The Frozen Dead (59 page)

Espérandieu looked at his watch – a quarter to three – and took Servaz's phone. He was on the line with Samira for a good ten minutes. Then he hung up and turned to his boss. Next to him, his head against the door, Servaz was sound asleep.

25

The camp bed creaked when he sat up, swung his legs out from under the blankets and put his bare feet on the cold tiles. A tiny, unfurnished room. As he gave a yawn and switched on the bedside lamp, Servaz remembered that he had been dreaming about Charlène Espérandieu: they had been making love in a hospital corridor while the doctors and nurses walked past them, oblivious.
On the hospital floor?
He looked down at his morning erection, and burst out laughing from the strangeness of the situation. He found his watch, which had slid under the bed; it was six o'clock in the morning. He reached for the clean clothes that had been laid out on a chair. The shirt was too big, but the trousers were the right length. Servaz headed for the showers at the end of the corridor. Ziegler had been placed under constant surveillance, and he preferred to sleep at the gendarmerie rather than the hotel, to keep an eye on the operation.

The showers were deserted. There was a nasty draught, spoiling the feeble efforts of a radiator. Servaz knew that the gendarmes slept in the other wing, where they had their own accommodation; these premises did not get used very often. Which didn't stop him from swearing when he turned on the hot water tap and a trickle, scarcely lukewarm, condescended to emerge from the shower head.

Every movement he made caused him to wince in pain. He started thinking. He felt certain that Irène Ziegler was guilty, but there were still some grey areas, some doors to open in the long corridor that led to the truth. Ziegler had surely been raped by the four men, along with other women in the region. The books he had seen in her flat were proof that the trauma was still raw. Grimm and Perrault had been killed for what they had done – but why had they been hanged? Because of the suicide victims? Or was there another reason? There was one detail that obsessed him: Chaperon had fled as if he had the devil on his heels. Did he know who the assassin was?

Servaz tried to reassure himself: Ziegler was being watched, and they knew where Chaperon was hiding – they held all the cards.

It might have been the icy air, or the water that was getting colder by the second, or the memory of his head imprisoned in a plastic bag – for whatever reason, he could not stop trembling. In the deserted shower room, he felt pure fear.

*   *   *

He was waiting in the incident room with his coffee when the others started to arrive. Maillard, Confiant, Cathy d'Humières, Espérandieu and two other members of the squad – Pujol and Simeoni, the narrow-minded heavies who had it in for Vincent. Everyone sat down and checked their notes before they began and the room was filled with the sound of shuffling paper. Servaz observed their pale, tired faces; they were all on edge. The tension was palpable. He wrote a few words on his pad while waiting for everyone to get ready; then he began.

He summed up the situation. When he told them what had happened to him at the holiday camp, a heavy silence fell. Pujol and Simeoni were watching him closely. Both of them seemed to be thinking that it would never have happened to them. Perhaps it was true. They might well represent the worst side of the profession, but they were good in tough situations.

Then he began to detail Ziegler's guilt, and this time it was Maillard who went pale. The atmosphere was heavy. For the cops to suspect a gendarme of murder – this was a recipe for all sorts of conflict.

‘I don't like the sound of this at all,' said d'Humières soberly.

He had rarely seen her looking so wan. Her careworn features gave her a sickly complexion. He glanced at his watch. Eight o'clock. Ziegler would be getting up soon. As if to confirm his thoughts, his mobile rang.

‘We're on – she's getting up,' said Samira Cheung on the line.

‘Pujol,' he said at once, ‘get over there with Samira. Ziegler has just woken up. And I want a third car for backup. She's one of us, so I don't want her to spot you. Simeoni, you take the third car. Don't follow too closely. Besides, we know where she's headed. It would be better to lose her than have her find out you're following her.'

Pujol and Simeoni left the room without a word. Servaz got up and went over to the large map of the region on the wall. For a moment his gaze went back and forth between his pad and the map; then he stabbed his finger on the exact spot. He turned and looked at his colleagues.

‘There.'

