“I see. And yet, I want you to know that I personally alerted the police after every one of those disappearances. I sent very specific reports to them, stressing just how serious the matter was. But-and I do hope you’ll pardon any disrespect for your fellow officers-I had to deal with a bunch of idiots. For them, it was a case of runaways. The missing girls were all nearing the end of their treatment. At that stage, patients were allowed to go home for the weekend. Usually it wasn’t a problem, except in the case of those girls. Monday morning came, and they never showed up. We tried to contact them immediately, as you can imagine, but their telephones were turned off. Their families were out of their minds with worry. They, too, filed police reports. And still, the police did nothing to investigate, do you hear me? The idiots claimed that since there were no signs of break-ins at the girls’ houses, there was no reason to worry. But do you want to know what the real reason was? It was simply that these girls were addicts, social outcasts, and the cops couldn’t have cared less. That’s why they did nothing. Not a damn thing…”
He drank more coffee. His hands were trembling.
“They were kids. They had their entire lives ahead of them. As much as I try to forget, their faces haunt me. I can remember their names as if they were still my patients. Not one of them was over twenty, can you imagine? First, there was Anne Rouquier. It happened in December, and nobody was really alarmed, because she’d already run away a few times. Then, in January, Marine Lafont and Sophie Lieber went missing, and neither of them had ever given us any trouble. The last one was in March. Her name was Christine Garnier. We did find her, as you know. She was murdered. An extraordinarily violent slaying. We had never seen anything like it.”
“Her boyfriend was accused of the murder,” Leroy said. “Mario Dupuy.”
“That poor boy had a serious drug problem. His treatment was an abysmal failure. But if you want my professional opinion, he had nothing to do with it.”
“How can you be so sure?” Vauvert asked.
“I can’t be. But that boy, he was convinced that Christine was in danger, that someone was going to hurt her. He told me so.”
“He talked to you about it?
Fabre-Renault sighed and then began to explain, slowly. “I was his doctor. Our last appointment was the day before his girlfriend’s murder. Until then, Mario had always been an extremely withdrawn young man with paranoid tendencies. That’s the reason I didn’t believe a word of his story.” The old man kept folding and unfolding his hands, obviously ill at ease. “Until then, I’d never been able to get ten words out of him, which is quite understandable. It’s not easy opening up to a shrink, and this kid’s life, let me tell you, had been no picnic. His parents kicked him out of the house when he was fifteen, and he had to fend for himself. And yet, during that one session, he talked. He poured his heart out. He admitted that he’d never abided by the rules of his treatment and that he’d continued dealing dope. He admitted all of this, as if he’d been desperate to confess. That boy was absolutely terrified. He said that the devil lived at Raynal and that Christine had been chosen as a sacrifice.”
There were a few moments of uneasy silence.
“A sacrifice?” Vauvert repeated.
“Those were his words precisely,” Fabre-Renault said. “To some sort of god that demanded a bloody meal. No, scarlet. A scarlet feast. That’s all I really understood from his story. But it makes no sense, does it?”
Vauvert exchanged a quick glance with Leroy. Then he turned to Fabre-Renault again.
“On the contrary, it makes a lot of sense. Believe me, doctor, all this is extremely important. What else did Mario Dupuy tell you?”
“Well, just that. He thought that his girlfriend was in danger and… You do know that normally I’m bound by professional confidentiality, don’t you?”
“The two people we’re talking about died three years ago,” Leroy said sharply. “This is a homicide investigation.”
“Yes, I know.”
Fabre-Renault took off his glasses and started cleaning them clumsily. He seemed to want to say certain things but hesitated. Raising his eyes to the police officers, he whispered, “You know, I’ve made my share of mistakes over the course of my career. Wrong diagnoses, poor judgment. Patients I couldn’t help who wound up swallowing a handful of sleeping pills with a fifth of whisky. It’s horrible to say, but we all make mistakes because we’re human, and we all forgive ourselves eventually, right? But what happened at Raynal, the death of that poor girl, I just can’t come up with any excuses. Mario Dupuy told me all about his fears. He cried out for help, and I didn’t believe what he was telling me. None of it made sense. I concealed my shortcomings behind that fucking professional confidentiality excuse. I told no one. The very next day, Christine Garnier died in a dreadful way, exactly the way Mario had told me it would happen. And that very night, it was his turn to end his life. He hanged himself in his holding cell. It would have been easy to believe that he was the guilty one”
“But?”
“I knew better.”
“Doctor, we’re running out of time,” Vauvert said. “Did Mario Dupuy tell you who was planning to sacrifice his girlfriend?”
“Of course he did. He was obsessed with one of my female patients. A very odd case. Mario was convinced that the woman was some sort of witch, that she had pledged Christine’s soul to the infernal forces.”
“What’s her name?” Leroy demanded. “No more beating around the bush. We need to know who that woman is!”
“Unfortunately, knowing her name won’t help you much.”
“And why’s that?” Vauvert mumbled.
“Because that person is dead. She had a fatal disease, and she was terminal during her time at Raynal.” Fabre-Renault shut his eyes and uttered her name. “Judith Saint-Clair.”
55
“Doctor, you have to explain what happened,” Vauvert insisted. We’re running out of time. Someone’s life is at stake.”
“I know, detective. You don’t understand. This whole story makes no sense. Judith Saint-Clair could never have harmed Christine Garnier or anybody else. She was so weak, she couldn’t even get out of bed.”
“And so she’s dead now?”
“She has to be.”
“You mean she didn’t die at Raynal?” Leroy said, becoming increasingly upset.
Fabre-Renault absently arranged the mugs on his desk as he framed the response in his head.
“No, she didn’t die at the hospital. She left us just before she died. As I told you, she was terminal. Her family hired an ambulance to take her home so that she could spend her last days there.”
“So, you’re not certain that she died?”
Fabre-Renault made a weary gesture.
“That was three years ago, detective. She was on her deathbed. I examined her myself.”
“That illness you’re talking about, what was it? Cancer?”
“No. She had progeria. To be precise, Judith Saint-Clair suffered from what is called Methuselah Syndrome.”
“What’s that?” Vauvert asked.
“I’m sure you’d recognize it,” the doctor responded. “Haven’t you ever seen those photos of children with old people’s faces?”
Vauvert and Leroy nodded.
“That’s it. That’s the illness. It can manifest itself in many ways, and appear at different stages of life, but everyone suffering from it has the same problem of cell and protein regeneration. Methuselah Syndrome is the most terrible form, because it is practically undetectable before the onset of symptoms, and then it is devastating once the illness has set in.”
“Judith Saint-Clair was aging in fast forward? Is that it?” Vauvert asked.
“That’s it. Although, technically, it is not actually aging, but rather cells being unable to divide normally. Yes,
