Fortin looked at the plump and pleasant little man and wondered, just for an instant, if he’d fallen for him anyway, even without being a woman.
“He was good-looking, with a little something of Robert Redford. He was always surrounded by young doctors his age, and the nurses fantasized about him. Then he disappeared. But Professor Delépine will tell you more.”
“He’s on the list,” added Garancher, handing the piece of paper to Fortin.
“What do you mean by ‘he disappeared’?” resumed Blavet, pulling André Palmain from his memories.
“He vanished overnight, without any warning.”
“Do you know why, or how?”
“No. But I can tell you it was a shock to us all. I believe his wife had disappeared some time before. He’d been affected, but nothing foreshadowed such a decision. Many of us missed him.”
A small sigh escaped the administrator’s lips. He went on. “I’ve given you the names of the people who should be able to help you. There aren’t many left, because thirty years have gone by since those events. But luck is with you, because two of his old colleagues are here this morning. As well as Madame Guyancourt, who’s in charge of the gerontology nurses.”
He added, hesitantly, “Monsieur Garancher told me the subject of the investigation was confidential, but, if I dare insist, has Dominique reappeared somewhere?”
Fortin looked at him. “It’s possible, Monsieur Palmain. And we’re trying to make sure that it really is him.”
The response seemed very mysterious to Palmain. But he contented himself with it.
“We thank you for your availability and the quality of your assistance, Monsieur Palmain,” concluded Jérôme Garancher. They said good-bye and left the office.
“What do you think?” asked Garancher as they headed toward a coffee dispenser.
“Strange. We go looking for a serial killer, and we stumble onto this ladies’ man, and not just for the missing ladies, it looks like,” replied Fortin. “Jérôme, go to bed. You look like you could be in Night of the Living Dead—without makeup. We’ll be able to deal with Doctor Blavet. There are only three people to meet.”
“Thanks for the compliment. I will indeed go get some sleep.”
“You did good work.”
“Thank you.”
Garancher went off, with an unsteady gait, to get a few hours of lifesaving sleep. Étienne Fortin and Henri Blavet watched him go, then concentrated on the list of names.
“Do you know them, Doctor?” asked the policeman.
“I’ve never met the first one, Mathieu Gascon. I know him by reputation. He’s a neurologist as renowned for his expertise as for his self-importance. We’ll have to work him with finesse,” he added with a smile. “On the other hand, I know Professor Delépine well, even though he is retired. He’s a reputable surgeon. If you want the truth, he’s the exact opposite of Gascon. A few years back, he was still going to spend three weeks of his vacation in African countries operating for free on gravely ill patients. It would be a pleasure to see him again.”
“And Hélène Guyancourt?”
“I don’t know her. I’m going to call them to make appointments for this morning.”
Fortin closed the door to Professor Gascon’s office and walked for a few seconds down the hallway before being able to express what was in his heart.
“What an ass! Who does he think he is? Did you see that medicine-outraged-by-the-dirty-work-of-the-police drama he acted out for us? I’m going to ask Mazure if we can call him into the station, maybe he’ll stink less.”
Doctor Blavet put a hand on his arm to calm him down. Fortin took a few more steps before stopping. Blavet looked serene, as if he hadn’t participated in the conversation. “I’m probably more used to such people than you are. They’re rather contemptuous, but it’s partially a way of protecting themselves from the suffering they see every day.”
“Because we don’t see violence and suffering? It soaks into us every day, gradually draining us of our energy and, for some of us, our will to live. Do I act like other people are less than shit when I talk to them?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been faced only with people who speak to you with respect.”
“Absolutely not, Doctor, but I didn’t expect it of them. A doctor is supposed to heal the body as well as the soul. I wonder how this guy’s patients react.”
“You won’t change people, Étienne.”
Fortin looked at him. Henri Blavet was confronted with death on a daily basis but always maintained his good humor. That wasn’t logical either.
“You’re right, Doctor, I got carried away. Let’s get back to what we learned, which is to say not much. Cabrade had magic fingers, an extraordinary career ahead of him, and he disappeared one day. But we don’t know any more than that.”
“Professor Delépine will see us in fifteen minutes. He’ll be much more cooperative. Let’s head for his office.”
Étienne Fortin followed Henri Blavet through the maze of hallways without trying to orient himself. The smell of pharmaceutical products turned his stomach. He’d often had to frequent hospitals in the course of his career, primarily to meet with witnesses or suspects in criminal cases, but he couldn’t manage to get used to it. He’d seen his mother die there in less than a month when he’d been only about ten years old; something of that remained.
They encountered a good-natured man with messy hair, a bushy beard, and wearing a smock two sizes too big for him. The man spoke to them joyously. “Henri, such a pleasure to see you again! How long has it been?”
“Hello, Professor, the pleasure is mutual.”
The man turned toward the policeman and extended a hand. “I’m Robert Delépine.”
“Lieutenant Étienne Fortin. Thank you for seeing us so quickly, Professor.”
