The Frozen Dead

by Bernard Minier

Cathy d’Humières looked at her watch.

  ‘In two hours. Give or take.’

  * * *

  ‘It looks like our Lisa is going out tonight.’

  Diane turned to look towards the door of the cafeteria. She saw Lisa Ferney go up to the counter and order a coffee. Diane saw that the head nurse had changed her uniform for a long pale pink jumper, jeans, a white coat with a fur collar and thigh-high boots. Her hair fell loosely onto the silky fur, and she had not skimped on the eye shadow, mascara, lipstick and gloss.

  ‘Do you have any idea where she’s going?’ asked Diane.

  Alex nodded with a knowing smile. The head nurse did not even glance their way. She drank down her coffee and vanished. They heard her hurry down the corridor.

  ‘She’s on her way to meet her “mystery man”,’ he said.

  Diane stared at him. Just then, he looked like a mischievous little boy about to share his greatest secret with his best friend.

  ‘What’s that all about?’

  ‘Everyone knows Lisa has a lover in Saint-Martin. But no one knows who it is. When she goes out like that, she usually doesn’t come back until the next morning. Some staff members have tried to tease her about it, to get her to talk, but every time she sends them packing. The strangest thing is that no one has ever seen them together, in Saint-Martin or anywhere else.’

  ‘He’s probably a married man.’

  ‘In that case, his wife must work nights.’

  ‘Or she has a job that means she’s often away from home.’

  ‘Unless it’s something too shameful to mention,’ suggested Alex, leaning across the table with a devilish expression.

  Diane tried to seem indifferent. But she could not ignore what she knew, and the tension would not leave her.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Perhaps she goes to swingers’ nights. Or maybe she’s the murderer everyone is looking for.’

  She felt a knot in her stomach. She was finding it increasingly difficult to hide her anxiety. Her heart began to beat faster: Lisa Ferney out all night … This was her chance.

  ‘Not very practical, is it, a white coat with a pale pink jumper, for bumping people off,’ she said, trying to joke. ‘Might get a bit dirty, right? And then all that make-up just to—’

  ‘Maybe she seduces them before she kills them. You know: the praying-mantis type.’

  Alex seemed to think it was all very funny. Diane would have preferred to change the subject. Her stomach was like a block of cement.

  ‘And then she goes and hangs her victim under a bridge? That’s no praying mantis, that’s the Terminator.’

  ‘The problem with you Swiss is that you always look at things practically,’ he said teasingly.

  ‘I thought you liked our typical Swiss humour.’

  He laughed. Diane stood up.

  ‘I have to go,’ she said.

  He nodded. His smile was just a touch too warm.

  ‘Right. I’ve got work, too. See you later, I hope.’

  * * *

  By half past six Servaz had drunk so much bad coffee and smoked so many cigarettes that he was beginning to feel downright ill. He hurried to the toilets to splash cold water on his face, and almost threw up. The nausea dissipated slowly, although it didn’t vanish completely.

  ‘Fuck, what are they doing?’ he asked, going back into the little waiting room with its plastic chairs, where the squad members sat patiently.

  * * *

  Diane closed the door behind her and leaned against it, heart pounding.

  The room was bathed in the same grey-blue light as Xavier’s office the day before.

  A stubborn perfume. Diane recognised it, Lolita Lempicka. On the smooth surface of the desk a bottle caught the dim light from the window.

  Where to begin?

  There were filing cabinets, as in Xavier’s office, but she decided to start with the desk itself.

  None of the drawers were locked. She switched on the light to examine them and found a very curious object on top of the blotting pad: a golden salamander, set with precious stones – rubies, sapphires and emeralds. Just sitting there, in plain sight, being used as a paperweight. Diane concluded that, given its size, the stones must be fake and the gold merely plate. Then she turned her attention to the drawers. Binders of various colours. She opened them. All to do with her position as head nurse. Notes, invoices, interview summaries, follow-up reports. Nothing that seemed out of place. Or at least not until the third drawer.

  A stiff folder, at the back.

  Diane took it out and opened it. Press clippings. All about the murders in the valley. Lisa Ferney had carefully assembled everything there was to know about the deaths.

  Simple curiosity – or something more?

  The wind howled under the door and for a moment Diane paused in her search. The storm was intensifying.

  The filing cabinets. The same hanging files as in Xavier’s office. As she brought them to the light to go through them one by one, Diane sensed she was wasting her time. She wouldn’t find anything here because there was nothing to find. Who would be stupid or mad enough to leave traces of their crimes in their office?

  As she leafed through the papers, her gaze fell once again on the salamander, its jewels shining brightly in the halo of the lamp. Diane was no expert, but she had to admit it was a very fine imitation.

  She stared at the object. What if it were real?

  Even supposing it was, what did that tell her about the head nurse? On the one hand that she was sure enough of her power and authority to assume that no one would dare enter her office without her knowing. Secondly, that her lover was a rich man, because if the jewels were authentic, the salamander was worth a small fortune.

  All things considered, Diane felt that she was on to something.

