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

But Diane wasn’t worried about that.

  “Is she still alive?” she demanded of the manager.

  Alain started to shake his head, then he noticed the shallow rise and fall of Camille’s chest as she struggled to draw breath.

  “Oui! Yes—she’s alive!” he said, and shuffled ineffectually from one foot to the other.

  Uncaring about crime scenes and preservation of evidence, Diane rushed forward and knelt beside the girl’s body. Her heart wept at the sight of such devastation, and she immediately thought of her own two girls, at universities back in England. If anything should happen to them while she wasn’t there, she hoped some other kind person would tend to their wounds, or hold their hands until somebody better qualified could do so. Out there in the darkness, another mother might be wondering and worrying about her daughter, who now lay crumpled on the floor—her body torn by the hand of a madman.

  “What are you going to do?” the manager whispered.

  Diane removed her dressing gown and draped it over the girl’s shivering body.

  “I’m going to stay with her,” she said, quietly.

  Without another word, she reached across to take Camille’s cold, blood-stained hands in her own and began to rub them in gentle, soothing circles while she hummed an old lullaby she’d once sang to her own babies.

  CHAPTER 2

  Wednesday 25th September

  Two days later

  The Grand Salon of the Sorbonne University was an impressive space made up of centuries-old wooden panelling adorned with classical works of art. Over the years, it had played host to everything from academic ceremonies to weddings, but today it welcomed a large delegation of senior police detectives drawn from major cities around the world—as well as a number of eminent men and women in the field of clinical and forensic psychology—who had gathered for a conference on ‘Criminal Profiling and the Police’.

  Doctor Alexander Gregory stepped up to the lectern at the head of the room and swept his gaze over the assembly, sharp green eyes sizing up their body language before diving into the speech he had prepared on the Eurostar journey from London the previous day.

  “I’d like to thank the Officiers de la Police Judiciaire for inviting my colleague, Professor William Douglas, and me, to speak here today,” he began, with a nod for his friend who was seated on the front row having already delivered his speech. “Before going any further, I should tell you that it’s thanks to his guidance and support that I was able to carve out my own career as a clinical psychologist at the Southmoor Psychiatric Hospital in London. He was the first person to spark my interest in the concept of ‘criminal profiling’, and our mutual desire to help the Major Investigation Team at the Metropolitan Police led us to establish a special department in that area.”

  Gregory paused, searching to find the right words to express his crushing disappointment when their department had been used as a scapegoat by the same people they’d tried to help.

  But he didn’t mention any of that.

  “The question many of you may be longing to ask is, ‘Does profiling really work?’ ”

  He watched people sit up a little straighter in their seats.

  “The answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’,” he said. “The success of criminal profiling in helping to bring about the correct resolution to a serious investigation such as rape or murder depends on three variables: the quality of the evidence gathered by the police; the quality of a profiler’s abilities; and, most importantly, the quality of the ongoing conversation between the police and the profiler.”

  “What do you mean by ‘conversation’?”

  Gregory sought out the source of the interruption, and locked eyes with a short, heavy-set man somewhere in his late forties, seated near the back of the room.

  “I mean simply an ongoing dialogue, where the police enable the profiler to form an educated view on their investigation by allowing him or her full access to their dossier, as well as the various lines of enquiry, without seeking to hold back pertinent facts. In return, the profiler should not seek to misinform the police or misinterpret the information, exclude relevant information to suit their working theory, nor betray the confidence the police have placed in them. A profiler should discuss the possible reasons behind a perpetrator’s actions as fully as possible, based on their previous experience dealing with criminal behaviour, where patterns can often be studied empirically and applied to novel situations.”

  “You advocate a clinical approach, then, rather than an instinctive one?”

  Gregory nodded.

  “I am a clinician first and a profiler second,” he said, and then gestured to the walls above their heads. “Hanging at either end of this room are two paintings by Benjamin Constant, both inspired by the Greek myth of Prometheus, the titan who defied the gods to champion mankind. One represents ‘Prometheus Enchained’, symbolising the past, and the other is ‘Prometheus Unbound’, symbolising the future. I suggest that we take our own inspiration from these paintings and use our scientific faculties to look to the future and to progress. Together, profiling and the police can be a force for good.”

  * * *

  When Gregory exited the stage a short time later, it was to warm applause. After shaking a few hands and exchanging an obligatory word here and there, he made directly for the drinks reception, where his friend awaited him.

  “You must be parched.”

  Bill Douglas held out a glass of something red and fruity, which Gregory proceeded to chug down in three large gulps.

  “Thanks, I needed that.”

  Douglas tipped up his pinky finger and swirled his own glass of wine, making a show of sniffing its bouquet.

  “This is a fine Bordeaux,” he said, haughtily. “Not the kind of plonk you youngsters knock back on a Friday night.”

  Gregory merely smiled, struggling to remember the last time he’d been out on a Friday night, let alone ‘young’. He might only be a man in his thirties, but his heart and mind felt decades older.

  “Plonk or not, it hits the spot,” he said cheerfully, and smiled at the waitress who offered him a refill. “Why not? I’m off the clock now.”

