The Frozen Dead

by Bernard Minier

  ‘What is it?’ asked Servaz. ‘A nightclub?’

  ‘A gay bar.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A lesbian club.’

  They drove into the car park in first gear, just as she was greeting the doorman. She went past two plastic palm trees and disappeared inside. Espérandieu drove very slowly past the entrance to the nightclub. Further on there were other rectangular buildings. Like gigantic shoeboxes. A commercial zone. He turned and backed into a pool of darkness, well away from the streetlamps and neon lights, but facing the entrance to the club.

  ‘You wanted to find out about her private life, well, here you go.’

  ‘What’s she doing in there?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I mean, she’s hunting for Chaperon, she knows that time is of the essence, and yet she wastes it to come here? At one o’clock in the morning?’

  ‘Unless she’s got an appointment with a contact.’

  ‘In a gay bar?’

  Espérandieu shrugged. Servaz looked at the clock on the dashboard. Eight minutes past one.

  ‘Take me back,’ he said.

  ‘Back where?’

  ‘To her place.’

  He felt in his pocket and pulled out a little collection of skeleton keys. Espérandieu frowned.

  ‘Whoa, steady … That’s not a good idea. She might leave at any moment.’

  ‘You can drop me off there, and come back here to make sure she’s still inside. I won’t go in until you give me the green light. Is your mobile charged?’

  Servaz took his out. For once it was working. Espérandieu did likewise, shaking his head.

  ‘Hold it right there. You can hardly stand up straight. If Ziegler is a murderer, she’ll be extremely dangerous.’

  ‘If you keep an eye on her, I’ll have plenty of time to get out of there. We don’t have time for games.’

  ‘And what if a neighbour sees you and sounds the alarm? Confiant will destroy your career. The man hates you.’

  ‘No one will know. Let’s go. We’ve wasted enough time.’

  * * *

  Diane looked all around her. Not a soul. The corridor was deserted. There were no surveillance cameras in this part of the Institute, which was off limits to the patients. She turned the handle; the door was unlocked. She checked her watch. Twelve minutes past midnight. She went in. The room was bathed in the moonlight coming in through the window. Xavier’s office.

  She closed the door behind her. All her senses on alert, unbelievably sharp – as if the tension were giving her an animal’s heightened vision and hearing. Her gaze swept the desk, empty except for a lamp, the computer and the telephone; there was a little bookshelf on the right, a filing cabinet on the left, a fridge in the corner and pot plants on the windowsill. Outside, the storm was raging, and at times, when the moon was hidden momentarily by clouds, the light grew so dim that all she could see was the grey-blue rectangle of the window.

  On the floor, in a corner, was a pair of bar-bells. They were small but heavy, she noticed as she went closer. She wanted to open the top drawer, but it was locked. Drat. The second, however, was not. She hesitated and switched on the desk lamp. She searched through the folders and papers in the drawer, but nothing caught her attention. The third drawer was almost empty except for a few pens and felt tips.

  She went over to the filing cabinet. It was full of hanging files. Diane pulled out a few and opened them. Files on the staff. She noticed there were none under the name of Élisabeth Ferney, but there was one for Alexandre Barski. As there were no other Alexandres, she concluded it must be the nurse. She held it up to the lamp to be able to read it better.

  Alex’s CV informed her that he was born in the Ivory Coast in 1980. He was younger than she had thought. Unmarried. He lived in a town called Saint-Gaudens; Diane thought she recalled having seen the name on a map of the region. He had been working at the Institute for four years. Before that, he had worked at the psychiatric hospital in Armentières. As a student he had completed several internships, including one in a child psychiatry unit, and Diane thought that this was something they could talk about in future. She wanted to get closer to Alex – to befriend him, make him an ally. He’d got good appraisals. Over the years, first Wargnier then Xavier had written comments such as ‘good listener’, ‘competent’, ‘shows initiative’, ‘team spirit’, ‘gets along well with patients’.

  Right, you haven’t got all night.

