The Frozen Dead (27 page)

‘Of course,' she said, clenching her teeth.

She was all alone at her table. Obviously no one had felt like inviting her to join them. From time to time she caught people looking her way. Once again she wondered what Dr Xavier had said about her.

‘Uh, I'd like to say sorry about yesterday,' said Alex, sitting down. ‘I was probably a little abrupt. I don't know why. You had the right to ask those questions, after all. Please accept my apologies.'

She eyed him. He seemed genuinely contrite. She nodded uncomfortably. She didn't want to discuss it any more. Or even hear him apologise.

‘No problem. I'd already forgotten about it.'

‘So much the better. You must think I'm odd.'

‘Not at all. My questions were actually fairly … impertinent.'

‘That's true,' he said with a laugh. ‘You were never at a loss for words.'

He bit deep into his croissant.

‘What happened down in the valley yesterday?' she asked, to change the subject. ‘I overheard some conversation; apparently something terrible happened.'

‘A man was found dead, a chemist from Saint-Martin.'

‘How did he die?'

‘They found him hanging underneath a bridge.'

‘Oh! I see…'

‘Mmm,' he went, his mouth full.

‘What a horrible way for someone to kill himself!'

He looked up and swallowed the mouthful he was chewing on.

‘It wasn't suicide.'

‘It wasn't?'

He looked deep into her eyes.

‘Murder.'

She wondered if he were joking. She studied his expression with a smile. Apparently not. Her smile vanished. She felt a chill between her shoulder blades.

‘That's horrible! Are they sure?'

‘Yes,' he said, leaning towards her in order to be heard without raising his voice, despite all the noise around them. ‘And that's not everything…'

He leaned even closer. She thought his face was a bit too near. She withdrew slightly, not wanting to cause rumours when she had only just arrived.

‘According to what I heard, he was naked, except for a cape and a pair of boots. And he'd been beaten, tortured. Rico found him. He's a writer, he does graphic novels, and every morning he goes running.'

Diane digested the information in silence. A murder in the valley, an insane crime, only a few kilometres from the Institute …

‘I know what you're thinking,' he said.

‘Oh, really?'

‘You're thinking it sounds mad, and this place is full of crazy murderers.'

‘Yes.'

‘It's impossible to get out of here.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes.'

‘No one has ever escaped?'

‘No.' He swallowed another mouthful. ‘And anyway, there's no one missing.'

She took a sip of her cappuccino and wiped the chocolate from her lips with a paper napkin.

‘Well, that makes me feel better already,' she said jokingly.

This time, Alex gave a hearty laugh.

‘Yes, I know it must be depressing enough under normal circumstances to be here when you're new. So to have a horrible event like this on top of everything else … It's not the sort of thing that will help you relax, is it? I'm sorry to have been the bearer of bad news.'

‘Just as long as you're not the one who killed him.'

He laughed even louder, so loud that a few people turned to look.

‘Is that Swiss humour? I love it!'

She smiled. Between the way he had stalked out the day before and his good mood today, she still did not know what to make of him. But on the whole he seemed likable enough. With a nod of her head, she pointed to the people around them.

‘I was rather hoping that Dr Xavier would introduce me to all the staff. So far he's done no such thing. It won't be easy to fit in if no one extends a hand.'

He enfolded her with a friendly look and slowly nodded his head.

‘I understand. Listen, here's what I suggest: I can't do it this morning, I have a staff meeting with my therapeutic team. But a bit later on I'll take you round and introduce you to the rest of the team.'

‘That would be very kind of you.'

‘It's only right. I don't even understand why Xavier or Lisa haven't done it.'

Good question, indeed,
she thought.

*   *   *

The pathologist and Dr Cavalier were cutting off one of the boots with the help of post-mortem rib shears and a sharp hook retractor.

‘By the look of it, these boots did not belong to the victim,' announced Delmas. ‘At least three sizes too small. They were rammed on by force. I don't know how long the poor man wore them, but it must have been quite painful. Although not as bad as what was coming.'

