Authors: Franck Thilliez
“Growth, checkups . . . everything's normal. That said, Dr. Terney did order an unusually high number of blood tests for the infant, from what I can tell.”
“Does it say why?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing here. The infant remained in Neonatal for nine days before being sent to the nursery. That's typical as well.”
Back into the transparent pouch, from which he took out copies of the birth and death certificates. It made Lucie feel odd to see the two documents side by side. Mother and son, one dying as the other is born.
“Birth certificate drawn up right after delivery. Mother's and father's names left blank, which is common for children born under seal. Just so you know, when the child is adopted, the public records office, which keeps its own copy of the birth record, fills in the blanks with the names of the adoptive parents. But here in the archives, we always keep the original, the one the head physician establishes at delivery.”
He looked at the next sheet.
“Death certificate, filled out by Terney as chief physician: âDeath due to preeclampsia and massive internal hemorrhage.' Date, time, persons present. It all seems in order.”
“That's it? A woman dies in the hospital and there's no autopsy, no inquest?”
“Not if the family didn't request one. Which seems to be the case here, since I'm not finding any other papers. You know, when there's a death like this, there's always a debriefing with the chief physician, a medical inquestâand sometimes an autopsyâbut only if the cause of death is unexplained. We also look through the prior records to try to understand what happened. Please believe that
any
death in the hospital, and especially during childbirth, is taken extremely seriously.”
Lucie crossed her arms, chilled by these revelations. She had the sense that something essential was missing. The human rapport between Terney and his patient, the reasons why the child was abandoned . . .
The more she thought about it, the more unsettled she felt. She knew the answers were just out of reach, without her being able to grasp them. As her eyes wandered over the folder, she suddenly fixed upon Carnot's three given names, written on the large label in front.
“Grégory Arthur Tanael Carnot. My god . . .”
A long silence, during which Lucie froze completely. The doctor noticed her consternation.
“What's wrong?”
Lucie could barely recover her voice. Her entire body was on fire.
“That . . . that name. Who gave it to him?”
“I assume it was the motherâshe must have told them the names she wanted to give the child before the delivery. After the birth, the names would have been entered on the certificate by the obstetrician or the midwife. If she hadn't given any names, those spaces would have remained empty, and the public records officer would have chosen three first names, the third of which would have acted as the child's family name. âCarnot' isn't a first name, so it must have been the mother who provided it . . . Why do you ask?”
Lucie snatched up the file and pointed her finger at each first letter of the names of her daughter's killer.
“His initials form G A T C. The bases of the DNA molecule.”
The doctor frowned.
“That's true. But how could you have noticed that?”
“Let's just say . . . I've been dealing with that molecule quite a bit lately.”
Blotowski, raising an eyebrow, took the small, sealed brown envelope from the pouch.
“Curious coincidence, in any case.”
“It's no coincidence. And it wasn't the mother who chose those names. It was Terney.”
Blotowski didn't answer, absorbed in his thoughts. What this woman was telling him was hard to swallow. Lucie nodded at the sealed envelope in his hand.
“Now will you open it?”
The specialist undid the seal with his letter opener. Lucie thought to herself that this secrecy business was nominal at best: any staff member with the right key could come in here and pop the seals to discover the mother's name.
Blotowski opened the envelope and showed it to Lucie.
“Empty. The mother preferred to keep her identity secret. I'm sorry.”
Lucie remained frozen. She couldn't just go away on such a note of failure. Grégory Carnot was born here. People named in these files had taken care of him, fed him, washed him from the time of his first wail. They had to know things about that child. Just as the doctor was putting the clear plastic pouch back into the binder, she stopped his arm.
“Wait a minute.”
She snatched up the admitting papers, glanced over them rapidly, then stabbed her finger at the name of the nurse who was present at the birth. The woman must have looked after the mother for the entire time she was in Obstetrics. It was reasonable to think the two women would have talked, shared confidences. The nurse might well know something about the relations between Terney and Carnot's mother.
“Pierrette Solène. Does she still work here?”
“I've never heard of her.”
The physician put the binder away and smiled.
