Heart Collector

by Jacques Vandroux

  “We immediately made inquiries about the car. It belongs to a surgeon who was operating at the time of the disappearance. He became aware of the theft when he tried to leave around nine o’clock. The keys and his registration card had vanished from his jacket pocket.”

  “But how would the kidnapper have gotten access to them?”

  “The staff told us that anyone who knew where the locker room was and had a lot of nerve and something to force a basic lock with could do it,” explained Marie.

  “Marie, when did you gather this information?” asked Nadia.

  “Just before coming here to see you.”

  “Good, we’ll look into the car. It’s eleven o’clock and the abduction took place at five thirty. It’s no use putting up roadblocks—he could already be in Paris if he’d wanted to flee with Camille. Highly possible since the kidnapper is unlikely to have left the département if he’s the one we’re thinking of. Even so, we’re going to ask them to patrol the region. Inform all the squads out on the beat. Call Commissioner Mazure, too, so that he can request support from the gendarmerie. And you, Marie, go join Roger and Alberto at South Hospital to learn more. You’ve already done great work. Keep it up.”

  “Okay, Captain, I’m off again.”

  Marie Bauchard left the office while Garancher set up the parking lot video surveillance film. The quality was mediocre, but Monsieur and Madame Saint-Forge recognized their daughter without hesitation.

  “That’s definitely her!” exclaimed the excited mother.

  “Can you zoom in on the bastard’s face?” asked the lawyer.

  Garancher did so. The film quality prevented them from distinguishing his features accurately.

  “Given the mane he’s got and the age the witnesses gave, I’d be tempted to say he’s wearing a wig,” noted Garancher.

  “Make me a few enlargements and give them to all the teams out there. I’m going to call Commissioner Mazure so that he can distribute these photos to the press and media. They won’t need any coaxing to print them in their papers or broadcast them on a loop. Do you give me permission to include the picture of your daughter, Camille?”

  “Of course. Use the photo Denis just gave you,” agreed Saint-Forge.

  Captain Barka stood up, signaling the interview was over—at least as far as she was concerned.

  “Rest assured the search for your daughter is our priority. We’ll keep you posted on how the investigation is going. For your part, the second you have anything new, even if it’s just a detail that’s come back to you, call us.”

  She nodded to the missing woman’s parents and fiancé, who left the room. Then she addressed Garancher. “Find me a dozen pictures of girls who look more or less like Camille Saint-Forge. Print them for me photo booth style, like the missing woman’s. And bring me all of it within the next fifteen minutes!”

  “Fifteen minutes?”

  “Yes, with all the material at your team’s disposal, that should be more than enough time.”

  “And how is that going to help you?”

  “It’ll tell me if I’m being lied to or not.”

  Chapter 19: No Doubt

  Julien paced the streets of Grenoble, partially deserted at this late hour. He’d just spent several hours with Céline. They’d eaten a quickly prepared salad and discussed the past few years they’d spent apart, their loves, and obviously the hallucinations he’d suffered the last few days. Very tactfully, Céline had advised him to see a doctor. He still felt a chill thinking about it. Of all illnesses, psychiatric ones scared him the most. Maybe because I’ve always been in good health, he said to himself.

  He stood on the porch of his building. As he entered the building’s access code on the keypad, a shape emerged from the shadows and grasped his arm.

  “Are you Julien Lombard?”

  He tried to escape the stranger’s grip, but the man held him firmly. His attacker put a hand in his pocket and took out a wallet. He opened it and showed him a tricolor card.

  “Police, follow me, please.”

  Julien regained his composure and replied with confidence, “If you tell me who you are, what you want with me, and that you’ll let me go afterward, I’ll come with you without resistance. Did Captain Barka send you?”

  The policeman hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Yes, that’s right. I’m Lieutenant Campet. We’ve been looking for you for several hours, but you were unreachable and unfindable.”

  “Maybe, but there’s no law against turning off a phone and going to dinner with friends, is there? Fine, where do we have to go?”

