Hysteria: An Alexander Gregory Thriller (The Alexander Gregory Thrillers Book 2)

by LJ Ross

  Gregory glanced at himself in one of the mirrored panels on the wall and was forced to admit that Durand was probably right.

  “You’re no oil painting yourself,” he replied.

  Durand patted his rounded belly.

  “I try, mon ami, I try,” he said, and gave the younger man a more thorough inspection before letting out a bawdy laugh. “Paris was good to you last night, eh?”

  Gregory declined to answer, and turned his attention back to their surroundings instead. The hotel was a boutique sort of place; an old, classy establishment that had received an injection of funds sufficient to attract bright young things who liked Instagram-able backdrops with plenty of gilt and marble. The staff wore immaculate emerald green uniforms complete with tiny, gold-embroidered caps perched atop their heads and, perhaps most impressive of all, they wore them with a smile.

  “Fancy place,” he said.

  Durand seemed unfazed, leading Gregory to assume that, once you’d seen one impressive feat of Parisian architecture, you’d probably seen them all.

  “The others haven’t arrived yet, but we can start making our way upstairs to see the room where it happened,” he said, raising a hand to summon one of his underlings, who trotted across the foyer. The young man nodded vigorously at Durand’s instruction to remain downstairs and direct any new arrivals up to the third floor.

  “He seems eager to please,” Gregory remarked, once they were inside the lift.

  Durand let out a grunt.

  “His father works for the Ministry of the Interior,” he said, and left it at that.

  Gregory decided he liked the surly, red-faced man, who carried a general air of cigar smoke and cynicism so potent, it put the average Brit to shame.

  The doors swished open and they stepped out into a plush corridor with oak panelling and cream-painted walls, accented by a series of fleur-de-lis murals. They had come to the Hôtel Violette to attend a ‘reconstitution’, which was a blow-by-blow reconstruction of the crime. In French law, it was a crucial part of the investigation, organised by the juge and intended to stress-test the facts. However, it was normally arranged once the police had a suspect in mind, and was usually attended by them and the victim—or the victim’s family—which had the potential to be an emotional melting pot.

  “The reconstitution is crucial to uncovering the truth,” Durand said, as if he’d read Gregory’s mind. “Normally, it occurs much later in the investigation.”

  Gregory remained circumspect. It was one thing to think that a system was unusual, it was another to say as much.

  “You brought the reconstruction forward this time—may I ask why?”

  Durand pulled a face and began walking along the corridor.

  “Not me, mon ami. The powers above,” he muttered. “The Commissaire has heard from the Leroux family, the Mayor, and everyone else who would rather not start a panic this week. Did you see the news? The press have already found out about Camille, and they’re calling her attacker ‘Le Boucher de Beauté’.”

  “The…Butcher of Beauty?”

  Durand gave a short nod.

  “The fashion industry is a big part of our culture here—and big business, too. There are some who welcome publicity at any cost, while others seek to suppress horror stories like these. There is politics at play, as much as policing. Juge Bernard and Procureur Segal are of the view that, since the girl can’t speak and no family have come forward to report her missing, it’s best to bring forward the reconstruction and see if anything can be learned from it. That’s the official reason, in any case.”

  Gregory thought of all the well-heeled international students who travelled to Paris to study or work, all the celebrities who patronised the hotels and restaurants…yes, he could see why any or all of those businesses wouldn’t want to frighten them away.

  And yet, a woman had suffered a brutal attack, and had no family to support her—even if she wanted to speak.

  “Will Camille be joining us at the reconstruction?” he asked.

  “No, she’s still too unwell to travel,” Durand replied.

  Gregory was relieved to hear it; he was a proponent of ‘flooding’ treatment in cases of mild phobias, but he doubted anything would be gained by exposing an already traumatised individual to the scene, especially so soon after the event.

  “She has her appointment with Doctor Gonzalez this morning,” Durand continued. “You can meet with her later this afternoon, if you wish.”

  They rounded a corner and spotted another police officer guarding the room where Camille had been staying.

  “Do you think there’s much to be gained from a reconstruction, if you have no suspect?”

  Durand glanced across at him, then away again.

  “I do the bidding of my superiors,” he muttered, leaving Gregory to make of that whatever he liked. “Did you read the file? Was there anything you didn’t understand?”

  The paperwork had, naturally, been written entirely in French. As it happened, Gregory spoke the language fluently thanks to some time spent at an international school in Geneva, but he found that conversations flowed more freely between his foreign counterparts when they thought their company couldn’t understand what was being said.

  “I managed,” he said, cagily.

  Durand nodded, and exchanged a few words with the police guard before pointing to the rooms adjoining Number 30.

  “The witnesses were in numbers 29, 31 and 35, which is on the other side of the corridor. We asked them to wait inside the rooms they were occupying on the night of the incident, so we’ll collect them in a moment.”

  Gregory thought of the sequence of events, according to what they knew so far.

  “The women resident on either side of Camille were both models employed by Leroux. Is that correct?”

  Durand nodded, and spoke in an undertone.

