by Fred Vargas
“We’re going to sit on his shadow,” Soliman declared. “Since the flics won’t track him down, we will.”
“We won’t let him get away,” Watchee chimed in.
“And we’ll catch him by the tail.”
“And then what?” asked Camille warily. “Are you going to hand him over to the police?”
“My arse we will!” said Soliman, proving himself a true heir to Suzanne’s vigorous turn of phrase. “If we hand him over to the police, the police will let him go, and we’re back to square one. Watchee and me aren’t going to spend our whole lives tracking this vampire. All we want is to avenge my ma. So we’re going to nab him, and when we’ve nabbed him we’ll deal with him.”
“Deal with him?” Camille repeated.
“Do him in, that’s what we’ll do.”
“And when’s he dead right and proper,” Watchee filled in, “we’ll open him up from his neck to his balls to see if his hair’s on the inside. He’s dead lucky we ain’t gonna do it while he’s alive.”
“Be grateful for small mercies, I suppose,” muttered Camille.
She looked into Watchee’s beautiful amber eyes.
“Do you buy this body hair business? Do you really buy it?”
“The body hair business?” Watchee repeated in his muffled voice.
He screwed up his face and said no more.
“Massart is a werewolf,” he mumbled a moment later. “Your trapper said so too.”
“Lawrence said nothing of the sort. Lawrence said that anyone who believes in werewolves must be a mentally challenged turd-brain. He said that anyone who so much as mentions slitting a guy open from his throat to his balls would have to walk through a bullet from his hunting rifle first. And Lawrence also said that Massart used a mastiff or else a large wolf that went missing two years ago, Crassus the Bald, to do his murdering for him. The bites come from the wolf, not from Massart’s teeth, for heaven’s sake!”
Watchee pursed his lips and straightened his back even straighter.
“Anyway,” Soliman butted in. “He killed my ma. So me and Watchee are going to sit on his shadow and catch him by the tail.”
“He won’t get away from us.”
“And when we nab him, we’ll do him in.”
“No, you won’t,” Camille said.
“Why shouldn’t we?” Soliman asked, rising to his feet.
“Because if you do you won’t be any better than he is. But nobody will give a damn about you because you’ll be in the slammer for the rest of your twatty lives. Maybe Suzanne will have got away from her stinking crocodile swamp, I don’t rule that out. But whether you slit him open or not, whether he’s got hair inside or not, Massart will get his due and you two will be convicted of his murder and have nothing to do for the rest of your days except to count sheep all night long in your prison cell.”
“We won’t get caught,” said Soliman, with a defiant thrust of his chin.
“Yes, you will. You’ll get caught all right. But that’s no business of mine,” Camille said abruptly as she stared at one and then the other of the pair. “I don’t know why you came to tell me all that, but I don’t want to know. I don’t talk to avengers, assassins or body-slitters.”
She went to the door and opened it for them.
“Goodbye,” she said.
“You don’t understand,” Soliman said, swithering. “We didn’t make ourselves clear.”
“I don’t care.”
“We’re upset.”
“I know.”
“He could kill other people.”
“That’s for the police to resolve.”
“The flics are sitting on their hands.”
“I know. We’ve been over that already.”
“So, me and Watchee . . .”
“Are going to sit on his shadow. I got that, too, Sol. I see the whole picture.”
“Not all of it, Camille.”
“So what’s missing?”
“You’re missing, Camille. We forgot to say that you’re part of this picture. You’re coming with us.”
“Well . . . that’s if you’d care to,” added Watchee, courteously.
“Is this some kind of a joke?” Camille said.
“You tell her,” Watchee said to Sol.
“Camille”, said Soliman, “could you please let go of the bloody door and come and sit down? Sit down with us, like a friend.”
“We’re not friends. You’re murderers and I’m a plumber. Miles apart.”
“But don’t you want to sit down? As a plumber among murderers?”
