The Circle (36 page)

Drissa felt all his strength draining away, his resolve taking on water like the cutter during the storm. Every one of the man's words felt like a hammer blow.

‘Answer me:
is that what you want
?'

He shook his head, his eyes down.

‘Fine. So I have some very good news for you. You have my word: this is the last time I'll ask you for anything.
The last time.
And there's 2,
000
to back it up.'

Drissa looked up. The prospect of being set free, and of earning some money at the same time, had just reassured him a little. The man put his hand into his jacket pocket, then removed it and opened it. In his big fist the USB stick looked tiny.

‘All you have to do is put this stick into a computer. It will take care of everything: it'll find the password and download the software it contains. It won't take more than three minutes. Then you take it back out, you switch off the computer and Bob's your uncle. All done. No one will ever notice the transaction. You give me back the stick, you get your two grand, and you'll never hear from me again. You have my word.'

‘Where?' asked Drissa Kanté.

He felt as if he were driving through a wall of fire. The shade of every little cluster of trees was a blessing. Elvis Konstandin Elmaz had rolled down the window but the air was as hot as if he had opened the door to an oven. Luckily, it was getting late in the evening, and the patches of shade were quite frequent. He turned right in front of the sign at the crossroads:

KENNEL

LE CLOS DES GUERRIERS GUARD AND DEFENCE DOGS

A bit further along he took an even narrower road, its surface potholed and cracked. A barn and a windmill stood out against the orange setting sun. It wasn't just the heat that was making him sweat. Shadows made him nervous. Elvis Elmaz was scared stiff. At the hospital he had managed to keep his cool in front of the cop and his weird sidekick, but he knew at once what had happened. Fuck!
It was starting again
… As he drove along, he began to feel as if his stomach were tying itself in an endless series of knots. Bloody hell! He didn't want to die. He wouldn't let it happen. Not like that slut teacher … He would show them! He pounded on the steering wheel, enraged, frightened.
Bunch of arseholes, go right ahead, I'm the one who'll get you!
He hadn't seen them coming the other night. Serbs, yeah right! Bullshit, more like! He'd made up the story about the woman and the Serbs for the sake of the police, and he'd asked one or two of his mates at the bar to back it up. That bar was full of blokes like him – on parole, or waiting for their trial. They'd almost got him, this time, but he'd stood up for himself and sent them packing. Too many potential witnesses. That's what had saved him. But for how long? He had one other solution: tell the cops everything. But then they'd reopen the case, and he'd have the families on his back. A trial, and a sentence to go with it. How long would they give him, with his background? He didn't want to go back into the rat-trap. No way.

Next to a rusty letterbox and the creamy cloud of a flowering bush, a second sign indicated he should leave the little road for an even bumpier track. The last hundred metres took him through a veritable tunnel of vegetation. It was getting ever darker and he
was increasingly jittery. Another sign, a big one this time, informed him:

ROTTWEILERS, DOBERMANS, ALSATIANS, AMSTAFFS,
DOGOS ARGENTINOS, BORDEAUX MASTIFFS.

If the sign wasn't clear enough as it was, there was a rough drawing of a dog. Elvis had painted it himself. On his right, a terrifying commotion of barking and yapping greeted him in the silence. He smiled on hearing the chain-link clang as his beloved doggies hurled themselves furiously against the fence. The huge dogs seemed to excite each other to the point of barking until their throats bled – then they tired of it, and the noise abated.

No doubt they too felt the effects of the heat. Nothing was moving, not even the air, which was as inert as lead; the only sign of life came from the buzzing of flies and the clicking of the engine as it cooled down. He took a pack of cigarettes from his jeans pocket and stuck one between his lips. He inhaled the dogs' smell – wild and dangerous, deeply satisfying. Then he lit his cigarette and started walking towards the house. His torso was still wrapped in a dirty bandage covering a whole row of stitches, and in this heat it was incredibly itchy. Still, he was happy to have left hospital, and to be at home again with his precious hounds.

