The Finn hated the cover.
The response, in two laconic, brutal sentences, reminded Gilles and Julie that the cover should never allude visually to the issue’s central theme but must be kept to some neutral and soothing image – and demanded a new one before the end of the day.
Julie didn’t dare disturb Gilles at home so, valiant Breton that she was, she laboured over a new version of the cover which took until twenty-five past midnight, sent it to the US and shut down her computer. If she stayed to wait for the American reaction, she’d miss the last train home from Bagneux. And she didn’t have enough money on her for a taxi to Montparnasse at the night rate, which was at least sixty francs. Julie ran down the empty corridors, her coat under her arm, to the foyer where the North African night watchman, deep in a sports paper, nodded at her vaguely. She raced down the front steps and set off across a deserted Bagneux, in the glow of the streetlights, into an icy wind she hadn’t expected. Anticipating going home much earlier, Julie had even put on a miniskirt today, something she hadn’t dared do in four months, terrified by the possibility of a nocturnal encounter with the Ripper. But the morning news had reassured her on that score…
Her heels clicked on the tarmac, she ran through the labyrinth of narrow streets, lined with peaceful small pensioners’ houses, as far as the main road which she crossed, defying the red pedestrian signal, between two cars hurtling at well over 50 miles an hour which honked warnings at her. The train indicator board in the empty station showed the Paris train was at the platform.
‘Oh no,’ Julie groaned, inserting her season ticket into the machine.
The ‘doors closing’ signal sounded as she reached the platform. She ran as if her life depended on it, leapt between the sliding doors, forcing her way through, and she was inside, panicky and breathless, frantically tugging at the handle of her bag which was wedged between the strips of rubber, as the train pulled away.
The few passengers in the compartment stared at her briefly before falling back into the apathy of exhausted workers or depressed night owls. She flopped onto a seat, her heart thudding, and watched vaguely as the suburban lights and bare station platforms slipped past. Ravenous (she hadn’t eaten since midday), sleepy, her head nodding, she nearly dozed off and missed her stop. Denfert-Rochereau. She jumped up and just made it through the hissing doors.
Because she’d got on at the end of the train, Julie, walking along the platform towards the exit, came first to the narrow staircase that led directly to the square, in the former railway station converted to a regional express station. Which would mean having to cross the vast Denfert-Rochereau traffic intersection in the wind and cold… Julie opted for the next exit, which connected to the Métro, lines 4 and 6, and would bring her out of the station as close to her home as possible, with only rue Froiaevaux to walk up to rue Cels.
In the bowels of the empty station, she used her ticket again to exit the row of ticket barriers and turned, following signs to the Porte d’Orléans line. It was a complicated network of corridors but the young provincial woman was becoming familiar with it. At the next intersection she had to turn left, then sharp right towards the escalator. It was in this last corridor that she saw him.
Julie considered herself good at remembering faces, and she’d studied the photofit of the ‘east Paris killer’ in the media many times. The only difference was that the man had grown a thin moustache. Everything else matched the description given by the survivor. In his thirties, tall, athletic-looking, lithe, the dark skin of a North African. Closely cropped hair, practically shaved. Their eyes met just as he drew level with her. For that fraction of a second, Julie detected the glimmer of interest in the man’s eyes, saw the quick, sidelong glance at her slender legs below her miniskirt. She hurried on, short of breath, looking down, her expression as neutral as possible. Her heart was pounding wildly. What an appalling coincidence, what terrifying bad luck… Just as long as he didn’t turn round now and follow her! Julie didn’t dare look over her shoulder. She let her shaky body be carried by the escalator, praying she’d find an RATP employee still at the ticket window. It was almost one in the morning. The last trains had probably all left. She pushed the heavy glass door and saw with annoyance that the ticket office was closed, the blind was down, the lights out. Now she only had to walk up the last flight of steps to the square, where the wind was gusting hard and clouds scudded across the sky, revealing glimpses of a perfectly round, wan moon. It illuminated the powerful musculature of the Denfert Lion, which watched over the middle of the square in bronze impassivity.
On the other side of avenue General Leclerc, one of the severe twin buildings of the former ‘Barrière d’Enfer’ tollgate housed the entrance to the sinister Catacombs – the place where, in 1785, the Prefect Lenoir dumped millions of skeletons, hauling them from the charnel house of the Innocents in macabre cartloads and filling the air of Les Halles with a foul stench. Julie turned left, walked past the gate to the little park and reached the corner of rue Froiaevaux, just before the taxi rank where one solitary vehicle was waiting. After crossing the road, attempting to look natural, she half turned round.
The olive-skinned man was there, standing at the top of the station steps, lighting a cigarette and looking to left and right. He saw the trembling young woman’s silhouette and, putting away his lighter, strode deliberately in the direction Julie had taken.
She nearly fainted. He’d spotted her. Singled her out as his next victim. At this stage of the game, he had nothing left to lose. Wanted by every police force, accused of six or seven rapes and murders; what difference would one more or less make to the sentence he’d get? Guy Georges wanted to experience the pleasure of a terrified, pretty young woman one last time, thrust his penis into her and then his blade, before ending his life behind bars. The full moon was beckoning, arousing his powerful killer instincts… Julie, after hesitating and deciding not to get into the taxi, feverishly repeated to herself Claire’s words of advice, as she scurried beneath the trees which were bending in the wind: ‘If you notice you’re being followed, never go straight home. Go and sit in a public place, a café, wait for the guy to realise he’s been seen and give up.’ In front of her, rue Froiaevaux, the quickest way to rue Cels, stretched out along the cemetery walls. Ill-lit, gloomy, completely deserted. A real death-trap, an invitation to murder…
Julie was beginning to understand what the prostitutes of Whitechapel must have felt, wandering anxiously in the fog, straining to her the footsteps of Jack the Ripper. Changing her route, she turned left into rue Boulard, then walked up rue Daguerre. The shops were all closed, but still, she’d be nearer her building, where she was hoping to see, two streets before hers. La Bélière, a night bistro, usually open at this late hour.
A quick sideways glance told her that the man in denim, whose cigarette made a red dot in the shadows, had also turned into rue Daguerre.
Further up the narrow street, she saw, far away like a safe haven, a reassuring port in the storm, La Bélière, its lights blazing. Walking faster, Julie pulled her mobile from her bag, pressed ‘contacts’ and then ‘call’ as soon as Claire’s name appeared. Her friend absolutely had to come to meet her in the café. Cochin Hospital, like Claire’s flat, very close to her work, was only fifteen minutes away on foot. The killer, who only attacked lone women, would give up and go away if he saw them together.