The Frozen Dead (33 page)

As on the previous occasion, the widow Grimm was waiting at the front door with a cigarette in her hand, a mask of absolute indifference on her face. She stepped back to let him in.

‘At the end of the corridor, the door on the right. I haven't touched a thing.'

Servaz went down a corridor cluttered with furniture, paintings, chairs, knick-knacks and stuffed animals that seemed to be watching him go by. He opened the last door on the right just past a bookshelf. The shutters were closed; the room was bathed in darkness. It smelled stuffy. Servaz opened the window. A little office of nine square metres that looked out onto the woods at the back of the house. An indescribable mess. He had difficulty making his way to the middle of the room. Grimm must have spent most of his time in this study when he was at home. There was even a miniature television opposite an old sagging sofa piled high with binders, files, hunting and fishing magazines, a portable stereo and a microwave oven.

For a few moments he stood in the middle of the room and gazed speechlessly at the chaos of cardboard boxes, furniture, binders, dust.

A burrow, a den …

A
kennel.

Servaz shuddered. Grimm had been living a dog's life with his ice-cold wife.

On the walls were postcards, a calendar and posters depicting mountain lakes and rivers. On top of the wardrobes there were more stuffed animals: a squirrel, several owls, a mallard and even a wild cat. In one corner, Servaz saw a pair of ankle boots. On one of the dressers there were several fishing reels. Had Grimm been a nature lover? An amateur taxidermist? Servaz tried for a moment to put himself in the shoes of the fat man who had locked himself away in this room, his only company a menagerie whose eyes stared glassily into the shadowy light. He could imagine him stuffing himself with leftovers in front of his little television before falling asleep on the sofa, banished to the end of the corridor by the dragon lady he had married thirty years earlier. Servaz began to open the drawers, methodically. In the first one he found pens, bills, lists of medicines, bank statements, credit-card receipts. In the next one there was a pair of binoculars, playing cards still in their original wrapping and several ordnance survey maps.

Then his fingers closed around something at the bottom of the drawer: keys. He took them out into the light. There was one big key for a door lock and two smaller ones for padlocks. Servaz slipped them into his pocket.

In the third drawer he found a collection of fishing flies, hooks and line – and a photograph.

Servaz took it over to the window.

Grimm, Chaperon and two other people.

The photograph was old: Grimm was almost thin, and Chaperon looked fifteen years younger. The four men were sitting on rocks round a campfire, smiling into the lens. Behind them, on the left-hand side of the picture, were two tents, in a clearing surrounded by an autumnal forest; a gently sloping meadow, a lake and mountains were on the right. It was taken at dusk: long shadows stretched from the tall trees to the lake. The smoke from the campfire rose in a spiral in the evening light. A bucolic atmosphere.

An impression of simple happiness and camaraderie. Men who enjoyed getting together to go camping in the mountains, one last time before winter.

Servaz suddenly understood how Grimm had managed to put up with a reclusive life and a wife who despised him: thanks to these moments when he could escape into nature in the company of friends. He had been mistaken: this room was neither a prison nor a kennel; on the contrary, it was a tunnel that led to the outside world. The stuffed animals, the posters, the fishing gear, the magazines: everything was there to remind him of those moments of absolute freedom that must have formed the heart of his existence.

In the photograph the four men were wearing the sort of checked shirts, cardigans and trousers that were in fashion in the 1990s. One of them was holding up a flask that might well contain something besides water; another was looking into the lens with a faint, absent smile, as if his mind were elsewhere, as if this little ceremony did not concern him.

Servaz looked closely at the other two hikers. One was a bearded, jovial giant of a man, the other a tall, fairly thin fellow with a head of thick brown hair and large glasses.

He compared the lake in the photo with the one on the poster on the wall, but could not decide whether it was the same lake from two different angles, or two different lakes.

He turned the photograph over.

Lake Oule, October 1993.

Small, precise handwriting.

He was right. It was fifteen years old. The men would have been roughly his age then. Approaching forty. Did they still have dreams then, or had they already taken stock of their lives? And were their conclusions positive or negative?

They were smiling in the photo, their eyes shining in the soft light of an autumn evening, their faces lined with deep shadows.

But which way lay the truth? Everyone, or almost everyone, smiles for pictures.
Everyone plays a part, nowadays,
thought Servaz;
everyone is influenced by the banal conventions of the global media.
There were even plenty of people who
overacted,
as if they were on stage. Appearances and kitsch had become the norm.

Fascinated, Servaz scrutinised the photograph. Was it important? A vague yet familiar little sign told him it was.

He hesitated, then slid the picture into his pocket.

As he was doing this, he got the feeling he had missed something. A powerful feeling. The impression that his brain had unconsciously noticed something and was now ringing an alarm bell.

He took the photograph back out. Studied each detail. The four smiling men. The tender evening light. The lake. The autumn colours. No, that wasn't it. And yet the feeling was there – distinct, indisputable. Without realising it, he had
seen
something.

And suddenly he understood.

Their hands.

The hands of three of the four men were visible: each of them was wearing a large gold signet ring on his ring finger.

The picture had been taken from too far away to be sure, but Servaz could have sworn that it was the same ring each time.

The ring that should have been on Grimm's severed finger.

*   *   *

He left the room. Music filled the house. Jazz. Servaz went back up the corridor towards the source of the music, and came out into an equally cluttered sitting room. The widow was sitting in an armchair, reading. She raised her head and gave him a supremely hostile look. Servaz dangled the keys before her.

‘Do you know what these open?'

She hesitated for a moment, as if wondering what she risked if she said nothing.

