The Frozen Dead (8 page)

His legs could hardly hold him; he had the strange sensation he was walking on soles filled with air. The return journey by helicopter had been a rough one. The weather had taken a definite turn for the worse and Captain Ziegler had to keep a tight grip on the controls. Battered by the gusting wind, the chopper had made its descent swaying from side to side like a life raft on a raging sea. The moment the skids touched the ground, Servaz rushed to the toilets to throw up.

He turned round, his thighs pressed against the row of sinks. Graffiti profaned some of the stall doors: ‘Bib the King of the Mountain' (the usual boasting). ‘Sofia is a bitch' (followed by a mobile telephone number). ‘The manager is a filthy bastard' (a lead?). Then a drawing of several small Keith Haring-like characters, buggering each other in single file.

Servaz took out the small digital camera that Margot had given him for his most recent birthday, went over to the doors and photographed them one by one.

Then he went back out and along the corridor to the foyer.

Outside it had started snowing again.

‘Feeling better?'

He detected sincere indulgence in Irène Ziegler's smile.

‘Yes.'

‘Why don't we go and question the workers?'

‘If you don't mind, I'd rather interrogate them on my own.'

He saw Captain Ziegler's lovely face go blank. He could hear Cathy d'Humières speaking to the journalists outside: stereotypical fragments, the usual bureaucratic style.

‘Have a look at the graffiti in the toilets and you'll understand why,' he said. ‘There are things they might be more likely to reveal in the presence of a man … things they'd keep silent about if a woman were present.'

‘Fine. But don't forget that there are two of us on this investigation, Commandant.'

*   *   *

The five men watched as he came in, their gazes filled with a mixture of anxiety, weariness and anger. Servaz remembered they'd been held in this room since morning. Clearly someone had brought them food and drink. Scattered over the large conference table were empty cups, full ashtrays and the remains of pizza and sandwiches. Their stubble had grown and they were as hairy as castaways on a desert island, except for the cook – a fellow with a shiny bald head and earlobes pierced with multiple rings.

‘Hello,' said Servaz.

No answer. But they sat up imperceptibly. In their eyes he could see they were surprised by his appearance. They'd been told a commandant from the crime unit was coming, yet there before them was a man who could be a teacher or a journalist, a fit forty-something, his cheeks covered in stubble, wearing a velvet jacket and worn jeans. Servaz shoved to one side a pizza box smudged with grease and a plastic cup with cigarette butts floating in a puddle of coffee. Then he sat on the edge of the table, ran a hand through his brown hair and turned to them.

He inspected them closely. One by one. Lingering each time for a few tenths of a second. They all lowered their eyes – except for one.

‘Who saw it first?'

A man sitting in a corner of the room raised his hand. He was wearing a short-sleeved sweatshirt with the logo ‘University of New York' over a checked shirt.

‘What's your name?'

‘Huysmans.'

Servaz took his notebook from his jacket.

‘Tell me what you saw.'

Huysmans sighed. His patience had been sorely tested over recent hours, and he was not a particularly patient person by nature. He had already told his story at least half a dozen times, so this time his delivery was somewhat mechanical.

‘You came back down without setting foot on the platform. Why was that?'

Silence.

Finally the man who had just spoken confessed, ‘Fear. We were afraid the guy might still be somewhere nearby – or hiding in the tunnels.'

‘What makes you think it's a man?'

‘Can you picture a woman doing something like that?'

‘Have there been any quarrels or disagreements among the workers?'

‘It's like everywhere,' said another man. ‘Drunken brawls, stuff about women, some guys just don't get along. That's all.'

‘What's your name?' asked Servaz.

‘Gratien Etcheverry.'

‘Life up there must be pretty tough, no?' said Servaz. ‘The danger, the isolation, living one on top of the other – it must create tension.'

‘The men who get sent up there have their heads screwed on, Commissaire. The manager must have told you. If they don't, they stay down here.'

‘It's commandant, not commissaire. Still, when it's stormy, with the bad weather and everything, you could easily blow a fuse, right?' he insisted. ‘I've been told it's really hard to get to sleep at that altitude.'

