by Fred Vargas
Raphaël put his chin in his hands. ‘My answer is your answer.’
Adamsberg put his other shoe on.
‘Remember once when you had a mosquito in your ear for two hours?’
‘Do I?’ Raphaël grimaced. ‘I nearly went mad, with the buzzing.’
‘We were afraid you really would go mad before it died. So what we did was make the house quite dark and hold a lighted candle near your ear. It was the priest’s idea, Father Grégoire: “We’ll exorcise it with bell, book and candle,” he said. Typical priest talk. Remember? And the mosquito crawled out your ear towards the flame, then it burnt its wings with a little hiss. Remember that little hiss?’
‘Yes, Father Grégoire said, “the devil’s roasting in hell now”. Typical priest.’
Adamsberg pulled on his sweater and reached for his jacket.
‘Do you think it’s possible or very possible?’ He went on, ‘to tempt our devil out of the tunnel with a little light?’
‘If he’s in your ear.’
‘He is, Raphaël.’
‘I know it. I hear him at night too.’
Adamsberg put on the jacket and sat down by his brother. ‘Think we can get him out?’
‘If he exists, Jean-Baptiste. If we’re not the devils ourselves.’
‘Only two other people believe this devil exists. A sergeant that everyone else thinks is stupid, and an old woman who’s a bit crazy.’
‘And Violette.’
‘I don’t know whether Retancourt is doing all this out of duty or conviction.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just do what she says. What a magnificent woman!’
‘What do you mean? You think she’s beautiful?’ asked Adamsberg, astonished.
‘Well, that too, of course.’
‘Do you think her plan can work?’
As he whispered this last sentence, it was as if he and his brother were boys back in the village, plotting some adventure from their mountain den. Who would be able to dive deepest into the Torque, or play a trick on the grocer, or scratch horns on the judge’s gate, slipping out at night without waking anyone?
Raphaël hesitated.
‘So long as Violette is strong enough to take your weight.’
The two brothers shook hands, thumbs entwined, as they had when they were small boys, before they dived into the river.
XXXVI
ADAMSBERG AND RETANCOURT TOOK IT IN TURNS TO DRIVE ON THE return journey, with Lafrance and Ladouceur tailing them. The commissaire woke Retancourt as Gatineau came into sight. He had let her sleep as long as possible, so worried was he that she would be unable to take his weight.
‘This Basile,’ he said, ‘are you sure he’ll take me in? I’ll be arriving on my own before you.’
‘I’ll give you a note for him. You just explain you’re my boss and that I’ve sent you. Then we’ll call Danglard to get some false papers as soon as possible.’
‘Not Danglard. Don’t call him. Not under any circumstances.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Nobody else knew about my memory loss.’
‘But Danglard is the most loyal person in the world,’ said Retancourt, shocked. ‘He’s devoted to you, he’d never give you away to Laliberté.’
‘Yes, he might, Retancourt. He’s been angry with me for a whole year. I’m not sure how far it goes.’
‘You mean because of the business with Camille?’
‘How do you know?’
‘Oh, nothing much gets past the Chat Room. It’s a gossip factory, everyone’s love life gets talked about. You can pick up some good ideas too. But Danglard never says anything there, he’s totally loyal.’ She frowned.
‘I’m not sure of course,’ said Adamsberg. ‘But don’t call him all the same.’
By seven forty-five, Adamsberg’s room had been cleared, and the commissaire, clad only in his boxer shorts and two watches, was having his hair cut by Retancourt. She carefully flushed the clippings down the lavatory, so as to leave no traces.
‘Where did you learn to cut hair?’
‘In a hairdresser’s, before I took up massage.’
Retancourt had probably lived several lives, Adamsberg thought. He allowed her to move his head about, soothed by the light touches and the regular sound of the scissors. At ten past eight she took him over to look in the mirror.
‘Pretty good, eh?’ she said with the pride of a little girl passing a test.
Yes, it was exactly like Raphaël’s. Raphaël’s hair was shorter than Jean-Baptiste’s, and neatly layered at the back. Adamsberg thought he looked different now, more severe and conventional. Yes, when he was wearing a suit and tie, for the few yards’ walk across the parking lot, his appearance ought not to alert the police. By eleven o’clock in any case, they’d be certain he had long since fled the hotel.