‘We have a cabin in the Sospel valley,' she said finally. ‘Ten kilometres from here. To the south of Saint-Martin … Not far from the Spanish border. But we only went there … rather, my husband only went there on weekends, starting in the spring.'

‘Your husband? And you?'

‘It's a gloomy place. I never set foot there. My husband went there to be alone, to rest, meditate, go fishing.'

To rest,
thought Servaz.
Since when do chemists need to rest? Don't they have their assistants to do all the drudgery?
Then he thought he was being mean-spirited: what did he know, in the end, about that profession? One thing was certain: he had to visit the chalet.

*   *   *

Espérandieu got an answer to his message thirty-eight minutes later. Fine rain was streaking the windowpanes. Night had fallen over Toulouse, and the blurry lights beyond the streaming window looked like a screensaver.

Vincent had sent the following message:

From [email protected] to [email protected], 16:33:54:

Do you know anything about Éric Lombard?

From [email protected] to [email protected], 17:12:44:

What do you want to know?

Espérandieu smiled and typed the following message:

Whether there are any skeletons in the closet, scandals that have been hushed up, lawsuits pending against the Lombard Group in France or abroad. Any rumours about him. Any nasty old rumour.

From [email protected] to [email protected], 17:25:06:

Is that all! Can you log on to msn?

The valley was buried in shadows and Servaz had switched on his headlights. The road was deserted. No one would be wandering around here at this time of year. There were twenty or so chalets and houses along the twelve kilometres of river, summer houses whose shutters were open from May to September, and, more rarely, at Christmas. At this time of day, they were nothing more than low shapes hunched down at the side of the road, almost merging with the huge black mass of the mountain.

Suddenly after a wide bend, Servaz saw the beginning of the track the widow had told him about. He slowed down, turned into it and found himself bouncing along the road, clinging to the steering wheel, going fifteen kilometres an hour. Night had fallen and the black trees stood out against a sky that was only slightly lighter. Servaz went a few hundred metres further; then the chalet appeared.

He turned off the engine, left the lights on and got out. The sound of the nearby river immediately filled the darkness. There wasn't a single light for miles.

He walked up to the cabin in the blaze of his headlights, which projected his shadow ahead of him as if a giant made of darkness were leading the way. Then he climbed the steps to the veranda and took out the key ring. There were indeed three locks: the central lock corresponded to the biggest key, and the two smaller ones were for the locks above and below. It took him a moment to figure out which key went where, particularly as the small ones were the same size, and the top lock had been put on backwards. Then he shoved open the door, which resisted before yielding with a groan. Servaz groped around for the light switch near the doorway. He found it on the left. He switched it on and the light poured from the ceiling.

For a few seconds he stood motionless on the threshold, transfixed by what he saw.

The inside of the cabin was nothing more than a countertop running along one wall, with what might be a kitchenette behind, a sofa bed at the back and a wooden table and two chairs. But hanging on the wall on the left was a cape made of black waterproof cloth.
He was getting closer.

*   *   *

Espérandieu opened his instant messaging service. He waited three minutes before a message accompanied by an icon of a cartoon dog sniffing something popped up in the lower right-hand corner of the screen:

kleim162 has just logged on

A dialogue box with the same icon opened three seconds later.

kleim162 said:

why are you interested in Éric Lombard?

vince.esp said:

sorry can't tell you just now

kleim162 said:

I just dug around a bit before logging on. Someone killed his horse. The info was reported in several papers. Any connection?

vince.esp said:

no comment

kleim162 said:

vince you're in the crime unit. Don't tell me you're investigating the death of a horse!!!!

vince.esp said:

will you help me or not???

kleim162 said:

what's in it for me?

vince.esp said:

a friend's affection

kleim162 said:

we'll talk about cuddles some other time. And besides that?

vince.esp said:

you'll be the first to hear what the investigation turns up

kleim162 said:

so there is an investigation. That all?

vince.esp said:

the first to hear if this business is hiding something more important

kleim162 said:

ok I'll have a look

Espérandieu logged out with a smile.

‘Kleim162' was the user name of an investigative journalist who worked freelance for several major weekly magazines. A veritable ferret who loved to stick his nose where it was not welcome. Espérandieu had met him in rather unusual circumstances, and he had never spoken of this ‘contact' with anyone, not even Martin. Officially, he was like the other members of the squad: wary of the press. But his secret opinion was that cops, like politicians, could only gain – significantly – by having one or two journalists up their sleeve.

*   *   *

Sitting at the wheel of his Jeep, Servaz dialled Ziegler's mobile. He got her voicemail and hung up. Then he called Espérandieu.

‘I found a photograph at Grimm's place,' he said. ‘I'd like you to rework it.'

The squad had image-processing software, but Espérandieu and Samira were the only ones who knew how to use it.

‘What kind of photograph? Digital or analogue?'

‘Paper. An old print showing a group of men. One of them is Grimm, and another is Chaperon, the mayor of Saint-Martin. It looks as if all the men are wearing the same signet ring. It's slightly blurry, but there's something engraved on it. I'd like you to try and see what it is.'

‘You think it might be some sort of club, like the Rotary or the Freemasons?'

‘I don't know, but—'

‘
The severed ring finger,
' his assistant suddenly remembered.

‘Exactly.'

‘Right, can you scan it and send it to me from the gendarmerie? I'll take a look. But the software is primarily for dealing with digital photos. It's not as efficient with old ones.'

Servaz thanked him. He was about to drive off when his mobile rang. It was Ziegler.

‘Did you call?'

‘I found something,' he said straight out. ‘In a cabin belonging to Grimm.'

‘A cabin?'

‘The widow told me about it. I found the keys in Grimm's desk. Evidently, she never went there. You have to see it…'