Night

by Bernard Minier

  While they were wandering around, Servaz had obtained confirmation of the Volvo’s registration and more information about the couple: Roland and Aurore Labarthe, forty-eight and forty-two years of age. Officially childless. According to Espérandieu, the husband taught intercultural psychology and psychopathology at the Université Jean Jaurès in Toulouse; the wife had no official profession. They would have to look into Gustav’s adoption. Was it possible, in 2016, to be raising a child who did not belong to you? Probably. Temporarily, anyway.

  Outside, night was falling rapidly over the mountain of ice. Labarthe and Gustav had not yet returned home, however. From time to time Servaz and Kirsten could see the haughty, slender figure of the lady of the house moving from one room to the next, sometimes with a phone to her ear or typing messages on the device. Servaz thought he ought to ask the judge for a wire tap. Then suddenly they saw the Volvo go by beneath their window, driving slowly and silently over the white drifts of the snow-covered road; they hadn’t heard it coming. The brake lights were like two incandescent red eyes. The blonde woman came out on the front steps and stood in the glow of the headlights, all smiles. She greeted Gustav with a hug and hurried him inside, then she kissed her husband. Servaz thought there was something artificial and forced about their body language. He had taken his binoculars from the glove compartment and now he handed them to Kirsten.

  Aurore Labarthe appeared more clearly in the binocular lenses. She was a domineering-looking sort of woman with a frosty socialite’s looks, a nose that was on the long side, thin lips, a swan’s neck, and extremely pale skin. He figured she must be at least 1 metre 75. An athletic but hard figure. She was wearing a long off-white outfit that went down to her ankles, which made her look like a Vestal Virgin. Servaz saw she was barefoot, even when she was out on the wooden doorstep, where there were still traces of snow. Something about her made him deeply uneasy. He thought that instead of Aurore she should have been called ‘Umbra’ or ‘Night’.

  ‘Look,’ said Kirsten suddenly, next to him.

  She had her laptop on her knees and had been checking the Internet. She turned the screen towards him. Servaz saw the website of an online bookseller. All the covers were titles of books by Roland Labarthe. He read through them: The Marquis de Sade: Freedom through Confinement; Do What Thou Wilt: From Rabelais’ Thélème to Aleister Crowley; In Praise of Evil and Freedom; The Garden of Delights: From Sacher-Masoch to BDSM. Suddenly on the fifth volume his gaze froze.

  Julian Hirtmann or the Prometheus Complex.

  He shuddered, recalling a sentence: ‘Demons are malicious and powerful.’ Where had he read that? There it was, the connection … A direct link between the two men. Hirtmann had been a topic of study for Labarthe. Had intellectual curiosity been driven to fascination? Or even complicity? Here was the proof, apparently, before his eyes. Servaz knew that Hirtmann had a number of fans on the Internet – this marvellous invention that had changed the world, enabling Islamic State to contaminate fragile brains with its lethal beliefs, and kids to harass their peers to the point of suicide, and paedophiles to pass around pictures of naked children, and millions of individuals to unleash their hatred on others …

  He had to get hold of that book. The Prometheus Complex … Servaz vaguely remembered his philosophy classes, from that long-ago era when he wanted to become a writer and was studying literature. The Prometheus complex had been described in a book by Gaston Bachelard, The Psychoanalysis of Fire. It was a long time ago, but he recalled that, according to Bachelard, to conquer fire, in other words knowledge and sexuality, little Prometheus had to disobey his father’s prohibition of these things; the Prometheus complex referred to the tendency of sons to want to surpass their fathers in intelligence and knowledge. Something like that anyway … Had Labarthe stumbled upon something in Hirtmann’s past? Had Hirtmann got in touch with Labarthe after reading the book the professor had devoted to him?

  He looked out of the window.