*   *   *

A twist of smoke rose from a chimney on the moss-covered roof of the hut. Servaz looked around him. Grey clouds were draped over the wooded slopes. The air smelled of damp, fog, mulch and wood smoke. Below the spot where they stood, they could see the cabin down in the hollow of a small snow-filled valley, accessible by a single path. Out of sight, three gendarmes and a park ranger were keeping watch on the approach. Servaz turned to Espérandieu and Maillard, who replied with a nod; accompanied by a dozen men or more, they began to head slowly downhill.

Suddenly they stopped. A man had just come out of the hut. He stretched in the morning light, sniffed the air, spat on the ground, and they could hear him let out a fart as loud as a shepherd's horn. Oddly, a bird with a mocking cackle called out in reply. The man looked round one last time, then went back inside.

Servaz recognised him instantly, in spite of the beard.

Chaperon.

They reached the clearing behind the cabin. The humidity was like a Turkish bath, although not nearly as warm. Servaz looked at the others; they split into two groups. They moved slowly forward, sinking into the snow up to their knees, then crouched down below eye level to go round to the front door. Servaz was leading the first group. Just as he went round the corner to the front of the hut, the door opened. Servaz stepped backwards, his gun in his hand. He saw Chaperon take three steps, undo his flies and piss copiously into the snow, humming a little tune.

‘Finish pissing and get your hands in the air, Pavarotti,' said Servaz behind him.

The mayor swore: he had just splattered his shoes.

*   *   *

Diane had spent a hell of a night. She had woken up bathed in sweat four times, with such a feeling of oppression that it was as if she was wearing a corset. The sheets, too, were soaked. She wondered if she had caught something.

She remembered having a nightmare: she was bound up in a straitjacket, tied to the bed in one of the cells in the Institute and surrounded by a horde of patients touching her face with damp hands. She was shaking her head and screaming, until her cell door opened and Julian Hirtmann came in, a nasty smile on his lips. A moment later Diane was no longer in her cell but in a much vaster space, out of doors; it was night time, there was a lake and fires, and thousands of huge insects with birds' heads were crawling on the dark ground, and she could see the naked bodies of men and women fucking, hundreds of them in the reddish glow of the flames. Hirtmann was one of them and Diane understood that he had organised this gigantic orgy. She panicked when she discovered that she was naked, too, on her bed, still tied up but without the straitjacket – and she struggled until she woke up.

She stood under the shower for a long while, trying to get rid of the sticky sensation left by her dream.

Now she was wondering how she should behave. Every time she thought of speaking to Xavier she remembered the shipment of veterinary anaesthetics and felt ill at ease. Was she throwing herself into the lion's jaws? It was like one of those 3-D photographs, where the picture changes depending on how you hold it: she could not keep the image stable. What was the psychiatrist's role in all of this?

Judging by the clues she had at her disposal, Xavier seemed to be in the same situation: he knew from the cops that someone at the Institute was involved in the murders, and he was trying to find out who. Except that he was ahead of her, and had a host of information she did not. But then only a few days before the animal's death he had received a shipment of drugs used to put a horse to sleep. Which always led her back to the same point: two completely contradictory facts, and yet both were true. Could it be that Xavier had merely passed the anaesthetics on to someone else, without knowing what was going to happen? In that case, the person's name should have shown up in her search. Diane just didn't get it.

Who were Irène Ziegler and Gaspard Ferrand? By the looks of it, two people connected to the Les Isards holiday camp. Like Lisa Ferney … That was where she should start. The only concrete lead she had: the head nurse.

*   *   *

Servaz went into the cabin. A low sloping roof: the top of his head touched the ceiling. At the back was an unmade bunk with white sheets and a brown blanket, and a soiled pillow. There was a big woodstove, whose black pipe vanished into the roof; next to it was a pile of logs. Under the window, a sink and a little countertop; a burner, connected no doubt to a gas bottle. A book of crossword puzzles lay open on the table next to a beer bottle and an overflowing ashtray; a storm lamp was hanging directly above. There was a smell of wood smoke, tobacco, beer and, above all, stale sweat. There was no shower. He wondered how Chaperon managed to get washed.

