Free The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier

commandant from the crime unit was coming, yet there before them was a man who could be a teacher or a journalist, a fit forty-something, his cheeks covered in stubble, wearing a velvet jacket and worn jeans. Servaz shoved to one side a pizza box smudged with grease and a plastic cup with cigarette butts floating in a puddle of coffee. Then he sat on the edge of the table, ran a hand through his brown hair and turned to them.
    He inspected them closely. One by one. Lingering each time for a few tenths of a second. They all lowered their eyes – except for one.
    â€˜Who saw it first?’
    A man sitting in a corner of the room raised his hand. He was wearing a short-sleeved sweatshirt with the logo ‘University of New York’ over a checked shirt.
    â€˜What’s your name?’
    â€˜Huysmans.’
    Servaz took his notebook from his jacket.
    â€˜Tell me what you saw.’
    Huysmans sighed. His patience had been sorely tested over recent hours, and he was not a particularly patient person by nature. He had already told his story at least half a dozen times, so this time his delivery was somewhat mechanical.
    â€˜You came back down without setting foot on the platform. Why was that?’
    Silence.
    Finally the man who had just spoken confessed, ‘Fear. We were afraid the guy might still be somewhere nearby – or hiding in the tunnels.’
    â€˜What makes you think it’s a man?’
    â€˜Can you picture a woman doing something like that?’
    â€˜Have there been any quarrels or disagreements among the workers?’
    â€˜It’s like everywhere,’ said another man. ‘Drunken brawls, stuff about women, some guys just don’t get along. That’s all.’
    â€˜What’s your name?’ asked Servaz.
    â€˜Gratien Etcheverry.’
    â€˜Life up there must be pretty tough, no?’ said Servaz. ‘The danger, the isolation, living one on top of the other – it must create tension.’
    â€˜The men who get sent up there have their heads screwed on, Commissaire. The manager must have told you. If they don’t, they stay down here.’
    â€˜It’s commandant, not commissaire. Still, when it’s stormy, with the bad weather and everything, you could easily blow a fuse, right?’ he insisted. ‘I’ve been told it’s really hard to get to sleep at that altitude.’
    â€˜That’s true.’
    â€˜Can you explain it to me?’
    â€˜The first night you’re so knackered from the altitude and the work that you sleep like a log. But then you start sleeping less and less. The last nights maybe only two or three hours at the most. It’s the mountain that does it. We catch up at the weekend.’
    Servaz looked at them again. Some of them were nodding in agreement.
    He stared at these tough men, guys who’d never had any higher education and made no claims on genius; nor had they gone after easy money; no, they went about wordlessly carrying out a thankless task in the public interest. The men were roughly his age – between forty and fifty; the youngest might have been thirty. He was suddenly ashamed about what he was doing. Then he caught the cook’s fleeting gaze again.
    â€˜Did this horse mean anything to any of you? Did you know it? Had you ever seen it?’
    They stared back at him, astonished, then slowly shook their heads.
    â€˜Have there already been accidents up there?’
    â€˜Several,’ said Etcheverry. ‘The last one was two years ago: a guy lost his hand.’
    â€˜What is he doing now?’
    â€˜He works down here, in the office.’
    â€˜His name?’
    Etcheverry hesitated. He turned red. He looked at the others, embarrassed.
    â€˜Schaab.’
    Servaz figured he would have to find out more about this Schaab: a horse loses his head/a worker loses his hand …
    â€˜Any fatal accidents?’
    Etcheverry shook his head again.
    Servaz turned to the