“Don’t mention it. And I must confess the prospect of chatting with Henri again helped me push back a meeting to see you sooner,” he added mischievously.
They followed the surgeon into a quiet room. So the man Fortin had taken for a tramp lost in the hallways was the famous doctor. Despite his already advanced age, he continued in his work. The policeman suddenly felt sympathy for him, especially after the miserable meeting with Gascon. After several minutes of conversation between the two doctors, which was punctuated with the names of colleagues they’d lost track of and shared memories of illustrious moments, Robert Delépine grew serious again.
“Explain it to me, Lieutenant. Why are you interested in Dominique Cabrade thirty years after he left us?”
“He’s probably mixed up in a criminal case. We think he could be the man who killed two young women these last few days.”
Professor Delépine let out a long whistle. Then he sat up straight. “I won’t ask you what brought you to these conclusions. I think if you reveal them to me, it’s because you must have good reasons to suspect Cabrade. Ask me your questions, and I’ll do my best to enlighten you.”
“As Doctor Blavet told you, your name was given to us by André Palmain. He didn’t tell us any more than that. Could you tell us what your connection with Dominique Cabrade was?”
“Of course! I don’t remember all the young doctors I’ve seen go by in more than forty years of practicing medicine. But Cabrade was rather remarkable. I got to know him in 1976—I remember it because I met him for the first time just after Guy Drut won the one hundred ten–meter hurdles in the Montreal Olympics, one of the only French gold medals. Everyone has his landmarks,” he mused, making fun of himself. “Cabrade was one of the youngest doctors. He’d been brilliant on all his exams and entered my service.”
“How was he?”
“Astonishing. He was already particularly handsome. He’d enchanted nearly all the women on my team by the end of the first few days.”
“Did he use it?”
“No more or l
ess than the others. But he loved to seduce. Rather quickly, he was at the center of a group of young doctors who almost worshipped him.”
“What were the reasons for such admiration?”
“His talent for surgery, at the beginning. Within the first few months, he’d successfully completed very complicated procedures. Everything goes very fast in that world, and despite the jealousies, he managed to forge a reputation for himself that no one tried to tarnish. His way of acknowledging those who surrounded him, as well—he didn’t look down on others. He’d quickly realized how to get himself appreciated. He started to change toward the end, to become conceited. But his court was already in place, part of his glory reflected in those who accompanied him.”
“And what did you think?”
“As a doctor, he had a gift. He was working with extraordinary precision and sensed things. I remember a very delicate operation on which he assisted me. At one moment, I had doubts about being able to perform a procedure. He asked me to let him take over. I was going to refuse his request, but I saw him so focused on the patient. In his eyes was something that said ‘I will succeed.’ Never have I let such a young doctor take responsibility for a procedure, but I said yes, without thinking. And he impressed me. When he finished, he thanked me for the confidence I’d shown in him.”
“And did you have the opportunity to know the man in his private life?”
“I understand your question, in view of the suspicion about him. In general, I’m not interested in the young doctors’ private lives. Each one already has more than enough to deal with. But Cabrade fascinated me, and I must confess I observed him much more closely than the others. After a while, I had the impression that he’d built himself a character. I sensed in him a sort of flaw, without being able to explain it. Everything was too smooth—he operated like a prodigy, he was regularly praised to the heavens, he regularly went out with the most beautiful girls, he even took the time to participate in society parties. One day, in 1980, there was a complaint. A corpse had disappeared—a John Doe who was found in the Isère and brought to the morgue. I wouldn’t have paid it any more attention if it hadn’t been found four days later half buried in the woods. It was quickly identified, because it had a very large birthmark in the groin area. I was called as soon as it came back to the morgue. And what I saw took my breath away!”
“What did you see, Professor?” asked Fortin, in anticipation of what was to come.
“The corpse had been emptied with . . . surgical precision. All the internal organs had been removed, but cleanly, as if they’d been precut. The skin of the face had also been cut, leaving the muscles and tendons exposed.”
“Was there a legal investigation?”
“No, because there was no murder. The man who had suffered these outrages was already dead. But I made my own internal inquiries. For me, only an experienced surgeon who had access to the morgue could have carried out that dead man’s desecration. I summoned four people, including Cabrade. When I had him in my office, at first he remained very calm. I’d called them all as witnesses, not as suspects. When I grew insistent, the polish cracked. He made incoherent statements on the power of the doctor over the patient, on the superior knowledge he held, on the right of life and death he would be able to assume if he wished. His statements were staggering. When he regained his normal state of consciousness, and he realized what he’d said, he burst out laughing. It lasted fewer than two minutes, but I remember it like it was yesterday. And he went back to being the excellent Cabrade everyone knew.”
“What did you do?”
“I let him leave. I had no proof he perpetrated that act, even if I had the inward conviction. Then he distanced himself from me.”
“Did you talk about it with anyone around you?”
“I spoke about it with one of my colleagues, who chalked it up to fatigue. I still pursued my investigation by looking into his studies. It was the first time I had spied like that on a doctor, but his statements had put me very ill at ease. And I discovered that he’d been caught doing forbidden experiments on a cadaver when he was in his third year. It’s normally grounds for expulsion, but he’d been kept because of his potential and the excuses he’d presented.”
