Night

by Bernard Minier

  Implying, you didn’t interview the witnesses properly.

  Saint-Germès shrugged: it was no longer his problem. He observed the maelstrom around them. There were electrical cables running all over the place, and lamps had been lit, making the crime scene and the refuge as bright as day. The technicians in white overalls almost blended in with the snow, as if they were wearing camouflage gear. They came and went around the policemen, shovelling the snow, lifting fingerprints and shot residue and biological samples; they took measurements, called out to each other. It gave a deceptive impression of chaos, but every man knew what he was supposed to do. Crouching by the victim’s head, the pathologist looked up at them and pulled down the blue mask on his chin, a little xenon lamp in his hand.

  ‘The bullet entered the skull and came out again, terminating all vital functions. The man didn’t have time to feel a thing. As if someone flicked a switch. Off. Looks like he didn’t have a very good year,’ he added, pointing with a gloved finger to the burn marks around the man’s mouth and on one cheek, where the scars had scarcely had time to form. ‘Given the nearly constant temperature during the night, I would say that this happened between three and five o’clock in the morning.’

  Which tallied with the witnesses’ statements.

  ‘There are footprints here that do not match either the victim’s shoes, or the woman’s,’ a technician called out a bit further along. ‘Someone came out of the woods and went over to them, then left again the way they had come.’ He pointed to the footprints. ‘And he ran on his way here: the tip of his shoe sunk in much deeper than the heel. Then he stood here without moving: the footprints are uniform. He turned towards him’ – he pointed to the body – ‘and left again the way he came. Not running, this time.’

  Saint-Germès glanced at Morel, who didn’t blink.

  ‘Where’s the canine unit?’ asked Morel.

  ‘They’re on their way,’ someone said.

  ‘Hey, come and have a look at this!’ called another voice a few yards away.

  They turned towards a technician who was using a thermal camera. Infrared thermography, thought Saint-Germès. He saw the technician put the camera down next to him, take a pair of tweezers out of his overalls and squat down, motioning to them to come closer. Then the man stood up. In the tweezers in his blue-gloved hand he was holding a used casing. The casing – because only one projectile had been fired.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Morel.

  The technician pulled his blue mask down onto his chin just as the pathologist had done. He was frowning, puzzled.

  ‘A dum-dum bullet,’ he replied.

  Saint-Germès raised an eyebrow. The sale of expanding bullets was outlawed in France, except to hunters, sports marksmen, and cops.

  ‘It’s a 9 mm,’ added the technician, turning it slowly before his eyes, seeming more and more concerned. ‘Captain,’ he said suddenly, in a changed voice.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Morel.

  ‘The matter is, that this is a Speer Gold Dot. Fucking hell …’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  The technician nodded slowly. Saint-Germès and Morel exchanged a glance. Well well, now Morel had come down off his high horse. He can see the shit is about to hit the fan, thought Saint-Germès. That’s not good. Not good at all. There was virtually only one category of individual in France who used Speer Gold Dot bullets: cops and gendarmes.

  21

  Belvedere

  Despite the cold weather – at least it wasn’t raining – Kirsten was having her breakfast at a pavement café on the place du Capitole – a French breakfast: coffee with milk, croissants, and orange juice – when she saw Servaz coming towards her across the esplanade. She immediately sensed that something had happened.

  And that he hadn’t got a lot of sleep.

  And that he was in what is commonly referred to as a bad mood, although she had rarely seen him smile since their first meeting in the office of the head of the crime unit.

  When he sat down across from her she realised it was more serious than that: he seemed disorientated. Like a child who’s lost his parents in the crowd.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked, in English.

  He seemed to be in urgent need of a cup of coffee, so she ordered two more from the waiter. Martin turned to look at her. Then, in a toneless voice he related not only the night’s events, but also what had happened before Kirsten had arrived in Toulouse.

  ‘Why didn’t you ask me to go with you last night?’ she said, when he had finished.

