Vilmer was a thin man with a neatly groomed goatee, an impeccable haircut and a commanding smile glued to his lips like a stubborn cold sore. He always wore the latest thing in shirts, ties, suits and shoes, and had an obvious penchant for hues of chocolate, chestnut and violet. Servaz viewed him as living proof that a moron can go far provided he has other morons ranked above him.
‘Have a seat,’ he said.
Servaz collapsed in the black leather armchair. Vilmer seemed cross. He joined his fingers beneath his chin and studied him wordlessly for a moment, as if to convey both profundity and disapproval. He would never have won an Oscar for his performance, and Servaz stared right back at him with a little smile. Which merely served to exasperate the commissioner.
‘You find this situation amusing?’
Like everyone else, Servaz knew that Vilmer had spent his entire career cosily ensconced behind a desk. Apart from a brief early spell in vice, he had no idea what it was like out there. There were rumours that he had been the whipping boy, the laughing stock of his colleagues.
‘No, sir.’
‘Three murders in eight days!’
‘Two,’ corrected Servaz. ‘Two murders and one horse.’
‘What’s the latest on the investigation?’
‘We’ve been at it for a week. And we nearly caught the killer this morning, but he managed to escape.’
‘You let him escape,’ specified the commissioner, before hastening to add, ‘Confiant has been complaining about you.’
Servaz shuddered. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He complained to me personally and to the Ministry of Justice. Who immediately informed the private secretary of the Ministry of the Interior. Who then called me.’
He paused for effect, then said, ‘You have put me in a very awkward situation, Commandant.’
Servaz was stunned. Confiant had gone behind d’Humières’s back. The judge wasn’t wasting any time.
‘Are you taking me off the case?’
‘Of course not,’ replied Vilmer, as if the thought had not even occurred to him. ‘Besides, Catherine d’Humières came to your defence rather eloquently, I must say. She reckons that you and Captain Ziegler are doing a good job.’
Vilmer sniffed, as if it cost him to repeat something so inane.
‘But I’m warning you: there are people in high places who are following the matter. We are in the eye of the storm. For the time being everything is calm. But if you fail, there will be consequences.’
Servaz could not help but smile. Sitting there in his chic little suit, Vilmer acted as if it were nothing, but he was shitting himself. Because he knew very well that the ‘consequences’ would concern not only the investigators.
‘This is a sensitive case, don’t forget that.’
Because of a horse, thought Servaz. It’s the horse they’re after. He repressed his anger.
‘Is that all?’ he asked.
‘No. That man, the victim, Perrault, he called you for help?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You didn’t try to dissuade him from going up there?’
‘I didn’t have time.’
‘And what’s all this business about suicide victims? What does that have to do with anything?’
‘For the time being, we don’t know. But Hirtmann mentioned it when we went to see him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he … advised me to take an interest in the suicides.’
The commissioner looked at him with a stupefaction that was anything but feigned this time.
‘You mean that Hirtmann is telling you how to conduct your investigation?’
Servaz frowned.
‘That might be a somewhat … simplistic way of looking at things.’
‘Simplistic?’ Vilmer raised his voice. ‘I get the impression that this investigation is all over the place, Commandant. You have Hirtmann’s DNA, don’t you? What more do you need? Since he couldn’t have left the Institute, it means he has an accomplice inside. Find him!’
Isn’t it wonderful how simple things can seem when you view them from a distance, when you leave out the details, and you know nothing about the case, thought Servaz. But basically, Vilmer was right.
‘What sort of leads do you have?’
‘A few years ago a complaint was filed against Grimm and Perrault for blackmail. Sexual blackmail.’
‘So?’
‘It would seem they weren’t novices. They may even have gone further with other women. Or with teenagers … This could be the motive we’re looking for.’
Servaz was aware that he was on shaky ground now, that they had very few clues to go on – but it was too late to back down.
‘Revenge?’
‘It could be.’
