The Sanatorium(63)

She flinches as she sees herself crash into the pool, sending water surging into the air.

It’s only then that she has a view of who pushed her; she feels a sickening drop in her stomach.

Laure.

Check again, she tells herself. She has to be sure.

Elin skips back through the footage, this time zooming in on the figure.

She’s wearing exactly the same clothes; the same hood with the floppy peak. The face isn’t as clear as it was in the image by the generator room, but she’s certain it’s Laure.

Glancing at Cecile, her hand shaking against the desk, she says, “It’s Laure.” Her mouth is thick, claggy. “Laure pushed me.”

She knows that this is one of those moments when there’s no going back.

One of the moments when the knowledge is so powerful, it sweeps away everything else that came before.

Elin can’t believe it—doesn’t want to believe it—but she knows it’s true.

It was Laure watching me. Laure who pushed me.

The thought—cold, disturbing—leads to another: that Laure might not be a victim at all. She might be involved in this. The predator.





49





The lift to their floor shudders to a halt, doors sliding open.

Elin walks out into the corridor, legs like jelly. She can’t think straight—she’d imagined everything but this: Laure wasn’t being held by Adele’s killer; Laure had pushed her. Pushed her into that pool.

Her thoughts, raw, questioning, keep circling back to the same point: Why push me? Why cause Isaac the pain of going missing if it wasn’t for a sinister motive?

Though she wants to ignore it, the most obvious conclusion is that Laure’s involved in this.

That she’s capable of killing someone.

It’s where everything’s pointing, isn’t it? Everything she’s learned so far, this new information . . .

Images flit through her mind: Laure striding across the beach, skimboard under her arm. Laure reading, bottom lip stuck out in concentration. Laure diving off the cliff steps into the sea.

It’s impossible, surely?

Has Isaac missed the signs? Laure’s colleagues, friends?

It’s not beyond the realm of possibility. Elin’s thoughts lurch to a case from three years ago: a woman in her forties, convicted of murdering her ex’s new partner.

A brutal, vicious stabbing: seventeen times in her head, neck, chest. A neighbor found her bleeding out beside her son’s playhouse in the garden.

The suspect had worked in a bank in Exeter selling mortgages. Colleagues, friends, they’d all described her the same way: Quiet. Unassuming. Kind.

Elin and the team found out that she’d planned the murder for over two years. The Digital Forensics team dug up pages and pages of research on her laptop about methods of killing someone, how to avoid detection.

What had chilled her the most was the fact that no one had a clue: the killer was on good terms with the victim, had even been on holiday with her a few months before.

From sipping sundowners together to a murder in cold blood.

Have we misjudged Laure in the same way?

As Elin opens the door to their room, her mind flips back the other way.

Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. Does pushing her into the plunge pool automatically mean Laure’s involved in Adele’s death?

But still the thought nags: Why else would she do it?

Sitting down at the desk, Elin pulls out her notebook. The only way she’s going to get this clear in her head is if she writes it out. With a tentative hand, she notes down a summary of what she’s learned so far.


Laure’s mental health issues, the article, the psychologist’s card.


Relationship with Lucas/photographs of him.


Laure’s second phone/repeated phone calls to unknown number.


The angry phone call the night Laure went missing.


Laure’s argument with Adele.


Possible blackmail letters to Lucas—linked in some way?


Elin absorbs the words, unable to avoid the obvious picture her notes build: everything here, it all points to someone unpredictable. Unstable.

But is it enough to conclude that she’s capable of being involved in killing someone? An even bigger question is gnawing away at her: Why?

Why would Laure want to hurt Adele?

Elin’s thoughts move to how Adele was killed; the sandbag, the mask, the presence of the glass box, the fingers. All of it extreme, none of it necessary to kill her, which surely implied it wasn’t random. It meant something, perhaps something deeply personal.

But what? She knows Laure and Adele had argued—was it possible that the argument, whatever caused it, was enough of a motive for Laure to kill her?

She’s not sure.

It also doesn’t explain Daniel Lemaitre’s body. Are the two deaths connected, and if so, how?

Her phone starts to ring. When she pulls it from her pocket, she can see that it’s Noah.

The files.





50





When I said quick,” Elin says, surprised to find her hand shaking around the phone, “I didn’t expect . . . especially this late—” She checks her watch. Ten past eight.

“I always work late. You know that.”