by Fred Vargas
‘Excuse me,’ said Josette, ‘but are you telephoning somebody you can trust? Is the line safe?’
‘It’s a new line, Josette. And I’m using a new mobile.’
‘Well, it’s true that that makes it harder for them, but if you’re going to be more than eight to ten minutes, you’d do well to change the frequency. I’ll lend you mine, it’s already fixed up. Watch the time, and change frequency: you press this button. I’ll fix yours up for you tomorrow.’
Impressed, Adamsberg accepted Josette’s hi-tech mobile.
‘Danglard, I’ve got six weeks. I managed to get on the right side of Brézillon.’
Danglard whistled his astonishment.
‘I thought he had two wrong sides.’
‘No, there was a pathway through and I used my ice-axe. I’ve got a gun, a new badge and partial and unofficial lifting of the wanted status. I can’t tell whether there are phone taps, and I can’t move about freely. If I get caught, Brézillon will go down with me, he’s taking that risk. He’s allowing me a bit of line on this short-term basis. And anyway, he puts out his fag with his thumb without burning himself. Good guy. So I can’t compromise him, I can’t just breeze in to check the files.’
‘I take it you want me to do that then?’
‘And past records. We need to check the period between the judge’s death and Schiltigheim. That is find out whether there were any murders with some kind of trident during the last sixteen years. Think you could do that?’
‘Look for the disciple, all right.’
‘Send the results by email, capitaine. Wait a minute.’
Adamsberg pressed the frequency button.
‘What’s that buzzing?’ asked Danglard.
‘I just changed frequency.’
‘Sophisticated, huh,’ said Danglard. ‘Who’s supplying your phones, the Mafia?’
‘I’ve had to change addresses and keep different company now, capitaine. I’m merging into the background.’
* * *
Late in the night, under the rather light quilts, Adamsberg gazed into the embers of the fire through the darkness, evaluating the immense possibilities opened up by having an aged electronic wizard in the house. He tried to remember the name of the solicitor who had arranged the sale of the manor in the Pyrenees. He used to know it in the old days. Fulgence’s lawyer must have been sworn to total secrecy. Someone who had committed some youthful indiscretion which Fulgence had covered up for him. And who had then fallen through the trapdoor and become a vassal of the judge for life. What the devil was his name? He could see the brass plate shining on the façade of a solid stone-built house, when he had gone to ask the solicitor the date when the Manor had been bought. He remembered a youngish man at the time, about thirty. With any luck he was still practising.
The brass plaque mingled with the glowing ashes in the grate. He thought it was a sort of unpleasant name, a bit like ‘deceiving’ or ‘disservice’. He ran through the alphabet and came up with it. Desseveaux, Maître Jérôme Desseveaux, solicitor, conveyancer, house purchases. With his balls held tight in the iron grip of Judge Fulgence.
XLIV
FASCINATED BY JOSETTE’S UNSUSPECTED DEXTERITY AND EXPERTISE, Adamsberg sat alongside her and watched her operate the computer, her tiny wrinkled hands trembling over the keyboard. On the screen, an endless series of numbers and letters flashed up in quick succession, and Josette responded with equally hermetic contributions of her own. To Adamsberg, the computer now seemed no longer an everyday tool, but a sort of gigantic Aladdin’s lamp, from which a genie might emerge at any time and offer him three wishes. But one had to know the secrets of operating it, whereas in the old stories, any ignorant boy could come along with a rag and shine up the lamp. Things were certainly more complicated these days, if you wanted to make a wish.
‘Your man is very protected,’ Josette commented, in her quavery voice, which had however lost its timidity once she was on her own ground. ‘All these extra codes and passwords seem excessive for a country solicitor’s office.’
‘It’s no ordinary solicitor’s office. A ghost’s got him by the balls.’
‘Ah, in that case.’
‘Can you get in, Josette?’
‘There are four levels of protection. It’s going to take some time.’
Like her hands, the old woman’s head was shaky, and Adamsberg wondered whether these effects of age hampered her reading of the screen. Clémentine, who was still intent on fattening up the commissaire, had come in with a plate of cookies and maple syrup. Adamsberg looked at Josette’s clothes: an elegant beige ensemble, combined with an old pair of tennis shoes.
