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

by LJ Ross

  Durand craned his neck to look at him, all traces of humour gone.

  “Juliette Deschamps was found murdered this morning, as I’m sure you’ve already heard, since it was one of your assistants who discovered her body,” he said. “This is no time for levity, monsieur.”

  Leon took his time coming down a suspended spiral glass staircase, his bare feet making little sound as he crossed the hardwood floor to greet them both properly.

  “I apologise, Inspector,” he said, with every appearance of sincerity. “It came as a shock to all of us, but we each have our own ways of dealing with these things. Isn’t that so, Doctor?”

  Gregory ignored that.

  “Is this a convenient time?” he said.

  Leon shrugged, which caused the chains around his neck to clink together in a clash of precious metal.

  “My day is already ruined,” he said, before strutting off in the direction of a large curved seating area at the other end of the cavernous space. “Make yourselves at home.”

  Durand smiled grimly.

  “I think this one is going to be interesting,” he muttered.

  Gregory caught the light of battle in the inspector’s eyes and would have felt sorry for the man who called himself Leon, had he not remembered the plight of a young woman with a ruined face, and another who lay on a cold slab at the city mortuary.

  “I think you may be right,” he said, and gestured for him to go ahead.

  * * *

  The first inclination that their cosy fireside chat would not be as cosy as he had first imagined struck Leon shortly after Inspector Durand began reading him his rights.

  “What is this? I thought you needed to ask some simple follow-up questions?”

  Durand gave him a bland smile.

  “I’m afraid some new evidence has come to light, Monsieur Boucher. Would you like to instruct a lawyer to be present while we ask you these questions? Of course, if that were the case, we would need to take you down to the police station so that all the proper procedures are observed…there is a lot of press on the streets today, ahead of the march this afternoon. I imagine they would be quite interested to hear the scoop about a second young woman having been attacked in such a short space of time, particularly as they have both been photographed by you.”

  “What? I’ve photographed countless women—"

  “Naturally, we will do whatever you prefer.”

  Leon gave the little police inspector a fulminating glare and flipped his fringe off his forehead.

  “I don’t need a lawyer,” he said.

  “D’accord,” Durand replied, and took his time drawing out a notepad and pencil while the photographer grew hot under his fashionably low collar.

  Raoul bustled over with a silver tray piled high with cups of kombucha and flapjacks made entirely of healthy ingredients—thereby robbing them of their essential raison d’être, as far as Gregory was concerned—but promptly bustled off again looking tearful after a few unkind words from the subject of their present inquiry.

  “He’s beginning to bore me,” Leon said, leaning back against the plump cushions with an air of supreme arrogance.

  Gregory watched him with interest, studying his gestures and mannerisms as if he were a specimen, taking mental notes for future cases. Sufferers of narcissistic personality disorder always made fascinating subjects, and Leon had certainly displayed several of the key attributes associated with that condition: an exaggerated sense of self-importance; a clear sense of entitlement, requiring excessive admiration from others; and a preoccupation with fantasies about brilliance or power—not to mention a total inability to recognise the feelings of others.

  “Let’s make this quick,” Leon said sharply. “There are more important things I could be doing.”

  “More important than assisting a murder investigation?” Gregory said mildly.

  Leon folded his arms across his chest.

  “Why are you here, anyway? You’re not with the police.”

  “No, but he’s our consultant, and the Commissaire herself has given permission for Doctor Gregory to attend,” Durand said. “Now, let’s turn to the matters in hand.”

  He glanced down at his notebook, purely for show, then fixed Leon Boucher with one of his best smiles.

  “When was the first time you met Wendy Li?”

  The blood drained from the other man’s face, but he rallied as quickly as he could.

  “I—I don’t know anybody called Wendy Li.”

  Durand heaved a sigh.

  “Leon, we’ve already spoken to Wendy. She told us everything.”

  Gregory glanced at the inspector from the corner of his eye but said nothing.

  “That’s impossible,” Leon said, swallowing hard.

  “How so? Madame Li was perfectly happy to talk—”

  Leon laughed at that.

  “Wendy would never talk to the po—”

  He snapped his mouth shut, but not before the damage had been done.

  “It always surprises me how well that little trick works,” Durand said, conversationally. “Now that we understand one another, Leon, let’s not beat around the bush anymore. You are the one who referred Camille Duquette to Wendy Li, where she was able to procure certain forged identity documents. Is that correct?”

  “I—I think I want a lawyer,” Leon said, swallowing hard as he looked around the designer duplex and imagined it all crashing around his ears.

  “That’s your right,” Durand said, amiably. “Unfortunately, I will need to refer the matter to my superiors—who are likely to recommend that you’re arrested and brought in for formal questioning at the station. I’ll just make that call, while you instruct your lawyer—”

  Leon swore viciously, then held up a hand.

  “Wait—alright, look,” he said, sounding considerably less confident than before. “It isn’t what you might think.”

  “And what am I thinking, Leon?” Durand enquired, in a deceptively placid tone. “Shall I tell you? I think you knowingly lied to the police, on more than one occasion, when asked directly whether you knew any other pertinent facts relating to Camille Duquette’s attack—and lied again when you said you knew nothing about her identity. Do you know what the penalty is for deceiving a police officer in the course of his duties?”

