The Frozen Dead

by Bernard Minier

  Diane looked at Greg. An attractive man, in his thirties: dark hair, pale eyes – but when their eyes met, she shivered.

  ‘Shall we continue?’

  A long corridor ablaze with the setting sun.

  A door with a small window on their left. Voices coming through the door. Nervous chatter, a rapid-fire delivery. She glanced through the window as they walked by and was taken aback. There was a man lying on an operating table, with an oxygen mask over his face and electrodes on his temples, with nurses standing round him.

  ‘What is that?’ she asked.

  ‘Electroconvulsive therapy.’

  Electroshock … Diane felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. Ever since it was first applied in psychiatry in the 1930s, the use of electric shock therapy had been controversial: its detractors believed it was inhumane, degrading, a form of torture. So much so that by the 1960s, with the arrival of antipsychotic drugs, the use of ECT had reduced considerably. Until a sudden resurgence in the mid-1980s in a number of countries, including France.

  ‘You must understand,’ said Xavier on seeing her mute surprise, ‘ECT in the present day is not at all what it used to be. It is used on patients who have severe depression; they are placed under general anaesthesia and given a muscle relaxant. This treatment gets remarkable results: it is effective in over eighty-five per cent of cases of severe depression. A rate far higher than that of antidepressants. It is painless, and thanks to today’s methods there are no longer any orthopaedic complications or long-term effects on the skeleton.’

  ‘But it does impact on memory and cognition. And the patient can remain in a state of confusion for several hours. And we still don’t know exactly how ECT acts on the brain. Are there many depressives here?’

  Xavier gave her a cautious look.

  ‘No. Only ten per cent of our patients.’

  ‘How many schizophrenics, psychopaths?’

  ‘Roughly fifty per cent are schizos, twenty-five per cent are psychopaths and thirty psychotics. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’m assuming you only use ECT on the patients with depression?’

  She felt an infinitesimal displacement of air. Xavier stared at her.

  ‘No, we also use it on the occupants of Unit A.’

  She raised an eyebrow in surprise.

  ‘I thought you had to have the patient’s consent, or that of their legal guardian, in order to—’

  ‘In this particular case, we do without.’

  She looked hard at Xavier’s impenetrable face. There was something she was failing to grasp. She took a deep breath and tried to make her voice sound as neutral as possible.

  ‘What is the purpose? It’s not therapeutic … ECT is not known to be effective on pathologies besides depression, mania and certain very limited forms of schizophrenia, and—’

  ‘For the purposes of law and order.’

  Diane gave a slight frown.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘And yet it is perfectly clear: it is a punishment.’

  He had his back to her now, as he gazed at the orange sun disappearing behind the black mountains. His shadow lengthened across the floor.

  ‘Before you go into Unit A, there is one thing you must understand, Mademoiselle Berg: there is nothing left to frighten those seven men. Not even solitary confinement. They are in their own world; nothing can reach them. Get this into your head: you have never met patients like them. Ever. And of course corporal punishment is forbidden here, as elsewhere.’

  He turned round and stared at her.

  ‘They are afraid of only one thing: electroshock.’

  ‘Do you mean,’ said Diane hesitantly, ‘that with them you apply it—’

  ‘Without anaesthesia.’

  8

  As he drove down the motorway the next day, Servaz thought about the watchmen. According to Cathy d’Humières, they hadn’t shown up for work the night before. After an hour had gone by, Morane, the power plant manager, had picked up the phone.

  He’d called them on their mobiles. One after the other. No reply. So Morane had alerted the gendarmerie, who had sent some men over to their homes, twenty kilometres from Saint-Martin for one of them, forty or more for the other. The two men lived alone; they were not allowed to reside in the same départements as their former partners, whom they had repeatedly threatened to kill; one had even ended up in hospital. Servaz knew very well that in practice the police were not very diligent about enforcing such restrictions, for obvious reasons: it involved too much procedure, there were too many criminals, too many men on probation, too many sentences for everything to be enforced. One hundred thousand individuals sentenced to imprisonment without parole were actually at liberty, waiting their turn to serve their time – if they hadn’t already made a run for it the moment they left the court, only too aware there was not much risk the French State would devote money and manpower to look for them, hoping they’d be forgotten by the time the statute of limitations kicked in.

  After she’d told Servaz about the watchmen, the prosecutor had informed him that Éric Lombard was on his way back from the US and wanted to speak to the investigators without delay. Servaz had almost lost his temper. He had a murder on his hands; even if he wanted to find out who had killed the horse, even if he had a dread feeling that this business was a prelude to something worse, he was not at Éric Lombard’s disposal.

  ‘I don’t know if I can,’ he’d said curtly. ‘There’s a lot on, here, with the death of the homeless guy.’

  ‘You’d do better to get down there,’ insisted d’Humières. ‘Apparently Lombard called the Minister of Justice, who called the chief judge at the county court, who called me. And now I’m calling you. A regular chain reaction. And in any event it won’t be long before Canter tells you the same thing; I’m sure Lombard also got hold of the Ministry of the Interior. Besides, I thought you found the culprits in that case.’

