The Frozen Dead

by Bernard Minier

  What are you talking about? Madmen? Criminals? Murderers? Are there some among the staff?’

  ‘I rather like talking to you, after all.’

  ‘Who are you talking about, Julian? Who is it?’

  ‘What do you know, Diane? What have you found out?’

  ‘If I tell you, how do I know that you won’t repeat it?’

  He burst out laughing, a horrible, unpleasant laugh.

  ‘Oh, come now, Diane! This sounds like a bloody film! What do you think? That I’m actually interested? Look at me: I will never get out of here. So there could be an earthquake out there and I wouldn’t care one way or the other – or at least as long as it didn’t break these walls in two.’

  ‘They found your DNA at the place where the horse was killed,’ she said. ‘Did you know that?’

  He observed her for a long time.

  ‘And how did you know?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Well, did you know or not?’

  He made a little grimace that might have been a smile.

  ‘I know what you’re looking for,’ he said. ‘But you won’t find it here. And the answer to your question is: I know everything, Diane. Everything that goes on outside and inside. Rest assured, I won’t tell anyone about your visit. I can’t be sure that Mr Atlas will be as discreet, though. Unlike me, he is not free to do as he pleases. That’s the paradox. And you should go. The head nurse will be here in fifteen minutes. Get out of here! Leave this place, Diane. You’re in danger…’

  * * *

  Espérandieu sat thinking at his desk. After Marissa’s call an idea had come to him. He couldn’t stop thinking about the money she had mentioned: $135,000. What could such an amount correspond to? At first glance, the $135,000 seemed to have nothing to do with their investigation. At first glance … and then he had his idea.

  It seemed so ridiculous that he shoved it out of his mind.

  But his stubborn idea would not go away. What would it cost to find out? By eleven o’clock he had made up his mind. He picked up the telephone. The first person he called was very reluctant to give him a straight answer at first. Such matters should not be discussed over the phone, even with a cop. When he quoted the figure of $135,000, however, he learned that that was roughly the rate charged for the distance involved.

  Espérandieu felt his excitement growing.

  Over the next thirty minutes he made half a dozen more calls. The first ones came up with nothing. Every time he got the same answer: no, nothing like that for that particular date. His idea was beginning to seem ridiculous again. The $135,000 could mean so many things. But then he had made one final call and this time, bingo! He listened to the answer with a mixture of incredulity and exhilaration. Had he hit the bullseye? Was it possible? A little voice tried to temper his enthusiasm: it might, of course, simply be a coincidence. But he didn’t think so. Not with that exact date. When he hung up, he still couldn’t believe it. Incredible! With just a few phone calls, he had progressed the investigation by leaps and bounds.

  He looked at his watch: ten to five. He wanted to tell Martin about it, but then he changed his mind: he needed definitive proof. He grabbed the phone and feverishly dialled yet another number. Finally, he had a lead.

  * * *

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Not great.’

  Ziegler was staring at him. She seemed almost as upset as he was. Nurses came in and out. A doctor had examined him and taken several X-rays before wheeling him back to the room on a gurney, even though he was perfectly capable of walking.

  Xavier sat waiting in the hospital corridor for Ziegler to take his statement. There was also a gendarme posted outside Servaz’s door, which was suddenly flung wide open.

  ‘What happened, for the love of Christ?’ cried Cathy d’Humières as she strode up to the bed.

  Servaz tried to keep it short.

  ‘And you didn’t see his face?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘All I can say is that he was bloody strong. And that he knew how to go about attacking someone.’

  Cathy d’Humières gave him a long, dark look.

  ‘This can’t go on,’ she said. She turned to Ziegler. ‘Put a hold on any case that’s not urgent and get all available staff on to this one. What have we got on Chaperon?’

  ‘His ex-wife has no idea where he might be,’ answered Ziegler.

  Servaz remembered that Ziegler had gone to Bordeaux to meet her.

  ‘What is she like?’ he asked.

  ‘Uppity. Snobbish, sunbed tan, too much make-up.’