  Leon was sweating hard.

  “I didn’t lie when I said I know nothing about her identity—I still don’t…”

  Durand laughed.

  “Come on, Leon. You don’t expect us to believe that?”

  “It’s true!” he insisted. “When she came to me for the test shoot, after Gabrielle discovered her, she introduced herself as Camille Duquette. I never thought anything of it…but, later…she told me she needed to leave. I said the shoot wasn’t over, but she was adamant.”

  He relaxed a bit, getting into the swing of his story, and Gregory silently ticked ‘enjoys having the attention of an audience’ off the list.

  “Naturally, I told her that, if she left then, she could consider her career over before it had even begun. She didn’t like that,” he said, lifting a cup of kombucha to his lips. “She said she probably couldn’t take the job, anyway, and I asked her why. She said she didn’t have the right paperwork, or even a bank account, so there was no point in continuing.”

  He set the cup back on the tray with a shaky hand, and then clasped his fingers together.

  “I know what that feels like,” he admitted. “To fall between the cracks, to have nothing to my name. Years ago, I was refused refugee status despite living through hell, seeing horrors you could not imagine. I dreamed of a beautiful world, so I made my own way out and came to the world’s most beautiful city.”

  Gregory’s eyes strayed to the fire-damaged skin on the man’s neck and wondered again how he had come by it.

  “The people who helped me through Germany, they told me about a woman called Wendy Li. They said she was the best, but she charged top dollar. I had nothing—no money,
no connections…but I could draw a scene with my eyes closed. I went to her and offered to work in exchange for new papers. I ended up staying for two years.”

  “And you recommended her to Camille?”

  Leon nodded.

  “She seemed so desperate. I recognised something in her,” he said, rubbing his hands back and forth in a nervous motion. “I felt sorry for her, I suppose.”

  No, Gregory thought. You don’t feel sorry for anyone.

  It was far more likely he’d come to some kind of financial arrangement with Camille, in exchange for the introduction.

  “Did she tell you anything about her previous identity?” he asked.

  “No more lies, Leon,” Durand warned. “You’re in it up to your neck, as it is.”

  At the mention of it, the photographer rubbed a hand over the mottled skin at his neck, and nodded.

  “It’s no lie,” he repeated. “She never told me her real name, and I never asked. I assumed she wanted to forget her ‘old’ self, just as I wanted to forget mine.”

  “And who was he?” Gregory murmured.

  Leon thought of the skinny, bow-legged boy he’d once been, and shook his head.

  “He’s dead.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Gregory left Inspector Durand to continue his interrogation of Leon Boucher, while he returned to see Camille Duquette. According to her nurse, she’d spent a peaceful night sleeping for eight solid hours and had woken happily enough, spending most of the morning sitting by the window or reading her book. However, her day nurse called to report a worrying dip in Camille’s mood, and asked him to attend immediately.

  On the journey across town, Gregory catalogued the drugs she was taking, none of which were anti-psychotics or anti-depressants he might have associated with unexplained mood swings. In the absence of any obvious medicinal side-effects, he stepped through all the known symptoms of dissociative amnesia and came to the obvious conclusion.

  Camille was experiencing a breakthrough.

  He paid off the taxi driver—whose driving had been sedate in comparison with what he’d grown accustomed to, lately—and hurried upstairs to help however he could.

  Agnés, the day nurse, was waiting for him at the door.

  “Thank God,” she muttered. “She’s through there, in the living room. I must tell you, I was forced to restrain her at one point, for her own safety.”

  “Why?”

  “It was the same as before,” she said, clearly distressed by the experience. “One moment, she was completely docile, sitting having a sandwich. The next moment—mon Dieu—she threw the plate across the room and demanded to know why she was being held captive.”

  She wrung her hands.

  “Captive? I told her, it is not like that at all. I explained she cannot remember simple things and had been badly injured, so it was best I stayed with her, so she did not hurt herself. As God is my witness, monsieur, I told her, I would take her out for a walk to the park, or to the shop…”

  “All right Agnés, it’s all right,” he murmured, shrugging out of his jacket. “Has she asked to see anyone?”

  “She asked to see Madeleine or Juliette.”

  Gregory’s head whipped around, both surprised and elated.

  She remembered.

  “Have you given her any sedative?” he asked, and the nurse shook her head.

  “You said to avoid it, so I held her firmly in my arms until she quietened down. She wasn’t happy about it, but she seems to be a little more stable than before. She’s still asking to see a mirror.”

  Gregory mulled it over, but shook his head.

  “I need to do an updated risk assessment, considering this afternoon’s incident,” he said. “I’ll make a decision on that after I’ve spoken to her.”

  “I can hear you whispering about me!” a voice suddenly bellowed, so loudly they were both startled. “Who’s that? Is it Gabrielle or Armand?”

  Gregory hardly recognised the tone to Camille’s voice; it was so different from the softly spoken woman he’d met the day before. As he entered the living room, he realised that wasn’t the only thing that had changed.