“Just so your visit isn't a total loss, I'll check the personnel files and give you her addressâyou never know, maybe she still lives there. Would that do? And afterward, perhaps you might let me take you for a cup of coffee, Miss Courtois?”
I
t was well past one o'clock when Lucie knocked on the door of Pierrette Solène's home in the suburbs. Apart from the coffee she'd had at the maternity hospital with Blotowski, who had begun flirting with her openly, she hadn't eaten since leaving Paris. After this visit, she would absolutely have to find a place for lunch. She had to recharge her batteries if she didn't want to fall asleep at the wheel and wind up in a ditch. She'd covered more miles in the past two days than she usually did in a year.
The nurse lived in one of those small, low-cost cinderblock bungalows with chalk-white façades on the outskirts of town. According to the records, she would have been sixty-eight years old now, and had left Colombe Hospital eight years earlier for a retirement that she no doubt well deserved.
Pierrette Solène opened her door a crack, blocking the space with her body. She was dressed simply in a long flowered dress and black pumps from another age. Wrinkles furrowed her forehead and cheeks like grid lines, tracing complex geometric patterns. She was wearing large glasses with brown frames, the lenses slightly enlarging her pupils, the stems attached to a cord.
“Sorry, whatever it is you're selling, I'm not interested.”
“I'm not selling anything. I'm with the police.”
Lucie showed her card a bit longer this time. Suspicious, Pierrette Solène examined it closely, eyes slightly squinting. Lucie did her best to reassure her:
“Nothing to be afraid of, you're not in trouble. My investigation has led me to Colombe Hospital. According to the personnel records, you worked there for over thirty years. I'm trying to reconstruct something in the past, and I'd like to ask you a few questions about one episode in particular.”
Pierrette Solène glanced toward the sidewalk and Lucie's 206 parked at the edge of the street.
“Where's your partner? On television, the police always work in pairs. Why are you here on your own?”
Lucie gave her a polite smile.
“My partner is off questioning other parties at the hospital. You shouldn't believe everything you see on TV. Being a cop in real life is a different thing altogether.”
After hesitating a moment longer, the sexagenarian invited the other woman in. Five minutes later, Lucie found herself on a sofa topped with a thick wool coverlet, a cup of black, sweet coffee in her hands. A European shorthair slinked affectionately between her calves. Pierrette's face lit up when Lucie asked about Stéphane Terney.
“I worked under him for the four years he practiced at Colombe. He was a good doctor, a dedicated man. He always took on too much.”
“How do you mean?”
“He had a finger in everything: obstetrics, gynecology, immunology. Anything having to do with procreation fascinated him. He never punched a clock but spent all his time at Colombe. At work, he kept his staff on a tight leash. He didn't like people taking vacations. All he cared about was work, work, work.”
“Did he often handle deliveries himself?”
“Yes. Despite his gruff exterior, he loved bringing babies into the world. In any case, he came into the operating rooms at least once a day, to cut the umbilical cords and talk to the mothers he'd treated as a gynecologist. It didn't matter what time it was. I'd never seen a department head like him. He pushed us pretty hard, but overall we liked him.”
Lucie thought of her online research. Terney the medical orderly discovering the baby lying on the ground, still attached to its mother by the umbilical cord. Algeria and its traumas had never really left him. Bringing her coffee to her lips, Pierrette gave Lucie a sad look, as if the reason for the visit had suddenly dawned on her.
“Has something happened to Dr. Terney?”
Lucie gave her the terrible news and let her absorb the shock. Behind her thick lenses, Pierrette stared at the floor with empty eyes. Memories of the hospital must have been flooding in, good and bad, which would now take on a whole new significance because of this death, and would be shut away in a precious box. Lucie seized the opportunity:
“Tell me about the night of January 4, 1987, when Dr. Terney helped deliver a baby boy that he named Grégory Carnot. You were on call that night, in room three of the maternity ward. The mother died on the delivery table, from massive internal bleeding caused by preeclampsia. Do you remember?”