  He couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘Did you ask her about Chaperon’s character?’

  ‘Yes. It’s interesting: the minute I mentioned him, she clammed up. All I got was the usual stuff: his mountain-climbing, politics, the friends who monopolised him, their divorce by mutual consent, lives that ended up heading in different directions and so on. But I got the feeling she was hiding something important.’

  Servaz remembered Chaperon’s house: their separate bedrooms. Like Grimm and his wife. Why? Had their wives discovered their terrible secret? Servaz thought that had to be the truth, one way or another. Perhaps – no, surely – they had merely suspected a fraction of the whole. But the widow Grimm’s scorn for her husband, and her suicide attempt, and the former Madame Chaperon’s reluctance to talk about her private life came from a common source: these women knew how deeply perverse their husbands were, even if they did not know the extent of their crimes.

  ‘Did you ask her about what we found in the house?’ he asked Ziegler.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do it. There’s not a minute to lose. Call her and tell her that if she is hiding something and her husband is found dead, she will be the prime suspect.’

  ‘All right. I found something else of interest,’ she added.

  Servaz waited.

  ‘Élisabeth Ferney, the head nurse at the Institute, had several brushes with the law when she was young. Petty crimes. Stolen scooters, insulting a police officer, drugs, assault and battery, extortion. She was up in court several times.’

  ‘And she got a job at the Institute in spite of that?’

  ‘It was a long time ago. She got back on track, did her training. She worked in several other psychiatric hospitals; then Wargnier, Xavier’s predecessor, took her under his wing. Everyone is entitled to a second chance.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘In addition, Lisa Ferney goes regularly to a bodybuilding club in Saint-Lary, twenty kilometres from here. And she belongs to a rifle club.’

  Servaz and d’Humières were instantly on the alert. A thought occurred to Servaz: his intuition at the Institute might have been correct. Lisa Ferney had the profile … Whoever had hung the horse up there had to be very strong. And the head nurse was stronger than some men.

  ‘Keep digging,’ he said. ‘You may be on to something.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I almost forgot: the tapes.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It was just birdsong.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Right, I’m off to the town hall to see if they have that list of the children who went to the holiday camp,’ she concluded.

  ‘Ladies, I must ask you to let the commandant get some rest,’ boomed a voice from the doorway.

  They turned round. A doctor in his thirties wearing a white coat had just come in. He had a dark complexion and thick black eyebrows that almost met in the middle of his forehead. On his coat Servaz read ‘Dr Saadeh.’ He came up to them with a smile. But his eyes were not smiling, and his thick brows were knitted together in a stern expression that made clear that in this place, prosecutors and gendarmes must bow to a higher authority, the doctor’s. As for Servaz, he had already started pushing back the sheets.

  ‘There’s no way I’m staying here,’ he said.

  ‘And there is no way I am letting you leave just like that,’ retorted Dr Saadeh, placing a friendly but f
irm hand on his shoulder. ‘We haven’t finished examining you.’

  ‘Well then, be quick,’ said Servaz, resigned, flopping back against the pillows.

  But as soon as they had all left, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

  * * *

  At that very moment, a police officer picked up the phone in the massive stronghold of the Interpol General Secretariat at 200, quai Charles-de-Gaulle in Lyon. The man sat in the middle of a vast open-plan office full of computers and other machines, with a panoramic view over the Rhone. There was also a decorated Christmas tree, whose star rose above the cubicles.

  He frowned when he recognised the voice of the person at the other end.

  ‘Vincent? Is that you? How long has it been, my friend? What are you up to?’

  Second only to the UN in terms of membership, Interpol covers 187 countries. Its central services do not, however, constitute an actual police force – it is, rather, an intelligence service consulted by the member states’ police forces for its expertise and databases – which include files on 178,000 criminals and 4,500 fugitives. A service that issues several thousand international arrest warrants every year: the famous ‘red notices’. The man who had just answered his phone was called Luc Damblin. Espérandieu had known Damblin, like Marissa, at police academy. The two men exchanged a few polite words; then Espérandieu got straight to the point.

