The Circle (7 page)

‘Explain it to me: what were you doing when you lost consciousness, do you remember?'

‘No … not really … I'm not sure. It's like, as if there were a blank …'

‘A blank in time, in the chain of events?'

Servaz saw that Bécker was staring at him and not Hugo. The gendarme's gaze was eloquent. He also saw that the blow had struck home. Hugo was intelligent enough to understand that this blank was not good news.

‘Yes,' he admitted reluctantly.

‘What's the last thing you remember?'

‘I was with friends at the Dubliners, earlier that evening.'

Servaz was taking notes, in shorthand. He didn't trust the webcam any more than he trusted gadgets in general.

‘The Dubliners?'

He knew the place. The pub had been there in his day. Servaz and his friends had made it their headquarters back then.

‘Yes.'

‘What were you doing there? What time was it?'

‘We were watching the World Cup, the opening match, and we were waiting for the one with France.'

‘“Waiting”? You mean you don't remember seeing Uruguay-France?'

‘No … maybe … I don't know any more about what I did during the evening. It may seem strange, but I don't know how long it lasted … or exactly when I passed out.'

‘Do you think someone knocked you out, is that it? Did someone hit you?'

‘No, I don't think so, I checked. I don't have a bump. And I don't have a headache, either. But when I came round I was all fuzzy, as if my head were full of fog …'

He slumped further into his chair, as if realising that the more he talked, the more everything pointed to him.

‘Do you think someone drugged you?'

‘It's possible.'

‘We'll check that. Where were you sitting in the pub?'

‘I don't remember.'

Servaz exchanged looks with Bécker. The gendarme's gaze said, unequivocally:
guilty.

‘I see. Maybe it will come back to you. If it does, let me know, it's important.'

Hugo shook his head bitterly.

‘I'm not stupid.'

‘I have one last question: do you like football?'

A glow of surprise in his blue eyes.

‘Yes, why?'

‘Your coffee's going to get cold,' said Servaz. ‘Drink it. It could be a long night.'

‘A woman alone in an unlocked house,' said Samira.

‘And no sign that it was broken into,' said Espérandieu.

‘She must have let him in. He's her student, after all; she had no reason to be wary. And he said so himself: he had already been there. And he called her eighteen times over the last two weeks … to talk about books? A likely story!'

‘He did it,' decreed Vincent.

Servaz turned to Samira, and she nodded her head in agreement.

‘I think so too. He was arrested at the victim's. And there are no traces of any other individuals. Nothing. Anywhere. Not the slightest proof that a third person was there. But his traces are everywhere. The breath test came up with 0.85 grams of alcohol in his blood; the analysis will tell us whether he had also taken drugs – which is probable, given the state we found him in – and the amount. The gendarmes said that when they caught him his pupils were dilated and he was completely out of it.'

‘He said someone drugged him,' said Servaz.

‘Oh, come on … Who? We found his car parked nearby. So someone else drove it? And even if we suppose it was someone else, he said he woke up in the house: that means the actual murderer would have had to have run the risk of taking Hugo out of the car and dragging him all the way to Claire's house. And no one saw a thing? It doesn't add up. Several houses overlook the street, and there are three terraced houses right across from the victim's—'

‘Everyone was watching the football,' protested Servaz. ‘Even we were.'

‘Not everyone: the old man across the street saw him all right.'

‘But he didn't see him arrive, that's just it. No one saw him go in. Why would he sit there waiting for someone to come and get him if he did it?'

‘You know the statistics as well as I do,' answered Samira. ‘In fifteen per cent of cases, the perpetrator of a crime hands himself in to the police, in five per cent he informs a third party who tells the police, and in thirty-eight per cent of cases he waits calmly at the crime scene for the police to arrive, fully aware that a witness must have contacted them. That's what this kid did. In fact, nearly two-thirds of cases are solved within the first few hours because of the perp's attitude.'

Servaz did indeed know the figures.

