The Bleeding: Volume 1

Queen of French Noir, Johana Gustawsson returns with a spell-binding, dazzlingly dark gothic thriller that swings from Belle Époque France to 21st-century Quebec, with an extraordinary mystery at its heart ... FIRST in a bewitching new series

**Shortlisted for the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger**

A wonderfully dark, intricately woven historical thriller spanning three generations ... it will have you hooked from the very first page B A Paris

A gripping story of murder and black magic ...Gustawsson slowly weaves together three seemingly disparate strands of her narrative with a skill that shows why she is such an admired crime writer in her native France The Times BOOK OF THE MONTH

Intriguingly dark and vivid, and so cleverly told through three different time frames Essie Fox

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Three women

Three eras

One extraordinary mystery...

1899, Belle Époque Paris. Lucienne's two daughters are believed dead when her mansion burns to the ground, but she is certain that her girls are still alive and embarks on a journey into the depths of the spiritualist community to find them.

1949, Post-War Québec. Teenager Lina's father has died in the French Resistance, and as she struggles to fit in at school, her mother introduces her to an elderly woman at the asylum where she works, changing Lina's life in the darkest way imaginable.

2002, Quebec. A former schoolteacher is accused of brutally stabbing her husband - a famous university professor - to death. Detective Maxine Grant, who has recently lost her own husband and is parenting a teenager and a new baby single-handedly, takes on the investigation.

Under enormous personal pressure, Maxine makes a series of macabre discoveries that link directly to historical cases involving black magic and murder, secret societies and spiritism ... and women at breaking point, who will stop at nothing to protect the ones they love...

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This novel is a whirlpool that draws you irresistibly into levels of darkness so much deeper than you can possibly be ready for Ambrose Parry

I found myself racing through the book, always wanting one more page, one more chapter. A wonderfully creepy, unsettling read, with a superb twist in its tail James Oswald

Gustawsson's writing is so vivid, it's electrifying. Utterly compelling Peter James

I was hooked from the first page - a stunning and beautifully written gothic thriller full of atmosphere, intrigue and delight Alexandra Benedict

Brilliant ... the last chapters knocked me sideways, and it's a long time since that's happened Lisa Hall

A dark world of elegance and grotesque ... mesmeric Matt Wesolowski

Harrowing, compelling, haunting, vivid, twisty and shocking! Noelle Holten

A powerful page-turner Livres Hebdo

***NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER IN FRANCE***

FOR FANS OF Laura Purcell, Stacey Halls, Bridget Collins, Anna Mazzola, Essie Fox, Ambrose Parry and Laura Shepherd-Robinson

Praise for Johana Gustawsson

A satisfying, full-fat mystery The Times

Assured telling of a complex story Sunday Times

A real page-turner, I loved it Martina Cole

A bold and intelligent read Guardian

Utterly compelling Woman's Own

Cleverly plotted, simply excellent Ragnar Jónasson

A must-read Daily Express

Gritty, bone-chilling, and harrowing - it's not for the faint of heart, and not to be missed Crime by the Book

A relentless heart-stopping masterpiece New York Journal of Book

ISBN-13: 9781914585265

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Orenda Books

Publication Date: 01-17-2023

Pages: 300

Product Dimensions: 5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.10(d)

Born in Marseille, France, and with a degree in Political Science, Johana Gustawsson has worked as a journalist for the French and Spanish press and television. Her critically acclaimed Roy & Castells series, including Block 46, Keeper and Blood Song, has won the Plume d’Argent, Balai de la découverte, Balai d’Or and Prix Marseillais du Polar awards, and is now published in nineteen countries. A TV adaptation is currently underway in a French, Swedish and UK co-production. David Warriner translates from French and nurtures a healthy passion for Franco, Nordic and British crime fiction. Growing up in deepest Yorkshire, he developed incurable Francophilia at an early age. Emerging from Oxford with a modern languages degree, he narrowly escaped the graduate rat race by hopping on a plane to Canada – and never looked back. More than a decade into a high-powered commercial translation career, he listened to his heart and turned his hand again to the delicate art of literary translation. David has lived in France and now calls beautifulBritish Columbia home.

