The Frozen Dead

by Bernard Minier

  Sheltering from the wind behind the trunk of the last oak tree, Ziegler handed one walkie-talkie to Servaz and the other to Espérandieu. She gave her instructions with authority: ‘We’ll split up. Two teams. One to the right, one the left. As soon as you two are in position to cover us, you and I will go in,’ she said, pointing to Samira. ‘If they resist, we’ll fall back and wait for reinforcements.’

  Samira nodded and the two women walked quickly towards the second row of trees, where they disappeared, before Servaz could react. He looked at Espérandieu, who shrugged. Then they too slipped in among the trees, in the other direction round the esplanade. All the way, Servaz did not take his eyes from the building.

  Suddenly he shuddered.

  Something moved. He thought he saw a shadow flit behind a window.

  The walkie-talkie crackled.

  ‘Are you in position?’

  Ziegler’s voice. He hesitated. Had he seen something, yes or no?

  ‘I may have seen someone on the first floor,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘OK, we’ll go in anyway. Cover us.’

  He almost told her to wait.

  Too late. The women were already moving quickly through the snowy borders, then running across the gravel. Just as they were making their way between the two topiary lions, Servaz felt his blood freeze: a window had opened on the first floor. He saw a gun at the end of an outstretched arm! Without hesitation, he took aim and pulled the trigger. To his great surprise, a windowpane shattered, but not the right one! The shadow vanished.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Ziegler in the walkie-talkie.

  He could see her hiding behind one of the giant animals. Not really much protection. A single burst of gunfire through the bushes and it would all be over.

  ‘Be careful!’ he shouted. ‘There’s at least one armed man in there! He was about to shoot!’

  She gestured to Samira and they rushed towards the chateau. They disappeared inside. Dear Lord! Each one of them had more testosterone than he and Espérandieu put together!

  ‘Your turn,’ said Ziegler in the walkie-talkie.

  Servaz grunted. They should have fallen back. Nevertheless, he ran towards the entrance to the chateau, with Espérandieu following. Several shots rang out inside. They hurried up the steps of the porch and rushed through the door. Ziegler was firing from behind a statue at the back of the room. Samira was on the floor.

  ‘What happened?’ shouted Servaz.

  ‘They shot at us!’

  Servaz looked at the series of dark rooms. Ziegler was bending over Samira. She was wounded in the leg, bleeding profusely. There was a long bloody streak across the marble floor. The bullet had torn open her thigh, but not the femoral artery. Lying on the floor, Samira was already putting her hand on the wound to stop the bleeding. There was nothing else to do until help came. Ziegler took out her walkie-talkie to call for an ambulance.

  ‘From now on we stay right here!’ insisted Servaz when she had finished. ‘We’ll wait for reinforcements.’

  ‘They won’t get here for another hour!’

  ‘Never mind!’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ll make you a compression bandage,’ she said to Samira. ‘You never know: you might have to use your weapon.’

  In a few seconds, she fashioned a bandage, wrapping it tightly enough to stop the bleeding. Servaz knew that once the bleeding stopped, an injured person could stay like that without any real danger. He reached for his walkie-talkie.

  ‘Pujol, Simeoni, get over here!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Pujol.

  ‘They fired at us. Samira is hurt. We need support. We’re in the entrance hall. The coast is clear.’

  ‘Copy.’

  He turned his head, and started.

  Several stuffed heads were looking down at him from the walls. A bear. A Pyrenean chamois. A stag. One of the heads looked familiar. Freedom … The horse was staring at him with golden eyes.

  Suddenly he saw Irène start running towards the depths of the building. Shit!

  ‘Stay with Samira!’ he shouted to his assistant, and bolted off after her.

  * * *

  Diane felt as though she’d been sleeping for hours. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the road rushing past the windscreen, and thousands of snowflakes coming to greet them. Then she became aware of a string of crackling messages from the dashboard, slightly to her left.

  She turned her head and saw him.

  She didn’t wonder whether she were dreaming. She knew that, unfortunately, she was not.