And his weapon.

A superposed Rizzini rifle, 20 calibre, for hunting big game.

Only a few more metres and he'd be in a safe place. He walked across the clearing, went up the steps to the veranda, and put the key in the lock. Living deep in the woods had been an advantage until today. An advantage for his little business, which required calm and discretion. But not today. Today he would rather have been in town, to lose himself in the crowd. The only thing was that he couldn't leave the mutts alone for too long. They must be famished after his stay in hospital. Tonight, however, he had neither the strength nor the courage to venture over to the cages. It was much too dark. He'd feed them tomorrow, as soon as he got up.

He went through the door, closed it behind him, and went to get his rifle and ammunition.

Go ahead, you'll see what you see. Don't go fucking with Elvis, he'll fuck you right back.

Lost Hearts

Margot couldn't stand the heat in the room any more. She splashed her face at the tap in the little sink. She reached for her towel and began to open the door to head to the showers, and then she heard them.

‘What do you want?' Sarah was saying, two doors further down.

‘You have to come. It's David.'

‘Look, Virginie—'

‘Move it!'

Margot peered through the doorframe. Virginie and Sarah were facing each other, one in the corridor, the other in the doorway to her room. Second-year students were entitled to private rooms. Sarah nodded and followed her friend towards the stairs.

Shit!

Margot wondered what she ought to do. You could hear the urgency and stress in Virginie's voice. She had mentioned David. Margot took a split second to decide, then put her bare feet into her Converse trainers and hurried out. The corridor was empty. She moved stealthily towards the stairway.

She could hear them going down.

She followed down the monumental staircase, her hand running along the balustrade. Through the big stained-glass window on the landing she could see the sun setting behind buildings huddled in the red dusk. When she emerged, the air seemed as solid as a pane of glass, but the evening was gradually bringing a soothing balm to the burning day.

Where were they?

She saw them at the last minute: two figures merging into the black mass of forest all the way at the end of the tennis courts.

She began running in that direction, as silently as possible, through
shadows and clouds of midges. But as soon as she reached the end of the path, the shadows grew darker and denser, melting into each other to create an ominous twilight – and she hesitated, no longer sure she wanted to continue.

Where had they gone? A cracking sound in the forest. Then Sarah's voice, from its depths: ‘David!' Straight ahead of her there was a path. She could hardly see it in the murky undergrowth. She turned round to go back to the dormitory – no way was she going in there. Then curiosity, a need to know, got the upper hand and she spun round, back to the forest.

What the hell
…?

She made her way through the branches and thickets. Spiders' webs between the leaves brushed against her face; dozens of insects buzzed around her. She was treading cautiously but the girls ahead of her were making too much noise to notice her presence. The fading daylight left large patches of dusty light between the trees above her, but down by the ground it was darker and cooler.

‘David, fuck, what the hell are you doing?'

Voices over there: they had found him. Margot's mouth went dry with fear; she stepped on a twig that snapped like a firecracker and for a moment she was afraid the noise might attract their attention, but they were far too preoccupied.

‘My God, David, what have you done?'

Sarah's voice echoed in the forest, near panic. And panic was bloody contagious: Margot herself was on the verge of freaking out. She moved cautiously between the branches of the fir trees and found a clearing bathed in a twilight glow.

What the fuck was going on?

David was standing bare-chested on the far side of the clearing, his back against a grey tree trunk, his arms widespread. He was clinging to two thick branches that were almost perfectly horizontal, in a strange position that evoked a crucifixion. His head was down, his chin on his chest, as if he had lost consciousness. She could not see his face. Only his blond hair. And his beard.
A blond Christ.
Suddenly he lifted his head and she nearly leapt backwards when she saw his pale, mad gaze.

It was as if an electric current were flashing along her arms when she saw the red marks on David's chest. Very recent gashes. Then she saw the knife, in his right hand. The blade was red, too.