Espérandieu looked at him, his notebook in his hand.

‘Why would they make him wear boots that were too small?' he asked.

‘That's for you to find out. Perhaps they simply wanted to make him wear boots and didn't have any others available.'

‘But then why strip him, remove his shoes and then put on the boots?'

The pathologist shrugged and turned his back in order to place the cut-up boot on a work surface. He then picked up a magnifying glass and a pair of pliers and painstakingly removed the tiny gravel and blades of grass which were sticking to the mud and rubber. He dropped the samples into a series of little cylindrical boxes. After that, he picked up the boots and hesitated conspicuously between a black bin liner and a large brown paper bag. In the end, he opted for the paper bag. Espérandieu shot him a questioning look.

‘Why have I chosen this one? Because the mud on the boots may look dry, but it probably isn't completely. Damp exhibits must never be kept in plastic bags: the humidity could cause mould to form that would destroy biological evidence.'

Delmas walked round the autopsy table. He went closer to the severed finger with the magnifying glass in his hand.

‘It's been cut with a sharp, rusty tool: shears or secateurs. And it was cut while the victim was still alive. Hand me those pliers, and a bag,' he said to Espérandieu.

Espérandieu complied. Delmas labelled the bag, threw the last scraps into one of the bins lined up against the wall, then removed his gloves with a loud snap.

‘We've finished. There's no doubt it was mechanical asphyxia which killed Grimm – hanging, in other words. I will forward these samples to the gendarmerie's lab in Rosny-sous-Bois, as Captain Ziegler requested.'

‘What are the odds, in your opinion, that two heavies could have been behind the whole gruesome thing?'

The pathologist stared at Espérandieu.

‘I don't like guesswork,' he said. ‘I work with facts. Speculation is your department. What sort of heavies?'

‘Night watchmen. Two blokes who've already been convicted of assault and petty trafficking. Thugs with no imagination, no brains and a tank full to overflowing of male hormones.'

‘If they're like that, I would say about as much chance as seeing all the macho idiots in this country suddenly twig that cars are more dangerous than firearms. But I'll say it again, it's up to you to draw your own conclusions.'

*   *   *

The heavy snow made it seem like they were driving into an enormous cream cake. As if with the wave of a magic wand, the winter had transformed the thick vegetation, turning the end of the valley into a filigree of tightly woven spiders' webs of ice. The stream ran between two folds of snow.

Dug into the very rock, protected by a solid safety barrier, the road embraced the contours of the mountain and was so narrow that Servaz wondered what they would do if they met an oncoming truck.

Ziegler suddenly slowed down and pulled over to the other side of the road, into a layby with a parapet over the frozen slopes.

‘What's going on?' asked Confiant.

Without replying she opened her door and got out. She went over to the edge and the other three joined her.

‘Look,' she said.

They turned their gaze in the direction she was pointing and saw the buildings in the distance.

‘My goodness, it's creepy,' exclaimed Propp. ‘It looks like a medieval prison.'

The part of the valley where they were standing was still immersed in the blue shadow of the mountain, while higher up the buildings were drenched in yellow morning light flowing from the peaks like a glacier. It was an incredibly wild and solitary place, but also so beautiful that Servaz was left speechless. That same titanic architecture he had found at the power plant: he wondered what the buildings had been used for before the Wargnier Institute took them over. Because it was obvious that they dated from the same glorious era as the plant and its underground facility, an era when walls and structures were built to last for centuries. When less thought was given to immediate gain than to a job well done; when a company was judged less for its financial prowess than for the grandeur of its accomplishments.

‘I am finding it harder and harder to believe that someone could escape from that place and want to go back,' added the psychologist.

Servaz turned to him. He had just had the same thought. Then he looked for Confiant and saw him a few metres away, talking into his mobile. Servaz wondered whom he needed to call at such a time.