  “It’s about time you let loose a bit,” Douglas agreed, casting a surreptitious eye over his lean frame and shadowed eyes. “You’ve been distracted since that case in Ireland.”

  Gregory thought back to the previous month, when he’d been called in by the Garda of a small, rural town in County Mayo to help them catch a killer. It had been a draining experience but a rewarding one—if you counted the fact that a murderous spree had been cut short before any more lives were lost.

  No, it wasn’t that which kept him awake at night.

  What then, Alex?

  His mother’s voice echoed around his mind, and he took another hasty gulp of wine as he tried to block it out.

  Even in death, she continued to haunt him.

  When he looked up again, he found his friend watching him closely. Bill Douglas was an imposing man of around fifty, whose taste in clothes tended towards academic eccentricity and blended perfectly with his surroundings at the University of Cambridge, where he now spent much of his time. He’d been more of a father than his own had ever been, and the burden of keeping secrets from him was becoming too great to bear.

  Now seemed as good a time as any to purge himself.

  “It isn’t the Irish case,” Alex said, and set his glass down. “I—look, Bill, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about…”

  Before he could finish the sentence, Gregory caught sight of a man approaching, and recognised him as being the one who had interrupted his speech earlier.

  “Professor Douglas and Doctor Gregory?” he asked, without any preamble.

  “Yes,” Bill replied. “Can we help you?”

  “I’m Mathis Durand, from the Brigade Criminelle,” the man replied, and produced an identification card for inspection. “The Commissaire has requested your attendance at le trente-six.”
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  The ‘Thirty-Six’ was a colloquial reference to the old headquarters of the Direction Régionale de la Police Judiciaire de la Prefecture de Police de Paris—the criminal police of Paris, commonly abbreviated to ‘PJ’. Its former headquarters had been at 36 Quai des Orfèvres, an iconic address only a stone’s throw from Notre-Dame cathedral and, whilst they had since moved to the Rue du Bastion, they’d chosen to take the number ‘thirty-six’ with them, in keeping with tradition.

  “Would you come with me, please?”

  Gregory and Douglas exchanged a meaningful glance, as nearby heads turned in curiosity.

  “Are we under arrest?”

  Douglas was only half joking. The Brigade Criminelle was an elite squad of the Police Judiciaire, dealing exclusively with the most serious offences, and was not to be taken lightly.

  “This way, please.”

  “We’re not going anywhere until you tell us what this is all about,” Gregory said.

  “Murder,” Durand barked. “You want a conversation, Docteur? We have one for you.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “The case concerns attempted murder, to be precise.”

  Commissaire Adrienne Caron was an impressive woman, not least because she was one of only a handful of female faces at the Trente-Six. Despite efforts to reduce gender disparity in their ranks, the Police Judiciaire remained a steadfastly male-dominated environment and, truth be told, it gave Caron a good deal of personal satisfaction to know that she’d risen to the top of the police hierarchy in spite of it. Now, she commanded several specialist teams, including those belonging to the Brigade Criminelle.

  She was seated at the head of a small conference table at the new police headquarters, with a breath-taking view of the city at her back. Gregory and Douglas were at the opposite end, and the remaining occupants of the table consisted of Mathis Durand and two other middle-aged men. In contrast to the former’s rumpled shirt and egg-stained tie, both were highly groomed, boasting expensive haircuts and even more expensive suits, which seemed an unlikely choice for the average bobby.

  On the other hand, this was Paris, not London.

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us, Professor Douglas, Doctor Gregory,” the Commissaire said, in fluent English. “I believe you’ve already met Mathis Durand, who is leading the team of detectives in charge of the investigation—strictly, he is the chef de groupe with the rank of Capitaine, but we usually still call him by the old title of Inspecteur.

  “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” the inspector said. “Isn’t that what you say, in England?”

  “Allow me also to introduce Procureur Raphael Segal, and Juge Felix Bernard.”

  Both nodded politely.

  “You must excuse me,” Douglas said. “But, in England, it isn’t customary for a representative of the prosecution, or a judge, to attend meetings during an active investigation.”

  Caron nodded and leaned back in her chair.

  “Here, we have a different system,” she explained. “In England, you have the Crown Prosecution Service, who take the police case to trial only after an investigation is complete. In France, the role of ‘procureur’, or prosecutor, is different. The prosecutor is an officer of the State, who attends the crime scene in the early stages and is part of the team who investigate the crime.”

  She gestured to Segal.

  “Procureur Segal attended the crime scene shortly after Mathis and the other responding officers, for instance.”

  Douglas nodded.

  “As for Juge Bernard, his role is also different from that of an ordinary trial judge in England,” she told them. “Here, a ‘juge’ is more like…ah, something of an examining magistrate, perhaps. It is Felix’s job to supervise the work of the homicide team and to re-examine witness statements and so forth, to ensure everything is done in accordance with the proper procedures.”

  “I also authorise forensic work, warrants and so forth,” Bernard put in, and Gregory noted the way Durand’s back stiffened in the chair beside him.