‘Why do you wear those shoes? So as not to make any noise when you tiptoe into secret passages?’
Josette smiled. Maybe. A burglar’s equipment, flexible and practical.
‘She just likes to be comfortable, that’s all,’ said Clémentine.
‘In the old days,’ said Josette, ‘when I was married to my shipbuilder, I wore court shoes. With twin-sets and pearls. Real ones.’
‘Very chic,’ commented Clémentine approvingly.
‘He was rich?’ asked Adamsberg.
‘So rich, he didn’t know what to do with it. But he kept control of it all himself. I used to lift small sums now and then, from his account, to help out my friends. That was how it started. I wasn’t very good at it in those days, and he caught me at it.’
‘And that led to a bust-up?’
‘The bust-up, as you call it, was messy. There was a lot of publicity. After the divorce, I started to explore his bank accounts more systematically, but I said to myself, Josette, if you’re going to be any good at this, you have to learn about finance and think big. And it just grew from there. By the time I was sixty-five, with computers around, I was ready for the big time.’
‘Where did you meet Clémentine?’
‘In the fleamarket, oh, thirty-five years ago. I used to run a little antique shop my husband had set up for me.’
‘He wanted her to have something to occupy her,’ Clémentine said, as she stood over Adamsberg seeing that he was eating up as instructed. ‘Only the best stuff, mind, nothing tatty. We had fun in those days, didn’t we, Josette, m’dear?’
‘Here’s our solicitor,’ said Josette, pointing to the screen.
‘About time too,’ said Clémentine, who had never touched a keyboard in her life.
‘This is the right name, yes? Maître Jérôme Desseveaux and Partners, Boulevard Suchet in Paris.’
‘You’ve got into his files?’ said Adamsberg, fascinated, pulling his chair closer.
‘Yes, it’s as if we were walking round the room. He’s got a very big practice now, seventeen partners and thousands of files. Put your tennis shoes on, commissaire, we’re going hunting. What was the name again?’
‘Fulgence, Honoré Guillaume.’
‘Several files here for that name,’ said Josette after a few moments. ‘But nothing dated later than 1987.’
‘That’s when he died. He must have changed his name.’
‘Do you have to do that if you die?’
‘Depends on what work you have on hand, I guess. Try Maxime Leclerc, who might have bought a property in 1999.’
‘Yes, here he is,’ said Josette. ‘He bought a property called Das Schloss in the Bas-Rhin département. That’s the only file in that name.’
Fifteen minutes later, Josette had provided Adamsberg with a list of all the properties bought by the Trident between 1949 and 1987, the Desseveaux office having taken over the earlier files. So the same vassal had been taking charge of the judge’s affairs not only up to his death, but also in his afterlife, since he had handled the recent purchase of Das Schloss.
Adamsberg was in the kitchen, stirring a bechamel sauce with a wooden spoon, under Clémentine’s orders. That is to say, he had to keep stirring at constant speed, making figures of eight in the pan. Those were her express instructions, to prevent lumps from forming. The l
ocation and names of the properties bought by the judge confirmed strikingly what he already knew about Fulgence’s past. They each corresponded to one of the murders with three stab wounds which he had collected during his long inquiry. For ten years, the judge had been on circuit in Loire-Atlantique, in north-west France, living at a house called Le Castelet-les-Ormes. In 1949, he had killed his first victim, about thirty kilometres away, a 28-year-old man, Jean-Pierre Espir. Four years later, in 1953, in the same sector, a young girl, Annie Lefebure, had been murdered in circumstances very like those of Elisabeth Wind. The judge had struck again six years later, in 1959, and this time his victim was a young man, Dominique Ventou. At which point he had prudently decided to sell Le Castelet. And Fulgence had moved to his second circuit, in Indre-et-Loire, also in the west. The lawyer’s files recorded the purchase of a small seventeenth-century chateau, Les Tourelles. In this area, he had killed two men, 47-year-old Julien Soubise and, four years later, an older man, Roger Lentretien. In 1967, he had left the region and moved to Le Manoir, in Adamsberg’s native village in the Pyrenees. He had waited six years before killing Lise Autan. This time, the threat from the vengeful young Adamsberg had obliged him to move on at once, and he had relocated to the Dordogne, living in a large farm called Le Pigeonnier. Adamsberg actually knew this aristocratic property, since he had located it and turned up there, but too late, as in Schiltigheim. The judge had already left before he traced him, following the murder of 35-year-old Daniel Mestre.