  ‘Because it has nothing to do with your reason for being in Toulouse.’

  ‘Have you told Stehlin about it?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Hmm. But are you going to?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The waiter arrived with their coffees and she saw Martin’s hand was trembling as he lifted the cup to his lips, so much so that drops of coffee fell on the table and on his thighs.

  ‘So you were in a coma all that time? And that’s why I found you a bit … strange in the beginning?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Shit, that’s a hell of a story.’

  He could not help but smile.

  ‘I’ll give you that.’

  ‘Martin …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You have to trust me, and above all, I would like you to see me as a partner, not just some policewoman from the cold north who doesn’t speak a word of French. Do you hear me?’

  This time he smiled openly when she gave him a stern look, because he knew that her sternness concealed a newfound affection.

  ‘Martin, for fuck’s sake, you went there in the middle of the night without telling anyone!’

  Stehlin looked as if he were about to explode. Literally. A thick, sinuous vein appeared beneath the skin on his left temple, and his face was the colour of a watermelon.

  ‘I had no choice,’ said Servaz, to exonerate himself. ‘He threatened to go after Margot.’

  That wasn’t exactly what Jensen had done, but never mind.

  ‘Yes, you did have a choice!’ barked the director of the crime unit, sputtering. ‘You could have told us. Dammit, we would have sent someone in your place!’

  ‘I wanted to hear what he had to tell me.’

  ‘Oh, really? Well I’m sorry, but it seems to me that the guy took you for a ride and you’re no further ahead than you were; correct me if I’m wrong.’

  Servaz didn’t reply.

  ‘The problem is that if the police inspectors find out, you’ll be in deep shit, and so will I,’ said the director.

  Here we go, thought Servaz. ‘Why should they find out? Who would tell them? Jensen? He’s going to explain that he enjoyed giving me the runaround at night and talked to me about my daughter on the telephone?’

  Stehlin glanced cautiously at Kirsten, as if her presence prevented Martin from saying certain things.

  ‘Martin, you have to file a report, and Florian Jensen has to be interviewed. And what will he say, in your opinion?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘I don’t like this business one bit.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘Do you think he was bluffing, about your daughter?’

  ‘I don’t know. The guy has it in for me.’

  ‘Do you want me to send someone for your daughter?’

  Servaz hesitated. He thought about Hirtmann.

  ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘Not just because of Jensen. If Hirtmann is anywhere around, I don’t want Margot to end up like Marianne Bokhanowsky. It’s time for me to persuade her to go back to Quebec. She’ll be safe there.’

  In Vienna, Bernhard Zehetmayer was gazing out of the window at the rain-swept gardens of the Belvedere Museum. Dotted with trimmed hedges, pools and sculptures, they sloped gently down to the Rennweg. As they did every day, mysterious sphinxes sat smiling on the grand terrace, indifferent to the pouring rain. This was the Vienna he loved, this eternal Vienna which had hard
ly changed since Canaletto. Indifferent to fashion, decadence, the degradation of manners, or the ugliness that to his mind governed the modern world.

  Zehetmayer turned around.

  A crowd of people in wet anoraks hurried in, dripping onto the floors of the museum. Most of them had come to admire Klimt’s minor works. So much devotion for a vulgar interior decorator. What a bunch of imbeciles. Yet another Gustav. But one was a gnome compared to the other … He greatly preferred Schiele’s Death and the Maiden to Klimt’s The Kiss. At least Schiele didn’t sprinkle his paintings with gilt confetti, flimflam, and artifices scarcely worthy of a cabaret poster. His style was raw, without flourishes, unrestrained. Schiele’s last works had been drawings of his wife Edith, six months pregnant and mortally ill, on her deathbed, drawings he made before he himself succumbed to Spanish flu three days later. He really had guts, my God … The fact that Klimt had become Vienna’s most emblematic artist was proof of how low the city had fallen.

