The Sanatorium(97)

“See anything?” Isaac moves beside her.

“Nothing so far.” She bites her lip in frustration. Nothing to hint at the sound she heard—that soft thud, the scuffing sound of something sliding across the floor.

Unless, Elin thinks, lowering herself to her knees, the impact was enough that the object traveled farther than she thought. After all, the tiles are smooth, slick . . .

Tipping her head sideways, necklace swinging against her chin, she looks under the machine in front. Is there enough of a gap for something to slip under?

There is . . . She turns her head the other way. It’s then she sees it: a white corner, just visible and half protruding from beneath a metal cage surrounding the generator.

She reaches for the edge, and tries to pull it toward her. It doesn’t give.

Changing tack, she clasps the edge between finger and thumb, tugs. This time it slides out easily. She stares: an envelope, packed tight.

“Have you found something?”

She stands back up. “An envelope.” Hands shaking, she lifts up the flap, withdraws a thick pile of papers, letter size, folded in half.

She examines the first piece of paper, and takes a sudden breath. She recognizes the words, the layout.

Gotterdorf Klinik.

“It’s a medical record. The same as the ones on Laure’s memory stick.” One big difference, though—this one isn’t redacted. She scans the page, starting with the name at the top. Bette Massen.

Massen: that’s Margot’s surname, isn’t it? Elin then notices the number below the name: 87534. Her pulse quickens. It can’t be a coincidence.

Scanning down, she can’t read any further. The German medical vocabulary is beyond her. She flicks to the next one. “There’s more,” she murmurs, then stops.

Something’s fallen to the floor. Black-and-white photographs.

Bending down, she gathers them together, picks them up.

Shock surges through her as she examines the first image. Five women, lying side by side on a series of operating tables. A cloth is draped loosely over their lower limbs, but it’s been carelessly pulled back, as if it was hastily moved for the photographer.

So the lens could capture the handiwork.

Not that you could call it that, Elin thinks, bile rising at the back of her throat.

Their bodies are mutilated; stomachs splayed open, flesh retracted with some kind of metal tool to reveal the organs beneath.

Her gaze moves to their heads. It’s hard to see, as the bodies are prone, but it looks like part of the skull has been removed, the brain matter clearly visible.

Her brain is shouting at her: Don’t look. Don’t look.

But she has to. A shiver moves through her at what her eyes find next: three people standing behind the women, clad in surgical clothes. They’re all wearing masks. The masks are concealing their faces, but she’s pretty sure they’re men. Their frames, their height, the formal, broad-legged stance.

The masks are the same grotesque rubber masks that were attached to Adele’s and Laure’s faces.

The same mask the killer wore.

Elin feels another wave of revulsion as she draws the conclusion: the only logical reason the doctors would be masked is to conceal their identity. They didn’t want people to know who they were, because they were doing something wrong. It certainly looks wrong. Far from being a clinical procedure, it looks like a crime scene. Something inhuman. Barbaric.

Her fingers contract around the photograph, and once again she has to force herself to examine it, her eyes finding new detail.

Elin sucks in her breath: the woman closest to the camera has her arm falling off the side of the table. Several fingers have been removed.

There’s something around her wrist too. It’s hard to tell what it’s made of because the image isn’t in color, but it’s definitely a bracelet. It looks similar to the copper bracelets she’d seen in the boxes.

“This is it,” Elin says slowly, still digesting the knowledge, its implications. “What all this has been about.”

Isaac’s face is twisted in disgust. “What exactly are they doing?”

“I don’t know,” she says grimly, “but whatever it is, it doesn’t look legal.”

After passing the photograph to Isaac, Elin holds up the next one. It shows a scrubby patch of grass and what looks like a solitary grave, the earth recently disturbed, no headstone or marker.

Flipping to the next, she brings her hand to her mouth. While not as graphic, the image is equally disturbing. It shows a woman lying on an operating table, two sandbags strapped tightly to her chest. The weight from the bags has caused her chest to cave, bow. The woman’s eyes are closed.

Elin can’t tell if she’s alive or not. She doubts it: breathing looks impossible. The weight of the sandbags on her chest would have meant her lungs would have struggled to inflate. Once again, three masked men are standing behind her.

Their fixed pose, the masks . . . it’s chilling.

With fumbling fingers, she moves to the next one. The image shows two women, again on operating tables. Sheeting is pulled up high over their bodies, but there are long incisions in their necks. Elin stares, shuddering as the scene moves into sharper focus.

Her mind immediately makes the connection to the methods used to kill Adele and Laure—the sandbag with Adele, the neck incision with Laure.