Bred to Kill by Franck Thilliez

The newborn twins babbling in their crib. Days spent dealing with paperwork, when the term “psychopath” was merely an abstraction. The idle hours she spent absorbing books about scum like Carnot. If she had known . . . if only she’d known that the most abject evil can strike anywhere, at any time.
    She returned to the table and took a tiny sip of coffee. The black surface was rippling from the way her hand shook. Little by little, talking with her captain was helping loosen the knot in her throat.
    â€œEvery night I’ve tried to imagine how that piece of garbage was spending his days in prison. I imagined him walking, talking, even laughing with the others. I pictured him maybe telling someone how he had stolen my Clara from me, and how he nearly stole Juliette. Each day, I told myself it was a miracle they found Juliette alive, after thirteen days locked up in that room . . .”
    The police captain read such tenderness in Lucie’s eyes that he didn’t dare interrupt. She kept talking, as if her words had remained buried far too long in the depths of her heart.
    â€œThe moment I shut my eyelids, I saw Carnot’s beady little black eyes, the wretched hair plastered over his forehead, his huge body . . . You can’t imagine how much time his face spent spinning around in my head. All those days, all those nights, when I could practically feel his breath down my neck. You can’t imagine the hell I went through, from the moment they identified the body of one of my girls to when they found the other one alive. Seven days of hell, seven days when I didn’t know if it was Clara or Juliette. Seven days when I imagined everything possible, and they shot me full of medications to keep me going and . . . to keep me from going crazy.”
    â€œLucie . . .”
    â€œAnd she was alive. Dear God, my precious little Juliette was alive when I went into Carnot’s house with the other cops. It was so . . . unhoped for, so extraordinary. I was so happy, even though my other daughter had been found burned beyond recognition only a week earlier. Happy, even though the worst possible tragedy had punched me in the face . . .”
    Lucie slammed her fist on the table; her fingers clenched the tablecloth.
    â€œSixteen stab wounds, Captain! He killed Clara in his car just a hundred yards from the beach, stabbed her sixteen times in some kind of violent frenzy, and then he calmly drove for sixty miles before dropping her in the forest. He poured gasoline on her, lit it, spent long minutes watching while Juliette was screaming in the trunk. Then he headed off again, shut the surviving twin up in his house, didn’t touch her, gave her food and water. As if nothing had happened. When they arrested him at his home, there was still blood on the steering wheel. He hadn’t even bothered washing it off. Why? What caused all that?”
    Lucie was stirring the spoon around her cup, even though the sugar was still on the table.
    â€œNow that he’s dead, he’s deprived me of the most important thing: answers. Just some goddamn answers.”
    Kashmareck was hesitant about pursuing the conversation. He should never have come here and revived this horror. But since she was staring at him intently, waiting for his reaction, he replied:
    â€œYou never would have got any. That kind of behavior is inexplicable, it’s not even human. One thing for certain is that Carnot hadn’t really been in his right mind for the past year, and apparently it was getting worse. His bouts of violence were totally unpredictable. According to the prison shrink, Carnot could be gentle as a lamb, and the next second he’d go for your throat.”
    The captain sighed, and seemed to be weighing each word.
    â€œI probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I know you’d find out sooner or later. The shrink had requested a psychiatric