Adamsberg had then followed his trail to the Charente, still in the west, after the case of the murder of Jeanne Lessard, aged 56, in 1983. He had been quick off the mark, and had confronted Fulgence in his new address, La Tour-Maufourt. It was the first time that he had seen the man in ten years, and his haughty imperiousness had not changed. The judge had laughed at the accusations of the young policeman, and threatened him with every kind of harassment and the destruction of his career if he went on pestering him. He had another two dogs by then, dobermans, who could be heard barking in their kennel. Adamsberg had been intimidated by the judge, who was no easier to confront now than when he had been a teenager back at the Manoir. He had however listed the eight murders of which he was accusing him, from Jean-Pierre Espir to Jeanne Lessard. Fulgence had pressed the end of his cane into Adamsberg’s chest, and shoved him backwards pronouncing a few final words, calmly and courteously as if he were wishing him farewell.
‘Do not touch me, do not attempt to come near me. I can bring a thunderbolt down on your head whenever I please.’
Then putting down the cane, he had taken out the keys to the kennel, and repeated the exact formula he had used ten years earlier.
‘I’ll give you a start, young man. I will count to four.’
And as in the past, Adamsberg had had to run for it, followed by the frantic barking of the dobermans. In the train, as he recovered, he had done his best to react with disdain to the judge’s high and mighty airs. He was not going to allow himself to be reduced to ashes by the pressure of a cane on his chest from this would-be aristocrat. He had carried on with his enquiries, but the sudden departure of Fulgence from La Tour-Maufourt had taken him by surprise. It was only when the judge’s death was reported, four years later, that Adamsberg had discovered the name of his final retreat, a town house in Richelieu, Indre-et-Loire.
Adamsberg carried on stirring his figures of eight in the bechamel. In a way this activity helped him to keep going, and not to visualise himself in the demoniacal skin of the Trident, attacking Noëlla on the portage trail as Fulgence would have done.
While manipulating his wooden spoon and listening to its comfortable sound, he planned the next sortie into the underground internet he would have to make with Josette. He had had doubts about her expertise, imagining that she was exaggerating her powers: the fantasy life of an old woman in her final years. But no, he really did have access to a bold and practised hacker, in the shape of this former high-society lady. He was simply filled with admiration. He took the pan off the fire, as the sauce reached the desired consistency. At least he had managed not to ruin the bechamel sauce.
He picked up Josette’s Mafia-style mobile to call Danglard.
‘Nothing to report yet,’ came the reply. ‘It’s going to take a long time.’
‘I’ve found a short cut, capitaine.’
‘What do you mean, a way through the ice?’
‘I’ve got some solid information. The same lawyer acted for Fulgence, buying all his properties up to the date of his death. but he’s also handled the house purchases of … er, the disciple.’ Adamsberg was prudent enough to add, ‘Or at any rate the Haguenau Schloss.’
‘Where are you, commissaire?’
‘I’m in a solicitor’s office on the Boulevard Suchet. I can get into it easily. I’m wearing tennis shoes, so as not to make a noise. Deep-pile carpets, modern filing cabinets, ventilator fans. Very chic.’
‘Ah.’
‘But since his death, the properties have all been bought under other names, like Maxime Leclerc. So I might be able to trace them over the last sixteen years, but I’d need to imagine the kind of names Fulgence might choose.’
‘Yes, I suppose that’s right,’ Danglard agreed, doubtfully.
‘But I can’t do that. I don’t know much about etymology and names. Can you give me a list of names that might suggest thunder, lightning, light, or power, like in the case of Maxime Leclerc? Just write down anything you can think of.’
‘No need for a list, commissaire, I can tell you straight off. Do you have a pen?’
‘Go ahead, capitaine,’ said Adamsberg, as usual admiring his deputy’s intellectual powers.
