The Frozen Dead

by Bernard Minier

  ‘A glass of mulled wine to begin with? The chicken will be ready in twenty minutes. That way, we’ll be able to talk.’

  Servaz looked at his watch. Half past ten. The coming hours would be decisive. He had to think several moves ahead, but was his mind clear enough? The old judge would help him avoid any blunders. Their adversary was formidable. Servaz couldn’t trip up on the smallest detail. He was also terribly hungry; the smell of the chicken was giving him stomach cramps.

  The fire was burning briskly in the hearth. The room was filled with the sound of crackling logs, of the wind keening in the chimney and the rush of the stream outside. No Schubert this time. Clearly Saint-Cyr did not want to miss a word of what Servaz was about to tell him.

  Two balloon glasses half filled with a ruby-coloured wine were waiting on a coffee table. The wine was steaming.

  ‘Sit down,’ said the judge, pointing to a chair.

  Servaz took the glass nearest him. It was hot. He turned it in his fingers and breathed in the enticing fragrance. He could smell orange, cinnamon, nutmeg.

  ‘Mulled wine,’ said Saint-Cyr. ‘Invigorating and full of calories for a night like this. Above all an excellent remedy for fatigue. It will give you a boost. This will be a long night, won’t it?’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’ asked Servaz.

  ‘Is what obvious?’

  ‘How tired I am.’

  The judge’s gaze lingered on him.

  ‘You look exhausted.’

  Servaz drank. He made a face when he burned his tongue. A powerful taste of wine and spices filled his mouth and throat. Saint-Cyr had set out a few little slices of gingerbread on a saucer to go with the mulled wine. Servaz ate first one, then another. He was famished.

  ‘Well?’ said Saint-Cyr. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me? Who is it?’

  * * *

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Cathy d’Humières into the speakerphone.

  Feet propped up on his desk, Espérandieu stared at his Converse trainers.

  ‘My informant was categorical. He works at Interpol headquarters in Lyon. A gentleman by the name of Luc Damblin. He got hold of a contact at the FBI. He is certain, two hundred per cent.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed the prosecutor. ‘And you haven’t been able to get in touch with Martin?’

  ‘I tried twice. Both times, it was engaged. I got his voicemail. I’ll try again in a few minutes.’

  Cathy d’Humières checked her watch, a Chopard in yellow gold that her husband had given her for their twentieth wedding anniversary. Ten to eleven. She sighed.

  ‘I’d like you to do something for me, Espérandieu. Keep calling him. Again and again. When you do reach him, tell him that I’d like to be in bed before dawn, and that we won’t spend all night waiting for him!’

  At the other end of the line, Espérandieu gave a military salute.

  ‘Very well, madame.’

  * * *

  Irène Ziegler listened to the wind outside the barred windows. She had stepped away from where she’d been standing with her ear to the wall. It was d’Humières’s voice; the walls were as thin as cardboard in this gendarmerie – as they were in hundreds of others throughout France.

  Ziegler had heard everything. Apparently Espérandieu was on to something major. Something that would radically change the course of the investigation. Ziegler thought she knew what it was about. And Martin had vanished into thin air. She had an idea where he might be, where he’d gone in search of advice before making his next move. She knocked on the door, which opened almost at once.

  ‘I need to go to the toilet,’ she said.

  The officer closed the door in her face. It opened again on a young woman in uniform, who gave her a suspicious look.

  ‘Follow me, Captain. No messing about.’

  Ziegler stood up, holding her handcuffed wrists in front of her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’d also like to speak to the prosecutor. Tell her that. Tell her it’s important.’

  * * *

  The wind was howling down the flue, flattening the flames. Servaz was on the verge of collapse. He put his glass down and saw that his hand was shaking. He held it close to his body so Saint-Cyr wouldn’t notice. The spiced wine tasted good, but there was a bitter aftertaste. He felt tipsy, and he couldn’t afford that. He told himself he would drink nothing but water for the next half-hour, and then ask for a strong coffee.

