The First Part

The discovery of a body in the Paris Metro early one morning was not particularly unusual. Yet there was clearly something strange about the case. It was hardly as though the body had been decapitated to frustrate identification, for it was fully clothed and none of the owner's personal effects had been removed, save of course for his head. The Paris police soon tied up the contents of the dead man's wallet with forensic evidence from the body. Added to that, Madame Charente, the dead man's wife, could positively identify the body in the most intimate ways. (She had already reported her husband as missing.)

Two weeks later, four kilometres away in the west, a headless body was found at Courcelles station, again in the tunnel not far from the platform. As in the earlier case, the cause of death was apparently the severing of the head, which appeared to have been done with some precision. Again, the body was fully clothed and easily identified, and nothing but the head had apparently been removed.

" What can I tell these blessed reporters? " Inspector Dutruelle said as he handed his wife the two sticks of bread he usually bought on the way home. In his smart dark suit and gold-rimmed glasses you could have taken him for a provincial bank manager rather than one of Paris's most successful policemen. " I don't know where to go on this one. There're no leads. There's no apparent motive. And it's a bizarre pattern. Assuming, of course, it is a pattern. We can't be sure of that until there's been another."

Inspector Dutruelle did not have long to wait for his pattern to emerge. A telephone call at half past five the next morning dragged him from his bed.

" It's another one, sir, " said the voice at the other end.

" Another what? "

" It's identical. Another headless corpse, just like the others - male, middle-aged, white."

" Where? " asked Inspector Dutruelle fumbling for a cigarette.

" Châ teau Rouge."

" In the Metro? "

" Yes sir, just inside the tunnel. In the anti-suicide well between the tracks."

" Close the line - if you haven't already. I'll be with you soon. And don't move it, d'you hear? "

Inspector Dutruelle replaced the receiver with a sigh as his wife padded into the room.

" I hate these early morning cases, " he muttered. He lit his cigarette.

" Have a coffee before you go. Another dead body will keep."

Madame Dutruelle was a simple woman of forty-six whose long, thin-lipped face was framed by stern grey hair. Inspector Dutruelle sighed to himself again. Poor Agnes. She tried so hard to please him. How could she know that he longed to be free of her? How could she possibly know of Vololona, the young Malagasy he had met while on the Clichy case? For him it had been love at first sight.

" And for me too, my darling, " Vololona had been quick to agree. She spoke French well, with a Malagasy accent and huskiness that left you with a sense of mystery and promise. Inspector Dutruelle was a happy man; but he was careful to tell no-one except Monsieur Ché baut, his closest friend, about the source of his happiness.

" I've never felt like this before, Pierre. I'm captivated by her, " he said. " You know, Pierre, in thirty years of marriage I was never unfaithful. Well, you know that already. There was always my work, and the children, and I was happy enough at home. It never occurred to me to look at another woman. But something happened when I met Vololona. She showed me how to live. She showed me what real ecstasy is. And she adores me. She's crazy about me. But why, I ask you? What can she see in me - three times her age, pot-bellied, bald... married? "

Monsieur Ché baut finished his whisky. " I can see, " he said, " that a man in your position might have certain attractions for an immigrant without papers working in one of the more dangerous quarters of Paris." Monsieur Ché baut was a lawyer.

" You're a cynic, Pierre."

" And after thirty years in the force you're not? "

" Personally, I believe her when she says she loves me. I just don't know why? "

" Well, one thing's for sure, Ré gis, it can't go on like that. One way or another thins will come to a head. Look, you've got two women involved, Ré gis, " Monsieur Ché baut continued, " and women aren't like us. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that they're not even the same species as men. Agnes isn't stupid. She must know something's going on."

" She hasn't said anything, " said the Inspector brusquely.

" Of course she hasn't. She's cleverer than you are. She intends to keep you Ré gis, you must know that what we say and what we think are seldom the same. In any case, I do know you can't keep two women on the go without something happening. I don't know what, but something."

Now the European press had picked the story up and the little Inspector did not know how to deal with the international reporters who hung around like flies outside the old stone walls of the Pré fecture de police. Their stories focussed on the bizarre nature of the killings, and the idea that there were three severed heads somewhere in Paris particularly excited them. They wanted constantly to know more.

Inspector Dutruelle despaired of ever clearing the case up. His mind, already excited over Vololona, was now in turmoil. Vololona had suddenly, and tearfully, announced that she was pregnant. Then, having accepted his financial assistance to terminate the pregnancy - but refusing his offer to take her to the clinic - she told him one day on the telephone: " I thought you were going to ask me to marry you." Inspector Dutruelle was stunned.

" But you know I'm married, ma ché rie, " he said.

" I thought you'd leave Agnes, " she replied. " I wanted to be with you. I wanted to share everything with you... my child... my life... my bed." Inspector Dutruelle could hear her sobbing.

" But darling, we can still see each other."

" No, it's too painful. I love you too much."

Inspector Dutruelle could not concentrate on his work at all. Day and night his thoughts were on Vololona; he longed to be with her. If only Agnes would leave him. And if only Vololona would be satisfied with what he gave her already - the dinners, the presents, the apartment. Why did women have to possess you? It seemed that the more you gave them the more they took, until there was nothing left to give but yourself. Perhaps Pierre was right after all, when you thought about it.

The investigation into the Metro murders was proceeding dismally. Inspector Dutruelle had no suspect, no leads, and no motive. His superiors complained about his lack of progress and the press ridiculed him without pity. " It appears, " commented France-Soir, " that the only thing Inspector Dutruelle can tell us with certainty is that with each fresh atrocity the Metro station name grows longer." The detectives under him could not understand what had happened to their normally astute Inspector, and they felt leaderless and demoralized. It was left to the security police of the Metro to point out one rather obvious fact: that the three stations where bodies had been found had one thing in common - their lines intersected at Metro Barbes Rochechouart, and it seemed that something might be learned by taking the Metro between them.

