The Sanatorium

A hotel employee bangs on the window, horrified, yelling “la piscine,” or “the pool” in French. Will goes to get Cecile, and Elin steps out onto the terrace with the man. Quickly, Cecile comes outside and asks the employee, Axel, to show her what happened. Worried that it might be Laure, Elin goes after them. Axel leads them into the pool area and takes them to the larger pool. He shows them what he found: the body of a woman floating at the bottom of the pool. Elin sees the body and recognizes it as Laure.

Elin panics, but she quickly takes on an authoritative roll and tells them that they need to get the woman out of the water and try CPR. Isaac pulls the woman from the water. A black mask is strapped to her face, just like the one that the killer wears. Will quickly removes the mask, and they can see for the first time that it isn’t Laure. Elin notes that the woman is already dead.

Isaac watches in shock and despair, and Elin realizes that he truly thought the woman in the pool was Laure and was legitimately horrified. He couldn’t have had anything to do with Laure’s disappearance. Will takes Isaac inside while Elin examines the body, noticing that a few of her fingers have been removed. Cecile recognizes the woman as Adele Bourg. Elin realizes that a small crowd of staff has formed and that she should probably take charge. She tells the crowd that she’s a police officer and asks them to stay back so as not to contaminate any evidence. 

Elin examines the body, and Cecile tells her that she has called the police. Elin determines that she must have drowned in the last two hours. She studies the mask, and Cecile explains that it’s a breathing aid that they used to use in the sanatorium for the TB patients. Elin says Adele had been tied with rope, and that she’d been weighted down using a sandbag. She’s sure, now, that Adele was murdered. She imagines briefly what Adele’s final moments must have been like and how terrified she would have been.

Lucas Caron comes to the scene. Elin tells him that he needs to keep back so that they can preserve the crime scene for the police, but he reveals that the police aren’t coming. There’s been an avalanche, and now the only road to the hotel is blocked. 

The avalanche won’t be cleared for a few days. Lucas explains that the avalanche has solidified on the road as one giant mass. Asking Elin to help, he tells her that only a few guests and staff remain in the hotel and that he just wants to keep everyone safe. She tells him that it’s out of her jurisdiction, but Lucas insists. She calls the local authorities and informs them of the situation explains that the owner would like for her to help. The police say they’ll get back to her, but Elin decides to go ahead and preserve as much evidence as possible. She asks for rope to cordon off the pool, plastic gloves, sealable bags, and tweezers. She also asks for a full list of everyone still in the hotel. Elin begins to take photographs of the body with her phone. Then, she hears a soft voice telling her that they’ve found something.

A young woman who works at the hotel beckons Elin over and shows her a glass box beside the legs of a chair. Inside the box are the three severed fingers from Adele’s hand; “Each finger is attached to the bottom of the box with a fine nail. Surrounding each one is a thin copper bracelet. Three fingers. Three bracelets” (166). Each one of the bracelets is engraved with a row of five numbers. Elin can make out 87499 and 87534. She takes a photo of the fingers, but she is disturbed by what she’s seeing. This neat box suggests that this wasn’t a random murder, but that someone carefully planned out each detail.

Elin begins to panic, having a vision of the fingers swelling with blood inside of the box, and blood leaching out of it and onto the snow, creeping towards her boot. She takes a few puffs on her inhaler to calm herself just as Lucas returns with the things that she’s asked him for. She thanks him and takes out a pair of gloves and a bag. When she looks back at the glass case, the fingers have returned to normal. 

Elin goes inside after spending five hours investigating at the scene. She finally gets a call from the local police, an Inspecteur Ueli Berndt. She offers to recount the scene to him. He listens to her account, and he explains that technically she has no authority in Switzerland, but since the Crans-Montana police cannot get to them, they will allow her to follow specific instructions for them, so long as Lucas Caron is okay with her investigating. She tells him that there are 45 people remaining on the premises, including eight guests and 37 staff members. He asks her to make sure she knows where everyone is at all times and to send him all of the photographs she has taken.

She also asks him to check into Laure’s disappearance, telling him about the phone records and about the psychologist’s card she found in Laure’s office. He agrees, but only because finding Adele’s body has made finding Laure more urgent. 

Elin interviews Axel, the hotel employee who found Adele’s body in the pool. He explains that he saw the body in the pool as he was trying the close the cover. When he found the body, he ran.

Axel says that he didn’t know Adele well, and he suggests that Elin talk to Felisa, the director of housekeeping. He also tells her that he saw Adele arguing with Laure the previous week.

