The Madness of Crowds

CHAPTER 31

“Ewen Cameron was a psychiatrist,” said Myrna. Her voice was calm and steady. Warm, as always. Almost musical. “He studied human behavior, but his specialty was memory. He went to Nuremberg and assessed the Nazi Rudolf Hess. Cameron’s diagnosis of amnesia got Hess out of a death sentence.”

“Didn’t Hess later admit he’d faked the amnesia?” asked Reine-Marie.

“Yes. Cameron went on to develop theories of society, placing people into two categories. The weak and the strong.”

Mary Hague-Yearl had reappeared with several books. She opened one to a black-and-white photograph and placed it in front of Beauvoir.

“That,” she said as she thrust her forefinger onto the face, “is Ewen Cameron.”

A slender, middle-aged man with gray hair and glasses smiled up at him.

Trustworthy. Benign. Caring. He looked like something out of central casting.

Marcus Welby, M.D.

The line under the photo said Dr. Cameron had been the President of the American Psychiatric Association. The Canadian Psychiatric Association.

The World Psychiatric Association.

“But it was his work with the CIA, here at McGill, that made his name,” said Myrna.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir looked up. “The Central Intelligence Agency?”

“Yes. This was back in the fifties and sixties. The height of the Cold War. He was hired by the CIA and others, including the Canadian government, to study brainwashing. How to do it. How to undo it. And to do that, he needed not just animals but human subjects.”

“Prisoners?” asked Jean-Guy.

It was a repugnant, immoral practice that had apparently continued long after it was declared illegal.

“No,” said Reine-Marie. “They were men and women from across Canada who came to him for help. Most had minor complaints, like we all do at times. Insomnia, headaches, anxiety. Some for depression. Young mothers with postpartum. It was a great thing, to be seen by the eminent Ewen Cameron. They had no idea what they were in for.”

“What did he do?” Beauvoir looked down and met those kindly gray eyes. What did you do?

“It was called MKUltra,” said Dr. Hague-Yearl. “Sounds almost laughable now. Like bad science fiction. You’ll find the details in those pages…” She motioned to the stacks of paper she’d brought over. “We also have the testimony of some of his victims.”

Not patients. Not clients.

Victims.

“They were guinea pigs,” said Myrna. “He used drugs like LSD. He tied them up and shot electricity through them. He used sleep deprivation. He put them into comas, sometimes for months—”

“My God,” said Beauvoir. “And no one stopped him?”

“No. No one even questioned him,” said Dr. Hague-Yearl.

“But he tortured them,” said Jean-Guy, unable to comprehend.

“Yes,” said Reine-Marie. “Ewen Cameron took men and women who’d come to him for help and he tortured them. Here. At the Allan Memorial Institute. At McGill University. For years. In full view. And no one stopped him.”

“Apparently the CIA was pleased with the results,” said Myrna. “They turned his findings into psychological torture methods they still use today.”

“Oh, my God,” whispered Jean-Guy.

He dropped his eyes to the smiling father figure in the photograph. And had it confirmed, yet again, that most monsters looked exactly like that.

They didn’t hide in dark alcoves. The distinguished monsters sat among them. Secure in the knowledge that no one would condemn them, even if they knew.

“The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman,” said Mary Hague-Yearl, following his thoughts and his eyes to the photograph.

Jean-Guy spent the next hour reading about the victims of Ewen Cameron. Their stories. How they showed up in his office complaining they couldn’t sleep and returned home months later unable to speak.

Unable to recognize their husbands and wives and children.

Unable to hold a job, or hold their bladders, or hold their babies.

He read about how Cameron would strap them down and send electricity through them so strong they could smell their flesh burning.

How he kept them awake for days at a time, or put them into comas for months and filled them with drugs.

Until their brains were so washed they’d lost their minds.

And then he sent them home, addled. Clutching bills for the treatments. Then Dr. Ewen Cameron went on to the next, and the next.

