Asylum Read online

  They could prove it, and so they died.

  I’d stopped again, without realizing it, and when Robert Carrigan turned to see why, he saw my face. I’d said I wouldn’t be very good at this subterfuge thing, and I was right.

  And just as I understood, so did he.

  He reached out to grab me and I took off like the favorite in the hundred meters at the Olympics. Across the expanse of gray weathered stone. And into the basilica.

  I’d thought that Marie-Rose would be safe. I really had. But that was before she got sick.

  She kept coughing in the night and one morning couldn’t get out of bed. I pleaded with her to try, but she didn’t seem to see me or hear me and the inevitable result was that Sister Marie-Laure, who was infirmarian, caught us. “What are you doing?”

  “Sorry, Sister. Marie-Rose isn’t feeling well.”

  “Step away,” she ordered me, and bent over the bed, her hand on Marie-Rose’s forehead. When she straightened up, her face looked like it was carved out of stone. “Are you taking her to the infirmary, Sister?” The infirmary, I knew, was an antechamber only; the real destination would be the basement.

  “It’s none of your concern,” she snapped. “You have things to do, don’t you? What’s your name?”

  “Gabrielle Roy,” I said hesitantly. It wasn’t necessarily a good thing, to be brought to the sisters’ attention. “But Marie-Rose—”

  “Then go, Gabrielle, and tell Dr. Desmarchais that there’s a child taken ill.” She saw me hesitate, and slapped my cheek. “Listen to me! Go tell Dr. Desmarchais, and then do whatever he tells you to do.”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  I gave one last agonizing look at Marie-Rose, and ran. Down to the doctors’ office on the ground floor, where the rooms were brightly lit and everything seemed clean and new. In contrast, of course, to what they were there for. You could almost believe that they wanted to heal people here, that they were really doing something good.

  A girl about my own age, someone I didn’t know, was sitting in a chair outside a closed door. “What are you waiting for?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, and shrugged. “Sister Béatrice told me to wait, so I’m waiting.”

  “Is Dr. Desmarchais in there?” I pointed at the closed door. I was wondering if I could claim that I hadn’t found him. It wouldn’t work, of course; but buying Marie-Rose any time at all seemed the least I could do.

  The girl nodded. “Sister said not to disturb him,” she said.

  I sat down next to her. “My name’s Gabrielle. What’s yours?”

  The eyes flickered at me and back again into the middle distance. She was being cautious, which meant she was smart. “Annie.”

  We waited an interminable time. I was worried about Marie-Rose, worried about what Sister Marie-Laure was doing to her upstairs, worried what it meant for her to see the doctor; at the asylum, doctors weren’t there to protect you. Au contraire.

  I stole a glance from time to time at Annie, sitting so still next to me that she might have been one of the statues in the orphanage’s chapel.

  Finally the door opened and a nun came out carrying a little boy in her arms. He seemed to be asleep. I didn’t know either of them, and she left without a word.

  Dr. Desmarchais stuck his head out and saw the girl next to me first. “Annie! It’s good to see you. Thank you for stopping by. I have something to talk with you about.”

  He seemed only then to notice me. “Yes? Can I help you?”

  “Sister Marie-Laure sent me,” I said, sliding to my feet so as to look respectful. “It’s Marie-Rose. She’s sick.”

  “I see.” He patted Annie on the head. “Just wait here, there’s a good girl.” He turned to me. “Where are you supposed to be, now?”

  “In the file room, monsieur le docteur.”

  “Very good. Run along there now. I’ll take care of your friend.”

  And he must have done, because I never saw her again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  He was behind me.

  I knew as soon as I darted into the church that he’d follow me, but I wasn’t thinking, not really; like any frightened animal when the hawk circled, I was in a blind panic. Thinking that the shadows would protect me, the scattering of side altars and ranks of flickering candles. No; not thinking was more like it. Going on instinct. The hunted will bolt even when it’s exactly the wrong thing to do.

  And where were the security guards, anyway? They were supposed to lock up, or to keep the odd tourist from wandering in after hours without paying admission. What had happened to them?

