The Circle (6 page)

‘Do you recall whether she collected dolls?'

‘Yes. My wife used to be a psychologist. I remember very well that when we came home, she voiced a theory about the dolls.'

‘What sort of theory?'

Winshaw told him.

At least the riddle about the origin of the dolls had been solved. Servaz had no more questions. He looked at a small table where three books lay open: a Torah, a Koran and the Bible.

‘Are you interested in religion?' he asked.

Winshaw smiled. He took a sip of his whisky, his eyes twinkling mischievously above his glass.

‘It's fascinating, don't you think? Religion, I mean. How these lies can blind so many people. You know what I call this table?'

Servaz raised an eyebrow.

‘“The stupid bastards' corner”.'

Amicus Plato sed major amicus veritas

Servaz dropped a coin into the coffee machine and pressed the button for an Americano with sugar. He had read somewhere that, contrary to popular belief, there was more caffeine in ‘long' coffees than in espressos. The cup fell sideways from the dispenser, half the liquid spilled to one side and he waited in vain for the sugar and the stir stick.

He drank it down all the same, to the last drop.

Then he crumpled the cup and tossed it in the bin.

Finally, he went through the door.

The gendarmerie in Marsac did not have an interview room, so they had set aside a little meeting room on the first floor. Servaz immediately noticed the location of the window and frowned. The prime danger in this sort of situation was not so much that the suspect might attempt to escape, but rather commit suicide, if he felt driven to it. Even if it seemed highly unlikely that he would throw himself from the first-floor window, Servaz didn't want to take any chances.

‘Close the shutters,' he said to Vincent.

Samira had opened her laptop and was preparing the statement, noting the time they had begun. Then she swivelled it so she'd be able to film the suspect. Once again, Servaz felt behind the times. Every day his young assistants reminded him how quickly the world was changing and how maladjusted he was. He reflected that some day soon the Koreans or the Chinese would invent robot-investigators and he would be put out to pasture. The robots would be equipped with lie detectors and lasers that could detect the slightest inflection in the voice or movement of the eye. They would be infallible and emotionless. But lawyers would probably find a way to ban them.

‘What the fuck are they doing?' he asked, annoyed.

Just then the door opened and Bécker came in with Hugo. The boy wasn't wearing handcuffs. Servaz observed him. He seemed absent. And tired. He wondered whether the gendarmes had already tried to interrogate him.

‘Have a seat,' said the captain.

‘Has he seen a lawyer?'

Bécker shook his head.

‘He hasn't said a word since we took him in.'

‘But you did remind him that he had the right to see one?'

The gendarme shot him a nasty look and handed him a typed sheet of paper without bothering to reply. Servaz read, ‘Has not requested a lawyer.' He sat down at the table opposite the boy. Bécker went to stand near the door. Servaz told himself that since Hugo's mother already knew he was here, there was no one else he needed to inform.

‘Your name is Hugo Bokhanowsky,' he began, ‘and you were born on 20 July 1992, in Marsac.'

No reaction. Servaz read the next line. And gave a start.

‘You are in the second year of literary preparatory classes at the lycée in Marsac …'

Hugo would be eighteen in one month. And he was already taking the advanced preparatory classes. A very intelligent boy … He wasn't in the same class as Margot – who was in the first year – but he was nevertheless at the same school. Which meant there was a good chance that Margot had also had Claire Diemar as a teacher. He made a note to ask her.

‘Would you like a coffee?'

No reaction. Servaz turned to Vincent.

‘Go and get him a coffee and a glass of water.'

Espérandieu stood up. Servaz looked closely at the young man. He was keeping his eyes down and his hands wedged tightly and defensively between his knees.

He's scared shitless.

He was slim, with the sort of good looks that girls go for, his hair cut so short that it formed a light, silky down on his round skull, which shone in the neon light. A three-day beard. He was wearing a T-shirt advertising an American university.