  ‘I need to ask you a favour.’

  Damblin gazed absently at the posters in front of him: Russian mafiosi, Albanian pimps, Mexican and Colombian drug lords, Serbian and Croatian jewellery thieves, international paedophiles rife in poor countries. Someone had added red Santa Claus hats and white beards to the photos; it didn’t make them look any more jovial. Damblin listened patiently to his colleague’s explanation.

  ‘You’re in luck,’ he replied in the end. ‘There’s a bloke at the FBI in Washington who owes me one. I gave him a nudge in the right direction on one of his cases. I’ll call him and see what we can do. But why do you need to know?’

  ‘An investigation I’m working on.’

  ‘Something to do with the States?’

  ‘I’ll explain. Here, I’ve just sent you the photo,’ said Espérandieu.

  Damblin checked his watch.

  ‘It could take some time. My contact is fairly busy. How soon do you need an answer?’

  ‘It’s rather urgent, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It’s always urgent,’ answered Damblin. ‘Don’t worry: I’ll put your request at the top of my pile. For old times’ sake. Besides, Christmas is coming: this can be your present.’

  * * *

  Servaz woke up two hours later. It took him a moment to recognise the hospital bed, the white room, the big window with blue blinds. When he figured out where he was, he looked for his belongings and found them in a plastic bag on a chair. He jumped out of bed and dressed as quickly as possible. Three minutes later, he was outside and calling a number from his mobile.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s Martin. Is the inn open this evening?’

  At the other end of the line, the old man laughed.

  ‘I’m glad you called. I was about to make dinner.’

  ‘I have a few questions for you.’

  ‘And here I thought it was all about my cooking. What a disappointment! Have you found something?’

  ‘I’ll explain.’

  ‘Good. I’ll see you later.’

  * * *

  Night had fallen, but the street outside the lycée was well lit. Sitting in an unmarked car, Espérandieu saw Margot Servaz come out of the school. He almost didn’t recognise her: her black hair had changed to Scandinavian blonde. She had two little bunches on either side of her head that made her look like a caricature of a German Mädchen. And a peculiar hat.

  When she turned round, he also saw, even from this distance, that she had a new tattoo on her neck. An enormous, multicoloured tattoo. Vincent thought about his daughter. How would he react if, later on in life, Mégan also went in for this sort of thing? Checking to see that his camera was where it should be on the passenger seat, he turned the ignition. Like the day before, Margot chatted on the pavement with her schoolmates for a moment and rolled a cigarette. Then her attentive escort with the scooter appeared.

  Espérandieu sighed. At least this time if they got ahead of him, he would know where to find them. He wouldn’t have to drive as recklessly as before. He pulled out and started after them. The driver of the scooter indulged in his usual acrobatics. On Espérandieu’s iPhone, the Gutter Twins were singing, O, Father, now I can’t believe you’re leaving. At the next traffic light, he slowed and came to a halt. The car in front of him had stopped and the scooter was already four cars ahead of him. But Espérandieu knew that at the crossroads they would be going straight; he relaxed.

  The hoarse voice in his headphones was declaring, My mother, she don’t know me / And my father, he can’t own me when the light turned green, and the scooter turned to the right, back-firing. Espérandieu spluttered with irritation. What the fuck are they doing now? This wasn’t the way home. The queue in front of him was taking an exasperatingly long time to move. Espérandieu got nervous. The light changed to amber, then red. He went through on red, just in time to see the scooter turning left at the next traffic light two hundred metres further along. Fucking hell! Where were they off to in such a hurry? He made it through the next crossroads on amber and set about trying to catch up.

  They were heading into the centre.

  He was nearly behind them now. The traffic was much heavier, it was raining, and the beams from the headlights bounced off the wet pavement. In these conditions it was no easy thing to follow the zigzagging vehicle. Sixteen minutes later, the scooter dropped its passenger on the rue d’Alsace-Lorraine and took off again immediately. Espérandieu parked in a prohibited spot, pulled down the screen marked ‘Police’, and got out. His instinct told him that there was something going on. Then he discovered he had left his camera on the passenger seat; he swore, went back to get it, then ran to catch up with his target.