  “Like Camille, they were both on the roster to appear at a show on the day of the incident,” he said. “In Number 29, we had Juliette Deschamps. She’s twenty-two, and a redhead,” he added, with a knowing look that entirely missed its mark.

  “And in Number 31?”

  “Madeleine Paquet, who is twenty-six, and blonde,” Durand felt compelled to tell him. “Both women say they’ve only known Camille for ten days, after being introduced to one another at a party thrown by Leroux.”

  Gregory nodded.

  “There wasn’t much in their statements concerning their relationship with Camille, or any opinions about her character,” he remarked. “Do you think they didn’t get on?”

  “Who can tell?” Durand said. “They may not have known her very well and, in fashion, it’s a cut-throat world…no pun intended. It’s possible they saw one another as professional rivals.”

  “Are both women resident in Paris?”

  Durand nodded.

  “Both have apartments in the city.”

  “Why stay at the hotel, then?”

  “It was at the behest of Leroux,” Durand replied. “They wanted everybody in one place, and it’s near the venue where the show was to be held, in the Jardin des Tuileries.”

  Gregory nodded, wandering to the other end of the corridor to get the lay of the land, as well as to check for any other access points.

  “Juliette says she heard a loud crash followed by a scream which woke her up, and she ran outside into the corridor to see what it was,” Durand continued. “There, she found Madeleine already outside, banging on the door to Camille’s room. She says she joined her and, shortly afterwards, an English man and his wife came from Number 35 to help.”

  “Tom and Diane Fiddeman?”

  Durand nodded.

  “Does Madeleine’s account of the night’s events match Juliette’s?”

  Durand pulled another one of his expressive faces and made the ‘so-so’ motion with his hand.

  “According to Mlle Paquet, she came out of her room at the same time as Mlle Deschamps, rather than being the first to respond,” he said. “
A minor inconsistency, but…”

  “Worth bearing in mind?”

  “Exactement. As for the English couple, they are staying in Paris for a few days to celebrate a wedding anniversary. The man says he came from his room at around quarter past three in the morning, to find Juliette and Madeleine already in the corridor calling out to Camille and banging on the door.”

  Gregory recalled seeing a list of ten female and four male models working for Maison Leroux, all of whom were staying at the hotel on the night of the incident, presumably at the expense of their employer.

  “Do you have statements from all the models in the hotel?” he wondered, not having seen a full complement. “Were any of them staying on this corridor?”

  “The others had rooms on the first floor,” Durand explained. “None recalled seeing or hearing anything. The other rooms on this floor were occupied by tourists, some of whom were not in the hotel at the time, others remained asleep until the arrival of the ambulance and the police. We gave them permission to leave, and we have their details if necessary.”

  Before Gregory could press him further, they spotted the juge and procureur rounding the corner, with the night manager Alain Nehmé in tow.

  “Almost time to begin,” Mathis declared, and raised a fist to knock on the first door.

  CHAPTER 6

  For the second time in the space of twenty-four hours, Alexander Gregory found himself staring into the face of an angel—one who happened to moonlight as a jazz singer when she wasn’t showcasing high-end clothing for couture fashion houses.

  “Margot?” he blurted out.

  “Madeleine,” she corrected him, with a meaningful glance towards the stocky inspector, who was watching their exchange with avid interest.

  It didn’t take long for Alex to join the dots, but it made for a very awkward picture all the same. The odds were incredibly long that, of all the people in Paris, a material witness to a crime and the police profiler should happen to meet one another. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one to note the coincidence, because he sensed growing suspicion from Madeleine who was, no doubt, wondering how he had come to be there.

  He wanted to remove that seed of doubt, but Gregory’s first duty was to confess the nature of their relationship to the police and thereby remove any suggestion of bias in his dealings with their investigation. However, before he had a chance to explain, they were joined by the other parties to the reconstruction.

  “Mlle Paquet?”

  Procureur Segal wasted no time introducing himself, which he did with a flourish before moving on to the next young woman he felt worthy of his immediate attention.

  Juliette Deschamps wore a bored expression and a pair of skin-tight, leather trousers. Her hair was an eye-catching shade of siren red and fell in artful ringlets around her petulant face, which brightened beneath the attention of the city’s senior prosecutor.

  Their tête-á-tête was interrupted by Juge Bernard’s deep baritone.

  “Thank you all for joining us at the reconstruction today,” he said, in excellent English. “I believe my colleagues at the Brigade Criminelle have already briefed you, but the purpose of today is to ensure we understand fully what occurred in the small hours of Monday morning. A young woman’s life is forever changed, and she will thank us for our efforts to uncover whoever took it upon themselves to cause her harm.”

  Like the procureur, Bernard had dressed for the occasion and was wearing another natty suit together with a crisp white shirt and tie that looked like a Hermès original. Both men struck Gregory as being ready for any conceivable situation, whether it be an impromptu briefing at Police Headquarters, or a press conference outside the Arc de Triomphe, and were more like politicians than law enforcers.

  “Please wear protective shoe coverings before entering the crime scene—but I’d like to reassure you that the forensic team have finished their work and we’ve been cleared to enter. Once inside, we’re going to step through what we know to have happened, according to the statements of those present here,” Bernard said. “It may be that one of you remembers something new or wishes to amend what you have already told us. If that’s the case, we urge you to speak up as soon as possible.”

