Of Fever and Blood

the result is quite the same: the patient appears to age ten times more quickly than a healthy person. In Saint- Clair’s case, the first signs of the illness appeared when she was twenty-five.”

“Is there a treatment?”

“None. The cells can’t code the proteins correctly, there’s no hope at all. The patients develop cardiovascular complications. They rarely survive more than a few years. Judith Saint-Clair was exactly thirty-one years old when she arrived at Raynal. The illness was already at an advanced stage. Her face…” He tried to come up with the right words, but obviously couldn’t find any. “She had the face of a very old woman. Old, and in very poor health. She had lost all of her hair. Watching herself die that way drove her mad with rage. She had been a beautiful young women. She had won a number of beauty pageants. She had dreams of becoming an actress.”

“So, when she started losing her looks, she couldn’t cope with it?”

“Precisely. She couldn’t stand watching her body fall apart while her brain remained perfectly lucid. She raged against the nurses and kept the blinds in her room drawn day and night.”

“It’s her,” Leroy said. “This has to be the woman we’re looking for.”

“Sounds like it to me, too,” Vauvert replied.

“You don’t understand,” the doctor said. “She can’t still be alive.”

“What if she found a cure or at least a way to slow the illness?”

“As I said, there’s no cure,” the doctor insisted.

“And yet, you admit that mysterious events took place at Raynal.”

Fabre-Renault did not know what to say. He twisted his fingers on the desk.

“Do you have this woman’s address?” Leroy asked.

“I’ve kept some of the Raynal documents on my computer. I can give you the address I have.” Fabre-Renault turned on the laptop on his desk. The screen lit up. He tapped on the keyboard, then wrote the address on a piece of paper. Leroy took it from him and got up.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have to make a few phone calls to check out some things.”

He went into the hallway to be alone, and Vauvert knew that the detective would have to tell his colleagues some very big lies in order to get information on Judith Saint-Clair.

But he had to do what he had to do.

They needed the information, as fast as they could get it.

Vauvert let out a long sigh.

“Thank you for your cooperation, doctor.”

“You’re welcome,” Fabre-Renault answered. “You really believe that she could be involved in what’s happening now?”

“Someone is reenacting a very old ritual. We’re talking about human sacrifice. It’s possible that Judith Saint-Clair is dead, as you believe. But it’s also possible, even though it seems crazy, that she’s still alive and that she has convinced herself that this ritual could save her life.”

Fabre-Renault seemed lost in his own thoughts.

“Who wouldn’t dream of being healed, even by means of a pact with forces from beyond?” he said. “Saint- Clair was certainly desperate enough to believe in such things, I admit.”

“And to make other people believe it, too.”

“People like the Salavilles?”

“Exactly. If she was bedridden, as you say, she had to find disciples to carry out the crimes.”

“I follow your train of thought, detective. But all this just seems insane.”

“And yet it’s the only explanation. You never noticed some sort of special relationship between the Salaville brothers and Judith Saint-Clair?”

“I wouldn’t have noticed anything like that, I…” Fabre-Renault hesitated. Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead again. He wiped them off with a napkin he had brought in with the coffee. “I’m not sure how to say this. I avoided those two patients. I was afraid of them. That’s the truth. I did all I could to not get involved in their treatment.”

“They weren’t sedated?”

“Of course they were. Their first week, they broke a nurse’s nose because she wouldn’t bring them cigarettes. I can assure you that we had them pumped full of drugs. But the drugs were never enough. They managed to terrorize the entire staff. Animals, that’s what the Salavilles were. I know someone in my field should never say something like that, but it’s the hard truth. Claude and Roman were wild animals, impossible to control. If you think that a dying woman managed to tame them, well,” The doctor paused. “I’m not saying it’s impossible. But if it is the case, then you’re dealing with a woman in possession of an extraordinary gift.”

Vauvert tried to imagine the scene: a gravely ill woman in a secluded hospital room converting two feeble- minded beasts to her own barbaric religion.

Maybe this woman did have a gift. An extraordinary gift. Irrational, maybe, but a gift that enabled her to…

Manipulate people’s minds?

Show things that weren’t real?

Things like wolves?

“Doctor, one last thing. Was Judith Saint-Clair at Raynal when your patients suffered from hallucinations?”

“Well, now that you ask,” Fabre-Renault paused to think. “I seem to recall that the hallucinations began immediately after her admission.”

While Vauvert and Fabre-Renault talked, Leroy made a series of phone calls. He came back into the office, his face grim.

“All right, I have some info.”

“So?” Vauvert asked.

“There’s a Judith Saint-Clair at that address, and we’ve got meter readings showing that somebody’s been using electricity there for the past two years.”

“Must be her family’s still living there,” Fabre-Renault guessed.

“I don’t think so,” Leroy said. “My buddy in the records department checked out Saint-Clair’s family situation. Her parents died five year ago. She has no other family members. And as for her, there’s no trace of a death certificate.”

The psychiatrist frowned.

“That’s impossible. Her parents had her sent her home. I read their letter requesting her release myself.”

“Did you meet them? Either of her parents?”

“No, of course not. There was no reason. The paperwork was all in order.”

“Well then, doctor, believe me, it wasn’t anyone from her family who wrote those letters. Judith Saint-Clair must have written them herself, or she had someone else do it for her.”

56

Rain pelts the low-rise houses along the deserted street. Water gushes from the gutters of these homes, saturating the ground and then pooling when the ground can no longer absorb any more. The trees sway and moan in the freezing wind.

The lone light in the house next door flicks off.

There is no chance anyone can see her cross the garden, a dark shadow among the dark bushes.

The key slips into the familiar lock. The door opens without a sound. She creeps into the hallway and shuts it without turning on the light.

Everything is perfect.

She can feel the energy rising all around her. She can hear a whisper growing louder. The gods are calling.