Inspector Dutruelle did not like public transport, and he especially did not like the Metro. It was cramped, smelly and claustrophobic at the best of times, and in the summer it was hot. It was years since the Inspector had used the Metro.

" I can't take much more of this, Marc" he said to the young Detective Constable who was travelling with him, " it's too hot. We'll get off at the next stop."

" That's Barbes Rochechouart, sir. We can change there."

" No, Marc. We can get out there. Someone else can take a sauna, I've had enough. Anyway, we need to have a look around." Inspector Dutruelle wiped his brow. He sounded irritable. " God knows what it's like normally, " he added.

When the train pulled in they took the exit for Boulevard de Rochechouart. At the turnstyles a man was handing out publicity cards and he thrust one into Inspector Dutruelle's hand. Glancing down at it and squinting in the bright sunlight, the Inspector read aloud: " 'Professor Dhiakobli, Grand Mé dium Voyant can help you succeed rapidly in all areas of life...'"

He broke off in mid-sentence with a snort.

" What a lot of mumbo-jumbo! Headless chickens and voodoo magic."

" It may be mumbo-jumbo to you, sir, " said the Detective Constable with a laugh, " but round here they take that sort of thing seriously. And not only round here - after all, we use some of these techniques in the police, don't we? "

" Oh really? Such as? "

" Well, graphology for a start - you can hardly call basing a murder case on the size of someone's handwriting scientific, can you sir? Or what about astrology - employing people on the basis of the stars? Or numerology."

" Yes, Marc, " said Inspector Dutruelle, pushing the card into his top pocket, " maybe you're right, and maybe when you're older you won't be so sure. Now get on the blower and call the car."

The hot July turned to hotter and more humid August. No more bodies were found in the sweltering tunnels of the Metro, and the media, bored with the lack of developments, left Inspector Dutruelle to his original obscurity. Paris, deserted by its citizens in the yearly exodus to the coast, was tolerable only to the tourists with backpacks who flocked to the cheap hotels and began again to crowd the Metro. Then, in September, the Parisiens came back and life returned to normal.But Inspector Dutruelle's passion for Vololona did not cool with the season. Vololona had at last agreed to see him, occasionally; but she always managed (with tears in her eyes) to deflect his more amorous advances. For Inspector Dutruelle it was beneath him to observe that he continued to pay the rent on her apartment, but he was growing increasingly frustrated. The notion that she had another lover obsessed him, and in the evenings he took to prowling the broad Boulevard de Clichy between her apartment and the Chatte et Lapin. Sometimes he would stand for hours watching her door, as locals strolled past with their dogs or sat on the benches under the plane trees. Somewhere deep below ran the Metro; but Inspector Dutruelle had no more interest in that. His superiors had given up hope of solving the Metro murders and had moved him on to other things.

One night, late in October, he returned from the Boulevard de Clichy just after midnight. Madame Dutruelle, having been told that her husband was working on a case, and perhaps believing it, was already asleep. Had she been awake she would surely have been surprised to see him throw his jacket over a chair, for Inspector Dutruelle had always been meticulous with his clothes, the sort of man who irons his shoelaces. But the jacket missed and dropped to the floor. Muttering to himself, the Inspector bent and picked it up, and as he did so something fell from the top pocket. He gazed at it blankly for a moment. Then he realized it was the card he had been given at the metro station, a little the worse for having been once or twice to the cleaners, but still legible. He picked it up and slowly started to read:

PROFESSOR DHIAKOBLI Grand Mé dium Voyant can help you succeed rapidly in all areas of life. All problems resolved, even desperate cases. Every day from 9am to 9pm. Payment after results. 13b, rue Beldamme, 75018 Paris, staircase B, 6th floor, door on left, Metro: Barbes Rochechouart

Inspector Dutruelle stood in his socks and braces reading the card over and over again. " All problems resolved..." It was preposterous. And yet, it was tempting. What harm could there be in a little hocus pocus when everything else had failed? After all, everyone knew that even the police used clairvoyants when they were really up against it….

ENRICH YOUR VOCABULARY

I. Translate the following words and word combinations; insert them into the sentences below: adj. forensic, n. leads, adj. amorous, n. huskiness, to demoralize, n. graphology, adj. legible, adv. dismally, to deflect, to intersect, to frustrate, to ridicule, adj. preposterous, adj. tempting, n. clairvoyant.

1. The couple that met on the beach had a (n)… relationship for one week.

2. The … cyclist put his damaged bike on his shoulders and walked to the finish line.

3. The children stared … out the window until the sun finally came out.

4. The … evidence proved that the murderer was male.

5. Police use … to tell if a suspect is nervous.

6. Smokers often speak with a distinct ….

7. The two highways … at the downtown core.

8. We don't have any … except that the thief is driving a brown car.

9. These papers are hardly … after so many days in the rain.

10. Doesn't it … you that audiences in the theatre are so restricted?

11. The whole idea was …. It was simply impossible to make so many people believe such a story.

12. You did not have to be a … to see that the war in the world will hardly ever come to an end.

13. I admired her all the more for allowing them to … her and never strike back.

14. In the end, I turned down his … offer of the Palm Beach trip.

15. I always … phone calls from people trying to sell me something.

II. Find the contextual meaning for each given word and compare it with other meanings of the word given in a good dictionary. Contextual meaning is the specific meaning of the word within the context of the story. adj. unfaithful, n. advance, to clear sth. up, adj. astute, n. obscurity, adj. blankly, n. atrocity. Prepare your own sentences, two for each word, showing the difference in the meanings.