The Circle

by Bernard Minier

  ‘What are we supposed to say to each other in this kind of situation?’ he asked ironically. ‘“It’s been ages”?’

  ‘Fugit irreparabile tempus,’ replied Servaz.

  Van Acker gave him a dazzling smile.

  ‘You always were best in Latin. You cannot imagine how that exasperated me.’

  ‘That’s your weakness, Francis. You always wanted to be first in everything.’

  Van Acker didn’t answer. But before long his provocative smile reappeared.

  ‘You’ve never come back to see us. Why not?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  Van Acker’s gaze did not leave him. In spite of the moisture in the air, he was wearing the same kind of dark blue velvet jacket that Servaz had always seen him in. When they were students, it even became the subject of a joke: Francis Van Acker had a wardrobe full of identical blue jackets and white shirts.

  ‘Well, we both know, Edmond Dantès,’ said Van Acker.

  Servaz felt his throat go dry.

  ‘Like the Count of Morcerf, I stole your Mercedes. Only I didn’t marry her.’

  For a fraction of a second, Servaz felt a twist of anger in his gut, like an ember flaring. Then the ash of years covered it over again.

  ‘I have heard that Claire died in the most awful way.’

  ‘What are people saying?’

  ‘You know Marsac, everyone knows everything in the end. The gendarmes turned out to be rather talkative. The grapevine did the rest. Tied up and drowned in her bath, that’s what people are saying. Is it true?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Dear Lord! Yet she was a good sort. Brilliant. Independent. Stubborn. Passionate. Not everyone agreed with her teaching methods, but I thought they were rather, shall we say, interesting.’

  Servaz nodded. They were walking alongside the concrete cubes; the windows were dirty.

  ‘What an atrocious way to die. You’d have to be mad to kill someone that way.’

  ‘Or very angry,’ corrected Servaz.

  ‘Ira furor brevis est. “Anger is a brief madness”.’

  Now they were walking past the deserted tennis courts, where the nets were drooping like the ropes of a ring beneath the weight of an invisible boxer.

  ‘How is Margot doing?’ asked Servaz.

  Van Acker smiled.

  ‘The apple never falls far from the tree. Margot has true potential, she’s getting on quite well. But she will be even better when she understands that systematic anti-conformist behaviour is another form of conformity.’

  It was Servaz’s turn to smile.

  ‘So you’re in charge of the investigation,’ said Van Acker. ‘I could never understand why you joined the police.’ He raised his hands to forestall any objection. ‘I know it had something to do with your father’s death and, if you go back further, with what happened to your mother, but for Christ’s sake, you could have done something else. You could have been a writer, Martin. Not one of those hacks, but a real writer. You had the gift. Do you remember that text of Salinger’s we used to quote all the time, about writing and brotherhood?’

  ‘Seymour, an Introduction,’ answered Servaz, trying not to yield to emotion.

  He realised that although he had not read the book for years, every sentence was intact, branded in blazing letters upon his memory. In those days, it had been their sacred formula, their mantra, their password.

  Van Acker stopped walking.

  ‘You were my big brother,’ he said suddenly, his voice surprisingly emotional, ‘you were my Seymour – and for me, in a way, that big brother committed suicide the day you joined the police force.’

  Servaz felt his anger return. Really? Then why did you take her from me? he would have liked to ask. Of all the women you could have had and whom you did have, you had to go and take her … And why did you abandon her?

  They had reached the edge of the pine woods, where the view, when the weather was fine, revealed a panorama for miles around, as far as the Pyrenees, forty kilometres away. But clouds and rain had cloaked the hills in wisps of mist. This was where they used to come twenty years earlier, Van Acker, Servaz himself and … Marianne – before Marianne became a barrier between them, before jealousy, anger and hatred tore them apart; and perhaps, who knows, Van Acker still came here, although Servaz doubted it would be in memory of the good old days.

  ‘Tell me about Claire.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Did you know her?’

