“You say this fork could have caused the wounds on the chin and sternum?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“And that would also explain the marks on the neck? Berger talked about a large collar …”
“Definitely,” Adams replied. “The strap had to be very tight.” He took a sip of coffee, made a face, and returned his attention to the drawing. “You see, for the device to work, the victim’s hands had to be tied behind his back, or he’d be able to remove it. Typically, the victim would be suspended from the ceiling to prevent stretching out. Then, whenever the head sagged from fatigue, the four iron points would puncture the chin and pierce the breastbone. Besides causing terrible pain, the points made it impossible to move the head or speak clearly.”
Victor’s expression darkened. He’d seen plenty of horrors, but this still made him shiver.
“Pure sadism,” he said.
“Maybe, but also very effective. The fork was used to extract confessions or prevent those who’d confessed from saying anything else, and also to make subjects abjure.”
“Abjure?”
“To renounce their religion. The fork was widely used during the Inquisition to make heretics abandon their faith. The Latin word abiuro, which means I abjure, was engraved on the metal. You can imagine the effect. After days without sleep, in horrendous pain, many victims were ready to say anything.”
Victor’s mind had strayed far away, to another world. He hoped with all his heart that the investigation wouldn’t hinge, once again, on a question of religion.
“But to pierce the neck and throat, the killer would need something besides the fork, right?”
“Correct. Another mechanism, or else a modification to the original device.”
“Where does one get an item like this, Doug? Are there any for sale?”
“I’d start by checking out shops that specialize in armour and medieval items. I know there are clubs where people get together for role-playing. They might be able to give you some leads. You can also try collectors of medieval objects. There may be an online resale market, an eBay type of thing.”
The detective sergeant scribbled in his notebook. He would have Loïc follow up on these suggestions.
“There’s another possibility,” Adams added.
“What’s that?”
“A skilled craftsman could make a fork from scratch.”
The coffee dregs had dried out in their cups by the time Victor had exhausted his supply of questions. After paying the bill, he thanked Adams, shaking his hand warmly before the two parted on the sidewalk.
Finding his car windows covered with frost, he took out the scraper. Then he sat behind the wheel and tossed the envelope that Adams had given him onto the passenger seat. The motor coughed, and the detective sergeant dialed the heater up to max.
“About time you got back. I was cold as hell …”
The surprise was absolute: Victor’s blood froze and his ass jumped from the car seat.
“Ahhhh!”
Jacinthe had materialized in the back seat. Her expression was blank.
“What were you doing with Doug Adams?”
“Are you out of your damn mind? You could’ve given me a heart attack!”
“What were you doing with Adams?” Taillon asked again, her voice unyielding.
Placing a hand on his chest, Victor took a few seconds to catch his breath. In an ill-tempered mumble, he answered that they got together for a cup of coffee every so often now that Adams was retired …
“Do not fuck with me!”
The two partners traded glares, each trying to gauge the other’s reaction. For an instant, they were like two wild animals, poised to attack.
“What’ll I find if I look through that envelope? Cute little butterfly stickers, or the autopsy report you handed over to Adams when you met him in Chinatown?” Victor’s eyes widened. “Or is it the forensics report? Don’t treat me like an idiot, Lessard!”
The detective sergeant finally lowered his gaze and sighed. “The murder weapon may be a collar mounted with iron points placed below the chin and over the breastbone,” he grumbled. “It’s called a heretic’s fork.”
Jacinthe roused herself from the back seat, got out of the car, then re-entered on the passenger side. Victor gave her a summary of his conversation with Adams.
“So the murderer wanted to get confessions from the victims before killing them?” Jacinthe asked, after listening attentively to her partner’s monologue.
“Get confessions, extract information … put it any way you like.”
Their breath formed wisps of vapour in the cold air as they spoke.
“Pfff. Sounds awfully complicated. Make me listen to Lionel Ritchie for ten minutes and I’ll do anything to make it stop!”
Ignoring the joke, Victor finished updating Jacinthe on what he’d learned.
“Okay, fine,” she said, “but we already know the wounds on the chin and sternum weren’t fatal. And you say the victims were usually suspended from the ceiling? We can have forensics double check, but they’d have found indications if one of the victims had been strung up. In any case, the ceiling wasn’t high enough in the cold room where Lawson died.”
“I know.” Victor shrugged. “Look,” he said irritably, “it’s only a starting point …”
The lines on Jacinthe’s brow began to wiggle. Something was on her mind.
“What?” he asked.
“I’ve just had an idea. You may think it’s a bit much, but I’m wondering if we’ve been too quick to rule out Lortie as a suspect.”
“Why?”
“This fork of yours,” Taillon said, pursuing her train of thought. “If it keeps the victim awake for days, that opens up another possibility. Maybe Lawson’s death was preprogrammed. Burgers said he was dehydrated. What if Lortie put the gizmo around the lawyer’s neck just before killing himself?”
“So Lawson would have been trapped for several days until a second mechanism was triggered, killing him?”
“Exactly. It would have been like a countdown.”
