Cold Plague

by Daniel Kalla

  The implication hit him like a punch.

  Noah studied his cell phone screen again. Charron called for the second and last time at 10:07 P.M. He thought back to the French newspaper article about Charron’s car accident. He remembered it said that Charron died before midnight, which meant that little more than an hour after trying twice to contact Noah, the neurologist had been so drunk behind the wheel that he veered off a straight road and slammed into a tree.

  Noah’s veins filled with ice.

  What the hell is going on here?

  24

  Paris, France. January 19

  Yvette Pereau was dead. So was Pauline Lamaire. Detective Avril Avars was sure now. She did not know why, nor did she care any longer. Only finding Frédéric mattered.

  On autopilot, Avril had left the Hotel Zanbergen and headed directly to the Amsterdam airport. During the choppy flight to Paris, she repeated her Our Fathers and Hail Marys and every other prayer that she could dredge up from childhood memory.

  She kept repeating those prayers up until the moment Frédéric’s roommate let her into their small Left Bank apartment. When she stepped inside her son’s empty bedroom, the impact of his abduction dug into her like a knife to the belly.

  As she sat on Frédéric’s unmade bed, she was aware of the faint scent of his deodorant. She remembered her son as if watching random clips from the video footage her husband had faithfully shot: those tottering first steps, his adorable four-year-old Christmas suit and bowtie, lying in bed with the six-year-old Frédéric as his measles-induced fever blazed, watching Antoine and a teenaged Frédéric battle it out on the soccer pitch, and helping her son stuff all his bags in his beat-up old Citro’n before he headed off to university. Aside from the physical resemblance, he had so much of Antoine’s character in him: the same quiet strength and generous nature.

  She rocked back and forth on the bed. Will I ever see him again? Even in the depths of her mourning for her husband, she had never known such fear or helplessness. Please, God, don’t let them hurt my son! she thought for the thousandth time.

  “Mme. Avars?” The voice jerked her from her misery. “Are you all right?”

  Avril gave her eyes a furtive wipe, as if rubbing sleep from them, and then looked up to see Frédéric’s roommate, Jacques Beauchamps, studying her from the doorway. The boy—a brilliant mathematician according to Frédéric—had spiky blue hair and a small boltlike stud through one nostril and another through his lip. Though she did not know Beauchamps well, Avril thought of him as a nice kid and a good friend to her son.

  She cleared her throat and forced a smile. “I’m so tired from my flight that I’m thinking of having a nap in Frédéric’s bed.”

  “Wouldn’t do that,” Beauchamps said, stepping into the room. “These mattresses are made of rocks. Your back will never be right again.” He winked at her. “Plus, I don’t think he washes his sheets enough.”

  “Thanks for the warning.” Avril rose to her feet. “Listen, Jacques, I wish I had told Frédéric I was coming. I am in Paris only for the afternoon. Are you certain you don’t know where he is?”

  “Had dinner with him early last night. Then he took off. Haven’t seen him since.” He grinned and bit down on the stud in his lip. “Told me not to wait up.”

  “Why?” Avril shot, and then forced her voice calmer. “Was he meeting someone?”

  Beauchamps glanced around the room conspiratorially. “Mme. Avars, you know Freddie and Stéphane broke up soon after he got back from the Christmas break?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Avril said, rocked by another wave of guilt for meddling in her son’s love life.

  Beauchamps winked again. “You can’t blame Freddie for catching up on lost time.”

  “I understand, Jacques.” Avril swallowed back her bile. “So he had a big date last night?”

  “Must have been.” He smiled. “Freddie didn’t come back this morning.”

  “Did he tell you anything about the girl?”

  “No ‘girl’ about it.” Beauchamps chuckled. “This was an older woman.”

  “How old?”

  “I didn’t see her, but Freddie made it sound like she was a lot older. Maybe thirty or something, you know?”

  “Anything else?”

  Beauchamps shrugged. “He said she was really hot.”

