Her neck in a vice, she opened her mouth, struggling for the air blocked by his grip. She saw black spots before her eyes, like a swarm of midges.
‘Let me go!’
‘Answer me.’
‘Nothing … I … swear.’
She punched him in the chest, with surprising force despite the lack of room, but he held on regardless. She wanted to shout, but all she managed to produce was a sound halfway between a whistle and a croak. Hirtmann’s hand was crushing her carotid artery, and the blood flow to her brain was getting weaker. She would pass out before long. The pain in her larynx was unbearable. She tried to breathe but her throat was blocked. Her heart was pounding like a drum.
Suddenly Hirtmann let her go.
She wanted to step back but, before she had time to grasp what was happening, he punched her so hard she could feel her nose breaking, staining the linoleum with a cloud of black blood, and she collapsed, all awareness snuffed out like a taper.
He picked up one of the candles. Went closer. Held it before her eyes, a few centimetres away, passing the light over her cornea from one eye to the other like an ophthalmologist’s lamp.
She struggled feebly, naked and exposed, shivering despite the heat in the attic, but her wrists were bound in a V above her head, she had a gag over her mouth, and her eyes were wide and full of tears. Her broken nose was excruciating, and she could taste blood.
Roland’s steps resounded on the vibrating steel ladder and Hirtmann went over to the trap door.
‘Come on up,’ he said encouragingly.
He could hear Aurore moaning behind him. Roland froze. His eyes grew wide with terror. He was about to go back down and run away when Hirtmann grabbed him by the collar and lifted him effortlessly up through the opening. He shoved him with a thump and the professor rolled across the floor.
‘I beg you, please, Master, don’t hurt me!’
Labarthe pointed at Aurore.
‘It was her! That bitch! I … I didn’t want to!’
His eyes filled with tears. Hirtmann turned to Aurore. He could see rage and deadly hatred in her eyes. He almost admired her.
‘Get up,’ he said to Labarthe.
The professor obeyed. His legs were trembling violently, as was his lower lip. Soon he would start weeping. Gusts of wind were banging a shutter somewhere. For a moment, Hirtmann was afraid the noise might wake Gustav. He listened out, but no sound came through the open trap door.
His hand on Labarthe’s shoulder, he steered him into the middle of the room. Resigned, trembling, the professor yielded like a lamb being led to slaughter. Hirtmann tied him up. A lamb who had thought he was a wolf. Now he was sobbing openly, his arms in a V like his wife’s.
Hirtmann removed the gag from Aurore’s mouth. She spat in his face, an impressive gob, which he wiped off nonchalantly. He looked at the streak of blood on the back of his hand with a smile. She turned to her husband:
‘You’re just a shit, Roland!’ she spat. ‘A useless weakling.’
Her eyes blazed with anger.
‘Hey, hey,’ said Hirtmann, his voice no longer hesitant or slurred. ‘You can settle your differences some other time. Well … perhaps not …’
‘Go fuck yourself,’ she replied.
‘It’s you, darling, who will be fucked, and after that you will die,’ he said calmly.
‘Fuck off, Hirtmann!’
With the speed of a rattlesnake, a sharp little knife appeared in his fist and he drew two deep vertical slashes in Aurore’s cheeks. The blood soaked her chin and neck before dripping onto her breasts.
She screamed.
The sweat was pouring off her profusely now, every pore of her naked body exuding it, like a tree trunk oozing sap. She was gasping, her chin and chest smeared with blood, her blonde hair clumping with sweat.
‘You see, you shouldn’t resist me,’ he said calmly. ‘Your bloody drug is beginning to work; I feel dizzy. It’s time for me to leave. It’s a good job I ate a kilo of lard and took a few amphetamines before I came, isn’t it, darling? Lard is very effective: it slows down the absorption of the drug through the stomach. And the amphetamine counteracts the effect of the GHB. Or the Rohypnol. It’s some sort of crap like that you gave me, isn’t it? Like you gave that Norwegian woman the other night. You seem to have a rare old time of it in your chalet.’