His attention was distracted by a poster on the wall behind Vilmer. A urinal. Servaz recognised it: Marcel Duchamp. The Dada exhibition at the Centre Georges-Pompidou in 2006. Clearly displayed, as if to prove to his visitors that here was a man of culture who was passionate about art and also had a sense of humour.
The director thought for a moment.
‘What about the connection with Lombard’s horse?’
Servaz hesitated.
‘Well, if we go with the revenge theory, it would mean that these people – the victims – must have done something really ugly,’ he said, repeating almost word for word what Alexandra had said. ‘Particularly if they did it together. In Lombard’s case, since they couldn’t get at him directly, the killer or killers went after his horse.’
Vilmer suddenly went pale.
‘Don’t tell me … don’t tell me that you suspect Éric Lombard of being involved in – in this—’
‘Sexual abuse,’ said Servaz, helping him finish his sentence, aware that he might be taking things too far; still, the fear he saw for a split second in his boss’s eyes was like an aphrodisiac. ‘No, for the time being there’s nothing like that. But there is bound to be a link between him and the others, something to place him among the victims.’
At least he had managed one thing: to shut Vilmer up.
* * *
On leaving the crime unit offices, Servaz headed for the old centre of town. He didn’t feel like going home. Not right away. He needed to offload the tension and rage that Vilmer aroused in him. It was still drizzling and he didn’t have an umbrella, but he welcomed the rain like a blessing. As if it were cleansing him of all the muck he’d been drenched in over the last few days.
He let his footsteps take him to the rue du Taur, and found himself outside the brilliantly lit glass entrance of his assistant’s wife Charlène’s art gallery. The gallery was long and narrow and occupied two levels, and the white, modern interior was visible through the windows, a sharp contrast to the neighbouring façades of old red brick. There were a lot of people inside. A private view. He was about to continue on his way when he saw Charlène waving to him from the first floor. He went half-heartedly into the long room. His clothes and hair were dripping, his sodden shoes squeaked and left a damp trail on the light wood floor, but he attracted fewer gazes than he would have expected. All these faces sought to appear eccentric, modern and openminded, or at least so they thought. On the surface they were open and modern, but what about deep down? One sort of conformism banishes another, he mused. He headed for the steel spiral staircase at the back, his eyes dazzled by the whiteness of the premises and the powerful spotlights overhead. He was about to put his foot on the bottom step when a huge painting against the back wall caught his attention and left him speechless.
In fact it wasn’t really a painting but a photograph, twelve feet high.
A huge crucifixion scene in sickly bluish tones. Behind the cross a stormy sky was roiling with clouds torn by lightning. On the cross Christ had been replaced by a pregnant woman. Her head bent to one side, she was weeping tears of blood. Bright red blood also flowed from the crown of thorns on h
er bluish brow. Not only was she crucified, her breasts had been torn off and replaced by two bloody, bright red wounds, and her irises were a translucent milky white.
Servaz recoiled. The realism and violence of the picture were unbearable. What sort of madman could have conceived such a painting?
Why were people so fascinated by violence? he wondered. The avalanche of shocking images on television, in the cinema and in books – was it a way to stave off fear? Most of these artists only knew violence indirectly, abstractly. They had no real experience of it. If the cops who were confronted by unbearable crime scenes, or the firefighters who had to pull the victims of car accidents from the wreckage every week, or the magistrates who dealt day after day with atrocious cases – if they all began to paint, sculpt or write, who knows what they would portray, what would come out of them? Would it be the same thing, or something radically different?
The steel steps vibrated beneath his feet as he climbed upstairs. Charlène was chatting with an elegant man with silky white hair. She paused to motion to Servaz to come closer; then she introduced them. Servaz gathered that the man, a banker, was one of the gallery’s best clients.
‘Well, I shall go back downstairs and admire this very beautiful exhibition,’ he said. ‘Congratulations again on your flawless taste, my dear. I don’t know how you manage, every time, to find such extremely talented artists.’