“And Vincent Gilbert knew about it?” said Beauvoir. “Helped him?”

“We don’t know that,” said Myrna. “All we know is that the receipt for the animals, sent care of Dr. Vincent Gilbert, is authorized by Cameron. It’s from the mid-sixties. Gilbert must’ve been young, just starting out.”

“Come on,” said Beauvoir. “He must have known.”

Reine-Marie saw Vincent Gilbert sitting at the old pine table in their kitchen after dinner, as they’d had coffee and cognac and swapped stories.

Had the same hands that had held her grandchildren held men and women down while Cameron tortured them?

Jean-Guy Beauvoir asked for copies of some of the more damning documents, including the receipt for the animals. They thanked Mary Hague-Yearl, then left for home.

The car was quiet, everyone lost in their own thoughts. The wipers lazily, rhythmically, sweeping the freshly fallen snow from the windshield.

As the city disappeared into the rearview mirror and the peaceful countryside slipped by, Reine-Marie opened the file on her lap and looked again at the damning receipt for the rats and monkeys and actual guinea pigs.

There would be people still alive who’d suffered Cameron’s torture. And the silence of his colleagues.

She leaned her head against the cold window and stared out at the acres and acres of snow. At the lights just beginning to show in homes. At the forests and fields and mountains. At the wilderness. And Reine-Marie Gamache longed to get home to Three Pines.

Isabelle Lacoste found Haniya Daoud in the stables.

She had a currycomb in one hand and a brush in the other.

Lacoste stood in the wide aisle and watched as Haniya, a borrowed parka over her long abaya, made slow circular motions with the curry-comb, then brushed the horse’s flank down.

Then did it again, and again. In long, flowing, rhythmic movements.

And as she did it, Haniya muttered something Isabelle couldn’t make out, though she knew if she could, she probably wouldn’t understand the words. But she would understand the meaning.

It was a prayer. A meditation. An invocation.

It was, Isabelle felt, very calming. Between the whispered words, the fluid motions, the occasional toss of the horse’s mane and tail, the musky scent of horse and hay, the warmth of the barn, Lacoste could feel herself relax.

“Do you know horses, Inspector?” asked Haniya, without stopping.

“A bit. I rode as a child, but I could never figure out the bridle.”

“It is complicated.” Haniya moved to the other side of the horse and could now see Lacoste. “The leather and metal bit and straps. The means of control.”

The horse was leaning against Haniya Daoud. Not in a threatening way. It seemed to like the contact. As did she.

“Billy Williams tells me the owners of the Auberge saved these animals from the abattoir,” said Haniya. “This one’s a former racehorse who was no longer useful. So it was going to be killed and ground up. Turned into dog food and sweet treats for children.”

She looked over to another stall, where Billy was just putting a large harness on an immense animal.

“I’m not totally sure that’s a horse,” she confided in Lacoste.

“No,” said Isabelle, glancing over. “That’s Gloria. We think she might be a moose.”

Haniya snorted in some amusement and looked around. “What a strange place.”

“It grows on you,” said Lacoste.

“So does a mole.”

Putting down the brushes, Haniya traced the lattice of whip marks on the horse’s flank.

“We haven’t actually met. My name’s Isabelle Lacoste, I’m with the Sûreté. But you already knew that.”

“Yes, you work with Monsieur Gamache. I’ve seen you around.”

“Can we talk?”

Haniya looked behind her. “Monsieur Williams is just hitching up the sleigh to take the children out, but he’s offered to take me on a short ride first. I suppose you might as well come along.”

Not the most gracious invitation Lacoste had had, but far from the worst.

A few minutes later, a heavy blanket tucked around them, they were ensconced in the back seat of the big red sleigh looking at Gloria’s immense rump. Billy sat high in the driver’s seat, his back to them, muttering to Gloria, who seemed to understand his incantations. His invocations. And maybe his prayers.

She meandered across the road and into the woods. Away from the Auberge. Away from the crime scene.