  It didn’t matter, not really: they weren’t here, and I was.

  I wasn’t harboring any more illusions about Robert Carrigan. He knew all of Lansbury’s secrets, and had been keeping them for years. Who knew when he’d first gotten involved with them, when he’d first decided that the company, above all else, needed to thrive?

  There had been something that had come and gone in those eyes when I’d brought up the children at the asylum. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it was after that his manner had changed. It was after that he’d decided to do what he had to do to keep me quiet.

  Had Robert Carrigan hired a contract killer to take out Lansbury’s garbage? Or had Robert Carrigan saved them the trouble and taken care of it himself? Was he the killer?

  And I had liked him. When we’d first met, I’d liked him.

  Whoever he was, he was chasing me now. Someone willing to rape and murder, if not by his own hand, then once removed. Someone who was coming after me, ready to add another name to the list of victims. There might be another woman somewhere, Ivan had said.

  Neither of us had any idea that woman might end up being me.

  I’d instinctively swerved to the left when I went in; when I went to the basilica for mass on Sundays it was where I sat, and my feet were moving without any input from my brain. The church was darkened but weirdly alive, the flames from thousands of candles in the numerous side chapels flickering, giving off an odd yellow light that cast more shadows than it relieved and making the very stone seem to come alive. The lights were still on behind the reredos, the blue of the heavenly sky, dotted with gold stars and glowing, I fancied, with the holiness and sanctification of the liturgies that had been enacted there.

  There’s something about a church, especially a big mysterious one, that makes you want to whisper. Robert Carrigan obviously felt otherwise. “Martine!” His voice echoed around me and off the pillars that spanned my side aisle. “Don’t be ridiculous. All I want to do is talk.”

  Yeah. Like you talked to Danielle and Annie and Isabelle and Caroline. I saved my breath and, like a church mouse in this greatest of all churches, looked desperately for a hiding place.

  I’d made my way as far as the confessionals, now, and darted inside the first one. On the penitent’s side, of course; even the threat of imminent death didn’t seem to relax the shibboleths of my upbringing. As I stood in the narrow space, scarcely breathing, I realized what an infinitely stupid move I’d made. I was trapped inside a box no larger than an upright coffin, just waiting to be discovered.

  No: I wouldn’t wait here, trembling, for him to hunt me down and find me. You’re strong, Martine. You don’t have to be a victim.

  I wondered how strong they had been, the others. Probably stronger than I was. But I had something they didn’t have: I knew who my enemy was, and what he was capable of doing.

  I opened the door and slipped out again before I lost my nerve. I was beginning to understand how the rabbit felt, staying stock-still for as long as possible—and then bolting at the very worst possible time, nerves broken, death in sight.

  I had no idea where Robert was.

  The thought sent me spinning into panic. Beside me, a life-sized wooden statue—of Marguerite Bourgeoys, Montréal’s own saint—seemed to move in the flickering candlelight, the lips alive in prayer, the eyes watchful. I crouched beside her, her painted cloak against my sk
in. Help me, Saint Marguerite, protect me. She had nothing to say, and I leaned closer to her, feeling invisible, knowing I was not. Think, Martine, think. You have the advantage here. You know this place; he doesn’t. Use what you know.

  What I knew was that I’d never been so scared in all my life.

  “Martine!” I jumped; the voice was close, too close. I stayed down and scuttled behind a rack of votive candles, probably not too brilliant a move—their light would blind me to seeing anything else—but the instinct to hide was too overwhelming. “Martine, where are you?” Almost a chant, familiar from childhood games. Childish, that’s what he sounded.

  He’d changed when I talked about children at the asylum. His eyes, his voice, he’d become younger though no less terrifying. What was it about Robert Carrigan and these children?

  Never mind. Right now what I had to do was survive to tell the tale.