  She closed the file and put it back. With some misgivings, she looked for her own file. ‘Diane Berg.’ She opened it and found her CV and printouts of the emails she had exchanged with Dr Wargnier. She felt her stomach knot when she read a comment in Xavier’s handwriting at the bottom of the page: ‘Could be problematic?’ The other hanging files in the drawer were no more revealing. She glanced into the other drawers. Files on the patients. Administrative paperwork. The fact that there was no file for Lisa Ferney confirmed Diane’s suspicions: perhaps she really was the one in charge here. Neither Wargnier nor Xavier had dared to put together a file on the head nurse.

  She inspected the bookshelf on the other side of the room. Then once again the desk and the computer. Diane hesitated, and finally sat down in Xavier’s chair. A stubborn odour of soap and an overly spicy cologne permeated the leather back of the chair. She paused to listen carefully, then turned the computer on. Something stirred and whined deep inside the machine, like a newborn roused from sleep.

  The desktop wallpaper appeared – an ordinary autumn landscape – and the icons popped up one after the other.

  Diane went over the icons, but nothing grabbed her attention. She opened his mailbox. Nothing of interest. The latest email was from that very morning, addressed to all the staff and entitled ‘Calendar of therapeutic team operational meetings’. There were 550 messages in his inbox, including 12 unread ones; Diane didn’t have time to open them all, but she looked quickly at the last 40 and didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.

  Then she went through the sent mail. Nothing to report there either.

  She closed the mailbox and looked for his bookmarks. Several websites drew her attention, including a singles dating site, another one entitled ‘Learn charm from a psychologist-sexologist’, a third with ‘ultimate’ pornographic images, and a fourth one that referred to ‘thoracic pain and cardio-circulatory distress’. She wondered whether Xavier actually had heart problems or was simply a hypochondriac. After seventeen minutes she switched off the computer, disappointed.

  She looked again at the top drawer, the one that was locked.

  She wondered whether Xavier kept an external hard drive or a USB in the drawer. With the exception of the porn sites, his computer seemed just a little bit too clean for someone with something to hide.

  She looked all around her, found a paperclip, straightened it and slipped it into the little lock, trying to imitate what she had seen in films.

  It was clear that her efforts were getting her nowhere when the paperclip broke in two and half of it remained stuck in the lock. She swore in a low voice. She picked up a paper knife and with some difficulty managed to extract the metal. After that, she thought through all the possibilities and suddenly an idea came to her. She swung round in the chair towards the window and stood up, then lifted each of the flower pots one by one. Nothing. Then she dug her fingers into the soil.

  In the third pot her fingers closed round something. A piece of cloth, with something hard inside … She tugged and a small pouch appeared. The key was there. Her pulse accelerated. But on opening the drawer she was disappointed: no hard drive, no USB stick. Just a pile of papers about the Institute. Reports, correspondence with colleagues – nothing confidential. Why would Xavier lock the drawer, in that case? Why not just leave it open like the others? As she rifled through the pages she found a thin manila folder. She pulled it out of the drawer and placed it on the desk blotter. There were only a few sheets inside, including a list of names spread over several co
lumns. Diane noticed that it bore the seal of the town hall in Saint-Martin, and that it was a photocopy. She picked them up and started to look through them.

  On the second sheet was a yellow Post-it note. She peeled it off and held it closer to the lamp. Xavier had written several names on it, followed each time by a question mark:

  Gaspard Ferrand?

  Lisa?

  Irène Ziegler?

  Holiday camp?

  Revenge?

  Why the horse???

  She wondered what she was looking at, but she could guess the answer. The questions echoed her own. Two of the names were unfamiliar to her, but the words ‘holiday camp’ inevitably reminded her of her unpleasant experience at the abandoned buildings two days earlier. What she was holding was a list of suspects. She remembered the conversation she had overheard through the air vent: Xavier had promised the cop that he would conduct his own investigation among the staff. And these questions scribbled on a scrap of paper proved that he had begun to do so. Which meant, obviously, that if Xavier was conducting a secret investigation, he wasn’t the accomplice the police were looking for. In that case, why had he ordered the drugs?

