The Frozen Dead

by Bernard Minier

  ‘Well, well, what a surprise. And anything about Lombard?’

  ‘I’m still looking.’

  * * *

  A large windowless room, lit by neon lights and divided into several aisles by tall metal bookshelves full of dusty files. Near the entrance were two desks, one with a computer that was at least five years old, the other with an ancient microfilm reader, a heavy, cumbersome machine. Boxes of microfilm were also stacked on the shelves.

  The Wargnier Institute’s entire history.

  Diane had asked whether the files had been computerised and the archivist had practically laughed in her face.

  She knew that there were electronic files on the occupants of Unit A. Xavier had entrusted eight more patients to her the day before, to ‘cut her teeth on’. Evidently they were not important enough for someone to have taken the trouble to put their records into the computer. She walked down the rows, examining the folders, trying to determine what system governed the way they were stored. She had learned from experience that you couldn’t always tell. Archivists, librarians and other software designers could have twisted minds.

  But she was pleased to discover that the archivist was the logical sort, and had classified everything alphabetically. She grabbed the relevant binders and sat down at the little worktable. In the vast silent room, far from the turmoil of other parts of the Institute, she thought again about what had happened last night in the basement, and a chill came over her. From the moment she’d woken up she’d been seeing those gloomy corridors and recalling the icy humidity and smells from the basement, reliving the moment when she found herself plunged into darkness.

  Who was going to Unit A at night? Who was the man she had heard screaming and sobbing at the holiday camp? Who was involved in the crimes committed in Saint-Martin? There were too many questions … One after the other they pounded against the feverish shores of her mind, like a returning tide. And she was dying to know the answers.

  She opened the first file. There were painstaking records for each patient, from the very first signs of the pathology and initial diagnosis, through to the various hospital treatments they had received before eventually ending up at the Institute; there was also information about all the drugs they’d been given, and any side effects the treatment might have caused. The patients’ dangerousness and the precautions to be taken in their presence were emphasised, reminding Diane, in case she had forgotten, that there were no choirboys at the Institute.

  She took a few notes and went on reading. Then came the descriptions of the treatments themselves. Diane was not surprised to find out that antipsychotics and tranquillisers were administered in massive doses – doses far higher than current norms. This confirmed what Alex had told her. A sort of pharmaceutical atom bomb. She would not have liked to have her brain bombarded by these substances. She knew that the chemicals could cause terrible adverse reactions. Just the thought of it gave her a chill. Each file contained a separate sheet detailing the medication: doses, times, changes in treatment, delivery of the drugs to the relevant services. Whenever a patient needed a new batch of drugs from the Institute’s pharmacy, the delivery slip was signed by the nurse in charge of their care and countersigned by the pharmacy manager.

  Diane was feeling a need for caffeine by the time she started on the fourth file, but she decided to get to the end of her reading. She came last to the treatment schedule. As with the previous files, the doses gave her a chill up and down her spine:

  Clozapine: 1 × 200 mg/day (3 × 100 mg tab 4 times a day).

  Zuclopenthixol acetate: 400 mg IM/day.

  Tiapride: 200 mg every hour.

  Diazepam: Amp. IM 20 mg/day.

  Meprobamate: 400 mg.

  Good God! What sort of vegetables would these patients be? Then she remembered something else Alex had told her: after decades of very intense medical treatment, most of the inmates at the Institute were chemo-resistant. These guys were walking around the corridors with enough drugs in their veins to make a T-Rex space out, but they barely showed any signs of drowsiness. Just as she was about to close the file, she happened to notice something written in the margin: ‘Why this treatment? Queried Xavier about it. No reply.’