  He saw Wieser’s short stocky figure approaching through the crowd.

  ‘Hi,’ said Wieser when he drew level. ‘You have news?’

  ‘They’ve picked up Gustav’s trail,’ he said.

  Wieser gave a start.

  ‘The boy?’

  Zehetmayer shrugged irritably. No, Gustav Klimt, idiot.

  ‘He was staying in the southwest of France, in a little town in the mountains. He even went to school there, until last summer.’

  ‘How do we know it’s him?’

  ‘There isn’t the slightest doubt: the headmistress recognised his photograph, and he was going by the name of that policeman, the one Hirtmann seems to be obsessed with.’

  ‘What? I don’t understand.’

  I’m not surprised, thought the Emperor.

  ‘The main thing is that we’re getting closer,’ he said, forcing himself to stay calm. ‘In fact, we’ve never been closer. This is a unique opportunity. Hirtmann will probably visit the child as soon as he can. If we can pick up his trail, we will find out where, sooner or later, Hirtmann will turn up. This time we have to pull out all the stops. Finding this child is a gift from heaven.’

  22

  Facial Composite

  ‘Did you see his face?’

  Emmanuelle Vengud frowned.

  ‘He was wearing a hood like … like the other guy,’ she answered, after thinking for a moment. ‘And it was dark. I couldn’t see much. But I got a glimpse of him, yes, in the shadow of his hood. He was very close, you see, and—’

  ‘How old would you say he was?’

  Again, she hesitated.

  ‘Forty, forty-five, I guess … Not young, in any case.’

  ‘Fair, dark?’

  ‘He was wearing a—’

  ‘A hood, yes, I know,’ he said, his tone understanding but impatient all the same. ‘Do you know anything about weapons?’

  ‘No. Nothing at all.’

  He sighed and typed something on his keyboard.

  ‘Wait,’ she said.

  Morel looked up.

  ‘I thought I saw something.’

  Her tone of voice immediately alerted him. He swung around on his chair and nodded discreetly, not wanting to distract her from her thoughts.

  ‘To do with the weapon, I mean.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I think he was wearing a holster. I saw it when he stood up and leaned over … the victim.’

  ‘A holster?’

  Morel felt as if he had been punched. He took a deep breath, and cracked the knuckles of his interwoven fingers.

  ‘Yes. On his hip, there,’ she added, showing him where she meant.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He was aware that the tone of his voice had alerted her in turn.

  ‘Why, is it important?’

  ‘Well, yes, rather.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. He had a case attached to his belt, right here.’

  Good God!

  ‘One moment, please.’

  He picked up his telephone.

  ‘Sir,’ he said after waiting a moment, ‘Captain Morel speaking. I have to talk to you, but not over the phone. As soon as possible.’

  Then he turned back to the young woman.

  ‘We’re going to try to draw up a composite. With the hood,’ he specified. ‘Don’t be anxious, don’t put any pressure on yourself: this is just to get a few buried memories to come to the surface, all right? You never know. Maybe you saw more than you think.’

  Stehlin was very pale when he hung up. He had just called the gendarmerie in Saint-Martin to tell them to take Jensen into custody. By mutual agreement, they had finally decided that Servaz would file a report: he would detail Jensen’s call and his indirect threat regarding Margot, but he would deny it if Jensen claimed to have seen him in Saint-Martin. After all, there were no witnesses. The only risk was Martin’s mobile, which must have activated a few transmitters along his route, but Stehlin figured that no lawyer could obtain a requisition on the basis of his client’s statement alone.

  It was a risk they could afford to take. And if it backfired, Stehlin could cover himself by saying he hadn’t known the full story. Servaz had accepted the deal.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Servaz when he saw Stehlin’s face.

  The man was looking at him as if he were a stranger. A mystery. Servaz felt as if someone were injecting cold liquid into his spine.

  ‘What did they say?’

  Stehlin seemed to wake up. He looked first at Servaz, then Kirsten, then back at Servaz.