‘It was easy,’ said Retancourt, still smiling. The immediate operational future did not seem to be worrying her.
By ten past nine, the lieutenant was sitting in her bath, while Adamsberg was behind the door, both in complete silence.
Adamsberg raised his arm slightly to look at his watches: nine twenty-four and a half. Three minutes later, the police burst into the room. Retancourt had told him to breathe slowly and he was doing his best to comply.
The Mounties’ fast retreat, on seeing the bathroom door open, and Retancourt’s furious reaction all happened as planned. She banged the door in their faces and less than twenty seconds later, the close contact position, body against body, had been assumed. In a voice indicating contained anger, Retancourt gave the Mounties permission to come in and get on with it, for God’s sake. Adamsberg clung on tight to her waist and belt, his feet off the ground, his cheek pressed into her wet back. He had been sure his lieutenant would stagger when he took his feet off the ground, but nothing of the kind happened. Retancourt, as she had said, had turned herself into a pylon. He felt as if he were clinging to a maple tree. She didn’t even wobble or lean against the wall. She stood up straight, arms folded in the ample bathrobe, without a tremor. The sensation of total solidity stupefied Adamsberg and left him strangely calm all at once. He felt he could have stayed there for an hour quite safely. But by the time he had absorbed this feeling of stability, the cop had completed his quick check of the bathroom and gone out, shutting the door behind him. Retancourt quickly dressed and went back into the bedroom, where she continued to yell at the three Mounties for walking into her room like that and surprising her in her bath.
‘We did knock first, ma’am,’ said the voice of one he didn’t recognise.
‘Well, I didn’t hear you!’ Retancourt retorted. ‘And stop messing up my stuff. I’ve already told you, the commissaire told me to stay here. He wanted to see the super on his own this morning.’
‘When did he say that?’
‘When we parked in front of the hotel, seven o’clock this morning. He must be over in Laliberté’s office by now.’
‘Nope, no way. He’s not over in the RCMP base, he’s not in his room. Your boss has done a runner!’
From behind the door, Adamsberg understood that Retancourt was reacting with a shocked silence.
‘No, no, he was due there at nine,’ she said firmly. ‘He’s sure to be over there. Don’t try and tell me any different.’
‘Christ, woman, don’t you understand? He’s fooled us and gone AWOL.’
‘No, that can’t be right. He won’t have gone without me, we’re supposed to work together, we’re a team. Something must have happened to him.’
‘Wake up, lieutenant! Your fucking boss is the devil on skates, and he’s fooled you too.’
‘I don’t get it,’ Retancourt muttered obstinately. ‘He wouldn’t do that.’
The voice of another cop – it sounded like Philippe-Auguste, Adamsberg thought – broke in.
‘Nothing in here.’
‘Nope, nothing,’ came the dry voice of Portelance.
‘Don’t worry,’ said the first voice. ‘Wh
en we catch him, he can do his explaining to you, if you’re his “team-mate”. Come on, we’ve got to search the rest of the hotel.’
He shut the door, apologising again for bursting in rudely.
At eleven, wearing a grey suit, white shirt and tie, Adamsberg walked calmly over to his brother’s car. There were police all over the place, but he didn’t glance at them. At eleven-forty, his bus left for Montreal. Retancourt had told him to get off one stop before the terminus. All he had in his pockets was Basile’s address and a note from Retancourt.
As he watched the trees go past the bus window, he thought he had never been sheltered so solidly and securely as against Retancourt’s gleaming white body. Better than the mountain crannies where his great-uncle had taken refuge. How on earth had she managed it? It was a complete mystery. One that all Voisenet’s chemistry would never be able to explain.
XXXVII
LOUISSEIZE AND SANSCARTIER APPROACHED LALIBERTÉ’S OFFICE, without enthusiasm, to present their report.
‘The boss is about to go ape,’ said Louisseize in a whisper.
‘Yeah, he’s been cursing like crazy since this morning,’ said Sanscartier with a smile.