  “Who’re you?”

  Camille was standing beside the window, her long legs encased in a pair of skin-tight leggings and a baggy tee-shirt she’d knotted at the waist. Her scar was hidden from view behind the long fall of her dark hair, and everything about her stance spoke of a woman who knew she was beautiful—scars, or no scars.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  Gregory walked into the room slowly, tucking his hands into the pockets of his trousers, and Camille gave him a very thorough, very feminine assessment, which had been noticeably absent the day before.

  “Don’t you remember me?” he asked, coming to stand a careful distance away. “We met yesterday, and the day before that.”

  Bold blue eyes scanned his face and body, then she gave a decisive shake of her head.

  “Do you work for Leroux?” she asked.

  Gregory didn’t know what to make of this turn of events. The day before, Camille had been unable to recall long-term memories but, now, the situation seemed to have reversed.

  It was highly irregular.

  “My name is Doctor Alexander Gregory,” he said, and waited for any reaction—but there was none. “Do you know why you’re here?”

  “That person—the nurse—told me I’d been attacked,” Camille said, jerking her chin towards Agnés, who practically cowered behind him. “Obviously, I can feel the bandages, but she won’t let me see for myself, in a mirror. I don’t know what the hell’s going on.”

  Gregory was beginning to see the ‘Camille’ that Leon had spoken of.

  “Do you mind if I sit down?” he asked, feeling an uncomfortable sense of déja-vu.

  “Do as you please,” she muttered, still watching him with her assessing blue gaze. “Are you English?”

  He nodded.

  “It seems I wear my nationality on my sleeve,” he said, with a smile.

  Her lips twitched.

  “You’re not so bad,” she said, generously. “Out of practice, maybe.”

  He acknowledged the truth of that.

  “I’m here because the Brigade Criminelle asked me to help them investigate your attack.”

  “Why? Don’t they know how to do their jobs?”

  He almost laughed, and silently added ‘candid’ to her list of personality traits.

  “They know very well,” he replied. “But, without a suspect, or any witnesses, they were struggling to understand the kind of person who would attack you in such a way.”

  “And where do you come in?”

  He’d asked himself the same thing many times before, but Gregory took the question at face value.

  “I’m a psychologist and a criminal profiler,” he said, letting the admission roll around on his tongue. Until a few weeks ago, he would have gone to great pains to avoid the label, but it seemed most apt for the job he appeared to be doing.

  “What does that mean? You rub a crystal ball?”

  He smiled again, and this time she smiled back.

  “If only it were that easy,” he said, with feeling. “I help police forces to narrow their pool of available suspects, usually in cases where there’s very little evidence to go on.”

  “What do you mean, ‘little evidence’?” she demanded, and raised a hand to touch the bandage on her face. “Wouldn’t you say this was ample proof?”

  Her eyes suddenly swam with tears.

  “I don’t need to see it to know how bad it is,” she said, quietly. “It hurts to speak, and the fact nobody will let me see it…it must be very bad. My career is finished. I know that much.”

  A single tear spilled over.

  “I’m sorry for what’s happened to you, Camille,” he said. “But nothing is ever as bad as it seems. You’ve been suffering severe trauma and memory loss, which has made you vulnerable. For that reason, it isn’t a good idea for you to see t
he physical injuries until we can be sure your mind will process the visual information it receives in a reasonable way. If you panic, you may do something silly.”

  She pulled a face.

  “Like what? Kill myself?”

  Gregory said nothing; he would never make light of suicide, having seen the after-effects at Southmoor and spending most of his time trying hard to prevent it.

  But you were too late for me, weren’t you?

  His mother’s voice whispered in his ear and Gregory stiffened, fighting the urge to look around. It was nothing more than a phantom memory; a projection of his deepest guilt.

  There was no such thing as ghosts.

  “Do you—ah, can you tell me what you remember of the attack?” he asked, once the black spots behind his eyes had faded.

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t remember,” she said, raising a hand to massage her head. “It—I get a headache, when I try to think about it.”

  “All right,” he said gently. “Let’s try something else. Tell me the first thing that pops into your mind.”

  “Monet’s Garden, at Giverny,” she said promptly.

  “Is Giverny special to you, Camille? That’s the second time you’ve mentioned it.”

  “Is it?”

  She gave a frustrated sigh and moved to sit in the chair opposite, in exactly the same spot she’d occupied the previous day, except, this time, she tucked her feet up and slouched against the arm, resting her head on her hand.

  “I really don’t know,” she said. “You just said to tell you the first thing that sprang to mind. I thought of Giverny.”

  Gregory nodded.

  “What else can you remember?” he asked. “Can you tell me where you were born?”

  She opened her mouth to answer what should have been an easy question.

  “I—I can’t remember,” she said, with rising panic. “It’s on the tip of my tongue—”

  “How about telling me how old you are, instead?”

  “Um, twenty-four,” she replied. “But please don’t tell Leroux. I told them I was nineteen.”

  She gave a self-conscious shrug.

  She looked it, Gregory thought. With her face bare of make-up, wearing gym gear, she looked five years younger than she was, and youth was a valuable asset in the fashion industry.