  The writing was sloping and hurried. Just on reading it, she could imagine how frustrated and annoyed – and astonished – the person who had written the note must have been. She frowned and looked again at the list of medication and doses. She remembered that clozapine was used when other antipsychotics proved ineffective. In that case, why prescribe zuclopenthixol? In the treatment of anxiety there is no call for mixing two tranquillisers or two hypnotics. Yet that was what had been done. There might be other abnormalities that she had missed – she was neither a doctor nor a psychiatrist – but the author of the note had seen at least one. Apparently, Xavier had not bothered to answer. Puzzled, Diane wondered if this was cause for concern. Then she reasoned that this file was about one of her patients. Before starting any psychotherapy she had to know why this insane cocktail had been prescribed. The file spoke of schizophrenic psychosis, acute states of delirium and mental confusion – but there was a singular lack of anything more specific.

  Should she question Xavier? Someone already had, to no avail. She took the previous files and went through the signatures one by one for the consultant physician and the pharmacy manager. She eventually found what she was looking for. Above one of the signatures someone had written, ‘Delivery delayed, transport strike.’ She compared the words ‘transport’ and ‘treatment’. The shape of the letters was identical: the marginal note had been written by the pharmacy manager.

  She would have to question him to start with.

  * * *

  With the file under her arm, Diane took the stairs up to the second floor. The Institute pharmacy was run by a male nurse in his thirties, who wore faded jeans, a white lab coat and scruffy trainers. It looked as if he hadn’t shaved for three days, and his hair stood up in rebellious spikes. He also had circles under his eyes and Diane suspected he had an intense night life outside the Institute.

  The pharmacy consisted of two rooms: one a reception area with a bell and a counter piled high with paperwork and empty boxes, and the other a room where the supplies of drugs were stored in locked glass cupboards. The nurse, whose name, according to the label embroidered on his chest pocket, was Dimitri, watched Diane come in, his smile just a touch too broad.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  ‘Hello,’ she replied. ‘I’d like some information about the management of the pharmaceutical products.’

  ‘OK. You’re the new psychologist, right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Well, how it works.’

  ‘Righty-ho,’ he said, playing with the pen in his chest pocket. ‘Come this way.’

  She went behind the counter. He grabbed a big notebook with a cardboard cover that looked like an account book.

  ‘This is the record book. We keep track of all the supplies as they come in and are dispensed. It’s the job of the pharmacy to keep an inventory of the Institute’s needs and make up the orders, then take delivery of the drugs, store them and distribute them among the various services. The pharmacy has its own budget. The orders are sent in roughly every month, but we can make special ones too.’

  ‘Who, besides yourself, knows what comes in and goes out?’

  ‘Anyone can consult the record book. But all the delivery slips and orders must be countersigned either by Dr Xavier himself, or, more often, by Lisa or Dr Lepage, the consultant physician. In addition, each drug has its own stock card.’

  He took down a big binder and opened it.

  ‘All the medication used at the Institute is in here and, thanks to this system, we know exactly how much we have in stock. Then we distribute the drugs. Each distribution is countersigned by both the charge nurse for each ward and myself.’

  Diane opened the file she had in her hand and showed
him the handwritten note in the margin of the supplementary sheet.

  ‘This is your handwriting, isn’t it?’

  She saw him frown.

  ‘That’s right,’ he replied, after a moment of hesitation.

  ‘You don’t seem to agree with the treatment this patient is receiving.’

  ‘Well, I – I didn’t see the point of – of prescribing two tranquillisers or zuclopenthixol acetate and clozapine at the same time. I, um, it’s a bit … technical.’

  ‘So you asked Dr Xavier.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘That I was in charge of supplies, not a psychiatrist.’

  ‘I see. Do all the patients receive such strong doses?’

  ‘Most of them do, yes. You know, after years of treatment, almost all of them have become—’

  ‘Chemo-resistant – yes, I know. Do you mind if I take a look at this?’ She pointed to the record book and the binder containing the individual drug stock cards.

  ‘No, of course not. Go ahead. Here, have a seat.’

  He disappeared into the next room and she heard him make a phone call in a hushed voice. Probably to his girlfriend. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. She opened the record book and began to turn the pages. January … February … March … April …

  The inventory for the month of December was spread over two pages. On the second page, Diane’s attention was drawn to a line in the middle: ‘Delivery, order Xavier’, dated 7 December. On the line were the names of three drugs. They were not familiar to her. She was sure they weren’t commonly used. Out of curiosity, she jotted them down on her pad and called out to Dimitri. She heard him murmur, ‘Love you’; then he came back into the room.