‘That's true.'

‘Can you explain it to me?'

‘The first night you're so knackered from the altitude and the work that you sleep like a log. But then you start sleeping less and less. The last nights maybe only two or three hours at the most. It's the mountain that does it. We catch up at the weekend.'

Servaz looked at them again. Some of them were nodding in agreement.

He stared at these tough men, guys who'd never had any higher education and made no claims on genius; nor had they gone after easy money; no, they went about wordlessly carrying out a thankless task in the public interest. The men were roughly his age – between forty and fifty; the youngest might have been thirty. He was suddenly ashamed about what he was doing. Then he caught the cook's fleeting gaze again.

‘Did this horse mean anything to any of you? Did you know it? Had you ever seen it?'

They stared back at him, astonished, then slowly shook their heads.

‘Have there already been accidents up there?'

‘Several,' said Etcheverry. ‘The last one was two years ago: a guy lost his hand.'

‘What is he doing now?'

‘He works down here, in the office.'

‘His name?'

Etcheverry hesitated. He turned red. He looked at the others, embarrassed.

‘Schaab.'

Servaz figured he would have to find out more about this Schaab:
a horse loses his head/a worker loses his hand …

‘Any fatal accidents?'

Etcheverry shook his head again.

Servaz turned to the eldest. A sturdy bloke in a short-sleeved T-shirt that enhanced his muscular arms. He was the only one, along with the cook, who hadn't spoken yet – and the only one who hadn't lowered his gaze when Servaz looked at them. Moreover, a gleam of defiance showed in his pale eyes. A flat, wide face. A cold gaze.
Narrow-minded, incapable of nuance, won't tolerate uncertainty,
thought Servaz.

‘Are you the one who's been here the longest?'

‘Yup,' said the man.

‘How long have you been working here?'

‘Up there or down here?'

‘Both.'

‘Twenty-three years up there. Forty-two in all.'

A flat voice, with no inflection. Smooth as a mountain lake.

‘What is your name?'

‘What's it to you?'

‘I'm the one asking the questions, right? So, what's your name?' said Servaz, equalling the man's offhand manner.

‘Tarrieu,' barked the man, annoyed.

‘You're how old?'

‘Sixty-three.'

‘How well do you all get along with management? You can speak openly: it will go no further than these walls. In the toilet just now I saw some graffiti saying, “The manager is a bastard.”'

Tarrieu made a face that was half scornful, half amused.

‘That's true. But if this were some sort of revenge, he's the one we would have found up there. Not that horse. Don't you think,
Officer?
'

‘Who said anything about revenge?' retorted Servaz in the same tone. ‘You want to conduct this investigation for me? You want to join the force?'

There was some sniggering. Servaz watched as Tarrieu's face flushed bright red, like a cloud of ink spreading through water. Clearly the man was capable of violence. But to what degree? That was the eternal question. Tarrieu opened his mouth to reply, then at the last minute thought better of it.

‘No,' he said at last.

‘Are any of you familiar with the riding academy?'

The cook with the earrings raised his hand awkwardly.

‘Your name?'

‘Marousset.'

‘You go horse-riding, Marousset?'

Tarrieu spluttered with laughter; the others copied him. Servaz felt his anger welling up.

‘No … I'm the cook … From time to time I go to lend a hand to Monsieur Lombard's cook, at the chateau … when they have parties – birthdays, Bastille Day … The stables are just next door.'

Marousset had big, pale eyes with pupils no bigger than the head of a pin. And he was sweating profusely.

‘So had you already seen that horse?'

‘I'm not interested in horses. Maybe … There are loads of horses over there…'

‘And do you see Monsieur Lombard very often?'

Marousset shook his head.

‘I go there just once a year … maybe twice … and I hardly leave the kitchen…'

‘But you've spotted him now and again, all the same, haven't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Does he come to the plant at all?'

‘Lombard, here?' said Tarrieu sarcastically. ‘For Lombard this plant is a grain of sand. Do you look at every blade of grass when you mow the lawn?'