  Puzzled, Diane put the list back in the folder, and the folder back in the drawer, then put the key in the lock, pausing. She had never heard of the other two people – but there was at least one name on the list she could look into. By putting the words ‘holiday camp’ at the end of the list was Xavier implying that all these people were connected in some way with that place? Again she pictured the screaming, sobbing man. What had happened there? And what did it have to do with the crimes committed in Saint-Martin? The answer must have something to do with the word the psychiatrist had written just below: revenge. Diane knew that there were far too many elements missing for her to get at the truth. Apparently Xavier was getting somewhere, but he still had quite a few questions.

  Suddenly she froze, her hand still on the key locking the drawer. Footsteps in the corridor. Instinctively she sank deeper into the chair, her hand moving slowly towards the desk lamp. She switched it off. She was plunged in the grey-blue half-light of the moon and her heart began to pound wildly. The footsteps had come to a halt outside the door. Was it one of the watchmen on his rounds? Had he seen the light? The seconds ticked by endlessly. Then the watchman continued on his way and the footsteps faded.

  The blood still throbbing in her ears, she gradually began to breathe normally again. There was only one thing she wanted: to go back up to her room and hide. She would also like to question Xavier about his investigation. But she knew that the moment she admitted to searching his office she would be sacked, and there would go her career. She had to find another way to make him talk to her.

  * * *

  ‘Her motorbike’s still there. She’s not left yet.’

  Servaz switched off his mobile and hit the light switch on the landing. He looked at his watch – twenty-seven minutes past one – then at the door of the other flat. Not a sound. Everyone was asleep. He wiped his feet several times on the doormat, then took out his skeleton keys and began to try them in the lock. Thirty seconds later he was inside. She had not installed any additional security.

  There were two doors on the right: the first gave on to a corridor; the second led into the living room. Servaz walked across the dark, silent living room, looking for a light switch. The light came on to reveal a spartan interior. He stopped, his heart pounding.

  Look for white, Propp had said.

  He walked slowly around the room. The walls were white. The furniture was cold, disembodied. Modern. He tried to picture the person who lived here, independent of what he knew about her. Nothing came. It was like a flat that belonged to a ghost. He went over to the dozen or so books on a shelf among the sporting trophies, and gave a violent shudder. They were all about the same thing: sexual crimes, violence to women, the oppression of women, pornography and rape. It was dizzying. He was getting close to the truth. He went on into the kitchen. Suddenly something moved, on his right. Before he could even react he felt something touching his leg. Panicked, he leapt back. A long meow and a cat ran for refuge elsewhere in the flat. Christ, you gave me one hell of a fright! Servaz waited for his heart to stop pounding, then opened the cupboards. Nothing in particular. He noticed that Irène Ziegler kept to a careful diet, unlike him. He went back across the living room towards the bedrooms. The door to one of them was open; it contained a desk, a bed and a metal filing cabinet. He went through the drawers one by one. Files: taxes, electricity, courses at the gendarmerie academy, rent, healthcare, various subscriptions. On the night table there were books in English. The Woman-Identified Woman, Radical Feminism: A Documentary History. He was startled by the telephone vibrating in his pocket.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ asked Espérandieu.

  ‘Nothing so far. Anything your end?’

  ‘No, she’s still inside. Did it even occur to you she might not live alone? We don’t know anything about her, for Christ’s sake!’

  His heart skipped a beat. Espérandieu was right. He hadn’t thought of that! There were three closed doors in the flat. What was behind them? At least one of them must be a bedroom. The one he was in right now did not seem lived in. He had made no noise on entering, and it was almost two o’clock in the morning, a time when most people are sound asleep. With a cramp in his stomach, he left the room and stood outside the next door. He listened carefully. Not a sound. He put his ear against it. Silence, apart from the rush of his own blood. Finally he put his hand on the door handle and turned it very slowly.