  It was completely dark now. Only the bluish cast of snow emerged from the night like a sheet tossed over furniture in a darkened room. The windows at the chalet were streaming with light. Suddenly Servaz saw Gustav go up to one of them and press his nose against the pane. Through the binoculars Servaz saw that the boy was in his pyjamas. He seemed to be lost in a daydream. Servaz could not help but stare at the sad, tired little face, and he felt an abyss open in his guts. He looked away. Was he looking at his own son? The prospect terrified him beyond measure. What would happen if that were the case? He didn’t want a son who hadn’t been desired. He rejected the responsibility. His son … Living with an intellectual who was obsessed with transgression, and his ice cube of a wife. No, it was absurd. Still, he turned to Kirsten:

  ‘We need his DNA.’

  She nodded. She didn’t ask whose DNA: she knew what he was thinking.

  ‘At the school,’ she said, ‘they’re bound to have things that belong to him.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘It’s too risky. What if they say something to the Labarthes?’

  ‘What will we do, then?’

  ‘I don’t know. But we have to get it.’

  Kirsten’s telephone rang in her pocket. The opening bars of ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ by Guns N’ Roses. She swiped the green button of her Samsung phone to the right.

  ‘Kasper?’

  ‘So what’s happening?’ said the cop from Bergen. ‘Anything new?’

  It was 18.12 at the Toulouse crime unit when Samira Cheung handed her Sig Sauer to Rimbaud. That day she was wearing a T-shirt illustrated with the logo of the Misfits, a horror punk band that had split up a long time ago. She also had two new piercings: one in her left nostril, the other on her lower lip.

  ‘Is it just me or does it smell of dead rats in here?’

  ‘It must be coming from the sewers,’ said Espérandieu, taking his gun from the drawer.

  ‘So you’re poets, is that it?’ said Rimbaud.

  ‘Ah, with a name like that, you must really know your poetry, Commissaire.’

  ‘Cheung, take it easy. It’s just a routine check. I’ve got nothing against you. You’re a good cop.’

  ‘What do you know about being a cop? Hey, be careful with that, Commissaire,’ she added, as he was walking away with their guns. ‘They’re not toys, you might get hurt.’

  ‘Where is Servaz?’ asked Rimbaud, ignoring her words.

  ‘I don’t know. You know, Vincent?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue.’

  ‘Tell him I need his gun, too, when you see him.’

  Samira burst out laughing.

  ‘Martin couldn’t hit the Death Star if it was in front of him. His scores at the shooting range are downright ridiculous. He’s the sort who could literally shoot himself in the foot.’

  Rimbaud later regretted saying this, but as was often the case, at the time he could not resist:

  ‘That may well be what he’s done,’ he said, on his way out.

  At 18.19, Servaz switched off his phone.

  ‘I have to go to the car,’ he said. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Nothing. I need a smoke. I have a packet in the car.’

  He felt nervous all of a sudden: Samira had just called; they were checking everyone’s guns. But he had no reason to feel this way, since he’d always had it with him.

  On leaving the hotel he was met with an icy wind. Gusts penetrated his too-thin jumper. He should have put on his down jacket. A powerful gust nearly drove him back towards the hotel entrance, but he went on tramping through the snow towards the steps that led down to the road. He looked up and there they were. Labarthe and Gustav. They had come out and were walking into the wind, laughing. They were heading towards the hotel – in other words, towards him.

  Shit.

  He couldn’t go back to the hotel now. He didn’t want Labarthe to see his face too close up. That would complicate things if he needed to shadow him later. He went
gingerly down the snowy steps, opened the passenger door and then the glove compartment. The packet of cigarettes was there. He looked up and craned his neck to see above the stone retaining wall. Labarthe and Gustav were climbing up to the terrace via another flight of steps. He instantly ducked into the car and pretended to be looking for something else. When he stood up straight, they had disappeared inside.

  He looked up. His heart leapt when he saw Aurore Labarthe on her balcony, watching the hotel. Shit! Had she seen his little performance? He couldn’t stay there much longer. He was going to have to walk past them, because the hotel reception, next to the bar, was tiny, and the lift, no bigger than a matchbox, was right next to it.