  “Where did he meet her?”

  “In the library. Can you believe that?” Beauchamps laughed. “If I knew you could meet babes by going to the library, maybe I would start studying.”

  Avril’s heart beat even faster. “She was a student?”

  “Freddie made it sound like she was a grad student, or maybe a prof.” Beauchamps held up his palms indifferently, as if the details beyond her age and looks were insignificant. “She just marched right up to him, told him she thought he was cute, and asked him to have a drink.”

  Avril snapped her fingers, her chest hammering. “Where, Jacques?”

  Beauchamps looked taken aback by her sudden ferocity. “Didn’t say.” Suddenly, the boy’s face clouded over with suspicion. “What’s the big deal, Mme. Avars?”

  She conjured a smile. “Just an overprotective mother not willing to let go of her boy yet.” She pulled a small notepad and pen out of her jacket. She jotted her cell number down on a blank page, tore it off, and handed it to Beauchamps. “Listen, Jacques, I will be in the city all day. I was really hoping to see Frédéric. I have something important to tell him. So if you see him—or if you hear anything about his whereabouts—you call. Promise?”

  Beauchamps bit the stud in his lip and nodded.

  Avril hurried out to the hallway and down the narrow staircase. Tears streamed down her cheeks before she even reached the street.

  How am I going to keep it together? she wondered as she rushed along the wet sidewalk, weaving through the foot traffic. But she already knew. For Freddie.

  Two blocks closer to the train station, she barely heard the Chopin melody over the street noise. Frantically, she dug in her pocket and grabbed for her phone.

  “Maman?”

  “Baby!” Her knees almost buckled as she ducked into the relative privacy of the alcove of the nearest building and cupped the phone tightly against her ear.

  “Maman, they have further instructions for you.” His voice was even weaker than the last time, and each hesitant word ripped at her heart.

  “Frédéric, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” he said, but his tone was unconvincing. “Maman, you have to do as they say.”

  “Baby, let me speak to them.”

  “They won’t talk to you.”

  “Frédéric, I have to speak to them.”

  “No, Maman.”

  Her throat filled and she couldn’t keep the sob from her voice. “Frédéric, I love you so much, but I have to hang up now.”

  “Maman!”

  Avril clicked the END button on her phone. She leaned back against the wall, feeling as though the building had just collapsed on top of her.

  It was the worst gamble of her life, but now Avril could do nothing but wait. Each silent second that passed was more painful than the last. She stood absolutely still, wondering every moment if she had just killed her son.

  After ten agonizing minutes, she heard the soft Chopin melody. Her hand shook wildly as it shot for the phone. “Yes?”

  “Detective Avars?” the metallic voice said.

  Avril immediately recognized the use of an electronic voice changer. The sound was too distorted for her to tell if the caller was male or female. She willed her slamming heart to slow. “Yes.”

  “I am with Frédéric now.”

  “What do you want from us?” Avril growled.

  “We want to send Frédéric home to you. We do. But we need your help.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “We need you to close your investigation on the two missing women.”

  “Consider it closed,” Avril said. “I will write an official r
eport and send it anywhere you want. It will be done. Then you will send him home, right?”

  “All in good time.” The tinny words were as emotionless as the sentiment behind them. “We need that report, but we will require a little more assistance from you than simply that.”

  “What kind of assistance?”

  “We are not sure.”

  The rage surged through Avril, and she fought the urge to smash her phone against the wall. “What does that mean?” she growled.

  “It means you have to be patient,” the voice said. “I know that is difficult, but we think people will come to see you.”

  “Which people?”

  “Investigators. Maybe doctors or even E.U. officials interested in the Limousin situation.”

  Of course, the mad cow disease outbreak! Avril remembered Yvette Pereau’s husband’s description of how his wife had become suspicious that someone had tampered with the farm. It had to be a cover-up. Her mind racing as fast as her heart, Avril asked, “And what do I tell them?”

