But he wanted to be sure of waking up. To hear that the operation had been a success. That his son was alive.
His son.
Once again, he pushed the thought away. It was too strange. This boy who had slipped into his life without anyone asking him his opinion. Unfairly, there were times he thought about him as if he were a sort of cancer, slowly growing inside him until the day came when he could no longer ignore his presence. What would happen next, if the operation was a success? Would Hirtmann let them leave together? Surely not. He would have to take the boy from him by force if he wanted him. But did he want him? In any case, Servaz would be far too weak after the operation to attempt anything.
There was a knock at the door. It opened and the blond nurse came in. He had removed his yellow cap.
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
This seemed to be his favourite expression.
‘We’ll start with an electrocardiogram and a thoracic echocardiogram,’ he explained, once they were out in the corridor, ‘to check for any possible heart disease. Also, I was told that you are a smoker. So we will take an X-ray of your thorax, and then an abdominal ultrasound to study your vesicle and measure the size of your liver. Finally, you will meet the anaesthetist. It’ll take a few hours – will you be all right?’ he asked, glancing at Servaz.
‘How many patients are there here at the moment?’ asked Servaz, following him. He was naked under the hospital gown, which was open at the back, and wearing a paper cap and plastic slippers: he felt utterly ridiculous.
‘A dozen or so.’
‘And that’s enough to keep a place like this going?’ he said, surprised.
The blond nurse smiled.
‘With what they pay? Yes, believe me.’
She found the package when she came back to the hotel. The hotel manager took it out from under the counter and handed it to her: ‘Someone dropped this off for you.’ She went up to her room, the package under her arm, then removed the brown paper, opened the box, and unfolded the cloth that was inside. The weapon was wrapped in a greased plastic film: a semi-automatic Springfield XD pistol. A Croatian weapon, light and reliable. Along with three magazines containing fifteen 9-millimetre cartridges.
They took him back to his room at around four o’clock in the afternoon. He immediately went to his suitcase. It had been searched. The intruders had not even bothered to hide the fact. They must have done the same with his clothes. He walked over to the plastic strip light above his bed and slipped his hand inside it. The phone was still there.
He went to the window and looked outside. Clouds were massing above the mountains. They already cast a dark, colourless veil over the entire landscape. Wisps of smoke rose from the lake as if a gigantic fire were simmering beneath the surface.
It was going to snow. You could feel it in the air.
He turned around when the door opened.
Servaz looked at the gurney they brought alongside the child’s bed. Then he saw the nurse ask Gustav to move from one to the other. The nurse smiled at the boy once he was in his bed and, they gave each other a high five. He went back out and was immediately replaced by another person.
‘Hello, Martin,’ said Hirtmann.
He felt his hair stand on end. The tall Swiss man had a four-day beard, red eyelids, and he seemed absent, preoccupied. Haunted, was the word that came to Servaz’s mind. He suddenly felt a hot flush. He had seen in Hirtmann the same anxiety he himself felt. Or was there something else? Some other reason to be anxious? Hirtmann walked past him and looked out of the window. Outside, where the light was fading. Then he pulled down the blinds.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Servaz.
Hirtmann did not reply. He went over to Gustav and caressed his blond hair. For a moment Servaz felt a pang of jealousy as he saw the boy smile so trustingly at Hirtmann. Then Hirtmann looked up at Servaz and he felt a chill down his spine: Julian Hirtmann was afraid of something. Or someone. This was the first time Servaz had ever seen fear in those eyes, and the sight of it was chilling. Because, in that moment, he understood it was not only because of the operation. Hirtmann stepped quickly to the window once more and looked out before again lowering the blinds.
Something was happening – outside.
Kirsten was standing next to the Catholic church, staring at the Lada through her binoculars. The tables had been turned. She was watching the car from behind but could still clearly make out the man at the wheel, who had his own binoculars trained on the clinic.
Now she focused on the neck of the car’s other occupant. She had her Springfield XD wedged between her belt and her back. Then she looked at the clinic; at Martin’s window. She froze. Julian Hirtmann was at the window, looking out. She saw Martin standing behind him and Gustav in his bed. Her pulse began to race.
Then Hirtmann lowered the blinds.
She put down her binoculars. The man in the car had done the same. It was obvious he had been watching that same window.
Kirsten thought about what to do next.
It was half past four. Before long it would be hard to see anything at all.
Reger watched as the last rescue vehicles drove away down the Hallstättersee Landesstrasse in a blazing maelstrom of flashing lights. What chaos! A nightmare of twisted metal and mutilated bodies, broken lives, blazing lights, messages sputtering like firecrackers over radios, and the strident buzzing of the saws slicing through the wreckage. Now that silence had finally fallen once more, he felt a violent headache coming on.
Fortunately, neither the driver of the Ford – killed on the spot – nor the three other passengers, severely injured, were people he knew. He was going to have to file a report. His legs were still trembling. It was a miracle there had only been one fatality.
Suddenly he remembered what he’d been doing that morning before the accident. Good Lord, what a day. It was always like this. You had entire days where nothing exciting came your way, and then suddenly there was a hailstorm of major incidents.