  ‘You don’t seem to be doing too well,’ said the judge, putting his glass down and watching him attentively.

  ‘I’ve done better, but I’ll be all right.’

  In all honesty he could not recall ever having been so exhausted and on edge: dog-tired, his head full of cotton wool, prone to dizziness – and yet he was on the verge of cracking the strangest case of his entire career.

  ‘So, you don’t think that Irène Ziegler is guilty?’ continued the judge. ‘Everything seems to point to her.’

  ‘I know. But there’s something new.’

  The judge’s eyebrows went up.

  ‘I got a phone call this evening from a psychologist who works at the Wargnier Institute.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Her name is Diane Berg; she’s from Switzerland. She hasn’t been there long. Apparently she thought there was something strange going on, and she conducted her own little investigation behind everyone’s back. That’s how she found out that the head nurse at the Institute got hold of horse anaesthetics … and also that this woman is the mistress of a certain Éric, a very rich man who travels a great deal, judging from the emails he sends her.’

  ‘How did she manage to find all that out?’ asked the judge sceptically.

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘And so, this Éric, you think it’s…? But he was in the States the night the horse was killed.’

  ‘The perfect alibi,’ said Servaz. ‘Besides, who would suspect the victim to be the culprit?’

  ‘This psychologist – is she the one who contacted you? And you believe her? How do you know she can be trusted? That Institute must be tough on a person’s nerves when they’re not used to it.’

  Servaz looked at Saint-Cyr. He had a moment of doubt. What if the judge were right?

  ‘Do you remember when you told me that everything that happens in this valley has roots in the past?’ said Servaz.

  The judge nodded.

  ‘You told me yourself that Éric Lombard’s sister, Maud, committed suicide aged twenty-one.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Saint-Cyr at last. ‘So do you think that her death has something to do with the holiday-camp suicides? She never went there.’

  ‘There were two other victims who didn’t stay there either,’ answered Servaz. ‘How did Grimm and Perrault die?’ he asked. His heart was pounding.

  ‘They were found hanging.’

  ‘Exactly. When I asked you how Éric Lombard’s sister committed suicide, you told me she slit her wrists. That’s the official version. Well, this evening I discovered that actually she hanged herself as well. Why did Lombard lie about that? Unless it was to prevent someone from making a connection between Maud’s suicide and the murders?’

  ‘Has that psychologist spoken to anyone else?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I advised her to go down to Saint-Martin and contact Cathy d’Humières.’

  ‘So you think that—’

  ‘I think that Éric Lombard is behind the murders of Grimm and Perrault,’ said Servaz. He felt as if his tongue were sticking to his palate and his jaw muscles were seizing up. ‘I think he’s taking revenge for what was done to his sister, a sister he adored, and he is accusing them, rightfully, of causing her suicide and that of seven other young people. I think he came up with a Machiavellian plot to dispense justice himself, while removing all suspicion from himself, with the help of an accomplice at the Wargnier Institute.’

  He looked at his left hand. It was jumping on the armrest. He tried to keep it still, without success. When he
raised his eyes, he saw that Saint-Cyr was staring at it.

  ‘Lombard is a very clever man: he understood that sooner or later whoever was investigating the murders would make the connection with the wave of adolescent suicides fifteen years earlier, including his sister’s. He must have figured that the best way to divert suspicion was to include himself among the victims. So he had to be the target of the first crime. But how to do it? He couldn’t possibly kill an innocent person. At some point he must have had a flash of inspiration; he could commit a crime no one would ever suspect him of, by killing something he loved more than anything: his favourite horse. He must have been sick at heart when he finally decided to do it, but what better alibi than a slaughter that took place while he was – or so he said – in the US? That’s why the dogs at the riding academy didn’t bark. And the horse didn’t neigh. He might even have another accomplice at the academy, as well as the head nurse at the Institute. Because it would have taken at least two people to get the horse up there. And the alarm at the academy didn’t go off, either. However, he would never have let someone else kill the animal. That isn’t the way the Lombards do things, and Éric Lombard is an adventurer, a warrior, used to the most extreme challenges, used to assuming responsibility. And not at all afraid of getting his hands dirty.’

