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- Herausgeber: Alfredbooks
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
by Alfred Bekker A new case for Commissaire Marquanteur and his colleagues from Marseille on the Mediterranean coast. Who is killing according to a years-old pattern and tattooing the victims? The perpetrator is no longer alive, but his deeds are copied exactly. Investigators Marquanteur and Leroc are looking for a copycat killer. But what is his motive and where did he get this precise knowledge? Alfred Bekker is a well-known author of fantasy novels, crime thrillers and books for young people. In addition to his major book successes, he has written numerous novels for suspense series such as Ren Dhark, Jerry Cotton, Cotton Reloaded, Kommissar X, John Sinclair and Jessica Bannister. He has also published under the names Jack Raymond, Robert Gruber, Neal Chadwick, Henry Rohmer, Conny Walden and Janet Farell.
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Commissaire Marquanteur And The Unmistakable Pattern: France Crime Thriller
Table of contents
Commissaire Marquanteur And The Unmistakable Pattern: France Crime Thriller
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Commissaire Marquanteur And The Unmistakable Pattern: France Crime Thriller
by Alfred Bekker
A new case for Commissaire Marquanteur and his colleagues from Marseille on the Mediterranean coast. Who is killing according to a years-old pattern and tattooing the victims? The perpetrator is no longer alive, but his deeds are copied exactly. Investigators Marquanteur and Leroc are looking for a copycat killer. But what is his motive and where did he get this precise knowledge?
Alfred Bekker is a well-known author of fantasy novels, crime thrillers and books for young people. In addition to his major book successes, he has written numerous novels for suspense series such as Ren Dhark, Jerry Cotton, Cotton Reloaded, Kommissar X, John Sinclair and Jessica Bannister. He has also published under the names Jack Raymond, Robert Gruber, Neal Chadwick, Henry Rohmer, Conny Walden and Janet Farell.
Copyright
A CassiopeiaPress book: CASSIOPEIAPRESS, UKSAK E-Books, Alfred Bekker, Alfred Bekker presents, Casssiopeia-XXX-press, Alfredbooks, Uksak Special Edition, Cassiopeiapress Extra Edition, Cassiopeiapress/AlfredBooks and BEKKERpublishing are imprints of
Alfred Bekker
© Roman by Author
© this issue 2023 by AlfredBekker/CassiopeiaPress, Lengerich/Westphalia
The fictional characters have nothing to do with actual living persons. Similarities in names are coincidental and not intentional.
All rights reserved.
www.AlfredBekker.de
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Everything to do with fiction!
1
I travel a lot for work, so I don't go out much in my private life anymore.
It's actually understandable, isn't it?
And since I meet a lot of people at work, I don't really feel like meeting a lot of people in my private life.
In my job, you don't have much time for a private life.
That's just the way it is. I have accepted that.
It's simply not possible to do otherwise because of the thing I'm mainly involved with.
I fight crime. And criminals don't keep to office hours. You have to stay on the trail or meet with informants at unusual times.
Recently, I went out for once and treated myself to a really good meal after work.
No fast food.
Not something you gulp down between meals or behind the wheel of your company car, but something delicious.
A little food culture is a must every now and then.
At least every now and then.
I can't afford to do it more often.
Anyway, I was sitting at the bar afterwards and an alien woman approached me.
Yes, you heard right: an alien.
I mean, there are people and creatures from all over the world in Marseille. There are the many international companies with their international professionals. There are the sailors from the ships that enter the port of Marseille. There are the stars from all over the world who perform in the stadiums and halls, and the hookers in Pointe-Rouge, who also come from all over the world. Why shouldn't there be a few aliens in between? After all, we have an institute for tropical diseases in Marseille. So foreign bacteria have also made it to Marseille. Not to mention the exotic poisonous snakes and other animals in Marseille Zoo.
Of course, the alien wasn't really an alien, she just looked like one.
And if I hadn't known that I wasn't sitting in a movie theater watching a science fiction film, I might even have thought they were real.
The woman was tattooed all over.
Not just some painting on the arms or a discreet tramp stamp peeking out of the combination of hipster pants and crop top, but a full-body tattoo that was only interrupted by clothing in a few places.
It was a jumble of bizarre ornaments, dragon heads, skulls, stars and characters. Some looked Chinese, others like intricate old Fraktur letters or Germanic runes. It was a diverse potpourri, the meaning of which the alien probably only knew herself.
"What's your name?"
"My name is Pierre," I said.
I didn't ask her for her name.
I didn't feel like memorizing it.
