by Fred Vargas
Camille shrugged. “It just happened. When the band was on tour in Germany, the road manager didn’t want to drive all day and all night. So he taught me, to help out, as we went along.”
“A trucker, my god, a girl trucker,” Johnstone said as Camille and Camille alone obliged him to remove great chunks from his ideal of womanhood.
“Lorry driving is not beneath one’s dignity,” she said.
“It’s not frightfully refined, either.”
“Can’t deny that.”
“Anyway, what’s all this about chauffeuring Soliman and Watchee? Where are you going to set them down?”
“That is the question, Lawrence. I’m not taking them anywhere in particular. I’m driving them wherever and for as long as it takes for them to lay their hands on Massart.”
“You mean to say those two guys really have decided to look for Massart?” said Johnstone with growing disquiet.
“That’s right.”
“And you’re taking them in a truck? You’re going away?”
“Yes. Not for too long,” she added uncertainly.
Johnstone put his two hands on her shoulders.
“Are you leaving?” he asked again.
Camille raised her eyes. An expression of pain flitted across the trapper’s face. He shook his hair.
“But not straight away,” he said as he gripped Camille’s shoulder tightly. “Stay by me. Stay for tonight.”
“Sol wants to set off straight after the funeral.”
“One night.”
“I’ll be back. I’ll call.”
“It’s senseless,” Johnstone muttered.
“The police aren’t doing anything and the man will kill again. You said so yourself.”
“God! I’m telling you to stay.”
“Neither of them can drive.”
“I want you to stick around,” Johnstone almost commanded.
Camille shook her head slowly. “They’re counting on me,” she said in a whisper.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Johnstone swore as he moved off. “An old man, a boy-child and a girl stalking a man like Massart! Who the hell do you three imagine you are?”
“I don’t imagine anything. I’ll just do the driving.”
“You imagine you’re going to catch Massart!”
“Could happen.”
“Don’t make me laugh. Catching a murderer isn’t like playing tag. You need leads.”
“If he savages any more sheep, we’ll follow his trail.”
“Trailing behind isn’t catching up.”
“We can find things out, find out what car he’s driving. When we’ve got that, we’ll have a chance of spotting him. It could take a few days, perhaps.”
“Is that all they want to do with him?” Johnstone asked suspiciously.
“Soliman was supposed to kill him and Watchee was going to open him up from his neck to his balls, but only when he was dead, as a humanitarian gesture. I told them I wouldn’t drive their bloody lorry unless we brought Massart back in one piece.”
“It’s dangerous,” Johnstone said, his temper rising from frustration. “It’s a grotesque and dangerous idea.”
“I know.”
“So why do it?”
Camille paused. “Things just clicked,” was all she said by way of explanation. For the moment she couldn’t think of any better reason.
“That’s bullshit,” Johnstone growled as he approached her again. “You’d better get things to unclick.”
Camille shrugged. “Sometimes things just click for all sorts of lousy reasons, but loads of good reasons just can’t unclick them ever again.”
Johnstone felt quite defeated. “All right,” he said gloomily. “Which truck are you driving?”
“That one,” said Camille, with a nod towards the livestock transporter.
“That object,” Johnstone said professorially, “is a livestock transporter. It is a cattle wagon. It reeks of shit and sheep grease. It is not a truck.”
“Yes it is, apparently. Buteil says that after a good wash and dry behind the ears, with the back kitted out and the ragtop on, it’ll be like a three-star hotel on wheels.”
“It’ll be a stinking hovel and nothing else. Camille, have you really thought this through?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to sleep with those two guys in the same small space? Have you thought that through too?”
“Yes. Things went click, that’s all.”
“Have you thought about being spotted by Massart?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, you should think about it. That flimsy canvas isn’t going to give you much protection against him in the dark of night, is it?”
“We’ll hear him coming.”
“So what, Camille? What will an old man, a boy-child and a girl do when they hear him coming?”
“I don’t know. Put our heads together, I suppose.”
Johnstone threw his arms wide in a gesture of utter impotence.
XVII
AFTER THE FUNERAL a wake for Suzanne Rosselin was held at Les Écarts. There was a lot to say. The burial had been a disturbingly plain affair, in accordance with the instructions Suzanne had left with her lawyer four years beforehand, stipulating that she would have no truck “with flowers and gold-plated handles”, that she’d rather “the kid kept her savings so as to go and visit the land of his forefathers”, and lastly that her old ewe Mauricette be laid to rest beside her when her time came – “because though you couldn’t say she was a bright spark Mauricette had been a loving and faithful companion and could the priest please say a word about her in his sermon”. The lawyer pointed out that this last pagan wish stood not the slightest chance of being fulfilled and Suzanne said she did not give a damn for dogma and she’d go and see the damnfool priest herself to sort out the matter of Mauricette.
The priest apparently remembered the earful he had had from Suzanne and did make a clumsy reference to the deceased’s great attachment to her flock.
By four the last car had driven away from Les Écarts. Camille’s head was buzzing as she went back to the lorry where Buteil was still at work. The more she thought about how the transporter was being got ready the more it worried her.
Buteil was sitting on the running board at the back of the lorry, smoking a nostalgic cigarette.
