The Circle

by Bernard Minier

  David glanced at Margot.

  ‘Thank you.’

  In his eyes she saw an expression that was hard to decipher. Was it shame? Gratitude? Fear? Then he walked away. Samira turned to Margot, who was still sitting on the ground.

  ‘You can find your own way home,’ she said, coldly.

  She left, taking the same path as David. Margot heard her go back up the lane past the tennis courts with a hurried step. She took several deep breaths, wondering why her father’s assistant had turned up so miraculously. Was he having her watched? She waited for the silence to return, for the night to take possession of the forest. Only then did she roll over and stretch out on her back in the grass, her eyes to the sky, which was a deep grey, even darker through the black canopy. She rammed her earphones into her ears, asked Marilyn Manson to sing ‘Sweet Dreams’ – and then she began to sob.

  Unaware that someone was watching her.

  He heard the music and the sound of the motor to start with. They were coming through the woods – and fast … Elvis Elmaz switched off the telly, turned his head and looked over to the window. He could make out a glow in the forest. It was almost dark. Headlights … He leapt up off the sofa and towards the gun hanging on the wall. His heart began pounding. No one ever came to visit at this hour.

  The dogs began growling, then barking, shaking their cages with their claws.

  He made sure the gun was loaded, then went over to the window, when suddenly a shower of white light exploded in the room, blinding.

  The car had its headlights on full beam. He had to turn his head away from the assault of the dazzling brightness. And then there was the music playing full blast, the bass causing the walls to vibrate.

  Elvis hurried to the door, his gun pointed. He flung it open.

  ‘Fuck, I know who you are, you bunch of faggots!’ he screamed, bursting out onto the veranda. ‘The first one who comes close, I’ll blow his brains out.’

  He felt the cold pressure of a rifle against his temple.

  ‘This is Samira,’ said the voice on the telephone.

  Servaz turned down the stereo, and outside a siren was wailing. Once again he was disappointed. Once again, he had hoped it would be Marianne. Why don’t you call her? he wondered. Why wait for her?

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘It’s Margot … something happened this evening. Something not at all cool. But she’s fine,’ she hastened to reassure him.

  He stiffened. Margot. Not at all cool. He waited for her to go on. Samira recounted the scene she had just witnessed: she’d been watching the back of the buildings, Vincent the front. She had seen two girls leave the building and walk towards the woods, then, just afterwards, Margot appeared, following in their footsteps; so she had trailed her, had found Margot watching the two girls and a boy named David in a clearing. She was too far away to hear what they were saying, but the young man called David seemed completely stoned. Then Samira saw the trio leave again while Margot was still hiding in the thicket. David reappeared several minutes later. Samira saw him make his way into the undergrowth then lost him again until he threw himself on Margot. Samira had rushed over, but she had been a good thirty metres away, the bloody forest was full of brambles, and she had stumbled on a root, and it had hurt like hell when she stood back up. It must have taken her roughly a minute and a half to intervene, no more than that, boss, I swear.

  ‘At least this way he was caught in the act,’ she said. ‘And I’ll say it again, boss: Margot is fine.’

  ‘I don’t get it! Caught in the act of doing what?’ he shouted. Samira told him.

  ‘You’re saying that David tried to rape my daughter?’

  ‘Margot says he didn’t. That it wasn’t his intention. But he managed to … um … put his hand in … um … her pants …’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  ‘Fuck, don’t do that, don’t do that, shit!’

  He struggled. For appearances’ sake. His wrists were tied behind his back and his legs were fastened to the chair legs with thick brown tape. His chest was tied to the chair back the same way. He even had some around his neck. Every time he struggled, the tape tugged at his skin and hair. He was sweating like a pig. ‘Bunch of fucking bastards! Motherfuckers! Fuck the lot of you!’

  The insults were helping him to resist. He knew they were going to kill him. And he knew it wouldn’t be a pleasant death. He had only to think of what had happened to the teacher … He had never been very kind to women. He had beaten them, raped them, but what that teacher had been through was beyond comprehension – even for someone like him. A tremor went through him.

