The Frozen Dead

by Bernard Minier

  He went back to his room and switched on the light.

  Then he took a book out of his suitcase and sat at the head of the bed. Horace, the Odes.

  * * *

  When he awoke the following morning, Servaz saw that it had snowed: the streets and rooftops were white, the cold air striking his chest. He hurried back from the balcony into his room, took a shower and got dressed. Then he went down for breakfast.

  Espérandieu was already sitting out on the spacious art deco veranda. He had finished breakfast and was reading. Servaz observed him from a distance: his assistant was completely absorbed in his book. Servaz sat down and peered at the book’s cover with curiosity: A Wild Sheep Chase, by a certain Haruki Murakami. Japanese. An author he had never heard of. Servaz sometimes felt, in Espérandieu’s company, as if they did not speak the same language, as if they came from two countries that were far apart, each with its own customs and traditions. His assistant’s interests were as numerous as they were different from his own: graphic novels, Japanese culture, science, contemporary music, photography …

  Espérandieu looked up, his expression like a child at the breakfast table, and he checked his watch.

  ‘The autopsy is at eight o’clock,’ he said, closing the book. ‘I’d better get going.’

  Servaz nodded, without adding a thing. His assistant knew his job. Servaz took a gulp of coffee and could tell at once that his throat was irritated.

  Ten minutes later, he too was walking through the snowy streets. He was to meet Ziegler and Propp at Cathy d’Humières’s office before they went on to visit the Institute. The prosecutor wanted to introduce them to the examining magistrate she was putting on the case. As he walked, he followed his train of thought from the previous day. When had Lombard and Grimm been singled out as victims? What was the connection between them? According to Chaperon and the widow, Lombard and Grimm were not acquainted. Lombard might have stopped in at the pharmacy once or twice, but nothing could be certain: there were five other chemists in Saint-Martin – and Éric Lombard would surely send someone in his place on that type of errand.

  That was as far as his thoughts had got when he suddenly tensed. There was something, a vague feeling, that had thrown him onto high alert. The unpleasant sensation that he was being followed … He turned round abruptly and peered down the street behind him. Nothing. Only a couple who were stamping their feet in the snow, laughing, and an old woman who went round the corner, a shopping bag on her arm.

  Shit, this valley is making me paranoid.

  Five minutes later he went through the gate to the law courts. Lawyers were talking on the steps, smoking one cigarette after another; defendants’ relations were biting their fingernails, waiting for sessions to resume. Servaz walked across the hall and headed towards the grand staircase on the left. Just as he reached the first landing, a small man emerged from behind a marble column and rushed down the stairs.

  ‘Commandant!’

  Servaz stopped. He studied the person who had come up to him.

  ‘Ah,’ said the man, ‘so you are the cop who’s here from Toulouse.’

  ‘Do we know one another?’

  ‘I saw you yesterday morning at the crime scene, together with Catherine,’ answered the man, holding out his hand. ‘She told me your name. She seems to think you’re the right man for the job.’

  Catherine … Servaz shook his outstretched hand.

  ‘And you are—?’

  ‘Gabriel Saint-Cyr, honorary examining magistrate, retired. I’ve been conducting investigations for these law courts for nearly thirty-five years.’ He took in the spacious hall with an all-embracing gesture. ‘I know their every cupboard. Just as I know every inhabitant of this town, or near as dammit.’

  Servaz looked at him closely. He was short, but he had a wrestler’s build, a good-natured smile and an accent that indicated he had been born or grown up not far away. Servaz also caught the sharp spark in his eyes, and he understood that behind the jovial exterior the former magistrate hid a penetrating mind – just the opposite of so many people who wore a mask of cynicism and irony to hide a total absence of ideas.

  ‘And are you offering your services?’ said Servaz cheerfully.

  The magistrate burst out laughing. A clear, resounding laugh.

