The Circle (11 page)

‘Room 4, the cube over there … but if I were you, I would wait for him to finish. He doesn't like to be disturbed.'

‘Oh …'

The boy's smile spread wider. ‘You're Margot's father, aren't you?'

Servaz was briefly surprised. In his pocket his mobile vibrated but he ignored it.

‘And who are you?'

The young man took his hand out of his cape and extended it.

‘David. I'm taking the prep classes. Glad to meet you.'

Servaz reasoned that he must be in the same class as Hugo. He squeezed his hand. A frank, strong handshake.

‘So, you know Margot?'

‘Everybody knows everyone, here. And Margot doesn't exactly go unnoticed.'

The same words Hugo had used.

‘But you know that I'm her father.'

The young man trained his golden gaze on Servaz's.

‘I was there the day you came with her for the first time.'

‘Oh, I see.'

‘If you're looking for her, she must be in class.'

‘Did you have Claire Diemar as a teacher?'

The young man paused. ‘Yes, why?'

Servaz showed him his warrant card. ‘I'm in charge of the investigation into her death.'

‘Bloody hell, you're a cop?'

He said it without animosity. It was more that he was stunned. Servaz could not help but smile.

‘Indeed.'

‘We're all devastated. She was a really wonderful teacher, we all liked her. But …'

The young man lowered his head and looked at the toes of his trainers. When he looked up again, Servaz could read a familiar glow in his eyes. The one he often saw in the gaze of people who were close to the accused: a mixture of nervousness, incomprehension and disbelief. A refusal to admit the unthinkable.

‘I can't believe Hugo did it. It's impossible. It's not him.'

‘Do you know him well?'

‘He's one of my best friends.'

The young man's eyes had misted over. He was on the verge of tears.

‘Were you with him at the pub last night?'

David's gaze was unwavering.

‘Yes.'

‘And do you remember what time he left?'

David looked at him more cautiously this time. He took the trouble to think before replying.

‘No, but I remember he didn't feel well. He felt … weird.'

‘Is that what he said to you? Weird?'

‘Yes. He didn't feel right.'

Servaz held his breath.

‘Did he say anything else?'

‘No. Just that he really wasn't well and he … he wanted to go home. We were all … surprised. Because the match … the match was about to start.'

The young man had hesitated over his final words, realising that what he said could make things worse for his friend. But Servaz saw it quite differently. Had Hugo used this as a pretext to get away and go to Claire Diemar's – or was he really sick?

‘And then?'

‘Then what?'

‘He left and you didn't see him again?'

Once again, the young man hesitated.

‘Yes, that's right.'

‘Thank you.'

He saw that David looked concerned, worried about how his words might be interpreted.

‘He didn't do it,' he said suddenly. ‘I'm sure he didn't. If you knew him as well as I do, you would know that too.'

Servaz nodded.

‘He's really brilliant,' the boy insisted, as if it could help Hugo. ‘He's enthusiastic, full of life. He's a leader, someone who truly believes in his destiny and who knows how to share his passions. He really has everything. He's a loyal friend. This isn't like him at all!'

As he spoke his voice trembled. He wiped away the raindrops dripping from the end of his nose. Then he turned around and walked away.

For a moment Servaz watched him go.

He knew what David meant. There was always someone like Hugo at Marsac: an individual who was even more talented, more brilliant, more outstanding and more sure of himself than anyone else, someone who caught everyone's eye and had a flock of admirers. In Servaz's day, that person had been Francis Van Acker.

He looked to see who had called him. The tracking service. He called them back.

‘Her password is on file,' said the voice. ‘Anyone could get at her mailbox. And someone emptied it.'

Van Acker

He stopped by the concrete cube and leaned against a tree as he took another cigarette from the pack. The voice reached him through the open windows. It hadn't changed in the last fifteen years. As soon as you heard it you knew that you were dealing with someone who was smart, formidable and arrogant.

