Bred to Kill (13 page)

“According to what she wrote, if left-handers exist, it's because they're better fighters. They enjoy a strategic advantage in combat, which is the effect of surprise. When two individuals confront each other, the left-hander has the advantage because he's used to fighting right-handers, whereas the right-hander is disoriented by someone who favors using his left hand or foot. He doesn't see the blows coming. And therefore, it's because they are less numerous, less common, that left-handers have an advantage.”

“In DNA, you mean?”

“Yes. That might seem simplistic, but it's really the way nature works: everything favorable to the propagation of genes is selected and transmitted, while the rest is eliminated. Obviously, this doesn't take place over just a few years, it often takes centuries for this information to be inscribed in our DNA.”

Sharko tried to summarize.

“So, from what you're saying, the more violent the community, the higher the proportion of left-handers?”

“That was the evolutionary phenomenon Eva highlighted. The ‘left-handed' trait is spread via DNA in violent societies, while in other societies it gradually fades out, leaving more room for right-handers.”

“I know a number of lefties. They're not particularly athletic or violent. So if nature tends to eliminate anything that isn't useful, why aren't they right-handers like everyone else?”

“Because of genetic memory. Our modern culture will end up eliminating it, as it will end up eliminating white moths.”

She nodded toward the thesis.

“That's why, among the violent criminals in that Mexican city, Eva didn't find a higher proportion of left-handers than anywhere else. She must have been extremely disappointed by those findings, but all things considered, it's logical: no question that, in a world where you only need press a button or pull a trigger in order to kill, being left-handed doesn't do you any good, because we no longer have to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Consequently, the gene pool of left-handers will eventually die out. One day there will no longer be any more left-handers in any society, whatever its level of violence.”

Sharko took time to assimilate this information. It all struck him as implacably logical and extremely interesting. Culture modified the environment, which in turn affected the selection of the fittest . . . He returned to his questions.

“A week after Mexico, Louts traveled to Manaus, in Brazil. Did she make any mention of that in her thesis?”

Jaspar's eyes widened.

“Brazil? No, no . . . nothing to explain a trip down there. No statistics, no data. Is Manaus also a violent city?”

“No more than any other, apparently. In any case, after her quasi-failure in Mexico, Eva seemed to be conducting very focused research. And does the thesis talk about her studies of French prison inmates? A certain Grégory Carnot, for instance?”

“No, nothing like that either.”

Sharko placed the sheet of paper on the others, skeptical. Nothing about her trip to Brazil, nothing about Carnot or her prison visits. After Manaus, Louts had moved squarely outside the parameters of her thesis. The inspector probed further:

“She visited prisons during the day, when she was supposed to be at your center. That's why she wanted to start at five o'clock—she didn't want anyone knowing about her visits to penitentiaries. She interviewed inmates and collected their photos. From what you've read, and from what you know, why would Eva have gone to visit prisoners who were all young, left-handed, and had committed violent murders?”

She thought for a moment.

“Hmmm . . . Her approach this time seems rather different from in Mexico. She was not looking for a left-hander behind the crime, but for a crime behind the left-hander. She might have been trying to determine if hand dominance and violence could be related in isolated cases of individuals who lived in civilized environments . . . Did these men have any points in common? Was there something that made them stand out? I'm sorry, that's the only line of inquiry I can think of.”

Which didn't explain much of anything, Sharko thought to himself. Lower down, he saw Levallois climbing the steps two by two. He asked the primatologist one last question:

“Is there anything else about the thesis I should know?”

“I don't believe so, but you can read it for yourself. Apart from the graphs and some mathematical data, most of it should be fairly accessible. Eva had written an incredibly thorough and careful study, one that would certainly have caused a stir in scientific circles. And still will if her work gets published.”

The young lieutenant was catching his breath on the top step. He spotted Sharko and waved, then gazed at a large poster that explained how viruses work. The police inspector warmly thanked the primatologist.

“Naturally, I have to ask you to keep all this confidential until we're finished with our investigation.”

“Of course. I'm going to wander around the galleries a bit more. Please keep me posted on the case. You can call whenever you like, even at night. I don't sleep much. I'd really like to understand this and help you out as much as I can.”

“I will.”

She gave him a shy smile, shook his hand, and walked off. Sharko gazed after her a few seconds, then headed toward his partner.

“So, what about the fossil?”

“It's not from here, for the simple reason that they don't have any chimpanzee fossils that old in their collection.”

