The Frozen Dead (16 page)

‘Exactly. Marc Morane, the manager of the power plant, hired them. Through a rehabilitation programme for ex-cons, from the prison in Lannemezan.'

‘Have they ever caused any trouble at the power plant?'

‘Morane assured me they hadn't.'

‘Have any of the workers at the power plant or on your estate been let go over the last few years?'

Lombard looked at them in turn. With his hair, beard and blue eyes he really did have something of the irresistible Viking warrior about him. He looked just like his photographs.

‘These are details. I have nothing to do with human resources management. Any more than I do with managing minor concerns like the power plant. But you will have full access to all the files regarding personnel, and my associates are at your disposal. They've all been given their orders in this regard. My secretary will send you a list of names and telephone numbers. Do not hesitate to contact anyone. If any of them gives you trouble, call me. I told you, as far as I'm concerned, this matter is of the highest priority, and I will be at your disposal twenty-four hours a day.' He took out a business card and handed it to Ziegler. ‘Also, you've seen the hydroelectric plant: it's run-down, and not really profitable. We only keep it for historical and family reasons. Marc Morane,' he added, ‘is someone I have known since childhood: we were at primary school together. But I hadn't seen him in years.'

Servaz understood that this last remark was meant to establish a hierarchy of all those involved. For the heir to the empire, the manager of the power plant was only one employee among others, all the way at the bottom of the ladder, at the same level, more or less, as his workers.

‘How much time do you spend here in an average year, Monsieur Lombard?' asked Ziegler.

‘That's a hard one: let me think … I suppose somewhere between six and eight weeks. Not more. Of course I'm more often based in Paris than in this old chateau. I also spend long periods in New York. And to be honest, half the time I'm travelling on business. But I love to come here, particularly during the skiing season and in the summer, to enjoy the horses. I have other stud farms, as you probably know. But this is where I spent most of my childhood, before my father sent me away to school. It may seem like a gloomy place to you, but to me it's home. I've had so many experiences here, both good and bad. But in time, even bad experiences end up seeming good: memory does its work…'

His voice grew slightly husky towards the end. Servaz stiffened, all his senses on alert. He waited for Lombard to speak, but he was silent.

‘What do you mean by “good and bad” experiences?' asked Ziegler quietly.

Lombard brushed the question away with a wave of his hand.

‘It's not important. It was all so long ago … It has nothing to do with the death of my horse.'

‘That is up to us to determine,' replied Ziegler.

Lombard hesitated.

‘Let's just say that people might think it was an idyllic place for a little boy like me to grow up in, but in fact it was anything but.'

‘Really?' said the gendarme.

Servaz saw the businessman throw her a cautious glance.

‘Listen, I don't think that—'

‘That what?'

‘Let's drop it. It's of no interest.'

Servaz heard Ziegler sigh.

‘Monsieur Lombard,' said the gendarme, ‘you have put a certain pressure on us, saying that if we take this affair too lightly we'll be sorry. And you have urged us not to neglect any lead, even the most far-fetched. We are detectives, not soothsayers or fortune tellers. We need to know everything we can about the context of this investigation. Who knows, perhaps the motive for this bloody deed has something to do with the past?'

‘It is our job to find connections and motives,' insisted Servaz.

Lombard stared at them one after the other, and they knew he must be weighing the pros and cons in his mind. Neither Ziegler nor Servaz moved. The businessman hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged.

‘Let me tell you about Henri and Édouard Lombard, my father and grandfather,' he said suddenly. ‘It is a rather edifying story. I'll tell you who Henri Lombard really was. A man as cold as ice, hard as stone, absolutely rigid. Violent and selfish as well. And fanatic about order, like his father before him.'

Ziegler's face was a portrait of stupefaction; as for Servaz, he was holding his breath. Lombard paused again and sat looking at them for a moment. The two investigators waited for him to continue, in what seemed like an endless silence.

‘As you may know, the Lombard enterprise really began to prosper during the Second World War. Actually, my father and grandfather didn't mind the presence of the Germans. My father had only just turned twenty, and my grandfather was running the company, here and in Paris. One of the most prosperous periods in its history – they did some very good business with their Nazi clients.'

