The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier

the support tower of a cable car, at an altitude of two thousand metres,’ answered Servaz, adjusting the temperature of the shower with his free hand.
    There was a brief silence.
    â€˜A horse? On top of a cable car?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    The silence lingered.
    â€˜Fuck,’ said Espérandieu bluntly, sipping something a little too close to the speaker.
    Servaz would have wagered it was something sparkling rather than a plain coffee. Espérandieu was a specialist in chemicals: chemicals to wake him up, chemicals to go to sleep, for memory, for energy, against coughs, colds, headaches and stomach upsets … The most incredible thing was that Espérandieu was not some ageing copper nearing retirement, but a young crime unit sleuth who’d only just turned thirty. In great shape. Who went running along the Garonne three times a week. Absolutely no issues with his cholesterol or his triglycerides, but he dreamt up a whole host of imaginary evils, some of which, by virtue of his zeal, eventually became reality.
    â€˜When will you be back? We need you here. The kids are claiming that the police beat them. Their lawyer says the old woman’s a drunk,’ continued Espérandieu. ‘That her testimony is worthless. He’s asked the examining magistrate to release the oldest one immediately. The other two have gone home.’
    Servaz pondered this for a moment.
    â€˜And fingerprints?’
    â€˜Not until tomorrow.’
    â€˜Call the deputy public prosecutor. Tell him to drag it out for the older boy. We know it’s them: the prints will talk. Have him speak to the magistrate. And tell the lab to get a move on.’
    He hung up. He was wide awake now. Once he was out of the shower he dried off quickly and put on clean clothes. He brushed his teeth and inspected himself in the mirror above the sink, thinking about Irène Ziegler. He was surprised to see he was taking longer than usual to check his face. He wondered what sort of image he projected to the gendarme. A guy who was still young, not bad-looking, but utterly drained by fatigue? A cop who was sort of stubborn, but efficient? A divorced man whose solitude was plain to see, both on his face and in the state of his clothes? If he’d had to describe himself, what would he have seen? Without a doubt the shadows under his eyes, the wrinkles around his mouth and the vertical line between his brows – he looked as if he’d just come out of the spin cycle of a washing machine. Still, he remained convinced that despite the extent of the damage something youthful and passionate rose to the surface. Good God! What had got into him all of a sudden? He suddenly felt like some teenager in heat; he shrugged and went out onto the balcony.
    The Russell Hotel was located in the upper part of Saint-Martin, and his room looked out over the town’s rooftops. With his hands on the railing he watched the shadows ebbing from the narrow streets, giving way to a luminous dawn. At nine o’clock in the morning, the sky above the mountains was as bright and transparent as a crystal dome. Up there, at two thousand five hundred metres, the glaciers would be emerging from shadow, sparkling in sunlight, even though the sun was still hidden. Straight ahead of him lay the old town, the historic centre. On the left, beyond the river, council housing. On the other side of the broad basin, two kilometres away, a high wooded slope rose like a wave, scarred with a wide trench of cable cars. From his perch Servaz could see figures darting through the shadow of the little streets in the centre of town, on their way to work; there were the headlights of delivery vans; adolescents perched on back-firing mopeds on their way to their colleges and lycées; tradesmen rolling up their iron shutters. Servaz shivered. Not because it was cold, but because he had just thought again of that horse hanging up there, and the person or persons responsible.
    He