  No panic: Margot Servaz was walking calmly ahead of him through the crowd. As he jogged to reach her he checked that the camera was working.

  She turned into the Place Esquirol. The bright windows and Christmas lights gave a new life to the trees and the old façades. With only a few days left until Christmas, it was crowded. Which suited him fine: that way she wouldn’t notice him. Suddenly, he saw her stop short, look all around, then turn abruptly and go into the Brasserie du Père Léon. Espérandieu’s alarm bells started ringing: this was not the behaviour of someone with nothing to hide. He hurried to follow her as far as the café. Now he had a dilemma: he had already met Margot half a dozen times. How would she react if she saw him come in right behind her?

  He looked through the window just in time to see her kiss someone on the lips, then sit down opposite him. She looked radiant. Espérandieu saw her laugh joyfully at what her companion was saying.

  Then he turned to look at him. Oh, fuck.

  * * *

  On that cold December evening he gazed up at the stars scattered above the mountains, and the lights from the mill, reflected in the water, promised a welcoming warmth. A brisk wind stung his cheeks; the rain was once again turning to snow. Saint-Cyr opened the door and Servaz saw his face freeze with astonishment.

  ‘Good Lord! What happened to you?’

  Servaz had looked at his face in the hospital mirror, and knew it was frightening. He had dilated pupils and bloodshot eyes worthy of Christopher Lee’s Dracula, his neck was bruised up to his ears, his lips and nostrils had been irritated by the plastic bag, and there was a horrible purplish scar where the rope had dug into his throat. His eyes were filling with tears from the cold, or the tension.

  ‘I’m late,’ he said in a scratchy voice. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll come straight in. It’s cold out tonight.’

  He was still trembling all over. Once he was inside, Saint-Cyr took a
closer look at him.

  ‘My God! Come along and get warm,’ said the old judge, going down the steps to the spacious living room.

  The table had been set, and a bright fire was crackling in the hearth. Saint-Cyr pulled out a chair for Servaz to sit down. He picked up a bottle and filled a glass.

  ‘Drink. And take your time. Are you sure you’ll be all right?’

  Servaz nodded. He took a sip. The wine was a deep red colour, almost black, strong but excellent. At least as far as Servaz could tell; he wasn’t really a connoisseur.

  ‘Somontano,’ said Saint-Cyr. ‘I bring it back from the other side of the Pyrenees, from the High Aragon. So, tell me what happened.’

  Servaz told him. He couldn’t stop thinking about the holiday camp, and adrenaline shot through him every time, like a fishbone rammed down a cat’s throat. Who had tried to strangle him? He played back his memories of the day. Gaspard Ferrand? Élisabeth Ferney? Xavier? But Xavier had come to his help. Unless at the last minute the psychiatrist had baulked at the idea of killing a policeman. One minute Servaz was being brutally assaulted, and the next Xavier was there by his side. Could it have been the same person? No, it couldn’t, because they had heard the Volvo drive off! Then he summed up the last two days – Chaperon’s sudden flight, his empty house, the discovery of the cape and the ring, the box of bullets on the desk.

  ‘You are getting closer to the truth,’ concluded Saint-Cyr with a worried look. ‘You’re almost there. But this,’ he added, looking at Servaz’s neck, ‘what he did to you, it’s unspeakably violent – it looks as if he’ll stop at nothing. He’s ready to kill a policeman if he has to.’

  ‘He, or they,’ said Servaz.

  Saint-Cyr gave him a sharp look.

  ‘This is very worrying for Chaperon.’

  ‘You have no idea where he might be hiding?’

  The magistrate was pensive.

  ‘No. But Chaperon is very keen on mountaineering. He knows every trail and every refuge on either side of the border. You should enlist the help of the mountain gendarmerie.’

  Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of it earlier?