  “I’m escorting you to the Rue Saint-Laurent. Captain Barka is waiting there for you. Come on, my car is parked a little farther down the street.”

  Saint-Laurent! His phone call had been taken seriously, then. He climbed into the unmarked car, a black Clio three door. When the policeman turned the ignition and took off, Julien thought to himself that the engine must not be standard. He instinctively checked that his seat belt was buckled and took advantage of the short ride by telling himself he would never again have the opportunity to see the Grenoble streets go by so quickly.

  Even so, he was relieved to get out of the car. Nadia Barka was waiting for them at the corner of the Rue Saint-Laurent and the Rue Sappey. A man was walking away from her, limping and screaming insults.

  “Did you have a problem, Captain?”

  “Oh, no, but the jerk proved a bit too insistent with his advances. Sometimes I’m calm and then other times, not so much.” Then, turning toward Julien Lombard, she said, “Sorry to have intruded on your evening, but I need you. Follow me. We’ll go sit in the car.”

  For a moment, Julien felt dread at the thought of being subjected to Lieutenant Campet’s driving again, and he was relieved when he saw the policewoman take an envelope—not a set of keys—out of her bomber jacket, then pull a dozen ID photos from it. She turned on the dome light and showed the photos to him. He understood immediately.

  “A woman disappeared this afternoon, and you want to know if I can identify her—correct?”

  “Aren’t you perceptive! That’s right. Take your time, and tell me if one of these people is the person you saw or thought you saw this afternoon.”

  Julien was about to find out if he’d been dreaming earlier. To the depths of his soul, he hoped he wouldn’t recognize any of them. That would be much more reassuring. He sat back to take full advantage of the dim car light.

  He reviewed them slowly. He paused at the fifth one and paled. He had absolutely no doubt—the woman in the photo had the same intensity in her expression and the same happiness emanating from her. This made him heartsick.

  When Nadia saw the mood change on the face of the man sitting next to her, she was convinced that he’d immediately recognized her. He handed the photo back to the policewoman.

  “That’s her.”

  “Indeed. You are astonishing, Monsieur Lombard. Either you’re a psychic or you’re bound up with the kidnapper.”

  Julien couldn’t stand this accusation leveled at him in the middle of the night and reacted forcefully. “I’m doing all I can to help you find the killer, even if it makes me look like a crackpot, and that’s all you’ve got? Insults? The next time I encounter the paranormal like this, I’ll keep it between me and my psychiatrist, and you can sort out your own damn clues.”

  Nadia gently laid a hand on his arm. “I don’t believe the second hypothesis I just stated, but know that the question has to be asked, even if we can eliminate it quickly. The woman in the photo is named Camille Saint-Forge.”

  “I don’t think I’ve met her before.”

  “She’s twenty-eight years old and an associate at an architectural firm.”

  “No, really I haven’t. When did she disappear?”

  “We know the precise time of her abduction and even have ima
ges collected from a closed-circuit internal surveillance camera. She was taken at 5:26 from the parking lot at South Hospital.”

  Julien considered this for a bit. “Five thirty. That matches the time I saw her, because it was definitely her. Then she disappeared. But if you have pictures that prove she was in the parking lot, who did I see, or what did I see?”

  Nadia Barka was quiet, pondering the answers now available to them. She was convinced that Julien Lombard wasn’t lying. She had almost fifteen years of experience with the police and had always demonstrated astute judgment. Campet was waiting outside the car and lighting his third cigarette.

  Julien was stunned. He broke the silence. “Number one, I am neither crazy nor schizophrenic, which is somewhat reassuring to me. I was already envisioning myself at the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Egrève. Number two, I did in fact see these women gesturing to me, whereas you have proof that the second one was several miles away. Who is sending me these visions, provided they really are visions? And why me? And finally, why did I see her on the slopes of Chartreuse when she was abducted at another location? Does it mean her body will be brought here?”

  “With respect to the last point, that’s what we want to check. You’d seen the previous victim, Monica Revasti, go into the cathedral, and we found her in the baptistery, which is practically adjacent.”