“She’s ready,” he said as he saw Camille approaching.
Camille looked the vehicle over. The tarpaulin was stretched over the roof bars and halfway down the sides. The grey bodywork had been cleaned, up to a point.
Buteil slapped the side panel with the flat of his hand and made the whole rust-bucket resound like a drum, as if he were about to introduce a circus artiste.
“Just twenty years old and in her prime,” he declaimed. “A 508 is a sturdy lass, but she does have a few drawbacks. She has drum brakes, so you do have to stand on them on long downhills; there’s no power steering, so you do have to lean on it hard to get round bends. Apart from which the steering is really soggy. And the pedals have lost their spring. That’s the only thing about the lorry that shows her real age.”
Buteil turned to Camille and looked her up and down with an expert eye. It was an elongated body with thin arms and delicate wrists.
He made a clucking noise with his tongue, and said, “It’s all very well for a woman to have arms like that, but it’s not so fine for a lorry-driver. I don’t know if you’ll be able to control her.”
“I’ve driven things like that before,” Camille said.
“Round here the bends are damn sharp. You have to really spin that wheel.”
“So I’ll spin it.”
“Get in, I’ll show you around. I always set it up like this when I take the kids for a drive.”
Buteil pulled down the tailgate with a clang and clambered up. Inside the transporter the heat was stifling and Camille was overcome by the odour of natural lanolin.
“Smells less when she’s moving,” Buteil expl
ained. “She’s been cooking in the sun all afternoon.”
Camille nodded and Buteil took that as an encouragement to play the major-domo and give a guided tour of the facilities. The loading platform was more than eighteen feet long, so Buteil had set up four camp beds lengthways, two up front and two at the rear, with a canvas curtain separating the two pairs.
“Like that you’ve got two bedrooms, each with natural light, too,” he complimented himself. “If you want to see outside – or if you want to see anything inside, comes to the same thing really – all you have to do is raise the canvas, like a Venetian blind. And when you want to be private, you drop it down again.”
Buteil raised the tarpaulins to demonstrate, and light flooded in through the slats that made up the side-wall, illuminating the whole of the back of the transporter. “And here,” he said as he moved towards the rear and pulled aside a thick canvas curtain, “you have the bathroom.”
Camille inspected the home-made shower assembly with its thirty-gallon water tank made from a recycled boiler.
“Where’s the pump?” she asked.
“Over here,” said Buteil. “You’ll need to fill her up every other day. And there’s the toilet. Same system as on the railways of old, you release as you go. Now at the other end we have the bottle-gas cooker – you’ve got a full bottle, by the way. In the larger box here you’ll find cooking utensils, bed linen, pocket lamps, the whole caboodle. Over there are the folding stools. Under the beds there’s a drawer for your personal belongings. It’s all there. All been thought out. It all works.”
“I believe you,” Camille said.
She sat down on one of the two beds at the rear, the one on the off-side. She let her eyes wander over the 120 square feet of baking-hot interior space that the livestock transporter provided. The white sheets and pillowcases that Buteil had put on the bunks stood out in sharp contrast to the black floor, the peeling paintwork and the shabby canvas. She was slowly becoming accustomed to the smell. She was beginning to make the soggy mattress she was sitting on a thing of her own. She was coming to think of the lorry as hers. Buteil looked at her with pride and concern.
“It all works,” he repeated.
“It’s perfect, Buteil,” she said.
“And don’t worry about the smell. It goes off when you get the old girl moving.”
“And when she’s not moving? When we’re asleep?”
“Well, when you’re asleep you can’t smell a thing. Seeing as you’re asleep.”
“I’m not worried.”
“Do you want to try her out?”
Camille signalled agreement and followed Buteil round to the driver’s door. She climbed the two footholds and settled into the driving seat, adjusted the position, and stretched out her arms to grasp the large, hand-scorching steering wheel. Buteil handed over the key and withdrew. Camille switched on, engaged first gear and steered the hulk slowly down the sheep farm’s unmetalled drive. First gear, full lock, stop; clutch, reverse, reverse lock, go, stop; clutch, first, and back up the drive. Switch off.
“I’ll manage just fine,” she said, climbing down from the cab.
Buteil gave Camille the vehicle papers as if she had just earned them by executing a three-point turn. And at that moment Soliman turned up, dragging his heels, with a drawn expression on his face and bloodshot eyes.
“We’ll be off as soon as you’re ready,” he said to Camille.
“Aren’t we eating before we go?”
“We’ll eat in the lorry. The more time we lose, the further away the vampire gets.”
“I am ready,” Camille said. “Get your things and bring Watchee with you.”
Ten minutes later Camille was smoking a cigarette, sitting beside Buteil at the back of the van, when she saw Soliman return with a rucksack on his back and a dictionary under his arm.
“Your bed is front off-side,” Buteil determined.
“Fine,” said Soliman.
“Sol’s a finicky lad,” said Buteil. “He’ll take an age to sort his drawer.”
“Buteil,” Soliman shouted from inside the truck, “your transporter hasn’t stopped smelling of livestock, you know.”
