Night

by Bernard Minier

  ‘I believe it was him,’ said Xavier, looking up at Servaz.

  ‘Did you check whether there really is a Dr Hasanovic, psychiatrist, in Sarajevo?’

  ‘Yes, I did. He exists.’

  ‘And what does he look like?’

  ‘I have no idea. I didn’t dig any deeper. At the time, I was convinced I’d been imagining things.’

  ‘But now you think otherwise?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Suddenly Servaz’s mobile rang: he had picked up the network again. While he’d been out of range, he had received several calls. He took out the phone. There were also two voicemails.

  His heart began to beat faster.

  Kirsten and Roxane.

  25

  An Encounter

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He looked up. Margot was standing at the door to the room, shoulder against the doorframe.

  ‘I have to go away for a few days,’ he replied, folding a cardigan and putting it on top of his other clothes in the suitcase. ‘For work.’

  ‘You what?’

  He looked up again. She was pink with anger and her eyes were sparkling. Margot had always been like this: she could fly into a rage in half a second.

  He stopped what he was doing.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked with a sigh.

  ‘You’re going away?’

  ‘Only for a few days.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I can’t believe it. Ever since I got here I’ve hardly seen you. You disappear, you come back in the middle of the night … You’ve barely been home an hour, Dad. And now you’re packing your suitcase! Can you tell me what the hell I’m doing here? What’s the point? May I remind you that not that long ago you were in a coma!’

  Now he felt his own anger coming over him. He could not stand being told off. And yet, he knew she was right.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, trying to stay calm. ‘I’m fine. You shouldn’t worry about me. In fact, you should go back to your life in Quebec. You’re not happy here.’

  He immediately regretted these last words. He knew she would pounce on him like a dog on a bone. Margot knew how to take a sentence out of context and send it back to you like a boomerang.

  ‘What?’ Her voice had become even more strident. ‘Fuck, I don’t believe it!’

  ‘Stop being a mother hen, please. I’m fine.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off!’

  He heard her stomp out of the room. He closed his suitcase and went after her.

  ‘Margot!’

  He saw her grab her pea coat from the back of a chair and her iPod from the living-room table.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  She had her back to him. He could tell she was fiddling with her device because all of a sudden an infernal noise burst from her headphones. She held the phones out from her ears.

  ‘Don’t worry. When you get back, I’ll be gone.’

  ‘Margot …’

  She didn’t hear him. She had put the headphones back on and was avoiding his gaze. He wondered just what he could say to her at that moment; she was on the verge of tears and he had never been very good at dealing with other people’s emotions. Let alone his daughter’s recurring bouts of unhappiness.

  ‘Margot!’ he shouted, even louder, but she was already heading towards the door.

  He saw her pick up her keys on the way. She slammed the door behind her without looking at him.

  ‘Shit!’ he shouted. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’

  Half an hour later, she still hadn’t come back. He’d finished packing, and had sent her a good half-dozen text messages. His phone rang and he hurried to swipe the green button on the screen.

  ‘I’m downstairs,’ announced Kirsten.

  ‘I’m coming,’ he said, hiding his disappointment.

  I have to go. Kirsten is here. Call me back, please, he texted.

  He would have liked to tell her he loved her, and that he was going to try to change, but though he was overflowing with love for his daughter and felt devastated, he switched off his telephone. As he headed towards the door, he remembered that Stehlin had promised to send protection for Margot, but had done no such thing.

  First thing tomorrow he would demand that Stehlin do something.

  ‘Are you sure he was following you?’

  Servaz asked the question while staring at the black ribbon of motorway vanishing into their headlights. He heard Kirsten’s voice beside him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Maybe it was just some pervert who likes following women in the street.’

  ‘Maybe. But …’

  He glanced at her. She too was staring at the motorway through the windscreen, her profile emphasised by the faint glow from the dashboard.