  He inhaled the smell of the dogs and his own strong smell, then the more complex odours of the forest: they had tied him up outside on the veranda. Dust particles and insects danced in the harsh glow of the headlights burning into his eyes. Everything was coming to life around him with sharper intensity; everything was taking on a definitive value.

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ he said. ‘Kill me, I don’t care anyway.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said one of the figures, acting interested. ‘Well, how nice for you!’

  Like the others, his face was hidden in the shadow of the hood.

  ‘You’re going to be afraid, believe me,’ said someone else, calmly.

  Something about that voice made him tremble. It was so confident. And calm. And cold. He watched as they unwound a roll of cling film on the floor of the veranda. He felt dizzy. His heart was fluttering in his chest like a bird in a cage trying to find the way out.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘Oh! All of a sudden you’re interested?’

  They got back up and began to wind the cling film around his torso and the back of the chair. He forced himself to smile.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘This?’ They laughed. ‘This means: yum yum time for doggies …’

  They disappeared from his sight. He could hear them in the house, opening and closing the fridge, then they came hurrying back. Suddenly gloved hands were sliding hunks of fresh, bloody meat between the cling film and his belly, and he trembled. When he had several steaks on his stomach, they went round the chair again, winding the film ever higher towards his throat then slipping new pieces of fresh meat – the cheap stuff that he used to feed the dogs – between the cling film, his chest and his neck.

  ‘Fuck, what are you playing at?’

  A sudden blow slashed his cheek. Warm blood began to spurt onto his chin.

  ‘Ow! Fuck, you’re sick!’

  ‘Did you know that cling film is made up of fifty-six per cent salt and forty-four per cent petrol?’

  They went on turning around him as if he were an explorer captured by natives, tied to a sacrificial pole. Again he felt the film against his throat then the chill of the pieces of meat. After that, they rubbed his face with the last hunks of steak. He shook his head violently from side to side, grimacing.

  ‘Stop it! Stop it now! You bunch of—’

  They went inside again. He heard them turn on the tap in the kitchen, washing their hands while they talked. He tried to move. As soon as they left, he would tip the chair over and try to set himself free. But would he have time? He blinked to banish the sweat that was dripping from his eyebrows and stinging his eyes. He had figured out what they were going to do and it filled him with terror. He wasn’t afraid of dying, but not this sort of death. Fuck it, no.

  He stared at the dazzling light from the headlamps. The night and the dark forest were all around. He could hear the insects buzzing in the woods; the dogs had stopped barking. Maybe they had already caught a whiff of the smell that meant food. His torturers passed him again, climbed into their car and slammed the doors.

  ‘Wait! Come back! I have money! I’ll give you money!’ he screamed. ‘Lots of money! I’ll give you everything! Come back!’

  He pleaded with them as he had never pleaded in his life before.

  ‘Come back, come back, fuck!’

&n
bsp; Then he began sobbing, while the car backed away into the night towards the cages.

  There was no time to lose. They opened the cages in the darkness, one by one. The dogs knew them; they had come to feed them several times while their master was absent. ‘It’s me,’ said one of them in a reassuring voice. ‘You recognise me, don’t you? I’ll bet you’re hungry. You haven’t eaten a thing for twenty-four hours …’ The dogs emerged from the cages one after the other and surrounded them, and they stood and let the huge beasts sniff them, dogs whose ancestors would not hesitate to attack a bear. The mastiffs rubbed against their legs, and walked around the car. Then they caught wind of that other smell wafting on the night air, and the visitors saw them raise their noses, their powerful necks turning in unison towards the house. They read the hunger and desire in their shining little eyes. The dogs licked their chops and all at once, as if responding to a signal, they began loping towards the house, barking. When the pack leapt onto the veranda, they heard Elvis’s voice calling with authority, ‘Titan, Lucifer, Tyson, good dogs, lie down! Lie down, I said!’

  Then panic and pure terror overcame him: ‘I said lie down! Tyson, no! NOOO!’

