The Circle (50 page)

‘It's called an arch dam,' said Elias, oblivious to her fear. ‘This one is the biggest one in the Pyrenees. It's
110
metres high and the lake next to you holds 67,000,000 cubic metres of water.'

He lit a cigarette. She refrained from looking beyond him to the gaping void, and concentrated on the lake. On this side, its surface was less than four metres from the edge.

‘The pressure is colossal,' said Elias, following her gaze. ‘It's thrust back towards the shores by a flying-buttress effect; you know, like in cathedrals.'

A light wind ruffled the surface of the lake and caused the pine needles all around to dance. Unwooded areas gave way to a succession of grassy plateaus scattered with streams and rock piles. Then came the steep slopes of the mountain.

‘Look. There.'

He handed her his binoculars. She followed the road, which rose to go around the lake, overlooking it by a dozen metres or so. Towards the middle of the reservoir there was a car park. Several cars were parked there, and even a minivan. Margot recognised the Ford Fiesta.

‘What are they doing there?'

‘There's only one way to find out,' he said, climbing behind the wheel.

‘How can we get closer without them hearing us?'

He pointed to the end of the dam.

‘We find a place to leave the car and do the rest on foot. Hopefully they won't have finished before we get there. But I'd be surprised. They haven't come all this way for nothing.'

‘How will we get to them? Do you know this place?'

‘No, but we have two good hours of daylight ahead of us.'

He turned the ignition and they drove to the end of the dam. There was a car park with a map at the entrance, sheltered beneath a little roof made of fir planking, but there was nowhere to hide the car. They left it there, and went over to the map. There were different trails available to hikers: three of them left from the second car park where the Ford Fiesta was parked, and a footpath joined the two car parks, following the shore and the road most of the way. Elias put his finger on the footpath and Margot nodded. At this time of day, in this weather, they probably wouldn't run into any tourists. Besides, apart from Elias's Saab, this first car park was deserted.

‘Switch off your phone,' said Elias, taking his own out of his pocket.

The temperature was dropping rapidly. They began walking along the stony path. The evening air smelled of resin and the mountain flowers whose white forms dotted the twilight, and the slightly stagnant smell of the great reservoir.

The rocky dirt path climbed, looking down on the road, which in turn looked down on the lake. She supposed that at some point it would go back down to reach the second car park. The sky was turning a violet grey. The mountain was no more than a black mass, and what Elias had referred to as ‘daylight' was less and less luminous. For all that they tried to step lightly, their shoes crushed the stones noisily enough to worry Margot. Because everywhere else there was silence.

They had gone what Margot guessed was roughly 500 metres when Elias stopped her with a raised hand and pointed to a spot slightly further along. Margot trained her gaze towards the steep shore 200 metres away.

It formed a sheer slope that dropped down from the road to the surface of the water, roughly ten metres below that. The top part of the slope, however, next to the road, was almost horizontal, and the slope only sheared off a few metres after that, forming a rocky escarpment prickled with bushes, thickets and pine trees. That was
when she saw them.
The Circle . .
. She should have thought of it sooner. So simple. Too simple. The answer was there, before their eyes. She and Elias looked at each other and crouched down by the edge of the path, amidst the grass and the heather, while he handed her the binoculars.

They were holding hands, and their eyes were closed. Margot counted nine of them. One was sitting in a wheelchair. She saw another person standing, but in a strange twisted position, as if his legs were not quite on the same axis as his torso, as if he were one of those puzzle images made up of several different people, where each fragment is slightly out of joint. Then she noticed the shining poles on the ground at his feet: a pair of crutches.

They had made the circle on the flattest part of the terrain between the road and the steep slope. Those who were on the side nearest the lake had their heels almost above the abyss, the dark mass of water just behind their backs.

Margot looked at Elias in the encroaching darkness.

‘You knew,' she said. ‘You left me that note, “I think I've found the Circle.” You knew about their existence …'

He answered without taking his eyes from the binoculars.