‘Do you realise that everything seems to point to your guilt? You were found at Claire Diemar's house the same evening she was
assaulted in a particularly barbaric fashion. According to the report I have here, you were clearly under the influence of alcohol and drugs at that time.'

He looked closely at Hugo. The boy didn't move. Perhaps he was still under the influence of the narcotics.

‘Your footprints were found all over the house.'

Hugo said nothing.

‘With traces of mud and grass from your shoes after you had been in the garden.'

Still no response.

Servaz looked questioningly at Bécker, who answered with a shrug.

‘Identical traces were discovered on the stairs and in the bathroom where Claire Diemar was found murdered.'

The boy still said nothing.

‘Your mobile phone indicates that you called the victim no fewer than eighteen times in the last two weeks alone.'

Silence.

‘What did you talk about? We know she was your teacher. Did you like her?'

No answer.

Shit, we're not going to get anything out of him.

He had a fleeting thought for Marianne: her son was behaving in every way as if he were guilty. For a moment he thought of asking her to get him to cooperate.

‘What were you doing at Claire Diemar's house?'

No answer.

‘Fuck, are you deaf or what? Don't you know you're in deep shit?'

Samira's voice. She had burst in, as sharp and shrill as a saw. Hugo jumped. He deigned to look up and for a split second he seemed slightly disconcerted on seeing the large mouth, protruding eyes and little nose of the French-Chinese-Moroccan woman. But his reaction lasted only a fraction of a second before his gaze returned to his knees.

A storm outside, and silence within. No one seemed prepared to break it.

Servaz and Samira exchanged glances.

‘I'm not here to torment you,' he said at last. ‘We just want to get at the truth.
Amicus Plato sed major amicus veritas.'

I love Plato, but I love the truth even more.

Was that the Latin formula?

This time, there was a reaction.

Hugo was looking at him.

His eyes were extremely blue.
His mother's eyes
, thought Servaz, although her eyes were green. He could see Marianne in the shape of her son's face. Their physical resemblance was disturbing.

‘I have spoken with your mother,' he said suddenly, without thinking. ‘We used to be friends, years ago. Very good friends.'

Hugo said nothing.

‘It was before she met your father—'

‘She never mentioned you.'

The first words out of Hugo Bokhanowsky's mouth fell like a blade. Servaz felt as if he'd had a fist in his stomach.

He knew that Hugo was telling the truth.

He cleared his throat.

‘I studied in Marsac, too,' he said. ‘Like you. And now my daughter is studying there. Margot Servaz. She's in the first year.'

Now he had the young man's attention.

‘Margot is your daughter?'

‘Do you know her?'

The young man shrugged.

‘Everyone knows Margot. She doesn't exactly go unnoticed at Marsac … She's a great girl. She didn't tell us her father was a cop.'

Hugo's blue gaze was on him now and didn't let go. Servaz realised he'd been mistaken: the boy wasn't afraid, he had simply decided not to speak. And even if he was only seventeen, he seemed much more mature. Servaz continued, gently.

‘Why won't you speak? You know you'll only make your case worse if you behave like this. Would you like us to call a lawyer? You can speak with the lawyer and then we'll talk.'

‘What's the use? I was on the premises when she died, or not long afterwards … I have no alibi … Everything points to me … So I'm guilty, aren't I?'

‘Are you?'

Those blue eyes, staring right at him. Servaz could read neither guilt nor innocence in them. There was nothing to be deciphered from such a gaze, only patience.

‘In any case, that's what you think … so what the fuck difference does it make whether it's true or not?'

‘It makes a huge difference,' said Servaz.

But that was a lie, and he knew it. French prisons were full of innocent people, and the streets were full of guilty ones. Judges and lawyers pretended to cloak themselves in their robes and their virtue as they doled out their speeches about morality and the law, but for all that they tolerated a system they knew was producing judicial errors by the shovelful.

‘You called your mother to tell her you woke up in the house and that there was a dead woman there, is that correct?'