"Pierre. That's a nice name."
"Like Pierre Richard."
"Who's that?"
"Maybe you're just too young to know him."
"Was that a singer?"
"An actor."
"I see."
"At the movies."
"Pierre, to answer your question right away: I'm not in the erotic industry."
"I didn't even ask that."
"But everyone asks that sooner or later."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Because of the tattoos."
"I wouldn't have thought of that now."
"Everyone always thinks of tattoos straight away."
"Well, thoughts are free, as the saying goes."
"No, these are nasty prejudices! We tattooed people are discriminated against and reduced to that."
"Well ..."
"People always associate us with the erotic industry. But that's not necessarily true."
"What industry are you in?"
She wanted me to ask her that. She had set out to do it. And I didn't want her to suffer any longer. So I asked her, and so she could tell me what she had wanted to tell me all along.
"I work in personnel consulting," she said.
"I see," I said.
I imagined conservative banks turning to a recruitment consultancy and then sitting opposite this alien lady. It made me smile.
"Tell me, are we still going to my place or yours?" she then asked.
"I don't think we're going anywhere today," I said. "It's been a tough day today."
"Oh, so."
The truth was: I just didn't want to be scared when I woke up.
My name is Pierre Marquanteur, by the way. I'm a commissaire and part of a special unit based in Marseille that goes by the somewhat awkward name of Force spéciale de la police criminelle, or FoPoCri for short, and mainly deals with organized crime, terrorism and serial offenders.
The serious cases.
Cases that require additional resources and skills.
Together with my colleague François Leroc, I do my best to solve crimes and dismantle criminal networks. "You can't always win," Commissaire général de police Jean-Claude Marteau often says. He is the head of FoPoCri. And unfortunately he is right with this statement.
*
It was dark and had started to rain. Linette Michel switched on the windshield wipers of her two-door Honda Civic. The young woman followed the highway north. The last stop was less than ten miles away. She had refueled, had a coffee at the highway rest stop and eaten a sandwich.
But since this stop, something seemed to be wrong with the tires. The fear finally became a certainty. There was no more air in the left rear tire.
"What a mess!" Linette grumbled to herself and pulled over to the side of the road. For a moment, she wondered whether she should call a breakdown service straight away or take a look at the damage herself first.
Linette finally left the smartphone in her handbag and got out. A bad decision, because that was exactly what her killer had expected.
The drizzle ensured that Linette's hair was sticking to her forehead after a short time. The rear left tire was flat. And the right rear tire had also lost a lot of air. It was impossible to continue like this.
How can that be?" she asked herself.
The tires were new, it hadn't been long since the last inspection. Maybe I drove into something sharp, she thought. But she hadn't noticed anything like that.
At that moment, another vehicle stopped at the side of the road. It was an off-road vehicle with a cowcatcher in front of the radiator. The shadow of a curved bull's horn stood out on the hood.
But Linette was no longer able to see any of this the next moment. The driver of the off-road vehicle turned on the lights. Linette was so badly blinded that she was more or less blind for a moment.
The driver of the off-road vehicle got out. He left his car's engine running. He approached like a dark shadow. Linette backed away.
"Can I help you in any way?" asked a cutting male voice.
"I don't know ... actually ..."
"Is there something wrong with your tires?"
"One is flat, the other will be soon. I don't understand it ..."
The shadowy man came even closer. In the backlight of his off-road vehicle's headlights, he could only be recognized as a dark shadow. He was now pulling something out from under his clothes.
Linette couldn't see it clearly. But in the next moment, the muzzle flash of a gun went off. There was no sound of a gunshot. Just a sound reminiscent of a slight sneeze.
The first bullet hit Linette right in the forehead. She was still leaning on the fender of her car before she collapsed and lay motionless on the rain-soaked ground.
The shadowy killer approached. He looked down at her and let the gun with the elongated silencer disappear under his dark coat.
He was wearing latex gloves. With a very strong grip, he grabbed the dead woman under her arms and dragged her roughly behind him. A little later, he lifted her into the trunk of his SUV. Everything there was already lined with plastic sheeting so that he could now easily wrap her body in it. When he had finished, he realized that he was bleeding from the nose. Several red drops had already fallen down.
"Bloody hell," he muttered. He took out a handkerchief to wipe his nose. However, it wasn't so easy to stop the bleeding. The bleeding started again and again. Again and again. It didn't stop. He turned to the side. Blood was now dripping onto the floor.
A mess, he thought.
He had to press the handkerchief to his nostrils for a full minute before it finally stopped.
