The Circle

by Bernard Minier

  ‘You’ve just come from the pathologist,’ suggested Espérandieu. ‘We could imply that Delmas found some vital clue. A clue that would prove the kid’s innocence beyond a shadow of a doubt.’

  ‘No,’ said Servaz. ‘We can’t do that. But we can say we found a Mahler CD at Claire Diemar’s …’

  ‘But that’s the truth,’ said Stehlin, puzzled.

  ‘Precisely. That’s the trick. We’ll give them the wrong title. When the time comes, we can say with complete sincerity that it was totally wrong, that we never found the Fourth Symphony at her place – without going on, obviously, to specify that we found another CD …’ Servaz gave a twisted smile. ‘Consequently, the Hirtmann connection to the Diemar case will be made to look ridiculous and the journalist who published the scoop will be discredited. I’m calling a meeting in five minutes with my team.’

  He was already heading towards the door when Stehlin’s voice stopped him.

  ‘Did you say “Hirtmann connection”? Are you suggesting there is a Hirtmann connection?’

  Servaz looked at his boss, shrugged as if to feign ignorance, and went out.

  Distant rumbling, heat, motionless air and grey sky. The very countryside seemed expectant, frozen like an insect trapped in resin. Barns and fields looked deserted. At around three o’clock, he stopped for lunch at a roadside café where the men were chatting noisily about the performance of the French team and the incompetence of the coach. He gathered that the next match was against Mexico. Servaz almost asked them whether Mexico had a good team but caught himself in time. His sudden interest in the tournament caught him by surprise, and he realised that he was nourishing a secret hope: that the French team would be eliminated, and soon, so that they could get on with other things.

  Lost in thought, he entered the paved streets of the little town almost without realising. He was thinking back to the lorry drivers’ conversation in the restaurant, and he was suddenly struck by the fact that everything had happened on a Friday evening in the space of a few hours, during a football match that had the entire country glued to the television. That short period of time was where they had to look. They had to concentrate on what happened just before, and painstakingly reconstitute the unfolding of events. He took his thoughts one step further. He had to start at the beginning: the pub Hugo left a short while before the crime was committed. He was convinced that whoever they were looking for had not chosen the place or the time by chance. He parked his car on the little square beneath the plane trees, switched off the engine and looked at the terrace of the pub. It was packed with youthful faces. Students, boys and girls. As in his day, ninety per cent of the clientele was under twenty-five.

  Margot Servaz poured herself an insipid coffee at the drinks dispenser in the hall, added an additional dose of sugar she had taken from the canteen, and rammed her earphones into her ears – a sign which meant ‘don’t bug me’ – and glanced discreetly at David, Sarah and Virginie at the far end of the crowded, noisy hall. They had met up during the break. She bit her lower lip as she spied on them, pretending to be interested in the noticeboard. In the jumble of posters there was one advertising an ‘END OF YEAR BALL 17 MAY ORGANISED BY THE MARSAC STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION’ as well as ‘FRANCE-MEXICO, GIANT SCREEN, THURSDAY, 17 JUNE, 20.30, HALL F IN THE SCIENCE FACULTY. COME ONE COME ALL! BEER AND TISSUES PROVIDED!’ At the top someone had scribbled with a felt tip, in big red letters, ‘SEND DOMENECH TO THE BASTILLE!’

  She was sorry she hadn’t learned how to lip read. She averted her gaze when Sarah looked in her direction, pretended to be grumbling to herself as she rummaged in the change slot of the dispenser. When she looked up again, they were walking towards the courtyard. Margot followed, taking out her cigarette papers and her tobacco.

  She looked for them in the crowd. Spotted them. They’d split up. Sarah and Virginie were smoking in silence; David had joined another group. She focused her attention on him. He had dropped out of sight for the entire weekend, but Margot knew that, like Elias and herself, he hadn’t gone home. Where had he been? Ever since he’d shown up again he had seemed agitated and tense. David was Hugo’s best friend. It was rare to see one of them without the other. She’d talked to him on several occasions and had found herself exasperated by his habit of never taking anything seriously, but she sensed that behind his joker-ish facade there was something serious, a hurt that sometimes troubled his gaze. It was as if the smile that constantly played on his lips was nothing but a shield. But what was he protecting himself from?