Henri Blavet interjected, “The two victims had their hearts surgically removed. So do you think he’d be capable of that?”
“Without any problem.”
“Another question, Professor. Do you know why he left?”
“After that business, Cabrade separated himself quite a lot from me, and I must admit I no longer sought out his company, aside from in the operating rooms, where his competence was becoming truly remarkable. He got married the following year, I believe. Over his last months at the hospital, he’d grown gloomy. Then his wife disappeared, and he botched a procedure well within his reach—his only failure! I’d put it down to emotion, like everyone else.”
“How did he react to his wife’s disappearance?”
“I can give you only my sense of it, because I didn’t discuss it personally with him. To me, he seemed more annoyed than worried. But he deceived his entourage. A few months later, he departed and left behind a letter.”
“Did you have access to it?”
“Yes. It wasn’t addressed to me, but they showed it to me since we’d worked together. It was short. In it he said he’d been affected by his wife’s disappearance and he was leaving the area to forget about that period in his life.”
“Surprising, to say the least!” commented Blavet.
“Yes. He left one night, after a successful operation, just one more. He’d said ‘see you tomorrow’ to his colleagues, and he never came back. All the staff were shocked.”
“Did you hear from him?”
“No, no one did. He must have left France. There were a lot of conversations for a few months, then life continued its course. It’s been almost thirty years since I stopped hearing about him, and given what you told me, I would have preferred to keep it that way.”
“May I ask you one last question, Professor?” asked the policeman.
“Please.”
Fortin took a wallet out of his backpack and removed two photos. He placed them side by side on Delépine’s desk while the owner looked on.
“One is a picture of Cabrade, which you must recognize, and one is a picture of someone called Sartenas. Sartenas is the man who killed the two girls; we have proof. The last victim’s heart was found at his home. As a specialist, can you tell me if Sartenas’s face could be Cabrade’s, reconstructed?”
The doctor didn’t hesitate for even a second. “It’s entirely possible. There’s no major alteration in the shape of the face. It would require clearer photo sets to do a thorough study, but the shapes of the faces allow me to answer affirmatively without hesitation.”
“Thank you, Professor. I’m going to ask the question, even though I know the answer: Do you have any idea where Cabrade could be hiding?”
“Alas, no idea, Lieutenant. I didn’t even know where he lived when he worked with me.”
The two men warmly thanked the old doctor, then went back down the hall.
Chapter 51: Hélène
Half an hour later, Hélène Guyancourt joined them. The woman in her fifties who stood before them must have been beautiful. She still had a certain charm, but the years and the stress had weighed on her, and she wore a mask of deep weariness. Her handshake, however, was vigorous.
“Hello, I’m Hélène Guyancourt.”
The two men introduced themselves in turn.
“Thank you for clearing your schedule so quickly, Madame Guyancourt. I imagine it’s particularly busy,” said Henri Blavet.
“Indeed, there’s no shortage of activity. But you can’t imagine the shock I felt when you said the name Cabrade. I didn’t think I’d ever hear about that person again. Will it bother you if we go outside and talk w
hile walking? It’ll do me some good and let me smoke a cigarette.”
They left the hospital and sought the protection of a few sickly trees that were trying to give visitors a little shade.
“So Cabrade is back?” asked the nurse.
“According to our investigation and the discussion we just had with Professor Delépine, there’s a strong chance that’s the case.”
“But he disappeared thirty years ago. How did you find him?”
Lieutenant Fortin took the time to explain to Hélène Guyancourt the allegations against Cabrade. The woman’s face sank over the course of the policeman’s explanations. When he’d finished, he added, “We’re looking to gather as much information as we can on him. André Palmain told us you had known him. Do you think you’ll be able to offer some clues that would help us locate him, or predict his future movements?”
Hélène Guyancourt took a long drag on her cigarette, let it out, and crushed the butt with her heel. She crouched down to collect it, looked at it as if she were looking for a source of inspiration, and threw it in a transparent plastic garbage bag.
“I don’t know if what I’m going to tell you will let you get your hands on him, but you’re dealing with a perverse and dangerous individual.”
“Anything you’ll be able to tell us will be welcome.”
“Of course. I’m just going to tell you a rather pathetic story. It takes place in 1980. I was twenty-three, and I was already working as a nurse at the hospital. I’d just gotten my degree, and I was discovering this world with passion. Being a nurse had always been my vocation—my Saint Bernard side, probably. I was pretty quickly brought in to work on the same team as Dominique Cabrade. And like all the girls on the team, and even in the other departments, too, I fell under his charm. A pretty face, notoriety despite his young age, and a natural capacity for seduction. I started dreaming about him, very sentimentally despite the reality of the suffering I encountered daily. I didn’t miss an opportunity to get closer to him, to try and attract his attention, to exchange a sentence or two. A real flirt, you know?”
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