Seeking Whom He May Devour

by Fred Vargas

  Adamsberg and Soliman looked into nineteen churches. In the twentieth, at Saint-Pierre-de-Cenis, a tiny village about ninety kilometres north of Bourg-en-Bresse, they spotted five candles set apart from the others and laid out more or less in the shape of the letter M.

  “That’s him!” said Soliman. “It’s as it was at Tiennes.”

  Adamsberg took a fresh candle, lit it from one of the others, and stood it in the candleholder.

  “What are you doing?” Soliman asked in amazement.

  “I’m comparing.”

  “Even so. If you light a candle you have to make a prayer. And pay for the candle. Otherwise your wishes won’t be met.”

  “Are you religious, Sol?”

  “I am superstitious.”

  “Ah. That must be tiring.”

  “It is. Very.”

  Adamsberg bent forward to observe the candles more closely.

  “They’ve burned about one third of the way down,” he said. “We’ll measure it against the lorry candle, but Massart was probably here some four hours ago. Between three and four in the afternoon. It’s a remote spot. Probably he slipped into the church when there was nobody else here.”

  He fell silent and looked smilingly at the candles.

  “What good is that to us, really?” asked Soliman. “He’s a long way off by now. And we already knew he lights candles.”

  “You still haven’t twigged, have you, Sol? This church is on his marked-out route. That means he’s not moved off it. He’s sticking to the itinerary. That means nothing is happening by chance. If he’s been this way it’s because he had to be. He won’t branch off now.”

  Before they left the church Adamsberg put three francs in the silver tray.

  “I know you made a wish,” said Soliman.

  “I was only paying for the candle.”

  “You’re lying. You made a wish. I saw it in your eyes.”

  Adamsberg drew up twenty metres away from the lorry. He pulled slowly on the handbrake. Neither he nor Soliman got out. Watchee had lit a brazier, which he was poking with the metal-tipped end of his crook. Standing beside him, with his eyes on the fire, stood a tall and handsome man in a white T-shirt. His long fair hair came down to his shoulders, and his arm was around Camille. Adamsberg looked at him for a while without stirring.

  “That’s the trapper,” Soliman finally vouchsafed.

  “I can see that.”

  The two of them fell silent again.

  “He’s the guy who lives with Camille,” Soliman went on, as if he was telling it to himself over again, just to be sure. “That’s the guy she picked.”

  “I can see that.”

  “He’s good-looking, he’s tough, he can hold his own. And he’s got ideas up here,” Soliman added, tapping his forehead. “You can’t say Camille picked a dud.”

  “No.”

  “You can’t hold it against her to have picked that guy rather than another one, can you?”

  “No.”

  “Camille is free. She can pick whomever she wants. Whoever she likes best. If that’s the one, well, she goes for him, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s up to her, after all. Not up to us. Not up to anyone else. Up to her. Can’t say anything against that, can you?”

  “No.”

  “And she’s not made a bad choice, really. Right? Don’t see why it should be any of our business.”

  “No. It’s none of our business.”

  “No, none at all.”

  “It’s actually got nothing to do with us.”

  “Actually, no.”

  “No,” Adamsberg repeated.

  “What next?” Soliman asked after a pause. “Shall we get out?”

  Watchee put a grill on top of the embers and unceremoniously deposited two columns of chops and tomatoes on it.

  “Where did you get the grill?” Soliman asked.

  “It’s chickenwire. Buteil had left it in the lorry. Heat disinfects everything.”

  Watchee kept his eye on the meat as it cooked, then shared it out. He wasn’t saying much.

  “What about the candles, then?” asked Camille.

  “Five at Saint-Pierre-du-Cenis,” Adamsberg said. “He most likely lit them around three o’clock. He’s keeping to his route. We really ought to get moving this evening, Camille. Now that Laurence is here we can move on.”

  “Do you want to go to Saint-Pierre?”

  “He’s left there already. He’s out ahead. Show us the map, Sol.”

  Soliman cleared the glasses out of the way and spread the map out on the crate.