“In that case, all right,” Camille said.
She slammed the door, sat on a stool, put her elbows on the kitchen table, and stared at the two men at the other end.
“Look,” said Soliman. “Watchee and me, we’re going to sit on his shadow and catch his tail.”
“Fine,” Camille said.
“But to trail him we need transport. We’re not going to go after him on foot, right?”
“You can go after him however you like. On foot, on skis, or riding a ram. I don’t give a sou.”
“Massart must be driving a car,” Soliman went on.
“He’s not driving his own, it seems,” Camille said. “His van is still at the shack.”
“The vampire isn’t stupid. He’s taken some other car.”
“Fine. He’s taken another car.”
“So we have to have one to follow him with. Make sense?”
“Makes sense. You’re going to sit on his shadow.”
“But we don’t have a car.”
“That’s right, we don’t have a car,” said Watchee.
“Well, get hold of one, then. You could borrow Massart’s.”
“We haven’t got a driver’s licence.”
“That’s right,” said Watchee. “We haven’t got a licence.”
“What are you getting at, Sol? I haven’t got a car either. And Johnstone has only got a motorbike.”
“But we do have a lorry,” said Sol.
“You mean the cattle wagon?”
“Yes, we do. You might not believe it, but it is a lorry.”
“Well, that’s all right then, Sol,” Camille said. “Take the cattle wagon and catch the man by his tail. May the wind be in your back.”
“But as I said, Camille, we haven’t got a licence.”
“Indeed we haven’t,” Watchee said.
“Whereas you do have a licence, don’t you? And you’ve already driven HGVs.”
Camille looked at them in stark disbelief.
“It took a while for the penny to drop,” said Soliman.
“I don’t want that penny to drop.”
“Then I’ll explain it in more detail.”
“Leave the detail be. I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
“Hear me out, please, there’s just one more thing. You’ll drive the lorry. But you won’t do anything else at all. You’ll just be the driver and nothing more. Watchee and me will take care of everything else. All we’re asking of you, Camille, is to do the driving. Just drive, and you can be blind and deaf to all the rest.”
“Blind, deaf and out of my mind.”
“If you say so.”
“If I have understood you correctly,” Camille summed up, “the main drift of it is that I drive the cattle wagon with you and Watchee sitting up front to egg me on, catch up with Massart, and then run him over accidentally on purpose. Watchee then slits his guts from top to crotch, to clear his mind, whereupon we deliver the man’s remnants to a police station and drive all the way home for a nice hot bowl of onion soup with croutons and grated cheese?”
Soliman started to jump up and down.
“No, Camille, we don’t mean it exactly like that . . .”
“But you could say that it will be something like that,” Watchee concluded.
“Find someone else to drive the crate,” Camille said. “Who usually drives it?”
“Buteil. But Buteil
is staying at Les Écarts to look after the flock. And Buteil’s got a wife and two kids.”
“Whereas I’ve not got anything.”
“If you want to put it that way.”
“Find someone else for your stupid road movie.”
“Your what?” asked Watchee.
“Our road movie,” Soliman said. “It comes from the cinema. It means like when someone drives across the Mojave looking for someone else.”
“Thanks,” said Watchee, still puzzled. “I do like to understand.”
“Camille, nobody in the village will want to give us a hand. They don’t give a damn about Suzanne. But you were really fond of her. Lemirail the gendarme was too, but we can’t ask Lemirail to help us out, can we?”
“No, we cannot,” said Watchee.
“Don’t play on my feelings, Sol,” Camille said.
“So what am I supposed to play on, then? I’ve only got one hand, Camille. I’m banking on your feelings and I’m relying on your HGV licence. If you don’t help us, Suzanne’s soul will stay stuck in that bloody stinking crocodile swamp.”
“Don’t do my head in with that swamp, Sol. Give me another glass of brandy and let me think.”
