This book was made possible thanks to a grant from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      First printing April 2015

      Cover design by Molly Crabapple

      Text design by Drew Stevens

       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Despentes, Virginie, 1969-

      [Apocalypse bébé. English]

      Apocalypse baby / by Virginie Despentes ; [translated by Sian Reynolds] — First feminist press edition.

      pages cm

      ISBN 978-1-55861-884-8 (ebook)

      1. Women detectives—Fiction. 2. Missing persons—Fiction. 3. Mystery fiction. I. Reynolds, Sian, translator. II. Title.

      PQ2664.E7895A8813 2015

      843'.914—dc23

      2014039946

      Contents

       Epigraph

       Dedication

PARIS

François

Claire

       Yacine

       BARCELONA

       Vanessa

       The Hyena

       Elisabeth

       Valentine

       PARIS

       About the Author

       About Feminist Press

       Also available from Feminist Press

. . . como dos vampiros dormiremos sobre tu tumba, calentaremos tus huesos, como dos vampiros vendremos a saciar tu sed de sexo, de sangre y de testosterona.

      Testo Yonqui, Paul B. Preciado

To B.P.

PARIS

      NOT SO LONG AGO, I WAS STILL THIRTY. ANYTHING could happen. You just had to make the right choice at the right moment. I often changed jobs, my short-term contracts weren’t renewed, I had no time to get bored. I didn’t complain about my standard of living. I rarely lived alone. The seasons followed one another like packets of sweets: easy to swallow and differently colored. I don’t know quite when it was that life stopped smiling on me.

      Today I have the same pay as ten years ago. Back then, I thought I was doing all right. Once I passed thirty, the spring went out of things, the impetus that carried me along seemed to ebb away. And I know that next time I find myself on the job market, I’ll be a mature woman, without any qualifications. That’s why I’m clinging on for dear life to the work I have now.

      THIS PARTICULAR MORNING, I arrive late. Agathe, the young receptionist, taps her watch with her finger and frowns. She’s wearing fluorescent yellow tights and pink, heart-shaped earrings. Easily ten years younger than me. I ought to take no notice of her impatient little sigh when she thinks I’m taking too long to take my coat off, instead I mutter an indecipherable apology, head straight for the boss’s door, and raise my hand to knock on it. From inside his office comes the sound of hoarse screaming. I step back, alarmed. I look at Agathe questioningly, she makes a face and whispers, “It’s Madame Galtan, she was waiting for you outside, before we opened this morning. Deucené’s been getting it in the neck for twenty minutes now. Go in, go in now, it’ll calm her down.” I’m tempted to turn on my heels and rush downstairs, without a word of explanation. But I knock at the door, and they hear me.

      For once, Deucené doesn’t need to glance down at the files strewn across his desk to remember my name.

      “Ah, this is Lucie Toledo, you’ve already met, she was just . . .”

      He doesn’t get to the end of the sentence. The client interrupts him with a shout. “So where were you, you stupid cow?”

      She gives me two seconds to digest the verbal assault, then carries on, turning up the volume. “You know how much I pay you not to let her out of your sight? And then she dis-app-ears? In the metro! In the MET-RO, I don’t believe it, you managed to lose her in the metro! Then you wait half the day before leaving me a message. The school let me know before you did. That seem normal to you? Could it be you think you’ve been doing your job properly?”

      This woman is possessed by the devil. I couldn’t have