Bernard Minier The Frozen Dead (retail) (epub)

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.It’s a place that can become … disturbing … after a while.’‘I’ll bear that in mind.’‘And another thing: I won’t be here to help you get settled.My successor, Dr Xavier from Montreal, will have that honour.He’s a practitioner with a very good reputation, very enthusiastic.He’s due to arrive here next week.As you know, they’re ahead of us over there with regard to the treatment of aggressive patients.I think it will be very interesting for you to compare your points of view.’‘I agree.’‘In any case, we’ve needed an assistant to the director of the establishment for quite a while now.I didn’t delegate enough.’Diane was once again driving under a canopy of trees.The road continued to climb until it reached a narrow wooded valley that seemed to be enveloped in a stifling, noxious intimacy.She cracked her window open and a penetrating fragrance of leaves, moss, needles and wet snow tickled her nostrils.The sound of a nearby torrent almost drowned the purr of the engine.‘A lonely place,’ she said out loud, to give herself courage.She drove cautiously through the gloom of the winter morning.Her headlights grazed the trunks of fir and beech trees.An electricity cable followed the road; branches leaned against it as if they no longer had the strength to support themselves.From time to time the forest opened out to reveal a barn with a moss-covered slate roof – closed, abandoned.She glimpsed some buildings further along, past a bend in the road.They reappeared as she came out of the bend – several houses of concrete and wood with large picture windows, backed up against a forest.To reach them, a drive led down from the road, over a metal bridge above the water then across a snowy meadow.Obviously deserted, run down.She did not know why, but those empty buildings, lost deep in this valley, caused her to shiver.Then a rusting sign at the entrance to the drive: ‘LES ISARDS HOLIDAY CAMP.’Still no hint of the Institute.Not even a signpost.It looked as if the Wargnier was not exactly looking for publicity.Diane began to wonder if she had taken the wrong road.The National Geographical Institute map, scale 1/25,000, lay open on the passenger seat next to her.One kilometre and a dozen bends further along she spotted a lay-by bordered by a stone parapet.She slowed down and turned the wheel.The Lancia bounced over the potholes, churning up splatters of mud.She grabbed the map and got out of the car.The damp air enveloped her like a clammy sheet.Heedless of the falling snow, she unfolded the map.The buildings of the holiday camp were designated by three little rectangles.She gauged the approximate distance she had come, following the winding thread of the départementale road.Two more rectangles appeared slightly further along; they met in the shape of a T, and although there were no indications as to the nature of the buildings, it could hardly be anything else, for the road came to an end at that point, and there were no other symbols on the map.She was almost there …She turned round, walked as far as the parapet – and saw them.Further upstream, on the opposite shore, higher up on the slope: two long stone buildings.In spite of the distance she could tell how huge they were.A giant’s architecture.The same Cyclopean style that was everywhere in the mountains, be it power plants or dams or hotels from an earlier century.That’s what it was: the lair of a Cyclops.Except that there is not just one Polyphemus deep inside that cave – there are several.Diane wasn’t the type to be easily daunted; she had often travelled to places where tourists were warned not to go; since adolescence she had taken up sports that entailed a certain amount of risk.As a child and then an adult she had always had a taste for adventure.But something about the view there before her made her stomach lurch.It wasn’t a question of physical risk.No, it was something else.A leap into the unknown …She took out her mobile and dialled.She didn’t know whether there would be a mast in the area to relay her call, but after three rings a familiar voice replied.‘Spitzner here.’Her sense of relief was instantaneous.His warm, firm, calm voice had always been able to soothe her and banish her doubts.It was Pierre Spitzner – her mentor in the department – who had first got her interested in forensic psychology.An intensive SOCRATES course on children’s rights had brought her closer to this discreet, charming man, devoted husband and father of seven children.The famous psychologist had taken her under his wing in the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences; he had enabled the chrysalis to become a butterfly – even if such an image would undoubtedly have seemed far too conventional to Spitzner’s demanding mind.‘It’s Diane.Am I disturbing you?’‘Of course not.How is it going?’‘I’m not there yet … I’m on the road … I can see the Institute from here.’‘Is something wrong?’Good old Pierre.Even over the telephone he could tell from the slightest shift in her voice.‘No, everything’s fine.It’s just that … their aim was to isolate these guys from the outside world.They’ve stuck them in the most sinister, remote place they could find.This valley gives me goosebumps…’She was immediately sorry she’d said that.She was behaving like an adolescent left to her own resources for the first time – or a frustrated student in love with her supervisor and doing everything she could to attract his attention.She told herself he must be wondering how she’d manage to cope if the mere sight of the buildings was causing her to panic.‘Come on,’ he said.‘You’ve already seen your fair share of paranoids and schizophrenics and sex offenders, right? Tell yourself that it won’t be any different there.’‘They weren’t all murderers.In fact, only one of them was.’His image sprang to mind: a thin face, irises the colour of honey staring at her with a predator’s greed.Kurtz was a genuine sociopath.The only one she had ever met.Cold, manipulative, unstable [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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