Thank you very much for the reviews. Here is chapter 2. Good reading...
Disclaimer : Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling are the intellectual property of Thomas Harris. I'm just borrowing them.
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Chapter 2 : Manhunt - Part 1
When you seek somebody like Hannibal Lecter, it's never easy to know where to start and Clarice knew very well that she didn't have to expect a negligence from the doctor. The first question the special agent had to answer was thus quite simply : how do you find somebody who succeeded in escaping the law during more than ten years ?
After having read for a hundredth time the doctor's file, Clarice should face the facts : nothing could indicate where he was. However, since the attempt at revenge of Mason Verger, she felt she knew the doctor much better, his tastes, his way of thinking or acting...
It was necessary to start with that again. Try to better understand him, to better catch him. She quickly made a list on a sheet of paper with what Lecter liked particularly. Gastronomy, music, cars, literature or clothing, Clarice left nothing to chance.
After she was sure she had forgotten nothing, she spent two days to contact each company which could sell one of these products in the USA and in Europe. Clarice was to receive the sales reports at the end of each week. She had to study approximately a hundred lists of customers every Friday evenings and if a name were common on two of them, her computer told her immediately.
During the three months that followed, no similarity had been announced and Clarice started to wonder whether this method was really adapted to catch the doctor. After all, the last time she had set up this system, the result hadn't been brilliant... Only the intervention of Pazzi had forced Lecter to leave his hiding-place.
Clarice started to lose hope. Her eyes fixed on her computer, she spoke to herself :
''For an expert of Hannibal Lecter, I'm not worth much. Not the slightest clue... However he must be somewhere...''
A window had just appeared on the screen and, most important, a name had been just displayed. At once, Clarice consulted the files to know what items the person had bought. The first purchase dated the March 12th in a wine merchant in Bordeaux. There were three cases of Chateau d'Yquem, 1998. The second sale was made only four days ago, the April 20th. In Orléans, the same person had bought twelve bottles of Batârd-Montrachet and six bottles of Chablis, great vintage.
Finally Clarice held something : ''Henri Bacellant...,'' she said aloud, ''is it you, doctor ?'' It was perhaps only a coincidence. Perhaps it was only a rich person who liked good wine... She must get to the bottom of it. After having looked at the hour and by taking the time difference with France in account, Clarice preferred to wait the following day to call the two stores.
The phone conversations didn't bring anything concrete. The employee of the wine cellar of Bordeaux described Mr Bacellant with a beard and rather plump. The person of the store in Orléans spoke about an elegant man, with a costume and small glasses. It was impossible to check if it was indeed the doctor but this difference in statements seemed to indicate that the mysterious individual didn't want to be recognized. Maybe a clue...
The requests for information about a certain Henri Bacellant to the French police department didn't give anything. She would have liked to go to France and continue her investigation there.
''All this is quite good,'' she thought, ''but how could you be so sure he is still in France now...''
Clarice had never felt such a feeling, she knew from the bottom of her heart that it was the doctor but she didn't have any material proof. She spent all her days locked up in her office and her Sundays reading the biggest number of books related to the doctor's tastes. She had take a subscription to several magazines on art, gastronomy or literature.
One Sunday afternoon, lying on her couch, Clarice turned over the pages without much conviction of a magazine devoted to the recent discovery of old books in the crypt of a small church in the south of England. The authors of the article praised the great richness and the great quality of the bindings, certainly made by monks. Clarice was about to close the magazine when a box drew her attention.
Christie's, Paris
proposes an exceptional sale
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A manuscript in Dante Alighieri's hand
The first sonnet of La Vita Nuova.
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On May 24th, 2004 - 14 h.
Dante... Clarice remembered the declaration of the signora Pazzi after the death of her husband. She had met for the first time Doctor Fell or Doctor Lecter during an opera which topic was La Vita Nuova...
''Of course...'' Henri Bacellant was on the road to Paris, initially Bordeaux then Orléans. And this sale at Christie's played an important role. If it was really Doctor Lecter, he could not miss such an occasion to admire the work of one of his favorite authors.
Clarice felt a new energy ran in her veins. If all these assumptions were correct, she had to go to Paris on May 24th to attend the sale and perhaps to unmask Henri Bacellant.
As soon as she was in her office in Quantico Monday morning, she phoned to Clint Pearsall to tell him she had new elements and that she would like to meet him. The appointment was fixed in the next morning at 10 am.
It was already late and Clarice was going to leave her office when her fax started to flicker announcing the arrival of a document. It was the list of customers of the Austrian house Riedel specialized in the sale of crystal glasses. Clarice was a little surprised that they send their list now but the fax explained that troubles with their computers have delayed them and that they excused themselves for this disadvantage.
Clarice would have to check herself this list. Better do it immediately. She had not reached the bottom of the first page that her eyes found his name. Mr Bacellant had ordered by correspondence twelve glasses at $76 each one : six for Burgundy and Montrachet wines and six for Sauternes.
This choice was completely in agreement with the wines bought in Bordeaux and Orléans. Clarice closed her eyes and thought of the doctor choosing the glasses on the catalogue. Which form would be the best to give the wine all its force and all its taste ?
''It's not the moment to dream, Clarice and not to a cannibal...''
She consulted again the list to know the address of delivery of the parcel... A Parisian hotel... This time she held a concrete track and she must absolutely go to France. The purchase at Riedel dated the April 29th, so Doctor Lecter was already in Paris.
When Pearsall saw the information brought by the agent, he gave his agreement so that she could go to France. He also accepted that she left alone but in one condition : that she called the bureau before trying any arrest.
Clarice had preferred not to speak to Pearsall about the sale the May 24th to be free to lead her investigation as she wished to...
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To be continued...
Reviews are truly appreciated.
Lecter-in-love.