  He glanced furtively at the woman on the balcony. Was she watching him? Or the hotel? He went back up the steps and crossed the terrace. Labarthe and Gustav had their backs to him; Labarthe was talking with the manager, who was handing something to him.

  ‘Thanks, this will really help us out,’ said Labarthe. ‘How much do I owe you?’

  He was fishing through his wallet. Servaz began to walk across the lobby. Gustav must have heard his footsteps crunching on the snow as he approached the door, because he turned around. The boy’s big blue eyes stared right at him. Servaz felt as if all his innards were being siphoned out of him and replaced with air. His head was spinning. The little boy was still looking at him.

  ‘You are my son, aren’t you?’

  The little boy didn’t answer.

  ‘You’re my son, I know you are.’

  He shook himself. Banished the fantasy. Walked past them. Labarthe turned his head as he did.

  ‘Good evening.’

  ‘Good evening,’ he replied.

  The manager was looking at him, Labarthe was looking at him, the boy was looking at him. He pressed the button for the lift and resisted the urge to turn around.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Labarthe behind him.

  Was he talking to him or to the manager?

  ‘Excuse me.’

  This time, there could be no doubt. The voice was behind him; he turned around. Labarthe was looking at him.

  ‘Did you love torture, Servaz, did you love pain?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m afraid you left your headlights on,’ said the professor for the second time.

  ‘Oh!’

  He thanked him and returned to the car. Aurore Labarthe had vanished from her balcony.

  He went back up to the room.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Kirsten.

  ‘Nothing. I ran into Labarthe. And Gustav. Downstairs, in the lobby.’

  Zehetmayer was sitting in one of those Viennese cafés that didn’t seem to have changed since the days when Stefan Zweig portrayed them in The World of Yesterday, not long before taking his own life. Those cafés that were among the rare vestiges of a bygone Vienna, a city that loved theatre, literature and the arts, cafés that once resonated with conversations that were so much more enlightened than those of the present day, in his opinion.

  What did remain, in fact? What was left of the Jews who had made the reputation of this city? Men like Mahler, Schoenberg, Strauss, Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, Beer-Hofmann, Reinhardt, Zweig – and even Freud, that sniffer of ladies’ underwear?

  Sitting in a booth at the very back of the former gallery of the Café Landtmann (for nothing on earth would he sit outside among the tourists, in the new glassed-in terrace), the orchestra conductor was eating a schnitzel and reading the Krone, glancing from time to time through the heavy curtains out at the Rathausplatz, which was turning white before his eyes. A short while ago he had glimpsed his reflection in a mirror, and he looked like the person he was: an old man with wrinkled, yellowed skin, his gaze full of malevolence, but his air of distinction was indisputable, with his long black overcoat and its collar of otter’s fur. The opening bars of Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 1 drifted up from the right pocket of his coat. All his important contacts had their own ringtone, and this music corresponded to an extremely important contact.

  ‘Hello?’ he said simply.

  ‘We’ve found the boy,’ said the voice on the other end.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘A village in the Pyrenees.’

  ‘And him?’

  ‘Not yet. Sooner or later, he’ll show his face.’

  ‘If you walk on snow you cannot hide your footprints,’ said Zehetmayer, quoting a Chinese proverb. ‘Good work.’

  The only response he got was the dialling tone at the other end: politeness was also a notion that belonged to the past. Perhaps it was time to call the other number. The one he’d obtained when he was teaching music to prisoners. He helped them to ‘escape’, thanks to Mahler. After all, that’s what he was doing, too: through music, escaping from this modern world he loathed.

  29

  Ruthless

  That night, in their little mountain hotel, Servaz dreamt that he was in the Métro in Paris, and that he spotted Gustav in the crowd. His heart pounding, he stood up and threaded his way, pushing and shoving, towards the boy, just as the train was pulling into a station called Saint-Martin. He could not recall ever hearing of a station with that name, except in his dream. The passengers he pushed shot him hostile, disapproving looks. With great effort, he had nearly made it when the train came to a halt: the doors opened and the crowd got out. Servaz rushed out onto the platform. Gustav was already heading towards the escalator. Servaz went on bumping into people, but the mass of bodies slowed him down and pushed him even further away from the boy.

