“Does it really matter?"
"Three murders, Charlier. They're starting to mount up, aren't they? And they'll go on killing until they find her."
"And you want to hand her over?"
The movement of Charlier's shoulders almost split the stitches in his shirt. Finally he said. "Anyway. I can no longer help you."
"Why?"
"She's escaped."
"You're kidding!"
"Does it look as if I am?"
Schiffer did not know whether to laugh or scream. He sat back down, grabbing the paper knife that Charlier had just dropped. "Bloody incompetent, as usual. What happened?"
"The aim of our experiment was to alter a personality completely. Something never attempted before. We managed to transform her into a middle-class Frenchwoman, married to a top civil servant. A simple Turkish girl, can you imagine that? There's now no limit to conditioning. We're going to-"
"I don't give a shit about your experiment." Schiffer said, butting in. "Just tell me how she got away"
The commissioner frowned. "Over the past few weeks, she'd been having attacks of forgetfulness, or hallucinations. The new personality we had given her was starting to break up. We were about to hospitalize her when she split."
"When was that?"
"Yesterday. Tuesday morning."
Unbelievable. The target of the Grey Wolves was back on the streets. Neither Turkish nor French. With a mind like a sieve. From the bottom of this darkness, a light shone.
"So her original memory is coming back?"
"We don't know But she certainly didn't trust us anymore."
"Where are your men at?"
"Nowhere. They're searching Paris. And still haven't found her."
It was the moment to play his ace. He stuck the paper knife into the wooden desk. "If her memory's returning, then she'll react like a Turk. And that's my area. I stand the best chance of copping her."
The commissioner's expression changed.
Schiffer pressed his point: "She's a Turk, Charlier. A special sort of game. You need someone who knows that universe and who will act discreetly"
He could follow the idea that was making its way through the giant's brain. He stepped back, as though taking aim. "Here's the deaclass="underline" You give me twenty-four hours. If I find her, then I'll hand her over to you. But I get to question her first."
Another pregnant silence. Finally, Charlier opened a drawer and produced a pile of documents.
"Her file. She's now called Anna Heymes and-"
In a single bound, Schiffer grabbed the cardboard folder and opened it. He flicked through the typed pages, the medical reports, and found the target's new face. Exactly as Hirsch had described her. There was not a single feature in common with the redhead the killers were tracking. From that point of view, Sema Gokalp had nothing more to fear.
The antiterrorist warrior went on: "The neurologist treating her is named Eric Ackermann, and-"
"I couldn't care less about her new personality or who did what to her. She's going to return to her origins. That's what matters. What do you know about Sema Gokalp? About the Turk she used to be?"
Charlier wriggled in his chair. Veins were beating at the base of his neck, just above his shirt collar. "Nothing at all! She was just a working girl with amnesia-"
"Did you keep her clothes, her papers, her personal effects?"
Charlier swept the question away with his hand. "We destroyed everything. At least I think we did."
"Check."
"They were just scruffy rags. Nothing of any interest for-”
“Just pick up your fucking phone and check."
Charlier grabbed the receiver. After two calls, he groaned. "I don't believe it. Those useless asses forgot to destroy her clothes."
"Where are they?"
"In a deposit box at headquarters. Beauvanier had given her new threads. And the boys at Louis-Blanc sent the old ones to the prefecture. No one thought of going to fetch them. So much for an elite brigade…”
“What name were they registered under?"
"Sema Gokalp, of course. When we fuck up, we don't do things halfway." He picked up another form, this one blank, which he started to fill in. An open sesame to the prefecture.
Like two predators sharing the same prey, Schiffer thought.
The commissioner signed the paper then slid it across the desk.
"You've got all night. If you fuck up. I'll call in the Special Branch." Schiffer pocketed the pass and stood up. "You won't saw off the branch. We're sitting on the same one."
47
It was time to come clean with the kid.
Jean-Louis Schiffer went back up Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and turned onto Avenue Matignon, where he spotted a phone booth just by the traffic circle on the Champs-Elysées. His cell phone's battery was dead again.
After just one ring, Paul Nerteaux yelled, "Jesus Christ, Schiffer. Where the hell are you?" His voice was trembling with rage.
"In the eighth arrondissement, with the bigwigs."
"It's nearly midnight. What on earth have you been doing? I waited for hours at Sancak's and-"
"A crazy story but I've got plenty of news."
"Are you in a phone booth? I'll find another one and call you back. My battery's dead."
Schiffer hung up, wondering if the police might one day miss the arrest of the century because of a lack of lithium. He half opened the door of the booth-he was stifling himself with his own mint stench.
The night was mild, with no rain or breeze. He observed the passersby, the shopping malls, the gray stone buildings. An existence of luxury, of comfort that had eluded him but was perhaps now back in his reach…
The phone rang. He did not give Nerteaux time to speak.
"Where are you at with your patrols?"
"I've got two vans and three cars," he replied proudly. "Seventy patrolmen and officers from the BAC are combing the area. I've declared the entire neighborhood an emergency zone. I've given the Identikit portraits to all the commissariats and police units in the tenth. All the homes, bars and associations have been searched. There isn't a single person in Little Turkey who hasn't gotten the picture. I'm about to go to the police station in the second and-"
"Forget all that."
"What?"
"This is no time to play soldier. We've got the wrong face.”
“What?"
Schiffer took a deep breath. "The woman we're looking for has had plastic surgery. That's why the Grey Wolves can't find her."
"Do you… do you have proof?"
"I've even got her new face. Everything fits. She shelled out several hundred million francs in order to wipe out her previous identity. She completely changed her physical appearance. She's dyed her hair brown and lost twenty kilos. Then she hid out in the Turkish quarter six months ago."
Silence. When Nerteaux next spoke, his voice had lost several decibels. "Who… who is she? How did she get the money for the operation?"
"No idea," Schiffer lied. "But she's no simple working girl."
"What else have you found out?"
Schiffer thought for a few seconds. Then he told it all. The raid by the Grey Wolves, who had grabbed the wrong target. Sema Gokalp in a state of shock. Her detention at Louis-Blanc, then admission to Sainte-Anne's. The kidnapping organized by Charlier and the grotesque treatment. Finally, the woman's new identity: Anna Heymes.
When he stopped talking, Schiffer could almost hear the cogs turning at full speed in the young officer's brain. He imagined him completely stunned in a phone booth, lost somewhere in the tenth arrondissement. Like him. Two coral fishermen suspended in their lonely cages, in the middle of the ocean's depths…
Finally, Paul asked skeptically, "Who told you all this?"
"Charlier in person."
"He confessed?"
"We're old pals."
"Bull shit."
Schiffer burst out laughing. "I see that you're starting to understand what sort of world we're in. In 1995, after the explosion in the Saint-Michel RER station, the DNAT-which was still called the Sixth Division-was decidedly nervous. A new law allowed them to detain people longer, without charge. It was real hell. I know, because I was there. There were roundups all over town, in Islamist groups, and especially in the tenth. One night, Charlier turned up at Louis-Blanc. He was sure that he had the right suspect-a certain Abdel Saroui. He went at him with his bare fists. I was in the office next door. The next morning, the guy died of a ruptured liver in Saint-Louis Hospital. So this evening, I reminded him of the good old days."