  Was it exhaustion, or the lack of sleep? His vision seemed to be blurring, as if he was suddenly wearing glasses with the wrong prescription.

  ‘I also think that Lombard, or one of his henchmen, blackmailed the two watchmen at the power station – no doubt by threatening to have them sent back to jail, or by buying their silence. And Lombard must have known fairly quickly that the Hirtmann lead would not go far. But that didn’t bother him: it was only a smokescreen. At a push, the fact we were looking into suicides from fifteen years earlier would not trouble him either; it would only multiply the leads. The guilty party could have been any of the parents, or even one of the teenagers who’d been raped and was now an adult. I wonder how much he knew about Ziegler, the fact that she’d stayed at the holiday camp. And that she’d make an ideal suspect. Or perhaps that was simply a coincidence.’

  Saint-Cyr didn’t respond; he seemed glum, as if concentrating on something. With his cuff Servaz wiped away the sweat pouring into his eyes.

  ‘So in the long run he must have figured that even if everything wasn’t turning out exactly as he’d planned, he’d shuffled the cards so well that it would be almost impossible to get at the truth – or to trace it back to him.’

  ‘Almost,’ agreed Saint-Cyr with a sad smile. ‘But he failed to reckon with someone like you.’

  Servaz noticed that the judge’s tone had changed. The old man was smiling at him in a way that was both admiring and ambivalent. Servaz tried to move his hand; it was no longer trembling, but it felt as heavy as lead.

  ‘You are a remarkable detective,’ said Saint-Cyr frostily. ‘If I’d had someone like you working for me, who knows how many cases I would have solved?’

  Servaz’s mobile began to ring. He tried to reach for it, but his arm felt as if it were bound in quick-setting cement. It seemed to take for ever to move his hand just a few inches. The mobile rang for a long time, piercing the silence that had fallen between the two men; then the call went to voicemail. The judge was staring at him.

  ‘I – I – feel – feel really strange,’ stammered Servaz, letting his arm drop beside him.

  Shit! What was wrong with him? His jaw was stiffening and he was finding it incredibly difficult to speak. He tried to get to his feet. The room immediately began to spin. Drained of strength, he collapsed into the armchair. He thought he heard Saint-Cyr say, ‘It was a mistake to involve Hirtmann…’ He wondered if he’d heard correctly. He struggled against the mist in his mind, tried to concentrate on the words coming from the judge’s mouth:

  ‘… predictable: Hirtmann’s ego got the upper hand, as was to be expected. He wormed the information out of Élisabeth in exchange for his DNA; then he got you heading down the trail of those suicides simply for the pleasure of showing you he was in charge. It flattered his pride. His immense vanity. It seems he took a fancy to you.’

  Servaz tried to frown. Was that really Saint-Cyr who was speaking? For a split second he thought he saw Lombard across from him. Then he blinked, trying to rid his eyes of the stinging drops of sweat, and saw it was indeed the judge. Saint-Cyr took a mobile phone from his pocket.

  ‘Lisa? It’s Gabriel. Apparently your little snoop didn’t speak to anyone else. She only had time to ring Martin. Yes, I’m sure … Yes, I’ve got the situation under control.’

  He hung up and turned his attention back to Servaz.

  ‘I’m going to tell you a story,’ he said. Servaz felt as if his voice were coming to him from the end of a tunnel. ‘The story of a little boy who was the son of a tyrannical, violent man. A very intelligent little boy, a wonderful little boy. When he came to see us, he always brought a bouquet of flowers that he’d picked along the path, or some pebbles he’d gathered from the banks of the river. We didn’t have any children, my wife and I. So you can imagine that when Éric came into our life, it was a gift from heaven, a ray of sunshine.’

  Saint-Cyr made a gesture as if to keep the memory at a distance, to refrain from yielding to emotion.

