:20 PM

Doctors look at test results which are completely at odds with what they believe the actual illness to be, and must then decide whether to trust science or their heart. They learn, with time and experience, to give more weight to their instincts and they find that the outcomes for their patients improve.

Successful businessmen pore over graphs and diagrams, then go completely against the market trend and grow still richer.

Artists write books or films about which everyone says: That wont work. No ones interested in things like that, and end up becom- ing icons of popular culture.

Religious leaders preach fear and guilt rather than love, which should, in theory, be the most important thing in the world, and their congregations swell.

Only one group consistently fail to go against the current trend: politicians. They want to please everyone and stick rigidly to the rules of political correctness. They end up having to resign, apologize, or contradict themselves.

Morris keeps opening one window after another on his computer. This has nothing to do with technology, but with intuition. Hes tried distracting himself with the Dow Jones Index, but wasnt pleased with the results. It would be best to focus a little on some of the characters hes lived with for much of his life.

He looks again at the video in which Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, is describing in a calm voice how he killed forty-eight women, most of them prostitutes. Ridgway is doing this not because he wants absolution for his sins or to relieve his conscience; the public prosecutor has offered to commute his death sentence to life imprison- ment if he confesses, for despite having acted with impunity for a long time, Ridgway had left insufficient evidence to convict him. Or per- haps he had just grown weary of the macabre task he had set himself.

Ridgway had a steady job spraying trucks and could only remem- ber his victims by relating them to whether he had been working that day. For twenty years, sometimes with more than fifty detectives on his trail, he managed to commit murder after murder without ever leaving any kind of signature or clue. One of the detectives on the tape comments that Ridgway wasnt very bright, wasnt too good at his job or very educated, but was a perfect killer.

In short, he was born to be a killer, even though he had always lived in the same place. His case, at one point, was even filed away as insoluble.

Morris has watched this same video hundreds of times. It has, in the past, given him the necessary inspiration to solve other cases, but not today. He closes down that window and opens another, which shows a letter written by the father of Jeffrey Dahmer, the Milwaukee Canni- bal, who was responsible for killing and dismembering seventeen men between 1978 and 1991:

Initially, of course, I couldnt believe that it was really Jeff who had done the things the police had accused him of. How could anyone believe that his son could do such things? I had been in the actual places where they said he had done them. I had been in rooms and basements which at other moments, according to the police, had been nothing less than a slaughterhouse. I had looked in my sons refrig- erator and seen only a scattering of milk cartons and soda cans. I had leaned casually on the black table they claimed my son had used both as a dissecting table and a bizarre satanic altar. How was it possible that all of this had been hidden from menot only the horrible physi- cal evidence of my sons crimes, but the dark nature of the man who had committed them, this child I had held in my arms a thousand times, and whose face, when I glimpsed it in the newspapers, looked like mine? If the police had told me that my son was dead, I would have thought differently about him. If theyd told me that a strange man had lured him to a seedy apartment, and a few minutes later, drugged, strangled, then sexually assaulted and mutilated his dead bodyin other words, if they d told me the same horrible things that they had to tell so many other fathers and mothers in July of 1991then I would have done what they have done. I would have mourned my son and demanded that the man whod killed him be profoundly punished. If not executed, then separated forever from the rest of us. After that, I would have tried to think of my son warmly. I would, I hope, have vis- ited his grave from time to time, spoken of him with loss and affection, continued, as much as possible, to be the custodian of his memory. But I wasnt told what these other mothers and fathers were told, that their sons were dead at the hands of a murderer. Instead, I was told that my son was the one who had murdered their sons.

A satanic altar. Charles Manson and his family. In 1969, three people burst into a house occupied by a film star and killed everyone there, including a young man who happened to be driving away from the house. Two more murders followed on the next day: a married couple, both of whom were businesspeople. Manson claimed to be ca- pable of killing the whole of humanity.

For the thousandth time, Morris looks at the photo of the man behind those crimes, smiling at the camera, surrounded by hippie friends, including a famous pop musician of the day. They all seem perfectly harmless, talking about peace and love.

He closes down all the windows.Mansonistheclosestthing to what is happening now, involving as it does the cinema and well-

known victims. A kind of political manifesto against luxury, consum- erism, and celebrity. Manson, however, was only the brains behind the killings; he didnt actually murder anyone himself; he left that to his acolytes.

No, thats not it. And despite the e-mails he has sent, explaining that he cant provide answers in such a short space of time, Morris is beginning to experience what all detectives always feel about serial killers: its becoming a personal matter.

On the one hand, theres a man, doubtless with some other profes- sion, who, given the weapons he uses, has clearly planned the murders in advance, but who is on entirely unfamiliar territory, where he has no knowledge of the competence or otherwise of the local police force. He is, therefore, a vulnerable man. On the other hand, theres the accumu- lated experience of all kinds of security organizations accustomed to dealing with societys aberrants, but apparently incapable of stopping the bloody trail left by this rank amateur.