  * * *

  The two representatives of the gendarmerie’s disciplinary body were in plain clothes, and their faces were so expressionless they could have been made of wax. They greeted Cathy d’Humières and Confiant with a short, formal handshake, and asked to interview Captain Ziegler right away and on their own. Servaz was about to protest, but the prosecutor cut him off by agreeing. Half an hour went by before the door to the room where Ziegler was being held opened again.

  ‘It’s my turn to question Captain Ziegler in private,’ said Servaz when they came out. ‘I don’t need long. Then we can compare our thoughts.’

  Cathy d’Humières turned to him and was about to say something when their gazes met. She remained silent. But one of the two wax figures came to life.

  ‘A representative of the gendarmerie cannot be interrogated by a—’

  The prosecutor raised her hand to interrupt.

  ‘You’ve had your time, haven’t you? Ten minutes, Martin. Not a moment more. After that, the interview will continue with everyone present.’

  He went through the door. The gendarme was alone in the little office, a light shining onto her face. Beyond the blinds snow was falling in the glow of a streetlamp, like the last time the two of them had been together in this room. He sat down and looked at her. With her blonde hair, her dark leather jumpsuit covered in zippers, buckles and protective patches at the shoulders and knees, she looked like a heroine from a science-fiction story.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She nodded, her lips tight.

  ‘I don’t think you are guilty,’ he said straight away.

  She gave him an intense look but said nothing. He waited for a few seconds before speaking. He didn’t know where to begin.

  ‘You didn’t kill Grimm and Perrault. Yet appearances are against you, you know that?’

  Once again she nodded.

  He listed the facts one by one: she had lied – or hidden the truth – about the holiday camp and the suicide victims; she had hidden the fact that she knew where Chaperon had gone.

  ‘And you weren’t there when Perrault died. You were close: you should have been there first.’

  �
�I had a motorcycle accident.’

  ‘You have to admit that’s a fairly flimsy excuse. An accident with no witnesses.’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ he replied.

  Ziegler’s eyes opened slightly wider.

  ‘Make up your mind,’ she said. ‘Do you think I’m innocent, or do you think I’m guilty?’

  ‘Innocent. But you’re lying about the accident.’

  She seemed astonished. But this time she surprised him: she had just smiled.

  ‘I knew from the start that you were good,’ she said.

  ‘Last night,’ he continued, ‘when you went to that club, after midnight, I was hiding under your bed when you got back. I got out while you were taking a shower. You should lock your door with something more sturdy. What were you doing at the bar?’

  She digested what he had told her and stared at him for a long time.

  ‘I went to see a friend,’ she answered finally.

  ‘In the middle of the night, with an investigation on? A case we’re on the verge of cracking and that requires all our energy?’

  ‘It was urgent.’

  ‘What was so urgent about it?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Because I’m a man, a macho cop, and you’re in love with a woman?’

  She looked at him defiantly.

  ‘What do you know about these things?’

  ‘Nothing, you’re right. But I’m not the one who’s in danger of being convicted of a double murder. And I’m not your enemy, Irène. Or your typical narrow-minded homophobic prick. So make an effort.’

  She held his gaze, unflinching.

  ‘I found a note when I got home last night. From Zuzka, my girlfriend. She’s from Slovakia. She said she’d decided to get some space. She gave me a hard time, said I was too involved in my work, said I was neglecting her, that I was there but not really there. That sort of thing. You’ve been through that, I suppose, since you’re divorced – you know what I’m talking about. There are a lot of separations among cops – even gay cops. I needed an explanation. Right away. I didn’t want her to leave just like that, without having the opportunity to talk to her. It felt unbearable. So I rushed over to the Pink Banana without thinking. Zuzka’s the manager there.’

  ‘Have you been together long?’

  ‘A year and a half.’

  ‘And are you in love?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let’s get back to the accident. Or the so-called accident. Because there was no accident, was there?’

  ‘Of course there was! Didn’t you see the state of my clothes? And the scratches? How do you think I got them?’

  ‘For a while I believed it was from jumping out of the cabin,’ he replied. ‘After you’d pushed Perrault into the void.’

  She squirmed on her chair.

  ‘And you no longer believe that?’

  ‘No, because you’re innocent.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I think I know who it is. But I also think that you’re not telling me the whole truth.’

  Once again she seemed stunned by his insight.

  ‘After the accident, I came late on purpose,’ she said finally. ‘I took my time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Perrault: I wanted him to die – or rather, I wanted to give the murderer the chance to get him.’

  Servaz looked at her for a moment. He nodded.

  ‘Because of what they did to you,’ he said. ‘Grimm, Chaperon, Mourrenx and him.’

  She didn’t answer but nodded.

  ‘At the holiday camp,’ he continued.

  She looked up, surprise in her eyes.

