The Orchid Shroud (29 page)

“Canadian,” Mara corrected.

“Ah, pardon
. Nevertheless, you may have heard of a famous study that was written up years ago in the
American Journal of Psychiatry?”

Mara shook her head.

“It involved a forty-nine-year-old woman who believed herself to change into a wolf. She bit and clawed, experienced compulsive
bestial urges, and, most significantly, saw in herself the wolflike features—claws and fangs—of a wild animal who wanted to kill.”

“But she didn’t actually … transform?”

“Certainly not. However, she
saw
herself differently. It’s one of the principal presenting characteristics of full-blown lycanthropy. The delusion is so great that patients truly believe they’re wolves and see themselves as changing physically—for example, being covered in hair, or having wolf eyes and feet. Their behavior changes, they howl, go on all fours, bite. There are also cases of partial lycanthropy, where the subjects see themselves as taking on wolf features but stop short of thinking they are real wolves.”

Mara thought for a moment. “But why wolves? Why not bears or—or lions?”

“That’s a very good question. I suspect it’s cultural. Elsewhere, the condition may take other forms. I’ve heard that foxes are the animal of choice in some parts of Asia. The cases I’m familiar with are North American or European, where the wolf historically has been a major predator and where wolf stories are embedded in our culture. Who hasn’t heard the story of ‘Le Petit Chaperon rouge’?”

Little Red Riding Hood.
Or the Big Bad Wolf
, Mara added mentally. “Are lycanthropes affected by the phases of the moon? I’d also like to know if the condition is hereditary.”

Nathalie Thibaud tipped her head from side to side. “Some patients have reported an episodic onset that seems to correspond to the full moon. But that’s not surprising. The moon is known to have a powerful effect on our psyches. I have a small private practice apart from my work here where I treat patients with conditions ranging from bipolar disorder to kleptomania, and I’d say a good sixty percent of them claim to be affected by the moon.” She cocked an eyebrow at Mara, inviting her to draw her own conclusions. “As far as the question of heredity is concerned, some psychiatric disorders show a definite genetic association. Why not
lycanthropy? The difficulty is, so little is known about it. In my view, trauma may play as great a role as genetic predisposition.”

Mara thought carefully how to word her next questions. “Dr. Thibaud, I assume you’ve heard of the Beast of Le Gévaudan?”

“Of course.” The doctor grinned. “It’s one of France’s most enduring mysteries.”

“Do you think it’s possible that the Beast could actually have been a person who used a trained wolf or wolf-dog cross as his killing machine?”

The eyes crinkled. “Your theory, I presume? Hardly a new one.”

Mara nodded. “My theory. And you’re right. The idea isn’t original, except the books I’ve read suggest the person was some kind of sadistic madman.”

“And you think it was a lycanthrope?” Dr. Thibaud pursed her lips. “The idea has its merits.”

“I also have an additional twist. You’ve probably also heard of the Sigoulane Beast?”

The grin faded. “You’re talking about the recent incidents in the Dordogne?”

“Not yet. I’m talking about whatever terrorized the Sigoulane Valley in the last half of the 1700s. You see, I have reason to believe that a lycanthrope was behind
both
the Gévaudan Beast and the Sigoulane Beast.”

The green eyes fixed intently on her. “Go on.”

“I think the killings in Le Gévaudan didn’t end in 1767 because the Beast was destroyed, but because the human ‘Beast’ escaped to the Dordogne, where he trained up other dogs and resumed his attacks a few years later, becoming known as the Sigoulane Beast.” She scanned the doctor’s face for any sign of incredulity and saw none. “The modus operandi was identical—attacks by a large wolflike animal, feeding on and mutilation of the bodies, probably with the participation of the human partner. The attacks persisted until 1810. Forty-nine years after that date, there
was another rash of attacks, again in Sigoulane. In these cases, although people believed the Beast had returned, no wolflike creature was ever actually seen. I think a descendant of the original Beast, again a lycanthrope, was responsible for the later attacks, but that he murdered his human victims without the agency of dogs.” She went on to sketch out briefly, without mentioning names, what she knew about the de Bonfonds, their reputation, and their family motto.

