The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier

Author:Bernard Minier
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466844247
Publisher: St. Martin’s Minotaur

18

By the time Servaz parked outside the gendarmerie the snow was falling thick and fast. The officer at the duty desk was dozing. They had already lowered the shutters and he had to raise them again to let Servaz in. Holding the heavy box out in front of him, Servaz headed for the incident room; the corridors were silent and deserted. It was almost midnight.

‘In here,’ said a voice just as he was walking past a door.

He stopped and looked through the open door. Irène Ziegler was sitting at a little desk in the half-light. Only one lamp was lit. Ziegler yawned and stretched. She must have fallen asleep while waiting for him. She looked at the box, then smiled. At this late hour, he found her smile charming.

‘What’s all that?’

‘A box.’

‘I can see that. What’s in it?’

‘Everything about the suicides.’

There was a gleam of surprise and interest in her green eyes.

‘Saint-Cyr gave it to you?’

‘Want a coffee?’ he asked, putting the heavy box on the nearest desk.

‘Espresso, with sugar. Thanks.’

He went out to the coffee machine at the end of the corridor, and came back with two polystyrene cups.

‘Here, Irène,’ he said.

She looked at him, surprised.

‘I think it’s time we called each other by our first names, no?’ he said, by way of an apology, thinking of how informal the judge had been with him. Why the devil shouldn’t he be the same? Was it the late hour, or the smile she had just given him that had suddenly prompted him to take the initiative?

He saw Ziegler smile again.

‘All right. So, how was dinner? Informative, it seems.’

‘You go first.’

‘No, you go first.’

He perched on the edge of the desk and saw she’d been playing patience on the computer. Then he began his story. Ziegler listened with interest, without interrupting.

‘What an incredible story,’ she said when he had finished.

‘I’m surprised you’ve never heard about it.’

She frowned and blinked.

‘It does sound vaguely familiar. A few articles in the papers, perhaps. Or conversations between my parents at dinner. May I remind you that I hadn’t joined the gendarmerie yet. In fact, at the time I was probably about the same age as the victims.’

It suddenly occurred to him that he knew nothing about her. Not even where she lived. And that she knew nothing about him, either. For a week now, all their conversations had been about the investigation.

‘But you live not far from here,’ he insisted.

‘My parents lived fifteen kilometres or so from Saint-Martin, in another valley. I didn’t go to school here. When you were young, if you were from another valley, it was like being from another world. Fifteen kilometres for a kid is like a thousand for an adult: every teenager has his or her territory. At the time of the events I was taking the school bus twenty kilometres further west – I went to the lycée in Lannemezan, forty kilometres from here. Then I studied law in Pau. Now that you mention it, I do remember schoolyard gossip about these suicides.

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