  A bedroom. An unmade bed.

  The bed was empty. Once again his heart was pounding like mad; he told himself it was due to the pathetic physical condition he was in. He really had to think about doing some exercise if he didn’t want to die of a heart attack one day.

  He opened the last two doors; they led to the bathroom and toilet. He went back into the room with the desk and checked the drawers: nothing but pens and credit-card statements. Then his gaze was drawn to a spot of colour beneath the desk. A road map. It must have fallen onto the floor. Once again his telephone throbbed in his pocket.

  ‘She’s left!’

  ‘Right. Follow her. And call me when you’re a kilometre from here.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Espérandieu. ‘Get the hell out of there, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘I might have found something.’

  ‘She’s already left! She’s on her way!’

  ‘Catch up with her. Hurry! I need five minutes.’

  He hung up.

  He switched on the desk lamp and bent down to pick up the map.

  * * *

  It was two minutes past two when Espérandieu saw Irène Ziegler come out of the Pink Banana in the company of another woman. While Ziegler, in her leathers and boots, looked like some fascinating Amazon, her companion was wearing a white satin jacket with a fur collar over tight jeans and white-heeled boots laced from top to bottom. Straight from the pages of a magazine. She was as dark as Ziegler was fair, her long hair falling onto her collar. The two young women went over to Ziegler’s bike, and the gendarme got on it. They exchanged a few more words. Then the dark-haired woman leaned over the blonde. Espérandieu swallowed when he saw them kissing deeply.

  Blimey, he thought, his throat suddenly dry.

  Ziegler revved the engine, a leather-clad Amazon welded to the steel of her bike. That woman may be a killer, he thought, to pour a cold shower on his incipient lust.

  Suddenly another thought came to him. It had taken two people to kill Éric Lombard’s horse. He took a photo of the dark-haired woman just before she disappeared back into the club. Who was she? Could the assassins have been two women? He took out his mobile and rang Servaz.

  ‘Shit!’ he swore after hanging up. Martin was staying in the flat! He must be out of his mind. He should have got out of there at once. Espérandieu took off at top speed, passing the bouncer. He took the turn at the exit a b
it too abruptly and skidded once again before accelerating down the long straight road. He only lifted his foot from the pedal once he saw the motorcycle’s tail light again, and glanced automatically at the clock on the dashboard: seven minutes past two.

  Martin, for heaven’s sake, get out of there!

  * * *

  Servaz was turning the road map every which way.

  A detailed map of the High Comminges region. On a scale of 1/50,000. No matter how much he stared at it, he couldn’t see anything. Yet Ziegler had looked at this map recently. It’s here, somewhere, but you can’t see it, he thought. See what? What was he supposed to be looking for? And then it came to him: Chaperon’s hiding place!

  It had to be there, of course – somewhere on this map.

  * * *

  There was a spot in the road, after a long straight stretch, where you had to slow right down to take the bends. The road zigzagged through a landscape of fir trees and snow-laden birches, among low white hills and a winding stream. A picture-postcard landscape by day, and eerie at night in the glow of the headlights.

  Espérandieu saw Ziegler slow down and brake, then lean very carefully into the first bend before disappearing behind the tall fir trees. He lifted his foot from the accelerator and entered the bend with the same caution. He was almost in slow motion by the time he reached the spot where the stream flowed. But it was not enough.

  At the time, he would have been incapable of saying what it was. A black shadow.

  It burst out from the other side of the road and leapt into the beam of the headlights. Instinctively, Espérandieu slammed on the brakes: the wrong reflex. The car swerved sideways, rushing to meet the animal with a violent shock. Clinging to the steering wheel, he managed to right the car but too late. It came to a halt; he put on his hazard lights, took off his seatbelt, grabbed a torch and hurried outside. A dog! He’d hit a dog. The animal was lying in the middle of the road, and looked imploringly at Espérandieu in the beam of light, breathing heavily, a cloud of vapour at his muzzle; one of his paws was trembling.