Nathalie Thibaud was silent for a moment. Then she said carefully, “In my opinion, it’s entirely possible—in fact, probable—that a human agent was behind the Gévaudan Beast. The idea that this person shifted his killing field from Le Gévaudan to the Dordogne is also possible, if what you say about the similarity in the MO is true. However, you’ll have a time proving it. As for your idea that a descendant carried on the tradition at a later date—” She shrugged. “And whether the perpetrators were true lycanthropes or psychopaths is something I’m afraid we’ll never know.”

“There’s more.” Mara paused. This was the difficult part. She took a deep breath and plunged. “Dr. Thibaud, I think a present-day descendant of the Beast may be responsible for the murder of a man called Jean-Claude Fournier.” At the doctor’s startled reaction, she hurried on. “Whether or not this person is also somehow involved in a series of other recent incidents in the Sigoulane Valley, I don’t know, but I have reason to believe that he had a very strong motive to kill Fournier.”

Nathalie Thibaud said warily, “Are you talking about the death of that genealogist?”

Mara nodded.

“I hope you realize you’re making a very serious accusation.” The doctor’s voice was suddenly harsh. “If you’re trying to suggest that a lycanthrope is at work, you’d better have, in addition to solid forensic evidence, a damned good clinical basis for such a claim. Does your suspect have a history of wolflike behavior? Does the
person believe he or she transforms into a wolf? Are other, associated symptoms present?”

Mara held her hands up. “That’s my problem. I don’t know. It’s why I’m here. I only know that this person is a direct descendant of the family I mentioned, and that he goes into periodic seclusion. I also know that he disappeared twice recently, the first time coinciding with the fatal attack on a
sanglier-
baiter, the second with the mauling of a woman, and that both instances were around the time of a full moon. Plus, he was missing when Jean-Claude Fournier was killed. Most important, I said he had a strong motive for silencing Fournier. I think Fournier was trying to blackmail him—for being a werewolf. Jean-Claude, you see, was the one who made the link between the Gévaudan and Sigoulane Beasts and this person’s family.”

Nathalie Thibaud’s face was concentrated into a deep frown. When she spoke again, her tone was troubled. “In the thirty years I’ve been in practice, I’ve treated or been consulted on a number of instances of complete or partial lycanthropy. In most cases, secrecy was a major issue. It’s a terrifying condition that utterly alienates the patient from his or her own identity, from society, as you can imagine. Also, because of the predatory delusions involved, lycanthropes can run afoul of the law, although not all lycanthropes engage in violence. So it’s not surprising that lycanthropes, when they’re in the throes of their delusion, become reclusive. Secrecy may be their only protection, and such individuals might go to extremes to hide their delusional persona. On the other hand, our annals of criminal justice are full of cases of people who have killed for reasons of self-protection.”

“Have you ever dealt with a situation like the one I described?”

Nathalie Thibaud took her time answering. “I personally have treated only five cases of diagnosed lycanthropy. Three were patients who eventually made satisfactory recoveries with medication and psychotherapy. Another was a man who suffered periodic seizures followed by days, sometimes weeks, of delusions that he
was a wolf, during which time he was so violent he had to be restrained. He went to his grave convinced that he was a
loup-garou.”

“And the fifth?”

The doctor drew a long breath. “He was, in fact, my first case—a young man when he came to me, slim, soft-spoken, withdrawn. I had little experience with lycanthropy at the time, and I’m sorry to say I didn’t deal with him as”—she paused—“appropriately as I should have when he told me his symptoms. In the early stages, you see, he merely complained of feelings of disorientation and aggression that caused him to growl and throw red ink at his ‘victims.’ Inconvenient but not life-threatening. I treated it as an expression of suppressed anger, stemming from childhood abuse, because this poor fellow really had a horrific family history. However, seven months into treatment, he reported that he’d begun changing into a fully formed wolf at each turn of the moon. That was when I realized what I was dealing with. He also revealed to me that his mother, who had just died, had been a wolf-woman who had repeatedly forced him to couple with her, like a wolf, from his teen years onward, and who savagely bit anyone who came near her when the moon was full. Her death, in fact, may have been what triggered his perceived transformations. So there you have two possible instances of lunar effect and, who knows, your genetic link.”

“Were you able to cure him?”