  He saw that she had woken up and grabbed his gun. He aimed it at her, still driving.

  He didn’t say a word – there was no need.

  Diane could not help but wonder where and when he would kill her. And how. Would she end up like the dozens of others who had never been found – at the bottom of a hole somewhere in the woods? The thought of it paralysed her. In this car she was like an animal caught in a trap. So unbearable was this realisation that anger and determination gradually replaced her fear. And a cold resolution, as icy as the air outside: if she had to die, it would not be as a victim. She would fight; he would pay dearly. The bastard didn’t know what was in store for him. She had to wait for the right moment. There was bound to be one; the important thing was to be ready.

  * * *

  Maud, my beloved little sister. Sleep, little sister. Sleep. You are so beautiful when you sleep. So peaceful, so radiant.

  I failed you, Maud. I wanted to protect you, you trusted me, you believed in me. I failed you. I wasn’t able to keep you from the world, little sister; I could not stop the world from hurting you, dirtying you.

  ‘We must go now, sir! Come on!’

  Éric Lombard turned round, with the can of petrol in his hand. Otto still held his gun, but his other arm hung limply at his side, and the sleeve was soaked in blood.

  ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Give me just a bit more time, Otto. My little sister … what did they do to her? What did they do to her, Otto?’

  He turned back to the coffin. Around him was a vast circular room, brilliantly illuminated. Everything in the room was white: the walls, floor, furnishings. In the middle was a platform. A large ivory-white coffin lay on top of it. There were also two low tables with flowers in vases. The flowers were white, too.

  Éric Lombard shook the petrol can over the coffin. It was open. Inside, lying among the ivory padding, Maud Lombard seemed to be sleeping in her white dress. Her eyes closed. Smiling. Immaculate. Immortal.

  Plastination. The body’s liquids replaced by silicon – like those exhibitions where real, perfectly preserved corpses were displayed. Éric Lombard stared at the angelic young face, now streaming with petrol.

  Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness: none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of theirs: neither shall there be wailing for them. The time is come, the day draweth near … neither shall any strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life. (Ezekiel 7:11–14)

  ‘Do you hear me, sir? It’s time to go!’

  ‘See how she is sleeping. Look at how peaceful she is. She has never been more beautiful than in this moment.’

  ‘She’s dead, for God’s sake! Dead! Get a hold of yourself!’

  ‘Father read the Bible to us every evening, Otto. Do you remember? The Old Testament. Isn’t that right, Maud? He taught us his lessons; he told us to deliver justice ourselves – never to let an insult or a crime go unpunished.’

  ‘Rouse yourself, sir! We must leave!’

  ‘But he was an unjust, cruel man. And when Maud grew up and started to go out with her friends, her boyfriends, he treated her the way he had treated our mother. But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity. All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water. Horror shall cover them. Ezekiel, chapter seven.’

  S
hots rang out over their heads. Otto turned round and went towards the stairway, brandishing his weapon. He grimaced from the pain in his wounded arm.

  * * *

  The man came round the corner. It all happened very quickly. The bullet passed so near that Servaz heard it buzzing. He didn’t have time to react. Ziegler was already firing and he saw the man collapse. His gun bounced on the floor with a metallic sound.

  Ziegler went over to him, still holding her gun in the air. She leaned over him. A large red spot was spreading across his shoulder. He was alive but in shock. She sent a message through the walkie-talkie, then stood up and stepped back.

  Servaz, Pujol and Simeoni walked over to her. Behind the statue a stairway led downstairs.

  ‘This way,’ said Pujol.

  A white spiral staircase. Curving white marble walls. Steep steps winding down into the bowels of the huge building. Ziegler went down first, her gun held in front of her. Then a shot rang out and she rushed back up for shelter.

  ‘Shit! There’s someone shooting down there!’

  They saw her unhook something from her belt. Servaz knew immediately what it was.