As his thoughts returned to the clinic, something terrible occurred to him. What if the man had used the opportunity to get away? How would he look then, in the eyes of his French colleagues? It was, in a way, the reputation of the entire Austrian police force that was at stake, he thought. He hurried off, and didn’t even stop at the police station. He took out his telephone and called Andreas, formerly with the Bundespolizei in Lower Austria, a man with decades of experience, and explained the situation.
‘Who is this guy?’ asked Andreas, puzzled. ‘What has he done wrong?’
Reger had to admit that the French policeman had not been very forthcoming on the matter. He had made it perfectly clear, however, that the patient must not be left unattended.
‘Meet me at the clinic,’ he said. ‘We’ll set up surveillance outside his door and make sure he doesn’t leave his room – or if he does, you follow right behind. He must not leave the clinic under any circumstances,’ he added. ‘Is that clear? I’ll have Nena take over from you in a few hours.’
‘He’s there,’ said Espérandieu, hanging up.
It was five o’clock in the afternoon. Samira swivelled around in her chair to face him.
‘He spent one night at a hotel,’ he explained. ‘Then packed his suitcase and left with another man.’
She waited for him to continue.
‘But the hotel manager recognised the man. A local fellow. His name is Strauch, and he’s a nurse in a clinic.’
‘A clinic,’ she echoed, thoughtfully.
Vincent nodded.
‘This Reger guy just questioned someone at the clinic. Martin got there this morning.’
‘What do we do?’
‘We don’t do anything,’ he answered. ‘But I’m going to take a day off and go to Austria to see Martin. And I asked them to place him under surveillance until I get there.’
She frowned.
‘What do you intend to do?’
‘Talk to him. And convince him to come back here
and turn himself in.’
‘After what happened yesterday,’ said Samira, ‘do you think he’s guilty?’
‘Of course not.’
‘And what if he refuses to listen to you?’
She saw him hesitate.
‘I’ll have the Austrian police arrest him,’ answered Vincent reluctantly.
‘They’ll want an official warrant.’
‘I’ll tell them that it’s on its way.’
‘And what will happen once they realise that they still haven’t got anything?’
‘We’ll see. I’ll be there by then. And besides, they must have got a Red Notice from Interpol. Though it would surprise me if they checked them regularly.’
He was already typing something on his keyboard.
‘Shit,’ he said.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘There are no flights.’
‘You could go through Paris.’
‘By the time I get to Paris, catch my connection then make the trip from Vienna to Hallstatt in a hire car, I may as well drive.’
‘You won’t get there until tomorrow,’ she pointed out.
‘Precisely. Another reason to leave right away.’
He stood up and reached for his jacket.
‘Keep me posted,’ she called out.
Marieke looked first at Reger then at his colleague, a tall red-faced beanpole. They had just asked her where the Frenchman was.
‘In theatre,’ she said. ‘They’re operating on him.’
‘Can’t we interrupt the operation?’
‘You must be joking! He is under general anaesthesia. He won’t wake up for several hours.’
Reger frowned. What a can of worms. What should he do? Then he figured that basically, it didn’t change the situation. The French cop wouldn’t get here for several hours, and at least the man was hardly likely to make a run for it.
‘You stay by the door to the operating theatre,’ Reger told Andreas. ‘Then you follow this Mr … um … Servaz to recovery, and then when he goes back to his room, you go with him.’
Reger went back to the police station.
As soon as he was inside, he called the French policeman.
‘I’m on my way,’ said the cop. ‘Have you got him under surveillance?’
‘He’s in the operating theatre, under anaesthesia,’ answered Reger. ‘But I’ve got a man posted there who won’t let him out of his sight. What has this guy done, exactly?’
‘He is suspected of having shot a man,’ answered Espérandieu. ‘A repeat rapist.’
‘Oh, is there an international arrest warrant out for him?’ asked Reger.
‘There’s no such thing as an international arrest warrant,’ said Espérandieu. There was a moment of silence. ‘But Interpol has issued a Red Notice, yes.’
‘In that case, I’ll ask for help from the Salzburg Bundespolizei to have him arrested,’ decided Reger.
‘No, don’t do anything like that, not until I get there. The man isn’t dangerous. Let me deal with him.’
Reger frowned, looking at his telephone. He understood less and less.
‘As you wish,’ he said finally.
But he was determined to contact his superiors as soon as he put down the phone.
Marieke was mistaken: Servaz was not under anaesthesia. Not yet. But he was lying on the operating table, breathing through an oxygen mask, with an IV drip in his arm, ready to receive the injection. The medical team were busy around him.
If he turned his head he could see Gustav already asleep on the other operating table. He could see all the trappings of modern sorcery around the child: monitors like the one he was hooked up to, transfusion pouches, transparent tubes, catheters kept in place with sticking plasters, syringe pumps, and protective cushions. Gustav’s blood was struggling to escape into one of the tubes.
Servaz swallowed.
The drugs were beginning to take effect and the intense stress he had felt during the first few minutes was giving way to an abnormal sensation of well-being – abnormal in the light of the rigorously hostile environment in which he found himself.