  ‘The testimony we’ve got is a bit wobbly,’ confessed Servaz, reluctantly, not wanting to go into details. ‘And we’re waiting to see what comes back from pathology. There were quite a few clues on site: fingerprints, footprints, blood—’

  ‘It’s not for nothing you’re a Capricorn, am I right? Servaz, don’t give me the line about the overworked policeman, I can’t take it. I’m not about to beg you. Do me a favour. When can you go back down there? Éric Lombard will be expecting you at his chateau in Saint-Martin anytime after tomorrow. He’ll be there over the weekend. Find the time.’

  ‘Fine. But as soon as the interview is over I’m coming back here to wind up the case of the homeless man.’

  On the motorway he stopped at a petrol station to fill up. The sun was shining; the clouds had fled elsewhere. He took a moment to call Ziegler. She had an appointment at nine o’clock at the stud farm in Tarbes for the horse’s autopsy. She suggested he join her. Servaz agreed but said he’d rather wait for her in town.

  ‘As you like,’ she said, not hiding her surprise.

  How could he explain to her he was afraid of horses? That walking through a stud farm full of the beasts was an unbearable ordeal for him? She gave him the name of a nearby bistro, on the avenue du Régiment-de-Bigorre. She would meet him there as soon as it was over.

  When he got to Tarbes, an almost spring-like sunshine illuminated the town. At the edge of the Pyrenees National Park, tall buildings rose amid the greenery, against a background of immaculate white mountains. The sky was immensely pure, and the sparkling summits seemed light and airy enough to rise into the blue like balloons. It’s like a mental barrier, thought Servaz on seeing them. Your mind collides with these peaks as if against a wall. You are left with the impression of a territory utterly unfamiliar to man, a terra incognita, a land’s end, literally.

  He went into the café Ziegler had told him about, sat down at a table near the window and ordered a white coffee and a croissant. In a corner above the bar was a television showing the twenty-four-hour news channel. The volume wa
s on full blast and Servaz couldn’t think straight. He was about to ask them to turn it down a bit when he heard a reporter say the name Éric Lombard; the man was standing at the edge of Tarbes airfield holding a microphone. When Éric Lombard’s face filled the screen, Servaz stood up and moved closer to the bar.

  The billionaire was being interviewed as he stepped down from his plane. Behind him was a sparkling white jet with ‘Lombard’ printed in blue letters on the fuselage. Lombard wore the grave expression of someone who has just lost a loved one. The reporter was asking him whether this horse was particularly important to him?

  ‘He was not just a horse,’ answered the businessman, his voice a careful mixture of emotion and firmness. ‘He was a companion, a friend, a partner. People who really love horses will know that they are more than mere animals. And Freedom was an exceptional horse. We had great hopes for him. But above all, it is the way he died that is unbearable. I will do my utmost to make sure the guilty party is found.’

  Servaz watched as Éric Lombard’s gaze moved to stare at the camera and, through it, at the television viewers – a gaze that went from pain to anger, defiance and intimidation.

  ‘Whoever did this, I want them to know that they will not get away with it – I am a man with a thirst for justice.’

  Servaz glanced around him. Everyone was staring at the television screen. Not bad, he thought. Nice act. Planned in advance, that much was obvious, but it nevertheless exuded a brutal sincerity. Servaz wondered how far a man like Éric Lombard was prepared to go to carry out his threat.

  He spent the next two hours trying to take stock of what they knew and what they didn’t know. Obviously at this point ignorance was greater than knowledge. When at last he saw Irène Ziegler on the pavement outside the café, he was left speechless: she was wearing a biker’s suit, black leather with grey metal protective patches on the shoulders and the knees, and boots reinforced at the toe and the heel, and she was holding a full-face helmet in her hand. An Amazon … Once again he was struck by her beauty. He thought she was almost as beautiful as Charlène Espérandieu, but it was a different sort of beauty – more athletic, less sophisticated. Charlène was like a fashion plate, Irène Ziegler a surfing champion. Once again he was troubled. He recalled his reaction on seeing the ring in her nostril. Without a doubt, Irène Ziegler was an attractive woman.

  Servaz looked at his watch. Eleven o’clock already.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  She explained that they hadn’t found out much from the autopsy other than that the animal had been beheaded post mortem. Marchand had come along. The pathologist thought the horse had probably been drugged; the toxicology analysis would confirm this. When they left, the boss of the riding academy seemed relieved. In the end he agreed to send the animal to the abattoir. Except for the head, which his boss wanted to keep. According to Marchand he wanted to have it stuffed, to put it on the wall.

  ‘Put it on the wall?’ echoed Servaz, gobsmacked.

  ‘Do you think they’re guilty?’ Ziegler asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The watchmen.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He took out his mobile and dialled the number at the chateau. A female voice answered.

  ‘Commandant Servaz here, Toulouse crime unit. I would like to speak to Éric Lombard.’

  ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Servaz.’

  ‘Please hold.’

  An endless ringing. Then the voice of a middle-aged man.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I would like to speak with Éric Lombard.’

  ‘Who’s calling?’

  ‘Commandant Servaz, crime unit.’

  ‘What is this regarding?’

  Servaz felt his temper flaring.