  Despite themselves, they could not help but tremble when the screams tore into the silence and the dogs’ growls of pleasure rose into the night as they devoured their master.

  29

  Breaking Bad

  ‘I wasn’t going to do it.’

  He was sobbing, looking at them in turn.

  ‘I wasn’t going to do it, I swear. I – I just wanted to frighten her. I’ve never raped anyone! She was spying on us. It made me angry. I wanted to scare her, that’s all! I wasn’t feeling right today. I swear, fuck … I’ve never done anything like that in my life … You have to believe me!’

  He put his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

  ‘Were you on something, David?’ asked Samira.

  He nodded his head.

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Meth.’

  ‘Who gave it to you?’

  He hesitated.

  ‘I’m not a snitch,’ he said, as if they were in a police drama.

  ‘Listen to me, you little twat—’ Servaz began, red in the face.

  ‘Who was it?’ said Samira. ‘Don’t forget you were caught in the middle of an attempted rape. You know what that means: expulsion from school, a trial, prison … not to mention what people will say. And your parents …’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know his name. He’s a student at the science faculty. His nickname is Heisenberg, like the character in—’

  ‘Breaking Bad,’ interrupted Samira, making a note to ask the narcs. ‘And Hugo, does he take it too?’ Servaz asked.

  David nodded again, still looking at his hands.

  ‘Had Hugo taken something that evening when you went to watch the match at the pub?’

  This time, David raised his head and looked Samira straight in the eyes.

  ‘No! He was clean.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Samira and Servaz exchanged a look. It hadn’t been Claire’s handwriting in the notebook and clearly Hugo had been drugged. Tomorrow they would call the judge, but they weren’t sure whether it would be enough to obtain Hugo’s release.

  Samira looked at Servaz. She was waiting for his decision. Servaz was staring at David, wondering if he should respect his daughter’s wishes.

  ‘Get the hell out of here,’ he said finally. ‘And spread the word: if you ever so much as touch a hair on my daughter’s head, you and your little gang, your life will be hell.’

  David stood up and walked out, his head lowered. Servaz stood up in turn.

  ‘Take up your positions again,’ he said to Samira. ‘Get in touch with the narcs, and ask them if they know this Heisenberg.’

  He left the room and went down the corridor. He knew the place like the back of his hand. There were memories connected to nearly every step. One of them surfaced. Him and Francis van Acker … they were twelve or thirteen years old. Francis was showing him a lizard warming itself in the sun on a wall. ‘Look.’ All of a sudden, Francis had sliced off the lizard’s tail with a shovel or a rusty knife, he couldn’t remember which. The tail had gone on twitching every which way, as if it had a life of its own, while the lizard ran off to hide. But while the young Martin remained fascinated by the tail, Francis had picked up a huge stone and crushed the reptile’s head before it had a chance to disappear.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ Martin asked.

  ‘Because it’s a ruse: while the predator is fascinated by the tail, the lizard escapes.’

  ‘Did you really need to kill it?’

  ‘I’m a more intelligent predator than others,’ Francis had said.

  Servaz went through the second door on the left. A former classroom. Margot was waiting for him, biting her fingernails.

  ‘Did you let him go?’

  Servaz nodded.

  ‘Now everyone is going to look at me as if I have the plague,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘I’m supposed to spend another year here, Dad. How am I going to make friends if I go around with the label “the girl you can’t touch or go near because she’s got police protection” stuck on my back?’

  ‘Does the name Heisenberg mean anything to you?’

  ‘The guy who created quantum mechanics or the character in Breaking Bad?’

  He felt reassured. She had answered without the slightest hesitation. Clearly she had never heard of a dealer who went by the name.

  ‘What is this Breaking Bad thing?’

  ‘It’s a TV series, about this chemistry teacher who finds out he’s got terminal cancer and starts manufacturing and dealing drugs to ensure his family’s future. Since when are you interested in TV series?’

  ‘You overheard their conversation,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘What were they talking about?’

  He saw her frown and think.