  * * *

  Otto saw a black object bounce like a tennis ball down the stairs and roll towards him along the floor. Tick-tick-tick … He understood too late. A stun grenade. When it exploded, a blinding flash literally paralysed his sight. This was followed by a deafening explosion which shook the room, and the wave went through his body, giving him the impression that the room was spinning. He lost his balance.

  By the time he came round, two figures had appeared. He felt someone kick him in the jaw and he let go of his gun. Then he was turned over on the floor and felt the cold steel of handcuffs closing round his wrists. That was when he saw the flames. They had begun to devour the coffin. His boss had vanished. Otto did not struggle. As a young man in the 1960s he had served as a mercenary in Africa under Bob Denard and David Smiley. He was well acquainted with the atrocities of postcolonial warfare; he had tortured and been tortured. After that, he had followed the orders of Henri Lombard, a man who was as hard as he was; then he had served his son. It took a lot to impress Otto.

  ‘Go fuck yourselves,’ he said simply.

  * * *

  The heat from the fire was scorching their faces. The flames filled the centre of the room, blackening the high ceiling. Soon it would be impossible to breathe.

  ‘Pujol, Simeoni,’ shouted Ziegler, pointing to the stairway, ‘take him out to the van!’

  She turned to Servaz, who was gazing at the burning platform. The fire was devouring the body inside the coffin, but they had had time to see the long blonde hair and youthful face.

  ‘Dear God!’ sighed Ziegler.

  ‘I saw her tomb at the cemetery,’ said Servaz.

  ‘I suppose it must be empty. How did they manage to preserve her for so long? Was she embalmed?’

  ‘No, that wouldn’t be enough. But Lombard has the means. And there are techniques.’

  Servaz stared at the angelic young face as it was transformed into a mass of charred flesh, bones and molten plastic. It seemed totally unreal.

  ‘Where is Lombard?’ asked Ziegler.

  Servaz emerged from his trance and nodded to an open door on the other side of the room. They went round the room, hugging the circular wall to keep clear of the flames, then through the door.

  Another stairway leading upwards. Much narrower, not as well maintained as the other one. Grey, weeping stone, stained with black streaks.

  They came out at the back of the chateau.

  Wind. Snow. Storm. Darkness.

  Ziegler stopped and listened. Silence. The full moon came and went behind the clouds. Servaz scanned the moving shadows of the forest.

  ‘There,’ she said.

  The triple tracks of a snowmobile in the moonlight. They followed a path that carved a gap through the trees. The clouds closed over and the tracks disappeared.

  ‘Too late. He got away,’ said Servaz.

  ‘I know where the trail leads to: it goes first to a cirque two kilometres from here, then up into the mountain, over a col and back down. From there, the road to Spain.’

  ‘Pujol and Simeoni could follow.’

  ‘They would have to make a detour of fifty kilometres. Lombard will get there before them. He probably already has a car waiting on the other side.’

  Ziegler walked over to a small building at the edge of the forest: the tracks of the snowmobile started there. She opened the door and turned a switch. Inside the hut were two more snowmobiles and, against the wall, a board full of keys, skis, boots, helmets and black jumpsuits, whose yellow reflective strips caught the light.

  ‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Ziegler. ‘I’d love to know what sort of dispensation he got!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The use of these things is strictly regulated,’ she said, taking one of the jumpsuits off its hook.

  Servaz swallowed as he watched Irène get into it.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Put that on!’

  She pointed to a jumpsuit and a pair of boots. Servaz hesitated. There must be some other way … Roadblocks, for example. But all their officers had been mobilised at the Institute. And Lombard must already have an escape plan. Irène rummaged among the keys, then started the vehicle and glided it outside. She turned on the lights and went back inside to grab two helmets and two pairs of gloves. Servaz was struggling with his jumpsuit: it was too big, and his flak jacket got in the way.

  ‘Come on,’ she said above the sound of the four-stroke engine.

  He put on the red and white helmet and immediately felt he was suffocating. He drew the hood of the jumpsuit over the helmet and went out. The boots made him walk like an astronaut – or a penguin.

