The Beast of the Camargue by Xavier-Marie Bonnot Page A

trace of sperm on the forehead, like a diabolical unction, the signature of Sylvain Ferracci, or the “Dustman,” as a hack on
Paris-Match
called him
.
    11 a.m. A second call
.
    A woman’s voice. The trail will now begin
.
    In a dustbin in Rabatau, some clothes: a woman’s severe hounds-tooth suit, flesh-colored stockings stained with blood
.
    12 a.m. A third call
.
    A child’s voice
.
    Behind it, “Us and Them” by Pink Floyd
.
    On the jetty of La Pointe Rouge, the torso and legs. The belly has been opened from the pubis to the sternum
.
    A whirlpool
.
    Maistre, the crack shot, withdraws a Beretta from the armory
.
    He weighs the clip in his hand and slips it into the butt
.
    De Palma watches him stroke the automatic’s black breech
.
    He is a certified marksman and can bring a man down firing blind at twenty meters
.
    Maistre wants to get this over with. His eyes are red with fatigue and misery, and his brains a grenade with the pin pulled out
.
    De Palma hardly feels any better
.
    If they catch sight of Ferracci, he’s a dead man
.
    Everything happens so fast
.
    A street corner, a chase
.
    A cellar
.
    De Palma sticks the barrel of his gun into the Dustman’s mouth and shuts his eyes
.
    He’s going to press the trigger
.
    He will if this creep doesn’t stop screaming
.
    Maistre approaches
.
    De Palma’s whole body is trembling
.
    Slowly, his friend withdraws the barrel of the Manurhin from the predator’s mouth
.
    Streaks of light enter the Baron’s head, they hit him, again and again
.
    Thick blood runs down over his eyes
.
    It’s Marie’s head in the bag
.
    No, it’s Isabelle–Ingrid who’s winking at him
.
    An obscene peekaboo from the hereafter dark dreams
.
    He got up, swallowed two aspirins and stood in front of the bathroom mirror.
    He looked long and hard at his face, made younger by the summer sun and the knife of the surgeon who had spent half a day refashioning his features. He pushed back his hair and examined the scar at the top of his forehead. Then he leaned closer to the mirror and looked at his nose, the only part of his face he had ever liked.
    His nose had changed, and now looked like something molded out of plastic: it was an intruder in the picture, a part of himself torn away from him forever. He lowered his eyes and splashed water over his face, as if to purify himself.

7.
    At 6 a.m., Christophe Texeira left his office in La Capelière. He wanted to be at his observation post before sunrise and, most of all, to make himself scarce as soon as the first tourists showed up.
    The day before, he had told Nathalie, his new assistant, that he would be out for most of the morning.
    â€œHow am I supposed to cope with all those groups and families?” she had protested timidly. “Do you realize?”
    â€œYou give them their tickets then escort them to the start of the green track. Then let them get on with it. Anyway, they aren’t at risk. If there’s an emergency, call me on my mobile. I won’t be far away. I’ll be in the reed hut, just by the samphire meadow, the place I showed you yesterday.”
    Nathalie had adopted a sulky look which rather appealed to Texeira.
    â€œI hope the ghost in the hut doesn’t gobble you up.”
    â€œNo, he only moves at night.”
    The two of them had discussed at length the voices he had heard in the night. Nathalie had made fun of him at first, then they had ended up deciding that the world was full of waifs and strays and that there was nothing they could do about it. There was no peace to be had anywhere, not even in the marshes of the Camargue.
    There was no point sending for the gendarmes from Le Sambuc.
    That morning, the biologist made his way rapidly along the straight path that led to the hut. The grassland and nearby marshes were silent. Only the
oup-oup-oup
of a hoopoe could be heard across that brown vastness.
    The heat of the previous day