PARIS: In the duel between a small-town cop and France’s most dangerous serial killer, the advantage appeared heavily in favour of Francis Heaulme, the criminal known as the ‘man from nowhere’, who may have killed up to 50 men, women and children.

Heaulme left few classic clues during an itinerary of crime spread across the country in a haphazard and unconnected pattern. Faced with a master of ingenious alibis and innate resistance to interrogation, all his gendarmerie opponent could count on was instinct, but it was exploited with such skill that defence lawyers labelled the policeman ‘that devil Jean-Francois Abgrall’ when their client was jailed for life.

Because the hunt for Heaulme was a psychological battle spread over three years, Abgrall has titled his book on the cornering of the murderer: Dans la tete d’un tueur - In the head of a killer - an account with echoes of Dostoevsky.

Heaulme, now serving six sentences for murder and awaiting trial for six other killings, is a familiar figure on French television. In earlier trials, his tall thin figure - he measures 6ft 3in - his big glasses and his intellectual face gave the impression of an absent-minded professor, but an appearance in court this year showed a man of 43, bent and old before his time.

Abgrall, a compact, dark-haired man of the shadows, has only age in common with his criminal opponent, and yet the methodical, self-driven investigator became Heaulme’s confidant, the repository for obscure and elliptical confessions that often began: ‘Jean-Francois, I know that you know...’.

In talking about the hunt, Abgrall makes no secret of the fact that he upset traditional gendarmerie teamwork, creating a chill that led to his resigning two years ago and setting up as a private detective specializing in psychological profiles.

Except to speculate that a similarity in names - Francis and Francois - encouraged an intimacy between criminal and detective, he offers no explanation why Heaulme, should lead his opponent along a meandering cryptic trail that led to a life in prison.

Heaulme never spoke of murders. He referred to ‘pepins’ - bothersome details, before noting days between 1986 and 1991 when the ‘pepins’ coincided with killings he had supposedly witnessed.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.