pile of books below the board, ready for writing up his initial thoughts. But he didn’t want to rush it. He wanted to clear his mind first. He needed to wash away all preconceptions and let these five puzzling pieces find their own place in his thoughts. This was going to be a long road, and he wanted to make as few wrong turns as possible. He reached for his guitar and began picking out a slow, mournful twelve-bar blues, and closed his eyes to find Gaillard staring back at him from the haunted shadows of his dead skull.
Chapter Seven
I.
Nicole was waiting among the deserted Sunday morning tables of the pizzeria when he returned from breakfast at the Café Le Forum. She was pleased to see him. ‘Hi, Monsieur Macleod.’ She ignored his outstretched hand and leaned up to kiss him three times, alternating cheeks. He was taken aback. It was a customary French greeting between men and women familiar with each other, but not usual between lecturer and student. He wondered, if perhaps, Sophie was right about Nicole.
Her suitcase was huge, and very heavy, and she allowed Enzo to carry it up to the second floor. Circumventing the metal detector, he put the case in her room. She looked from the window over the jumble of rooftops behind the apartment. ‘This is lovely. Better than any job at the hospital.’
While she unpacked, Enzo explained the background to the Gaillard case. For her further enlightenment he had left, on the bedside table, a copy of Raffin’s book, as well as his front-page piece in
Libération
about the identification of the skull. Nicole’s eyes opened wide. ‘So we’re going to be kind of, like, detectives?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Oh, wow. That’s amazing.’
‘It’s serious work, Nicole. We’re talking about a man’s murder here. And a killer, or killers, who are still at large.’
‘Okay,’ she said, eager to be started. ‘Let’s get them, then.’
He ensconced her at the computer in the
séjour
and she said, ‘Are we broadband?’ Enzo nodded. ‘Good. I don’t know how anyone can work with dial-up any more. It’s so-oo slow. What search engine do you use?’
‘Google.’
‘Good, so do I.’
Enzo picked his way through the books littering the floor to the whiteboard. ‘This is how I’m going to work it,’ he said. ‘Around the board I’ve taped up photographs of the items found with the skull. As you can see, I’ve already started making notes under each of them. Each time we come up with a valid line of thinking on any of them, we’ll note that somewhere in the centre of the board, circle it, and draw a line to it from the item which has sparked the thought. Then we’ll be looking for connections, either between the thoughts or between the items, and we’ll draw more arrows and more circles. The theory is, that the thought which ends up with most arrows pointing to it is the key to the puzzle.’
Nicole stared at the board thoughtfully, and her intelligence kicked in over her immaturity. ‘What makes you think it’s a puzzle?’
‘Because there has to be a reason for these things being there. Some kind of message. It must be. Each item kind of like a cryptic clue.’
‘Why would the killer want to leave a message?’
‘I haven’t the least idea. But I’m not concerned with that for the moment. The first thing is to decipher the message. You can see I’ve started making notes on my first thoughts.’
‘You’d better take me through them, then.’
‘Okay, let’s start with the femur, the thigh bone.’ Underneath it he had written
Anatomical Skeleton
. ‘The police had already figured out that this was probably taken from the kind of anatomical skeleton used for demonstration purposes in medical schools. The small holes drilled at either end would have been for wiring the bones together. So now I’m thinking, why? What’s the point of this bone? Sometimes, in primitive societies, bones like this were used as weapons. Which is why I’ve written
Chapter Seven
I.
Nicole was waiting among the deserted Sunday morning tables of the pizzeria when he returned from breakfast at the Café Le Forum. She was pleased to see him. ‘Hi, Monsieur Macleod.’ She ignored his outstretched hand and leaned up to kiss him three times, alternating cheeks. He was taken aback. It was a customary French greeting between men and women familiar with each other, but not usual between lecturer and student. He wondered, if perhaps, Sophie was right about Nicole.
Her suitcase was huge, and very heavy, and she allowed Enzo to carry it up to the second floor. Circumventing the metal detector, he put the case in her room. She looked from the window over the jumble of rooftops behind the apartment. ‘This is lovely. Better than any job at the hospital.’
While she unpacked, Enzo explained the background to the Gaillard case. For her further enlightenment he had left, on the bedside table, a copy of Raffin’s book, as well as his front-page piece in
Libération
about the identification of the skull. Nicole’s eyes opened wide. ‘So we’re going to be kind of, like, detectives?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Oh, wow. That’s amazing.’
‘It’s serious work, Nicole. We’re talking about a man’s murder here. And a killer, or killers, who are still at large.’
‘Okay,’ she said, eager to be started. ‘Let’s get them, then.’
He ensconced her at the computer in the
séjour
and she said, ‘Are we broadband?’ Enzo nodded. ‘Good. I don’t know how anyone can work with dial-up any more. It’s so-oo slow. What search engine do you use?’
‘Google.’
‘Good, so do I.’
Enzo picked his way through the books littering the floor to the whiteboard. ‘This is how I’m going to work it,’ he said. ‘Around the board I’ve taped up photographs of the items found with the skull. As you can see, I’ve already started making notes under each of them. Each time we come up with a valid line of thinking on any of them, we’ll note that somewhere in the centre of the board, circle it, and draw a line to it from the item which has sparked the thought. Then we’ll be looking for connections, either between the thoughts or between the items, and we’ll draw more arrows and more circles. The theory is, that the thought which ends up with most arrows pointing to it is the key to the puzzle.’
Nicole stared at the board thoughtfully, and her intelligence kicked in over her immaturity. ‘What makes you think it’s a puzzle?’
‘Because there has to be a reason for these things being there. Some kind of message. It must be. Each item kind of like a cryptic clue.’
‘Why would the killer want to leave a message?’
‘I haven’t the least idea. But I’m not concerned with that for the moment. The first thing is to decipher the message. You can see I’ve started making notes on my first thoughts.’
‘You’d better take me through them, then.’
‘Okay, let’s start with the femur, the thigh bone.’ Underneath it he had written
Anatomical Skeleton
. ‘The police had already figured out that this was probably taken from the kind of anatomical skeleton used for demonstration purposes in medical schools. The small holes drilled at either end would have been for wiring the bones together. So now I’m thinking, why? What’s the point of this bone? Sometimes, in primitive societies, bones like this were used as weapons. Which is why I’ve written
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