‘There wouldn’t be a lot of possibilities. If you take light as the starting point, from the Latin lux, that would give you surnames like Luce, Lucien, Lucenet, or alternatively Flamme, Flambard. He might go for derivatives of clarus, meaning bright: Clair, Clar, Claret, Clairet. For power, well we already know about Maxime, but there are other versions like Mesme, Mesmin, Maximin, Maximilien. Try Legrand, Mestraud, or Major, because they come from Latin words for superior and excellent. Primat would be a possibility or Primaud, it means “first”. And for forenames, you might try the names of emperors or ancient Romans: Alexandre, Auguste, César, Napoléon even, though that might be a bit too obvious.’
Adamsberg took his list to Josette.
‘What we need to do now is try out some of these combinations on the solicitor’s files, to identify buyers of property in the years between the judge’s death and the date when Maxime Leclerc moved to Alsace. They would have to be big properties, country houses, manors, small chateaux, that kind of thing, in isolated rural areas.’
‘I see,’ said Josette. ‘We’re on the trail of the ghost, are we?’
Adamsberg sat with fists clenching and unclenching as he waited for the old lady to work her keyboard.
‘I’ve got three possibles,’ she reported. ‘There’s a Napoléon Grandin too, but since he bought a little flat in La Courneuve, which is a working-class suburb, I don’t think he’s your man, if I’ve understood you. But here for instance is an Alexandre Clar, who bought a manor in the Vendée in 1988, in the village of Saint-Fulgent, incidentally. Sold it again in 1993. A Lucien Legrand bought a property in the Puy-de-Dôme, at Pionsat, in 1993, and sold it in 1997; and an Auguste Primat bought a very grand house up by the English Channel, a place called Solesmes in 1997. He sold it again in 1999. Then you have your Maxime Leclerc, who bought his chateau in 1999. The dates all tally, commissaire. I’ll run you off a printed version of all that. But first give me some time to wipe out our footsteps on the lawyer’s carpet.’
‘I’ve got him, Danglard,’ said Adamsberg, still breathless from this voyage into the underworld. ‘I’ve got some names you need to check against the registration records: Alexandre Clar, born 1935; Lucien Legrand, born 1939, and Auguste Primat, born 1931. And for the crimes, try a sweep of a radius of between five and sixty kilometres around t
he communes of Saint-Fulgent in the Vendée, Pionsat in the Puy-de-Dôme, and Solesmes in the Nord. OK?’
‘That’ll speed things up. What dates for the murders?’
‘The first one’s between 1988 and 1993. The second between 1993 and 1997. The third between 1997 and 1999. Don’t forget that the last crimes probably took place not long before the properties were sold again. That would give us spring 1993, winter 1997 and autumn 1999. Try those dates first.’
‘Always an odd number in the year,’ Danglard commented.
‘Yes, he seems to like odd numbers. Like the number three and a trident.’
‘You know, the idea of a disciple might have something in it after all. It’s beginning to take shape.’
The idea of the phantom, you mean, Adamsberg thought, as he hung up. A spectre which was rapidly gaining in consistency as Josette unearthed its haunts. He waited impatiently for Danglard to call back, pacing round the little house with the list in his hand. Clémentine had congratulated him on his bechamel. He’d got something right, at least.
‘I’ve got some bad news,’ announced Danglard. ‘The divisionnaire got in touch with Légalité, I mean Laliberté, he keeps calling him the wrong name, to call him to account. Brézillon tells me that one of the two points in your favour is null and void. Laliberté said he found out about your memory loss through the night janitor. You had told him some yarn about a fight between a gang and the police. But the next day, the janitor said, you’d seemed very surprised when he told you how late it was when you got in. And in any case the story about the fight was untrue, and your hands were covered in blood. That’s how Laliberté decided you must have had a memory blackout for some of the time, because you’d assumed it was earlier, and made up a story for the porter. So there was no anonymous phone call, no traitor, nothing. That whole scenario falls to bits.’
‘And Brézillon’s going to call me in?’ said Adamsberg, stunned.
‘He didn’t say so.’
‘What about the murders. Anything to report?’