering of the sexual organs. She must have bled dry onto the floor."
"And the other two?"
"The first, also from internal bleeding, unless her heart gave out before. As for the second, I'm not exactly sure. Probably quite simply from terror. To sum up, you can say that all three of them died in agony. We're analyzing her DNA, but I don't think it will tell us any more than for the previous victims." Scarbon pulled the sheet back up, with an overhasty yank.
Schiffer paced up and down for a moment before asking: "Can you deduce a chronology of events?"
"I couldn't give you a detailed timetable, but I would say she was kidnapped three days ago, on the evening of Thursday. She was probably going home after work."
"Why?"
"Her stomach was empty, as was the case for the first two. He must jump them on their way home."
"Let's leave your suppositions out of it."
The doctor puffed with irritation. "Then she endured twenty-four hours' nonstop torture."
"How can you judge the duration?"
"She struggled. Her bonds made friction burns on her skin and bit into her flesh. The wounds became septic. We can gauge the time thanks to the infection. If I say between twenty and thirty hours, then I can't be far from the mark. In any case, at such a pitch, that's the limit of human endurance."
As he walked. Schiffer stared at the blue mirror of the floor. "Do you have any indication of the scene of the crime?"
"Maybe.."
Paul butted in. "What?"
Scarbon clicked his lips like a clapboard. "I had already noticed it with the first two. But with the third, it's even more obvious. The victim's blood contains nitrogen bubbles."
"Meaning?"
Paul took out his notepad.
"It's rather odd. It could mean that, while still alive, the body was subjected to a greater air pressure than that of the surface of the earth. Like the pressure found at the bottom of the sea."
It was the first time that the doctor had mentioned this particularity. "I'm no diver," he went on. "But it's a well-known phenomenon. The deeper you go, the higher the pressure is. The nitrogen in the bloodstream dissolves. If you go up again too quickly, without respecting levels of decompression. then the nitrogen suddenly turns back to gas and forms bubbles inside the body."
Schiffer looked extremely interested. "And that's what happened to the victim?"
All three of them. Nitrogen bubbles have formed and exploded throughout their bodies, causing lesions and, of course, more suffering. This is by no means sure, but these women may well have gotten the bends."
While jotting this down, Paul asked, "They were immersed at a great depth?"
didn't say that. According to one of my assistants, who goes diving, they must had undergone pressure of at least four bars. Which corresponds to a depth of about a hundred twenty feet. It seems to me a bit tricky finding so much water in Paris. So I think they were in fact placed in a high-pressure chamber."
Paul was writing feverishly.
"Where do you find things like that?"
"You'll have to ask around. There are tanks that professional divers use to decompress, but I wouldn't think there are any in the Paris region. There are also chambers used in hospitals."
"In hospitals?"
"That's right. To oxygenate patients suffering from bad circulation-diabetes, high cholesterol… High air pressure makes it easier to distribute oxygen in the organism. There must be three or four machines like that in Paris. But I shouldn't think your killer had access to a hospital. You'd do better to check out industry"