‘What I have here is nothing more than the excretions of a group of adolescents who are incapable of seeing beyond their tiny little emotional world. Priggish pedantry, sentimentalism, masturbation and acne. For God's sake! You all think you're so brilliant – wake up! There isn't a single original idea in any of this.'

Servaz clicked the lighter and lit a cigarette – the time it would take for Francis Van Acker's declamatory prose to come to an end.

‘Next week we are going to study three books side by side:
Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina
and
Effi Briest.
Three novels published between 1857 and 1894, which established the form of the novel. Might there, miraculously, be one of you who has already read all three of them? Does that rare bird exist? No? Does anyone at least have an idea what these three books have in common?'

Silence, then a girl's voice said, ‘They're all stories about adulterous women.'

Servaz shuddered. Margot's voice.

‘Exactly, Mademoiselle Servaz. Well, I see there is at least one person in this class whose reading is not limited to
Spider-Man
. Three stories about adulterous women, another common thing being that they were written by men. Three masterly ways to deal with the same subject. Three absolutely major works. Which goes to show that Hemingway's sentence, according to which one must write what one knows, is hogwash. As are a good number of other sayings by dear old Ernest. Good. I know that some of you have plans for the
weekend and that the school year is more or less over, but I want you to have read these three books before the end of next week. Don't forget that your essays are due on Monday.'

A scraping of chairs. Servaz hid round a corner of the building. He did not want to run into Margot now; he would go and see her later. He watched her walk away amongst the other students. He emerged from his hiding place just as Van Acker was coming down the steps, opening his umbrella.

‘Hello, Francis.'

Van Acker was briefly startled. The umbrella pivoted.

‘Martin … I suppose I should have been expecting your visit, given what's happened.'

His blue eyes were still just as piercing. His nose was fleshy, his lips were thin but sensual and his beard was carefully groomed. Francis Van Acker was just as Servaz remembered him. He literally
radiated
charm. Only a few grey hairs were visible in his beard and in the lock of chestnut hair that swept over his brow.

‘What are we supposed to say to each other in this kind of situation?' he asked ironically. ‘“It's been ages”?'

‘
Fugit irreparabile tempus
,' replied Servaz.

Van Acker gave him a dazzling smile.

‘You always were best in Latin. You cannot imagine how that exasperated me.'

‘That's your weakness, Francis. You always wanted to be first in everything.'

Van Acker didn't answer. But before long his provocative smile reappeared.

‘You've never come back to see us. Why not?'

‘You tell me.'

Van Acker's gaze did not leave him. In spite of the moisture in the air, he was wearing the same kind of dark blue velvet jacket that Servaz had always seen him in. When they were students, it even became the subject of a joke: Francis Van Acker had a wardrobe full of identical blue jackets and white shirts.

‘Well, we both know, Edmond Dantès,' said Van Acker.

Servaz felt his throat go dry.

‘Like the Count of Morcerf, I stole your Mercedes. Only I didn't marry her.'

For a fraction of a second, Servaz felt a twist of anger in his
gut, like an ember flaring. Then the ash of years covered it over again.

‘I have heard that Claire died in the most awful way.'

‘What are people saying?'

‘You know Marsac, everyone knows everything in the end. The gendarmes turned out to be rather talkative. The grapevine did the rest. Tied up and drowned in her bath, that's what people are saying. Is it true?'

‘No comment.'

‘Dear Lord! Yet she was a good sort. Brilliant. Independent. Stubborn. Passionate. Not everyone agreed with her teaching methods, but I thought they were rather, shall we say, interesting.'

Servaz nodded. They were walking alongside the concrete cubes; the windows were dirty.

‘What an atrocious way to die. You'd have to be mad to kill someone that way.'

‘Or very angry,' corrected Servaz.

‘Ira furor brevis est.
“Anger is a brief madness”.'