The young magistrate closed his mobile and walked over.

‘Let's go,' he said.

A kilometre further along, after yet another tunnel, they left the valley road for one that was even narrower, and which crossed the torrent before it climbed up through the first trees. Beneath the heavy layer of snow it was hard to tell the new road from the drifts on the verge, but several vehicles had left their tracks. Servaz counted up to ten, then stopped counting. He wondered if the road led anywhere else besides the Institute, and he had his answer two kilometres further along, when they came out in front of the buildings: the road went no further.

They slammed their doors and silence fell once again. As if they were in the grip of a respectful fear, they remained. It was very cold and Servaz burrowed further into his jacket.

Built on the flattest part of the slope, the Institute dominated the upper sector of the valley. The narrow windows looked onto the mountain across the way, with its immense wooded slopes, crowned with dizzying cliffs of rock and snow.

Then he saw, several hundred metres higher up the mountain, the gendarmes in their winter cloaks, talking into walkie-talkies while staring back down at them through their binoculars.

A little man in a white lab coat burst out of the Institute and came to meet them. Servaz glanced at his companions in surprise. Confiant made a gesture of apology.

‘I took it upon myself to notify Dr Xavier,' said the examining magistrate. ‘He's a friend.'

14

Dr Xavier seemed delighted to have visitors. He walked across the little snow-covered path, his arms spread wide.

‘You've come at an awkward time. We're in the middle of a staff meeting. Every Monday I convene one meeting after the other with the different therapeutic teams from the care units: all the doctors, nurses, auxiliaries and social workers.'

But his broad smile seemed to imply that he was not sorry he'd had to put an abrupt end to one of the boring meetings. He shook the magistrate's hand with particular warmth.

‘It's taken this terrible incident for you to come at last to see me at work.'

Dr Xavier was a little man, still young, impeccably turned out. Servaz noticed the trendy necktie under his lab coat. He could not stop smiling, gazing indulgently at the two detectives, his expression both kindly and sparkling with humour. Servaz was immediately on the alert: he was instinctively wary of elegant people who smiled too much.

He looked up at the high walls. The Institute consisted of two huge four-storey buildings that formed a T shape – a T where the horizontal bar was three times as long as the vertical one. He studied the rows of narrow windows in the grey stone walls – so thick they could probably withstand the attack of a rocket launcher. One thing was certain: it was unlikely the residents could escape by tunnelling through the walls.

‘We've come in order to determine the odds that one of your residents might have got out,' said Confiant to the psychiatrist.

‘That's completely impossible,' replied Xavier without a shadow of hesitation. ‘And besides, there is no one missing.'

‘We know,' said Servaz.

‘I don't understand,' said the psychiatrist, disconcerted. ‘If that's the case, then why are you here?'

‘We suspect that one of your residents was able to get out, kill Éric Lombard's horse, then get back into his cell,' said Ziegler.

The psychiatrist's eyes narrowed.

‘You can't be serious?'

‘That's just what I thought,' Confiant hastened to say, giving the two investigators a harsh look. ‘It's totally absurd. But they want to make sure, all the same.'

Servaz felt as if he had been given an electric shock: not only had the young judge alerted Xavier without telling them, but now he had just criticised their work in front of him too.

‘Were you thinking of anyone in particular?' asked Xavier.

‘Julian Hirtmann,' replied Servaz tonelessly.

The psychiatrist looked at him, but this time he said nothing. He merely shrugged and turned on his heels.

‘Follow me.'

The entrance was a triple-glass door at the top of three steps.

‘Every visitor who comes here, and all staff members, go through this entrance,' explained Xavier as he went up the steps. ‘There are four emergency exits on the ground floor and one in the basement: two on the side at either end of the central corridor, one by the kitchen, another in the annexe after the gym room – but it is impossible to open them from the outside, and from the inside you need a special key. They do unlock automatically, however, in the case of a major fire. And only then.'