  ‘Gustav!’ he cried.

  The boy turned around and looked at him. Servaz thought his heart would burst with joy. But now the fear in the child’s eyes was obvious and he in turn began to weave his way through the crowd … to get away from him. Servaz began climbing the escalator steps two by two. He reached the crossroads of corridors at the top and froze. There was no one there. All of a sudden, the corridors were completely empty.

  He was alone.

  He looked at the endless corridors around him: there was not a soul to be seen. The very silence seemed to have a particular frequency. He spun around. The escalator he had taken was just as empty – its steps moving uselessly – as the platform below. He called out to Gustav, but got only an echo in response. It suddenly seemed to him that there was no way out, and no hope. He was trapped here, in this underground warren, for all eternity. He wanted to shout but instead, he woke up. Kirsten was asleep. He could hear his own breathing.

  They had not drawn the curtains and a faint phosphorescence inscribed a rectangle of light in the window, in the blue, unreal darkness of the room. He pushed back the eiderdown and the sheet and went over to the window. All the lights in the chalet were out, and the building was plunged in darkness. Its dark shape stood out against the lighter night; there was something hostile and disquieting about it. All around, the snow-covered landscape made him think of the moat of a fortress, protecting the chalet’s occupants from the invader.

  Then the vapour on the window blurred his vision, and he went back to bed.

  ‘I’ll stay here,’ declared Kirsten that morning at breakfast. ‘I’ll see if I can go snowshoeing, and I’ll keep an eye on the chalet at the same time. Just so I’m not stuck indoors the whole time.’

  ‘Fine.’

  He intended to go back to Toulouse, where he would hand in his gun, then hurry to the library or a bookshop to get hold of Labarthe’s book. He would be back by evening. It was Saturday, but he also wanted to call Roxane Varin so that she could look into Gustav’s adoption first thing on Monday morning. He reached for his phone and called Espérandieu at home. Vincent was listening to ‘We’re on Fire’ by Airplane Man when his phone rang.

  ‘Roland and Aurore Labarthe: can you check them for criminal records? In the usual police files but also in the sex offenders’ and the gendarmerie’s crime research databases.’

  ‘You know it’s Saturday?’

  ‘Monday first thing,’ he said. ‘
Give Charlène a hug for me.’

  ‘Does this have something to do with that kid?’

  ‘We found him. They’re the people looking after him.’

  There was a pause on the line.

  ‘So now you tell me?’

  ‘We only found out yesterday.’

  He could tell his assistant was angry.

  ‘Martin, ever since you hooked up with your lady from Lapland, you seem to have forgotten your friends. I’m going to start feeling jealous soon. And watch out, there’s someone waiting for you here. I think he has his eye on you. And he’s also waiting for your gun.’

  ‘I know. I have an appointment with him.’

  He didn’t feel like saying more than that. Not now. He hung up, and slowly pulled out onto the icy road. It took him two hours to get to Toulouse and police headquarters. On Saturday morning it was three-quarters empty, but Rimbaud had nevertheless insisted on seeing him without further delay. Since he could not see him on his own territory, the commissaire was waiting for him in a little office that he’d commandeered for the purpose. Servaz thought he looked like a former boxer, with his flat nose and bulldog jaw. A boxer who had received more blows than he’d struck. But Servaz knew that it was now his turn to act as punching bag.

  ‘Your mobile, Commandant, please,’ said Rimbaud, wasting no time.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Your mobile, put it on “Do Not Disturb” mode.’

  Servaz handed him the device.

  ‘Do it yourself. I don’t know how.’

  Rimbaud stared at him with an expression that implied he thought Servaz was making fun of him. He reluctantly did as he was told then handed the phone back to Servaz.

  ‘My purpose is to question you regarding the murder of Florian Jensen,’ he announced. ‘As you can imagine, this is a matter of the utmost importance, given the fact he was killed with a service weapon. It is a very delicate matter.’