“So, wild goose chase.”

“Not at all, we've got a huge lead. The director told me that for the past week there's been an exhibit on mineralogy and fossils at the Drouot auction house, which ends tomorrow. A sale of mammal skeletons several thousand years old was held last Thursday. No doubt there were monkeys in the batch. I've got the name of the auctioneer who handled it. He'll be at Avenue Montaigne tonight at nine for another sale.”

“Can we reach him right now?”

“I called Drouot, but no luck. He doesn't show up until about a half hour beforehand.”

Sharko headed for the stairs.

“In that case, I know where we'll be spending our evening.”

“Mmmm . . . I had other plans.”

“You already went to the movies once this week. Mustn't overdo it, you know.”

Levallois greeted the quip with a smile, then grew serious again.

“And what about you, anything new?”

“You might say that. I'll fill you in at thirty-six.”

When they stepped outside, the temperature rose sharply. Sharko slapped the thesis into his partner's hands.

“Can you put this on my desk? I want to give it a read-through.”

He veered off to the left, toward the main gardens.

“The scooter's this way, Franck.”

Sharko turned around.

“I know, but I'm going to walk home and stop in at the barber's. Besides, if I've got this evolution business right, we were given legs to walk on. If we keep taking cars and public transportation, we'll just end up losing them.”

L
ucie had hit the road after lunch. The nice manager of the Ten Marmots had whipped her up a splendid risotto that would surely hold her until evening. She wasn't sorry to be sitting behind the wheel for a few hours: the descent from the glacier had been difficult, including a painful cramp in her calf that had kept her stuck on the ice for an extra five minutes. But the round trip to the summit had been worth it. Lucie was on the trail of
something
, a prehistoric oddity that lit up a fury of little flashing lights inside her.

As she drove, the mountain reliefs overlapped, the gorges widened until they pushed the Alps into the background. Then came small valleys, steeply inclined fields, and nervous streams. Finally, Lyon, in late afternoon, looked like a black boulder on a lake of hot coals. People were returning home from work, clogging the approach roads to a standstill. A life regulated to the quarter of an inch, in which everyone, once back home, would spend a few hours on spouse, children, or Internet, before going to bed, head swarming with tomorrow's stock of woes. Lucie tried to keep patient and took advantage of the traffic jam to call her mother. She knew Juliette was out: the little girl had been taking music lessons for the past two years. She asked Marie to give her a kiss and tell her how much Mommy loved her. Was she looking after Klark? She passed on a bit of news, explained merely that she was resolving an old issue, then quickly hung up. It took her another half hour to get out of that traffic sludge and enter the city's seventh arrondissement.

As Lucie neared her destination, she noticed another message on the screen of her phone. Sharko again, asking for news for at least the fourth time. Vaguely annoyed, she sent back a quick text that all was fine, she was making progress, no further details.

She found a small spot on Rue Curien, near the École Normale. To her left, she could see the Saône, which flowed into the Rhône to form the Presqu'île. The area was bustling with students and filled with modern-design buildings: architecture with receding angles, tinted windows, and pure lines. Unlike Lille, whose brick constructions seemed flat and ruddy, Lyon offered an impression of mastered chaos, in both its relief and its vibrant colors.

During the drive, Lucie had managed to reach the secretary of the Functional Genomics Institute and, still with her cop's hat on, to score an appointment with Arnaud Fécamp, a member of the research unit that had taken in the bodies from the glacier. The scientist worked on the PALGENE platform, which was one of a kind in Europe and specialized in the analysis of fossil DNA. On the phone, he confirmed what Lucie already suspected: Eva Louts had indeed visited their lab ten days before.

She quickly found René Descartes Square and entered the building, an impressive block of glass and concrete four stories high, hosting various activities related to the life sciences: biology, molecular phylogeny, postnatal development . . . At the far right of the foyer, two fat blue and red intertwined cables rose several yards into the air—the symbol representing the double helix of DNA. Lucie vaguely recalled her biology courses in high school, particularly the four “bases” of that giant helicoidal ladder, formed by the letters G, A, T, C: guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine. Four nitrogenous bases, common to all living creatures, whose complex combinations, which among other things formed genes and chromosomes, could give someone blue eyes, female gender, or a congenital illness. Lucie made out an inscription at the base of that curious construction:
DNA
HAS
BEEN
HIDDEN
IN
OUR
CELLS
FOR
MILLIONS
OF
YEARS
.
WE
ARE
UNRAVELING
IT
.