  ‘Do you mean personally, or as a colleague?’

  ‘Personally.’

  ‘No. Not really. Marsac is a little university town. It’s like the court at Elsinore. Everyone knows everyone else, they all spy on each other, stab each other in the back, spread vile gossip … Everybody makes sure they have something to say about their neighbours, preferably something snide and juicy. All these academics have raised backstabbing and gossip to an art form. Claire and I used to run into each other at parties, we only made small talk.’

  ‘Were there any rumours about her?’

  ‘Do you really believe that in the name of our erstwhile friendship I’m going to fill you in on all the gossip going around?’

  ‘Oh really, there was that much?’

  There was the whoosh of a car on the little road winding past the foot of the hill.

  ‘Rumours, speculation, gossip … Is that what they call a house-to-house investigation? Not only was Claire an independent and attractive woman, she also had very set ideas on an entire host of subjects. She had a tendency to be a bit too … militant at times, at work dinners.’

  ‘And besides that? Were there any rumours about her private life? Do you know anything about that?’

  Van Acker bent down to pick up a pine cone. He threw it into the distance, down the slope.

  ‘What do you think? A beautiful woman, single, intelligent … Naturally she was surrounded by men. And she hadn’t been raised in a convent.’

  ‘Did you sleep with her?’

  Van Acker gave him an indecipherable look.

  ‘I say, Maigret, is that the way you work in the police? You throw yourself on the first evidence you can find? Might you have forgotten the difference between exegesis and hermeneutics? May I remind you that Hermes, the messenger, is a deceitful god. The accumulation of proof, the search for hidden meaning, the descent into the unfathomable structure of intentionality: Kafka’s parabolas, Celan’s poetry, the question of interpretation and subjectivity in Ricoeur – you turned all that to your advantage, once upon a time.’

  ‘Had she received any threats? Did she confide in you? As a colleague or as a friend, did she ever talk to you about a complicated relationship, or a break-up, or was anyone harassing her?’

  ‘She didn’t confide in me. We weren’t that close.’

  ‘She never mentioned any strange calls or e-mails?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No suspicious graffiti concerning her, in or around the lycée?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘And Hugo, what sort of student is he?’

  The trace of a smile passed over Van Acker’s face.

  ‘Seventeen years old, and already in the preparatory classes – and top of his class. Do you get the picture? And a good-looking kid too, with all the girls, or nearly all of them, at his feet. Hugo is the boy that all the others dream of being.’

  He broke off and stared at Servaz.

  ‘You should go and see Marianne.’

  There was something like a faint shift in the air – or perhaps it was the effect of the wind in the pine trees.

  ‘I intend to, for the investigation,’ said Servaz coldly.

  ‘I’m not just referring to that.’

  Servaz listened to the murmur of the rain on the bed of pine needles. Like Van Acker, he was staring at the horizon of hills immersed in gloom.

  ‘You’ve always been anything but level-headed, Martin. Your acute sense of injustice, your anger, your fucking id
ealism … Go and see her. But don’t reopen the old wounds.’ Then, after a moment of silence: ‘You still hate me, don’t you?’

  Servaz suddenly wondered if it was true, if he hated this man who had been his best friend. Was it possible to hate someone for years and never forgive him? Oh yes, it was possible. He realised that deep in his pockets his nails were digging into his palms. He turned and walked away heavily, crushing the pine cones beneath the soles of his shoes. Francis Van Acker did not move.

  Margot was coming in his direction, straight through the mass of students in the corridors. She looked exhausted. He could tell how tired she was from her hunched shoulders and the way she was carrying her books. And yet she smiled when she saw him.

  ‘So I hear they’ve given you the investigation?’

  He closed Hugo’s locker – where he had found nothing but sports things and books – and tried to smile in turn. He gave her a hug there in the middle of the dense crowd, jostled as the young people swirled round them, calling out and bumping into each other. They were kids, just kids, he thought. They came from a planet known as Youth, a planet every bit as far away and peculiar as Mars. A planet he did not like to think about on evenings when he was alone and feeling nostalgic, because it reminded him that being an adult is a curse.