‘You think that’s funny?’
‘What’s really funny, Berthe, is that Adamsberg has given us all the slip. He’s rattled Laliberté’s cage all right.’
‘Well, laugh if you like, but we’re the ones who are going to pick up the tab.’
‘It’s not our fault, Berthe, we did our best. Want me to do the talking? He doesn’t scare me.’
Standing at his desk, Laliberté was completing the orders he was now issuing by telephone: photographs of the suspect to be circulated, roadblocks, police checks at all the airports.
‘Well?’ he yelled, hanging up. ‘Where did you look?’
‘We searched the whole park, superintendent,’ Sanscartier replied. ‘Nothing. He might have gone for a walk and had an accident. Met a bear?’
The superintendent wheeled round and turned on his sergeant. ‘Have you completely lost it, Sanscartier? Don’t you get it? He’s cut and run.’
‘We don’t know that for sure. He meant to come back. After all, he kept his promise about sending us all those files on the judge.’
Laliberté thumped the table with his fist.
‘His story’s a load of bullshit! Take a look at that,’ he said, holding out a sheet. ‘His precious judge died sixteen years ago! So put that in your pipe and smoke it.’
Sanscartier registered the judge’s date of death without showing surprise and nodded.
‘Maybe there’s a copycat at work,’ he suggested. ‘After all, the trident story seemed to fit.’
‘His story’s ancient history. We’ve been taken for a ride and that’s all there is to it.’
‘I didn’t think he was lying.’
‘If he wasn’t lying, it’s even worse. It means he’s completely cuckoo and living in a world of his own.’
‘He didn’t seem crazy to me.’
‘Don’t make me laugh, Sanscartier. His story was strictly for the birds.’
‘But he didn’t invent those other murders, did he?’
‘Look, sergeant,’ said Laliberté, motioning to Sanscartier to sit down, ‘you’ve been off message for a few days now, and my patience is running out. So listen hard, and get thinking. That night, Adamsberg was in a black mood, right? He’d had so much to drink he couldn’t see straight, right? When he was chucked out of L’Ecluse, he was all over the place, talking rubbish. The barman told us that, right?’
‘Right.’
‘And aggressive with it. “Come any nearer and I’ll spear ye.” Spear ye, Sanscartier, does that by any chance ring a bell? About the choice of weapon?’
Sanscartier agreed.
‘He was having a fling with that girl. And the girl often used the path, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Maybe she gave him the brush-off, maybe he was jealous and got mad at her. Possible, yes or no?’
‘Yes,’ said Sanscartier.
‘Or else, and this is what I think, she told him some stuff and nonsense about being pregnant. Maybe she wanted to get him to marry her. And it turned into a fight. He didn’t get beaten up by a branch, Sanscartier, he got beaten up because he was beating her up.’
‘We don’t even know for sure he met her.’
‘Are you listening or what?’
‘I only said, we don’t have any evidence.’
‘I’ve had it up to here with your lip, Sanscartier. We’ve got bucketsful of evidence. Fingerprints on the belt?’
‘Maybe he left them there earlier? He knew her after all.’
‘I’m beginning to wonder if you’re off your trolley as well, sergeant. I’ll spell it out. She bought the belt that day. Look, the girl turns up on the path. He sees red, goes bananas, and kills her. Full stop.’
‘I do understand what you’re saying, superintendent, it’s just that I find it hard to believe. I can’t make it fit together, Adamsberg and murder.’
‘Give up, won’t you! You met him a couple of weeks ago. What do you know about the guy? Nothing! He’s a phoney bastard. He killed her all right. And what proves he’s got a screw loose is he can’t remember what happened that night. He’s wiped it from his memory. Right?’
‘Right,’ said Sanscartier.
‘So you are going to nail this guy for me. Get the hell outta here and you’re on overtime till he’s under lock and key.’
XXXVIII
BASILE RAISED NO OBJECTION TO TAKING IN AN EXHAUSTED INDIVIDUAL with no luggage, since the man brought a recommendation from Violette, which was as good as an official pass.
‘Will this be OK?’ he asked, showing him into a small room.
‘Yes, fine, Thanks a million, Basile.’