Everything was clean, immaculate, flawless. Lucie felt as if she were wandering through a science fiction setting, in which the staff would all be robots. Arnaud Fécamp, luckily, didn't look like he was held together with nuts and bolts—in fact, he was rather well padded. Squeezed into his lab coat, he was shorter than Lucie and wore his flaming red hair extremely short. Round, smooth face, despite pronounced wrinkles on his forehead. Chubby freckled hands. Hard to guess his age, but Lucie figured a good forty.

“Amélie Courtois?”

“That's me.”

He shook her hand.

“My boss is in a meeting, so I'll see to you, if that's all right. If I've understood correctly, you're looking into the student who came to visit us about a week ago?”

While they went up in a hyperefficient elevator—with a female voice to call out the floors—Lucie explained the reason for her visit: Eva Louts's murder, her trip to the glacier, her passage through Lyon a few days before . . . Fécamp absorbed the news. His red jowls trembled from the elevator's vibrations.

“I sincerely hope you find the killer. I didn't know that student very well, but no one has the right to do such a thing.”

“We hope so too.”

“I often watch old detective movies on TV, Maigret and the like. If thirty-six Quai des Orfèvres is on the case, it must be serious.”

“It is.”

Lucie remained purposely evasive, by the book. She didn't want to say too much about the investigation, and in any case she had very little information to impart.

“Tell me about Eva Louts.”

“Like a lot of researchers or students working on evolution, she had come here to see the famous ice men.”

“Do you know in what context?”

“Research into the Neanderthal, I believe. The usual stuff. I don't think you'll learn much here, unfortunately.”

Once again, Louts had used the pretext of research into Neanderthal man, perhaps hoping to conceal the real reason for her visit. A cautious girl, thought Lucie, who knew not to draw attention to herself. The door opened onto a long corridor with bluish linoleum. A vague odor of disinfectant floated over everything.

“We can use my boss's office, if you like. It'll be more comfortable to talk there.”

“It would be a shame for me to come all the way here and not have a peek at the ice men. I'd really like to see what our supposed ancestors looked like.”

Fécamp paused a few seconds, then gave her a brief smile. His teeth were especially long and white.

“Well, I suppose you're right—might as well take the opportunity. It's not every day that you come face-to-face with a thirty-thousand-year-old.”

They turned off into a cloakroom where dozens of shrink-wrapped coveralls were piled up. The scientist handed a pack to Lucie.

“Put this on, it should fit you. We're going into a white, windowed rectangle more than a thousand square feet, in which the air is filtered five times over, the temperature is kept a constant seventy-two degrees, and the rooms are washed down with bleach several times a day.”

Lucie did as instructed. To make an impression and add to her role as cop, she took her pistol from her jacket.

“Can I keep this? Any metal detectors or things like that?”

Fécamp swallowed, staring at the compact weapon.

“No, go right ahead. Is it loaded?”

“What do you think?”

Lucie stuffed the small semiautomatic in the back pocket of her jeans, along with her cell phone.

“The policeman's ideal arsenal.” Fécamp sighed. “Pistol and telephone. I hate mobile phones. We're getting too far ahead of nature and changing our behavior because of those miserable contraptions, and one of these days we're going to pay the piper.”

The type who likes to spout off life lessons
, Lucie thought to herself. Without answering, she pulled on the coveralls and paper overshoes, the latex gloves, and the surgical mask and scrub cap.

“So what exactly
is
paleogenetics?”

Fécamp seemed to be putting on his protective gear very slowly, with precise, inch-perfect movements that he must have repeated day after day.

“We analyze the genomes of past biodiversity, in other words the cartography of genes from ancient DNA that we get from fossils, which sometimes are several hundred million years old. Thanks to the organic parts of bones and teeth, which resist the effects of time, we can travel back centuries and understand the origins of various species, their filiations. I'll give you a concrete example. Because of paleogenetics, we now know that more than three thousand years ago, Tutankhamen died from malaria combined with a bone disease. His DNA revealed that he was not in fact the son of Nefertiti, but rather of his father Akhenaton's sister. Tutankhamen was purely and simply the fruit of incest.”

“The tabloids would've eaten that up. And with all this technology, I guess you're not too far away from bringing back the dinosaurs. You just scrape up the DNA from some fossils, a little cloning, and presto, is that right?”