  ‘No. It was much later. I was studying law in Pau, and one weekend I ran into Perrault at a village fete. He offered me a lift. Grimm and Mourrenx were waiting for us at the end of a track, a few kilometres away. Chaperon wasn’t there that night. I don’t know why. That’s why I made no connection between him and the others until you found that photograph. That weekend when … when I saw that Perrault had turned off the road and was heading down that track, I knew at once. I tried to get out, but he hit me, again and again, as we were driving; then when we stopped, he called me a prick-tease, a bitch. I was covered in blood. Then…’

  She fell silent. He hesitated for a long time, then asked, ‘Why didn’t you—’

  ‘Press charges? I was … I was sleeping around quite a lot at the time. Men, women … Even one of my profs at university, a married woman with kids. And my father was a gendarme. I knew what would happen – there’d be an investigation; I’d get dragged through the mud; there’d be a scandal. I thought about my parents, and how they would react, and my brother and sister-in-law, too, who didn’t know anything about my private life.’

  This was why they had been able to keep their secret for so long, he thought. His initial hunch at Chaperon’s house had been spot on. They had banked on the fact that ninety per cent of rape victims do not report it and, with the exception of the teenagers at the holiday camp who never saw their faces, their chosen prey would have been easy targets, people with non-conformist lifestyles that would dissuade them from going to the police. Intelligent predators. But their wives had seen right through them, had ended up suspecting something, moving to separate bedrooms – or leaving them altogether.

  He thought again about the director of the holiday camp who had died in a motorcycle accident. A very convenient death there as well.

  ‘Do you realise that you put my life in danger?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Martin. Really. But as it stands, the main thing is that I’m being accused of murder,’ she pointed out, with a sad little smile.

  She was right. He was going to have to play a tight game. Confiant would not let go easily, now that he had an ideal suspect. And it was Servaz himself who had delivered her to him.

  ‘What makes things complicated,’ he said, ‘is the fact you took advantage of my absence to follow Chaperon’s trail, and you didn’t tell anyone.’

  ‘I didn’t want to kill him. I just wanted to – to frighten him. I wanted to see the terror in his eyes, the way he had seen the terror in his victims’ eyes and got such a kick out of it. I wanted to find him alone in that forest and put the barrel of a gun into his mouth, so he would think that his time had come. Then I would have arrested him.’

  Her voice had faded to a thin, icy trickle.

  ‘Another question,’ he said. ‘When did you figure out what was going on?’

  She looked him straight in the eye.

  ‘From the first murder I had my doubts. Then when Perrault died and Chaperon vanished, I knew someone was making them pay. But I didn’t know who.’

  ‘Why did you steal the list of children?’

  ‘It was idiotic, a knee-jerk reaction. I found it while I was sorting that damned box. And you seemed to be so interested in everything there. I didn’t want to be questioned. I didn’t want people digging into my past.’

  ‘One last thing: why did you go and put flowers on Maud Lombard’s tomb this morning?’

  Irène Ziegler kept silent for a moment. This time she did not look the least bit surprised. She had already realised that she’d been tailed all day long.

  ‘Maud Lombard also committed suicide.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ve always known that one way or another she’d also been a victim. At one point I was tempted by that way out, too. There was a time when Maud and I were going to the same parties – before I left for university, and before she crossed paths with those bastards. We were fairly close, not really friends, just acquaintances – but I liked her a great deal. She was a private, independent girl who didn’t say much, but she was trying to break away from her family. So every year, on the anniversary of her death, I put flowers on her tomb. And I wanted to send her a sign before arresting the last one of the bastards still alive.’

  ‘But Maud Lombard never stayed a
t the holiday camp.’

  ‘So what? She’d run away several times. She often hung out with people who were a bit sketchy. And got home late. She must have encountered them somewhere, the way I did.’

  Servaz was thinking on his feet. His theory was getting sharper. An incredible solution … He had no more questions. His head was spinning again. He massaged his temples and stood up painfully.

  ‘There might be another idea we haven’t envisaged,’ he said.

  * * *

  D’Humières and Confiant were waiting for him in the corridor. Servaz walked up to them, struggling with the sensation that the walls and the floor were moving and he was going to lose his balance. He massaged the back of his neck and took a deep breath – but it wasn’t enough to rid himself of the strange feeling that his shoes were filled with air.

  ‘Well?’ said the prosecutor.

  ‘I don’t think she did it.’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Confiant. ‘You’re joking, I hope!’

  ‘I don’t have time to explain it to you now: we have to move fast. In the meantime, keep her in custody if you want. Where’s Chaperon?’

  ‘We’re trying to get him to confess to the rape of the teenagers at the holiday camp,’ replied d’Humières frostily. ‘But he refuses to say a thing.’

  ‘There’s no statute of limitations, is there?’

  ‘Not in so far as new evidence will let us reopen the investigation. Martin, I hope you know what you’re doing.’

  They exchanged a look.

  ‘I hope so too,’ he said.

  His head was spinning; his skull was pounding. He headed towards the reception and asked for a bottle of water, and took one of the tablets Xavier had given him before going out to the Jeep.

  How could he tell them his theory without infuriating Confiant and putting the prosecutor in an awkward position? There was one question still nagging him. He wanted to be absolutely sure before he laid his cards on the table. And he needed a second opinion – from someone who could tell him if he were on the right track, above all someone who would tell him how far he could go without overreaching. He looked at his watch. Twelve minutes past nine in the evening.

  * * *

  The computer.

  She switched it on. Unlike Xavier’s, it required a password. Well, well. She checked the time. She’d already been in the office for an hour.