The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier Page B

little tattoo on her neck, the Chinese ideogram that was just visible above her rollneck collar. He was reminded of Margot. What was it with this fashion for tattoos? That, and piercing. Should he allot some sort of significance to them? Ziegler had a tattoo and a ring in her nose. Maybe she had other secret jewels elsewhere: in her belly button, or even her nipples or down below; he’d read about that somewhere. The idea of it unsettled him. He suddenly wondered what the private life of a woman like her consisted of, yet he was only too aware that his own private life over the last few years had been a desert. He brushed the thought aside.
    â€˜Why the gendarmerie?’ he asked.
    She looked up, hesitated for a moment.
    â€˜Oh,’ she said, ‘you mean why did I go into the gendarmerie?’
    He nodded, not taking his eyes off her. She smiled.
    â€˜Job security, I suppose. And to not be doing the same thing as everyone else.’
    â€˜Which is?’
    â€˜I was at university, studying sociology. I hung out with a very free-thinking crowd. I even lived in a squat. Cops, gendarmes, they were the enemy: fascists, guard dogs for the people in power, the outpost of reactionary thinking – the police were the ones who protected bourgeois comfort and oppressed the immigrants, the homeless or just people who were down on their luck … My father was a gendarme. I knew he wasn’t like that, but I still thought my university friends were right and my father was the exception, that was all. And then after university, when I saw my revolutionary friends becoming doctors, solicitors, bank workers or HR managers, talking more and more about money, investments, rates of return and all that, I started to ask myself questions. Since I was unemployed at the time, I ended up taking the entrance exam.’
    As simple as that, he thought.
    â€˜Servaz, that’s not a name from round here,’ she said.
    â€˜Nor is Ziegler.’
    â€˜I was born in Lingolsheim, not far from Strasbourg.’
    He was going to reply in turn when Ziegler’s mobile began to vibrate. She made a gesture of apology and answered. He saw her frown as she listened. She switched off the phone and looked at him blankly.
    â€˜That was Marchand. He’s found the horse’s head.’
    â€˜Where?’
    â€˜At the riding academy.’
    *   *   *
    They left Saint-Martin by a different road from the one he had come in on. At the edge of town they drove past the headquarters of the mountain gendarmerie, whose representatives were called on with increasing frequency to help with the media coverage of high-risk sports.
    Three kilometres further along they left the main road for a secondary route. Now they were driving across a wide plain surrounded by mountains, still a certain distance away, and Servaz felt that he could breathe a bit. Before long the land on either side of the road began to be fenced off. The sun was shining, dazzling on the snow.
    â€˜This is the estate of the Lombard family,’ announced Irène Ziegler.
    She drove fast, despite the bumps. They came to a crossing that led to a forest track. Two horsemen wearing riding caps watched them go by, a man and a woman. Their mounts had the same black and brown coat as the dead horse. Bay, recalled Servaz. Further along a sign indicating ‘RIDING ACADEMY’ told them to turn left.
    The forest receded.
    They went by several squat buildings that looked like barns, and Servaz saw some large rectangular enclosures scattered with jumps, a long, low stable, a paddock and a more imposing building that might be an indoor riding ring. A van from the gendarmerie was parked outside.
    â€˜A lovely place,’ said Ziegler, climbing out of the car. She cast a gaze around the enclosures. ‘Two outdoor schools, including one for showjumping and one for dressage, a cross-country course and, best of all, over there at the back, a