“So he was very charming?” asked the policeman.
“He turned out to be a dreadful bastard, but yes, he was terribly charming, and he was brilliant. One evening, after a long and complicated operation, he spoke to me while coming out of the operating room. He proposed going for a drink with him to recover from the procedure. I think it was several seconds before his offer made it to my brain, and I was floating already when I answered yes. He took me to a Grenoble bar in his sports car. He was charming, attentive, amusing. I was diving deep in my adolescent world. In the following week, he invited me out to a restaurant twice. I still remember what I ordered. If nothing had come of it, that could have been one of the best memories of my life.”
“How did things change?”
“After the last evening at the restaurant, he asked me for the first time to come have a nightcap at his house. To be frank, I had been waiting for that since the first time he took me to the bar. So I accepted before he finished his sentence. I wasn’t even in a state of pretending to resist.”
“Do you remember where he lived?” asked Fortin.
“He had an apartment that looked out on the Place Victor-Hugo. It was huge, but he lived alone there. So we went up to his place. We settled in the living room—he’d strewn pillows around a coffee table. I remember he’d put on some muted jazz. And then after two or three glasses, I really started to lose control of what I was doing. It didn’t bother me, since my intention was to end up in his bed.”
Hélène paused for a moment. The memories were flowing through her and taking possession of her mind, like a tranquil river flooding its banks in a sudden storm. She smoothed her scrubs and looked at them again.
“I’m probably boring you with all these details. I thought I’d succeeded in erasing them from my life. And you see how they come back as if this whole story had taken place yesterday.”
“We’re sorry to inflict this on you. Please don’t hesitate to take your time. Perhaps one of those details will actually be able to help us!”
“Well, I’ll go on. He asked me to wait for a few minutes. He went into his bedroom, then called for me. I joined him, ready to give him everything. But I was surprised when I stepped through the doorway. The bedroom was painted black, and he’d lit black candles. They were on all the furniture. And he was in front of his bed—he’d put on a black tunic that came down to above his knees. I told myself it must be one of his fantasies, that it helped him get past the daily stress of his profession. And I felt like making love with him.”
“And how did it unfold? If you’re willing to tell us, of course,” added Doctor Blavet.
“No problem. I was torn between the violence with which he took me and the pleasure I had in being with him. I won’t go into the details, but he wasn’t a good lover. Then again, I was addicted to him, and that was much stronger than the physical disappointment.”
“Did you continue to see him?”
“Yes, I was afraid he’d drop me once he’d slept with me. He would have been able to have all the girls he wanted in his bed. But he continued to invite me out, and I continued to accept his invitations. When we were outside of his home, he was always charming and attentive. All my friends were jealous. But as soon as we crossed the threshold of his apartment, he transformed. I became an object for him. And the most incomprehensible thing was that I submitted to his games for weeks. I was afraid of losing him. I accepted his nocturnal misbehavior in exchange for the attention he gave me during the day.”
“I beg you to pardon me for the question I’m going to ask you. But what sort of act did he make you submit to? Did he try to scarify you, inflict wounds on you?”
“No, let’s be clear and say things as they are. Dominique Cabrade was obsessed with the practice of sodomy and used me like an object. He never wanted to take the time for a caress, and giving me pleasure wasn’t his priority.”
“So the night Cabrade was the opposite of the day Cabrade.”
“Completely. He had a dual personality. I never knew if he had control of the night personality or not. Anyway, I was living through hell. All my being cried out to me to leave him, but a force deep inside me hooked me to him. I made excuses for him, and his attention the following mornings chased away what he’d been able to make me suffer at night.”
“What finally made you decide to leave him for good?”
“One Friday night, he proposed taking me on a dream weekend, promising he’d take care of me like a queen. I knew it wouldn’t happen, that he’d keep imposing his fantasies on me. But I felt like lying to myself, believing he could change. The weekend was hell! On the first night when I strongly refused to take part in one of his more perverse than usual games, he calmly went over to a satchel he’d brought, took out two pills, and forced me to take them. I lost all will. I knew I didn’t like what he was doing, but I no longer had the strength to oppose him. The next morning, when I regained control of my senses, he was still sleeping. I looked at what he’d made me drink.”
“Rohypnol?” interjected Doctor Blavet.
“That’s right. How did you guess?” asked the nurse.
“We found some in the blood of the first victim, Monica Revasti.”
“Rohypnol, that’s what’s now called a date rape drug?” asked Fortin.
“Yes, that’s right. It’s a hypnotic in the benzodiazepine family, normally used in severe insomnia cases. It didn’t take long for unscrupulous individuals to hijack its use.”
“He easily had access. He only had to help himself to the hospital pharmacy. And he’s still hurting people . . . ,” whispered Hélène Guyancourt. “Stop him, he’s the devil.”
Fortin looked at her. She’d just sat down on a bench they’d come across while walking and shriveled in on herself. The policeman really did get the feeling the devil had just terrified her.
“I have only one thing in mind, madame,” he said, laying a hand on the nurse’s shoulder, “and it’s putting that bastard out of commission.”