The nurse's face seemed to close in on itself and freeze. Then her upper lip began trembling, and the old woman passed her hand over her mouth in astonishment. She set down her cup, which clinked against the porcelain saucer. Lucie squeezed her fists together: twenty years later, Pierrette Solène still bore the scars from that night. The former nurse abruptly stood up and said, “That's all too far in the past. I'm sorry, but I don't remember.”
Lucie stood up as well and stood only inches from her.
“There's no way you've forgotten. What are you afraid of?”
Pierrette hesitated for a few moments.
“Can you promise I won't be in any trouble?”
“I guarantee it.”
A pause. The nurse thought it over. Lucie knew she must have been carrying a heavy secret, one that Terney might have forced her to keep all these years. Now that he was dead and she'd left the hospital, the locks might finally loosen.
“You spent time with Carnot's mother during her hospital stay. You brought her her meals, cared for her before the delivery. Do you remember her name? It's very important.”
“Of course I remember. It was Amanda Potier.”
Lucie felt a great wave of relief at finally being able to put a name to that blank face, to that woman who had perished in childbirth in horrible pain. She didn't ask for a paper and pencil to write it down, not wanting to alarm the other woman and interrupt the flow. It all had to remain informal, spontaneous. But she was memorizing every word.
The nurse continued:
“She was very young, twenty or twenty-one at most. A beautiful woman, with long black hair and dark eyes.”
“Why did she want to give birth anonymously?”
“She decided she didn't want the child, and it was too late to abort . . . Her louse of a boyfriend had abandoned her a few weeks earlier. She felt incapable of raising a child all alone, at her age.”
Lucie clenched her fists, reminded, despite herself, of her own story. But she had to put that aside for now.
“Tell me what you remember, whatever comes to mind. Take your time.”
Pierrette kept her eyes closed for a long while, then opened them again.
“Amanda Potier was an artist, a painter, but she was just getting started and couldn't make a living off it. She had a small apartment on the outskirts of Reims, just a few miles from here. She and Dr. Terney knew each other even before her admission; he'd bought a few of her paintings at a show to give her support, encouragement. She seemed to be very fond of him. He even commissioned some paintings from her, having to do with DNA and birth, which he wanted to decorate his house with. She told me privately that he had weird tastes, but he was paying her well.”
Lucie recalled the painting she'd briefly seen hanging in Terney's library and in the crime scene photos. That vile placenta, and the signature “Amanda P.” in the corner.
“Amanda told me he sometimes took her to lunch, where they mainly talked about art. Then one day their conversation turned toward her pregnancy. The doctor convinced her to leave her regular ob-gyn and see him instead. He followed her care for the last four months of her pregnancy.”
Lucie tried to think even as she was listening. It sounded as if Terney had been eager to get close to Amanda, and to her baby. Had Terney intentionally made contact with the expectant mother? Was he keeping an eye on her, even as she took him for a friend? Had he bought her paintings merely to gain her confidence? Lucie asked the question that leapt into her mind.
“Do you know why the doctor came to Reims in 1986? Why this hospital? Terney had an excellent job in Paris; he directed huge research projects and traveled widely. Why would he cloister himself away in the provinces?”
Pierrette shrugged shyly.
“I think he just seized an opportunity. Dr. Grayet, his predecessor, was three years away from retirement. He resigned when Dr. Terney applied for the job.”
Lucie's heart jumped.
“Resigned? Three years before retirement? Had he been planning that?”
The nurse shook her head with lips pressed tight.
“Grayet had never said a word about it, and we would never have believed it. But that's how it was . . . He wanted to enjoy life a bit more, I think. He left the hospital quietly, without any big fanfare.”
“What was the doctor's nameâhis first name, I mean?”
“Robert. But you won't be able to question him. He died from Alzheimer's five years ago. I went to his funeral. It was sad that he ended up like that.”
Lucie stored away the main information. Could Terney have forced his predecessor to leave so he could take his place, and thereby get to know Amanda Potier and become her doctor? She felt almost lightheaded. It seemed completely unreal. And yet the dates matched perfectly. Terney left Paris in 1986 and moved to Reims precisely when Amanda was expecting. He took charge of her prenatal care, overseeing her delivery in early January 1987. According to her research, Terney had divorced a few weeks before leaving Paris. Had something precipitated the breakup? Had his first wife found out something related to Amanda Potier or Robert Grayet?
