The Circle (63 page)

And she could see the house by the lake, the terrace where she liked to have breakfast when the weather was fine, a book in her
hand, the smooth and placid mirror of the lake reflecting the trees on the opposite shore, the haven of peace she never tired of.

And then she thought about Martin. She often thought about him. Martin: her greatest love, her greatest failure. She remembered the classes when their gazes would meet twenty times an hour, their impatience to be together. Her anger, when he remained uninterested in the music she loved. She had nicknamed him her ‘Old Man', or her ‘Dear Old Man', although he was only one year older than her. By God she loved him.

She loved him, she admired him – and she had betrayed him. Now she crouched down in the darkness of her tomb, her mind empty, her body trembling. Suddenly a rush of despair took away all these fine sunny images, and the darkness, the cold, swooped down on her. The madness was back, and she felt it closing its sharp claws around her mind. In those moments, she clung with all her strength to a vision, the only one that still saved her.

She closed her eyes and began to run. All alone, along a beach left bare by the tide. A luminous dawn caused the waves and the damp sand to glitter, and the breeze stirred her hair. She was running, running, running, ever further. For hours, with her eyes closed. The cries of the seagulls, the regular sound of the sea, a few sails on the horizon and the dawn light. She could not stop running. On this endless beach. She knew she would never see the daylight again.

Finale

Searchlights lit up the outer wall of the prison. The car park was deserted. Servaz parked as close as possible to the entrance. His anger had not left him. A rage which replaced weariness and fatigue.

The director was waiting for them. He had received several calls during the night: from the prosecutor's office, the crime squad. He didn't understand why this case was such a big deal; he didn't know that an MP from the ruling party – the hope of his party – had nearly been arrested, and had now been cleared, and that first thing tomorrow the party would hasten to inform the press that he had been exonerated once and for all, and would vehemently denounce ‘all the absolutely regrettable leaks', and would show up in every news programme to protest that ‘in our country we have something known as presumption of innocence and in this case it was trampled on by members of the opposition'. In Paris they had felt the wind changing: one mustn't appear to have dropped Paul Lacaze too quickly, now he'd turned out to be innocent. Time to close ranks.

As for the prison director, he was still extremely uncertain of the police commandant with his bloodshot eyes and dilated pupils and the young lieutenant in his silvery jacket, looking like an adolescent. The commandant had bruises and scratches all over his hands and face, and a bandage in his wild hair – as if he'd had his skull stitched back together. The director was about to close the door behind them when Servaz raised his voice:

‘We're waiting for someone.'

‘The prosecutor's office only mentioned two people.'

‘Two, three – what difference does it make?'

‘Listen, it is already well after midnight. Am I going to have to hang around here until you've finished? Because I would like to—'

‘Here she is.'

There was the sound of a motor and a gendarme's car appeared. The door opened on the passenger side and a woman got out, a big bandage shaped like a cross over her nose and cheeks. She also had her left arm in a sling. Ziegler hunched down in the driving rain, and hurried to cover the last few metres to the entrance. She had been grilled for a good hour by a deputy public prosecutor from the prosecutor's office in Auch as well as several officers from the gendarmerie crime investigation division, but she had still managed to get hold of Martin. In a few words she explained what had just happened, once again omitting to mention that she had hacked into his computer.

‘How did you find all this out?' he said, puzzled.

He hadn't seemed surprised to learn that Marianne had been spying on him. On the other hand, Irène noticed how immensely sad he was.

‘She's with us,' said Servaz now to the prison director.

Good God
, thought the director, when he saw the dishevelled blonde approach.
What sort of circus is this?
But he had orders. From high up. ‘Do everything they ask, is that clear?' the director of penitentiary administration had said on the phone. He shrugged, signalled to the guards to pay no attention when the three visitors set off the metal detector alarm, and he preceded them into the bowels of the prison, their steps resounding down the corridors. They went through three security doors and finally the director took out a key ring, and opened the door to the visiting room.