He glanced over at Labarthe.
‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
It was three minutes, in fact, which Aurore spent exclusively insulting her husband. When Hirtmann reappeared he had a can of petrol in his hand. He set it down in front of Aurore, lit another candle, walked over to a curtain of garnet-coloured velvet, and held a flame up to the cloth.
The flames devoured the cloth as they crackled and rose to the ceiling in no time at all. Hirtmann went back to the couple, his form outlined against the rising intensity of the flames. He unscrewed the container and poured it onto Aurore, who writhed and screamed.
‘Fuck, no! Not like this! Not like this!’
Hirtmann left the open container at her feet as if he hadn’t heard and turned to Roland.
‘You might have a chance to make it out alive, who knows?’
The professor shot him a dubious look: a mixture of hope, doubt and absolute terror. He was about to beg for mercy when the little blade in Hirtmann’s hand inscribed the almost horizontal arc of a circle and came to lodge in his carotid. Hirtmann withdrew it and plunged it in again, this time level with his subclavian artery. It was as if two holes had been drilled into a barrel: two little ruby fountains spouted from the professor’s neck and torso. Hirtmann read the stupor and weakness in Labarthe’s gaze, the disbelief that takes hold of certain men at the threshold of death – before life quickly left him.
‘But I don’t think so,’ added Hirtmann.
He tossed the bloody blade to the floor and walked over to the trap door.
40
Two Down
Tall flames rose to the sky, illuminating the night and devouring what was left of the chalet. Rising cinders met falling snowflakes, like two columns of luminous ants. The glow from the fire was reflected on the edge of the woods slightly higher up. Kirsten was leaning against a police car, wrapped in a survival blanket. Her cup of coffee was steaming in the cold air. A dozen metres away, firemen’s hoses made huge columns of hissing steam where the water met the flames. When the fire was extinguished on one side, it started up on the other.
Kirsten gazed at the spectacle, glinting fire reflected in her eyes. She knew she was going to have to explain it to Martin. She’d heard Aurore’s inhuman screams as the flames devoured her, as her eyes popped out of her head and her flesh melted like wax in the inferno. Kirsten had held her breath, felt the pressure of her screams against her ears, until suddenly they stopped. Not long afterwards, a large portion of the chalet had collapsed on itself and the sirens had drowned out all other sound.
‘What happened?’ asked a voice next to her.
She turned her head and saw him.
‘He let them burn, inside,’ she said. ‘He must have tied them up somewhere. Where did you get to?’
‘And what happened to you?’ asked Martin, when he saw her face was black with soot.
‘I tried to get in; the fire had already started.’
‘To … save them?’
She gave him a look of surprise.
‘So? It’s not because—’
‘And did you see Hirtmann?’
She made a face.
‘Yes. He left with Gustav. The fire had already started by then.’
Servaz looked at her intently.
‘Without a gun, there was nothing I could do. To arrest him, I mean. He walked right past me without saying a word, holding the boy’s hand. He put him in the back of the car and they drove away.’
She shook her head, tears in her eyes.
‘He killed them, Martin. And I just let him get away!’
He said nothing.
‘Don’t stay here,�
�� someone said. ‘Move away. It’s going to collapse.’
They went back to the hotel. The terrace was full of curious onlookers from the village. It was like Bastille Day, except for the cold that went right to the bone.
He put his arm around her shoulders and she let herself lean against him as they walked.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It will soon be over.’
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and looked at the text message that had just arrived. A place, a time, nothing more. And two words: Come alone.
He looked up at Kirsten.
‘That was him,’ he said. ‘He wants me to come alone.’
‘Where?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’
Her expression went blank. But for a moment he saw a flash of black anger in her eyes, and her features were transformed, so much so he hardly recognised her. Then her face regained one of its usual expressions and she nodded, reluctantly.
41
Trust
‘Do you trust me, son?’