  I felt an atavistic shudder run down my spine and my brain, finally, clicked into gear. I slipped my hand into my pocket, my fingers closing around the dreaded smartphone. I pulled it out and, risking its illumination, navigated to the contacts list, pressed a button. Ringing. More ringing as I tempered my breath to avoid making too much noise. “You’ve reached the voice mail of Julian Fletcher…” That was no good. I whispered into the phone. “It’s Martine, I’m at the basilica, help me, Julian. He’s here. Carrigan. It’s him. He’s going to kill me.” I tried Ivan, got his voice mail too. I should probably leave Ivan a message, part of my mind was thinking, in case I wasn’t around later to tell him anything.

  I couldn’t think like that. I had to know where Robert was. I put my head even farther down and focused on the smartphone, clicking on the utilities, then set the alarm for three minutes. I slipped the phone down onto the floor and, cautiously, eased myself out from behind the candles and darted into the shadows of the next chapel over. I couldn’t even see who this saint was, somebody male and big and reassuring; he should have been a comfort to me. The small altar was marble, cold under my fingers, and I glanced up into his face, the statue impassive in the flickering candlelight. No help there.

  No movement anywhere. What I had to do, I thought, was get up in the organ loft, where only an hour ago the French master musician had been playing. From there, I could see where Robert was.

  No, the saner part of me said. You don’t have to get into the loft, you idiot; you have to get out of here. An adage came floating up out of my subconscious: never climb, eventually you run out of stairs. I had to get out in the open, out where there are people, out where there’s safety and no madman chasing me through a medieval maze …

  I slid around another pillar just as the alarm I’d set went off. Even though I knew it was coming, I jumped.

  Robert, however, did nothing. No more calling out. No rushing to see where my phone was. No exclamations of discovery or irritation. It was as if I were alone in the vast dark cathedral. That’s probably what he wanted me to think.

  For one long moment I considered just staying there. All night. They’d be in, later, to lock up; if not, someone would open the church for morning mass. I could just stay there; in the morning I’d be safe.

  In the morning, I thought, I’d be dead. I had to get out of there.

  Back behind the reredos was a stairway, down to the restrooms and the exhibit hall. And an exit.

  The church seemed brighter now, lit by the thousands of candles burning all over, in front of statues and icons, in all of the side altars, carrying prayers eternally on their flames. I could have used a few of those prayers right now. I felt my way back down toward the front of the church, keeping my back to the wall, in and out of the depressions that held statues, paintings, grottoes. I could do this. I could get out of here.

  Still no movement anywhere. I forced myself to breathe. Sure, Martine, everything’s safe now. Odd how I’d thought of the murderer as some shadowy figure, larger than life, scary as a nightmare; and then had met him and saw how ordinary he was. Maybe evil looks like that. Maybe evil is so insidious because it’s so ordinary.

  Maybe someday I’d have the leisure to consider such philosophical questions.

  Past the choir stalls, finally, and the staircase, dark and gaping, opened to my left. There was no candlelight back here. It didn’t matter: the door at the foot of those stairs was freedom, light, safety. I plunged down them headlong.

  And had my wrist grabbed even as I reached for the doorknob. “I don’t think,” Robert Carrigan said, “that it’s time for you to leave quite yet, my dear.”

  They caught me doing it, of course.

  There were four or five doctors at the asylum all the time now, and they all were very busy. There were medications for us to take, injections—some painful, some merely scary—to be endured. Operations to be done. Electroshock, which I hadn’t had to undergo but had seen, quite by accident, and never wanted to even think about again. Restraints, chains, straitjackets. Oh, and the prettiest girls—and prettiest boys, too—who spent time with the orderlies behind closed doors, and cried about it later in the night.

  And all of it supervised by the doctors. Who always were looking for someone who hadn’t been “treated” yet.

  Which brought everything back to me and my lists.

  I’d been handing them to Sister Béatrice with scribbled notations, and one day she came into the file room and sat across from me. “I’d like to see some of the folders,” she said. Her eyes were colder than anything I’d ever seen.

  “Yes, Sister,” I said. What else was there for me to say?

