The Circle (61 page)

‘Your pin code?'

Servaz gave it to him. He waited, all his senses on alert. Voices
and footsteps all around, and no way of knowing who they belonged to. He was struggling against the fog spreading through his skull.

‘What's his last name?'

‘Huh?'

‘Your lieutenant! What's his name?'

‘Espérandieu.'

‘And you?'

‘Servaz.'

‘I'd like to speak to Lieutenant Espérandieu,' said the young man into the phone. ‘On behalf of …'

He listened to him explaining the situation awkwardly to Vincent. The tension in his voice grew noticeably.

‘Okay, I'll bring him to you,' he said finally, grabbing Servaz by the arm. ‘Let's go. This is crazy!' Servaz could hear the panic in his voice now.

‘I told you I wanted to speak to him.'

‘Later! We have to get out of here, quickly. If you're in danger, then so am I! I don't suppose you have a weapon?'

Good question. Where had his gun got to? He remembered he had left it in the glove box, before the dive.

‘No,' he said. ‘And anyway, you wouldn't know how to use it.'

They went through the hospital doors and were immediately absorbed into the ferocity of the storm. The air smelled and tasted like ozone, and there was an ear-splitting crack. The young man took Servaz by the arm and they hurried across the car park. Servaz was immediately drenched. The rain dribbled down his neck and soaked his hair. The puddles seeped up through the soles of his shoes. He began to shiver. Another thunderclap.

He heard the young man open a car door.

‘Get in!'

He collapsed onto the passenger seat and let out a nervous laugh when he realised that, driven by reflex, he was looking for the buckle of the seatbelt.

‘Why are you laughing?' asked the young man, slamming the door and turning the key in the ignition.

He didn't answer. The man put the windscreen wipers on and they took off like a shot. He felt the car swerve as they took a tight turn out of the car park and he was thrown against the door. He told himself it was just as well he couldn't see anything.

‘I think we've lost him,' he joked feebly. ‘Do we really need to go so fast?'

‘Don't you like speed?'

‘Not really.'

They took the roundabout at the same diabolical speed and Servaz's head bashed into the window.

‘Shit, slow down!'

‘Put your belt on,' ordered the driver, simply.

He could hear the rush of water against the undercarriage of the car, the spray it threw up. Echoes of thunder everywhere. He felt both relieved and worried. A thunderclap, louder than all the others, made him jump.

‘Incredible weather, isn't it?'

Servaz thought the comment was rather strange, given the situation. There was something about the young man's voice, a tone … Now he knew what it was. Right from the very start, when the young man had opened the door to his room, something had rung a bell. Not that it was a familiar voice. But he thought he had heard it at least once before.

‘Have you been working in his hospital for long?'

‘No.'

‘What exactly do you do there?'

‘Huh? I'm a nursing auxiliary.'

‘Shouldn't we have informed your superiors?'

‘Make your mind up! You and your assistant both told me to hurry up, to get the hell out of there and now—'

‘Yes, but still,' he said. ‘To go off like that into the blue with a patient without telling anyone … Don't you have a pager or something?'

Silence. Servaz felt his nausea return. Instinctively, his hand gripped the handle above the door.

‘We'll call the hospital as soon as we get there,' said the young man.

‘Yes, you're right. So what exactly does your job consist of?'

‘Listen. I don't think this is the right time to—'

‘How did you know that Lieutenant Espérandieu is my assistant?'

The sound of the engine, the beating of the windscreen wipers and the drumming of the rain on the roof of the car were the only answer.

‘Where are we going, David?' he asked.

Exit

The night of
18
June was one of the most turbulent of the year. There were gusts of wind of
160
kilometres an hour, trees were uprooted, cellars were flooded, and an impressive number of lightning strikes were observed in the countryside around Marsac. The firefighters were constantly in demand. The night of
18
June was also one of the longest in Servaz's life. While David and he drove through the torrential downpour, it occurred to him, sitting slumped in his seat with the sweat stinging his eyes beneath the bandage, that the weather was exactly the same as the night they had discovered Claire's body in her bath.