  ‘Well, goodness, if you’re a judge for a day, you’re a judge for ever. I won’t hide the fact that I’m sorry I retired, when I see what’s going on these days. We’ve never had anything like this before. A crime of passion from time to time, some neighbours quarrelling and ending up shooting one another: the usual displays of human stupidity. But if you feel like talking about the case over a drink, I’m your man.’

  ‘Have you already forgotten professional secrecy, m’lud?’ joked Servaz.

  Saint-Cyr winked at him.

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t have to tell me everything. But you won’t find anyone who knows the secrets of these valleys better than I do, Commandant. Think about it.’

  Servaz was already thinking about it. The man’s proposal might well be a good one: a contact among the local inhabitants. Someone who had spent almost his entire life in Saint-Martin, and whose profession had let him in on a number of secrets.

  ‘You must be missing work.’

  ‘I would be lying if I claimed otherwise,’ confessed Saint-Cyr. ‘I retired two years ago, for my health. And ever since, I’ve been feeling like the living dead. Do you think it was Hirtmann who did it?’

  Servaz was startled.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, come on! You know perfectly well, the DNA they found in the cable car.’

  ‘Who told you about that?’

  The little judge gave out another resounding laugh as they went down the steps.

  ‘I already told you: I know everything that goes on in this town. See you soon, Commandant! And happy hunting!’

  Servaz watched him disappear through the big double doors into a whirlwind of snow.

  * * *

  ‘Martin, I’d like to introduce examining magistrate Martial Confiant. I’ve entrusted him with the preliminary investigation I started yesterday.’

  Servaz shook the young magistrate’s hand. In his early thirties, tall and thin, very dark skin, elegant rectangular glasses with a thin frame. His handshake was solid, his smile warm.

  ‘Contrary to appearances,’ said Cathy d’Humières, ‘Martial is a local boy. He was born and grew up twenty kilometres from here.’

  ‘Before you got here, Madame d’Humières was telling me how much she admires you, Commandant.’

  His voice had the smooth warmth of a tropical island, with just a touch of the local accent. Servaz smiled.

  ‘We’re going to the Institute this morning,’ he said. ‘Would you like to join us?’

  He was having trouble talking; his throat was sore.

  ‘Have you notified Dr Xavier?’

  ‘No. Captain Ziegler and I have decided to make this a little surprise visit.’

  Confiant nodded.

  ‘All right, I’ll come along,’ he said. ‘But just this once: I don’t want to impose. I make it a principle to let the police get on with their work. Every man to his trade,’ he added.

  Servaz agreed in silence. This would be excellent news, if his declaration of principle turned out to be practice as well.

  ‘Where is Captain Ziegler?’ asked d’Humières.

  He checked his watch.

  ‘She won’t be long. She might be having trouble getting here because of the snow.’

  Cathy d’Humières turned towards the window, as if in a hurry.

  ‘Right, I have a press conference to give. Anyway, I wouldn’t have gone with you. Such a sinister place in this sort of weather – brrr, not for me!’

  13

  ‘A lack of oxygen to the brain,’ said Delmas, washing his hands and forearms with antibacterial soap, then rinsing them under the tap.

  The hospital in Saint-Martin was a large red-brick bu
ilding which stood out against the snow-covered lawns. As is often the case, the entry to the morgue was located well away from the main entrance, at the bottom of a concrete ramp. Staff members called this place ‘Hell’. When he had arrived thirty minutes earlier, listening to the Gutter Twins singing ‘Idle Hands’ on his iPod, Espérandieu had seen a coffin waiting on trestles against the back wall. In the hall he came upon Dr Delmas, the pathologist from Toulouse, and Dr Cavalier, a surgeon at the Saint-Martin hospital, as they were putting on short-sleeved shirts and plastic-coated protective aprons. Delmas was describing to Cavalier how they had found the body. Espérandieu had begun to get changed; then he popped a menthol pastille in his mouth and took out a jar of camphor-based cream.

  ‘You should avoid using that,’ Delmas immediately told him. ‘It’s very corrosive.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Doctor, but I have sensitive nostrils,’ replied Vincent, before fitting a surgical mask over his nose and mouth.