‘Yes, but they don't go on to claim they are innocent.'

‘He was stoned. Once he started to come back down, he realised what he had done and what he was in for,' said Espérandieu. ‘He's simply trying to save his skin.'

‘The only question worth asking right now,' said Samira, ‘is whether the assault was premeditated.'

His two assistants were staring at him, waiting for him to react.

‘The crime was staged and it's a pretty unusual way to kill someone, isn't it?' he replied. ‘The ropes, the torch, the dolls … none of it is anything like an ordinary crime. We should be careful not to jump to conclusions.'

‘The kid was high,' said Samira with a shrug. ‘He probably had some sort of spell of delirium. It wouldn't be the first time a junkie does something completely crazy. I don't trust this kid. And anyway, everything points to him, doesn't it? Shit, boss … In any other circumstances, you would come to the same conclusion.'

He started. ‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘You said it yourself: you were well acquainted with his mother. And she's the one who called for help, if I'm not mistaken.'

Servaz arched his back, stung by her insinuation. There were still a number of details that didn't fit.
The way it was staged, the torch, the dolls
… he thought.
And the timing as well …
There was something about the timing that was bugging him. If the kid had lost it, why was it on that very night, when everyone was glued to the television?

Was it chance, coincidence? In sixteen years on the job, Servaz had learned to scratch such words from his vocabulary. Hugo liked football. Would someone who liked watching the World Cup choose that evening to kill someone?
Only if he wanted to be sure no one would notice
… But Hugo had stayed on the spot and let himself be caught; he hadn't tried to hide.

‘This investigation is over before it's even begun,' concluded Samira, cracking her knuckles.

He stopped her with a wave of his hand.

‘Not quite. Go back there and check whether the technicians had a good look at Hugo's car, and ask them to go over it with cyanoacrylate.'

He wished he had a shed available to go over the interior and exterior of the car with a fine-toothed comb. A painting shed like
the ones that body shops used, equipped so that cyanoacrylate – a sort of superglue – could evaporate by being heated. Upon contact with the oily traces that fingers left, cyanoacrylate vapours made the fingerprints appear in white. Unfortunately there were no sheds like that available within a radius of over 500 kilometres: consequently, the technicians had to make do with ‘cyano shots' – portable diffusers. In any event, the violent downpour had probably washed the bodywork clean.

‘And then question the neighbours. Do all the houses on the street, one by one.'

‘A house-to-house – at this hour? It's two o'clock in the morning!'

‘Well then, get them out of bed. I want answers before we go back to Toulouse. I want to know whether anyone saw anything, heard anything, noticed anything, tonight or on any day leading up to today, anything unusual, anything at all – even if it has no connection with what happened this evening.'

He met their incredulous gazes.

‘Get to work!'

Margot

They'd been driving through the hills. It was September, and it was still warm; summer was all around them, and since the air-conditioning wasn't working, Servaz had rolled down the windows. He had slotted a Mahler CD in the player and he was in an excellent mood. Not only was the weather fine and he had his daughter for company, but he was taking her to a place he knew well, even though he hadn't been back there in a long time.

As he drove, he thought about how Margot had been an average pupil in primary school. Then there had been the adolescent crisis. Even now, with her piercings, her strange hair colour and her leather jackets, his daughter didn't look at all like she'd be at the top of her class. But despite her punky look she had earned very good marks. And Marsac was the most demanding prep school in the region. You had to prove you were good to be admitted. As he drove through the summer landscape that morning, he felt himself swelling with pride like a soap bubble.

‘It's so beautiful here,' said Margot, removing her headphones from her ears.

Servaz glanced quickly around him. The road wound its way through green hills, sunny forests and silky blond fields of wheat. As he slowed down to go around a bend, they could hear the birds singing and the chirring of insects.

‘It's a bit dead, no?' said Servaz.

‘Hmm. What is Marsac like?'