‘A nice show you put on,' he said in a voice that he tried in vain to keep steady. ‘I almost fell for it.'

‘You did fall for it,' his neighbour corrected him.

‘Where are we going?'

‘Don't you want to hear my confession, Commandant?'

‘I'm listening.'

They went round another roundabout, tilting dangerously. The furious blast of a car horn followed in their wake.

‘I killed Claire Diemar, and Elvis, and Joachim Campos, and several other people,' said David, raising his voice to be heard over the din. ‘They got what they deserved. That's what I say. And you, Commandant, what do you say?'

‘Why, David?'

In response, the young man seized Servaz's left hand and slipped it under his T-shirt in a gesture of surprising intimacy. The policeman shuddered when his fingertips felt something like a wide pucker of skin all the way across his belly.

‘What is that?'

‘An Asian speciality. Hari-kiri. When I was fourteen. But I didn't
have the courage to go through with it. And besides, with a blunt knife, it's not as easy.' He sniggered. ‘Not everyone can be Mishima,' he concluded bitterly.

For an instant Servaz was sorry he had no particular skill in dealing with this type of behaviour; sorry he was a cop and not a psychiatrist.

‘You know Camus' question, don't you, Commandant?'

‘“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy,”' said Servaz mechanically. ‘I'm not sure I follow you. Is that your idea, David: we're going to kill ourselves?'

All Servaz got for an answer was silence. He swallowed. He had to find a way to stop this madness. But what? He couldn't see a thing, he was imprisoned in a metal shell hurtling at breakneck speed through the rain. He had no control over the situation.

‘And why not? It would be both my farewell and my confession,' said David in an icy voice. ‘A confession signed in blood and metal.'

Servaz managed to roll down the window. He felt sick. He breathed in the damp air, greedily, filling his lungs. He wondered what would happen if he jumped from the moving car.

‘I don't think it's a good idea to get out just now,' said David. ‘There are trees and electricity pylons everywhere. There's a good chance they'd find your head on one side and your body on the other. I don't think Margot would appreciate it.'

Servaz rolled the window back up.

‘You didn't answer my question: why?'

‘Do you know anyone who is truly innocent, Commandant? I challenge you to name even one.'

‘Stop the chat. Why
you
, David? You're not the only survivor of that accident. Why not Virginie, or Hugo, or Sarah? Or is it to avenge the others – the one who goes round on crutches, for example? Or that other one in a wheelchair? The …
Circle
, is that it?'

‘You're an astonishing man, Commandant. I didn't think your investigation would get this far. But they're innocent. I'm the only guilty one. All they did was fantasise.'

‘Did you and Hugo talk about it? About what you were going to do? Did you confide in him? You swapped ideas, didn't you? He knew about everything.'

‘Don't involve Hugo in this! You've already persecuted him enough. Hugo has nothing to do with this!'

‘Hugo called, he told you what I had just told him, that I was nearly there, that I had found out about the coach accident, and that I was going to go after the Circle.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘According to a witness, there were two people in Joachim Campos's car,' said Servaz. His fingers were gripping the door handle. He was ready to jump out if the car slowed down even the slightest bit.

‘And several people tossed Bertrand Christiaens into the Garonne,' he added.

‘Christiaens' death has nothing to do with the rest,' said David. ‘But you have to admit it's crazy, the irony of what happened to him …'

‘You're lying.'

‘What?'

‘You were in on the murder of Bertrand Christiaens. And you were in Joachim Campos's Mercedes before he died – but I'll bet you weren't the one who shot him. You were there when Elvis died, smoking one cigarette after the other in the bushes while they fed him to his dogs. But you didn't kill Claire Diemar … because I know who did.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘How did Hugo get you into this state? How does he manage to manipulate people, huh? How did he convince you to write that sentence in Claire's notebook?'

