The Circle (62 page)

Servaz thrust himself against the door when they went around the bend at breakneck speed, and prayed they would overturn before they reached the motorway. But he saw the asphalt rush up to them and headlights in the distance coming closer. He swallowed. The car left the exit and hurtled down the centre lane the wrong way.

‘David, please, think! You still have time to stop. Don't do this, for Christ's sake! Watch out!'

A furious wailing of car horns in front of them. Headlights flashing frenetically. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the two cars that had passed them were continuing on their way, warning lights flashing in a panic in the night. Sweat was streaming like water down his face. Stinging his eyes. He wiped it with the back of his sleeve.

‘David! Answer me, for Christ's sake! You're going to fucking kill us!'

David was staring at the road and Servaz could not read anything in his eyes other than their certain death. His hands were clinging so tight to the steering wheel that the knuckles were white. Servaz realised he was miles away. He stared at the motorway in front of them, hammered with rain, and he waited for the next vehicle to appear, all his senses focused on the coming collision, certain and inevitable.

He sunk deeper into his seat when he saw the headlights in the distance. More luminous flashes as the oncoming cars understood they were going the wrong way. Headlights higher up in the dark … more powerful. Blurred in the rain. A deafening roar pierced the night. A lorry! Even though he was half blinded by the headlights, Servaz could see the driver trying to swerve, heavily, into the other lane, saw the massive form move with exasperating slowness from one lane to the other, saw the gigantic spray of water thrown up by the mammoth's whirling tyres. He curled in on himself, waiting for the terrible crash, waiting for the moment when David would jerk the steering wheel over and propel them into the steel juggernaut.

But nothing happened. The monster's horn blasted his ears as it went close by; he turned his head and through the fog of water saw the driver's gawping eyes as he looked down on them, terrified, from his cabin. Servaz took a deep breath. Suddenly he understood that everything that had happened since he had set foot in Marsac had been destined to lead him here, to this motorway; that this flooded road was like a symbol of his own story, his attempt to go the wrong way back into his past. He thought about his father, Francis, Alexandra, Margot and Charlène. His mother, Marianne … destiny, chance. Like particles hurtling towards each other, crashing, smashing up – being born and disappearing.

It was written.

Or was it?

Suddenly he thrust his hand into David's pocket, where the young man had put Servaz's mobile. He yanked it out.

‘What are you doing? Leave that!'

The car zigzagged perilously from one lane to the other. Servaz looked away, no longer paying attention to what was happening in front of them. He lifted the phone to his lips while David's hand grabbed his wrist and tried to tear it away from him.

‘Vincent, it's me!' he began screaming, before he had finished dialling. ‘Can you hear me? Vincent, it's Hugo! Hugo is the guilty one! Do you hear me?
Hugo!
The words in the notebook, that was just a trick. He's going to try and pin the blame on David. Do you understand what I'm saying?' Vincent's voice came through on the other end: ‘Hello? Hello? Is that you, Martin?'

They were driving in all three lanes at once, even swerving onto the hard shoulder.

‘Get hold of the judge! Hugo mustn't be released! I don't have time to tell you more!'

He hung up. This time, he had David's full attention.

‘What did you do? What did you just do?'

‘That's it, Hugo won't be getting out. Pull over onto the verge. There's no point! You have my word: they'll take care of you! Who will go and see Hugo in prison if you're not there to do it?'

Once again headlights were bearing down on them, slightly to their left. Four lights in a row. Ultra-powerful. High above the road. Another lorry. David had seen it, too. In a fluid movement that seemed almost choreographed, he slowly left the middle lane to slip gently into the one where the articulated vehicle was approaching.

‘No, no, no! Don't do that! Don't do that!'

New flashes of headlights. The roar of the horn. The metallic creaking of the juggernaut as it moved, trying to find a way out. This time there wouldn't be one. The truck wouldn't have time to swerve. The two vehicles were rushing towards each other. So this was where the road ended. It was written. The end of the story. A titanic crash and then nothing. The void.

On their left Servaz saw the exit to a rest area, coming down the hill towards them.

‘If you kill us, you'll kill two innocent people! There's no way out
for Hugo! It's all over for him! Who will go and see him in prison if you're not there? Turn left! Turn leeeeft!'

