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have a drink at my house. How about that?”
    Hélène had chosen a rather strict suit. When she got into the Mercedes, he noticed that she had raised her skirt high enough so that he could see between her thighs. He paid no apparent attention and pulled away.
    It took them fifteen minutes to get out of Aix. The streets were jammed in a late rush-hour of people who had being doing last-minute Christmas shopping. He managed to win her trust by inventing a few problems for himself and an imaginary therapy. Hélène told him of her hallucinations, dwelling on an image that had recurredconstantly in her nightmares since her last visit to the psychiatrist: being raped by three scouts. And the nights she spent smoking joints and masturbating. He listened to her without a word, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
    They left Aix. Hélène talked about herself non-stop, into a vacuum. He was not listening any more.
    When they had passed the village of Puyricard, he slowed and turned down a forest track. He drove on for a good hundred meters, then stopped the car.
    â€œGet out,” he ordered firmly.
    Hélène smiled limply, her chest rose, her thighs drew apart.
    â€œGet out,” he ordered even more forcefully. “And wait for me there, in front of the car. I won’t be long.”
    She obeyed at once, got out of the car and took a few steps in the white light of the headlamps. He opened the boot of the Mercedes without listening to the romantic chat the woman was serving him up. He put on his latex gloves and picked up a strange object shaped like a tomahawk: a rudimentary ax, with a wooden handle measuring about fifty centimeters and, at the tip, a huge piece of biface flint, perfectly sharpened and held in place with dried gut.
    Slowly, he approached Hélène, his eyes on fire. She heard him recite out loud, in a calm voice:
    â€œI am the hunter
    Give me your blood
    May the spirits of the dead guide you through the night
    May your flesh fortify the first man …”
    Hélène gasped.
    â€œBut, what do you …?”
    She stepped back, falling over a tree trunk on the ground, her legs spread.
    He grabbed her arm, yanking her upward while repeating through gritted teeth:
    â€œMay your flesh fortify the first man.”
    The flint ax lodged itself deep in the skull of his prey. He hit her again coolly, like a butcher. Small shards of bone and scraps of gray brain flew into the air. Then there was silence.
    He examined the prostrate body: Hélène, her face crushed, looked like a crazed puppet. Her muscles were still twitching. He dipped his finger in the blood which was foaming out of her mouth and tasted it.
    â€œMay your flesh fortify the first man.”
    He pulled up her skirt and tore off her stockings. The nylon soughed, and an acrid smell rose up. He stood back to get a good look at the slaughtered flesh still quivering at his feet.
    It was at that moment that he started to howl like a beast, and bit into the still-warm flesh of her thigh.
    Once. Twice.
    Then he went back to the car to fetch a long, narrow piece of flint, as sharp as a kitchen knife, kneeled down between Hélène’s thighs and began to slice her up. When he reached the femur, he struck it with the ax with one swift movement, as precise as a horse butcher.
    Five minutes later, he was holding Hélène’s left leg at arm’s length, swinging it to and fro in a broad arc to empty it of what was left of its blood. He then paused for breath before wrapping the mass of wobbly flesh in several bin-liners and putting it in the boot of the Mercedes.
    He returned to the body, placed the sheet of paper with its negative hand under Hélène’s right arm, then disappeared into the night.
    He was in no hurry.

4.
    At around noon on January 4, de Palma and Jean-Louis Maistre walked into Le Zanzi, the squad’s local bar on rue de l’Evêché. Dédé the landlord