  Margot knew that she had to focus her attention on him.

  ‘Have … noticed … Davi … nerv …?’

  The words had difficulty penetrating the wall of sound in her ears, just as Marilyn Manson was screaming, ‘Fuck! Eat! Kill! Now do it again!’

  ‘Elias,’ she said, noticing him.

  She removed one of her earphones.

  ‘I’ve been following you ever since we got out of class,’ he said.

  She raised an eyebrow. Elias was observing her from under his hair.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I can see what you’re up to – you’re watching them. I thought you thought my idea was stupid?’

  She shrugged, put her earphone back in place. He pulled it out.

  ‘In any case, you should be a bit more discreet,’ he shouted, too loudly, in her ear. ‘Besides, I made enquiries: no one knows where David was this weekend.’

  The Dubliners was run by an Irishman from Dublin who asserted, naturally, that Joyce was the greatest writer of all time. He had been there in Servaz’s student days. Servaz and Francis had never known more than his first name: Aodhágán. He was always behind the bar. Like Servaz, Aodhágán was twenty years older now – except that in the old days he had been the age the cop was now.

  Aodhágán’s pub was the only one in Marsac where in addition to the wood and copper and the porcelain beer handles, you could find shelves full of books in English. The majority of the customers were students and representatives of the local Anglophone community. Servaz himself went there as a student several times a week, alone or with Van Acker and a few others, and from time to time he would take a book from the shelves while he drank a beer or a coffee. He spent glorious days lost in the pages of Catcher in the Rye, Dubliners or On the Road in the original, a voluminous Anglo-French dictionary at his side.

  ‘Dear Lord, is that young Martin before me or am I seeing things?’

  ‘Not so young any more, you old fogey.’

  The Irishman’s hair and beard were more grey than brown now, but he still looked like a cross between a commando and a DJ from a 1960s pirate radio station. He walked around the bar and gave Servaz a hug, patting him on the back.

  ‘What have you been up to?’

  Servaz told him. Aodhágán frowned.

  ‘And here I thought you’d be the next Keats.’

  Servaz could hear the disappointment in his voice, and for a fraction of a second he was overwhelmed with shame. Aodhágán gave him another pat on the back.

  ‘This one’s on me. What will you have?’

  ‘Do you still have your famous stout?’

  Aodhágán replied with a wink, his entire face creased with joy. When he came back with the beer, Servaz pointed to the seat next to him.

  ‘Sit down.’

  The Irishman gave him a look of surprise. And wariness. Even after all these years, he knew the tone – and he had no more affection for the French police than for the British.

  ‘You’ve changed,’ he said, pulling over a chair.

  ‘Yes. I became a cop.’

  Aodhágán looked down.

  ‘If there’s one job I could never have seen you in …’ he said quietly.

  ‘People change,’ said Servaz.

  ‘Not everyone …’

  There was a note of pain in the Irishman’s voice. As if it hurt him to call to the surface all the betrayals, denials and renunciations in his life. His own, or others’? wondered Servaz
.

  ‘I have a few questions for you.’

  He looked at Aodhágán.

  Who looked right back. Servaz felt that the mood was changing. They were no longer the Martin and Aodhágán of the old days. They were a cop and a bloke who didn’t like dealing with cops.

  ‘The name Hugo Bokhanowsky – does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Hugo? Of course it does. Everyone knows Hugo. He’s a brilliant lad … a bit like you were, back in the day. No, more like Francis … You were more discreet, more withdrawn – even if you were every bit as brilliant.’

  ‘Did you hear that he’s been arrested?’

  Aodhágán nodded his head in silence.

  ‘He was in your pub on the evening Claire Diemar was killed. And according to witnesses he left the pub not long before the murder. Did you notice anything?’

  The Irishman thought. Then he looked at Servaz the way the apostles must have looked at Judas.