The man walked away. Servaz wondered if he had looked at him even once – he did not seem to have noticed the state Servaz was in. For men like him, Servaz did not exist. Charlène kissed Servaz on the cheek and he could smell the raspberry and vodka on her breath. She was radiant in a red maternity gown beneath a short white vinyl jacket, and her eyes, like her necklace, shone just a touch too brightly.
‘It looks like it’s raining,’ she said, looking at him with a tender smile.
She waved around the gallery. ‘You come here so rarely. I’m very glad you’re here, Martin. Do you like it?’
‘It’s somewhat … unsettling,’ he replied.
She laughed.
‘The artist goes by the name Mentopagus. The theme of the exhibition is Cruelty.’
‘Well, in that case, it’s a great success,’ he joked.
‘You’re not looking very well, Martin.’
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come in here in this state.’
She brushed away his apology with a wave of her hand.
‘Here, the best way not to stand out is to have a third eye in the middle of your forehead. All these people think they are so avant-garde, cutting-edge, modern, anti-conformist – that they are beautiful inside – that they’re so much better than everyone else…’
He was surprised by the bitterness he could detect in her voice and he glanced at her glass. Perhaps it was the alcohol.
‘The cliché of the egocentric artist,’ he said.
‘If clichés become clichés, it’s precisely because they contain a greater truth,’ she retorted. ‘In actual fact I believe I know only two people who have a true inner beauty,’ she continued, as if she were speaking to herself. ‘Vincent and you. Two cops. And yet where you’re concerned, you keep that beauty well hidden.’
He was surprised by her confession. He wasn’t expecting it at all.
‘I hate artists,’ she said suddenly, her voice trembling.
Her next gesture surprised him even more. She leaned over and kissed him, again on his cheek but this time at the corner of his mouth. Then she touched his lips furtively with her fingertips – a gesture of surprising restraint and astonishing intimacy – before she walked away. Her heels clicked on the metal steps as she went downstairs.
Servaz’s heart was beating the same rhythm. His head was spinning. Part of the floor was covered with gravel, plaster and cobblestones, and he wondered if it was a work of art or a construction site. Opposite him on the white wall was a square painting where a multitude of tiny characters swarmed in a dense, colourful crowd. There were hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. Apparently, the first floor had been spared the Cruelty exhibition.
‘It’s brilliant, isn’t it?’ said a woman standing next to him. ‘This sort of pop art, the comic-book side to it. It’s like a miniature Lichtenstein.’
He was startled. Lost in thought, he hadn’t heard her come up to him. She spoke as if she were doing singing exercises, her voice rising and falling.
‘Quos vult perdere Jupiter dementat prius,’ he said.
The woman looked at him, uncomprehending.
‘It’s Latin: “Those whom Jupiter seeks to destroy he first makes mad.”’
He turned and headed quickly for the staircase.
* * *
At home he put The Song of the Earth on his stereo – the modern version by Eiji Oue with Michelle DeYoung and Jon Villars – and went straight to the breathtaking ‘Farewell’. He wasn’t sleepy and he took a book down off the shelf. Aethiopica by Heliodorus of Emesa.
And now is she my daughter with me here, my daughter I say, named by my name, and on her all my hopes depend. And beside other things, wherein she is better than I could wish, she has quickly learned the Greek tongue and has come to perfect age with such speed as if she had been a peerless branch, and so far doth she surpass every other in excellent beauty that all men’s eyes, as well strangers as Greeks, are set on her.
Sitting in his chair by the bookshelf, he stopped reading and thought about Gaspard Ferrand, the broken father. His thoughts then drifted to Alice and the suicide victims, like a flock of crows above a field. Like the young Chariclea in Heliodorus’ tale, all men’s eyes had been set on Alice. He had reread the neighbours’ statements: Alice Ferrand was a perfect child – beautiful, precocious, with excellent results at school, including in sports – and always ready to oblige. But she had changed recently, according to her father. What had happened to her? Then his thoughts returned to the Grimm-Perrault-Chaperon-Mourrenx foursome. Had Alice and the other suicide victims ever had anything to do with them? If so, when? At the holiday camp? But two of the seven suicide victims had never stayed there.