  “You see,” said Adamsberg, following the red line with the tip of his knife. “The route breaks off here and turns due west in the direction of Paris. Even if he doesn’t want to cross the autoroute, he could have turned earlier, here, on this minor road, or else there. But instead he’s done a thirty-kilometre dogleg. It’s crazy, except if he reckons he absolutely has to go through Belcourt.”

  “That’s not obvious,” said Soliman.

  “No, it’s not,” said Adamsberg.

  “Massart kills at random, when he’s disturbed.”

  “Maybe so. But I’d still like to get to Belcourt this evening. It doesn’t look like a large place. If there’s a cross anywhere thereabouts, we’ll find it, and stand guard.”

  “I don’t believe in all that,” Soliman said.

  “But I do,” Johnstone said all of a sudden. “It’s not for sure, but it’s quite possible. Bugger him, he’s done enough killing already.”

  “If we get in his way at Belcourt,” Soliman said, turning to face the trapper, “he’ll go kill someplace else.”

  “Not certain. Fixed ideas.”

  “He’s looking for sheep,” Soliman said.

  “Acquired the taste for humans,” said Johnstone.

  “You said he’d go after women,” Camille said.

  “Got that wrong. He doesn’t go after women to have them, he goes after men for revenge. Comes to the same thing, more or less.”

  There wasn’t a cross of any kind at Belcourt or anywhere else nearby. Camille parked the lorry on the edge of an esplanade next to the road that went through the village. The open space had been embellished by the commune with a stand of plum trees. Adamsberg had gone on ahead to warn the duty squad at the gendarmerie.

  Soliman was waiting on his own for the flic to come out. He found the commissaire disconcerting in the actions he took, and hard to believe in the very partial explanations he offered. But Soliman’s doubts did not weaken the loyalty he had felt for Adamsberg from the moment he first met him. Reason and logic set him against Adamsberg. But his natural feelings put him at Adamsberg’s side in all his actions, if not in his mental processes, which remained pretty much impenetrable to him.

  “What are the gendarmes like?” he asked when Adamsberg got back to the lorry around midnight.

  “A good lot,” said Adamsberg. “Cooperative. They’ll maintain surveillance in the village until further notice. Where are the others?”

  “Watchee’s having a glass of white wine under one of the plum trees over there.”

  “And the other two?” Adamsberg queried.

  “Gone for a walk. The trapper told Camille he needed some time alone with her.”

  “Fine.”

  “I suppose they’ve got a right to be alone for a bit, right?”

  “Yes, of course they have.”

  “Certainly they have,” Soliman parroted.

  He unhooked his moped and kick-started the engine.

  “I’m going into town. I’ll see if there’s a café open.”

  “There is one, at the back of the town hall.”

  Soliman rode down the road. Adamsberg got into the lorry and inspected the candle, which was more than half burned down after seven hours. He blew it out, picked up a folding stool and a glass, and went over to Watchee, sitting fifty metres away, bolt upright, beneath a tree on the other side of the esplanade.

&n
bsp; “Have a seat, young fella,” said Watchee as Adamsberg approached.

  Adamsberg set up his stool next to Watchee’s, sat down, and held out his glass.

  “The town’s under surveillance,” he said. “If Massart turns up, he’s taking a big risk.”

  “So he won’t turn up.”

  “That’s what worries me.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have blabbed his itinerary, young fella.”

  “It was the only way of finding out.”

  “Maybe,” said Watchee as he filled Adamsberg’s glass. “I see what you were up to. But the man’s a werewolf, young fella. It’s quite possible he picks his victims, I’m not saying he doesn’t. He’s bound to have made enemies when he was a bottomer on the road. But it’s the werewolf in him that does the killing. That’s the key to it all. You’ll see, when he’s been collared.”

  “I’ll see.”

  “But there’s no saying when he’ll get caught. I reckon we’ve got a while to wait.”

  “Well then, we’ll wait. We’ll wait as long as it takes. Here. Under this plum tree.”