Read an Excerpt

Maxine
2002
My car skips off the paved road and sways like a boat set afloat.
I’m navigating the potholes one stomp on the accelerator at a time.
Bloody hell.The tyres are screeching, biting into the gravel and its
coating of frost. Spitting crud onto the verge, then crunching back
on track.
The Caron place is at the end of this bumpy driveway, cut as
straight as a matchstick through the heart of a wood as thick as a
fleece. Nestled in a blanket of snow at the centre of a clearing, it
looks like the pupil of a lifeless eye: still, dark, ringed in white.
I lift my foot off the pedal to slide over a patch of black ice
without losing control of the car again. I think about Hugo. I’ve
had to leave him in his pram. I asked Charlotte to take him out,
like I always do after his mid-morning nap. She looked at me as if
I was out of my mind. I wonder what happened to my kind, gentle,
tender Charlotte.
A hot flush makes me regret keeping my parka on for the drive.
Jumping into the car earlier, Marceau barking orders into the
phone with her usual charm, I didn’t have time to take it off. I
wipe a droplet of sweat from my upper lip. I think about the
indelible rings in the folds of my grey sweater, the beads of per-
spiration running between my breasts that suggest I have a baby
due for a feed. The greasy, greying roots I’m hiding under my
woolly toque.
It had to be me they called.Me.
A marked Sûreté du Québec patrol car is parked right in front
of the entrance with the arrogance a police badge often grants.
Two uniforms are bending over the porch steps, as if they’re
mooning at me.
They straighten up and turn around at the sound of my
involuntary skid, and wave madly as if to stop me. I feel like I
should remind these imbeciles I’m not completely blind. Another
two bright sparks, here to serve and protect.
I park off to the side, zip my parka up to the chin and release a
heavy breath as I open the driver’s door. The air feels like a freezer
on my face. With a grimace I tug the hat down over my ears and
hunker my way over, head down against the wind.
‘Lieutenant Grant!’ I announce, having to yell to make myself
heard.
I flash my badge, but they don’t even bother to look at it.
‘She’s refusing to move, lieutenant,’ the uniform on the right
says. She sounds apologetic.
I take a step closer and Mrs Caron’s face comes into view, in
profile. The old schoolteacher is sitting on the porch, head turned
to my car, shoulders cloaked in a survival blanket.
‘She won’t even put anything on her feet. She’s been screaming,’
the uniform tells me. ‘You should have heard her.’ She rolls her
gaze skyward as I eye the black socks resting on the snow-covered
step.
Mrs Caron’s face is spotted and streaked with brownish spatters
that span her wrinkles and bridge the cracks in her blue, chilled
lips. Stray strands of her pale bob lie matted at her temples and
ears like greasy breadsticks. A veil of dried blood stretches over
her skin like a mask.
‘We’ve managed to wrap her fingers like you asked, ma’am, but
that’s all,’ the uniform continues.
Wrap her fingers.Whathavethese country plods been
watching?
I crouch down beside the woman who taught generations ofchildren in Lac-Clarence to read and write.
‘Mrs Caron? It’s Maxine Grant. I’m here. I’m here now. What’s
happened, Mrs Caron?’
 