  ‘But you don’t believe that, do you?’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because it’s too much of a coincidence that a guy would follow you around Toulouse at this particular point.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  They were speeding westward along the A64 towards the village of L’Hospitalet-en-Comminges. Towards the snowstorm as well, apparently, judging by the way the wind was tormenting the trees along the embankments.

  ‘Do you really think we’ll find Gustav there?’ she asked.

  ‘It seems too easy, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Let’s just say it’s not Hirtmann’s usual style.’

  Servaz nodded, but could find nothing to say.

  ‘And once we’re there, what do we do?’ she asked.

  ‘First of all, we find a hotel. And tomorrow morning, we start again: town hall, schools … Maybe this time someone will know something. There are two hundred inhabitants in L’Hospitalet. If he’s there, we’ll find him.’

  Did he believe it? No, there was something wrong: it couldn’t be that simple. Not with Hirtmann.

  Sitting at the window in the VH Café, Margot watched her father leave the building and go up to the Norwegian policewoman on the pavement.

  She had acted on impulse, to test her father. She had wanted to force him to react, to oblige him to choose, for once, between his work and her. She had hoped he would abandon his expedition for her sake. That was stupid. She looked down at the screen of her smartphone, next to her glass of wine, where his latest message was still visible:

  I have to go. Kirsten is here. Call me back, please.

  She had her answer.

  ‘We have to stop,’ he said suddenly, pointing to the signboard crowded with symbols that signalled a rest stop 1 kilometre further along. ‘We’re low on petrol.’

  ‘Fine. I need the toilet.’

  He drove cautiously down the flooded little slip road to the service station car park, sending up sprays of water wherever the road met a slight dip, until they reached the car park. As soon as Servaz had switched off the ignition Kirsten tore off her seatbelt, opened the door, pulled up her collar and rushed towards the lights. He got out in turn. Even beneath the shelter where the pumps were the wind hurled the rain at him. In addition to the van two other cars were parked at the nearby pumps. He reached for the nozzle; mindlessly squeezing the release, Servaz thought back to what Xavier had told him in the ruins.

  Of course, that would be the easiest explanation: Hirtmann had changed his appearance. But Servaz thought of the image on the video Kirsten had shown him. Hirtmann resembled the man he had known, and it post-dated the meeting between Xavier and the Bosnian psychiatrist. Perhaps Xavier was mistaken? Perhaps his friend’s memory was indeed playing tricks on him? Or could the Swiss criminal have used disguises: a fake beard, coloured lenses, a few removable prostheses like the ones used in the cinema for the jaw and the nose?

  He looked at the blue van parked just on the other side of the pumps: it had traces of rust on the chassis and the doors. The side door was wide open, and it was as dark as a cave in there.

  The driver must be inside paying. Servaz glanced mechanically towards the till, through the streaming windows of the m
inimarket: there was no one there, either.

  He shuddered.

  He hated vans. It was in a thing like that that Marianne had been abducted. They had found the vehicle in a motorway rest area just like this one. A navy blue van … with rust streaks … like this one. He remembered there had been a rosary with olivewood beads and a silver cross hanging from the rearview mirror.

  He glanced over at the front of the van.

  Something was hanging from the rearview mirror. In the darkness, through the dirty window, he couldn’t make out what it was.

  But he would have sworn it was a rosary.

  He took a breath. Letting go of the pump’s nozzle, he slipped between the two petrol pumps and walked slowly around the vehicle. He glanced at the number plate and froze.

  There were enough erased letters and numbers to make it perfectly indecipherable.

  Kirsten, he thought.

  He began running through the rain.

  As she entered the women’s toilets, Kirsten noticed the perfume still drifting through the ambient air, mingled with the smell of industrial cleaner. A man’s scent. But there was no one there. Perhaps an employee, or a man who had come in and gone out again when he realised his mistake.