  ‘I was at the bar, serving, nowhere near the door … the pub was filled to bursting that night. And like everyone else, I was watching what was happening on the telly. No, I didn’t notice anything.’

  ‘Do you remember where Hugo and his friends were sitting?’

  Aodhágán pointed to a table just below the television screen on the wall.

  ‘There. They came early to get the best spot.’

  ‘Who was at the table?’

  Again, the Irishman thought.

  ‘I can’t be sure. But I think there were Sarah and David. Sarah, she’s a beauty, the prettiest young woman to grace my pub. But she doesn’t act the princess. A lovely girl. Bit of an introvert. Sarah, Virginie, David, Hugo: they’re practically inseparable. They remind me of Francis, Marianne and you at that age …’

  Servaz felt a serpent unwind in his belly and close round his insides.

  ‘Do you remember? When you came here to transform the world, to talk politics … You talked about rebellion, revolution, changing the system … Ha! Ha! Dear Lord, youth is the same the world over! Marianne … she was something, do you remember? Even pretty Sarah can’t touch her. Marianne drove you all mad, it was plain to see … and I’ve seen my share of pretty students. But Marianne was unique.’

  Servaz gave him a sharp glance. He hadn’t realised it at the time, but Aodhágán would only have been about forty in those days. Even he must not have been totally impervious to Marianne’s charms. To that aura of mystery and superiority she gave off.

  ‘David is Hugo’s best friend.’

  ‘I know who David is. And Virginie?’

  ‘A little brown-haired girl, on the chubby side, with glasses. Very lively, very intelligent. A lot of authority. That girl is cut out to be a leader, believe me. And the others, as well. That’s what you were all programmed for, wasn’t it? To end up in charge, human resources directors, ministers, God knows what.’

  Suddenly Servaz remembered something.

  ‘There was a power outage when we arrived in Marsac on Friday night …’

  ‘Yes, fortunately I have an emergency generator. It happened ten minutes before the end of the match … Dear Lord, I can’t get over it,’ mumbled Aodhágán.

  ‘Get over what?’

  ‘That you became a cop.’ He let out a long sigh. ‘You know, in the 1970s, I was a prisoner at Long Kesh, the most filthy prison in Northern Ireland. Have you heard about the H-blocks? Maximum-security quarters. They got the name because seen from the sky they formed a big letter H. Dilapidated facilities, filth, humidity, broken windows, lack of hygiene … And those bloody screws were right Nazis. In the winter it was so cold we couldn’t sleep. I took part in the famous hunger strike in 1981, when Bobby Sands died after sixty-six days. I took part in the blanket strike in 1978, too, when we refused to wear the prison uniform, and we wandered around naked with nothing but flea-ridden blankets in spite of the freezing cold. The food they gave us was off, they beat us, tortured us and humiliated us. I never gave in, I didn’t yield an inch. I hate uniforms, young Martin, even when they’re invisible.’

  ‘So it was true …’

  ‘What was true?’

  ‘That you belonged to the IRA.’

  Aodhágán didn’t answer.

  ‘I heard that in those days the IRA behaved like a police force themselves in the ghettos,’ suggested Servaz.

  Anger flared in the Irishman’s eyes. ‘Hugo is a good kid,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘Do you think he’s guilty?’

  Servaz hesitated.

  ‘I don’t know. That’s why you have to help me, whether I’m a cop or not.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t see anything.’

  ‘Maybe there’s another way …’

  Aodhágán gave him a questioning look.

  ‘Talk about it to others around you, ask questions, try to find out if anyone saw or heard anything.’

  The Irishman stared at him incredulously.

  ‘You want me to play informant for the police?’

  Servaz brushed aside his objection.

  ‘I want you to help me get an innocent kid out of prison,’ he retorted. ‘A kid who, as of yesterday, is in provisional detention. A kid you care for. Is that enough to convince you?’

  Once again, Aodhágán glared at him. Servaz saw him thinking.