Having discovered a connection between Adele and Laure, Elin goes to question Felisa, hoping to get a clearer picture of what happened. Felisa tells Elin that Adele left on Friday and wasn’t due back at work until the following Tuesday. She explains that Adele was in a rush to get home to her son. Adele, she says, was a distant person, pleasant, but probably felt she was above her job because she was so smart. She was close to Laure until a few weeks prior. After that, Adele seemed frightened of Laure. Felisa describes Laure as a serious and intense person, similar to Cecile in demeanor. The more Elin learns about Laure, the more she realizes that she doesn’t really know her at all. She resolves to ask Cecile if she knew of Adele and Laure’s friendship or the rift between them.

Speaking with Lucas and Cecile, Elin recounts that none of the staff saw what happened, much to Lucas’s displeasure. They were all preoccupied with helping the guests evacuate ahead of the avalanche. “They chose exactly the right moment” Cecile laments (182). Elin asks to check the CCTV to see if they can get a glimpse of the killer. Cecile quickly agrees to get the footage to Elin. She asks Elin if there’s any way to tell how long Adele had been dead when they found her, so they can get some idea of whether the killer is still on the premises or escaped on the buses evacuating the hotel guests. Elin refrains from giving a straight answer. Cecile expresses worry over Laure, concerned that she might be the next victim. Lucas is surprised to hear that Laure is still missing.

Elin asks Lucas about the photographs that Laure had of him, and he reveals that they had been romantically involved.

Lucas shows Elin a piece of paper that reads “A liar should have a good memory” in French (187). He reveals that he’s been getting letters sent to him for a while, but that he didn’t pay it any mind until the Adele’s death. He’d written it off as a general complaint because the hotel has had so many protesters. Elin asks to see any others that he has, and he shows her one that reads “Chase away the natural and it returns at a gallop” (188). It’s an expression that Lucas explains as similar to “A leopard can’t change its spots.” He says that he had another, but he threw it away because he didn’t think anything of it. Elin asks if he has any idea who sent them, but he doesn’t. She asks to take them, and Lucas obliges. Before she leaves, Elin asks about the remains they found on the mountain the previous day. Lucas lies and says they don’t yet know who it is. Elin knows he’s lying, but she can’t figure out why.

Leaving Lucas’s office, Elin gets a call from Inspecteur Berndt. She asks him about Laure, but there are no new developments. Without any leads, Elin feels helpless. She thinks about Adele and the horror she must have felt in her final moments. 

Meeting up with Will and Isaac for dinner, Elin tells Isaac that Laure and Lucas were together when the hotel first opened. Isaac is shaken, but he tells her that they were on a break at the time. Feeling helpless, Isaac asks if Elin thinks that what happened to Adele could be happening to Laure. Elin hesitates to share too much, but she reveals that Laure and Adele may have had a falling out. She asks Isaac to retrieve Laure’s laptop so that she can have another look at it.

When Isaac leaves, Elin decides to check Laure’s Instagram again, and Will remarks that her interest in this investigation seems to have made her decision to go back to work for her. She insists she’s only doing it because they asked her to help, but Will thinks she wanted to help: “You’ve come alive, Elin. Doing this” (195). Scrolling through Laure’s Instagram, Elin finds a picture of Laure in the hotel drinking wine, but in the background of the picture, she sees Lucas and Adele sitting intimately at a table together.

Elin and Will wonder if Laure’s fight with Adele could have been over Lucas. Isaac returns with Laure’s laptop, and Elin shows him the photo on Laure’s Instagram that shows Lucas with Adele. Ruefully, Isaac remarks, “Maybe he was at it with her too?” (197). Looking through the laptop, Elin finds a folder named “Work” that just contains another folder named “Work.” When she opens that one, she finds a list of encrypted files. She sends the files to Noah, the head of the Digital Forensics team whom she worked with back home. Noah agrees to try to decrypt them for her, even off the record.

Cecile comes to get Elin, ready to show her the security footage. She apologizes to Isaac and bids Will goodbye. Will seems concerned, but all Elin can feel is excitement: “Will’s right, about her coming alive. She’s forgotten this—life not just happening to her, but being part of it. Changing the path of something. Taking action” (199).

Before showing the security footage to Elin, Cecile apologizes on Lucas’s behalf. She explains that he’s afraid to form a close relationship with anyone after his marriage ended, and that’s part of why he had a fling with Laure. Cecile mentions that she had a similar reaction after her divorce: “I had all these plans, like Lucas. Children. Family life… None of it happened. It takes time to mentally readjust” (200). Elin asks if Daniel’s disappearance added to the stress. Cecile agrees that it did because they knew him growing up, but that Lucas was closer to him than she was.