Gustav stared at his father. He nodded with conviction. Hirtmann looked out and measured the 100 metres of void below the great arch dam, the tops of the frozen fir trees, the snow-covered rocks, the riverbed all the way at the bottom, buried in the moonlight beneath a sepulchral whiteness.
‘Are you ready?’
‘I’m afraid,’ said the boy suddenly, his voice trembling.
He was dressed in a down anorak, the hood pulled up over his head. With the scarf wrapped around his neck he looked like a Russian doll.
‘I’m afraid!’ he said again. ‘I don’t want to – please, Papa!’
‘The secret of life is overcoming our fears, Gustav. People who obey their fears don’t get very far. Are you ready?’
‘No!’
He lifted Gustav over the railing of the ice-covered dam and held him out over the dizzying void. The wind was whistling in their ears.
The boy screamed.
His shrill cry was channelled by the white mountains around them, the sound wave travelling all along the valley below. However, there was no one to hear for miles around.
Then Hirtmann saw a pair of headlights slowly moving up the winding road. He smiled. Unlike his own car, Martin’s was visibly not made for a road that had not been cleared of snow. Other than maintenance vehicles, no one was supposed to come up here in the middle of winter: normally, the barrier down below was lowered. Hirtmann had broken the padlock and raised it for the occasion.
He lifted Gustav back over the railing and set him down on the dam. The boy hugged him, his arms clinging to Hirtmann’s legs.
‘Don’t ever do that again, Papa, please.’
‘All right, son.’
‘I want to go home!’
‘We won’t be here much longer.’
The headlights were getting closer along the last portion of the icy road. They came out onto the little car park where in summer there was a temporary outdoor restaurant.
He saw Martin getting out of his car, dressed far too lightly for the Siberian cold that prevailed at this altitude. Servaz saw them. He left his door open. He got back into the car and for a moment Hirtmann thought he was going to take his gun. Instead, he manoeuvred the car so that it faced them, and the headlights caught them in their beam, blinding them, setting the entire dam ablaze in a flood of white light.
Dazzled, Gustav shielded his eyes. Hirtmann merely blinked. Now Martin was coming down the steps to the dam, walking towards them. All they could see was his outline against the glare of the headlights and his dark shadow stretching ahead of him, whereas he must be able to see them perfectly.
‘Why here?’ he shouted, as he got closer. ‘The road is dangerous in winter. And going back down will be even worse. I thought you cared about my liver!’
‘I trust you, Martin. And I have chains in the boot. You can put them on for the way down. Come closer.’
Servaz complied. He was looking not at Hirtmann, but at the boy. In return, clinging to Hirtmann, Gustav never took his eyes off Servaz, and the shadow of his hand acting as a screen formed the silhouette of a wolf on his face. Servaz felt the icy wind go right through him.
‘Good evening, Gustav,’ he said.
‘Good evening,’ replied Gustav.
‘Do you know who this is?’ asked Julian Hirtmann.
The boy shook his head.
‘I’ll tell you soon. He is someone who is very important to you.’
Servaz felt a grinding in his guts. At this altitude, the shrieking wind drowned Hirtmann’s words. Hirtmann put one hand in the pocket of his coat and took out a printed paper and a passport.
‘A hire car will be waiting for you tomorrow morning at Toulouse-Blagnac airport. You will drive to Hallstatt, in Austria. It takes roughly fifteen hours. Once you arrive, someone will come to meet you on the Marktplatz, by the fountain. The day after tomorrow, at noon. Don’t worry, you’ll recognise him.’
‘Hallstatt? The place on the postcard.’
He saw Hirtmann smile.
‘Poe’s “Purloined Letter” once again,’ said Servaz. ‘No one will go looking for him there.’
‘Well, not any more, now that the police have turned the village and the surrounding area upside down,’ said Hirtmann.
‘Is that where the clinic is?’ asked Servaz.
‘Just follow the instructions. Of course, should you get the bright idea of asking that little Norwegian policewoman to follow you … Oh, in fact, they must have nearly finished identifying your gun as the crime weapon, so you’d do well not to hang around anywhere near your regional crime unit.’