He should never have responded to the commissioners call. He had decided to live in the South of France because the climate was better, the people more amusing, the sea close at hand, and because he hoped that he still had many years ahead of him in which to be able to enjoy lifes pleasures.

He had left his job in London with a reputation for being the best. And now this one failure would be sure to reach the ears of his col- leagues, and he would lose that reputation earned through hard work and great dedication. Theyll say: He was the first person to insist that modern computers be installed in our department, but despite all the technology at his disposal, hes simply too old to keep up with chal- lenges of a new age.

He presses the off button. The software logo comes up and then the screen goes blank. Inside the machine, the electronic impulses disap- pear from the fixed memory and leave no feeling of guilt, remorse, or impotence.

His body has no off buttons. The circuits in his brain keep working, always arriving at the same conclusions, trying to justify the unjustifi- able, bruising his self-esteem, telling him that his colleagues are right: perhaps his instincts and his capacity for analysis have been affected by age.

He goes into the kitchen, turns on the espresso machine, which has been giving him problems lately. As with any modern domestic appli- ance, its usually cheaper to throw the old one out and buy a new one. Fortunately, the machine decides to work this time, and he sips the resulting cup of coffee unhurriedly. A large part of his day involves pressing buttons: computer, printer, phone, lights, stove, coffeemaker, fax machine.

Now, though, he needs to press the right button in his brain. Theres no point in rereading the documents sent through by the police. He needs to think laterally and make a list, however repetitive.

(a) The murderer is fairly well educated and sophisticated, at least as regards the weapons he uses. And he knows how to use them.

(b) Hes not from the area; if he was, he would have chosen a better time to come, when there were fewer police around. (c) He doesnt leave any clear signature, so he obviously has no desire to be identified. This may seem self-evident, but such signatures are often a desperate way of the Doctor trying to put a stop to the evils committed by the Monster, as if Dr. Jekyll were saying: Please arrest me. Im a danger to society, and I cant control myself.

(d) The fact that he was able to approach at least two of his vic- tims, look them in the eye, and find out a little about them, means that hes used to killing without remorse. Therefore, he must, at some time, have fought in a war.

(e) He must have money, a lot of money, not just because Cannes is a very expensive place to stay during the Festival, but be- cause of the high cost of producing the envelope containing the hydrogen cyanide. He must have paid around $5,000 in all$40 for the poison and $4,460 for the packaging.

(f) Hes not part of the drug mafia or involved in arms trafficking or that kind of thing; if he was, Europol would be on to him.

Contrary to what most such criminals believe, the only reason they havent been caught is because it isnt yet the right time for them to be put behind bars. Their groups are regularly in- filtrated by agents who are paid a fortune for their work.

(g) He doesnt want to be caught, and so hes very careful. On the other hand, he cant control his unconscious mind and is, unwittingly, following a set pattern.

(h) He appears to be completely normal and unlikely to arouse suspicion; he may even be kind and friendly, capable of gain- ing the confidence of the people he lures to their death. He spends some time with his victims, two of whom were women, who tend to be more trusting than men.

(i) He doesnt choose his victims. They could be men or women of any age or social class.

Morris pauses for a moment. Theres something that doesnt fit with the rest.

He rereads the list two or three times. On the fourth reading, he spots the flaw.

(c) He doesnt leave any clear signature, so he obviously has no desire to be identified.

This murderer isnt trying to cleanse the world as Manson was, or, like Ridgway, to purify his hometown; hes not trying, like Dahmer, to satisfy the appetite of the gods. Most criminals dont want to be caught, but they do want to be identified, some in order to hit the headlines and gain fame and glory, like Zodiac or Jack the Ripper. Others perhaps think their grandchildren will be proud of what they did when, years later, they discover a dusty diary in the attic. Others have a mission to fulfill: for example, driving away prostitutes by making them too afraid to walk the streets. Psychoanalysts have concluded that when serial killers suddenly stop murdering from one moment to the next, its because they feel that the message theyve been trying to send has finally been received. Of course, thats it! Why hadnt he thought of it before?

For one simple reason: because it would have sent the police hunt off in two different directions, in search of the murderer and the person to whom he was sending the messages. And this Cannes murderer is killing people very fast. Morris is almost sure that he will stop soon, once the message has been received. In two or three days at most. And as with other serial killers whose victims appear to have nothing in common, the message must be intended for one person, just one.

He goes back to the computer, turns it on, and sends a reassuring e-mail to the commissioner.

Dont worry, the murders will stop soon, before the Festival is over.

Just for the hell of it, he copies the e-mail to a friend in Scotland Yard, as a way of letting him know that the French authorities respect him as a professional, have asked for his help and received it; that hes still capable of reaching conclusions which will, later on, prove correct; that hes not as old as they would like to think.

His reputation is at stake, but hes sure his conclusion is the right one.