The Frozen Dead (39 page)

It was increasingly obvious that she was being reckless. Why hadn't she stayed in her room?

Suddenly she heard the creak of a metal door; then it closed again and she found herself in complete darkness. As if she had suddenly been blinded. She was completely disoriented. She could not see her body, or her feet, or her hands … nothing but black on black. An impenetrable obscurity. The blood was pounding in her ears, and she tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. She turned this way and that, in vain. There was still a dull hum from the ventilation, and water running somewhere, but these sounds seemed as far away and useless to her as a foghorn to a ship sinking on a stormy night. Then she remembered that she always kept her phone in her jeans pocket. She reached for it with a trembling hand. The light from the screen was even dimmer than she had feared. It hardly lit her fingertips. She started moving until the pitiful halo found something else to light besides her own hand: a wall. Or at least a few square centimetres of concrete. She followed the wall slowly for several minutes, until she saw a light switch. The neon lights flickered, then spread electric daylight through the basement, and she rushed towards the place where she had heard the door slam. It was identical to the one she had come through earlier. She pulled back the security bolt, then paused to consider the fact that once she was on the other side there would be no way for her to go back. She took several steps back until she found a board lying among the scrap, and wedged it in the door once she had gone through.

A stairway and a window. She recognised them at once. She had already been here. She went up the first few steps, then stopped. There was no need to go any further. At the top there was a camera that she knew. And a thick armoured security door, with a window.

Someone was going into Unit A every night.

Someone was using the service stairs and basement to avoid the cameras. Except for the one above the armoured door … Diane's palms were damp, her guts tied in a knot. She knew what this meant: whoever it was had an accomplice among the guards in Unit A.

Then she told herself that perhaps it was nothing. Perhaps there were staff members who, instead of sleeping, were playing poker unbeknown to everyone else; perhaps one of the staff was having a clandestine affair with Mr Atlas. But deep down she knew it was something else altogether. She had heard too much. She was in a place where death and madness reigned. Except that neither one was under control the way she had expected: inexplicably, they had managed to escape from their box. Something sinister was going on here, and whether she liked it or not, by coming to the Institute, she had entered the game.

18

By the time Servaz parked outside the gendarmerie the snow was falling thick and fast. The officer at the duty desk was dozing. They had already lowered the shutters and he had to raise them again to let Servaz in. Holding the heavy box out in front of him, Servaz headed for the incident room; the corridors were silent and deserted. It was almost midnight.

‘In here,' said a voice just as he was walking past a door.

He stopped and looked through the open door. Irène Ziegler was sitting at a little desk in the half-light. Only one lamp was lit. Ziegler yawned and stretched. She must have fallen asleep while waiting for him. She looked at the box, then smiled. At this late hour, he found her smile charming.

‘What's all that?'

‘A box.'

‘I can see that. What's in it?'

‘Everything about the suicides.'

There was a gleam of surprise and interest in her green eyes.

‘Saint-Cyr gave it to you?'

‘Want a coffee?' he asked, putting the heavy box on the nearest desk.

‘Espresso, with sugar. Thanks.'

He went out to the coffee machine at the end of the corridor, and came back with two polystyrene cups.

‘Here, Irène,' he said.

She looked at him, surprised.

‘I think it's time we called each other by our first names, no?' he said, by way of an apology, thinking of how informal the judge had been with him. Why the devil shouldn't he be the same? Was it the late hour, or the smile she had just given him that had suddenly prompted him to take the initiative?

He saw Ziegler smile again.

‘All right. So, how was dinner? Informative, it seems.'

‘You go first.'

‘No, you go first.'

He perched on the edge of the desk and saw she'd been playing patience on the computer. Then he began his story. Ziegler listened with interest, without interrupting.

‘What an incredible story,' she said when he had finished.

‘I'm surprised you've never heard about it.'

She frowned and blinked.

‘It does sound vaguely familiar. A few articles in the papers, perhaps. Or conversations between my parents at dinner. May I remind you that I hadn't joined the gendarmerie yet. In fact, at the time I was probably about the same age as the victims.'

It suddenly occurred to him that he knew nothing about her. Not even where she lived. And that she knew nothing about him, either. For a week now, all their conversations had been about the investigation.

‘But you live not far from here,' he insisted.

‘My parents lived fifteen kilometres or so from Saint-Martin, in another valley. I didn't go to school here. When you were young, if you were from another valley, it was like being from another world. Fifteen kilometres for a kid is like a thousand for an adult: every teenager has his or her territory. At the time of the events I was taking the school bus twenty kilometres further west – I went to the lycée in Lannemezan, forty kilometres from here. Then I studied law in Pau. Now that you mention it, I do remember schoolyard gossip about these suicides. I suppose I blocked it out.'

He sensed that she didn't like talking about her youth and he wondered why.

‘It would be interesting to get Propp's opinion,' he said.

‘His opinion about what?'

‘About why your memory blocked it.'

She gave him a wry look.

‘And this business with the suicides: is there any connection with Grimm?'

‘There might not be any, no.'

‘So why is it of interest?'

‘Grimm's murder seems like revenge, and something or someone drove those children to put an end to their lives. There were charges brought years ago against Grimm, Perrault and Chaperon for some business involving sexual blackmail … If we put the pieces together, what do we get?'

Servaz suddenly felt something like an electric charge go through him:
they were on to something.
It was there, within reach. The dark heart of the story, the critical mass – from which everything radiated. Somewhere, hidden behind a blind spot … He felt the adrenaline rushing through his veins.

‘I suggest we start by having a look at what's in this box,' he said with a slight tremor in his voice.

‘Shall we get going?' she asked, but it was hardly a question.

He saw the same hope and excitement on her face. He checked his watch; it was almost one o'clock in the morning.