  ‘Are you going to question me as a witness, too?’

  ‘Not right away. Unless you have some confession to make, of course.’

  He winked and saw her relax. She checked her watch.

  ‘I don’t have a lot of time. History class in five minutes. Are you leaving or are you here for the day?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. If I’m still here this evening, maybe we could have dinner, what do you think?’

  She made a face.

  ‘Okay. But a quick one. I have an essay to finish for Monday and I’m behind.’

  ‘Yes, so I heard. You did well, speaking up this morning.’

  ‘Speaking up when?’

  ‘In Van Acker’s class.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I was there. I heard everything. Through the window.’

  She looked down at her feet.

  ‘Did he … did he say anything about me?’

  ‘Francis? Oh yes. He’s full of praise where you’re concerned. And coming from him, that’s rather rare. He said, I quote, “the apple never falls far from the tree”.’

  He saw her blush with pleasure and for a moment he thought that she was just like he had been at that age: desperately in need of recognition and approval. And unlike the young man he had been, she hid this insecurity behind a rebellious attitude and a facade of independence.

  ‘I’m off,’ she said. ‘Happy sleuthing, Sherlock!’

  ‘Wait! Do you know Hugo?’

  His daughter turned around, her face inscrutable.

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  He waved his hand.

  ‘Just wondered. He spoke about you, too.’

  She came back up to him.

  ‘Do you think he’s guilty, Dad?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Hugo is a good person, that’s all I know.’

  ‘He said the same thing about you.’

  He saw her resist the temptation to ask more.

  ‘And did you have Claire Diemar as a teacher?’

  She nodded.

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘She knew how to make her classes interesting. The students liked her. Couldn’t we talk about it some other time? I really am going to be late.’

  ‘But what was she like?’

  ‘Joyful, exuberant, enthusiastic, very pretty. A bit crazy, but super cool.’

  He nodded and she turned to go, but he saw that her shoulders and her back had slumped forward again.

  He walked along the corridor to the entrance hall, making his way through the crowd, glancing at the noticeboards covered with announcements, rules, offers, opportunities for swaps – that hadn’t changed, either, since his day – and went back out. His mobile vibrated in his pocket. He looked at the number: Samira.

  ‘Yes?’ he replied.

  ‘We may be on to something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You did tell us not to focus on the kid, right?’

  He felt his pulse beat faster.

  ‘Out with it.’

  ‘Pujol remembered a case he worked on a few years ago. Assault and rape of a young woman in her own home. He tracked down the man who did it. And he dug up the files from the archives. This guy had several convictions for sexual assault. In Tarbes, Montauban and Albi. Elvis Konstandin Elmaz is his name. He has a fairly unsavoury record: at the age of twenty-five he’d already been convicted a dozen times or more for drug trafficking, serious assault, and theft … He’s twenty-seven now. A predator. His method is enough to send shivers down your spine: the guy was in the habit of going onto dating sites to find his victims.’ Servaz thought of Claire’s empty mailbox. ‘In 2007 he met one of his victims in a public place in Albi, took her back to her own house at knifepoint, tied her to the radiator and gagged her, then took her bank card once he’d got the code off her. Then he raped her and threatened her with reprisals if she filed a complaint. Another time, he assaulted a woman in a park in Tarbes, after nightfall, then he tied her up and put her in the boot of his car, until he changed his mind and abandoned her in a bush. It’s just a miracle he hasn’t killed anyone yet—’ She broke off. ‘Well, if we exclude … In short, he got out of prison this year.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘There is a snag, though …’

  Through the receiver he heard a spoon clinking against a cup.

  ‘It would seem that our resident Elvis has a solid alibi for last night. He got in a fight in a bar.’

  ‘That’s a solid alibi?’