  “Exactly, young fella. We’ll wait. And if we have to we’ll sit here until the end of our days.”

  “And why shouldn’t we?” Adamsberg asked in a world-weary tone.

  “Only thing is, if we do wait for him to show up, we’ll have to see about laying in some more juice of the grape.”

  “It’ll be seen to.”

  Watchee took a drink.

  “The bikers that came along the other day,” he went on. “You’ll have to have them seen to as well.”

  “I’ve not forgotten.”

  “They’re scum. If I hadn’t had my rifle, they’d have killed my Soliman and disfigured your Camille. Believe you me.”

  “I do believe you. Camille, not my Camille.”

  “You shouldn’t have stopped me firing.”

  “Yes I should.”

  “I’d have aimed for their legs.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Watchee shrugged. “Hey,” he said. “There they are. The young lady and her trapper have returned.”

  Watchee’s eyes followed the whitish silhouettes as they walked along the road. Camille got into the lorry first, but Johnstone stopped at the rear footboard, apparently hesitating.

  “Why’s he messing around?” asked Watchee.

  “The smell,” Adamsberg suggested. “Wool-fat.”

  The shepherd muttered something under his breath, and cast a rather disdainful glance at the Canadian wolf-man. Johnstone seemed to be girding himself up, threw his long hair back over his shoulders, and sprang into the lorry in one movement, as if he was diving off a cliff.

  “Apparently he’s sad because the old wolf he was looking after has died,” Watchee went on. “That’s what they get up to in the Mercantour. They feed old beasts. Seems he’s going to go back to Canada, too. Mighty long way off.”

  “No.”

  “He’s going to try to get her to come with him.”

  “You mean it’s a she-wolf?”

  “The wolf is dead, male or female, like I said. He’s going to try to get her to come with him. Camille, I mean. And she’s going to try to go.”

  “I guess so.”

  “That’s something else you’ll have to see to.”

  “None of my business, Watchee.”

  “Where are you going to sleep tonight?”

  “Under this plum tree. Or in my car. It’s not cold.”

  Watchee made no reply, and filled both glasses again. After several minutes’ silence, he asked in his most guttural voice:

  “Do you love her?”

  Adamsberg shrugged again and said nothing.

  “I don’t mind if you keep your trap shut,” Watchee said. “I’m not sleepy. I can ask you the question all night long. When the sun rises, I’ll still be here, and I’ll ask you again, and I’ll go on asking until you answer. And if we’re both still here six years from now, still waiting for Massart to make an appearance, I’ll still be asking you the same question. I don’t mind. I’m not sleepy.”

  Adamsberg smiled and drank some more wine.

  “Do you love her?” Watchee asked.

  “Your question is getting on my nerves.”

  “That proves it’s a good question.”

  “I never said it was a bad question.”

  “I don’t mind. I’ve got all night, and I’m not sleepy.”

  “Asking a question,” said Adamsberg, “means that you know the answer, otherwise you shut up.”

  “That’s true,” said Watchee. “I do know the answer.”

  “You see.”

  “Why do you let other men have her?”

  Adamsberg kept his peace.

  “I don’t mind,” said Watchee. “I’ve got all night.”

  “Bugger that, Watchee. She doesn’t belong to me. Nobody belongs to anybody.”

  “Stop acting all sophisticated. Why do you let other men have her?”

  “Ask the wind why it doesn’t stay in the leaves of the tree.”

  “Who’s the wind, then? You? Or her?”

  Adamsberg smiled. “We take turns.”

  “That’s not bad, young fella.”

  “But the wind moves on,” said Adamsberg.

  “And the wind comes back,” said Watchee.

  “That’s the whole problem. The wind always comes back.”

  “The last glass,” Watchee warned with a glance at the bottle in the dark. “Have to ration ourselves.”

  “What about you, Watchee? Did you ever love anyone?”

  Watchee said nothing.

  “I don’t mind,” said Adamsberg. “I’m not drowsy.”

  “Do you know the answer?”

  “Suzanne, your whole life long. That’s why I emptied your ammo case.”