  There appeared to be a leak in the roof because a bucket was standing in the middle of the room with a mop in it, in front of two doors with identical ‘Out of Order’ signs on them. She looked up but could see no spot on the ceiling. A little skylight at the back was open, however, and she could hear the rain. Of the three lights that were supposed to illuminate the toilets only one was working, giving off a pale glow, intermittent and sinister, that left the other corners in deep shadow.

  She made a face but went to the third door, the only one available, closed it behind her, and sat down. She thought about what Servaz had said: too easy. The photograph of Gustav left behind on the oil platform, and now, the school. Too easy, was his opinion. Of course it was too easy.

  She gave a start. She thought she heard a sound: one of the doors creaking. She listened. But the roar of the rain drowned out all other noise.

  She stood up and pulled the flush. She hesitated for a moment before opening the door, but she could no longer hear anything. As she came out, she looked at the row of mirrors across from her. Saw the figure reflected in one of them, to her left, in addition to her own.

  He was standing next to the bucket, with the mop in his hand, the tall man who’d followed her through the streets of Toulouse. Then he raised the handle of the mop and gave a sharp blow to the last light shining above him.

  Darkness.

  Before she knew it he was on her, pressing her against the back wall near the open skylight.

  ‘Hello, Kirsten.’

  She swallowed her saliva. Kirsten … She tried to breathe calmly but couldn’t. The blood was pounding in her temples; she saw little sparks before her eyes. She could vaguely make out his features in the light from the car park and her heart leapt into her throat: now that they were so close she recognised him. He had done something to his mouth and eyes, changed his hairline and the colour of his hair – unless it was a wig – but without a doubt, it was him.

  ‘What do you want?’ she said hoarsely.

  ‘Shhh …’

  Suddenly, his hand was beneath her skirt. First above her right knee, she felt it caressing her thigh through the tights, then moving higher up. A large, warm hand. Kirsten bit her lip.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,’ he murmured in her ear.

  She didn’t answer, but her pulse was racing and her legs began to tremble. His fingers touched her through her tights and knickers and she automatically squeezed her legs closed. She shut her eyes.

  Servaz came into the shop at a run, shoving a couple who were slow to get out of his way.

  ‘Hey!’ yelled the man behind him.

  But Servaz was already rushing towards the toilets. Men to the right, women to the left.

  He flung the door open. Called her name.

  It was dark in there and he immediately felt all his senses on the alert. Then he saw her. Sitting on the floor at the back by a skylight that let in the only light and a little bit of rain. She was sobbing almost hysterically. He went closer to her, knelt down, held out his arms and almost at once she huddled into him.

  ‘What did he do to you?’

  She was fully dressed and he could see no sign of a struggle, or any disorder in her clothes.

  ‘He just … he just touched me …’

  ‘He must have got away,’ he said, after they had searched all over, inside and out, and realised that the van had been abandoned by its owner. He’d had it all planned.

  ‘Can’t we close the motorway?’

  ‘There’s an exit three kilometres from here. But he’ll have left the motorway ages ago.’

  A few minutes earlier one of the customers in the minimarket had complained that he couldn’t find his car. Servaz thought of transmitting the car’s registration to the gendarmes but by the time they set up roadblocks Hirtmann would have vanished. He hesitated to call the CSI team. He knew that if he did, Stehlin and all his superiors would immediately be informed and that they would take him off the case and entrust it to someone who was not ‘convalescing’. That was out of the question, and in any case, he didn’t need any confirmation: he was sure of it, they had just crossed paths with the Swiss killer.

  ‘I can’t believe it. How did he arrange to be here at the same time as us?’ she asked.

  Her eyes were still damp.

  ‘He must have been driving just ahead of us for a while. Before that he’d have been following us. After that it was just a question of finding the right moment. He seized his chance. Hirtmann is a past master in the art of improvisation.’

  He glanced over at the door to the toilets.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘Are you sure? Do you want to go back to Toulouse? Do you want to see someone?’