He saw four round, blinding eyes bearing down on them; four daggers of light reflected on the surface of the road. He closed his eyes. Held his arms out in front of him and put his hands on the dashboard in an absurd reflex.

Waited for the terrible crash.

Felt they were swerving, suddenly, to the left. He opened his eyes.

They had left the motorway! They were heading up the exit at top speed, the wrong way.

Servaz saw the gigantic lorry go by beneath them on their right. Saved! Then he gave a start when he saw a car leaving the rest area above them. David yanked the wheel, and they went up onto the grass, bouncing roughly as they swerved past the car on its way down. They tore several branches from one of the low hedges and landed in an almost deserted car park. Servaz could see the neon lights of a café and service station at the far end. David rammed his foot on the brake. The car swerved sideways, the tyres squealed.

It came to a stop.

Servaz unfastened his belt, opened the door and rushed outside to vomit.

He knew that from now on death would always have a face. That of a huge lorry, with its four headlights in a row. He knew it the way he knew he would never forget that image. And that every time he got into a car with someone else behind the wheel he would be terrified.

He inhaled great lungfuls of the damp night air. His chest was rising and falling, his legs were trembling. His ears were buzzing as if a beehive had been opened and the bees let loose all around him. He walked slowly round the car and found David sitting on the ground, leaning against the rear wheel. His fingers were digging into his blond hair; he was trembling and sobbing, staring at the ground. Servaz knelt down in front of him and placed his hands on the boy's shoulders.

‘I'll keep my promise,' he said. ‘We'll help you. Just tell me one thing: did you put the Mahler CD in Claire Diemar's stereo?'

The boy gave him a puzzled look, clearly failing to understand, so he shook his head, as if to say, ‘It doesn't matter', then he squeezed
David's shoulder and stood up. He took out his phone and walked away, aware of what a sight he must be, in his hospital gown, soaking in the pouring rain, his fingers covered with scratches, his face still bearing the traces of the bandage he had torn off.

‘Christ almighty, what was that phone call? And why didn't you answer?'

It was Vincent. He seemed in a panic. Servaz realised that his phone must have rung several times, though he hadn't heard a thing in the midst of the maelstrom. But it was good to hear his assistant's voice.

‘I'll explain. In the meantime, get the judge out of bed. You have to cancel Hugo's release. And we need authorisation to interrogate him in prison this evening. Call Sartet.'

‘But you know he'll never agree. It's illegal. Hugo was indicted.'

‘Unless he's interrogated about another case,' said Servaz.

‘What?'

He explained what he had in mind.

‘Do as I say. I'll join you as soon as I can.'

‘But you can't see a thing!'

‘Oh yes I can. And believe me, there are times when it's better not to see anything.'

There was a puzzled silence at the other end.

‘You're not in hospital?'

‘No. I'm at a motorway service station.'

‘What? What on—'

‘Forget it. Hurry up. I'll explain later.'

A door slammed behind him. Servaz turned round.

‘Hang on a minute,' he said to his assistant.

He thought he could see a smile on David's face as he sat behind the steering wheel. Their gazes met through the windscreen. Servaz felt something like an electric shock. He broke into a run as the Ford Fiesta started slowly backing up. As if in a dream, while he was running towards it, he saw the car make a gracious arabesque on the asphalt surface of the car park, turn towards the exit then take off.

Servaz told himself David wouldn't get far. Then, in a fraction of a second, he understood.

He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, propelled by despair, fear, anger and the knowledge he would never forgive himself for
having been so stupid. He ran uselessly in its wake as the car pulled away, already out of reach as it sped through the opening between the hedges and down the slope, then entered the motorway again.

And stopped in the middle of the lanes.

From where he stood Servaz could hear David switch off the engine. And heard almost immediately the hysterical blaring of a horn on his left. He turned his head just in time to see an articulated lorry in the wide bend at the bottom of the hill. He saw the juggernaut brake too late and too suddenly, swerving across the three lanes, losing control of his trailer which hurtled with all the rest of its cargo onto the tiny Ford, engulfing it in an explosion of crushed metal, pulverised plastic and flesh.

