Free Irene by Pierre Lemaitre

jigsaw puzzle would be something else entirely.
    Usually, the corpses taken from the drawers of a mortuary fridge stirred a terrible feeling of pain, but that very pain was somehow alive. To suffer, one had to be alive. This time, the body appeared to have dissolved. It arrived as a series of packages, like slabs of tuna weighed out at a fish market.
    On the stainless steel tables of the autopsy room lay shapeless masses of different sizes. Not all the parts had been removed from the drawers, but already it was difficult to imagine how these pieces had ever been one body, let alone two. It would never occur to someone at a butcher’s stall to mentally reconstruct the slaughtered animal.
    Dr Crest and Dr Nguyên shook hands as if they were at a conference. The delegate for lunacy greeting the delegate for atrocity. Then Dr Nguyên put on his glasses, checked the tape recorder was working and decided to begin with the stomach.
    “The deceased is a Caucasian woman aged approximately …”

4
    Philippe Buisson de Chevesne was not the best in the business, but he was certainly one of the most tenacious. The message “Commandant Verhœven does not intend to speak to the press at this stage of the investigation” did not faze him.
    “I’m not asking for a press statement. I just want a couple of minutes of his time.”
    He had begun calling late the night before. He began again first thing in the morning. At 11 a.m., the switchboard informed Camille of his thirteenth call. The switchboard sounded tetchy.
    Buisson – who in his by-line dispensed with the aristocratic “de Chevesne” – was not exactly a star reporter. He did not have what it took to be a great journalist, but he was nonetheless a
successful
journalist because he focused his formidable instincts on the story in hand. Perhaps because he was aware of both his strengths and limitations, Buisson chose to cover lurid crime stories, a choice that proved astute. He was no stylist, but he was an effective writer. He had made a name for himself covering a number of high-profile cases where he had succeeded in digging up a few minor details. A little news and a lot of showmanship. Buisson was no genius, so he milked this formula assiduously. The rest had been down to luck, which clearly favoured heroes and scumbag journalists equally. Buisson had stumbled uponthe Tremblay murder and had been among the first to realise its true implication: a vast readership. He had covered the case from beginning to end, so it had been no surprise to see him show up in Courbevoie now that the two cases had been linked.
    Camille spotted him as soon as he came out of the
métro
. A tall guy, trendy, in his thirties. A nice voice he had a tendency to overuse. A little too much charm. Cunning. Intelligent.
    Camille immediately shut down and quickened his pace. “I just need a couple of minutes …” Buisson said, buttonholing Camille.
    “If I had two minutes, I’d be happy to give them to you …”
    Camille was walking briskly, but given his height, walking briskly meant walking at the unhurried pace of a man like Buisson.
    “You’d be wise to make a statement,
inspecteur
. Otherwise the hacks are likely to write up any old shit …”
    Camille stopped.
    “You’re behind the times, Buisson. No-one’s called me ‘
inspecteur
’ for years. As for reporters writing any old shit, is that a promise or a threat?”
    “Neither – obviously it’s neither.” Buisson smiled.
    Camille had stopped, and this was his mistake. One point to Buisson. Camille realised this. The two men eyeballed each other.
    “You know how it is,” Buisson went on. “If they’ve got nothing to go on, journalists tend to invent things …”
    Buisson had been known to divorce himself from the sins he ascribed to others. From the look in his eyes, Camille suspected he was capable of anything, of the worst excesses and possibly more. The difference between a good predator and a great predator is instinct.