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"I have told you this before," Lucien emphasized. "Paris is not festooned in cameras, especially not in the back roads. There are two on that main street. Nowhere else nearby."
Juliette turned to the coroner who had started work.
"Do you have an approximate time of death yet?" she asked.
For a while, he said nothing, just continued with his examination. His face was masked and his eyes looked down, but she got the impression that he didn't appreciate being interrupted in his work.
Eventually, he glanced up.
"Probably late last night. Maybe nine or ten p.m." he said shortly.
There was a laptop bag beside her, untouched and undisturbed. Had she been working, studying? Most likely she'd been doing one of the two, and heading home.
“I can provide more clarity on that,” Lucien said, checking his phone. “There has just been a missing person report called in by her housemate. Katarina was attending a computer programming class last night. The class is a ten minute walk from here, and it ended at nine thirty. So her time of death would be about quarter to ten. I learned, from the housemate, that she always walked to the Metro station alone. She is the only one of the class who lives in this direction.”
That was helpful, Juliette thought. At least they now knew when he’d struck, and that he’d definitely been on the lookout for a woman walking alone.
"Do you still think he's targeting people deliberately?" she asked Lucien. "This woman doesn't seem to have a recognizable name; she's not like Claudette. How would he know she was walking down a side alleyway?"
"He might have dragged her there," Lucien snapped. "So much is still unknown. Why are you pursuing this angle?"
"All I'm doing is trying to narrow down his habits. And as I've said, I think he's lying in wait for his victims. He's setting some kind of a trap, making himself invisible; or at any rate, he's doing something that makes them confident to approach him."
Lucien sighed. Juliette could see that although he deeply resented her presence at the scene, he was open to suggestions.
"I am sorry," he said. "I do not normally speak that way. I am under stress. Personally, and professionally. And having two American agents here is adding a whole new layer to this stress."
Juliette nodded, feeling sympathetic. She didn't know why he was under personal stress, but whatever the reason, at least he'd mentioned it.
"I understand," she said. "I just want to help. I think he's working according to a method that he's figured out is effective, and I think he's been doing this for a while. He knows what he's doing. We just have to figure out what the method is, and how he's managing to kill."
Lucien nodded, his expression softening.
"Yes, I know," he said. "We all want that. Now, let's get to work."
Juliette went back to join Wyatt and together they paced the scene, watching forensics at work, talking to the coroner, who was checking for any trace evidence, and surveying the scene as it grew lighter, hoping for some clues that he might have left.
It was getting light. The sounds of Paris were filtering into the gray, clear morning. Hooting of horns, the whizz of bicycles passing, a few strains of music from somewhere.
And crowds. With this murder having happened in the early morning, crowds were gathering, and Juliette knew that this kill, more than the other, would cause panic. There would be no way of hushing it up. Not after a young Frenchwoman rushed in, filming with her phone, and gabbling out in fluent French.
Lucien cursed. "These damned social media stars and their live footage!" Rushing forward, he turned her around by her shoulders, admonishing her in equally fast and fluent language.
"Get out," he was saying. "This is not the time or place for you to make a reputation, by feeding off tragedy. You want to be famous because a woman died? All you might do is leak information that will collapse our case! Get back and let the police work!"
As he herded her out, she glanced back and Juliette thought she looked shamefaced, as if Lucien's words had gotten through to her.
She paced the scene again, seeing that it was now fully light. They'd been there for longer than she'd thought, watching forensics at work, asking the coroner questions.
Now, forensics was packing up, and the body was getting loaded into the van, with the initial exam now complete and no hard evidence to be found.
But there was something else Juliette was hearing, above the hum of traffic and the sounds of the city coming to life.
It was piquing her interest and more than that, she realized, the sound she was hearing was giving her the kernel of an idea.
Leaving the scene, she walked down the alleyway to go and find it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