Camille stood up and went to stand facing the now-cold hearth, turning her back on the two men. Suzanne’s soul in a swamp, Massart on the road all hairless and deranged, the flics sitting on their backsides. Get Massart and remove his fangs. Well, why not? But to drive a lorry with forty cubic metres of loading area around hairpin bends . . . well, perhaps.
“What sort of lorry is it?” she asked, turning to face Soliman.
“A 508D,” said Sol. “Less than 3.5 metric tons. You don’t need an HGV licence for it, in point of fact.”
Camille turned back to the fireplace and silence reigned. So, driving the lorry. To release Soliman and Watchee from torment, to reassure Johnstone and do his wolves a good turn. Getting the lorry so close you can breathe down the murderer’s neck . . . It was a crazy idea. Not a chance of working. Really stupid. But what’s the alternative? Stay at home, wait for news, eat, drink, worry about the incomprehensible crises of M. and Mme Water Rat, and wait for Johnstone. Hang around. Hang on. Get bored. And scared. Lock the door at night in case Massart comes prowling by. Then wait some more.
Camille went back to the table, took her glass and wetted her lips.
“I’m interested in the lorry,” she said. “I’m interested in Suzanne. I’m interested in Massart – but not in his mortal remains. I’ll bring him back alive, or not at all. Up to you. If I drive the lorry, then Massart comes back in one piece, in the unlikely event we actually catch up with him. If I’m not driving, then you can bring him back as werewolf soup for all I care, but I won’t have any part of it.”
“You mean we have to hand him over to the flics without so much as a squeal?” said Soliman, miserably.
“That would be the legal thing to do. Splitting a guy in two goes beyond the legal limit of violence between neighbours.”
“Fuck legal limits!” said the younger of the two men.
“I’m aware of your feelings on that point. But the law’s not the issue. Massart’s life is the issue.”
“Comes to the same difference.”
“Up to a point.”
“Fuck Massart’s life!”
“Well, no, I don’t.”
“You’re asking for too much.”
“Think of it as a question of taste. Me plus Massart in one piece, or Massart soup minus me. I’m really not keen on people soup.”
“We got that,” said Soliman.
“Of course you did,” Camille said. “I’ll leave you to think it over.”
Camille sat at her synthesiser and put on her headphones. She drummed her fingers on the keyboard for show, because her overexcited imagination was a thousand miles away from well-groomed Water Rats. Going after Massart? Like three sheep lost in the woods? What were they, if not three lost sheep?
Soliman signalled to Camille, who took off her headset and came back to the table. Watchee spoke first.
“Young lady,” he asked, “have you ever squelched a spider?”
Camille clenched her fist and laid it on the table between Soliman and Watchee.
“I’ve squashed bucket-loads of spiders in my time,” she said. “I’ve destroyed hundreds of wasp nests too, and I’ve terminated entire anthills by throwing them in the river with ten pounds of quick-setting cement around their base. I will not discuss capital punishment with tossers like you two. The answer is no, and always will be no, from now to eternity.”
“Are you calling us two tossers?” said Soliman.
“That’s what she said,” said Watchee. “Don’t make her repeat it.”
“Repeat that, Camille.”
“Tossers. A pair of dickheads.”
Sol was about to stand up, but Watchee restrained him by the forearm.
“Have some respect, Sol. The young lady’s not wrong. You should reckon she’s not wrong, really.” He turned back towards Camille, stretched out his hand, and said, “It’s a deal.”
“Not so much as a scratch on Massart?” Camille remained uncertain, and did not shake the offered hand.
“Not a scratch,” Watchee replied in his gruff voice, and once again offered his hand.
“Not a scratch,” Soliman repeated, ungraciously.
Camille nodded her head.
“When do we set off?” she asked.
“My ma’s funeral is tomorrow. We’ll leave after lunch. Buteil will have the lorry ready. Come over in the morning.”
Soliman bounded to his feet, Watchee rose stiffly.