‘Hey, girls.'

‘Fuck, David, what's your problem?' said Virginie. ‘What the fuck are you doing?'

Her voice echoed in the silence. David gave a little laugh as he looked down at his bloody chest.

‘I really fucked up, didn't I? How do you do it? How do you manage to stay cool with everything that's going on?'

Was he on drugs? He looked completely out of it. He was trembling from head to toe, laughing and crying at the same time – or at least it looked like laughter, or a snigger … There were four gashes on his chest and the blood was still forming on each of them. It looked like smeared paint. Margot saw an enormous scar further down, directly across his abdomen, just above his navel.

‘I can't take any more of this shit … it has to stop, we can't go on like this …'

Silence.

‘Really, I'm serious, what's the point? What the fuck are we doing? How far will we go?'

‘Get a hold of yourself.'

Virginie's voice. Yet again.

‘And Hugo? Have you thought about Hugo?'

From her hiding place behind a bush, Margot saw David roll his head from side to side and look at the sky.

‘What can I do about Hugo being in jail?'

‘Fuck, he's your best friend, David! You know how much he cares for you; you know how much he cares for
us.
He needs us. He needs you. We have to get him out of there.'

‘Oh yeah? And just how do we go about that? You see, that's the difference between him and me … If I were in his place, no one would give a damn. Hugo has always had people around him, he's always had his admirers … They're there for the taking … All he has to do is snap his fingers for Sarah to open her legs. Even you, Virginie; you'd never admit it, ever, but basically there's only one thing you dream of: that he'll give you one. Whereas I—'

‘Shut up!'

Birds left the trees in a great rustling of wings, frightened by her shout.

‘I
can't take it any more … I can't take it any more.'

Now he was sobbing. Sarah rushed across the clearing to put her
arms around him. Virginie seized the moment to take the knife from him. They sat David down in the grass at the foot of the tree. It was like watching a descent from the cross, thought Margot. Sarah was caressing his cheeks, his forehead; she kissed him delicately and tenderly.

‘My baby,' she murmured, ‘my poor baby …'

Margot wondered if they'd all gone stark raving mad. At the same time there was something about their madness – and David's pain – which made her heart bleed. Only Virginie seemed lucid.

‘You have to deal with this,' she said firmly. ‘You have to see a shrink, David, for Christ's sake! This can't go on!'

‘Leave him alone,' said Sarah. ‘Not now. Can't you see the state he's in?'

She stroked his blond hair, held him tight, maternally; shaking with sobs, he placed his head on her shoulder, even though she was a good ten centimetres shorter than him.

‘You have to think about Hugo,' said Virginie again, lowering her voice. ‘He needs us. Are you listening? Hugo would give his life for you! For every one of us! And you were behaving like … like … What the fuck, we have no right to abandon him. We have to get him out of there. And we can't do it without you.'

Frozen as if hypnotised by the scene, Margot could not move. A solitary bird let out a long, shrill cry that startled her, breaking the spell.

You have to get out of here. If they find you here, who knows what they might do? And the way they're behaving. Why do I think it's downright …
unhealthy?
It's as if something is binding them to each other. An indestructible bond. What would Elias make of it? And her father?

She wanted to get out of there – she was being eaten alive by insects on top of everything else – but she was too close. At the slightest movement, they would hear her. And that thought alone was enough to turn her stomach. She had no choice but to stay there, and she was finding it harder and harder to breathe, her palms damp on her thighs, her knees aching.

David nodded slowly. Virginie crouched down in front of him and lifted his chin.

‘Get a grip, please. The Circle will be meeting soon. You're right – maybe it's time to put an end to it all. This business has gone on long enough. But we still have a job to finish.'

The Circle . .
. This was the second time she had heard the word. Something oppressive, deeply sinister, was in the air. The buzzing of crickets and insects, nightfall: Margot could feel it in her nerves, her veins. She wished she could leave. Suddenly, they stood up.