  “Bien,” she said. “Let me see … Bernard Leveque. Catherine Dulac. François.… Hmm, little François has no surname.”

  “No?” I asked.

  “No. No surname. Odd how you were able to locate a sister for him,” she said. “You are very talented, Gabrielle.”

  I hated that she knew my name. “Perhaps I made an error,” I said.

  “Perhaps you did. Perhaps you’ve made a great many errors, Gabrielle, and especially the error you made in thinking yourself smarter than we are.”

  “No, Sister,” I protested. “I never said that.”

  “Or better?” she countered. “Perhaps you think that you’re better than we are? Perhaps you think your judgment superior to ours?”

  “No, Sister,” I said miserably.

  “Let’s see those folders,” she said.

  I took them all out. Empty, all of them, as I knew they were, as she’d somehow figured out that they would be: these were the orphans who had nobody to care if they lived or died—or to care if they were tortured in between the two.

  Orphans like me.

  Sister Béatrice went through them slowly, one by one. When she was finished, she raised her eyes to mine. “You were given our trust,” she said. “We took you in when no one else cared about you. We gave you shelter and food and an education. We’ve given you employment. And this is how you respond. You’ve lied to us, you’ve tricked us, you’ve humiliated us.”

  What was scariest of all was that she wasn’t shouting. She wasn’t taking a stick to me, beating the words into me, as they so often did. Her voice was colorless, without inflection, and I found that the most frightening part of all. “Sister—”

  “Enough!” The hand blocked any more conversation.

  She stood up then, slowly. “You have shown yourself to be willful and disobedient,” she said, and I thought no, please, God, no, not back to the restraints again, the cold metal collar around my neck, the immobility; but it seemed she had something else in mind. “Other orphans who are grateful for what they have will take your place here,” she said. “Tomorrow I will introduce you to Dr. Cameron.”

  And then she was gone.

  I took a long, deep breath. I knew what that meant.

  I pulled some paper from the file cabinet, and began to write:

  I suppose that there had been a life sometime before the orphanage, but I could never really remember it—not really, not as a whol
e. There were only scraps left, a tune that wouldn’t leave my brain, a sense of something almost familiar lurking just out of sight that disappeared as soon as I turned my head to look at it …

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I floated back to consciousness.

  I really mean it: I was floating. It felt like I was in water, but it wasn’t water. I wasn’t drowning.

  Not altogether unpleasant, to tell you the truth.

  It became more unpleasant, of course, as my brain cells awoke and synapses fired, albeit irregularly. I knew who I was … gradually. I wasn’t sure what I was doing floating in the dark, but I remembered my name, which had to be a good thing.

  Martine LeDuc. That’s who I was. I lived in Montréal. I had a ginger cat … no, not anymore; Théo d’Or had died when I was still in college. I started giggling; the cat’s name really was clever. A pun in a name. If you spoke French.

  Okay. Starting over. Martine LeDuc. That was right, n’est-ce pas? And Montréal: I lived in Montréal. That was easy; I’ve always lived in Montréal. But no more cat … there was someone else, though. Someone else close to me? My mother? No: she was sleeping, peacefully or otherwise, up on the mountain for which the city had been named.

  Focus, focus: it’ll come to you. It has to come to you. Someone else, a man,… a tall man, a Russian?

  But the sensation of floating was too pleasant to follow the thread of my thoughts, and so for a while I gave in and just floated some more. Couldn’t hurt, could it?

  Some annoying voice was insisting that it could hurt, actually, and that it was time for me to come back. I didn’t understand. Irritating little voice. Go away. Leave me alone. I moved my hand to push the thought away, batting at it like a persistent gnat, and found that I couldn’t move my arm.

  That brought me back in a hurry.

  Bon, d’accord. I was Martine LeDuc. I lived with a man, not a cat. A husband, that was it. Ivan the Terrible. No, not terrible: I loved him. It would be good if he were here so he could tell me I’d had too much to drink and take me home to sleep it off. I nodded owlishly, or at least tried to nod, but found then that I couldn’t move my head, either.