“Oh, we're still light-years away from anything like that. Fossil DNA is often extremely degraded and scarcely available. What can you do with a thousand-piece puzzle when you're missing 990 of the pieces? Each new discovery puts us in front of a real obstacle course. Still, with the ice men, we really hit it lucky, since they were in such remarkably good shape, much better than the Egyptian mummies or Ötzi, the famous
sapiens sapiens
found near the Italian Dolomites in 1991. The fact that the cave was completely sealed off and largely deprived of oxygen slowed down the proliferation of bacteria and protected them from bad weather and climate changes. DNA is a stable molecule, but it doesn't last forever. Its degradation begins the moment the individual dies. It breaks up, and some of the letters that compose the genetic information gradually get erased.”

“The famous G, A, T, C.”

“Exactly. The rungs of the ladder get broken. For instance, the sequence T G A A C A on a bit of DNA can become T G G A C A through alteration, and this entirely distorts the genetic code, and therefore its interpretation. The same as with words, which can change meaning entirely when one letter gets erased, like ‘slaughter' and ‘laughter.' In particularly unfavorable conditions, a mere ten thousand years is enough to ruin every last molecule of DNA. But in the present case, it was more than we'd ever hoped for.”

Once in their blue coveralls, they proceeded to the laboratory. The entrance door was like the airlock in a submarine.

“You'll experience an unpleasant sensation in your ears. The air in the lab is highly pressurized to prevent contaminant DNA from entering. I can't think of anything more horrible than to spend weeks studying DNA that turned out to be ours! Hence the reason for these sterile garments as well. You sure you want to go on?”

“Of course.”

After the scientist had placed his badge over the sensor, they went in. Lucie felt a pain in her ears, then heard a screeching sound, like the kind a train makes when it enters a tunnel. Four lab technicians, bent over powerful microscopes, were filling pipettes or adjusting DNA sequencers, far too absorbed in their work to notice the newcomers. On the benchtops, which were also protectively wrapped, lay various labeled objects: a tooth from a cave-dwelling bear, some Gallo-Roman amber with an insect carcass, ancient excrements from a Madagascan elephant bird. Passing by a freezer with glass doors, Lucie stopped short.

“A baby mammoth?”

“Good eye. That's Lyuba. She was found in the Siberian permafrost by a reindeer breeder. She's forty-two thousand years old.”

“She looks like she could have died yesterday.”

“She's in an extraordinarily good state of preservation.”

Lucie stood agape before the animal that she had seen only in textbook drawings. This place was like an Ali Baba's cave of Prehistory. They walked on. Arnaud Fécamp continued his explanations about DNA.

“Usually, we grind up the bones, teeth, or tissues into fine powder, which we then let incubate for several hours in a buffer that facilitates the degradation of undesirable elements, such as limestone or parasitic proteins. Then we're left with the pure DNA. Since generally it's broken into too many bits for our machines to analyze, we ‘photocopy' the fragments in billions of copies, thanks to an amplification technique called PCR, so that we can manipulate them more easily.”

He opened the door.

Lucie felt a slap of icy air on her face.

A refrigeration chamber.

Once inside, she opened her eyes wide and paused for a moment, with a curious feeling in the pit of her stomach. Never would she have imagined such a spectacular case of mummification by cold. Completely nude and wrapped in clear plastic film, the three members of the Neanderthal family were lying next to one another, slightly curled up. The small one was between the male and the female. Behind his empty eye sockets, with his limp, emaciated jaws, he seemed to be screaming. The most impressive part was their prominent brow, their skulls pulled back as if into a hair bun, the face receding from the prominent nose. Their bone structure was massive, with short limbs and squat, stocky bodies. Their teeth showed evident signs of wear, and some of them were broken and black. Lucie went closer, shivering uncontrollably, and leaned toward them. She squinted. On the dead, desiccated bellies, she noticed wide, deep gashes, like furious mouths. Not even the child had been spared.

“Those look like lacerations,” she said questioningly from behind her mask.

The scientist nodded toward another table, to Lucie's left.

“Yes. That's the tool the Cro-Magnon used to murder them.”

Lucie felt her muscles stiffen and adrenaline whip her blood.

A triple murder.

This family had been massacred. It now seemed so clear. The wounds had been too numerous, too violent. The slashes howled on the dehydrated skin. Lucie was in the presence of one of humanity's oldest crimes, an episode of violence from the most distant ages that had come down through the millennia intact.