“So what am I supposed to do about that?” said the major-domo somewhat aggressively. “We don’t grow courgettes, do we now? We raise sheep!”
“Calm down, I was only saying there’s a pong.”
“Apparently it disappears when we’re on the road,” Camille put in.
“Exactly.”
Johnstone was coming towards them with Watchee in tow.
“Love,” Soliman declared as he leaned against the lorry with his hands on his hips. “‘A. That state of feeling with regard to a person which manifests itself in concern for the person’s welfare, pleasure in his or her presence, and often also desire for his or her approval. B. Sexual passion combined with liking and concern for the other. C. Strong attachment to a person of the opposite sex.’”
Camille was taken aback and turned to look at the young man.
“It’s the dictionary,” Buteil explained. “He’s stored it all up here,” he added, pointing to his head.
“I’m going to say my goodbyes,” Camille said, standing up.
Watchee took his turn to inspect the converted transporter. Buteil showed him his drawer – the first on the right as you come in – and the old man put his things away in it in no time at all. Then he hopped down and stood waiting next to Soliman, by the cab steps, filling in time by hand-rolling a cigarette from shag. Straight after the funeral Watchee had got back into his baggy cords and his shapeless jacket and put on his hiking boots and his time-worn hat with its traditional black ribbon, all impregnated with dust. He had trimmed his hair and shaved and then put a clean white shirt over his under-vest. It felt a bit stiff. He was standing as straight as a ramrod with his cigarette hanging on his lower lip and his left hand at rest on his crook. His dog lay at his feet. Watchee got out his pocket-knife and started to strop the blade on his trouser-leg.
“So when are we going to start up this here road movement?” he asked gruffly.
“This what?” Soliman queried.
“This road movement. Road movie.”
“Oh, I see. Soon as Camille has stopped saying goodbye to the trapper.”
“In my day young women did not kiss men in front of me on unmade roads.”
“It was your idea to get her to come too.”
“In my day,” Watchee went on, as he folded away the blade of his pocket-knife, “young women did not drive lorries.”
“If you’d learned to drive, we wouldn’t be in this pickle.”
“I didn’t say I was against it, Sol. I’m actually for it.”
“For what?”
“Having a young lady’s hands on the wheel. I’m for it.”
“She’s pretty,” Soliman said.
“She’s more than just pretty.”
Johnstone was watching them from the distance, holding Camille in his arms.
“The old man’s putting his best foot forward for you,” he said. “He’s got a spotless shirt tucked into his filthy trousers.”
“He’s not filthy,” she said.
“Well, all you can now do is pray to heaven he doesn’t bring his dog along for the ride. That dog must reek.”
“Possibly.”
“For God’s sake, are you sure you want to go?”
Camille looked at the two anxious and worried men waiting for her by the running board. Buteil was putting the finishing touches to the equipment – securing a moped to the bodywork on the near side, and a pedal cycle to the off-side.
“I’m sure,” she answered.
She kissed Johnstone; he hugged her close, then let her free with a nod of his head. From the driver’s cab she watched him going back to his motorbike, start up and ride away down the track.
“So, what’s next?” she asked the two men.
“We sit on his shadow,” said Watchee with a commanding stare and his jaw set
stiffly at the angle of determination.
“Which way? He was at La Castille on Monday night. That means he has almost forty-eight hours’ head start.”
“Let’s roll,” said Soliman. “I’ll tell you what the idea is as we go.”
Soliman was a featherweight youngster, and, with his dainty hands, his long arms and his slouch, he seemed all the time to be holding his sharp, handsome profile up to the stars. His complexion was smooth, and his face, like a child’s, seemed almost transparent. But there was always a glint of irony or perhaps of impish fun in those eyes, as if the young man was straining not to let some huge joke – or some great message – out of the bag, or as if he was constantly talking to himself and saying “Now wait till you’ve heard this one . . .” Camille imagined that the combined effects of the dictionary and of African folklore were responsible for Soliman’s strangely knowing smile, which gave his face an ambiguous light and made it look in turns obedient, then kindly, then dark, then dictatorial. She wondered what kind of smile he might have acquired from concentrating instead on the The A to Z of Tools for Trade and Craft. Probably not a very nice one.
Camille tossed her own rucksack into the lorry, unpacked it neatly into the drawer under her bed – the rear left-hand bed, Buteil had said – closed the tailgate and clambered into the cab where the two men were already settled, Sol next to the driver’s seat and Watchee by the near-side door.
“You’d better lay your crook on the floor,” she advised the old man, leaning towards him. “If I have to brake hard, it could smash your jaw.”
Watchee hesitated, pondered, then lay his shepherd’s crook flat on the cab floor.
“Belt, please,” Camille added amiably as she wondered whether Watchee had in fact ever been in a motor vehicle before. “You have to click it in here. In case I brake sharply.”
“It’ll trap me,” said Watchee. “I don’t like being trapped.”
“It’s the rule, I’m afraid. Compulsory.”
“Fuck compulsory, that’s what we say,” said Soliman.
“All right,” Camille said as she switched on the ignition. “What direction of travel?”
“Due north, towards the Mercantour.”
“Via?”
“The Tinée valley.”