‘All right. And the blood,' he added, abruptly changing the subject, ‘where exactly did they find it?'

She looked troubled.

‘On the bridge, not far from where the chemist was strung up.'

They sat for a few moments without speaking.

‘Blood,' he said again. ‘It seems impossible.'

‘The lab is categorical.'

‘Blood … as if—'

‘As if Hirtmann had hurt himself while hanging up Grimm's body.'

*   *   *

Ziegler took over. She rummaged about in the box full of folders, binders, notepads and administrative correspondence until she unearthed a file entitled
Summary.
Obviously, it had been written by Saint-Cyr himself; the judge had legible, fine, quick handwriting, the very opposite of a doctor's scribble. Servaz saw that he had summed up the various stages of the investigation with remarkable clarity. Ziegler used the summary in order to find her way through the jumble. She began by removing the different elements and spreading them into small piles: autopsy reports, summaries of hearings, interviews with parents, the list of exhibits, letters found in the adolescents' homes. Saint-Cyr had photocopied all the documents relative to the case, for his personal use. In addition to the photocopies there were press cuttings, Post-its, loose pages, for each adolescent a map indicating where the suicide had been committed, but also mysterious itineraries made of arrows and red circles, school reports, class photos, notes scribbled on scraps of paper, toll receipts.

Servaz was dumbfounded. Clearly the old judge had made this case into a personal crusade. Like other investigators before him, he had allowed himself to become completely obsessed by the mystery. Did he really hope to uncover the true story in his home, when he would have nothing else to do and could devote all his time to it?

Then they found another even more troubling document: the list of the seven victims, with their photographs and the dates of their suicides.

2 May 1993: Alice Ferrand, 16

17 June 1993: Michaël Lehmann, 17

29 June 1993: Ludovic Asselin, 16

5 September 1993: Marion Dutilleul, 15

24 December 1993: Séverine Guérin, 18

16 April 1994: Damien Llaume, 16

9 July 1994: Florian Vanloot, 17

‘Sweet Jesus.'

His hand was trembling when he spread them out on the desk in the halo of light: seven photographs stapled to seven little index cards that Ziegler had handed to him. Seven smiling faces. Some were facing the camera; others were looking away. He glanced over at his colleague. Standing next to him, she seemed distraught. Servaz focused again on the faces before him. He could feel his throat tighten.

Ziegler handed him half of the autopsy reports and immersed herself in the other half. For a while they read in silence. Unsurprisingly, the reports concluded that the cause of death was hanging, except in the case of one victim, who threw herself from the top of a mountain, and that of the boy who was under surveillance yet managed to electrocute himself in the bath. The pathologists had not discovered anything unusual, no grey areas; the ‘crime' scenes were perfectly straightforward; everything confirmed that each teenager had gone alone to the place of death and had acted alone. Four of the autopsies had been carried out by Delmas and the rest by another pathologist whom Servaz knew and who was equally competent. After the autopsies, they went on to the house-to-house enquiries. The purpose had been to learn more about the victims' personalities, independent of the parents' testimonies. As always, there were a few examples of sordid or malicious gossip, but, on the whole, the portraits they drew were of typical adolescents, except in the case of one difficult boy, Ludovic Asselin, who had been known to be violent with friends and rebellious towards authority. The most moving testimonies were those regarding Alice Ferrand, the first victim, whom everyone seemed to adore. Servaz looked at her photograph: curly hair the colour of ripe wheat, porcelain skin, staring at the camera with lovely, serious eyes. A very pretty face, where every detail seemed to have been sculpted with precision; the face of a lovely young girl of sixteen – but her expression was that of a much older person. A gaze full of intelligence. There was something else there, too … or was it his imagination?

By three o'clock in the morning they were showing the strain. Servaz decided to take a break. He went down the corridor and into the toilets, and splashed some cold water over his face. Then he stood up straight and looked at himself in the mirror; one of the neon lights was flickering and crackling, casting a gloomy light onto the row of doors behind him. He had had too much to eat and drink at Saint-Cyr's; he was exhausted and it was obvious. He went into one of the stalls, relieved himself, rinsed his hands and dried them. On his way back he stopped at the vending machine.

‘Want a coffee?' he shouted down the deserted corridor.

His voice echoed in the silence. The answer came to him through the open door at the far end.

‘Espresso! With sugar, thanks!'

He wondered if there was anyone else in the building, apart from the two of them and the officer at the duty desk. He knew the gendarmes had their lodgings in another wing. He carried the coffee across the dark cafeteria, weaving his way among the round tables painted yellow, red and blue. Beyond the picture window protected by a diamond-shaped metal grille the snow was falling silently into a little garden. Neatly trimmed hedges, a sandbox and a plastic slide for the children of the gendarmes who lived there. Past the garden there were white fields, and in the distance, stark against the black sky, the mountains. Once again he thought of the Institute and its inmates. And Hirtmann …
his blood on the bridge.
What did it mean? ‘There is always one detail that doesn't fit,' Saint-Cyr had said. Sometimes it was important, sometimes not …

*   *   *

It was five thirty in the morning when Servaz leaned back in his office chair and declared that that was enough. Ziegler looked exhausted. The frustration was legible on her face. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing in the file to give credence to the theory of sexual abuse. Not the slightest embryo of a clue. In his final report, Saint-Cyr had reached the same conclusion. In the margin, in pencil, he had written: ‘
Sexual abuse? No proof.
' But all the same he had underlined the question, twice. At one point Servaz had been tempted to mention the holiday camp to Ziegler, but he'd given up on the idea. He was too tired; he simply didn't have the strength.

Ziegler checked her watch.

‘I don't think we're going to get anywhere tonight. We should go and get some sleep.'

‘Fine by me. I'm going back to the hotel. Meet you in the incident room at ten o'clock. Where are you staying?'