‘Yes.'

‘Where were you when you woke up?'

‘Downstairs in the living room.'

‘Whereabouts?'

‘On the sofa. Sitting.'

Hugo looked at Bécker.

‘I already told them.'

‘And then what did you do?'

‘I called out for Mademoiselle Diemar.'

‘Did you go on sitting there?'

‘No. The French windows were open, and the rain was coming in. I went out that way.'

‘Didn't you wonder where you were?'

‘I recognised the house.'

‘You had already been there?'

‘Yes.'

‘So you recognised the place. Did you go there often?'

‘Often enough.'

‘What do you mean by “enough”? How many times?'

‘I don't remember.'

‘Try to remember.'

‘I don't know … maybe ten … or twenty …'

‘Why did you go to see her so often? And why did you call her all the time? Did Mademoiselle Diemar receive all the students from Marsac in this way?'

‘No, I don't think so.'

‘So, why you? What did you talk about?'

‘About my writing.'

‘What?'

‘I'm writing a novel. I had mentioned it to Clai— to Mademoiselle
Diemar. She was very interested in it; she asked if she could read what I had written. We spoke about it regularly. On the phone, too.'

Servaz looked at Hugo. A tremor. He too had started writing a novel when he was a student at Marsac. The great modern novel … The glorious dream of every apprentice writer … The one that would make publishers and readers say, ‘A masterpiece!' The story of a quadriplegic man who lived for his thoughts alone, whose inner life was as luxuriant and intense as a tropical jungle, and far richer than that of the majority of people. He had stopped the day after his father committed suicide.

‘You called her Claire?' he asked.

A hesitation.

‘Yes.'

‘What was the nature of your relationship?'

‘I just told you. She was interested in my writing.'

‘Did she give you advice?'

‘Yes.'

‘She thought it was good?'

Hugo's gaze. A gleam of pride in his pupils.

‘She said … she said she hadn't read anything like it for a long time.'

‘Will you tell me the title?'

He saw Hugo hesitate. Servaz put himself in his shoes. No doubt the young author did not feel like sharing this sort of thing with a stranger.

‘It's called
The Circle.
'

Servaz would have liked to ask what it was about, but he didn't. He felt the stirrings of a deep bewilderment, and at the same time a surge of empathy for the young man. He was no fool: he knew it was because Hugo reminded him of himself, twenty-three years earlier. And perhaps, too, because he was Marianne's son. But for all that Servaz still wondered if it was possible that Hugo could have killed someone who understood and appreciated his work.

‘Let's go back to what you did after that, after the garden.'

‘I went back into the house. I called out to her. I searched everywhere.'

‘You didn't think of calling the police?'

‘No.'

‘And then?'

‘I went upstairs, I searched all the rooms, one by one … until I reached the bathroom … and then …
I saw her.
'

His Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

‘I panicked. I didn't know what to do. I tried to get her head out of the water, I slapped her to wake her up, I shouted, I tried to untie the knots. But there were too many, and they were too tight, and I couldn't do it: the water had made them swell up. And before long I realised it was too late.'

‘You say you tried to revive her?'

‘Yes, that's what I did.'

‘And the torch?'

Servaz saw Hugo's eyelids flutter almost imperceptibly.

‘You did see the torch in her mouth, didn't you?'

‘Yes, obviously …'

‘So why didn't you try to pull it out?'

Hugo hesitated.

‘I don't know. Probably because …'

He paused, and Servaz prompted him with his gaze.

‘Because I couldn't put my fingers in her mouth …'

‘You mean, in a dead woman's mouth?'

Servaz saw Hugo's shoulders slump.

‘Yes. No. Not just that. In Claire's mouth …'

‘And before that? What happened? You said you woke up in Claire Diemar's house – what did you mean by that?'

‘Just that. I regained consciousness in the living room.'

‘You mean you had lost consciousness?'

‘Yes … well, I suppose … I already explained all this to your colleagues.'