‘A small town. Quiet. I suppose they still have the same student pubs. Why did you choose Marsac rather than Toulouse?'

‘Because of Van Acker. The lit prof.'

Even after all this time, Van Acker's name elicited a reaction, like an electrical impulse stimulating a long inactive zone in his heart. He tried nevertheless to keep his voice neutral.

‘He's that good?'

‘He's the best in 500 kilometres.'

Margot knew what she wanted. No doubt about that. He recalled the words of his daughter's married lover, the only time he had met him, on the place du Capitole, a few days before Christmas: ‘Beneath her rebellious exterior, Margot is a wonderful girl, brilliant and independent. And a lot more mature than you give her credit for.' A difficult conversation; bitter, full of reproach, but which in the end had made him conclude that he did not know her very well at all.

‘You could have made more of an effort with your clothes.'

‘Why? It's my brains they're interested in, not my clothes.'

That was Margot all over … Still, he wasn't sure her argument would carry much weight with the staff. They had driven through the vast Marsac forest, which went on for miles, with its bridle trails, footpaths and car parks, then they had entered the town by way of the long straight avenue lined with plane trees which Servaz had gone up hundreds of times in his youth.

‘You don't mind being a boarder from Monday to Saturday?' he asked.

‘I don't know.' She was looking out of the open window. ‘I haven't given it much thought. I suppose I'll meet interesting people here; it'll be a nice change from those idiots at the other lycée. What was it like when you were here?'

The question had caught him unawares. He didn't feel like talking about it.

‘It was good,' he said.

There were a lot of bicycles on the streets, mostly with students perched on the saddle, but also a few professors with leather panniers stuffed with books over their rear wheels or in front of the handlebars. Marsac had several faculties: law, science, humanities … The town seemed to have yielded to its preference for youth. Except during the holidays, half the population was under twenty-five.

They drove north out of town. A green meadow, with a dense line of trees in the distance.

‘Here,' he announced.

There was a long, tall building on the right, a short way from the road, at the end of a broad meadow. It looked very old-fashioned, with its roofs clustered with chimneys, its facade with mullioned windows. Around it there were several low, modern concrete buildings,
set down upon the lawn like incongruous dominoes. Memories assailed him. He saw once again the pensive statues, the pools with green water, the copses colonised by mistletoe, the tennis courts overrun by dead leaves in November, the running track, the little woods where he liked to go for walks, which led to a high, gently sloping hill and the view it offered over the undulating hills as far as the Pyrenees, white from autumn to spring.

It was as if a cold fist had squeezed his heart, causing a rush of nostalgia.

He hadn't realised it, but his fingers were gripping the steering wheel. He had dreamt for so long of a second chance, and had eventually understood that there wouldn't be one. He had missed his chance. He would finish his adult life the way he had begun it: as a cop. In the end, his dreams had turned out to be as transient as clouds.

Fortunately the sensation only lasted a second, and the next instant it was gone.

They left the road to head up the paved driveway. It led between a white gate, which separated them from the broad meadow and the main building on their left, and a row of old oaks beyond a ditch to their right. Horses were frolicking in the meadow. He couldn't help but think of his investigation during the winter of
200
8.

‘Follow your dreams,' he said suddenly.

His voice was stifled.

Margot turned to look at him, surprised. He wished he could have hidden the fact that his eyes had misted up.

‘This preparatory class is very demanding. It is meant for students who are very motivated and who are not afraid to work hard. The two years you are going to spend with us will be an opportunity for you to bloom and make the most of your education, not to mention the unprecedented experiences you will have. The knowledge we pass on to you does not neglect the human side. Unlike other establishments, we are not obsessed with statistics,' explained the headmaster with a smile.

Servaz was certain the opposite was true. Behind the headmaster, the window was open. He could see ivy and hear the sound of a lawnmower, and someone hammering. He knew that the headmaster's office was at the top floor of a circular tower, and that his
window overlooked the rear of the building: Servaz knew the place like the back of his hand.