  Outside, the blizzard had abated somewhat. The wind had dropped and there were fewer snowflakes in the tunnel of light created by the snowmobile’s headlight. He pressed the button on his walkie-talkie.

  ‘Vincent? How is Samira?’

  ‘She’s OK. But the other guy is in a bad way. The ambulances will be here in five minutes. And you?’

  ‘No time to explain! Stay with her.’

  He cut the contact, lowered the visor of his helmet and clumsily straddled the raised seat behind Ziegler. Then he settled against the back support. She took off at once. The snowflakes came at them like shooting stars. The vehicle slid easily over the packed trail, hissing softly against the snow. The clouds parted again and through his visor he saw the mountains, just above the trees in the moonlight.

  * * *

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, Diane.’

  His deep, hoarse voice startled her. She had been lost in thought.

  ‘You have been wondering how I’m going to kill you. And you are looking desperately for a way out. You’re waiting for me to make a mistake. I’m sorry to say I will make no mistakes. And so, yes, you will die tonight.’

  On hearing his words, an immense chill came over her, spreading from her head down to her stomach and legs. For a moment she thought she was going to faint. She swallowed, but felt a painful catch in her throat.

  ‘Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll let you live, after all. I don’t like being manipulated. Élisabeth Ferney might regret having used me. She always likes to have the last word, so perhaps this time she’ll be disappointed. Killing you would deprive me of that little victory: that gives you a chance, Diane. To be honest, I haven’t really made up my mind.’

  He was lying … He had made up his mind. All her experience as a psychologist told her so. This was just one of his twisted little games, one of his tricks: give the victim a gleam of hope, all the better to take it from her later on. All the better to destroy her. Yes, that was it: another one of his perverse pleasures. Terror, mad hope and then, at the last minute, disappointment and despair.

  He fell silent, listening attentively to the messages coming from the radio. Diane tried to do the same, but h
er mind was a welter of confusion and she found it impossible to concentrate.

  ‘It seems our friends from the gendarmerie have their hands full up there,’ he said.

  Diane looked at the landscape rushing past the windows: the narrow road was white, but they were driving fast. The car must have snow tyres. Nothing disturbed the immaculate whiteness except for dark tree trunks and a few grey boulders here and there. In the distance the high mountains stood out against the night sky and straight ahead was a gap between the summits. Perhaps that was where the road was leading.

  She looked at him again, at this man who was going to kill her. A thought flashed into her mind, as sharp as an icicle in the moonlight. He was lying when he said he would not make any mistakes. He just wanted her to believe it. He wanted her to give up and entrust herself to him, in the hope he would let her live.

  He was wrong. She wouldn’t do that.

  * * *

  They came out of the forest, speeding through two snowdrifts. Servaz saw the entrance to the cirque: a gorge of monstrous proportions. He thought back to the gigantic architecture he had seen on first arriving in this valley. Everything here was out of proportion – the landscape, the passions, the crimes. The blizzard grew stronger, the snow swarming around them. Ziegler clung to the handlebars, arched against the wind behind the flimsy Plexiglas windscreen. Servaz huddled down to make the most of the feeble protection his colleague could offer. His gloves and jumpsuit were not enough to keep him warm. Now and again the snowmobile bounced like a bobsleigh to the right or the left, and more than once he thought they would tip over.

  Soon, in spite of the gusts, he saw they were approaching a huge amphitheatre streaked with scree and ice flows. Several waterfalls had frozen; from this distance the ice had transformed them into tall white candles dripping wax against the rock face. When the full moon came out from behind the clouds and lit up the landscape, its beauty took his breath away. There reigned a sense of expectation, of time suspended.

  ‘I see him!’ he shouted.

  The snowmobile was climbing the slope on the far side of the cirque. Servaz thought he could make out the vague line of a path heading towards a breach in the rocky wall. The vehicle was already halfway up. The moonlight flooded the cirque, carving out every detail in the rock and ice. Servaz looked up. The silhouette had just vanished into the shadow of the cliff; then it reappeared on the other side. He leaned forward and hung on as best he could, while their powerful vehicle gripped the slope with ease.