According to Information, Gaëlle Lecoupet, Stéphane Terney’s first wife, lived in Gouvieux, a quiet town located near Chantilly. Lucie had lost a lot of time in traffic jams trying to leave Greater Reims, so it was getting on to the end of the afternoon when she skirted Chantilly, famous for its château, its racetrack, and its golf courses. After a few more miles, she parked in the graveled driveway of a large private house set back from the road, just behind a huge Audi and a Mercedes convertible.
A man with graying hair stopped trimming the rose bushes and came up to her. After Lucie showed him her fake ID and said she wanted to talk to Mme. Lecoupet about a case involving her first husband, he pointed Lucie toward the residence without a word. His lack of commentary suggested that neither he nor his wife had been notified of Terney’s death, nor had the cops from number 36 yet delved this far into the past in their search for his killer.
The mistress of the house was standing in a large covered porch that was filled with climbing plants and about a dozen cats of various breeds and colors. The animals prowled around her legs, purring, while she poured milk and kibbles into a parade of saucers.
“Darling, it’s the police for you,” said the gray-haired man. “About Stéphane.”
Gaëlle Lecoupet stopped dead and turned a surprised face to Lucie. She was a tall, slim woman, beautiful without makeup, wearing an old T-shirt and a pair of jeans that didn’t quite match the status of the environs. Longish, well-cut gray hair fell onto her delicate shoulders. She set the cat food on a table, wiped her fingers on a towel, and came up to Lucie. Before shaking her hand, she shot her companion a look, asking him to leave them in private. The man, though clearly concerned, went back outside to his gardening. Gaëlle Lecoupet closed a glass door, shutting off the porch, then turned to Lucie:
“Is my ex-husband in some kind of trouble?”
The cop announced his violent death, without softening the truth. She wanted to plunge the other woman into the nauseating atmosphere of the investigation, shock her into cooperating.
Success. Gaëlle Lecoupet let herself fall into a chair in the living room, agitated, and brought a hand to her face.
“My god! Murdered . . . It feels so strange to hear something like that.”
Lucie remained standing, sizing her up. Without mincing words, she began questioning.
“Were the two of you still in touch?”
Gaëlle Lecoupet shook her head sadly and took a moment before answering.
“We hadn’t seen each other since the divorce. Not a phone call, letter, nothing. Since then, I’ve only heard of him indirectly, through articles in the scientific press.”
“We believe his murder is related to his past, especially around the year 1986, when he was practicing in Reims. Can you tell me why he suddenly moved there, when he had such a good situation in Paris?”
This time, the sexagenarian answered without a pause.
“Practicing medicine in the provinces was a good opportunity for him. Leaving Paris allowed him to be a full-time obstetrician, which was what he loved more than anything. He always preferred direct contact with his patients, the expectant mothers, the babies. In Paris, there was always some conference to attend, an article to write, or an interview to grant. He wanted to leave all that behind and go back to practicing medicine.”
It was the kind of neat, ready-made answer that never satisfied Lucie. Gaëlle Lecoupet must have spoken those words many times before, whenever she’d had to justify what happened. She hadn’t given any thought before answering. The ex-cop told herself she’d have to dig deeper, delve further into the couple’s private life. So she asked some basic questions, nothing very challenging, simply to put her subject at ease and revive the past. She didn’t learn much of anything new. Stéphane Terney was brilliant, ambitious, involved . . . He liked being talked about, gave a lot of interviews. Seemingly an ideal husband in some ways, completely devoted to medical science and biology, but whose job mattered more than his family. He didn’t want children, “for fear of seeing them grow up in a world headed for collapse.”
After listening to these banalities, Lucie opted for the direct approach.
“Now I’m going to ask you a slightly more personal question: was your divorce because of his departure for Reims?”
Lecoupet frowned.
“As you say, that’s rather personal. I don’t really see how that can help you in your investigation, Miss . . . ?”
“Lieutenant Amélie Courtois. Your ex-husband got himself killed, and we’re trying to explore every trail, to understand the motives of his killer, who very definitely knew him. Any information we can gather, including on Terney’s past, is highly important. So please answer my question.”
The woman hesitated, then finally gave in.
“I had no desire to leave everything behind and start from scratch. I’d worked hard to establish my law practice, and I was starting to build a solid clientele, to become known in a profession where the competition was stiff. So I decided not to follow him there. I liked it in Paris, I had every reason to stay. It’s as simple as that.”
“Does the name Robert Grayet mean anything to you?”
“No, not really.”
“And yet it should. He was the department head your ex-husband replaced in Reims. I imagine Terney must have mentioned him. Since his departure for the provinces was the cause of your divorce, right?”
“It’s just that . . . it’s all so far in the past. I really don’t remember. My husband met a lot of people. It’s possible I did hear the name, but I couldn’t possibly tell you under what circumstances.”
Lucie felt the blood rush to her temples, but she did her best to keep calm. She was convinced this woman was hiding the truth and that, despite everything, she was protecting a man she had once loved very deeply.
“Listen to me, Mme. Lecoupet. Your husband was tortured with cigarette burns and mutilated by a cold-blooded monster. I’m here because I’m certain his murder is related to what happened all those years ago, in the maternity hospital in Reims. I’ll lay my cards on the table: a few weeks after he took over the post at Colombe, your ex-husband began treating a patient named Amanda Potier. She died in the delivery room on January 4, 1987, before his eyes.”