Now they were walking past the deserted tennis courts, where the nets were drooping like the ropes of a ring beneath the weight of an invisible boxer.

‘How is Margot doing?' asked Servaz.

Van Acker smiled.

‘The apple never falls far from the tree. Margot has true potential, she's getting on quite well. But she will be even better when she understands that systematic anti-conformist behaviour is another form of conformity.'

It was Servaz's turn to smile.

‘So you're in charge of the investigation,' said Van Acker. ‘I could never understand why you joined the police.' He raised his hands to forestall any objection. ‘I know it had something to do with your father's death and, if you go back further, with what happened to your mother, but for Christ's sake, you could have done something else. You could have been a writer, Martin. Not one of those hacks, but a real writer. You had the gift. Do you remember that text of Salinger's we used to quote all the time, about writing and brotherhood?'

‘Seymour, an Introduction,'
answered Servaz, trying not to yield to emotion.

He realised that although he had not read the book for years, every sentence was intact, branded in blazing letters upon his memory. In those days, it had been their sacred formula, their mantra, their password.

Van Acker stopped walking.

‘You were my big brother,' he said suddenly, his voice surprisingly emotional, ‘you were my Seymour – and for me, in a way, that big brother committed suicide the day you joined the police force.'

Servaz felt his anger return. Really?
Then why did you take her from me?
he would have liked to ask.
Of all the women you could have had and whom you did have, you had to go and take her … And why did you abandon her?

They had reached the edge of the pine woods, where the view, when the weather was fine, revealed a panorama for miles around, as far as the Pyrenees, forty kilometres away. But clouds and rain had cloaked the hills in wisps of mist. This was where they used to come twenty years earlier, Van Acker, Servaz himself and … Marianne – before Marianne became a barrier between them, before jealousy, anger and hatred tore them apart; and perhaps, who knows, Van Acker still came here, although Servaz doubted it would be in memory of the good old days.

‘Tell me about Claire.'

‘What do you want to know?'

‘Did you know her?'

‘Do you mean personally, or as a colleague?'

‘Personally.'

‘No. Not really. Marsac is a little university town. It's like the court at Elsinore. Everyone knows everyone else, they all spy on each other, stab each other in the back, spread vile gossip … Everybody makes sure they have something to say about their neighbours, preferably something snide and juicy. All these academics have raised backstabbing and gossip to an art form. Claire and I used to run into each other at parties, we only made small talk.'

‘Were there any rumours about her?'

‘Do you really believe that in the name of our erstwhile friendship I'm going to fill you in on all the gossip going around?'

‘Oh really, there was that much?'

There was the whoosh of a car on the little road winding past the foot of the hill.

‘Rumours, speculation, gossip … Is that what they call a house-to-house investigation? Not only was Claire an independent and attractive woman, she also had very set ideas on an entire host of subjects. She had a tendency to be a bit too …
militant
at times, at work dinners.'

‘And besides that? Were there any rumours about her private life? Do you know anything about that?'

Van Acker bent down to pick up a pine cone. He threw it into the distance, down the slope.

‘What do you think? A beautiful woman, single, intelligent … Naturally she was surrounded by men. And she hadn't been raised in a convent.'

‘Did you sleep with her?'

Van Acker gave him an indecipherable look.

‘I say, Maigret, is that the way you work in the police? You throw yourself on the first evidence you can find? Might you have forgotten the difference between exegesis and hermeneutics? May I remind you that Hermes, the messenger, is a deceitful god. The accumulation of proof, the search for hidden meaning, the descent into the unfathomable structure of intentionality: Kafka's parabolas, Celan's poetry, the question of interpretation and subjectivity in Ricoeur – you turned all that to your advantage, once upon a time.'

‘Had she received any threats? Did she confide in you? As a colleague or as a friend, did she ever talk to you about a complicated relationship, or a break-up, or was anyone harassing her?'

‘She didn't confide in me. We weren't that close.'