Cecile shows Elin what she says is a state-of-the-art security system. Elin asks if there are cameras in the spa, and Cecile shows her the footage. It’s blurry due to the steam, but Elin asks Cecile to scroll back to the morning. When she tries to, the footage cuts out to 5pm the previous day. Elin guesses that someone wiped the footage, which alarms her: “They’re one step ahead, she thinks… Her theory, that this is an organized killer—it’s holding up, and that scares her” (202). She tries another camera, but that footage is wiped in the same way: nothing between 5pm and 9am. Elin gets the idea to watch the footage from another day. She checks the day she felt like someone was watching her in the spa changing rooms and finds that she was right: someone was watching her. When the person turns, she recognizes their face. 

Laure had been watching her in the spa changing room. She feels relief that Laure is alive, but she’s hurt and disappointed in her for disappearing. Elin asks Cecile to show her the footage from the camera near the plunge pool as well. Elin watches as a shadowy figure pushes her into the plunge pool. When she crashes into the water, Elin can see the person who pushed her and identifies her as Laure as well. She wonders if Laure could be involved in Adele’s death. 

Elin can’t shake the thought that Laure might be the killer. She imagines that Laure might have killed Adele for messing around with Lucas. In her room, Elin sits down at the desk and makes a list of what things she’s found out about Laure during the investigation: her mental health problems, her relationship with Lucas, her second phone and the number she repeatedly calls, the threatening notes to Lucas that she may have written, as well as her argument with Adele. Try as she might, however, Elin cannot find a connection between Laure and Daniel Lemaitre. She wonders, still, if Adele’s death has a connection to Daniel’s. 

Noah calls with information about the files. They catch up about work, and Noah asks if Elin is coming back. She still hasn’t decided.

Noah sends her copies of the files and explains what he found: They’re mostly copies of emails and some letters. One file is a Word document with information about psychotic depression. Elin wonders if Laure had been suffering from psychotic depression and if it has led her to kill. Another one of the files is a Word document version of the letters that someone sent to Lucas, suggesting that Laure had been the one sending them. She finds an email with a journalist named Claire containing an unpublished article about corruption surrounding the construction of Le Sommet. Elin realizes that Laure had been in correspondence with her, acting as a whistleblower. 

Elin tells Berndt that Laure, whom they had considered a victim, is now a person of interest. Berndt puts the phone on speaker so that the task force he’s working with can hear the conversation. She asks Berndt if they have found any relevant information, and he informs her that they discovered that Laure was not a patient of the psychologist from the business card. Elin informs the police that she’s found encrypted files on Laure’s laptop. The prosecutor implies that Elin has overstepped her boundaries. Berndt, however, asks for the files and promises to update her when they find something. Elin thanks him and quickly hangs up. Tired and stressed, she leans back in her chair to rest a bit, but as soon as she closes her eyes, she has a flashback to the incident with Sam. She hears Isaac’s voice shouting “We’ve got to get him out. We’ve got to get him out” (218). She sees Sam in the water, noticing his t-shirt being pulled by the current. “The shirt no longer looks like a part of him, but something other, like Sam had already gone, had no right to lay claim to it” (218).

Margot’s knock at the door awakens Elin. Margot asks her if she’s heard anything else about Laure, and when Elin hesitates, Margot assumes that Laure is dead. Elin assures her that there’s been no news, inviting her in to talk. Margot admits to Lucas and Laure’s relationship and says that Laure seemed scared of him, and that they had a confrontation in the corridor leading to the spa just a few weeks back. Lucas grabbed Laure by the arm and wouldn’t let go while they spoke for a tense few minutes. Laure never mentioned the incident to Margot, which Margot thought was odd, since Laure talked about their relationship openly. Margot suggests that maybe Laure didn’t tell her about this incident because she was engaged to Isaac and didn’t want to give the wrong impression. However, she also says that Laure felt used by Lucas and that he dropped her when he lost interest. Elin realizes Lucas has lied to her about being in contact with Laure after their fling. She wonders if he has something to hide. 

Elin returns to the lounge and finds Will and Isaac sitting together. She recounts everything she’s found to them, and Isaac gets upset at the suggestion that Laure could be involved. Elin suggests that Laure may be suffering from psychotic depression and may not be in her right mind. Isaac, however, does not accept that explanation and becomes angry at Elin: “Look at what happened to Adele. You think Laure is capable of that? Christ, Elin, she was your friend” (225). Isaac accuses Elin of being exhausting, just like their mother, and he reveals that her overbearing behavior is why he left Elin and their mother behind. Elin, angered, and brings up Sam. Isaac, dejected and exhausted, excuses himself.

Once Isaac has gone, Will scolds Elin for taking things too far. He thinks she was too harsh for not considering Isaac’s feelings when telling him everything she’s learned about Laure. Elin realizes that maybe Will is right and that maybe she was deliberately harsh because she wanted to hurt Isaac. Will thinks she’s trying to prove herself because she couldn’t save Sam. He asks her to think about the effect that her decisions have on other people. Elin agrees, but she also doesn’t know how to stop.