 2
Maxine
2002
‘Mrs Caron?’
The schoolteacher won’t take her eyes off my car. She runs her
tongue over her lips, erasing some of the brown splotches. She
doesn’t react to the taste of her husband’s blood. One of the
uniforms pulls the blanket back over her shoulders, and she
doesn’t push away his hand. I’m not there; no one else is there.
And neither is she, really.
I get to my feet; my right knee creaks, my left nearly gives way
under me.
‘Shall I walk you through, ma’am?’
‘Lieutenant Grant.’
‘Yes, sorry ma’am. Lieutenant Grant.’
I nod, repressing the urge to slap some sense into her. Probably
not the best thing for me to do to mark my return from mat leave.
And slowly, I climb the porch steps, taking care not to step in the
bloody prints Mrs Caron has left.
‘Right there, ma’a ... Lieutenant,’ says the muppet as soon as
we’re inside.
Her posture makes it clear to me she has no intention of going
any further. She’s pointing to the only room with a light on, to
our right, eyes sweeping over the scarlet footprints bleeding into
the pink carpet that rolls like a tongue towards the French doors
of the lounge.
I pull on the pair of gloves I grabbed before I left, and press
myself against the wall as I creep down the hallway. The sweetish,
ferrous stench turns my stomach. Nine months away from any
encounters with death, that’s all it’s taken for me to forget the
smell of it. Nine months nose to nose with a newborn life, which,
for the record, is nowhere near as angelic as the sales pitch
promises. Ugh, the nappies overflowing with unspeakable filth
and the sickening spit-ups.
I know what’s waiting for me in this room and still I freeze at
the door. My eyes sweep across the light pine floor to the stone
chimney breast, up the pale-yellow walls to the decorative ceiling
and its mouldings, over the corduroy velvet sofas, the tasselled
cushions, the flowery curtains, the plush oriental rug, the glass
coffee table, the side tables. Smears of blood, droplets and spurts
sully, criss-cross and disfigure the room.
Pauline Caron’s husband, whose torso is now nothing more
than a heap of grotesque strips of flesh, is lying in a pool of blood
muddled by hand and footprints. The blood is soaking into the
rug and it’s licking at the chimney breast and the legs of the sofas.
The footprints are telling. Mrs Caron has walked out of the room
where her husband has just died.
Oh, God.
I swallow back the bile, the acid rising in my throat, and suck
in a breath of foul air. Nausea has me in its grasp. I tilt my head
back, hoping gravity will help me avoid throwing up like a rookie.
After twenty years on the force, that would be hard to explain.
‘Ah, there you are, Sweet Maxine, love of my life!’
Startled, I turn around, unable to muster a smile or find that
laugh my partner always squeezes out of me.
‘Hey, Chickadee,’ I reply to the man who stands a good four
inches taller than my five-eleven.
‘You’re glowing,’ he says with a wink.
‘Give me a break, Jules.’
‘No, seriously, Grant, motherhood at the peak of a midlife crisis
really suits you. Don’t mind if I don’t give you a proper kiss hello
here, it’s kind of off-putting, eh?’ he says, pulling me into his arms,
his full beard cushioning my cheek, before planting a kiss on the
top of my toque.
He pulls away from me with a grimace. ‘Bloody hell...’
‘You can say that again.’
Four soft-footed crime-scene technicians approach us, zipped
up in their white coveralls. They raise a hand to me. My name
ricochets between them. I respond with a nod of the head and a
circumstantial smile.
‘Have you seen Marceau?’ Jules continues.
‘Not yet. But I’ve had her barking at me down the phone.’
‘Oh, lucky you.’
Jules swallows audibly. ‘I saw the wife on my way in. She’s in
shock. Did you manage to get a word out of her?’
I shake my head.
‘Right, back to it, then?’ he carries on.
‘Oh, so you’re giving the orders now, are you?’ I say, in jest.
‘No two ways about it, you’re like a deer in the headlights.
Makes a change from nappies, eh?’
The nausea’s swelling inside me. ‘Almost makes me miss them,
you know.’
‘Are we off then, or should we stick around like a couple of spare
parts? We can come back and take a closer look when they’re
done, right?’
‘You really want to get out of here, don’t you, Chickadee?’ I say,
forcing a smile.
‘You have no idea.’