  ‘Listen, your boss is the one who asked to see me. I have enough on my plate without this. So I have no time to waste!’

  ‘Spell your name clearly and tell me why you are calling,’ said the man on the other end of the line, unflappable. ‘Monsieur Lombard also has no time to waste.’

  The man’s arrogance left Servaz speechless. He almost hung up, but caught himself in time.

  ‘Servaz, S-E-R-V-A-Z. I’m calling regarding his horse Freedom.’

  ‘Could you not have said so earlier? Please hold.’

  The man was back on the line twenty seconds later.

  ‘Monsieur Lombard will be expecting you at three o’clock this afternoon.’

  It was not an invitation; it was an order.

  * * *

  Driving into Éric Lombard’s territory was like entering a fairy-tale land. They had left the car and motorcycle behind in the car park of the gendarmerie in Saint-Martin and borrowed a squad car. They took the same route as before, the one that led to the riding academy, but instead of turning left into the forest, they carried on straight ahead.

  Then they drove through an open, hilly landscape planted with oaks, elms, linden and fir trees. The estate was vast, stretching as far as the eye could see. There were fences everywhere, horses in meadows and farm machinery by the roadside, ready for use. There were still patches of snow here and there, but the air was luminous and clear. Servaz was put in mind of a ranch in Montana or a hacienda in Argentina. They saw signs, ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY DO NOT ENTER’, nailed to tree trunks or fences round the fields. But there were no walls. Then five kilometres further along they saw the stone wall. It was four metres high and blocked off part of the landscape. Beyond it was woodland. They stopped the car outside the gate. There was a granite plaque on one of the pillars.

  Servaz read ‘Chateau-Blanc’ in golden letters.

  At the top of the pillar a camera was turning. They did not need to get out and speak into the intercom: the gates opened almost immediately.

  They drove another kilometre or more along an avenue of centuries-old oak trees. The road, straight as a ruler and impeccably paved, traced a black line beneath the twisted branches of the great trees. Servaz saw the house gradually approaching at the end of the grounds. A few moments later they parked alongside a border of winter heather and pale pink camellias covered in snow. Servaz was disappointed: the chateau was not as big as he’d expected. But a second look immediately cancelled that impression: it was a building of childlike beauty, probably built at the end of the nineteenth century or the beginning of the twentieth, part Loire chateau, part English stately home. A fairy-tale castle … Outside the ground-floor windows was a row of boxwood trees pruned in the shape of animals: an elephant, a horse, a giraffe and a stag stood out against the snow. On their left, to the east, Servaz saw a formal garden with ornamental basins and statues. A covered swimming pool and a tennis court. A vast orangery towards the back, with a host of strange antennas on the roof.

  He recalled the figures he had seen online: Éric Lombard was one of the wealthiest men in France, and one of her most influential citizens. He was the head of an empire present in over seventy countries. In all likelihood the former orangery had been converted into an ultramodern communications centre. Ziegler slammed her door.

  ‘Look.’

  She was pointing to the trees. He looked. Counted thirty or more cameras fixed to the tree trunks, among the branches. They must cover the entire perimeter of the garden. There were no blind spots. Somewhere in the chateau they were being watched. They headed up a gravel path through the flowerbeds and passed two topiary crouching lions. Each one was five metres high. Strange, thought Servaz, it’s like a garden designed for the entertainment of very rich children. But he had not read anywhere that Éric Lombard had children. On the contrary, most of the articles described a confirmed bachelor with numerous conquests. Or did these sculptures date back to his own childhood? Waiting at the top of the steps was a man in his sixties. Tall, dressed in black. He looked at them with a gaze as hard as ice. Although he was seeing him for the first time, Servaz immediately knew who it was – the man on the telephone – and he felt his anger welling up again. The man greeted the
m without a smile and asked them to follow, then turned on his heels. His tone indicated that once again, this was not a request but an order.

  They crossed the threshold.

  A long series of rooms led one into the other, vast, empty and echoing, all the way through the building; they could see the daylight at the far end, as if they were in a tunnel. The interior was monumental. The hall was two storeys high, the light coming in from windows far up the walls. The man in black led them along the hall and through a salon empty of any furniture before turning to a double door on their right. A library whose walls were covered in ancient books, with four high French doors giving out onto the forest. Éric Lombard was standing by one of them. Servaz recognised him at once, although he had his back to them. The businessman was talking into a headset.

  ‘The police are here,’ said the man in black, his tone half deferential, half scornful in referring to the visitors.

  ‘Thank you, Otto.’

  Otto left the room. Lombard finished his conversation in English, removed the headset and put it down on an oak table. His gaze lingered on them, Servaz first, then Ziegler, for longer, sparking briefly with surprise at her outfit. He gave a warm smile.

  ‘Please excuse Otto. He’s got the wrong era. He has an occasional tendency to treat me like a prince or a king, but I also know I can count on him under any circumstances.’

  Servaz said nothing. He waited for what came next.

  ‘I know you are very busy. And that you have no time to waste. Nor do I. I was very fond of that horse. A marvellous animal. I want to be sure that everything, absolutely everything, will be done in order to find the person who committed this abominable deed.’