‘I was bluffing. All I had was a map with this spot marked with a cross.'

‘A map? And where did you find a map?'

‘In David's room.'

‘You got into David's room?!'

This time he didn't answer.

‘So you knew all along where we were going.'

He gave her an amused little smile and she felt a surge of anger. Then he stood up.

‘Come on. Let's go.'

‘Where?'

‘Let's try and get closer. To understand what's going on.'

Not a good idea, she thought. Not a good idea at all. But she had no choice. She followed him across the uneven terrain, while evening continued to descend.

David felt the tears streaming down his cheeks, his eyelids closed. The evening breeze dried them as the minutes passed. He was
holding hands with Virginie and Sarah. Alex had put his crutches at his feet, as had Sofiane. Maud was sitting in her folding wheelchair; they had had to push it along the road from the car park and then carry her for several metres, with her chair folded. They all held their arms out to their neighbours.

The Circle had formed again. As it did every year, on the same date: 17 June. A day that was carved in their flesh. Ten. That was their number. A round number. Like the circle. Ten survivors and seventeen victims. 17 June. God, chance, or fate had wanted it that way.

Their eyes closed, they let the memories invade, rise to the surface. They saw again that spring night when they had stopped being children and had become a family. They relived the enormous shock, the deafening sound of twisted metal, windows exploding in myriad shards of glass, seats torn from their fastenings, the roof and the sides crushed like a beer can in a giant's fist. They saw the night and the earth suddenly slipping, and they were rolling over each other, and the fragile pine trees were torn up, beheaded as they fell, the jagged rocks tearing the metal, their bodies projected every which way like weightless spacewalkers. They saw the beam of the headlights gone mad, illuminating the whirlwind with improbable flashing, gleams of panic, an absurd pattern. They heard their comrades screaming, and the adults, too. Then sirens, shouts, calls. Helicopter blades above them. The firemen, who came after twenty minutes. At that moment, the coach was still hanging ten metres above the surface of the lake, only a short way from where they stood now, momentarily held mid-slope by a few ridiculous shrubs and paltry tree trunks.

They saw again the moment when the last trees yielded in a sinister cracking and the coach slid with an agonising groan into the lake. And to the screams of those who were still trapped inside, it had foundered in the black water, illuminated by one of the headlamps, which continued to shine for hours at the bottom of the water.

The adults had wanted to evacuate them, but they had all refused. They were already together; they had stood their ground in unison, watching the rescue operation from a distance, the futile efforts, until the bodies of their little drowned comrades rose to the surface and began to float on the water, iridescent in the beam of that single
headlight shining like a Cyclops's eye. One, then two, then three, then a good dozen little bodies rose like balloons until someone shouted, ‘Get those children out of there, for fuck's sake!' It had happened on a June evening, an evening that should have symbolised freedom regained, the beginning of the holidays: the most exciting period of the year.

It was in the psychology unit at the hospital in Pau, where they had spent part of the summer recovering, that the Circle had been born. The idea came to them naturally, without any need for consultation. They had understood, instinctively, that they could never be separated. That the bonds with which fate had brought them together were much stronger than those of blood, friendship or love. It was death that united them. Death had spared them and marked them out for each other. That night they had understood that they could only ever count on themselves. They had had the proof. Adults were not to be trusted.

David felt the warmth of Virginie and Sarah's hands in his, and – through them – the warmth of the group. Then he remembered that there were not ten of them there that evening, but nine. Someone was missing. Hugo. His brother, his double. Hugo, who was rotting in prison despite all the signs he was innocent. It was up to him, David, to get Hugo out of there. And he knew how he would go about it. He was the first to break the Circle, then Sarah and Virginie in turn let go of the hands they were holding, and so on, like a chain reaction.

‘Shit!' exclaimed Elias when he saw them move. ‘They're going to see the Saab!'

He stood up, grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet.