  He nodded to Durand, who moved forward to open the door to Room 30. When people began to file inside, Gregory felt a slight pressure on his arm, holding him back.

  “Who are you?” Madeleine whispered. “Why are you here?”

  Gregory looked at her for a long moment, tracing the lines of her face and committing it to memory.

  “I’m a criminal profiler,” he replied softly. “I help the police to understand the kind of mind that commits crimes like these, so they can focus their investigation and narrow their pool of suspects. Back in England, I work with the most violent and disturbed criminals who’ve been detained by the courts.”

  Most nights, I can’t sleep. Their stories haunt me, just like my mother, he almost said.

  Madeleine snatched her hand away, and something twisted in his gut, which he steadfastly ignored. He told himself that he welcomed the rejection, because it would save him the trouble later on.

  Here, in the cold light of day, she needed to understand the kind of man he was—and not just because they were part of the same police investigation and should keep a professional distance. Treating warped minds and trying to ease their torment was not a task for the faint-hearted—nor was the work of a profiler, who carried the details of hundreds of violent cases in the recesses of his mind. They took up every inch of emotional space, filling the gaping holes that might otherwise force him to seek answers to unanswered questions about his own psyche—or a person to share them with.

  It was a solitary occupation and the sooner she understood that, the better.

  “We’d better go inside,” he said, and stepped back to allow her to precede him.

  * * *

  The interior of Room 30 still bore the shadows of Camille Duquette’s attack.

  The forensic team had removed many of its physical trappings, including the bedspread and the large Persian rug where she’d been found, and there was a lingering smell of chemicals as they stepped over the threshold. While Procureur Segal launched into a spiel about confidentiality and other legislative matters that were probably very important, Gregory focused on the details of the room.

  It was a light, rectangular space, decorated in shades of cream, gold and pale duck egg blue. Small mirrored panels had been fitted to the walls with a nod to the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, which might have been tacky anywhere else in the world, but seemed entirely in keeping with the character of the hotel. His eye caught Madeleine’s in one of those panels but she looked away, giving her full attention to the prosecutor. Gregory continued to study the room, which was dominated by a large canopied bed on the interior wall, facing two tall sash windows framed by heavy silk curtains. An open doorway led to a white marble bathroom, whilst another doorway had been cut into the wall beside it and decorated to match the panelling. Presumably, it led to Juliette’s room next door, for there was a similar interconnecting doorway on the opposite wall leading off to Madeleine’s room. There was the usual assortment of occasional furniture, and a set of slim double doors led onto a veranda, which held a bistro table and two chairs. It had an iron railing running along three sides to prevent accidental falls, but no ladders or exterior stairs that would make for an easy access point.

  Gregory peeled away from the group and walked over to one of the windows. Outside, there was a grassy courtyard that served as an overflow seating area for the hotel’s restaurant. It was accessible from the ground floor and through an elegant archway via the road, where passers-by could stop into the garden café tucked away from the hustle and bustle. Directly opposite Camille’s room on the other side of the courtyard was the exterior wall of a large office building. During the day, with the sunlight bouncing off its windows, it was impossible to see beyond the glass. He imagined the same would be tru
e if he were standing in the office building looking back across to the room where they now stood.

  “In a moment, we will ask you to return to your rooms and await the sound of a simulated crash…”

  Gregory dimly heard Segal’s voice going over the running order of the reconstruction, and made a conscious effort to block it out. In his mind’s eye, he pictured the crime scene photographs and imagined how Camille’s room might have looked silhouetted against the night sky, its lights burning like a beacon.

  “Were the curtains closed when the police team arrived?” he asked, of nobody in particular.

  Conversation stalled at the untimely interruption.

  “Pardon?” Segal snapped.

  “I asked whether the curtains were open or closed when you found her,” Gregory repeated.

  Segal was not a man accustomed to interruptions.

  “Closed,” he said.

  When nothing more was forthcoming, Segal directed the witnesses back to their respective rooms and told them to await a simulated crash, following which they should go through the motions of what they did on Monday night. It seemed a farcical experiment, in Gregory’s view; little more than a box-ticking exercise so the Commissaire would be able to say that progress was being made—but at least it enabled him to see the layout of the crime scene and to meet some of the key players in the drama. With one obvious exception, they were all exactly as he’d imagined them to be.

  Durand waited until the witnesses left, and then picked up the conversation.

  “Why did you want to know about the curtains?” he asked. “Why do they matter?”

  “A couple of reasons,” Gregory replied. “The first is that, if the attacker planned a long, ritualistic kill, they’d have been far more likely to close the curtains to ensure absolute privacy and reduce the chances of being seen. The second is that, if the attacker wanted to plan their approach or spy on Camille ahead of the attack, it would be easier to do that if her room was lit up against a dark sky. It would be like watching a movie.”

  “The curtains were closed when we found her,” Segal repeated, with a touch of excitement. “That confirms our original theory, that the intention was to kill Camille. Perhaps her attacker was interrupted.”