“A timer, you mean … Yeah, that could work, in theory.” Victor seemed unconvinced. “But why go to all the trouble? I’d understand if Lortie wanted to be on the other side of town at the moment Harper died, giving him an alibi. But the guy jumped off a building. It makes no sense …”
Jacinthe waved a hand. “It was just a thought. Okay, get your ass out of there. I’m driving.”
“How did you follow me?”
“By car.”
The detective sergeant looked at her, puzzled. “You’re leaving it here?”
“I’m having it towed,” she growled. “Don’t ask!”
A smirk appeared on Victor’s lips as he got out of the driver’s seat. “Get into a little fender-bender, Jacinthe?”
As she slid into the driver’s seat, she gave him a murderous look.
“Okay, okay, forget it,” he said, ducking his head submissively.
He barely had time to close the passenger door before she floored the accelerator.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Versailles. I spoke to Gilles while your lordship was having his coffee break. André Lortie’s psychiatric file just came in. It may give us a link with the two victims.”
“Great.” The detective sergeant ran his hand over several days’ growth on his chin. “By the way, did the Gnome find Bennett?”
Jacinthe frowned. She was driving cowboy-style, one hand on the wheel at twelve o’clock, her arm fully extended, the seatback fully reclined.
“Don’t know. Probably not, or he’d have told me.”
Victor buckled his seat belt, watching the building facades fly by. He was starting to feel a little queasy. “About Adams …” he began, and hesitated. “I’d appreciate it if we could keep that between us.”
“You would? Okay. Here’s the deal. I’d appreciate it if you kept me in the loop next time. Either we’re partners or we’re not.”
Victor nodded emphatically. He was ready to promise whatever she wanted in return for her discretion. “You have my word. We’re partners.”
“In that case,” Jacinthe said coolly, “you can tell me what you got up to in Chinatown after giving the envelope to Adams.”
Victor lost his temper instantly. “Fuck off! That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, really?” she asked mockingly. “For a guy who just said we’re partners, you sure are tight lipped.”
“Give it a rest, Taillon,” he said, pointing an angry finger in her direction. “You want to know what I was doing? Smoking opium. Excellent shit, by the way. I’ll bring you along next time. We can get wasted together, like good partners do.”
Taillon couldn’t hold back her mirth. “You’re a barrel of laughs, big guy. But don’t worry, Auntie Jacinthe will figure out what you were up to.”
Slumped in his seat, Victor kept his mouth firmly shut. He opened it only once, to yell at Taillon to slow down before she rammed the car ahead of them.
37
FOR JUDITH, WITH LOVE AND SQUALOR
In the bathroom of his apartment, Will Bennett looked at himself in the mirror.
A naked worm. His thoughts were jostling each other, oscillating between lucidity and confusion. The older one gets, he’d read somewhere, the more forgiving one becomes of one’s appearance. A bitter smile contorted his face.
Banal insights like that, aimed at reassuring ordinary people, made him want to puke his guts out. He had never reconciled himself to aging, never tolerated the sight of his wilting body. He couldn’t stand being called handsome “for a man in his fifties,” being told by wizened hags in their forties that he looked ten years younger than his age. He detested his wrinkles, his grey hair, his softening muscles and dimming complexion, the coarse strands he had to remove more and more often from his nose and ears.
Cosmetic surgery had helped, more or less, to slow time’s ravages, but the cruel years had caught up to him at last. He couldn’t bear the fact that women in their twenties weren’t noticing him anymore. His eye had become a radar screen tuned to their wavelength, a deforming prism through which he filtered reality. The street was his battlefield. He admired the breasts bouncing in their snug camisoles, the buttocks undulating beneath their skirts; he was moved to ecstasy by this one’s saliva-moistened lips, shining like a vulva, or that one’s nipples, erect in the chilly air, dazzling his eyes.
Little bitches.
Bennett never overlooked a single one. He wanted to fuck them all. He wanted to see them die. In his dreams he cut them into pieces and re-created a perfect body from the fragments.
Judith had liberated the animal. She had encouraged him to become his truest self, surrendering to his urges. At first, he had thought things were better this way. He’d felt powerful, godlike, freed from the cloying petty morality of his Judeo-Christian upbringing. Then, little by little, he had lost his footing. He had slid out of control. The prostitutes no longer sufficed. He’d had to go ever further to feed the beast.
Judith was the only woman he had ever loved. He grieved for her.
Will Bennett looked away from the mirror.
The reflection of the mollusc dangling between his legs sickened him. He had masturbated one last time an hour ago, giving depraved instructions via webcam to a Ukrainian girl who’d clearly been down that road before.
Bennett laughed out loud.
Getting older and more forgiving … what bullshit.
He’d never looked his age as much as he did right now.
Suddenly he heard yelling. The apartment door shook under repeated powerful blows, and then there was an immense crash of wood splitting. Daman’s men had found the whore in the bathtub yesterday, and now they were coming for him. They would show no mercy.