He leaned forward. His movement was reversed in the mirror behind his back, as if the copy wanted nothing to do with what the original was about to say.

‘When the Liberation came, my grandfather was tried as a collaborator, sentenced to death and then eventually pardoned. He was released in 1952 and died a year later of a heart attack. In the meantime, his son, Henri, had taken over. He set about expanding the family business, diversifying and modernising. Unlike his father, my father – in spite of, or perhaps because of, his young age – had felt the wind turning in 1943 and, unbeknown to my grandfather, forged closer ties with the Resistance and the Gaullists. Hardly through any sense of idealism, it was purely opportunistic. He was a brilliant man, with a great deal of foresight. After Stalingrad, he understood that the Third Reich's days were numbered, and he made the most of both worlds: the Germans on one side, the Resistance on the other. It was my father who made the Lombard Group what it is. After the war he further developed his contacts among the former Resistance fighters, now in key positions of power. He was a great captain of industry, an empire builder, a visionary – but at home he was a tyrant. Physically, he was very imposing: tall, slender, always dressed in black. The people in Saint-Martin either respected or despised him, but everyone feared him. He was a man who had great love for himself and nothing left to give others. Not even his wife or children…'

Éric Lombard got to his feet. Servaz and Ziegler watched as he went over to a sideboard. He picked up a framed photograph and handed it to Servaz. A tall man with a severe face, the burning eyes of a bird of prey, a long, strong nose and white hair, wearing a dark suit and an immaculate white shirt. Henri Lombard did not look at all like his son, but rather like an evangelist, some fanatical preacher. Servaz could not help but think of his own father, a slim, distinguished man whose face refused to fix in his memory.

‘Both at home and work my father imposed a reign of terror. He was psychologically and even physically violent with his staff, his wife and his children.' Servaz discerned a catch in Lombard's voice. The adventurer of modern times, the magazine icon, had given way to someone else. ‘My mother died of cancer aged forty-nine. She was his third wife. During the nineteen years she was married to my father she was the constant victim of his tyranny, his fits of anger – and his blows. He also sacked a number of servants and employees. I belong to a new era where it is a virtue to be hard. But my father's hardness went beyond what was acceptable. His mind was devoured by shadows.'

Servaz and Ziegler exchanged a glance. Both of them were aware that this was an incredible story the heir to the empire was dishing up to them: what wouldn't the press give for such a story? Apparently Éric Lombard had decided to trust them. And why? Suddenly Servaz understood. In the course of the last twenty-four hours the tycoon must have made dozens of phone calls. Servaz recalled the dizzying figures he had seen on the web and he felt an unpleasant sense of unease. Éric Lombard had enough money and power to obtain all the information he wanted. The policeman wondered whether he had launched a parallel inquiry, an investigation within the investigation – to deal not only with the death of his horse, but also to keep close tabs on the official investigators. It was obvious. Lombard surely knew as much about them as they knew about him.

‘This is important information,' Ziegler said at last. ‘You were right to share it with us.'

‘Do you think so? I wonder. All this business has been buried for so long. Naturally everything I have just told you is strictly confidential.'

‘If what you say is true,' said Servaz, ‘we have a motive: hatred, revenge. On the part of a former employee, for example, some former connection, an old enemy of your father's.'

Lombard shook his head, sceptical.

‘If that were the case, why would they wait so long? My father has been dead for eleven years.'

He was about to add something when Irène Ziegler's mobile phone vibrated. She checked the number, then looked at them.

‘Excuse me.'

The gendarme got up and went over to a corner of the room.

‘Your father was born in 1920, if I'm not mistaken,' continued Servaz. ‘And you were born in 1972. The least one can say is that he had you quite late. Did he have other children?'

‘My sister, Maud. She was born in 1976. Both of us were from his last marriage. He had no children from his previous ones. Why, I don't know. The official version is that he met my mother in Paris, at the theatre where she was an actress…'

Once again, Lombard seemed to be wondering just how much he could trust them. He probed Servaz, looking him straight in the eye, then made up his mind.