The doctor stared into her hands, which she had placed palms-up before her on her desk, as if seeking something there. “No. At least, not in time. A year after he began therapy with me, he attacked a woman. A postmistress.” She paused and looked up. “It was a frenzied attack.”

Mara waited in silence. “What happened?” she ventured at last.

There was a look almost of apology in the green eyes. “He ripped her head from her body, using his teeth, nails, and a hacksaw. When the police found him, he was howling and attempting to eat the body.”

Mara felt herself go pale.

“Pas beau, eh?”

No, Mara had to agree. It was not pretty. It reminded her too much of Jean-Claude’s torn remains.

Then Dr. Thibaud said something totally unexpected: “Would you like to meet him?”

“He’s here?” Involuntarily, Mara shifted back in her seat, only to discover that her chair was bolted to the floor. The doctor seemed amused at her look of alarm.

“He was the last time I checked.”

H
is name was Jules Delage, and he was now forty-two years of age. He had been sentenced in 1985 to life imprisonment for the murder of an elderly postmistress in the Auvergne, a woman not generally mourned because she had a nasty habit of prying into other people’s affairs. Since that time, Jules had been transferred to three different prisons before ending up at the Midi-Pyrénées institution, where he lived behind a heavy metal door. A barred window cut into the upper half of the door gave a view of Jules’s world: a cell equipped with a lidless toilet, a sink, and minimal furnishings.

Mara’s first sight of him came as a shock. The slim youth of Dr. Thibaud’s description was now a swollen caricature of a human being. Jules was huge. His body ballooned out below a disproportionately small head sparsely covered with fuzzy brown hair, as downy as a baby’s. His eyes were lost in pillows of fat. Arms draped in curtains of flesh bulged from a tentlike short-sleeved shirt. The lower half of his body was clothed in a vast pair of cotton trousers. He sat facing them at a table, intent on folding and refolding small squares of pre-cut paper. As he worked, his lips formed into a pout that reminded Mara bizarrely of the sulky moue of a dissatisfied debutante.

“Ça va, Jules?”
the doctor called cheerfully through the barred window. “I’ve brought someone to see you. Madame Dunn. From Canada. She’s not a shrink, so you can have a normal conversation for a change.” In a lower voice she said to Mara, “Our model patient. He enjoys visitors, although he doesn’t get any, except for clinicians who want to study him. To be honest, I’m doing this more for him than for you. He needs contact with the outside world.”

Mara nodded, watching in fascination as the prisoner’s fingers manipulated a piece of paper with surprising delicacy.

“Origami,” informed the doctor. “He makes some quite wonderful things.” She smiled at Mara’s look of amazement. “I’ll leave you to chat for a few minutes, shall I? You’ll find him quite knowledgeable about current affairs. He reads a lot. But if you don’t mind, Madame Dunn”—Nathalie Thibaud lowered her voice even more—“please don’t ask him about the murder.” She left.

The hacksaw murder of the postmistress, Mara assumed, not Jean-Claude’s. She stood in the corridor before Jules’s window. Closed-circuit cameras, suspended from the ceiling, recorded her presence. A row of similar barred windows stretched away to her left. Occasional sounds, the moans and murmurs of other unseen inmates, echoed distantly.

“Bonjour
, Jules,” she said, trying to imitate the doctor’s brightness. “My name is Mara. What are you making?”

With an effort, he rose from his seat and lumbered toward her, feet clad in carpet slippers, legs splayed, knees locked beneath his great weight. Wordlessly, Jules pushed a small object, pinched between thumb and forefinger, through the barrier. Mara took it gingerly. It was a minutely-fashioned bird.

“It’s beautiful.” She turned it over, marveling at the cunning creases that formed the beak and body.

“It’s a heron.” His voice was surprisingly soft. “You may keep it.”

“Thank you. Do you like birds?”

“In flight. Origami herons can’t fly. Have you come to get me out of here?”

Mara shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”

He said more harshly, “Then don’t talk to me about birds.”

“All right. What would you like to talk about?”

He shrugged, a mountainous movement. “You know why you’re here. I suppose you’ve never met anyone like me before, have you?”

“No,” she admitted. “But I haven’t come to study you clinically. As Dr. Thibaud said, I’m not a psychiatrist. I expect you’ve seen enough of them already.”