It's getting worse and worse, he thought. But he had secretly expected this. The doctors had predicted it. It was part of the normal course of his cursed illness, and all in all, the nosebleed was still one of the more harmless symptoms. The really bad things were yet to come.
Finally, the shadowy killer took a blanket and placed it over the woman's body. Then he closed the trunk.
2
Later, the body lay on a table in a very sparsely lit basement room. A light bulb on the bare ceiling was the only source of light. The very quiet whirring stopped when the tattoo machine was switched off. The murderer put it aside and looked at the work of art he had created on the young woman's delicate skin. A lettering of rather squiggly Fraktur letters stretched from the base of the buttocks up to the shoulder blade and then formed a winding serpentine line.
A wan smile now appeared on the pale features of his face.
It looks good, the pale man thought.
Something tickled his nose. As a precaution, he reached for a paper handkerchief. But contrary to his fears, the nosebleed didn't start again.
He stood there for a while and looked at the dead woman's back.
It's always over so quickly, he thought regretfully. He had really enjoyed pricking every single one of those squiggly letters into this young woman's skin. Now his attention was focused on one question. Where should he take the body? It had to be somewhere where she would be found quickly. After all, the message he had engraved on the woman's back had to be seen.
Later, he drove to the outskirts of La Parade - a small town on the northern edge of Marseille. A single road led through the village. The houses and stores were lined up along it like a string of pearls. A small nest off the beaten track. A nest that few people who lived more than forty kilometers from Marseille had ever heard of.
But that was about to change.
3
Years later ...
"Linette Michel was probably the first victim of the so-called Tattoo Killer, as he was later called," explained Monsieur Jean-Claude Marteau. The head of our department had his hands in the deep pockets of his flannel trousers. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and his tie hung loosely around his neck.
My colleague François Leroc and I were sitting opposite him in his office. It was a so-called cold case, a cold case that had suddenly become damn hot again after many years. A serial killer whose series of murders had been interrupted years ago for a reason that could not be ascertained and had now become active again with two new murders following the old pattern. Two gruesome murders in a very, very short space of time. And it was to be feared that he had by no means had enough.
A case that traditionally fell under our jurisdiction.
Mr. Jean-Claude Marteau pointed to the picture on the flat screen. It showed a young woman in her late twenties.
"Linette Michel, just like all the other victims in the first series, comes from La Parade, or rather the immediate vicinity of this town," explained Monsieur Marteau. "However, the women were found in very different places around Marseille. And one of the victims had moved to Bompard two months before he was murdered." Mr. Marteau paused and turned to us. "Now there have been two new cases within a very short space of time. The way in which the crimes were committed matches the La Parade murders so exactly that there can hardly be any doubt that it's the same perpetrator."
"But the women from the two new cases don't come from this place?" I asked to make sure.
Mr. Marteau shook his head.
"No, that is correct. However, the investigations so far suggest that the origin of the women was not the decisive criterion that led to their selection. But let me come back to Linette Michel. She was the first victim, and all the elements that played a role in the later crimes are already present in this crime." Mr. Marteau pressed a remote control and we were shown another image. It showed a Honda Civic parked on the side of the road. It was clear to see that something was wrong with the tires. One was completely flat and the other had far too little air to be able to drive in traffic.
"The investigators at the time assume the following course of events: The perpetrator ambushed his victim and observed him. Presumably at a nearby petrol station with a service station, he used an unobserved moment to cause the tires to lose air. After a few kilometers, Linette Michel must have noticed that something was wrong with the tire pressure and pulled over to the side of the road. The perpetrator must have turned up a little later. He killed his victim with a small-caliber weapon. He used a partially jacketed bullet that does not penetrate the body. And there was a macabre reason for that." Mr. Marteau showed us another photograph. It showed Linette Michel's back, as the caption indicated, and had apparently been taken in the dissection room of the coroner's office.
"Marked by Satan," François read the sentence, which ran in Fraktur letters from the base of the buttocks up to the shoulder blade.
"Linette Michel's body was dumped at the entrance to La Parade," reported Mr. Marteau. "She was clothed and had been found leaning against a road sign. That was two days after her car was found on the side of the highway."
"In the meantime, the perpetrator taught her the tattoo," I muttered.
Mr. Marteau nodded.
"Every victim got this slogan on their back. The design sometimes differed slightly. But there are a few peculiarities that make this lettering unmistakable." Mr. Marteau zoomed in on the lettering. An A now took up the entire screen. "Can you see the extra curves with a little snake's head at the end?"
"Yes," I nodded.