Trying to summon the courage to make an end of it before they reached him, Bennett pressed the cold knife blade against his carotid artery, holding his breath. Adrenalin rushed into his veins.
One motion and it would all be over.
The man in the mirror finally appeared to him as he really was: an evil being, abject and perverted. A cry rose up in his throat, resonating against his vocal cords. The cry of a dying animal.
This was the end. It had to be. His fingers tightened around the handle.
At that moment, police officers armed with pistols burst into the room, shouting orders he could no longer hear.
38
REVOLVING DOOR SYNDROME
Victor opened the discoloured file folder and took a yellowed sheet off the top of the pile. Contemplating the document, lost in his memories, he couldn’t help smiling: carbon paper had disappeared from use a long time ago.
Before starting to read, he took a sip of water.
The first time André Lortie had come under psychiatric care was in the late 1960s, following an incident at Montreal’s Old Port. Victor noticed that, at the time, the hospital hadn’t yet borne the name of Louis-H. Lafontaine.
Montreal
Saint-Jean-de-Dieu Hospital
February 3, 1969
Male patient was brought in at 11:50 a.m. by Montreal Police Constables Tremblay and O’Connor. The individual had no identification when arrested for vagrancy and disorderly conduct. He says his name is André Lortie and he is 31 years old. According to the officers, he has no known address.
Constable O’Connor states that Mr. Lortie was apprehended while urinating on the wall of a restaurant on Saint-Paul Street. According to the officer, Lortie seemed disoriented and smelled of alcohol. Lortie told the officers he had been beaten, mistreated, and injected with drugs. Officer Tremblay notes that Lortie could not specify where the mistreatment had occurred; nor could he name his assailant(s). He also notes that Lortie shows no physical signs of violence.
On examination, I found no marks or injuries. Generally speaking, the patient is in good health. He has an appendectomy scar that, judging from its appearance, dates back to his teens. Patient states that he consumes between six and twelve large bottles of beer per day.
The physician then proceeded to an analysis of Lortie’s psychiatric condition. Victor skipped the technical part and went straight to the conclusions:
To sum up, my psychiatric examination leads me to believe the patient is in a manic phase, and that he suffers from manic-depressive psychosis. I am keeping him under observation for 90 days. I will withhold a definitive diagnosis until the end of that period. I have prescribed lithium and Haldol for the duration. Depending on the course of the illness, the patient may be a candidate for electroconvulsive therapy.
Dr. Robert Thériault
Psychiatrist
#1215
(Dictated but not read)
Transcribed by: PK
July 3, 1969
Patient brought in by police officers during the night. No fixed address. Found walking naked through Parc Maisonneuve, disturbing other citizens. Had ceased taking his medication. Heavy alcohol consumption. Patient estimates that he drinks one 40 oz. bottle of De Kuyper per day. I have increased the dosage of Haldol. Electroshock treatments are scheduled for this morning and tomorrow. Patient is in a manic phase. Says CIA killers are after him.
July 8, 1969
Patient still in manic phase. Symptoms of alcoholic withdrawal. Now claims he detonated bombs for the FLQ. Electroshock treatments calm him. Additional treatment scheduled for tomorrow morning.
July 31, 1969
Patient decompensating. Depressed but lucid. No delusions. I have determined an effective dosage for his medication. Patient often crosses himself before taking pills.
Looking over the doctor’s handwritten notes in the margins of the typed document, Victor saw that during André Lortie’s first stay at the institution, the psychiatrist had tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to locate a family member, friend, or acquaintance.
Lortie seemed to have no past.
After being discharged in mid-November, Lortie hadn’t be
en readmitted during 1969. Which didn’t mean he hadn’t been interned at another mental institution, such as the Pinel Institute or the Douglas Hospital.
After getting out of hospital, people like Lortie often ended up in rundown apartments or on the streets. For the vast majority, their discharge would be followed by numerous readmissions to psychiatric institutions, a phenomenon that Victor’s former partner Ted Rutherford called “revolving door syndrome.”
The detective sergeant had seen the phenomenon firsthand. During his days as a beat cop, he had worked in the poorest and most unsavoury areas of downtown Montreal. The street was a teeming jungle in which no one could be trusted, where yesterday’s gentle, likeable vagrant was transformed overnight into an animal who would rush at you, eyes bulging, in the grip of madness.
A distant memory came to the surface: the image of a frozen body.
Frank.
Victor shook his head to chase the vision away.
Lortie’s case didn’t surprise him; he’d seen many others. But the portrait drawn by Dr. Thériault still touched him. The detective sergeant felt great empathy when he thought about the misery this man had been forced to endure.
The next entry represented a jump of nearly three years in Lortie’s psychiatric history:
March 13, 1972
Patient brought in by police. Arrested in a drunken condition near the offices of the Liberal Party. Currently lives in a rooming house in the Hochelaga district. Was found in a psychotic state. Wanted to speak to Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa about his participation in the kidnapping of James Richard Cross and the murder of Pierre Laporte. Resumption of medication. Electroshock treatments.
Never Forget Page 17