The Sanatorium(79)

Isaac turns away, shoulders heaving. “What Laure must have gone through—” His voice gives way. “It’s my fault. I should have looked harder for her.” His shoulders sag, the fight draining out of him.

Elin watches him. She doesn’t know why, but his inability to stay angry with her, to keep the argument going, makes something catch in her throat.

Stepping forward, she reaches out to him, but the action feels rusty, underused. Her hand hangs, midair, before she drops it to her side.

She knows words won’t cut it, and even worse, this is only the start. Grief is like a series of bombs exploding, one after another. Every hour, a new detonation. Shock after shock after shock.

“Isaac, there’s nothing you could have done. Whoever’s doing this . . . they’re clever. One step ahead.”

She gets the impression he hasn’t even heard her; his eyes are tracing the falling snow outside. Silent, he wipes his eyes with his hand. The whites are rimmed in red.

Elin hesitates, unsure of what to do next. He needs time. Time to process it without having to speak or analyze it. “Look, I’m going to go.” She stands up. “See what’s on the memory stick. I’ll come and check on you later, okay?”

There’s no reply.

As she makes her way to the door, a tiny movement catches her eye—something in the fireplace, among the flames leaping at the glass. She stops, taking a closer look. Not wood, but something thinner, curling over on itself. Paper?

“What’s that?” she says lightly, gesturing.

“What?” He looks up.

“In the fireplace? It looks like paper.” This time, she’s sure she can see an image: shapes rather than words. Silhouettes, maybe.

A photograph?

“Just some receipts.” He doesn’t meet her eye. “Rubbish from my bag.”

When she reaches for the door handle, the flames lurch upward, a sudden bid for freedom, orange-purple flickers. The image, if it was ever there, is gone. Curled up on itself, a closed, ashen fist.

Elin knows it’s probably nothing, but the doubt is still there.

Doubt that’s tied to the image locked inside her head—Isaac, with his hands outstretched, his fingers steeped in blood.





63





When Elin gets back to her room, she finds that Will isn’t there.

Isn’t he meant to be working? She checks her phone and finds a text.

Gone to get something to eat.

Elin smiles. Will needs constant refueling while he’s working. If he’s staying at her apartment and brings work home, she always provides a postdinner snack—scrambled eggs or porridge. Cheese and biscuits.

She replies: Ok. Back in the room. See you in a bit.

Reaching for her tote, she pulls on her gloves, withdraws the memory stick from its bag. When she plugs it into the side of her laptop, a small window opens on the screen. “Open Disk F.”

She clicks. The contents of the portable drive fill the screen: twenty, maybe thirty individual documents. The file names are all the same except for the final digit.

She opens the first. A document appears. It’s been scanned in—the paper slightly yellowed at the corners, the words typewritten rather than computer generated.

Her eyes dart to the words at the very top of the page: GOTTERDORF KLINIK. There’s a date to the left of it: 1923.

Below that are several boxes. The words are in German. Namen, Geburtsdatum, Krankengeschichte.

The first two are just within her realm of comprehension—name, date of birth—but the third is beyond her.

Opening another screen, she taps the word into Google Translate—Krankengeschichte.

Clinical History.

Her initial instinct is correct—it’s a medical file.

But there’s a problem: apart from the headers, the rest of the document is redacted. The word itself is marked across a text box in black: REDACTED.

She tries another: the same thing.

REDACTED.

The pattern continues. A prickle of frustration: not one of the files contains any actual information—no hint at who the files refer to, their contents.

Then her eyes flicker to the top right of one document, just below where the patient name should be.

ID Nr.

Next to it is a number. Intact. How had she missed it before?

Her heart starts to beat a little faster. The numbers, they’re in the same format as those on the bracelets.

A five-digit number.

Elin jumps up, scrabbles in her bag for her notebook. Withdrawing it, she finds the page where she’s written down the bracelet numbers they found near Adele’s body.

She then looks on her phone for the images of the bracelets found near Laure’s. None of the numbers from the photographs match, so she looks back to the notebook.

Four lines down, she finds it: 87534.

Elin stares at the number until the digits cross over one another, trying to take it in: this file, the bracelet, they link. That means this clinic is connected in some way to the killings.

But how?

Opening up another screen, Elin Googles the clinic. The website for it appears at the top of the search.

The short blurb above the link is in German:


Die Klinik Gotterdorf besch?ftigt sich mit der Diagnose, Behandlung und Erforschung psychiatrischer Erkrankungen.