Haniya tipped her head back, letting the huge flakes land on her face. She was almost smiling.

This close to the woman who would probably be named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Isabelle could see two things. How young Haniya Daoud actually was, and the scars all over her face. It looked like a jigsaw puzzle, imperfectly assembled.

“I can’t get used to snow,” Haniya said, her eyes closed, her face tilted and moist.

The small bells on Gloria’s bridle jingled merrily. The rails of the sleigh slid along the snow making a soft sound. Shhhh.

“Tell me what happened to you in Sudan.”

“You don’t want to know,” she said to the sky.

“I do.”

“Why?” Haniya asked the snowflakes. Then lowered her face and opened her eyes and looked at the homicide investigator. “Oh. You want to know how damaged I am. And if I’ve killed before. Let me give you the shorthand. I am damaged, beyond repair, as your lunatic poet would say. And yes, I’ve killed.” She studied Isabelle. “I think you know how both feel.”

“I do.”

“So, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll tell you if you tell me.”

Isabelle sat quietly for a moment, looking into the naked woods. Only in the winter was it possible to see both the forest and the trees. Homicide, she thought, was a perpetual winter.

“Agreed.”

So with the swish of Gloria’s tail for accompaniment, and the shhhhh of the sleigh, Haniya told her.

About being kidnapped at the age of eight, when her village was attacked and destroyed. Her crime? Being a member of an ethnic minority. She was beaten and whipped and slashed with machetes. Staked naked in the dirt. And left there. Given just enough food and water to be kept alive. For the men to rape. Day after night after day.

To the tune of the sleigh bells, Haniya told her about giving birth at twelve. The baby taken from her.

Then again at thirteen, and fourteen. And every year until she’d escaped. Expelling babies from her body. Some dead. Some screaming. Never to be seen again.

“They told me that the meat I was eating was the flesh of my dead children,” she told the pine trees as they passed.

Isabelle felt herself grow faint, and thought she might pitch forward, out of the sleigh.

“But I didn’t believe them,” Haniya said to Gloria’s swaying back. “I know they’re alive.”

They glided through the silent woods.

As the rails of the sleigh requested silence, shhhhh, Haniya spoke. “One night a particularly drunk soldier raped me, and then, as he beat me, his machete fell from his belt. When he passed out, I was able to saw through the rope. Took a long time, but I did it.” Haniya turned to face Isabelle. Her eyes steady, her voice soft, almost kindly. “I killed him. Then I killed them all. Then I released the others, and we escaped, taking their machetes with us.”

She paused then. “They had child soldiers guarding the camp.” Haniya stared ahead, at the pristine landscape. “Have you ever heard of brown brown?”

“Non.”

“When children are abducted, that’s how they turn them into soldiers. They’re given brown brown. It’s cocaine mixed with gunpowder.”

Isabelle inhaled deeply but said nothing. Dear God, she thought. Dear God.

“It … it … turns them into something else,” said Haniya. “When we went to get away, a boy tried to stop us. I could see that look in his eyes. His brown brown eyes.”

“What did you do?” Isabelle whispered.

Shhhhh went Gloria’s tail. Shhhhh went the rails of the sleigh.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” said Haniya.

Almost, thought Isabelle, and wondered how much of herself Haniya had left behind at the boundary.

“We finally crossed the border. And were safe.” Now Haniya smiled. “But you know as well as I do, Inspector, that no place is safe.”

Haniya Daoud tipped her head back again, closed her eyes, and let the cold snowflakes melt into her scars. To the sky she said, “I’m alive because of my children. I had to survive, to save them. Every woman and child I save is my baby.”

Isabelle wondered, but didn’t ask, if Haniya Daoud, once out, had turned her machetes into plowshares. But she was pretty sure she knew the answer.

Haniya opened her eyes and looked around, as though surprised to see the thick Québec forest, and the trees. Then her eyes came to rest on Isabelle.

“Your turn.”