  ‘I don’t know … it was fairly disjointed, and rather strange. David said he was fed up with all of it, that he didn’t want to go on.’

  ‘Go on with what?’

  ‘No idea. And then Virginie said they couldn’t abandon Hugo, that Hugo loved all of them … Oh, and then she talked about something even weirder: the Circle. She said the Circle would meet soon.’

  ‘The Circle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She almost told him that the Circle was supposed to meet on the seventeenth of that month, but she held back. Why? What’s the matter with you? Two of them knew about it: her and Elias. What was she thinking?

  ‘Do you have any idea what it is?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Go to bed,’ he said, feeling weak with fatigue himself.

  ‘How long are Vincent and Samira going to stay here?’

  She was already putting her earphones in her ears. Servaz thought of something.

  ‘As long as it takes,’ he said. ‘What are you listening to?’

  ‘You won’t know them, they’re called Marilyn Manson.’ She laughed: ‘It’s not at all your style.’

  ‘Can you say that again?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The name of the group.’

  ‘Marilyn Manson. Why? What is it, Dad?’

  Servaz felt as if an abyss had opened beneath his feet. The music on the CD that someone left for him at the Internet café … His mouth went dry and his fingers trembled as he opened his mobile phone to call Espérandieu and Samira.

  Samira Cheung was once again hiding in the bushes behind the lycée, like some bloody commando. She was already regretting her choice of clothes: with her skinny jeans and her short tank top, the grass was itching her belly and she spent her time scratching.

  She had a view over the back of the buildings, from the concrete cubes and the sports stand on the left to the entrance to the stables and the dormitory wing on
the right, as well as the tennis courts, the lawn and the entrance to the maze. There was a light on in Margot’s window, and it was open. She even thought she could see the red glow of a cigarette. That’s against the rules, young lady … She had drunk a coffee and taken some Pro Plus, although the events of the evening had already given her enough adrenaline to keep her awake. She wouldn’t have minded listening to some death metal to wake her up even more – Cannibal Corpse, for example. But she didn’t want to be startled by someone coming up from behind out of the woods. To be honest, she hated the thought of the deep dense forest at her back.

  As much as she could she avoided moving. She didn’t want to attract attention. But from time to time she stretched and did a few flexes. Her walkie-talkie crackled and she heard Espérandieu’s voice in the nocturnal silence.

  ‘How are things at your end?’

  ‘It’s calm.’

  ‘Martin’s just left. He’s completely losing it. He wanted to stay here. The gendarmes have posted a patrol on the road at the entrance to the lycée and Margot has orders to lock her door and not open it to anyone she doesn’t know. She’s gone to bed.’

  ‘Not quite. I can see her: she’s having a fag. But she’s in her room.’

  ‘I hope you’re not listening to music.’

  ‘All I can hear is some fucking owl. And what about you, is it calm there?’

  ‘Deadly.’

  ‘Do you really think he would have the guts to show up here?’

  ‘Hirtmann? I don’t know … I’d be surprised. But this business with the Marilyn Manson music is pretty creepy.’

  ‘And what if he sees us?’

  ‘Well, it will probably make him go back the way he came … I don’t think he wants to get locked up again. If you want my opinion, he’s miles away. And let’s not forget that we’re here to protect Margot, not follow him.’

  Samira didn’t say anything.

  But that didn’t mean she didn’t have an opinion on the matter.

  If the opportunity arose to get her hands on the Swiss killer, she would go right ahead and take it.

  At the age of ten, Suzanne Lacaze had been convinced that the world was a marvellous playground and that everyone loved her. At twenty she had discovered that the world was a hurtful sharp-edged place where most people lie – when she’d seen her best friend steal the man she’d fallen madly in love with, tears in her eyes and spewing words like ‘we’re in love’, ‘we were made for each other’, ‘I’m so sorry, Suzie’ from that pretty little mouth of hers, full of shit … Now, at the age of fortysomething, Suzanne knew, with unshakeable certainty, that the world belonged to the bastards, with God as the reigning champion bastard. For everyone else it was hell.