  ‘What are these?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I’ve no idea. I didn’t write that. I was on holiday at the time.’

  He leafed through the binder of stock cards and frowned.

  ‘That’s odd. There are no individual stock cards for these three drugs. Only invoices. Whoever filled in the record book didn’t know what they were supposed to do.’

  It was Diane’s turn to shrug.

  ‘Forget it. It doesn’t matter.’

  20

  They went into the same incident room as before – Ziegler, Servaz, Captain Maillard, Simon Propp, Martial Confiant and Cathy d’Humières. At Servaz’s request, Ziegler gave a brief summary of the facts. He noticed she was presenting them in a light that exonerated him of any errors of judgement; if anything, she was blaming herself for taking her motorcycle that morning, despite the weather forecast. She then drew attention to the detail that connected this new murder to the previous one: hanging. She did not mention the suicides, but did point out that Grimm and Perrault, along with Chaperon and a fourth man who had died two years earlier, had been charged with sexual blackmail.

  ‘Chaperon?’ said Cathy d’Humières, incredulous. ‘That’s the first I’ve heard of such a thing.’

  ‘According to Saint-Cyr, the affair dates back to over twenty years ago,’ said Servaz. ‘Long before the mayor stood for office. The complaint was withdrawn almost immediately.’

  He repeated what Saint-Cyr had told him. The prosecutor gave him a sceptical look.

  ‘Do you really believe there’s a connection? A drunken girl, some young men who were drunk as well, a few compromising photos … I don’t wish to look as if I am defending that sort of behaviour, but it’s not really much to make a fuss about.’

  ‘According to Saint-Cyr, there were other rumours going round about the four men,’ said Servaz.

  ‘What sort of rumours?’

  ‘More or less the same sort of thing – sexual abuse, rumours implying that once they got drunk they tended to be vicious and violent with women. Having said that, there were no other official complaints apart from this one – which, I repeat, was withdrawn very quickly. And then there are the things we found in Grimm’s cabin. That cape, and those boots. The same ones, or near as dammit, as the ones we found on his corpse.’

  Servaz knew from experience that it was better not to say too much to prosecutors and examining magistrates when you didn’t have any solid proof, because they tended to come up with objections on principle. However, he could not resist the temptation to take it further.

  ‘According to Saint-Cyr, Grimm, Perrault, Chaperon and their friend Mourrenx had been inseparable since their lycée days. We also found out that all four men wore the same signet ring: the one that should have been on Grimm’s severed finger.’

  Confiant gave them a puzzled look, knitting his brows.

  ‘I don’t see what this business about rings has to do with it,’ he said.

  ‘Well, we might see it as some sort of secret sign,’ suggested Ziegler.

  ‘A secret sign? Symbolising what?’

  ‘At this point it’s hard to say,’ conceded Ziegler, glaring at the judge.

  ‘Perrault’s finger wasn’t severed,’ objected d’Humières, not hiding her scepticism.

  ‘Precisely. But the photograph that Commandant Servaz found proves that at some point he did wear that signet ring. If the murderer didn’t chop off his finger, perhaps Perrault was no longer wearing it.’

  Servaz looked at them. Deep inside he knew they were on the right track. Something was coming to the surface, like roots emerging from the ground. Something dark and chilling.

  And in this geography of horror, the capes and rings and severed or unsevered fingers were like little pebbles the murderer had left in his path.

  ‘Clearly, we haven’t been digging deep enough into these men’s lives,’ said Confiant suddenly. ‘If we had done that instead of focusing on the Institute, perhaps we would have found something that would have warned us in time – to save Perrault.’

  They all understood that the ‘we’ was purely rhetorical. What he really meant to say was ‘you’, and that ‘you’ referred to Servaz and Ziegler. At the same time, Servaz wondered whether Confiant wasn’t right for once.