  “Nothing,” the artificial voice said. “You have not come across anything out of the ordinary. And if the outside investigators have, then you must convince them that it is ordinary.”

  “And if they don’t come at all?”

  “Then we will send Frédéric back to you.”

  “Let me speak to him again.”

  “In good time, Detective.”

  “Now!”

  There was a long pause, but Avril was crestfallen when the tinny voice spoke again. “We have your son. You do not. We do not want to hurt Frédéric, but we will if you force us. To ensure his safe return, you have to go back to Limoges and behave as though nothing is different. Tell absolutely no one. When the outside investigators arrive, convince them there is nothing to find in your sleepy province. And as soon as they leave, Frédéric will come home.”

  “I will do everything you say.” Avril took a long slow breath. “I am an excellent detective. If Frédéric is harmed in any way, I will find you. I assure you. And I will—”

  The line clicked, and she heard a beep. Her caller had already hung up.

  25

  Limoges, France. January 19

  “We are late” were the only words Elise uttered when Noah met her in the hotel lobby. With one look, she made it poisonously clear that she was not interested in further discussion. For the thirty-kilometer trip west from Limoges to Saint Junien, only the radio’s soft instrumental music masked the tense silence between them. Behind the wheel, Elise’s eyes were locked on the road ahead, never once glancing in Noah’s direction. He stared out the passenger window, barely conscious of the lush countryside. He still reeled from the news that Dr. Charron was trying to reach him within hours of the neurologist’s fatal car crash.

  As they neared the turnoff for Saint Junien, Noah spotted in the side mirror the same black Mercedes hanging a few hundred meters behind them as he had seen ten kilometers earlier. Are we being followed in broad daylight? Noah watched it intently, but when Elise turned off for the town, the Mercedes cruised past without following. His vigilance subsided slightly.

  Through the passenger window, Noah noticed that Saint Junien was the prettiest town he had seen yet in Limousin. Set among the pastoral rolling hills, the town’s Romanesque buildings and historic houses looked as if they had sprung from the pages of a brochure or coffee table book.

  Elise parked on the street in front of a row of stone houses with ivy snaking up the side. Silently, they climbed out of the car and walked the short gravel pathway to the door of the house. A willowy woman dressed completely in black greeted them at the door. She had wild gray hair and paint-spattered fingers. Noah wondered if she was an artist.

  Elise made introductions, but Annette Tremblay did not shake hands with either visitor. Instead, she turned and led them into a living room that was crammed with sculptures, ceramics, and oil paintings, confirming Noah’s first impression. She cleared two canvases off the chairs, creating enough space for the three of them to sit down.

  Noah studied one of the landscape paintings that stood propped against the fireplace. Though depicting a sunny meadow, the splash of colors gave the painting a visceral wildness. “Did you paint this?” Noah asked.

  “Hmmm,” Tremblay grunted.

  “Evocative,” Noah said. “It reminds me of van Gogh.”

  “Dr. Haldane, if I want to talk art, I can do so with the paying American tourists at my gallery,” Tremblay said in heavily accented English. “You came here to speak about my daughter.”

  Elise nodded somberly. “We’re sorry for your loss, Mme. Tremblay.”

  Tremblay rolled her eyes but said nothing.

  “Did Giselle live with you?” Noah asked.

  “At times,” Tremblay said.

  “Was she living with you when she first showed symptoms?”

  Slow to answer, Tremblay rubbed her face. “Yes.”

  “Can you tell us what it was like?” Elise asked.

  Tremblay grimaced. “Picture hell, Mlle. Renard. That was what it was like.”

  Elise held out her palms. “Please…”

  “Giselle went mad.” Her eyes darted to Noah. “Just like your friend van Gogh.”

  “It would help us if you could be more specific,” Elise said a little more firmly.

  “Not sleeping. Not eating. Coming and going at all hours. And the paranoia! Giselle was convinced everyone was trying to poison her.”

