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Authors: Donato Carrisi
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and tie, loosened in such a way as to make him look like an office worker stopping off for a drink on the way home. Knowing that solitary people attract attention, he had a small paper shopping bag on the seat next to him. A baguette, a clump of parsley and a tube of coloured sweets stuck out from the top of it. He would be taken for a family man. He was even wearing a wedding ring.
But he didn’t have anyone.
Over the years he had reduced his needs to a minimum, and led a frugal life. He thought of himself as an ascetic. He had quashed every aspiration that was not useful to his one purpose, avoiding the distraction of desire. He needed only one thing.
His prey.
After all that time spent following him in vain, he had received information that suggested he was in Paris. Without waiting for confirmation, he had moved here himself. He needed to know his prey’s new territory. He had to see what his prey saw, walk the same streets, experience the curious sensation that he might meet him at any moment, even if he didn’t recognise him. He needed to know that they were both under the same sky. This excited him, made him think that sooner or later he would manage to flush him out.
To keep a low profile, he had changed accommodation every three weeks, always choosing smaller hotels or rented rooms, covering an ever broader area of the city.
For a while now he had been staying at the Hôtel des Saints-Pères, in the sixth arrondissement. In his room he had piles of newspapers that he had accumulated during that long period, all underlined feverishly in search of a clue – however remote – that might open a breach in that terrible wall of darkness and silence.
He had been in Paris for almost nine months, but had not made any progress. His confidence had wavered. But then, unexpectedly, the event he had been waiting for occurred. A sign. A clue that he alone could decipher. He had never given up, he had kept to the rules he had set himself, and now he was rewarded.
Twenty-four hours earlier, workers digging on a building site in the Rue Malmaison in Bagnolet had uncovered a body.
Male, aged around thirty, no clothes or personal objects. Death was believed to have occurred over a year earlier. While waiting for the results of the autopsy, nobody had asked too many questions. Given the amount of time that had elapsed, the police regarded it as a cold case. Any evidence – if there had ever been any – was now faded or compromised.
The fact that the discovery had been made on the outskirts of the city suggested a settling of accounts between drug gangs. In order not to draw the attention of the police, the perpetrators had taken the precaution of getting rid of the body.
The police were so used to that kind of thing, it didn’t get them too excited. Even the one truly macabre aspect of the case, which should have set alarm bells ringing, hadn’t aroused any suspicions.
The body didn’t have a face.
It had not been an act of pure cruelty, or the final outrage visited on an enemy. All the muscles and bones of the face had been meticulously broken. Anyone taking so much care must have had a reason.
That was the kind of detail the hunter was always on the lookout for.
Since the day he had arrived in Paris, he had kept an eye on the bodies arriving at the morgues of the large hospitals. That was how he had learned of this discovery. An hour later, he had stolen a white coat and broken into the cold room of the Saint-Antoine hospital.With a pad, he had taken the corpse’s fingerprints. Back at the hotel he had scanned them and then hacked into the government databases. The hunter knew that every time a piece of information is put on the internet, it can’t be removed. It’s like the human mind: all it takes is one detail to reawaken the synapses and bring back things we thought we had forgotten.
The web never forgets.
The hunter had sat in the dark, waiting for the response, praying and thinking again about how he
But he didn’t have anyone.
Over the years he had reduced his needs to a minimum, and led a frugal life. He thought of himself as an ascetic. He had quashed every aspiration that was not useful to his one purpose, avoiding the distraction of desire. He needed only one thing.
His prey.
After all that time spent following him in vain, he had received information that suggested he was in Paris. Without waiting for confirmation, he had moved here himself. He needed to know his prey’s new territory. He had to see what his prey saw, walk the same streets, experience the curious sensation that he might meet him at any moment, even if he didn’t recognise him. He needed to know that they were both under the same sky. This excited him, made him think that sooner or later he would manage to flush him out.
To keep a low profile, he had changed accommodation every three weeks, always choosing smaller hotels or rented rooms, covering an ever broader area of the city.
For a while now he had been staying at the Hôtel des Saints-Pères, in the sixth arrondissement. In his room he had piles of newspapers that he had accumulated during that long period, all underlined feverishly in search of a clue – however remote – that might open a breach in that terrible wall of darkness and silence.
He had been in Paris for almost nine months, but had not made any progress. His confidence had wavered. But then, unexpectedly, the event he had been waiting for occurred. A sign. A clue that he alone could decipher. He had never given up, he had kept to the rules he had set himself, and now he was rewarded.
Twenty-four hours earlier, workers digging on a building site in the Rue Malmaison in Bagnolet had uncovered a body.
Male, aged around thirty, no clothes or personal objects. Death was believed to have occurred over a year earlier. While waiting for the results of the autopsy, nobody had asked too many questions. Given the amount of time that had elapsed, the police regarded it as a cold case. Any evidence – if there had ever been any – was now faded or compromised.
The fact that the discovery had been made on the outskirts of the city suggested a settling of accounts between drug gangs. In order not to draw the attention of the police, the perpetrators had taken the precaution of getting rid of the body.
The police were so used to that kind of thing, it didn’t get them too excited. Even the one truly macabre aspect of the case, which should have set alarm bells ringing, hadn’t aroused any suspicions.
The body didn’t have a face.
It had not been an act of pure cruelty, or the final outrage visited on an enemy. All the muscles and bones of the face had been meticulously broken. Anyone taking so much care must have had a reason.
That was the kind of detail the hunter was always on the lookout for.
Since the day he had arrived in Paris, he had kept an eye on the bodies arriving at the morgues of the large hospitals. That was how he had learned of this discovery. An hour later, he had stolen a white coat and broken into the cold room of the Saint-Antoine hospital.With a pad, he had taken the corpse’s fingerprints. Back at the hotel he had scanned them and then hacked into the government databases. The hunter knew that every time a piece of information is put on the internet, it can’t be removed. It’s like the human mind: all it takes is one detail to reawaken the synapses and bring back things we thought we had forgotten.
The web never forgets.
The hunter had sat in the dark, waiting for the response, praying and thinking again about how he
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