  ‘But there was a cloud in that blue sky. Éric’s father, the famous Henri Lombard, terrorised everyone around him, both in his factories and at home. And although there were times when he was affectionate with his children, at other times he terrified them with his fits of rage, the way he’d shout, the blows that rained down on their mother. Needless to say, both Éric and Maud were profoundly disturbed by the atmosphere that reigned at the chateau.’

  Servaz tried to swallow and couldn’t. He tried to move. Once again, his phone rang for a long time, then fell silent.

  ‘In those days, my wife and I lived in a house in the woods not far from the chateau, on the banks of this same stream,’ continued Saint-Cyr. ‘Henri Lombard may have been tyrannical, suspicious, paranoid and downright insane, but he never surrounded his property with fences or barbed wire or cameras, the way people do nowadays. It just wasn’t done back then. You didn’t have all the crime, the threats. No matter what people say, the world we lived in was still human. In short, our house was a refuge for young Éric, and he often spent the entire afternoon there. Sometimes he brought Maud with him; she was a pretty child with a sad expression; she almost never smiled. Éric loved her very much. By the time he was ten he seemed to have decided he would protect her.’

  He paused for a moment.

  ‘My professional life was very demanding and I wasn’t often at home, but from the moment Éric came into our lives I tried to set aside as much free time as I could. I was always happy to see him coming down the path to our house, on his own or with his sister trailing behind him. I became a second father to him. I raised that boy as if he were my own. There is nothing I am prouder of. My greatest success. I taught him everything I knew. He was an extraordinarily receptive child. Just look at what he has become today! And it’s not only because of the empire he inherited. No. It was thanks to my lessons, and our love.’

  Dumbfounded, Servaz saw that the old judge was weeping, tears streaming down his furrowed cheeks.

  ‘Then there was that bad business. I remember the day we found Maud hanging from the swing. Éric was never the same after that. He withdrew into himself, became glum and obstinate. Seemed to harden himself. I suppose it was useful in business. But he was no longer the Éric I had known.’

  ‘And what … what … happened to … to…?’

  ‘To Maud? Éric didn’t tell me the details, but I think she crossed paths with those bastards.’

  ‘No … after that…’

  ‘The years went by. Éric had just inherited the company when Maud killed herself; their father had died the previous year. He was overwhelmed by work – one day in Paris, the next in New York or Singapore. He never had a minute to h
imself. Then all the doubts and questions about his sister’s death came back. He got it into his head that he had to go after the truth. He hired some private detectives. Men who weren’t very particular about their methods or their morals – and whose silence could be bought at a very steep price. They must have followed more or less the same leads as you, and they uncovered the truth about the four men. From that point on, it wasn’t hard for Éric to imagine what had happened to his sister and other women before her. He decided to take the law into his own hands; he had the means. He was well positioned to know that his country’s judicial system could be trusted only so far. He also found precious support in Élisabeth Ferney. His mistress. Who also grew up round here, and she’s not just Éric Lombard’s lover – she too was a victim.’

  The light from the candles and lamps hurt Servaz’s eyes. He was soaked in sweat.

  ‘I’m an old man and my time is running out,’ said Saint-Cyr. ‘One year, five, ten: what difference does it make? My life is behind me. And what remains will, in any case, be nothing but a long wait for the end. Why not shorten that time if my death can help someone as brilliant and important as Éric Lombard?’

  Servaz felt the panic spreading through him. His heart was pounding so hard that he was certain he was on the verge of a heart attack. But he still couldn’t move. And the room around him was now a total blur.

  ‘I’m going to leave behind a letter, claiming responsibility for the crimes,’ announced Saint-Cyr in an astonishingly calm, firm voice. ‘So that justice will be served at last. Many people know how obsessed I was by the case of the suicide victims. So no one will be surprised. I will say that I killed the horse because I thought that Henri, Éric’s father, had taken part in the rapes. And that I killed you because you had found me out. But afterwards I decided that there was no way out of the situation and, overcome by remorse, I decided it was preferable to confess before taking my own life. A beautiful letter, both moving and dignified: I’ve already composed it.’