Servaz turned to the others. They confirmed this with a slight nod.

‘Lombard doesn't live round here,' continued Tarrieu in the same provocative tone. ‘Paris, New York, the Caribbean, Corsica … He doesn't give a damn about this plant. He only keeps it because it said in his old man's will that he had to hang on to it. But he really doesn't give a toss.'

Servaz nodded. He wanted to say something biting. But what would be the point? Perhaps Tarrieu had his reasons. Perhaps one day he'd had a run-in with some incompetent or bent copper.
People are icebergs,
he thought.
Beneath the surface there's this enormous mass of the things they don't tell you, a mass of pain and secrets. No one is really what they seem.

‘Can I give you some advice?' said Tarrieu suddenly.

Servaz froze, on the defensive. But his tone had changed: the hostility was gone, and along with it the wariness and sarcasm.

‘I'm listening.'

‘The watchmen,' said the senior man. ‘Rather than wasting your time with us, you'd do better to question the watchmen. Shake them up a bit.'

Servaz gave him an intense look.

‘Why?'

Tarrieu shrugged.

‘You're the cop here,' he said.

*   *   *

Servaz went down the corridor and out through the swing doors, moving abruptly from an overheated atmosphere to the icy chill of the foyer. Flashbulbs were popping outside, flooding the foyer with their brief glow, casting large, menacing shadows. Servaz saw Cathy d'Humières climbing into her car. Night was falling.

‘Well?' asked Ziegler.

‘They probably have nothing to do with it, but I want an additional background check on two of them. The first is Marousset, the cook. The other one is called Tarrieu. And then someone called Schaab: the guy who lost his hand in an accident last year.'

‘And why the other two?'

‘Just checking.'

He pictured Marousset's gaze again.

‘I want to get in touch with the drug unit as well, see if they don't have a file on the cook.'

Captain Ziegler gave him a close look, but she didn't add anything.

‘How are we doing checking out the immediate vicinity?'

‘We've been questioning everyone who lives along the road to the power plant, in the event that someone might have seen a vehicle go by during the night. So far, nothing.'

‘Anything else?'

‘Graffiti on the outside walls of the plant. If there are any taggers lurking about the neighbourhood, they might have seen or heard something. With everything that went into this crime, there had to be a preparatory stage, researching the location. Which takes us back to the watchmen. Maybe they know who left the graffiti. And why didn't they hear anything?'

Servaz thought back to what Tarrieu had said. Maillard came up to them. He was taking notes on a little pad.

‘And the Wargnier Institute?' said Servaz. ‘On the one hand we have a crime that, clearly, has been committed by a lunatic; on the other a bunch of criminal madmen locked away only a few kilometres from here. Even if the director of the Institute swears that none of his residents got over the wall, we'll have to look into it thoroughly.' He glanced first at Ziegler then at Maillard. ‘Have you got a staff psychiatrist?'

Ziegler and Maillard looked at each other.

‘A profiler is supposed to get here in a day or two,' replied Irène Ziegler.

Servaz frowned imperceptibly.
A profiler for a horse
 … He knew that the gendarmerie were a few lengths ahead of the police in this respect, as in others, but he wondered if this wasn't overdoing it a bit: even the gendarmerie ought not to be mobilising its specialists as easily as all that.

Éric Lombard really did have a long reach
 …

‘You're lucky we're here,' said Ziegler ironically, rousing him from his thoughts. ‘Otherwise you would have had to call in an independent expert.'

He didn't pick up on it. He knew what she was driving at: since they weren't prepared to train their own profilers, the way the gendarmerie did, the cops often had to make do with outside experts – shrinks who were not always properly qualified for this type of work.

‘But it is only a horse, after all,' he said, without conviction.

He looked at Irène Ziegler. She wasn't smiling now. On the contrary, he could detect the tension and worry on her features. She gave him a searching look.
She's not taking this business at all lightly anymore,
he thought. Like him, she must be beginning to think that something far more serious lay behind this macabre deed.