  ‘No, he was also taken to Rangueil by ambulance. He was admitted to the casualty ward at around ten p.m. He’s still in hospital as we speak.’

  Ten o’clock … By then, Claire was already dead and Hugo was sitting by the side of the pool. Would Elvis Elmaz have had time to go back to Toulouse and start a fight to ensure an alibi? If that were the case, when would he have found the time and the opportunity to drug Hugo?

  ‘Is his name really Elvis?’

  He heard her laugh on the other end of the line.

  ‘It is indeed. I looked into it: apparently it’s a fairly common name in Albania. In any case, with this bastard, we’re a lot closer to “Jailhouse Rock” than to “Don’t Be Cruel”.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Servaz, who wasn’t sure he grasped what she meant.

  ‘So what do we do, boss? Shall I interview him?’

  ‘Don’t move, I’m on my way. Just make sure the hospital doesn’t let him vanish into thin air in the meantime.’

  ‘No danger of that: I’ll stick to the bastard like a leech.’

  Interlude 1

  Hope

  Hope is a drug.

  Hope is psychotropic.

  Hope is a far more powerful stimulant than caffeine, khat, maté, cocaine, speedball or amphetamines.

  Hope was accelerating her heartbeat and her breathing, raising her blood pressure, dilating her pupils. Hope was amplifying her auditory and olfactory perception. Hope was contracting her viscera. Her brain was doped up on hope, recording everything with a sharpness she had never known before.

  A bedroom.

  It wasn’t hers. For a tiny moment she thought she had woken up at home, that the endless months spent down in the cellar were only a nightmare. That morning had come, placing her back in her life before, her marvellous, ordinary life – but the bedroom wasn’t hers.

  This was the first time she had ever seen it. An unfamiliar room.

  Morning. She turned her head slightly and saw the ever-brighter stream of light coming through the netting between the curtains. The red figures on the alarm clock on the night table said 6.30. There was a refrigerator on the far side of the room. She raised her head and in the mirror she
could see her feet, her legs, and between them, her own face in the semi-darkness, looking like an anxious little animal’s, terrified.

  There was someone next to her, asleep.

  Hope returned. He had fallen asleep and had forgotten to take her back down to the cellar before the drug he’d administered stopped working! She could not believe her eyes. A mistake, a single mistake at last after all these months of captivity. This was her chance! She felt as if her heart were coming loose.

  Hope – delirious hope – spread through her brain. She turned her head cautiously towards him, aware of the deafening pounding of her blood in her ears.

  He was sleeping with his fists closed tight. With absolute neutrality she looked at his long naked body next to her. She felt neither hatred nor fascination. Even his close-cropped blond hair, his dark little beard and his arms black with tattoos like a scaly second skin no longer drew her attention. She saw a few filaments of dried sperm in the hairs on his thighs and shuddered. But it was nothing like the nausea and revulsion that had gripped her in the beginning. She was well beyond that stage.

  Hope increased her strength. Suddenly she was burning with the hope that she might be able to leave this hell behind and be free. So many contradictory emotions … This was the first time since the beginning of her captivity that she had seen daylight. Even through a window and curtains. And the first time that she had woken up in a bed and not on the hard dirt floor in her cellar, in darkness. The first bedroom in months, perhaps years …

  It can’t be possible. Something has happened.

  But she mustn’t get distracted. The light in the room was getting progressively brighter. He would wake up. Such an opportunity would never come again. She instantly felt afraid.

  There was one solution. To kill him. Now, right away. To split his skull with the bedside lamp. But she knew that if she got it wrong, he would have the advantage, he was much too strong for her. There were two other options: find a weapon – a knife, a screwdriver, a sharp object.

  Or run away …

  She preferred this second solution. She was so weak, she had so little strength left to confront him. But where would she go? What would she find outside? The only time he had moved her from one place to another, she had heard birds singing, and a cock crowing, and the smells were those of the countryside. An isolated house …