There was wheezing silence next to him. Then David said, very calmly, ‘You're wrong. It's not Hugo who got me into this
state
, as you call it. It's my father, my brother, my fucking family … All those people who are so sure of themselves, and who never doubt; all those ambitious fucks who saw me as a pathetic failure. Hugo did everything he could to help me. Hugo saved me. He made me understand that there was a place even for someone like me, that other people were no better than I was. He's my brother, you understand? My big brother. My true brother. The one I should have had. I would do anything for him.'

Servaz suspected that this time David was desperately sincere. And his sincerity was terrifying. Hugo had a deadly hold over him: deadly for both of them.

‘Yes, it's my handwriting in the notebook. And it's my DNA on the cigarette butts. So everyone will believe I'm guilty. And the fact I took you with me to my death will confirm it. I won't let you go after the others.'

Servaz's fingers felt for the ends of his bandage, and tugged. The skin came first, then bits of sticking plaster pulled away. He opened his eyes.

A light … through the fog of his tears and the rain flooding the windscreen … He could see!

It was still blurry, but he could see. It took him some time to get used to it. The headlights of the cars coming in the opposite direction were blinding. The purplish, flickering eye of a traffic light appeared, through the back and forth of the windscreen wipers and the downpour. He clung to his seat when David hurtled through the red light.

‘Fucking hell,' he screamed.

The young man turned briefly in his direction.

‘What the fuck are you doing? You took off your—'

‘David, you don't need to do this. I'll testify in your favour! I will say you were acting under the influence. You'll get treatment, and they'll release you. You'll be free. Cured!'

A booming laugh came in response.

‘Listen to me, dammit! You can get treatment! David, I know you're innocent, that Hugo manipulated you. Do you want to die with this burden on your conscience? To become a monster in everyone's eyes?'

A No Entry sign: the motorway exit. Servaz felt his blood drain into his belly and legs, his entire body pressed instinctively back against his seat. They were about to go the wrong way onto the motorway!

‘Fuck, what are you doing? Stop!'

Irène looked out at the waltz of squad cars from the gaping doors of the ambulance. The flashing alarm signals swept intermittently through the interior of the vehicle, then over the puddles and the face of the paramedic next to her. He was checking the lines that connected her to a number of different devices.

‘How do you feel?'

‘I'm okay.'

She dialled Martin's number again, to no avail; she got his voicemail every time. She wondered anxiously if he had fallen asleep. She absolutely had to tell him what she had read in Jovanovic's file.

Marianne
…

It wasn't difficult to work out her motive. The only possible motive. She had spied on Martin to protect Hugo, to find out where the investigation stood. Because she would have done anything for her son. But by resorting to someone like Zlatan Jovanovic, she had gone outside the law. Ziegler may have won, but her victory left her with a bitter aftertaste when she thought of Martin, how he would react when he found out the truth. Even if he didn't show it, Martin was fragile. He was a man who'd been wounded since childhood. How would he take this new setback? Suddenly she realised the paramedic was looking outside, his eyes open wide and his smile broader still.

‘Yes?' he said to the person who was standing by the ambulance.

Ziegler turned her head and saw Zuzka looking at her. Her long black hair rippled down to a very short cream-coloured leather jacket, and underneath she was wearing layers of necklaces and charms, a tank top that showed her belly button, and a pair of print shorts that were even more minimalist. Her lipstick was as bright as a neon light. For a split second, Ziegler forgot everything else.

‘Can I go?' she said.

The paramedic looked from one to the other; he seemed to be wondering whom he would rather spend the night with.

‘Uh … you have to see the ENT specialist, then get your back and ribs checked out …'

‘Later.'

She jumped down from the stretcher and the ambulance, took Zuzka in her arms and kissed her. Her girlfriend's tongue had the bittersweet taste of Campari, rye and vermouth.
A Manhattan
, concluded Ziegler. Zuzka had come straight from the strip club, the minute Irène had called her.