‘My mother was actually a fairly good actress, but the truth is she never set foot on stage, nor was she ever on a movie set. Her talent consisted, instead, of putting on an act for one person at a time: wealthy older men who were prepared to pay a great deal for her company. It would seem she had a loyal clientele of rich businessmen. She was very much in demand. My father was one of the most persistent. He must have become jealous very quickly. He wanted her all to himself. As with everything else, he had to be first, and he had to get rid of his rivals one way or another. So he married her. Or rather, the way he saw it, he bought her. After a fashion. He never stopped thinking of her as a …
whore,
even after they were married. When my father married her, he was fifty-one; she was thirty. As for her, she must have been thinking that her “career” was winding down, and that it was time to think of getting into something else. But she had no clue that the man she was about to marry was violent. She had a rough time.'

Éric Lombard became gloomy all of a sudden.
He has never forgiven his father.
Servaz realised with a start that there was a close parallel between Lombard and himself: for both of them, family memories were a mixed bag of joy and suffering, moments of light and others of horror. He watched Ziegler out of the corner of his eye. She was still on the telephone at the far end of the room, her back to the two men.

She turned round abruptly and her gaze met Servaz's.

He was instantly on the alert: whatever the phone call was about was unsettling her.

‘How did you learn all this about your parents?'

Lombard gave a joyless laugh.

‘I hired a journalist a few years ago, to dig around in our family history.' He hesitated briefly. ‘For a long time I had wanted to know more about my father and mother, and I was well positioned to know that their marriage had not been a harmonious one, to say the least. But I did not expect these revelations. After that, I bought the journalist's silence. It cost me. But it was worth it.'

‘And since then, have any other journalists come sniffing around?'

Lombard stared at Servaz. He was once again the uncompromising businessman.

‘Of course they have. I've bought them all. One by one. I've spent a fortune … but above a certain limit, everyone is for sale…'

He stared at Servaz and the cop got the message: even you. Servaz felt a surge of anger. So much arrogance was exasperating. But at the same time he knew that the man sitting opposite him was right. Perhaps he, Servaz, would have had the strength to refuse, in the name of the code of ethics he had adopted on joining the force. But suppose he had been one of those journalists, and the man offered to improve his daughter's lot – the best schools, with the best teachers, then the best universities and later on a guaranteed position in the profession of her dreams: would he have had the courage to turn down such a future for Margot? Lombard was right: above a certain limit, everyone was for sale. The father had bought the wife; the son was buying the journalists – and politicians, too, no doubt: Éric Lombard was more like his father than he knew.

Servaz had no more questions.

He put down his empty cup. Ziegler came and joined them. He gave her a sidelong glance. She looked tense and worried.

‘Well, and now,' said Lombard coldly, ‘I would like to know if you have any leads.'

The liking Servaz felt for him only a moment ago disappeared instantly. Once again the man was speaking to them as if they were his servants.

‘I'm sorry,' he said hurriedly with his best tax auditor's smile. ‘At this point we prefer to avoid commenting on the investigation with anyone who is involved.'

Lombard gave him a long stare. Servaz saw clearly that he was hesitating between two options: threaten them again, or retreat for the time being. He opted for the latter.

‘I understand. In any case, I know where to go to find out. Thank you for coming, and for your time.'

He stood up. The interview was over.

They went back the way they had come. Night was falling as they walked back through the series of rooms. Outside, the wind had picked up and the trees were swaying and groaning. Servaz thought it might snow again. He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes to five. With the setting sun, the long shadows of the topiary animals lengthened over the ground. He glanced behind him at the chateau and saw Éric Lombard in one of the many windows on the first floor, watching them, motionless. He had two people with him, one of them the man called Otto. Servaz recalled his hypothesis: the investigators were themselves the subject of an investigation. In the dark rectangle of the window Lombard and his henchmen looked like reflections in a mirror. Every bit as strange, silent and frightening. As soon as they were back in the car, Servaz turned to Ziegler.