Lucie put these questions aside for the moment and continued:
“Didn't Amanda Potier have any family? Didn't anyone visit her in the hospital?”
“Yes, of course. Her parents lived in Villejuif and were very supportive. Her mother was a beautiful woman, still young, who looked a lot like her. A prospective grandmother at little more than forty . . .”
The nurse ran her finger around the rim of her cup. These memories were obviously painful, but Lucie didn't let up.
“During her hospitalization, how did the doctor behave toward her?”
“He was there constantly, staying very close to his patient. Day and night. He even pitched in with our nursing duties. I remember the tests he had her take, the blood samples. Amanda was extremely tired, and her belly was enormous. I remember she ate constantly. Fruits, biscuits, whatever she could get her hands on.”
“Were she and the doctor close?”
The woman clenched her jaws.
“Not close enough for him to shed a tear over her death, in any case.”
Lucie pondered this, increasingly disturbed. She was certain now that Grégory Carnot had never been normal. Something about him had fascinated the doctor. Something that might even have pushed Terney to get a divorce, change cities, and arrange his life around the child.
“Tell me about the delivery.”
Pierrette Solène swallowed hard.
“The night of January 4, Amanda's readouts started going crazy. Her blood pressure shot up, her heart was racing. She was still a week before term, but we had to get the baby out no matter what. The doctor immediately called in the anesthesiologist and a midwife and had her brought to the delivery room.”
Her voice was now trembling.
“From that point on, everything happened very fast, and went from bad to worse. The patient went into convulsions and she started hemorrhaging. We couldn't stabilize her. The doctor performed a cesarean. It was . . . horrible. She soon lost several pints of blood. It was as if her body was emptying itself of energy. We couldn't understand what was happening.”
Lucie felt her hair stand on end.
“Amanda Potier wasn't even conscious for the birth of her son. In my thirty years on the job, I had only seen three mothers die in childbirth. Each time it was a deeply traumatic, inhuman experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone.”
Lucie imagined the atmosphere in that delivery room. Blood everywhere, the flat line of the electroencephalogram, the sunken faces. And the horrendous feeling of failure.
“And what about the baby?”
Pierrette made a grimace of disgust.
“
He
was in great shape, while his mother was bleeding out. A nice fat baby, much higher than normal weight, in fact. Extremely rare for a case of preeclampsia.”
She spoke with great bitterness, tinged with revulsion.
“Did you ever find out what happened with the infant?” asked Lucie.
“No. He was sent to Neonatal, and that wasn't my ward. I never knew what became of him, and to tell the truth, I didn't really want to know. His mother had died before my eyes, while he seemed just fine. And with what you're telling me today, it makes me feel even worse . . .”
Pierrette ran her hands over her face. She seemed to hesitate, sighed, then finally said:
“That night, I saw something, Miss. Something I've never told anyone. Something that seemed to contradict the doctor's diagnosis of preeclampsia.”
Lucie leaned forward. She felt as if she were at the edge of the abyss, as did the nurse, who continued slowly:
“It had to do with the vascularization of the placenta.”
The placenta . . . Lucie thought once again of the painting in Terney's library. The nurse struggled to let out the words that had probably never emerged from her lips.
“You know, preeclampsia causes the placenta to be very, very poor in blood vessels. This is always the case, even if the child is of normal size. When this child was removed by cesarean, the doctor quickly suctioned out the placenta that had remained in the womb. The midwife and anesthesiologist didn't see anything, since one was busy with the baby and the other trying to stabilize the patient. But
I
saw it.”
A pause. Lucie was all focus.
“What exactly did you see?”
“That placenta. It was like . . . like a spider's cocoon, it had so many blood vessels on the surface. To be perfectly honest, in all my career I'd never seen such a well-irrigated placenta. That might be why the baby was so big and roundâhe had everything he needed to develop normally.”