‘Go ahead. He's waiting for you.'

He walked away quickly. He didn't want to know what was going to happen in there.

‘Good evening, Hugo,' said Servaz as he walked in.

The young man seated at the Formica table raised his head and looked at him, his hands crossed.

Then his gaze shifted to Espérandieu and Ziegler as they came in behind Servaz, and Servaz saw a momentary little gleam of surprise in his blue eyes when he saw the gendarme's face.

‘What's going on? The director got me out of bed and now here you are …'

Servaz made an effort to contain his anger. He sat down and waited for Vincent and Irène to do likewise. All three were on the opposite side of the table facing Hugo. From a strictly legal point
of view, they no longer had the right to interview the kid regarding Claire's death, since he had been indicted. But Servaz had obtained an authorisation from Sartet to talk to him about the investigation into Elvis's murder – a separate case.

‘David is dead,' he said quietly.

He saw the young man wince with pain.

‘How?'

‘He committed suicide. He went the wrong way up the motorway, and his car collided with an articulated lorry. He died on the spot.'

Servaz gave Hugo a piercing look. He could see the kid's sorrow was sincere as he struggled not to cry, his lips twisted as if he had swallowed a box of nails.

‘Did you know he was suicidal?'

Hugo raised his chin. He stared at Servaz, his eyes shining, and nodded.

‘Yes.'

‘For a long time?'

The young man shrugged as if to say, ‘What the fuck does it matter, now?'

‘For as long as I've known David he's been depressive,' he said, his voice flat and mechanical. ‘Even when we were kids, he was always … strange. He would have these sort of black moods … and that sad smile. When he was twelve years old he was already smiling like that.'

Servaz saw him take a sort of deep breath, as if he were preparing to hold his head under water.

‘Sometimes he had unpredictable reactions – he could go from joy to despair in a second. When he was like that, his mates avoided him – but not me. His mother sent him to shrinks for years, until finally he told her to fuck off. It was all the fault of his dirty bastard of a father.' Hugo's words were flowing like lava. ‘And that wanker of a brother. They're the ones who screwed him up. I remember one time when David was fourteen he brought a girl home, a nice girl. His brother got such a kick out of humiliating him in front of her that she never wanted to go to their place ever again or even speak to him. His father wouldn't allow him to read or even have books in his room: he said that reading made you effeminate. His father would brag about how he got where he was without reading a single book in his entire life, even at school.'

‘Had he ever made other suicide attempts?'

‘Yes, several. Once he even tried to stab himself in the stomach with a knife. Like samurais, you know what I mean? That was just after the episode with the girl.'

Servaz remembered the scar beneath his fingers. His throat tightened and he swallowed. Hugo looked at them in turn.

‘Is this why you came to wake me up in the middle of the night? Why all three of you came? To tell me that David was dead?'

‘Not exactly.'

‘They're letting me out tomorrow morning, right?'

Servaz could hear the concern in his voice. He didn't answer.

‘Fuck, David, my brother …' moaned Hugo suddenly. ‘What a shit life you had, my friend …'

‘He did it for you,' said Servaz softly but clearly.

‘What?'

‘I was with him in the car. David confessed to the murders of Claire Diemar and Elvis Elmaz. And of Bertrand Christiaens and Joachim Campos.'

‘Who?'

Good acting
, thought Servaz.
You didn't fall into the trap.

‘Those two names don't mean anything to you?'

Hugo shook his head.

‘Should they?'

‘Those are the names of the fire chief who came to your rescue at Néouvielle lake, and the coach driver.'

‘Oh, right. Now that you mention it—'

‘And Claire Diemar was in the coach that night, too, wasn't she?'

Hugo gave Servaz a strange look. A clap of thunder boomed beyond the window.

‘That's right. She was. You think there's a connection between the accident and her death. You say that David confessed to Claire's murder? Before he killed himself?'

Hugo seemed to be sincerely stunned. The kid was an incredibly good actor.