It suddenly occurred to Servaz that the double DNA test was pointless: Hirtmann would never have chosen him as donor were he not 100 per cent sure that Servaz was the father. Gustav was indeed his son. The thought made him dizzy. He looked at the boy, his expression somewhat lost.
‘Papa, is he the man who’s going to give me his liver?’ asked Gustav, as if he were reading his thoughts.
‘Yes, that’s him, son.’
‘So it’s thanks to him that I’m going to get better?’
‘Yes. You see, I told you: he’s very important. You have to trust him the way you trust me. That is important too.’
Kirsten saw Martin’s car drive up and park just below the terrace. A moment later he came into the room, his eyes shining, and she knew something had happened.
‘He really is my son,’ he said.
He looked at her, distraught. Kirsten said nothing.
‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ he added.
‘Tomorrow? Where are you going?’
‘I’m not allowed to say.’
He saw her withdraw, read the sadness in her eyes. He took her by the shoulders.
‘Kirsten, it’s not a matter of trust.’
‘It certainly seems like one.’
Her look was stubborn, her manner several degrees colder.
‘Kirsten, I don’t want to take the slightest risk, that’s all. Who knows if there’s not someone watching both of us.’
‘Who’s taken over from the Labarthes, you mean? What, you think he has an army at his disposal? You overestimate him, Martin. And anyway, he needs you. Well … he needs your liver.’
True enough. As long as the transplant had not been carried out, Hirtmann would not try anything against him. And after that …? he wondered. What would happen then? Who knew if he wouldn’t want to eliminate ‘the other father’, who would now be in the way.
‘Hallstatt,’ he said.
‘The village on the postcard?’ she said with surprise.
He nodded.
‘Shit. That’s clever. Where is your appointment?’
‘On the marketplace, day after tomorrow at noon.’
‘I could leave tonight, and get a room there,’ she said. ‘How are you supposed to get there?’.
‘Hire car. At the airport.’
‘Let’s go back to Toulouse. We have nothing left to do
here. You drop me off at my hotel, then I’ll find a way to leave without anyone noticing. With a few hours’ head start.’
He nodded. She was looking at him with a mixture of gentleness and complicity, and he felt that she must want, or need, to be closer; he too wanted contact. For a moment they didn’t say anything, their arms hanging by their sides, then their hands touched. First briefly, then insistently, their fingers seeking, mingling, stroking.
She moved closer to him and their lips met. She touched his neck, while he was already undressing her, pulling her towards the bed. It was different from the previous time; less violent, more tender. She did bite him again, and scratch him – as if to leave her mark, yet again, on his flesh. She adapted to his rhythm and let him come.
‘There is something I haven’t told you,’ she began, once they’d finished, as she lay curled next to him under the duvet, and she stroked his day-old beard, her legs mingled with his.
He turned to look at her.
‘I have a sister,’ she said, ‘younger than me. An artist.’
He was silent, sensing that she was getting ready to tell him something she’d been keeping to herself for a long time.
‘She looks like Kirsten Dunst – how she was in the Spider-Man trilogy, not Fargo; although psychologically, she’s more like the character in Melancholia.’ He refrained from telling her he hadn’t seen any of those films. ‘My sister has always been drawn to shadows and darkness, I don’t know why. She has regular bouts of depression, and yet she’s so gifted, and men all fall at her feet. But it’s never enough. She always needs more: more love, more sex, more drugs, more attention, more danger. She’s a painter and photographer, she’s had exhibitions in Oslo, in New York, in Berlin … But she doesn’t care. Art for her is just a way to make a living. When our father died, she didn’t come to the hospital or to the funeral. She said she was afraid she’d be too depressed. Instead, she did a series of paintings, something like Bacon reinterpreted by David Lynch. In those paintings our father looks like a monster, arrogant and bloated, grotesque. She said that was how she saw him. Our mother never got over it.’
She shrugged her shoulders under the duvet.
Night Page 32