  ‘I’m fine, Martin. I promise you.’

  ‘Okay. Then let’s go,’ he said. ‘We have nothing more to do here.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell the others?’

  ‘What for? He got away. And if I tell them, Stehlin will take me off the case,’ he added. ‘Let’s find a hotel. We’ll keep going tomorrow.’

  ‘At least we know one thing: he’s here, right nearby,’ she said. ‘And he’s following us, wherever we go.’

  Yes, he thought. Like a cat chasing a mouse. He checked the text message he had received a few minutes earlier. He had called Margot twice after they’d stopped at the rest area. Both times he’d got her voicemail.

  The message said:

  Stop calling. I’m fine.

  Beyond the hotel windows it was still pouring, and as he turned towards the black night Servaz saw his reflection in the window. The expression on his face was that of a desperate man, but also an angry one. He was alone. The only customer in the entire restaurant. Kirsten had gone straight up to her room. She told him she wanted to take a shower. He ordered an entrecote and chips, which was on the greasy side. He wasn’t all that hungry and left more than half the meal.

  ‘Was it not good?’ asked the patronne.

  He reassured her as best he could, and she understood he wasn’t in the mood to talk, and went away.

  He thought of Gustav. Did Hirtmann know where they were headed and who they intended to see? He was suddenly afraid that Hirtmann would make the kid vanish yet again. Like a magician showing you a dove and then conjuring it away. Servaz was tempted to call the nearest gendarmerie, to ask them to find the boy and keep him safe.

  But he was too exhausted to attempt anything tonight.

  And besides, he couldn’t figure out why Hirtmann had behaved the way he had. If he knew their plans, he would have been better off simply taking the boy away without drawing attention to himself. Unless he already had.

  In which case there was nothing
more they could do.

  Thinking about Gustav made him uneasy. He imagined a scene that he didn’t like at all. He pictured himself raising a little boy, but the thought was so disturbing that he hurried to banish it. Another thought was haunting him: Jensen’s death. The ammunition used had been a cop’s. And suspicions would, inevitably, be focused on him.

  He felt very alone. Everything was silent and he wondered if he and Kirsten were the only customers in the hotel. He’d had a headache since the episode on the motorway and it was getting worse. He was gazing into the bottom of his coffee cup as if the solution could be found there, when his phone rang.

  It was Kirsten.

  ‘I’m scared,’ she said simply. ‘Can you come up, please?’

  He emerged from the lift and walked to room 13, just across from his own, room 14. He knocked. No answer. He waited a few seconds before knocking again. Still no answer. He was beginning to feel nervous and was about to pound on the door when it opened. Kirsten Nigaard appeared, in a bathrobe, her hair wet.

  She held the door, closed it behind him, backed up and leaned against the little desk where there were packets of Nescafé and a kettle. He didn’t know what to do. What sort of support could he offer, and how? He didn’t feel very comfortable in this hotel room. She really was a very attractive woman, and in light of what she had just been through, he wanted to avoid embarrassing her at all costs.

  ‘I’m directly across the corridor,’ he said. ‘Double-lock your door and don’t hesitate to call me. I’ll keep my phone right by me.’

  ‘I’d rather you slept here,’ she answered.

  He looked around him. Saw only an armchair that didn’t look at all comfortable.

  ‘We could ask for connecting rooms if they have any,’ he suggested.

  Afterwards he would try to recall who had made the first move, broken the ice. He would remember that he could see the hotel’s blue neon light beyond her shoulder, while she was nestled against him, and that it was reflected in the cars parked below. And that at the entrance to the car park there were two tall fir trees. That he knew the Pyrenees must begin somewhere just beyond there, straight ahead, but they were hidden by the night.

  As they were kissing he could see that her eyes were wide open, as if each of them was waiting for the other to close them first; they were so close that their gazes seemed to be one. Her gaze foraging in his, no doubt looking for some truth buried beneath the layers of civility.