She looked at him, and a wan smile, fleeting, brightened her face.
“I’m going to tell you the end of my story. I went back home, bent on taking revenge for what he’d inflicted on me during those weeks. But when I started talking about what happened, not one person believed me. I looked like a liar, sex starved, the latest slut. And he, all honey, always had his court around him and pushed his depravity to the point of fabricating excuses like stress and fatigue. His magnanimity with regard to me was praised by the choir of well-meaning souls! I fell into depression, and if I hadn’t met the man who became my husband, I think I would have ended up throwing myself into the Isère.”
She concluded, “That’s the great Dominique Cabrade.”
“Thank you for this story, and we’re truly sorry for having exhumed such moments.”
“But they’re still living! I hope I’ve managed to kill them a little in telling them to you. I never told my husband everything.”
“One more question, Madame Guyancourt. Did you know any of Cabrade’s friends who could help us locate him?”
“Cabrade had a multitude of acquaintances, admirers, but he connected with no one. Not once did he want to talk to me about his family or his close friends. One time, just once, I met someone he seemed to care about.”
“Do you remember that person’s name?”
“No, but he was as degenerate as Cabrade was. During the last week we spent together, he’d invited one of his friends one night. I won’t paint you a picture of the games we engaged in. At the end, likely thinking I was asleep, they talked about their years studying medicine together. And I realized the other man had been expelled from the university before the end of his program.”
This last revelation struck the two men. Étienne Fortin asked her, “Could it be his name was Aurélien?”
“I don’t know if he called him by his first name.
It’s so long ago . . .”
“Thank you, Madame Guyancourt. I’m going to call on all the acquaintances I have in the Grenoble medical community to find that unknown man’s name,” promised Blavet.
“I only ask one thing of you,” said the nurse. “Find Cabrade quickly. He’s capable of anything, and more besides. And don’t have any mercy,” she finished, a gleam of hatred deep in her eyes.
Chapter 52: Flashback
Dominique Cabrade stretched and wondered where he was. Still sleepy, he looked at the cedar branch swaying in the window frame. He pushed aside the curtain and sat on the edge of his bed. He yawned, and the events of the previous day came back to him—running away, the meeting with Arsène, the arrival at the manor, the night of working on Fra Bartolomeo’s manuscript, and the remarkable exegesis his friend had done.
Then he’d slept! He’d slept for more than five hours without waking up. He hadn’t experienced such peaceful rest for months, years even. And that night, he would finally be rid of his nightmares. For a second time he’d kill the one who’d spoiled his life, the one who’d put an end to the brilliant career he should have had. Of course, he’d been recognized for his gifts in wielding a scalpel, precision, and achieving ever-impressive results. He’d worked for some of the wealthiest men in the world: industrialists and financiers as well as tyrants and traffickers. Some even belonged to several of those categories.
One of the practices that had allowed him to acquire his renown was what he euphemistically called facial remodeling. He could no longer count the number of old despots, crooks of diverse backgrounds, whom he’d given new faces. All these men he’d hobnobbed with ultimately saw their luck turn. Facing the fear of getting caught by their pasts and former victims, they’d offered him fortunes for a new identity and a few extra years of life.
He’d always protected himself from his clients by depositing files with various lawyers. It would have been quite simple to have him killed in order to get rid of the last links to their old lives. So in boxes in New York, Rio, Moscow, Paris, London, and Rome lay the small photo albums that had kept him alive.
If he died violently, the presumed murderers’ files would be sent to carefully selected newspapers. But if a file got out otherwise, he knew he’d die within twenty-four hours. Mutually assured destruction—it had worked well during the Cold War!
He’d also rejuvenated old billionaires in the clinics in Cuba—French universities would never recognize the techniques he’d used, but that was the least of his worries. He’d even lowered himself to redoing two or three pairs of breasts. The gain was great enough to sacrifice several hours of his life to these acts he despised.
His most remunerative operation was in fact the most comical. About fifteen years ago he’d met a Colombian drug lord who had asked him to redo his wife’s breasts. Following an outburst of temper, he’d accepted upon seeing the suitcase full of bills. The trafficker had loved his companion’s new silhouette. During a dinner in honor of his spouse’s chest, he’d taken the surgeon aside. Cabrade, after a moment of trepidation, had followed him. He couldn’t refuse his host’s hospitality, especially when a hundred bodyguards were watching over the property and the host in question had a diamond-studded pistol sticking out of his jacket.
Once he was certain no one could overhear the conversation, the crook opened up to him. Cabrade had had the decency not to laugh, which undoubtedly saved his life. The Colombian had just asked him to increase the size of his penis. He’d announced the sum of two million dollars, and that had spared the surgeon a long period of reflection. He’d accepted. He had practiced on a few more or less consenting patients and gone back to the drug lord when he thought he’d sufficiently mastered the technique. The Colombian had clearly explained to him the dimensions he wished to attain. Cabrade had acquiesced, knowing he was playing with his life if he didn’t manage to meet the prescribed objective. But the challenge was new and pleased him. He’d ultimately departed with four million dollars, but not before spending an orgiastic week in the company of his sexually fulfilled patient and some of the region’s high-class prostitutes and pretty girls.
