Free The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier Page B

the things they don’t tell you, a mass of pain and secrets. No one is really what they seem.
    â€˜Can I give you some advice?’ said Tarrieu suddenly.
    Servaz froze, on the defensive. But his tone had changed: the hostility was gone, and along with it the wariness and sarcasm.
    â€˜I’m listening.’
    â€˜The watchmen,’ said the senior man. ‘Rather than wasting your time with us, you’d do better to question the watchmen. Shake them up a bit.’
    Servaz gave him an intense look.
    â€˜Why?’
    Tarrieu shrugged.
    â€˜You’re the cop here,’ he said.
    *   *   *
    Servaz went down the corridor and out through the swing doors, moving abruptly from an overheated atmosphere to the icy chill of the foyer. Flashbulbs were popping outside, flooding the foyer with their brief glow, casting large, menacing shadows. Servaz saw Cathy d’Humières climbing into her car. Night was falling.
    â€˜Well?’ asked Ziegler.
    â€˜They probably have nothing to do with it, but I want an additional background check on two of them. The first is Marousset, the cook. The other one is called Tarrieu. And then someone called Schaab: the guy who lost his hand in an accident last year.’
    â€˜And why the other two?’
    â€˜Just checking.’
    He pictured Marousset’s gaze again.
    â€˜I want to get in touch with the drug unit as well, see if they don’t have a file on the cook.’
    Captain Ziegler gave him a close look, but she didn’t add anything.
    â€˜How are we doing checking out the immediate vicinity?’
    â€˜We’ve been questioning everyone who lives along the road to the power plant, in the event that someone might have seen a vehicle go by during the night. So far, nothing.’
    â€˜Anything else?’
    â€˜Graffiti on the outside walls of the plant. If there are any taggers lurking about the neighbourhood, they might have seen or heard something. With everything that went into this crime, there had to be a preparatory stage, researching the location. Which takes us back to the watchmen. Maybe they know who left the graffiti. And why didn’t they hear anything?’
    Servaz thought back to what Tarrieu had said. Maillard came up to them. He was taking notes on a little pad.
    â€˜And the Wargnier Institute?’ said Servaz. ‘On the one hand we have a crime that, clearly, has been committed by a lunatic; on the other a bunch of criminal madmen locked away only a few kilometres from here. Even if the director of the Institute swears that none of his residents got over the wall, we’ll have to look into it thoroughly.’ He glanced first at Ziegler then at Maillard. ‘Have you got a staff psychiatrist?’
    Ziegler and Maillard looked at each other.
    â€˜A profiler is supposed to get here in a day or two,’ replied Irène Ziegler.
    Servaz frowned imperceptibly. A profiler for a horse  … He knew that the gendarmerie were a few lengths ahead of the police in this respect, as in others, but he wondered if this wasn’t overdoing it a bit: even the gendarmerie ought not to be mobilising its specialists as easily as all that.
    Ã‰ric Lombard really did have a long reach  …
    â€˜You’re lucky we’re here,’ said Ziegler ironically, rousing him from his thoughts. ‘Otherwise you would have had to call in an independent expert.’
    He didn’t pick up on it. He knew what she was driving at: since they weren’t prepared to train their own profilers, the way the gendarmerie did, the cops often had to make do with outside experts – shrinks who were not always properly qualified for this type of work.
    â€˜But it is only a horse, after all,’ he said, without conviction.
    He looked at Irène Ziegler. She wasn’t smiling now. On the contrary, he could detect the tension and worry on her features. She gave him a searching look. She’s