  Since joining the squad, Espérandieu had been called on several times to attend autopsies, and he knew there was always a moment, when the coroner opened the stomach and took samples from the viscera – liver, spleen, pancreas, intestines – when a stench would spread through the room that was unbearable for anyone with a normal sense of smell.

  Grimm’s remains were waiting for them on a slightly tilted autopsy table, equipped with a plughole and a drain. A fairly rudimentary set-up compared with the large elevating tables Espérandieu had seen at the University Hospital in Toulouse. The body, moreover, had been propped up with the help of several metal crossbars to keep it from bathing in its own fluids.

  ‘For a start, there are the usual signs of mechanical asphyxia…’ Delmas said straight away, manoeuvring the mobile arm of the lamp above the body.

  He pointed to the chemist’s blue lips, then to the tips of his ears, which had also turned blue: ‘… the bluish colour of the mucous membranes and the integuments…’

  He showed them the inside of the victim’s stapled eyelids: ‘Conjunctival hyperaemia…’

  He pointed to the chemist’s swollen, purple face: ‘Congestion gives us this purplish colour. Unfortunately, the signs are difficult to detect given the state of the face,’ he said to Cavalier, who was finding it hard to look at the bloody pulp with its two eyes staring out of their sockets. ‘We also have petechiae on the surface of the lungs and heart. These are classic symptoms. They’re simply proof we’re dealing with a non-specific asphyxial syndrome: the victim clearly did die of mechanical asphyxia, but it took a very long time. However, these symptoms don’t provide any additional information regarding the cause of death.’

  Delmas removed his glasses to give them a wipe, then put them back on. He was not wearing a surgical mask. He smelled of eau de cologne and antibacterial soap.

  ‘Whoever did this clearly had some medical or at least anatomical knowledge,’ he declared. ‘He opted for a procedure that would be as long and painful as possible.’

  Delmas pointed with his chubby finger to the groove left by the strap in the chemist’s neck.

  ‘From a physiopathological point of view, there are three mechanisms that can cause death by hanging. The first is vascular, which means that the blood is prevented from reaching the brain by a simultaneous occlusion of the two carotid arteries. That’s what happens when the slipknot is found at the back, on the nape of the neck. In this case, cerebral hypoxia is direct, and loss of consciousness is almost instantaneous, followed by rapid death. Anyone who wants to commit suicide by hanging cannot be told too strongly about the importance of placing the knot at the back of the neck,’ he added.

  Espérandieu had stopped taking notes. He had a hard time, as a rule, with pathologists’ sense of humour. As for Cavalier, he was almost feasting on his colleague’s words.

  ‘Then there is the neurological mechanism: if our culprit had pushed the chemist into the void instead of lowering him progressively by playing with the straps attached to his wrists, the bulbar and medullary lesions caused by the shock, that is, the lesions to the medulla oblongata and the spinal cord,’ he added, for Espérandieu’s sake, gently lifting what had once been Grimm’s skull, ‘would have caused almost instantaneous death. But that is not what he did…’

  Behind his glasses, his pale blue eyes were seeking out Espérandieu’s.

  ‘Oh, no, young man! That is not what he did … Our culprit is a clever sod: he was careful to place the slipknot to one side. That way he maintained blood flow to the brain along at least one of the two arteries: the one opposite the knot. As for the straps attached to his wrists, they prevented any traumatic shock to the spinal cord. He knew damned well what he was up to, believe me. The victim will have died a very long and painful death.’

  His chubby, impeccably clean finger wandered over the groove again.

  ‘In any case, we’re dealing with a hanging. Look: the groove is high up, just under the jaw, and it curves up to the point where the body was suspended. Also, it is incomplete, which means there couldn’t have been prior strangulation with the rope, which normally leaves a low, regular groove round the entire neck.’

  He gave Espérandieu a wink.

  ‘You know: the husband strangles his wife with a rope, then tries to make us believe she hanged herself.’

  ‘You read too many crime novels, Doctor,’ said Espérandieu.