Over the years, he’d also taken advantage of this affluent roaming life to indulge in his vices and morbid fantasies with total impunity. For the circles he traveled in, life had little value, and respect for others was a concept that elicited laughs during soirees hazy from alcohol and drugs.
Cabrade himself had also had to resort to surgery. He remembered those times, singularly less pleasant.
He’d redone the faces of the two Kissinger brothers, kingpins in the American underworld. They had diplomats’ names but thugs’ methods. Unfortunately for him, the Chow family gang, with whom the Kissingers were fighting for control over part of the drug trade in Southern California, had picked up the surgeon’s trail. Only Cabrade could still link the Kissingers’ old and new faces. The Chows just wanted a friendly meeting with the French doctor.
The surgeon had narrowly escaped two kidnapping attempts before deciding to change his own face. He’d contacted one of his most brilliant colleagues; they’d spent long hours choosing his new features. Cabrade had even done a practice run of the procedure with him. It was not without anxiety that he lay down on the operating table. But the result was up to his expectations. Getting new French papers had been child’s play. With lots of money and good connections, solutions appear like magic.
He now had accounts in several offshore paradises and a fortune of more than thirty million dollars. He didn’t know the exact amount. He paid his financial advisors rather dearly for that luxury.
The smell of coffee wafted up the stairs and stoked his hunger. He grabbed a pair of pants and a shirt provided by his host, pulled them on, and went down to the kitchen. The steaming coffeemaker was set on the table next to country bread with a thick crust and a pot of honey. He took up the knife, cut himself two thick slices, and covered them generously with honey. He leaned back against the chair and looked out at the garden park to its edge, marked by a dark fir tree.
The morning sun revealed the depth of the conifers’ intense green. He’d always been a city dweller, and the beauties of nature left him indifferent for the most part. Even when he was operating in the African Great Lakes region, he didn’t understand what motivated tourists to spend thousands of euros driving around in an all-terrain vehicle in areas that lacked everything. But that morning, he felt in harmony with himself and his surroundings. That night, he would be free. He’d be finished with those sleepless nights that incapacitated him, that tormented him and left him unable to resist the terror.
“Appetite’s working, I see!” trumpeted a voice from behind him.
He turned slowly to face Arsène, who had just entered the room, face dripping with sweat.
“I took advantage of the morning cool for a little hour-long run.”
“You haven’t changed, my poor Arsène. Always this incomprehensible need to go tiring yourself out when you could quietly enjoy life.”
“Look at me, nearly sixty years old and with the silhouette of a teenager!”
“I could have remade your teenage silhouette in a few hours with a scalpel! And you’d be spared the quarts of sweat and weeks of stiffness.”
“We’ll never agree on this point. Slept well?”
“Perfectly well. The explication you gave me yesterday from Fra Bartolomeo’s text completely reassured me. And to think the Aztec people were despised by generations of Europeans. If they’d only known.” Then, he added with veiled concern, “What about the heart?”
“Trust me, you will have, in due time, all the necessary materials.”
“You’ve saved my life, Arsène! What luck to have found you. As promised, you’ll have the money by tomorrow morning. Fifteen million dollars!”
Arsène knew his old friend well and knew he could trust him completely . . . at least for that. Cabrade stood up, emptied
his cup of coffee, and headed toward the door.
“I’m going to go stretch my legs in the park.”
“Take the hat and sunglasses on the table in the foyer. This isn’t the time to be recognized.”
“Don’t you worry about me. I’ve escaped from secret police all over the world and Interpol for decades.”
And you got yourself spotted in Grenoble yesterday, thought his host, but without saying it out loud. Even if Cabrade had always been an excellent actor, master of his behavior, Arsène knew the man had to be wary when he abandoned his man-of-the-world costume.
As soon as Cabrade had gone out, Arsène went to his office in the basement. He closed the door and concentrated. He had to organize the plans for the next twenty-four hours. If he didn’t make a mistake, his fortune would be made. The staging he’d imagined for the coming night excited him terribly. A perverse impulse came over him. He, too, knew how to let go when he abandoned his good-citizen character.
Chapter 53: Time Off
Nadia had forced herself to stay in bed for part of the morning. Her shoulder was hurting her badly. She wasn’t a superwoman. After having tossed and turned for hours, she’d finally taken a powerful sleeping pill and sunk into unconsciousness. Her sleep hadn’t been as disturbed as she’d feared, but she’d woken up with terrible stabbing pains. She turned toward her bedside table: nine o’clock. It was time to get up and head to the hospital. She’d kept the telephone number for the doctor who’d cared for her; she’d call him directly. She knew he’d see her as soon as he had some free minutes. She really needed to be examined and had absolutely no time to waste in the emergency room.
Nadia took a quick shower, threw on a skirt and blouse, grabbed her bag and car keys, and walked to the museum parking lot. She loved her apartment’s location, but she realized a major shortcoming—it was hard to find a parking space less than a five-minutes’ walk away.
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