This is what's left of those bastards: two corpses and a pathetic bloke who's gone to earth like a stinking rat.

He opened the cupboards, slid his hand under the mattress, searched the pockets of the jacket hanging behind the door. Inside it he found keys, a change purse and a wallet. He opened the wallet and found an ID card, a chequebook, a national insurance card, a Visa and an American Express. In the purse he found €800 in €20 and €50 notes. Then he opened the drawer, where he found the gun and the bullets.

He went back outside.

*   *   *

In less than five minutes, the men had taken their positions. Ten of them around the cabin and in the woods; six others at strategic points above the valley and overlooking the path, so they would see her arrive; all of them as stocky as Playmobil figurines in their Kevlar jackets. Servaz and Espérandieu waited inside the hut with Chaperon.

‘What the fuck,' said the mayor. ‘If you've got nothing on me, I'm out of here. You can't hold me against my will.'

‘As you like,' said Servaz. ‘If you want to end up like your friends, you're free to go. But we're confiscating the gun. And the moment you take a step out of here, you'll have no protection – spies who lose their cover call it being “in the cold”.'

Chaperon shot him a look full of hatred, weighed the pros and cons, shrugged and slumped back onto the bunk.

*   *   *

At nine fifty-four, Samira called to let him know that Ziegler was leaving her house.
She's taking her time,
he thought. She knows she's got the whole day ahead of her. She must have it all figured out. He reached for the walkie-talkie and warned all the units that the target was on the move. Then he poured himself a coffee.

*   *   *

By ten thirty-two, Servaz was on to the third coffee of the morning and his fifth cigarette, despite Espérandieu's protests. Chaperon sat at the table playing patience, in silence.

*   *   *

At ten forty-three, Samira called to say that Ziegler had stopped at a coffee bar, and she'd bought some cigarettes, stamps and flowers.

‘Flowers? From a florist's?'

‘Yes, hardly from a butcher's.'

She must have spotted them …

*   *   *

At ten fifty-two, Servaz learned that Ziegler was heading for Saint-Martin at last. To reach the small valley where the cabin was, you took a road leading to Saint-Martin from the town where she lived, then a second one that headed due south and finally a forest track.

*   *   *

‘What the fuck is she doing?' asked Espérandieu, when it was well past eleven. They had not said three words in over an hour, except for the exchanges between Samira and Servaz.

Good question,
thought Servaz.

*   *   *

At nine minutes past eleven, Samira rang to say that Ziegler had gone past the road leading to the valley without slowing down, and was now headed into Saint-Martin.
She's not coming here.
Servaz swore and went outside to get a breath of fresh air. Maillard emerged from the woods and went up to him.

‘What do we do now?'

‘We wait.'

*   *   *

‘She's at the cemetery,' said Samira at eleven forty-five.

‘What? What's she doing at the cemetery? She's taking you for a ride: she's spotted you!'

‘Maybe not. She did something weird.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘She went into a tomb and stayed in there for five minutes. That's what the flowers were for. She came back out without them.'

‘A family tomb?'

‘Yes, but it wasn't hers. I went to check. It was the Lombard family tomb.'

Servaz jumped. He didn't know the Lombards were buried in Saint-Martin. The situation was getting away from him.
There was a blind spot.
It had all begun with Éric Lombard's horse; then the investigation had sidelined Lombard in order to concentrate on the Grimm-Perrault-Chaperon trio and the suicide victims. And now Lombard had suddenly turned up in the game again. What did it mean? What was Irène Ziegler doing in that tomb? He didn't get it.

‘Where are you now?' he asked.

‘I'm still at the cemetery. She saw me, so Pujol and Simeoni have taken over.'

‘I'm coming.'

He went out of the cabin, down the path to the forest track, then headed into the thicket on his right. He pulled aside the snow-laden branches that were hiding the Jeep, and slipped behind the wheel.