  “So her name was Monica. But I’d seen her calling me during the night.”

  “The night isn’t over yet, Monsieur Lombard.”

  “Stop, that’s terrifying. To know that a woman could call to me when she’s being killed and not be able to do anything!”

  “For a reason none of us knows right now, you’ve been chosen. By whom? Why? It’s a mystery. But if she will be killed, that’s what will happen. So if you have that nightmare, look at everything carefully. It might be a message sent to help us find this killer who’s running rampant at the moment.”

  “I don’t have a choice anyway, do I?”

  “I’m not the one who put you in this situation, Monsieur Lombard, but someone who wants to help us did. So, play your role. Maybe you’ll be able to save lives—I hope!”

  “You’re right. But you can’t keep me from stressing over this situation.”

  She stared directly into his eyes. He was impressed by the depth of her gaze and the struggles he read there. This woman had doubtless lived through situations much more serious and traumatic than the one he was involved in. He had confidence in her. He sensed she’d stand by him even though his story could be used against him.

  “I’m going to ask Lieutenant Campet to escort you back.”

  “No, it’s fine. In less than twenty minutes I’ll be home, and it’ll give me time to think.”

  “And avoid Dany Campet’s Formula One driving?” she added with a smile.

  “Now that I think about it . . .” Julien got out of the car. “If anything happens tonight, I’ll call you.”

  “I’m counting on it. My hope is to recover Camille Saint-Forge alive, but if that doesn’t happen, I want to make sure the shithead can’t hurt anybody else.”

  The young man headed down the Rue Saint-Laurent, his mind spinning. Nadia waved to Lieutenant Campet. “Dany, you follow him discreetly and keep watch outside his building all night.”

  An annoyed look passed over the policeman’s face but was quickly chased away by his sense of duty. Besides, he loved working with Captain Barka.

  “It seems to me you trust him, Captain.”

  “I do. But if anything happens tonight, I want you to be able to swear that he really was at his domicile.”

  She got out of the car to rejoin her two colleagues on their surveillance mission around the church. It was her first time facing an investigation that bordered on the paranormal. She’d already dealt with pathological liars who tried to pass their offenses or crimes off as heavenly interventions—or devilish ones, for that matter. But Julien Lombard wasn’t a pathological liar, she’d just had proof.

  Chapter 20: Escape

  Camille had long since given up calling for help. She’d realized that if her kidnapper had left the basement window open, it was because there was no hope she would be found there. But why had she followed him? If only she’d gotten that goddamn taxi, she’d be home by now, cuddled up in Denis’s arms dreaming of marriage. How far away he seemed at the moment, far away and even unreal! Had she really lived anywhere but here? Her initial rage had turned into despair, and she’d cried every tear in her body. Her kidnapper had hardly spoken to her since she’d followed him into the Mercedes. This silence and the waiting were unbearable. Had he abducted her at random? Yes, he must have, because her visit to the hospital that afternoon had been totally unexpected. But why her? His plan was well orchestrated because he had two vehicles and he’d prepared an anesthetic. Where was she? Probably in the Grenoble area. Outside light had been filtering through the slit in the wall for a good hour or two, but she no longer had any sense of time.

  The sound of a key in the lock made her scream. Her breathing accelerated, and she tried to reason with herself. She, who had always prided herself in controlling her feelings in public, tried to summon the Camille Saint-Forge who had an imposing presence in business meetings and social gatherings. But that Camille was too far away, inaccessible. Nevertheless, she forced herself to control her tremors.

  The powerful flashlight he was holding blinded her. She couldn’t make out her kidnapper’s features. He took her by the arm and yanked her out of the corner she was cowering in. She felt her shoulder dislocate and screamed. The man took no notice and pushed her ahead of him. They ended up in a hallway made of exposed concrete. They were probably in the basement of a house in some isolated place. Five yards farther on, a door stood ajar. The stranger pushed her violently. Camille caught her foot on a step as she was thrown into the room. She lost her balance and fell heavily, landing on her dislocated shoulder. The pain spiraled through her body, insisting she stay focused.

