The Beast of the Camargue Read Free Page B

…”
    â€œI dreamed she sent me a card for the birth of her third child.”
    â€œThat’s funny, Baron. I had a dream just like that, too.”

3.
    La Capelière, two old buildings standing side by side, belonged to the
Société nationale de protection de la nature
. In 1979 this ancient property, hidden away among the tamarisks that skirted the lagoon of Le Vaccarès had become the information center for the National Reserve of Camargue.
    At the entrance, a notice on the ramshackle dry-stone wall displayed a pair of flamingos, face to face, and the acronym S.N.P.N. in the middle. The paint was wrinkled by the rising damp from the stagnant water, and baked into strips by the sun.
    On the ground floor there was a small museum, the administrative offices and a laboratory. The first floor held a dormitory for students who were in residence, as well as the flat of the institution’s head, Dr. Christophe Texeira, a researcher and lecturer at the University of Provence. He was forty-five; his hair was speckled with gray and his face was dominated by his prominent chin and two dark eyes that kept in perpetual motion beneath his bushy eyebrows. His thick lips brought him great success with his female students. He seemed the happiest of men.
    That evening, alone in the office that was also his laboratory, Christophe Texeira was finding it hard to concentrate: a report on the latest survey of the insects of the Reserve of Vigueirat, on the far side of the Rhône, had raised a tide of weariness inside him.
    Texeira had come to the Camargue for its birds, but for the past two years he had been regularly asked to count its mosquitoes and spiders, not to mention the frogs and toads. That night, he was pacing up and down and occasionally glancing out of the window.
    The moon was setting.
    On the surface of the reed bed, the tips of the rushes were quivering in the lingering brightness. In the gusts of the salty breeze they intermeshed like lines of silver blades.
    He peered through his binoculars, then slumped into his chair. What intrigued him that evening were the photographs laid out on his desk, beside the pink and green files of reports.
    The pictures were magnificent.
    A walker who had called by the previous weekend had managed to photograph some white spoonbills: two near Grenouillet and another which had strayed into the grass that runs between the canals toward Sambuc, near the stud farm at Loule.
    It was incredible! This hiker had taken several pictures of these mythical birds while he, the head of the nature reserve and with a doctorate in biology, had hardly seen any on this side of the delta. Usually they gathered on the south bank of the Vaccarès, near La Gacholle. But not always.
    â€œI’m looking for white spoonbills,” the visitor had said.
    â€œThat will be difficult,” Texeira had replied.
    â€œThey need to be told of love and marvels.”
    Marvels!
    The man looked distinctly eccentric: shoulder-length black hair, smooth face, as stocky as a prop forward, with the air of someone who doesn’t know what to do with all his muscles. What was more, he was dressed like something the cat had dragged in: Viet Cong sandals, a heavy wool sweater despite the heat, scuffed jeans and a patched-up haversack.
    On the other hand, the Zeiss binoculars, the 200 mm narrow aperture zoom lens and the Nikon digital camera that hung around his neck made the biologist green with envy. Not to mention the pair of periscopic binoculars he glimpsed in the man’s bag.
    These rare photographs had arrived through the letter box of the S.N.P.N. and had been postmarked: Tarascon, July 1.
    The biologist could not remember the walker’s name, otherwise he would have telephoned to congratulate him.
    In fact, had he ever got his name?
    Texeira went into the entrance hall of the center, turned on thelights and glanced at the bulky visitors’ book on the table, beside the till.
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