  ‘Jensen is dead. Someone shot him. Last night. In the head, point blank. They think it was a cop.’

  MARTIN

  23

  Mother Nature, That Bloodthirsty Dog

  Subsequently, no one could explain how the news had got out so quickly. Did the leak come from the gendarmerie, the public prosecutor’s office, or the police? Still, by the end of the day, the rumour had gone through every department, with a number of variants but one common foundation: basically, a cop had killed that little shithead Jensen just as he was about to commit another rape.

  It was like something in a Marvel or a DC comic, where at the last minute masked avengers appear out of the night to come to the rescue of the good citizens of Gotham or NYC.

  In some versions the rape had been committed, in others it had not. Jensen had been killed by a bullet to the head, or the heart, or even – in one of the most daring versions – the avenging gunman had first blown his balls to bits. Everyone agreed that no one on this earth – other than his ageing mother – would mourn the death of that scumbag, and that it would surely make the air more pleasant to breathe, and the highways safer for a number of women in the region; nevertheless, fear was growing among the forces of the law, because the avenger (virtually no one used the word killer) came from among their ranks, and the policemen’s police would have a field day.

  And then another name popped up in all the conversations.

  Servaz.

  Every cop in Toulouse knew what had happened on the roof of that railway carriage, and that after Jensen shot him Servaz had gone into a coma. And it took only a few hours for the boldest theories to start making the rounds. But no one in the regional crime unit was more worried and perturbed than Divisional Commissioner Stehlin. He kept going over and over the conversation he had had with Martin when he’d emerged from his coma and told Stehlin of his conviction that it was Florian Jensen who had killed the woman in Montauban. Some ridiculous story about a white cat that was missing an ear.

  It had also not escaped his attention that Martin had changed since his coma. In fact everyone had noticed it – even if they avoided talking about it. Something had happened while he was unconscious. Could he have become a murderer? Stehlin found it hard to believe, but the suspicion never completely left him – and suspicion is a far more dreadful poison than any certainty, even when it’s about something unpleasant.

  He had read somewhere that by using a scanner and a comp
uter, scientists had been able to decode several participants’ brain signals and reconstitute the images of the film they were watching; other scientists had perfected a brain–computer interface that could, in a similar fashion, reconstitute the words the participant had just read. They were on the verge of being able to read minds … What an absolute nightmare that would be: a life without secrets, without the possibility of lying, of hiding. Without lies, or at least a few compromises with the truth, life would quickly become unbearable. But it would mean terrific progress for the police. Except that before long they’d be able to replace investigators with technicians and machines. Today, however, Stehlin would have liked to have such technology at his fingertips.

  What part was truth, what part lies, in Servaz’s story? One thing was certain: Servaz really had gone to Saint-Martin-de-Comminges the previous night. He had approached Jensen. And that same night, a few hours later, Jensen had been shot dead with a policeman’s gun.

  No one in the crime unit was more worried and perturbed than Divisional Commissioner Stehlin – except perhaps Vincent Espérandieu and Samira Cheung. Like everyone else, they had heard the rumours – Jensen had been killed, and Martin had seen him, alone, that same night. They shared an office and ever since the rumour had reached them they had been cautiously refraining from saying a single word. But the rumour filled their thoughts, nevertheless.

  In the end, it was Samira who cleared her throat.

  ‘Do you think he could have done it?’

  Espérandieu removed the headphones from his ears, where M83 had been unfurling its delicate rhythms.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you think he could have done it?’

  He shot her a dark look.

  ‘You must be joking.’

  ‘Do I sound like it?’

  Espérandieu swivelled around on his chair.

  ‘Fuck, Samira! It’s Martin we’re talking about!’

  ‘I know that very well,’ she said, annoyed. ‘The question is, which Martin, exactly? The one from before the coma or the one from after?’

  He gave a wave of his hand and turned back to his screen.