  Tension there, he thought.

  “Ordinarily, the Brigade Criminelle does not concern itself with simple homicides, or attempts,” Caron continued, taking a delicate sip from an espresso cup before setting it back on its saucer. “We deal only with the most serious cases of murder in the city. However, we have made an exception in this case.”

  “Why?” Gregory asked.

  She smiled, appreciating his ability to come straight to the point.

  “It’s different this time because of the sensitivity of the case…and of who the victim is—or, rather, who she is not.”

  Gregory frowned at her choice of words, and Caron nodded towards Inspector Durand, who took his cue.

  “In the early hours of Monday morning, the control centre took a call from the Hôtel Violette,” he began, in slow but precise English. “It’s a nice hotel, not far from the Jardins des Tuileries. Officers attended a scene on the third floor, where they found a young woman, Camille Duquette, had been viciously attacked.”

  “Face and body slashed…horrible,” Segal intoned, with a sad shake of his head.

  “She survived and was taken to hospital, where her wounds were treated,” Durand continued. “We are awaiting the results from our forensic team, but there were no obvious traces left by the assailant, and the knife or other weapon has not been found.”

  Gregory recalled seeing an image of a beautiful young woman plastered on the broadsheets over the past couple of days, alongside a headline about a model having been attacked in one of the city’s luxury hotels. They’d christened her ‘Sleeping Beauty’.

  “What about CCTV?” Douglas asked. “Any witnesses?”

  “There was no CCTV on that floor of the hotel, nor in the service stairs, which is how we assume the assailant left,” Durand replied. “There are witnesses who overheard the commotion during the attack, but they didn’t see anybody fleeing down the corridor.”

  “Did you recover a mobile phone?” Gregory asked.

  “No, but we know that she had one,” Durand said. “Maison Leroux and a couple of the other models had a number for Camille, but, when we tried calling it, the number went straight to voicemail. My team have already contacted the phone companies to try to locate it and access her messages. Aside from that, we have no leads.”

  Gregory frowned again, thinking it was a little premature to declare they had no leads, especially since the forensic results had not been returned and their victim was still alive to tell the tale.

  “What does the victim say about it?” he asked. “Has she been able to give you an account of what happened?”

  The others looked amongst themselves.

  “That’s just it, Doctor,” Segal said, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the conference table. “Camille Duquette hasn’t spoken a word since she regained consciousness.”

  Douglas turned to his friend.

  “A mute patient, eh? It isn’t often we find one of those.”

  Gregory heard the cajoling note to his friend’s voice, but he wasn’t ready to commit to anything just yet.

  “What else do you know about her?”

  Durand licked his thumb and flicked through a sheaf of papers to find the one he was looking for, then read the summary contained there.

  “Camille Duquette, aged nineteen,” he said. “According to the hospital notes, she is sexually active, but there were no signs of sexual assault following the attack. No unusual tattoos…Her most recent occupation is listed as ‘fashion model’, which is corroborated by her employer, Maison Leroux. She was due to attend her first catwalk show for them on the Monday morning, following the attack. I’m sure you’re both aware, this week is Fashion Week in Paris,” he added.

  “It’s unlikely she will ever model again,” Bernard interjected, with a sad shake of his head. “Such a shame.”

  He slid a couple of photographs across the table. The first one was clearly a publicity shot, taken of a slender, statuesq
ue woman with long, dark hair and bright blue eyes who stared into the camera with one hip cocked at an angle, as was customary. Beneath it was another photograph, taken in the hospital sometime after her attack, and she was almost unrecognisable with her skin swollen by a long, grotesque laceration running down the right side of her face, held together by dark stitches.

  Gregory sighed, and pushed the photographs away.

  “I’m very sorry for Camille but, sadly, these things are not unusual—”

  “There is something else,” Durand interjected. “It’s possible that Camille Duquette may not be her real name. We recovered an identity card and a single bank card from her hotel room, belonging to an account that was set up less than three weeks ago, but we can find no other official records or permanent residence. It’s possible she may be underage or a runaway of some kind—”

  “Or an illegal migrant,” Caron put in. “It’s a big problem for us.”

  Durand nodded.

  “It means we’re having trouble tracing any family or next of kin—or finding out anything useful about her life before she started working for Maison Leroux.”

  “Where is she now?” Gregory asked.

  “At a safe house,” Segal replied. “The Leroux family offered to pay for a private apartment and a nurse until she is well enough to move on, or until our investigations are complete, whichever comes first.”

  “The Leroux are a man and wife team,” Caron explained. “Armand Leroux is the business head, while his wife is the creative mind. We understand they hired Camille for the duration of Fashion Week, as well as for a number of separate catalogue and magazine editorials. They felt it only right to take care of her, especially as we haven’t been able to locate any next of kin.”

  “Very generous of them,” Douglas remarked. If he thought there was another, more cynical motivation for removing the woman from the public eye at such a crucial moment for their business, he said nothing of it.

  “What kind of psychiatric help is she receiving?” Gregory asked. “Has any specialist care been arranged to help her to overcome the trauma?”