  Delmas stifled a little laugh, then once again became as serious as a pope when the time for the blessing has come. He brought the lamp down level with the shredded nose, the swollen face and the stapled eyelids.

  ‘This is really one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever been called on to witness,’ he said. ‘There’s a rage and fury here, almost too much to bear.’

  * * *

  The psychologist had joined them. He sat in the back together with the examining magistrate. Ziegler was driving the 4×4 with the ease and confidence of a rally driver. Servaz admired the way she drove. Just as he had admired her skill with the helicopter. In the back, Confiant had asked Propp to fill him in on Hirtmann. The judge had been stunned by what he heard, and now he was as grimly silent as the rest of them. The morbid atmosphere in the valley only served to increase their unease.

  The road wound its way beneath the dark sky through tall, snow-topped fir trees. The snow plough had been through there, leaving high drifts on either side of the road. They drove past the last farm imprisoned by cold; the fences round the fields had almost disappeared beneath the blanket white, and a scroll of smoke rose from the chimney. Then came the implacable reign of silence and winter.

  Further along they caught up with the snow plough and overtook it; its spinning headlight cast a bright orange beam onto the white fir trees, and after that the road became tricky.

  They drove through a petrified landscape of forests and frozen peat bogs encircled by the meandering river. Above them, grey and formidable, were the wooded slopes of the mountain. Then the valley became even narrower. The forest overlooked the road, which overlooked the river, while with each bend they could see the thick roots of beech trees that had been laid bare by the work to build the embankment. They went round another bend and saw several buildings with rows of windows in the upper storeys and large picture windows on the ground floor. A track led over a rusty bridge across the torrent, then through a white meadow to the buildings. Servaz read the crumbling sign as they went past: ‘LES ISARDS HOLIDAY CAMP.’ The buildings looked dilapidated and deserted.

  He wondered who would want to stick a holiday camp in such a gloomy place. He felt a blast of cold air down his spine just thinking about the surroundings of the Institute. But given how abandoned it looked, in all likelihood the camp had closed long before the Wargnier Institute had ever opened its doors.

  The valley was devastatingly beautiful; Servaz was transfixed.

  The atmosphere of a fairy tale.

  Yes, that’s what it was, a modern, grown-up version of the sinister fairy tales he remembered from childhood. For
at the end of this valley and this white forest, thought Servaz with a shudder, ogres really were waiting for them.

  * * *

  ‘Good morning, may I sit down?’

  She looked up and saw the psychiatric nurse who had left so rudely the day before – what was his name again? Alex – standing by her table. The cafeteria was crowded now. It was Monday morning and all the staff were there. The place was a hubbub of conversation.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, clenching her teeth.

  She was all alone at her table. Obviously no one had felt like inviting her to join them. From time to time she caught people looking her way. Once again she wondered what Dr Xavier had said about her.

  ‘Uh, I’d like to say sorry about yesterday,’ said Alex, sitting down. ‘I was probably a little abrupt. I don’t know why. You had the right to ask those questions, after all. Please accept my apologies.’

  She eyed him. He seemed genuinely contrite. She nodded uncomfortably. She didn’t want to discuss it any more. Or even hear him apologise.

  ‘No problem. I’d already forgotten about it.’

  ‘So much the better. You must think I’m odd.’

  ‘Not at all. My questions were actually fairly … impertinent.’

  ‘That’s true,’ he said with a laugh. ‘You were never at a loss for words.’

  He bit deep into his croissant.

  ‘What happened down in the valley yesterday?’ she asked, to change the subject. ‘I overheard some conversation; apparently something terrible happened.’

  ‘A man was found dead, a chemist from Saint-Martin.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘They found him hanging underneath a bridge.’

  ‘Oh! I see…’

  ‘Mmm,’ he went, his mouth full.

  ‘What a horrible way for someone to kill himself!’

  He looked up and swallowed the mouthful he was chewing on.

  ‘It wasn’t suicide.’

  ‘It wasn’t?’

  He looked deep into her eyes.

  ‘Murder.’