Chapitre 1

~ Where it all began. ~

That morning, my colleague and friend Gwoendoline called me in a hurry for a replacement at short notice. We were both carers and my lovely friend had partied again the day before, it happened to her sometimes... Her hangover that day had made her really late and, anyway, she was too much sick to ensure from 8 am in the morning...

I had accepted his request, reminding him that I was always ready to help, but that his absenteeism should not be a habit. You speak ! It was already the fourth time this month and we were only on the 15th!

She had sent me her intervention schedule for the morning, promising to ensure the afternoon but I had insisted on organizing myself on the assumption that she would not come. She was a little slow to give me everything, but I had finally prevailed! I knew the phenomenon, this month out of the 4 replacements I had made, she had only kept these commitments once.

I had hung up with her shortly before 6 am, she was going to bed and my day was just beginning.

I called our clients - his and mine - to postpone certain interventions that fell at the same time and I left to do my rounds. I was going to finish late again!

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Until then, my day was going relatively well, our customers were understanding.

At 4 p.m., I went to see Mr. Scott, a man in his forties who had had an accident at work for two months. He was one of my clients, a pleasant man to live with, always ready to help. He was temporarily disabled and, with the help of his health insurance, he benefited from home help - me - at the rate of 6 hours a week to do the housework, the laundry and the shopping.

Once in front of the door of the building, I rang the intercom to let him know I was there before opening the door with my pass. I took the elevator up to the 7th floor and knocked on her door. No answer.

'He's certainly busy,' I thought to myself as I opened the door. '

- Mr. Scott, it's Sandy, I'm going in.

I pushed open the door and rushed into the apartment. A strong nauseating odor took hold of my throat when I returned. It was strange, I had come the day before for a courtesy visit and it smelled fresh! I took off my shoes and it was in socks that I joined the living room.

The more I advanced, the stronger the smell became, to the point of drawing a few tears from me.

- Mr. Scott, where are you?

I heard the sound of breaking glass and walked towards it, towards Mr. Scott's room. I knocked on the door, which opened by itself.

The smell came from here, no doubt possible!

Despite the open window, the smell of decomposition was particularly gripping. What the hell was going on?!

Turning to the right, I couldn't suppress a cry of terror. Mr. Scott was lying on his bed, dead, his eyes bulging in terror and his guts out.

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The investigators came half an hour after my phone call, half an hour that I had spent with the deceased. The color of his skin, the smell of decay, the blood clotting...it all screamed at me that he was long dead. I was certainly not an expert, but I knew a ray of it having grown up in a family of undertakers. However, it was simply impossible, I had had him on the phone only a few hours earlier...

So what had happened here?