3
Maxine
2002
We walk out of the lounge to find Cécilia Lopez, our medical
examiner, fighting her way into her crime-scene coveralls in the
hallway.
‘Grant?’ Her made-up eyes look at me in surprise, as she
continues her struggle with the suit. ‘I thought you were coming
back next week? How’s that little cherub of yours? What a cutie
pie,’ she smiles, with a shake of her head. ‘When are you going to
let me take him off your hands for a while?’
‘Don’t tell me your six grandkids aren’t enough for you?’ I reply,
suddenly lulled by the scent of Hugo, recalling the joy of nestling
my nose in the crook of his little neck.
The withdrawal clutches me by the bosom.
‘They’re at the age when they only come to see me when they
want something. They’ll scarf down a slice of cake and leave
crumbs everywhere except on their plate, chug a can of pop, give
me a quick hug or an air-kiss on the cheek, all in the hopes that
I’ll pull out a banknote for them, then they go back to their video
games. You get the picture.’ She pauses to yank at her zip.
‘Honestly, I don’t know what the hell they think they’re playing
at with these suits. This one’s a medium and look at me, I’m
stuffed into it like a great big sausage. Like I need to display any
more rolls of fat.’
She straightens up and pulls the hood over her tomboy cut
streaked with grey. ‘The young guns out front said it’s a hot mess
in there, right?’
‘More like cold cuts at the deli counter.’ Jules wrinkles his nose.
‘Apparently, his better half really stuck it to him.’
‘Apparently,’ I insist, thinking about the schoolteacher still
sitting out on her frozen front steps.
‘I managed to persuade her to get into the ambulance,’ Cécilia
tells me, as if she can read my mind. ‘Any longer out there in the
cold and she’d be losing toes.’
‘How did you do it?’ Jules asks. ‘No one else could get her to
move a muscle.’
‘I did the same thing I do with teenagers: I didn’t ask her
anything, that way she couldn’t say no. I just took her by the arm
and walked her to the ambulance. End of story. She went along
without a word. Have you had a chance to question her? Do you
know what happened?’
I shake my head. ‘She hasn’t opened her mouth, Céci, not a
syllable. She’s not even responding to questions. No reaction at
all. She’s completely catatonic.’
‘I noticed the cuts on her hands and the blood smears on her
clothes, so chances are, it was her who tore her nearest and
dearest to shreds. But don’t quote me on that until I hear what
he has to say for himself,’ she says, with a tip of the chin towards
Philippe Caron’s corpse. ‘This is Caron the Montreal university
professor, isn’t it? The famous historian, author, and what have
you?’
I nod and can’t help but gulp.
‘You’re not used to the smell anymore,’ Céci smiles. ‘Right, I’ll
get started. You know where to find me.’
She turns on her heels and walks away, her hushed steps
accompanied by the swish-swish of her coveralls.
‘Want to come over for dinner with us tonight?’ Jules offers as
we pull off our gloves and he removes his shoe covers. ‘You can
bring the little guy if you like, or would that mess up his bedtime
routine? Marius can’t wait to mollycoddle him. And see you too,
of course. I imagine Charlotte’s too caught up in being a teenager.’
I open my mouth to reply, not knowing how to refuse his
invitation.
‘Grant!’ My name sounds like a primal growl.
Reluctantly I go and stand in the doorway, where my gaze
plunges into the pool of blood surrounding Philippe Caron’s
body.
‘Yes, Simon. I’m here. What’s up?’
‘Get suited up, you two, and come have a look at this,’ the
crime-scene technician says.
He’s leaning over an ebony table in the shape of a hexagon. The
table top is a tray and it’s now sitting on the floor. Céci gets up
and goes over to join him.
‘Oh, shit,’ says Jules through gritted teeth.
We each grab some coveralls from the box the crime-scene team
has left by the front door and pull them on – more easily than
Céci did.
‘What have you found, Simon?’ I ask, stepping around the
body.
‘I ... I’m not sure. I was collecting a blood smear from the edge
of the table and I nearly tipped the top over when I pressed against
it. I had no idea the thing came off. I didn’t realise it was a tray, I
mean. When I went to put it back in place, I noticed there was
something inside ... something inside the table, or the chest,
whatever you want to call it.’
Making our way over, we lean over the table in a slow,
coordinated movement, the way you peer into the crib of a baby
who’s fallen asleep at last. Internally, I wince.
‘What the hell is it?’ Jules says.
‘It looks like a glass dome,’ I reply, eyes glued to the object.
‘No, the thing inside the glass?’
His question hangs, suspended, between us.
‘Have you taken photos? Can we take it out?’ I ask Simon.
‘It’sall right. Go ahead.’
I reach my latex-gloved hands around the sides of the glass
dome and touch the bottom of the table. My fingers curl around
something that feels as dense as wood. It must be a plinth, a base
of some sort. The dome is attached to it. I bend my knees to steady
myself and delicately extract the thing.
‘What the hell...?’
Jules doesn’t finish what he’s saying. None of us have any desire
to put what we can see into words. We stare at the thing as if we’ve
just reached into a cradle and pulled out a monster.
‘It’s a hand,’ Céci replies. ‘A hand,’ she repeats, in a whisper.