  She looked around the room while the man was busy closing the door. Its center was occupied by a table, over which stood a multifaceted lamp. The lamp was turned on. Next to the table, a cart with tools that shone under the harsh light of the bulbs. An operating room, this guy has made himself an operating room and I’m . . . his guinea pig.

  Her kidnapper was coming back toward her now. He’d put on a surgical gown. She was right. She concentrated on a single objective: get out of this room. She temporarily closed her brain off from the panic that was taking her over. She was lying on her back, eyes half closed. The man leaned over. Camille judged the distance—she’d get only one chance. She extended her leg violently, her foot rebounding off her attacker’s inner thigh and kicking his crotch. He crumpled with a low moan. Camille hoped she had neutralized him long enough to escape, but she didn’t have time to check. She scrambled upright, grimacing. Her fall had left her quite sore, but she didn’t have time to think about that.

  The young woman opened the operating room door and found a power switch in the hallway. She headed to the left; there was bound to be a stairway leading up—it had to be there, it couldn’t be otherwise. The staircase was there, a flight of steps to freedom. She mounted them as quickly as her strength allowed and came out into a large foyer. The house seemed deserted, and all the shutters were closed. A single round window let in the tentative glow of the moon. She moved through the shadows. Quick, the front door! She spotted it on the other side of the foyer and ran to it. The outside world was just a few feet away. Then she’d easily flee into the night and find help. She leaned on the handle and pushed forcefully. But nothing happened. Nothing. The door stayed closed. Panic swept over her, and she redoubled her efforts. She looked for a lock, a key, something. Open up, you fucking door! The sound of the handle she was rattling like a maniac echoed in the eerie silence of the room.

  Camille stopped, despondent, then listened intently. Noises
were coming from the stairway leading to the basement, hoarse groans. No! He’d recovered and was coming to get her. She held her head in her hands. What could she do? A window! She had to get a shutter open.

  A halo of light cast by her attacker’s flashlight as he climbed the last steps grew more and more distinct. Fear paralyzed her. She had to run, but where? Her eyes darted around the darkened room. Across from her was a wide staircase leading up. She hadn’t seen it before. A glimmer of hope! She pulled herself together and, without trying to be quiet, crossed the hall just as the killer finished climbing the stairs. She passed right through the beam of his flashlight. He let out a roar. She would have cried, but now was not the time. Luck had to be with her, she had to find a way out, she had to jump out the window. She was athletic and flexible. He wouldn’t follow her.

  She slipped on the stairs as she ran and twisted the same ankle she had hurt that morning, but the pain intensified her survival instinct. She got up immediately and headed for the first room she saw. She could hear the man’s ragged breathing behind her. He wasn’t running. That would give her the precious seconds she needed.

  Camille entered the room. An odor of dust and mildew assaulted her. The furniture was draped in coverings from a bygone era. A mausoleum. But she didn’t waste time itemizing the decor. She dragged a chair with her good arm and wedged it under the door handle, preventing the door from opening for a few extra moments. Next to the door, a light switch. She flipped it, but no bulb illuminated. She was in darkness. She forced herself to breathe calmly. She could get out of this, she had to. She didn’t have the luxury of giving in to a nervous breakdown now. Her eyes adjusted to the dark, and she noticed a slightly lighter surface on one of the walls—the window. She’d found it! She rushed over, electrified by the noise she’d just heard. He was savagely twisting the door handle.

  Find the window lock, open the window, push aside the shutter, jump. Her brain was focused on these four movements that would save her life. The man banged violently on the door—the chair had to hold. She grew agitated. It was impossible to find the window lock at night . . . and the door was starting to give way under the staggering blows of her attacker. In despair, she threw a punch at the window. The glass shattered on impact. Camille instantly felt the heat of her blood begin to run down her arm, but now she could reach the shutter latch.