  “Poison her?” Noah said.

  “Yes,” Tremblay snapped. “She thought her ex-boyfriend had poisoned her water, and we were all trying to kill her with it. She stopped drinking anything. I thought she might die of thirst. That was why I took her to hospital.”

  “Not because of her erratic behavior?” Elise asked.

  Tremblay shook her head. “Giselle was manic-depressive.

  I had seen her act strangely before. All the doctors ever did was increase her lithium. I would have done the same, but I could not make her swallow the capsules.”

  Noah nodded. “And once she was hospitalized?”

  “Of course, you must already know.” Tremblay sighed. “Giselle grew worse and worse. Within a few weeks, she could not walk or even talk. She was just a…vegetable.” She swallowed. “If I was braver, I would have taken a gun. It would have been less cruel.”

  “It must have been so very difficult for you.” Elise reached out to touch Tremblay, but the woman recoiled from her hand.

  “For me?” Tremblay squinted at Elise in outraged disbelief. “I went through nothing compared to what my daughter endured. Nothing.”

  “Of course.” Elise’s hand fell to her lap.

  Moments passed. “It was cruel irony, that this should happen to Giselle,” Tremblay finally said.

  “How so?” Elise asked.

  “Giselle did not eat beef,” she murmured.

  Noah sat up straighter. “Was she a vegetarian?”

  “Not entirely, but she did not like meat. She ate steak perhaps once a year. And that one time was enough for her to get sick….”

  Noah suspected that something with less infinitesimally small odds had to be at play. He leaned forward in his chair. “Did Giselle know either Philippe Manet or Benoît Gagnon?”

  Tremblay shrugged. “My daughter was a pretty girl. And she knew many men, you understand. Especially when she was manic. What does it matter now?”

  Noah fought back his urgent impatience. “I don’t think that Giselle would have dated either man, but both are from the region,” he said. “Do you recognize the names?”

  Tremblay shook her head.

  Noah stood to his feet. “Okay, well, thank you for your time, Mme. Tremblay.”

  Elise rose, too, but Tremblay leaned back in her seat, indifferent to her guests’ impending departure. “The months before she became sick, Giselle was doing better. Almost a year had passed without an episode. She had a good job at the restaurant.” She glanced at Noah with unconcealed hostility. �
��And then she fell in love with a man and everything went to hell.”

  “The boyfriend?” Elise asked. “The one she thought was trying to poison her?”

  “The bastard went off on some scientific research trip and never came back. Giselle was heartbroken.”

  “Research?” Elise asked. “What did he do?”

  Tremblay frowned. “I think he is a geologist or some such nonsense. I know that he really did bring her water from somewhere. Told her it was special. That it would help with her mental illness.” She fired Noah another angry glance. “The way he treated her in the end…it was no wonder she thought the water was poisoned.”

  But Noah was oblivious to her resentment. His heart was pounding in his throat. “A geologist? Was his name Georges Manet?”

  26

  Vishnov, Antarctica. January 5

  Though it was nearly midnight, Yulia Radvogin and Martine DeGroot walked away from the settlement in the brightness of early twilight. Time of day meant almost nothing at the height of the austral summer; it would not get any darker in the Antarctic for weeks to come.

  Their boots crunched through the rare fresh dusting of snow onto ice that ran four kilometers thick and was built up from an accumulation of millions of years’ worth of compressed snowfalls. Below the ice floor, Lake Vishnov gently swayed with an almost imperceptible tide that, like the planet’s oceans, was dictated by the movement of the moon. And somewhere in the lake, a pipeline ran down from the Igloo, like a straw dipping into the world’s largest Slurpee.

  After a hundred or so meters, DeGroot turned to Radvogin. “You wanted to discuss something, Yulia?”

  “Claude is not well?” Radvogin countered, ignoring DeGroot’s question without slowing her pace.

  “Something he ate, I’m sure,” DeGroot said. “He’ll be fine.”