“Just one more thing,” Camille said. “There’s a clause to add to the contract. There’s no reason to suppose we will actually find our man. If we get nowhere in ten days, or thirty days, what do we do then? We’re not going to sit on his shadow for the rest of our lives – or are we?”
“Yes we are, young lady,” said Watchee.
“I see,” said Camille.
XVI
ALL NIGHT LONG a nagging awareness that something was amiss kept Camille on edge even as she slept. As soon as she woke up she realised what it was that was wrong. Last night she had agreed to take part in a murder hunt at the wheel of a livestock transporter. This morning she had begun to see all of the project’s chief flaws: that it was a childish idea, that it would be dangerous, and that it was not going to be pleasant living at close quarters with two men she barely knew and who were neither of them exactly on an even keel.
Yet, strangely, the idea of just backing out of last night’s undertaking never crossed her mind. On the contrary, she paid serious and thoughtful attention to gearing up, like someone on the brink of taking on a really difficult job. The ploddingly simple task in question had only one plus, but it tipped the scales – it would get her on the move. Chasing after Massart in this simple-minded manner was far better than sitting around intelligently and waiting for him to turn up. The sheer attractiveness of movement – of rational movement, since Camille was incapable of travelling without a purpose – had won her over last night. She had been parked at Saint-Victor for a while now and it had begun to tie her up in knots, besides bearing fruit that was rather bland. Then there was that story about the crocodile swamp with Suzanne’s soul trapped inside it. Camille did not take it any more seriously than Soliman did, but Suzanne’s murder and Massart’s disappearance were somehow like two open doors giving rise to a nasty draught that blew right through her. And it struck her that taking the lorry to follow the trail of that man and his wolf might well be a way of shutting off the draught.
Camille finished packing her rucksack, stuffed her score in the right flap pocket and the A to Z in the left-hand one, and hoisted it onto her shoulders. She picked up her toolbag, checked the house over one last time, and closed the door behind her.
At Les Écarts things seemed to be happening in slow motion, the way they do in the run-up to a funeral. Buteil and Soliman seemed l
ike rag dolls as they set about kitting out the lorry. Camille went up to them and dumped her rucksack. Seen close up, the lorry looked more like a livestock pen than anything else. Buteil was training the hose on the floor and panels of the loading platform, making a thick black gunge of straw and animal shit squirt out of the side panels and onto the ground. Soliman was unfolding the lengths of tarpaulin that were intended to make a roof over the loading area. Because the lorry – and Camille only now grasped what this meant – was going to serve as their sleeping quarters too.
“Don’t worry,” Buteil shouted over the hiss of the water jet. “This lorry’s like Beauty and The Beast, it can metamorphose. I’ll have it turned into a three-star hotel in a couple of hours.”
“Buteil has often taken his family for outings in the lorry,” Soliman explained. “Trust him, you’ll have your own bedroom in no time at all, and all mod cons.”
“If you say so,” Camille said doubtfully.
“But I can’t hide the fact that it does smell a bit. We can’t get rid of the odour completely. It’s ingrained in the wood.”
“I see.”
“And in the metal too.”
“Indeed.”
Suddenly the pressure in the hose died. Soliman looked at his watch. Ten thirty.
“Must get changed,” he said in a quavering voice. “It’s going to be time.”
Sol and Buteil encountered Johnstone driving his motorbike dead slow the other way up the unmade road. He was wearing a dark suit. He put the bike on its kickstand and took Camille in his arms.
“You weren’t at home,” he said. “Is there an emergency at Les Écarts?”
“I’m going with Soliman and Watchee after the funeral. They want to track down Massart, but they haven’t got a licence.”
“I don’t see the connection.” Johnstone stepped back to look at Camille.
“I can drive.”
Johnstone shook his head. “You must have done that on purpose,” he said with stifled emotion. “You got your HGV licence on purpose. Couldn’t resist it, could you?”