Lucie let a few seconds pass, gauging the other’s reaction. Clearly, she hadn’t been aware. The ex-cop continued in a firm, assured tone:
“I don’t believe the two of you separated over career conflicts or geographical distance. I’m certain your husband went to that hospital specifically so he could treat that patient and deliver her child, whatever the cost. Robert Grayet’s resignation was certainly the result of a payoff. That money obviously came from somewhere. So now, I’d appreciate it if you’d can the stock phrases and tell me what really happened. Why was your ex-husband so set on going to Reims?”
The woman put a hand to her face with a long sigh. Then she stood up.
“I have to go to the attic for a moment. Please wait here.”
Once alone, Lucie began pacing back and forth. She felt full of energy and, in a way, proud to be making such progress, alone, far from the beaten path. It proved she was still alive, capable of more than just answering phones in a dead-end call center.
Gaëlle Lecoupet reappeared with a small, transparent, slightly dusty bag in her hands. It contained an old videotape, black and without a label, which she put in the DVD/VHS player. She picked up a remote and walked over to the window looking out on the garden. She gave the double curtains a sharp tug and locked the entrance door.
“I don’t want Léon to see these images . . . He doesn’t even know this tape exists.”
She came back toward Lucie and invited her to sit down. Her jaws were tight, her fingers gripping the remote.
“You’re quite right. I didn’t divorce Stéphane because of my practice or my clients. It had to do with . . . with what he was hiding from me.”
There was a silence. Lucie tried to restart the conversation with the first thought that occurred.
“Would it have anything to do with his interest in eugenics?”
“No, no, nothing like that. I knew about Stéphane’s beliefs before I married him. Besides, at the time I shared some of his ideas.”
Gaëlle Lecoupet caught the look of surprise flashing across Lucie’s face and explained further:
“You mustn’t take eugenicists for monsters or Nazis. There’s nothing evil in pointing out that the welfare system, alcohol, drugs, and an aging population are counter to what nature intended, or that they prevent society from developing properly. It’s just another way of making us face up to our responsibilities and confront the ecological holocaust we’re bringing about.”
She looked tenderly at her cats—some of which, rescued from the streets, were in sad shape—then turned back to Lucie.
“About two years before our divorce, Stéphane began having secret meetings. He claimed he was going to his bridge club, but by chance I found out he was lying. I thought he was having an affair, so I began to follow him—and I discovered that it wasn’t a woman he was seeing, but two men. Two individuals he met several times a month in the stands of the Vincennes Racecourse, near where we were living. My husband wasn’t a gambler, so what was he doing there with two strangers?”
“Do you know who they were?”
“I never found out. Stéphane never left a single trace in writing, no names, nothing. They were most likely scientists like him, or anthropologists.”
“Specialists in other civilizations? What makes you say that?”
“When you see this tape, you’ll understand.”
“And, can you describe these men, what they looked like?”
She shook her head.
“No, it was too far away, too hazy. I always kept my distance, so I never saw them very clearly. Roughly, I’d say that one was dark-haired, average height, normal build, probably my husband’s age, or thereabouts. And the other . . . I’m not sure. Maybe blond. I’m not sure what else to tell you about them. In twenty-five years, people change so much, and memories can fade so quickly. On the other hand, I can tell you about Stéphane, about how different he seemed whenever he came back from the racetrack. About how he started acting mysteriously, spending more and more time locked away in his study.”
“You never asked him about those meetings, what he was up to?”
“No. I wanted to know what it was about. The meetings took place over the course of a year. Stéphane grew increasingly paranoid and forbade anyone from entering his study, even when he was there. And when he left it, he locked the door behind him. I didn’t know where he kept the keys, since he took such care in hiding things. He never left anything to chance.”
Her eyes grew darker and her pupils dilated. The doors of the past opened wide.
“But it often happens that when one doesn’t want things to be seen, they become all the more visible. I knew Stéphane was hiding something in his study, something that mattered greatly to him, and I wanted to know what it was. One time when he was out for the day, I called a locksmith. He easily opened the study door, but in the back of the room was a tall metal cabinet, also locked shut, that Stéphane had bought a few months earlier.”
“When he began meeting those men . . .”
“Yes, right around then. I had to know what was inside. So I asked the locksmith to do the same thing on one of the drawers. However, that lock was a lot harder to open, and the stupid locksmith, for all his supposed ‘expertise,’ ended up breaking it. The drawer came open, of course, but I knew Stéphane would immediately realize I’d been through his things. And there was no way to repair the damage. I felt terrible.”
Sadly, she nodded to the VCR.
“In the drawer was a videotape. Surely one of the ones the men at the racetrack had given him.”
“Are you saying there was more than one tape?”
“In the other drawers, yes, I’m certain of it. Unfortunately I was never able to watch them. This tape is a copy I quickly had made, that same day, which I hid before he got home. The original tape had a label on it with the words ‘Phoenix number one,’ which also suggests there were other cassettes.”
At the mention of that odd name, Lucie suddenly recalled the painting of the firebird in Terney’s library, to the left of the placenta. The phoenix . . . She knew she was putting her finger on something huge and unsuspected, but she couldn’t yet grasp its essence.
Gaëlle Lecoupet’s deep voice snapped her out of her thoughts.
“Now, if you’ll allow me, we’re going to watch this. I hope you have a strong stomach.”
Excited by these new discoveries and the connections already forming in her head, Lucie gazed back at her.
“I’m a cop—we’re born that way.”
The woman pressed PLAY.