‘If he committed suicide by crashing into a truck, and you were in the car, how come you're here right now?'

He was staring suspiciously at Servaz. It was all Servaz could do not to lunge at him across the table.

‘Enough now,' said Ziegler calmly.

Hugo swung his gaze around to her.

‘Well done about the notebook idea. It was risky, but clever. First it accused you. Then it made you innocent.'

No answer.

‘I suppose that if the policemen in charge of the investigation hadn't dug further in their search, if they hadn't shown, shall we say, sufficient curiosity and professional conscience, you yourself might have asked for a handwriting examination.'

For a fraction of a second, it was there. The spark. The sign they were waiting for. But it vanished at once.

‘I don't know what the fuck you're talking about! It's not my handwriting in that notebook.'

‘Of course not,' said Servaz. ‘Since it's David's.'

‘So, is it true? He's the one who killed her?'

‘You fucking filthy little bastard,' said Ziegler. ‘Are you the one who asked him to write those words in the notebook, Hugo? Or did he do it on his own initiative?'

‘What? What are you talking about!'

Another flash. Closer. Deep in the prison, someone shouted. A long, painful cry, which ended as soon as it had begun. A guard's footsteps in the corridor. Then silence, once again. But it was never silent for long in prison.

‘Claire slept around quite a bit, didn't she?' said Servaz.

‘Were you jealous?' asked Ziegler.

‘How many did you kill, you and your little friends?' asked Espérandieu.

‘The fire chief, that was you,' said Servaz. ‘Sarah, Virginie, David and you: four people threw him in the water.'

‘And in Joachim Campos's car, a witness saw two men with him. Was it you and David?' suggested Ziegler.

‘Were there two of you there, that night, to kill Claire Diemar?' continued Vincent. ‘The camera filmed two people leaving the pub. Was it you and David then as well? Or did David merely stand guard?'

‘What I don't understand is why you stayed there,' added Servaz. ‘Why take the risk? Why not do what you'd done with the others? Why didn't you disguise her death as an accident or a disappearance? Why did you sit next to her swimming pool? Why?'

Hugo's gaze flickered to each of them in turn in the neon light. Servaz saw doubt, anger and fear in his face. Servaz's phone gave
a double beep in his pocket. A message.
Not now …
He did not take his eyes off Hugo.

‘You have to stop this!' said Hugo finally. ‘Call the director, I want to speak to him! I have nothing to say to you. Get out of here!'

‘Did you kill her all by yourself, Hugo? Or were there several of you? Did David take part?'

Silence.

‘No, I was alone.'

Hugo looked up at them, his eyes thin shining slits. They said nothing. Servaz felt his heart pounding. He knew the others felt the same.

‘I went there to warn her of the danger she was in. I'd been doing lines at the pub, and I'd drunk too much. I knew the others were about to put their plan into action. It was June. And I knew it was her turn, this time. We had talked about it, amongst ourselves.'

He made a little gesture with his hand, just like his mother.

‘I knew she'd been a coward, that night, six years ago. That she left us to our fate, me and the others. But I also knew that she'd been haunted by it ever since. She had told me so. She thought about it all the time, she was obsessed by it. The fact that she'd behaved so badly. “I was afraid, I panicked that night. I was a coward. You should hate me, Hugo.” She said it all the time. “Why are you so kind, so nice to me?” Or else, “Stop loving me, I don't deserve it, I don't deserve all this love, I'm not a good person.” And the tears would stream down her cheeks. And then there were other times when she was the happiest, funniest, most surprising, most marvellous person I've ever met. She could turn every moment into a miracle. I loved her, do you understand?' He paused for a moment, and his voice changed, as if there were two actors sharing a role. ‘I was drunk and completely stoned that night when I left the pub. I went to see her while everyone else was watching the match. I told her about the Circle. In the beginning, she could hardly believe it, she thought I was making it up, that I was drunk; and then when I told her in detail about the death of the driver, she suddenly realised I was telling the truth.'