‘Have something to eat before you go for a nap. Violette’s some woman, eh?’
‘An earth goddess, I’d say.’
‘And she fooled all the cops in Gatineau?’ Basile asked, highly amused.
So he knew roughly what had happened. Basile was small and pink-cheeked, his eyes magnified by red-framed spectacles.
‘Can you tell me how she did it?’
Adamsberg summed it up quickly.
‘Oh no, that’s too much!’ said Basile, fetching some sandwiches. ‘Sit down and give me the whole story, from the beginning.’
So Adamsberg told him the Retancourt epic, starting with her invisibility at HQ and ending with the imitation of a pylon. What for Adamsberg was an appalling situation amused Basile a great deal.
‘What beats me,’ Adamsberg ended, ‘is how she didn’t lose her balance. I weigh 72 kilos, you know.’
‘Well what you gotta understand is that Violette knows the score. She can channel her energy in any direction.’
‘I know that. She’s on my staff.’
Or was, he thought as he went to his room. Since even if they managed to cross the Atlantic, he wouldn’t be able to go and sit in his office any more, with his feet on his desk. He was a wanted man, a criminal on the run. Later, he thought. Later, he would slice up all the elements into slivers and put them through the test.
Retancourt arrived at about nine that evening. Basile, entering into the spirit of things, had already made up her room, got some food in, and obeyed her requests. He had bought enough overnight equipment, clothes and razors for Adamsberg to last him a week.
‘Piece of cake,’ Retancourt told Adamsberg, munching her way through Basile’s pancakes and maple syrup.
It reminded Adamsberg that he had still not managed to get any maple syrup for Clémentine. A sort of mission impossible.
‘The Mounties came back at about three. I was on my bed, reading a book, but terribly worried, and convinced you’d met with an accident. A lieutenant, distraught about her superior officer. Poor Ginette, I almost made her cry. Sanscartier was with them.’
‘How did he seem?’ asked Adamsberg eagerly.
‘He looked
devastated. I got the impression he liked you.’
‘It’s mutual,’ said Adamsberg, imagining how gut-wrenching it would be for the sergeant to find that his new friend had killed a girl with a trident.
‘Devastated, but not convinced,’ Retancourt went on.
‘In the RCMP, some of them think he’s dumb. Portelance says he’s a wool-gatherer.’
‘Ah well, he’s wrong there.’
‘And Sanscartier didn’t agree with their line?’
‘Looked like he didn’t. He was doing the minimum, as if he was trying not to get his hands dirty. Not taking part in the hunt. He smelled of almond soap.’
Adamsberg refused any more pancakes. The thought that Sanscartier the Good was using the almond soap, and had not yet given up on him, cheered him up.
‘From what I heard in the corridor, Laliberté was fit to be tied. A couple of hours later, they completely abandoned the search and went away. I left without any problem. Raphaël’s car was back in the hotel parking lot. He must have slipped the net too. Good looker, your brother.’
‘Yes.’
‘We can talk in front of Basile,’ said Retancourt, helping herself to wine. ‘For the new ID papers, you don’t want to go to Danglard. OK. But do you have a tame forger anywhere in Paris?’
‘I know a few from the old days, but no one I could trust.’
‘I only know one, but he’s safe as houses. No problems there. Only if we use him, you’ll have to promise me that he won’t get into any trouble. You’ll never ask me any questions and you won’t give my name, even if Brézillon calls you in for a grilling.’
‘Sure, of course.’
‘And he’s given it up now. He used to be in the business but he’ll only do it now if I ask him.’
‘Your brother?’ asked Adamsberg. ‘The one under the dressing gown?’
Retancourt put down her glass. ‘How did you know?’
‘You seem concerned. That was a lot of precautions you mentioned just now.’
‘You’re thinking like a flic again, commissaire.’
‘Maybe. How long would it take him?’
‘Couple of days. Tomorrow, we’ll have to change our appearance and get some new ID photos. We’ll scan them to him by email. The earliest he could get passports for us would be Thursday. So if they send them express, we could have them by next Tuesday and leave at once. Basile will have to get our tickets. On separate flights, Basile.’