  ‘Here’s the deal,’ he said at last. ‘I will share any information for the defence that happens to come my way, and keep anything incriminating to myself, whether it involves Hugo or anyone else.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ protested Servaz, raising his voice. ‘A woman was killed – tortured and drowned in her bath! And there might be some sick fuck walking round scot-free, ready to do it again!’

  ‘You’re the cop,’ said the Irishman, getting to his feet. ‘Take it or leave it.’

  At 17.31, he walked back out onto the little square. He looked at the sky; it was full of clouds as black as ink. The anxiety was still there. Servaz recognised the sensation in the pit of his stomach.

  Friday evening, he thought. Hugo says he’s not feeling well. It’s not yet half eight, the match hasn’t started. He starts walking towards his car. Someone comes out right behind him. Someone who blended into the crowd in the pub and who’s been waiting for this moment.

  An hour and a half later, Hugo will be found by the gendarmes at Claire Diemar’s. So what happens in the seconds that follow his departure from the pub? Is he alone or is there someone with him? At what point does he lose consciousness?

  Servaz swept his gaze over the car park. On the far side of the square was the tallest building in Marsac – ten floors of concrete – an ugly wart in the middle of the little nineteenth-century buildings. On the ground floor there was a canine grooming salon, an employment agency and a bank. The bank’s surveillance cameras … Servaz spotted them right away. There were two of them. The first one filmed the entrance, the second one the rest of the square. And the car park along with it. He swallowed. This would be really good luck, wouldn’t it? Too good to be true. But he had to double-check all the same.

  He locked the Jeep again and walked up the row of cars towards the camera.

  And saw that it was pointed in the right direction. He turned back towards the entrance to the pub. It was at least twenty-five metres … It would all depend now on the quality of the image. The camera was probably too far away to identify anyone leaving the pub – unless, maybe, you already knew who you were looking at. And maybe, also, it wouldn’t be too far away to see if someone did go out after Hugo …

  He rang the doorbell to the bank and the mechanism buzzed to let him in. Inside, he walked across the big lobby past the clients who were waiting by the counter, and took out his warrant card.

  He asked to see the director of the establishment immediately, and the employee picked up the telephone. Two minutes later a man in his fifties walked up to him, his hand held out but his expression impenetrable.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  In a glassed-in office at the end of
the corridor, the director asked him to sit down. Servaz answered that it wouldn’t be necessary. He explained quickly what his visit was about. The director placed a finger on his lower lip.

  ‘I don’t think that should be a problem,’ he said finally, clearly relieved. ‘Come with me.’

  They left the office and crossed the hall. The man opened the door into a space the size of a box room, lit by a tiny window with frosted glass. On the table there was something that looked like an extra-flat DVD player and recorder, with a remote control. Next to it was a nineteen-inch screen. The director switched it on.

  ‘There are four cameras in all,’ he said, ‘two inside and two outside. The insurance company didn’t require even that much. They just wanted the cashpoint to be under video surveillance. Here we are.’

  The director picked up the remote. A mosaic of four images appeared on the screen.

  ‘It’s this camera which interests me,’ said Servaz, placing his finger on the rectangle showing the car park, on the upper left-hand side.

  The director pressed the number four on the remote and the image filled the monitor. Servaz noticed that it was slightly blurry at the back, by the entrance to the pub.

  ‘Does it record continuously or only when movement is detected?’

  ‘Continuously for the indoor cameras, except the one by the cashpoint, which is on a sensor and records when there’s movement. The recordings are on a loop.’

  Servaz was disappointed.

  ‘So does this mean that the recording from last Friday was taped over during the days that followed?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think so, no,’ smiled the director. ‘The camera you’re talking about also works on a sensor, like the cashpoint one. It only comes on when there is something going on in the car park, which happens fairly regularly during the day but not much at night. Also, the camera records a limited number of images per second to save space. And if my memory serves me well, it has a hard disk of one teraoctet. That ought to be plenty. We keep the recordings as long as is legally required.’

  Servaz felt his pulse increase slightly.

  ‘Don’t ask me how it works,’ said the director, handing him the remote. ‘Would you like me to call the guy who installed it? He could be here in half an hour.’