He saw all the rest as if through a fog, much later: the ambulances, the police cars, the flashing lights slicing through the darkness; he hardly heard the wailing of sirens, the messages crackling over the radios, the orders, the hissing of the extinguishers and the shrill buzzing of electric saws; he hardly paid any attention to the news vehicles that came to join the melee, the TV cameras, the popping of camera flashes, or even the face of the young reporter who stuck a microphone under his nose and whom he shoved away, roughly. He dreamt of them more than he actually saw them or heard them. He dragged himself to the café and a strange thought occurred to him when he saw people were rushing about like bees disoriented by smoke. He told himself that these people were out of their minds and didn't even know it. That only madmen could want to live in a world like this and carry it with them, day after day, to its ruin. Then he ordered a coffee.

In the tomb

In her mind there was a cry, nothing more.

A moan.

Which rose and devoured her thoughts.

A cry of despair, screaming with rage, pain, solitude. Everything which, for months on end, had deprived her of her humanity.

She was pleading, too.

Please, oh please, have mercy, please
…
let me out of here, I beg you.
In her mind, she was shouting and begging and weeping. But only in her mind: in fact not a sound came from her throat. She was gagged, the strap tightly knotted at the back of her neck. Her hands were behind her back, stuck together from palm to fingertips with superglue. It was a very uncomfortable position. It made her lean forward all the time, including when she slept. She had tried to tear the skin of her hands, but it was impossible.

She changed position in the darkness to relieve the tension of her muscles; she was sitting on the dirt floor leaning against the stone wall. Sometimes she lay down. Or went over to her shabby mattress. She spent most of her time drowsing, curled up in a foetal position. Sometimes she got up and took a few steps. Not much more. She didn't feel like struggling any more. He only fed her once every other day now; he gave her just enough to keep her from dying of starvation. He no longer washed her. She had lost so much weight. She had a constant bad taste in her mouth, and there was a horrible pain gnawing away at the left side of her jaw and tongue: an abscess. Her dirty hair caused her scalp to itch. She felt weaker and weaker.

He had stopped taking her upstairs to the dining room. No more meals, no more music, no more rape in her sleep. That was the only relief. She wondered why he kept her alive.

Because she had a replacement, now. He had introduced them
once. She was so weak she could hardly stand and he had had to support her while she climbed the stairs up to the ground floor. ‘God, you stink,' he had said, wrinkling his nose. She saw the young woman sitting at the dinner table, in the chair that used to be hers. Her torso bound to the back of the chair, the way she had been bound. She recognised that look: it had been hers several months or several years earlier. At first she didn't say anything, she no longer had the strength. She merely wobbled her head. But she read the horror in the eyes of the woman wearing her dress; she smelled her freshly washed hair, her perfumed body. Finally she managed to croak, ‘That's my dress.' He took her back down to the cellar. That was the last time she saw her, but from time to time she heard music up there and knew what was going on. She wondered where in the house he kept the other woman locked up.

She had struggled to retain her sanity for a long time, she had tried to cling to reality. Now she was letting go. The madness that lurked at the edge of her consciousness, like a predator certain of its prey, had begun to devour her lucidity, to feast on it. The only way to escape that madness was to think of what her life had been – the life of a different woman, who bore her name but no longer resembled her. A beautiful life, eventful, tragic – but never boring.

Her throat tightened with remorse when she thought of Hugo. She had been so proud of him. She knew all about his drug use, but who was she to throw the first stone? Her handsome son, so brilliant. Her greatest success. Where was he now? In prison, or out? The anxiety crushed her chest when she thought about him. And then sorrow threatened to break her when she imagined Mathieu, Hugo and herself together again, reunited, sailing across the lake on a fine morning, surrounded by friends during a barbecue on a spring afternoon. She could hear their laughter, their exclamations, again she saw her five-year-old son lifted up to the sun in his father's arms, an expression of absolute happiness on his chubby face. Or father and son sitting at the head of the bed, Hugo with his thumb in his mouth, attentive, terribly serious, then gradually falling asleep while his father read to him. Mathieu had died in a car crash, and he had left them behind – her and Hugo – at the beginning of their life together. Sometimes she was very angry with him for that.