Servaz again looked over at the boy’s hand where he could see the blood trying to escape into the tube. It is always thus: blood struggling to escape. Red on white skin, red in the transparent tube. Red. Red. Red like the blood from a horse’s severed head, red like the bath water of an astronaut who has slashed her wrists, red like his own heart, pierced by a bullet, yet still beating.
Red.
Red.
Suddenly he felt fine. Okay. This is the end, like Espérandieu says. No, he doesn’t say it, he sings it. This is the end, my friend. All right. Let’s go. This is the end. Gustav, Kirsten’s son. No, that’s not right. Gustav is whose … whose son, already?
He was losing it.
His mind was acting up.
Red.
Like the curtain falling.
‘Where are they?’ asked Rimbaud.
In Toulouse, Stehlin was looking at the commissaire from the Inspectorate, and he was pale, very pale. No doubt the head of the regional crime unit was re-watching the film of his career, which until now had been following an impeccable upward trajectory. But the stain that was spreading across his CV would erase all these years of good and faithful service, and soon the stain would be all anyone would see. Years of effort, ambition, compromises, all swept away in a single day. Like a cyclone ravaging a coastal paradise in the space of a few hours.
‘I don’t know,’ he confessed.
‘You don’t know where Servaz is? You haven’t the faintest idea where he might have gone?’
Silence.
‘No.’
‘And that Norwegian policewoman, Kirsten …?’
‘… Nigaard. I don’t know where she is, either.’
‘One of your men is a murderer on the run, and this Norwegian policewoman who is supposed to be working with him has also disappeared: that doesn’t bother you?’
His tone was scathing.
Stehlin’s face was the colour of curdled milk. ‘I’m sorry. We are doing everything in our power to find them.’
Rimbaud sniffed.
‘Everything in your power,’ he said ironically. ‘You are sheltering a murderer in your ranks. This service is a calamity, a disgrace, the very example of everything that is wrong with the police – and, since you are the one in charge, this is all your responsibility,’ he continued coldly. ‘You will provide us with an explanation, believe me.’
He was already on his feet.
‘In the meantime, pull out all the stops to find them. Try at least to do that much properly.’
As soon as the inspector had left, Stehlin picked up his phone and rang Espérandieu. If there was anyone who knew Martin, it was his assistant. Samira’s voice answered.
‘Yes, boss?’
‘Samira? Where is Vincent?’
There was a pregnant pause.
‘He took the day off.’
‘What?’
‘He took a day off to—’
‘A whole day? Now? Find him! Tell him I want to speak to him. Right away!’
Jiri switched off the classical radio station, which had been playing symphony upon concerto upon cantata upon opera for hours.
‘Put that back on,’ said Zehetmayer next to him.
‘No,’ retorted Jiri. ‘I’m sick of classical music.’
The orchestra conductor was beginning to get on his nerves. Jiri had his binoculars on his lap. There was nothing to see: the evening darkness had settled over the clinic, the blinds had been raised but the room was empty. By the looks of it, they had taken the cop and the kid to the operating theatre. He would wait until they came back to strike. When they were still woozy, unable to react.
Where was Hirtmann? he wondered. In the operating theatre, almost certainly. With the others. According to their source, that little boy was the apple of the Swiss killer’s eye.
But sitting in the gloom of the Lada, Jir
i felt anything but confident. He didn’t like the fact that Hirtmann was nowhere to be seen. It left him with the unpleasant impression that he did not have everything under control. What was even more worrying, was that he’d had the feeling all day long that Hirtmann knew they were there, that it was a game for him, appearing and disappearing. That they were not the cat, but the mice.
Glancing around the car, he tried to reassure himself. They held all the cards. And above all, they had a major trump card. For a moment he closed his eyes, imagined his knife doing a nice clean job slitting Hirtmann’s throat, the blood gushing from his carotids. He would show him who, of the two of them, was better.
Next to him the conductor coughed. This was always a sign he was about to say something. Jiri listened distractedly.
‘I can transfer the rest of the money to “K”,’ said Zehetmayer, taking out his mobile. ‘He has fulfilled his part of the contract.’
In Bergen, after walking down the hill – the same hill where the funicular was – along Øvre and Nedre Korskirkeallmenningen, Kasper Strand passed the illuminated facades of the bar and restaurant complex in the middle of the port known as Zachariasbryggen. He turned off 100 metres before the fish market and crossed the broad esplanade with its gleaming cobblestones to head towards the little pub on the other side of Torget. It was the last pub open; in Bergen, restaurants and bars closed early.
It was drizzling; an almost microscopic mist, but it hadn’t left the town or the hills for days. Nor had the feeling of guilt that had been nagging at him ever since he had made the decision to sell the information Kirsten Nigaard was handing to him.
No matter how often he told himself he’d had no choice, it did not free him from the increasingly tenacious impression that he was a shit. That he had sold his soul. And for a few tens of thousands of crowns, no more. He walked into the little pub, which was exclusively frequented by authentic Bergen locals. It was a pallid, jumpy clientele; almost all the women looked tired and were wearing too much make-up; there was roughly one of them for every three men.
Night Page 36