Once again he felt himself shivering. It was as if the temperature in the apartment had dropped several degrees. He wanted to go to the kitchen to fetch a bottle of water, but suddenly the sitting room began to spin. The books on the shelves were swaying while the lights from the lamp seemed glaring and venomous. Servaz dropped back into his armchair.
He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the dizzy spell had passed. What was the matter with him, for God’s sake?
He got up and rushed into the bathroom. He took out one of Xavier’s tablets. His throat was on fire, and the cold water felt good for a split second; then the burning sensation returned. He massaged his eyes and went out onto the balcony for some air. He looked over the lights of the city and thought about how modern towns, with their unreal lighting and permanent noise, managed to transform their inhabitants into insomniacs and drowsy ghosts.
Then Alice was there again. He saw the room under the roof, the orange and yellow furniture, the purple walls and white carpet. The photos and postcards, the CDs and school things, her clothes and books. A diary … a diary was missing. Servaz was increasingly convinced that a girl like Alice could not have not had one.
There had to be a diary somewhere.
And then there was Gaspard Ferrand, the literature professor, globetrotter, yogi. Servaz instinctively compared him to his own father, who had also been a teacher, of Latin and Greek. A brilliant man, secretive, eccentric and also irascible on occasion. Genus irritabile vatum: ‘the irritable race of poets’.
Servaz knew very well where this thought would lead him. Too late; he could not stop the rush of memories; they overwhelmed him, bore him away with nightmarish precision.
The facts. Nothing but the facts.
Which were as follows: on a warm July evening, the young Martin Servaz, aged ten, was playing in the courtyard of the family house when the lights of a car approached down the lo
ng, straight road. The Servaz home was an old farmhouse three kilometres from the nearest village. Ten o’clock at night. A gentle semi-darkness reigned, and in the neighbouring fields the chirring of crickets would soon be replaced by the sound of frogs; a muffled rumble of thunder came from the mountains on the horizon, and the stars grew ever sharper in the still pale sky. Then there came the imperceptible whisper of that car in the distance, coming down the road. The whisper became the sound of an engine and the car slowed down. It turned its lights towards the house and went slowly up the drive, bouncing over the ruts. The tyres crunched on gravel when it came through the gate and braked in the courtyard. A gust of wind caused the poplar trees to rustle as two men climbed out of the car. He could not see their faces because of the darkness under the trees, but he heard one of them say clearly, ‘Hello, lad, where are your parents?’
At the same time, the door to the house opened and his mother appeared on the threshold. The man who had spoken went up to her and apologised for the disturbance, speaking very quickly, while the other one put a hand on Martin’s shoulder. There was something about his hand that immediately felt unpleasant to young Servaz. Like an infinitesimal shift in the peaceful evening. Like a dull threat that the young boy alone could perceive, even though the man was acting in a friendly manner, and he could see his mother smiling. He looked up and caught a glimpse of his father in the window of his study on the first floor where he was correcting his students’ homework; he was frowning. Servaz wanted to call out to his mother to be careful, not to let them into the house, but he had been taught to be polite and to keep quiet when adults were talking.
He heard his mother say, ‘Come in.’
Then the man behind him pushed him gently forward, his big fingers burning his shoulder, and he thought the gesture was more authoritarian than friendly. Even today he could still remember every step they took, resounding in his brain like a warning. He remembered the strong smell of cologne and sweat. He remembered how the chirring of the crickets seemed to grow louder, shrill like an alarm. Even his heart was beating like an ominous drum. It was when they got to the top of the front steps that the man plastered something over his mouth and nose. A piece of damp cloth. In a split second a blade of fire burned his throat and lungs, and he saw white dots dancing before his eyes before he fell into a black hole.
The Frozen Dead Page 37