‘Hurry!' he said in a loud whisper. ‘It will take them a while to get the girl in the wheelchair back to the van.'

‘Unless David, Virginie and Sarah leave first. They'll reach their car before us. And besides, we're too close. If we start running, they'll hear us!' muttered Margot.

‘We're fucked,' said Elias glumly.

She could see his mind was racing.

‘Do you think they'll recognise the car?' she asked.

‘One car all alone in the car park at this hour? They don't need to recognise it. They're paranoid enough as it is.'

‘Do they know your car or not?' she insisted.

‘How the fuck should I know! There are dozens at school. And I'm just a first-year student, a nonentity as far as they're concerned …'

She saw them walk away along the edge of the road, speaking animatedly, their backs to them.

‘No one's noticed us: come on, let's run. But no noise!'

She dashed off, zigzagging as silently as possible across the irregularities of the terrain.

‘We won't make it!' he said, when he caught up with her on the path. ‘They'll be just behind us on the way down and then they'll figure it all out!'

‘Not necessarily. I have another idea,' she said, sprinting along the path.

He hurried after her. His legs were longer, but she was running flat out as if she had the devil on her heels. She scrambled down the slope to the Saab, opened the rear door, and motioned to him to climb in.

‘Sit on the back seat! Hurry up!'

‘What?'

‘Do as I say!'

Already the sounds of cars starting rose above the silence of the lake and echoed back to them.
They're about to drive off, they'll pass right by us in a minute
, she thought.

‘Come on!'

He did as he was told. Margot immediately lifted her hood over her head and sat astride him. She had left the door open facing the side of the road. She opened the zipper of her sweatshirt and her small white breasts appeared.

‘Grab them!'

‘Huh?'

‘Go on! Feel me up!'

Giving him no time to react, Margot took Elias's hands and placed them on her breasts. Then she glued her mouth to his, darting her tongue between his lips. She heard the cars coming, they slowed down as they drew near, and she guessed that they were looking in that direction. She went on kissing him even as she felt the fear wash over her. Elias's fingers were pressing against her chest, more in response to a reflex than to any desire. She had put her arms around him and went on kissing him. She heard someone say, ‘Fuckin' hell!',
there was laughter, then the cars accelerated. She turned her head cautiously. They were driving away. She looked down at Elias's fingers, still clinging to her breasts.

‘You can take your hands off,' she said, sitting up.

She met his gaze, and there was something new in it, something she had never seen there before.

‘I told you to let go.'

But he seemed to have decided not to do anything of the sort. He grabbed her by the neck and put his mouth on hers. She pushed him away violently and slapped him, harder than she meant to. Elias stared at her, his eyes wide. There was surprise, but also a dark fury in his gaze.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, wriggling to extricate herself from the car.

Shots in the Night

Servaz went back to his car, dragging his feet. He felt overwhelmed. The lights from the street lamps filtered through the dark leaves of the trees lining the road. He leaned against the roof of the Cherokee and breathed deeply. He could still hear the echo of the same television. The commentary sounded lacklustre, and he knew that France must have lost.

He was gazing at a pile of ashes. Marianne, Francis, Marsac. It had not been enough for the past to re-emerge. It had only done so in order to disappear forever. Like a ship that rights itself and plunges up and down before sinking. Everything he had believed in, his best years, the memories of his youth, all that nostalgia: all illusions. He had built his life on lies. With a weight like a stone on his chest, he went to open the car door. Almost immediately his mobile beeped twice. A yellow envelope on the screen: a new message.

Espérandieu.

He opened it. For a fraction of a second he wondered what he was reading. He still had a hard time with text-speak.

Meet me Elvis house found sthg

He sat behind the wheel and called Espérandieu, but got an anonymous voice asking him to leave a message. Impatience and curiosity lifted the weight from his chest. What was Vincent doing in Elvis's house at this hour when he was supposed to be keeping an eye on Margot? Then Servaz remembered he had told him to dig into the Albanian's past.