  ‘In any case, the two murder victims were both charged in the complaint, and they were both wearing the ring,’ he insisted. ‘We cannot ignore these coincidences. And the third person who was involved in the complaint and who is still alive is none other than Roland Chaperon.’

  He saw the prosecutor go pale.

  ‘In that case, this is a priority,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. We have to do everything we can to find the mayor and place him under police protection – we haven’t a minute to lose.’ He checked his watch. ‘I suggest we adjourn the meeting.’

  * * *

  When the first deputy mayor of Saint-Martin looked at them, the sting of fear in his gaze was as sharp as a needle. He was sitting at his desk on the first floor of the town hall, pale, nervously fiddling with his pen.

  ‘I haven’t been able to reach him since yesterday morning,’ he said at once. ‘We’re very worried. Particularly after everything that has happened.’

  Ziegler agreed with a nod of her head.

  ‘And you have no idea where he might be?’

  The deputy looked desperate.

  ‘Not the slightest.’

  ‘Any people he knows, whom he might have gone to see?’

  ‘His sister in Bordeaux. I called her. She hasn’t had any news. Neither has his ex-wife.’

  The deputy looked at them both, uncertain and frightened, as if he were next on the list. Ziegler handed him a business card.

  ‘If you hear anything at all, call us right away. Even if it doesn’t seem important.’

  Sixteen minutes later they were parking the car outside the bottling plant that Servaz had already visited two days earlier, where Roland Chaperon was both owner and boss. Lorries waited in the car park for their loads of bottles. Inside the plant there was an infernal racket. As on the previous occasion, Servaz saw an assembly line where the bottles were rinsed with a jet of clean water before they were shunted along to be filled, then the automatic process
that sealed and labelled them, all without the slightest human intervention. All the workers did was check each stage of the operation.

  Servaz and Ziegler went up the metal stairs leading to the manager’s glassed-in soundproof office. The same big, hairy, unshaven man whom Servaz had seen the previous time was shelling pistachios, and he watched warily as they came in.

  ‘There’s something going on,’ he said, spitting a shell into the wastebasket. ‘Roland hasn’t come by the factory, either yesterday or today. It’s not like him to be gone without letting us know. With everything that’s been going on, I can’t understand why there aren’t more roadblocks. What are you waiting for? If I were a gendarme…’

  Ziegler had pinched her nose because of the smell of sweat that lingered in the office. She could see the huge dark stains spreading across the armpits of the man’s blue shirt.

  ‘But you’re not a gendarme, are you,’ she said sharply. ‘Other than that, you have no idea where he might be?’

  The fat man gave her a nasty look. Servaz could not help but smile. There were a few others like him round here who thought that city folk were incapable of acting intelligently.

  ‘No. Roland wasn’t the type to go on about his private life. A few months ago we found out about his divorce, almost overnight. He had never mentioned that he was having relationship troubles.’

  * * *

  ‘“Relationship troubles,”’ echoed Ziegler, her tone openly sarcastic. ‘That’s nicely put.’

  ‘Let’s go straight to his place,’ said Servaz, climbing back into the car. ‘If he isn’t there, we’ll have to search the house from top to bottom. Call Confiant and ask for a warrant.’

  Ziegler picked up the car phone and dialled a number.

  ‘No answer.’

  Servaz took his eyes from the road for a second. Clouds swollen with rain or snow were drifting across the dark sky like fatal omens, and the light was fading.

  ‘Never mind. We don’t have time. We’ll do without.’

  * * *

  Espérandieu was listening to the Gutter Twins singing ‘The Stations’ when Margot Servaz came out of the lycée. Sitting in the shadow of the unmarked car, he observed the crowd as it scattered on the way out of the school; it did not take even ten seconds to spot her. That day, in addition to her leather jacket and striped shorts, Martin’s daughter was wearing purple extensions in her black hair, fishnet tights and enormous fur ankle warmers that made her look as if she were heading off to an après-ski party. She stood out like a native headhunter at an elegant soirée. Espérandieu thought of Samira. He made sure he had his digital camera on the passenger seat, then opened the voice memo app on his iPhone.