  “Fuck you, bloody flic,” said Watchee.

  Adamsberg went back to his car, got a blanket out of the boot and settled himself on the back seat with the door open so he could let his legs hang out. Around two in the morning the tail end of a summer storm rumbled over the landscape and a steady drizzle began to fall, so he had to curl up inside the vehicle. It’s not that he was tall – 1.71m, the bare minimum required for joining the police force – but it was an uncomfortable position all the same.

  When he thought about it, he reckoned he must be the shortest policeman in the whole of France. That was quite something. The Canadian was a whole lot taller. Better-looking, too, no doubt about that. And better-looking than he had expected. Solid and trustworthy. A very good choice, a much better choice than he was. He wasn’t worth it. He was wind.

  Of course he loved Camille, he had never tried to deny it. Sometimes he realised he did love her and tried to find her, but then he forgot about it. Camille was his natural inclination. Spending these last two nights by her side had been a lot harder than he ever imagined it could be. He had wanted to stretch his hand out to her dozens of times. But Camille did not seem to be asking for anything at all. Your life’s your own, my friend.

  Yes, of course he was in love with Camille, deep down inside, in the unknown country you hump along inside you like some private but alien submarine world. Yes. And so what? Nothing says that you have to put every one of your thoughts into action. In Adamsberg’s case thought did not always result in action. Between the thought and the deed, a whole heap of energy got absorbed in daydreaming.

  And then there was that fearsome wind that pushed him ever onwards, even uprooting him from time to time. But on this night he was the tree. He would have liked to stop Camille in his branches. On this night, though, Camille was the wind. She was moving fast and ever upwards, towards the snow-capped mountains. With that bloody Canadian in tow.

  XXXI

  DAMP AND ACHING though he was, adamsberg got out and into the driving seat at 7.30, switched on the ignition and drove straight into Belcourt without waiting for the others to be up. He stopped at the public baths and spent twenty minutes under th
e shower, with his head raised to the tepid stream, his arms hanging loose beside him.

  Cleaned up and his mind a blank, he dawdled for thirty minutes in a café and then sought out a quiet spot in the village where he could call Danglard. At last the prolonged inquiry about Sabrina Monge that he had instigated had come up with a tangible lead, one which took them to a village west of Gdańsk.

  “Is Gulvain there?” he asked. “Tell him to leave within the hour and let Interpol know. When he’s got the photographs, he should courier them to me from Gdańsk direct to the gendarmerie at Belcourt, in the department of Haute-Marne. Danglard, send me the whole of the Polish file too, with the IDs and addresses . . . No, my friend, we’re still waiting. I think he’ll strike again here, at Belcourt or near here . . . No, old friend, I do not know . . . Let me know if she vanishes.”

  Adamsberg went over to the gendarmerie. Adjudant Hugues Aimont was just starting his shift. Adamsberg introduced himself.

  “So it’s you who put the wind up the night shift?”

  “I thought it was a good idea.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Aimont.

  The adjudant was fair, slim, tall and just a bit wan. Unusually for a gendarme, he was a shy, almost stilted man, even occasionally obsequious. He spoke with a kind of cautious elegance, never using abbreviations, never blaspheming, and never resorting to exclamations. Straight away he put half his office at Adamsberg’s disposal.

  “Aimont,” Adamsberg said, “your opposite numbers at Villard-de-Lans and Bourg-en-Bresse will be sending us the files on Sernot and Deguy. The Head Deputy at Puygiron should be letting us have what he’s got on Auguste Massart, but he might put that off. It would be useful if you called him. The Head Deputy in question doesn’t like civilian police officers.”

  “Wasn’t there a third victim? A woman?”

  “I’ve not forgotten her. But that woman died because she knew something about Massart – at least, that’s what I believe. The other two were murdered for some other reason. It’s that other reason I’m looking for.”

  “Are you,” Aimont asked in his tinny voice, “quite sure that the third attack will be launched in Belcourt?”

  “His itinerary makes a dogleg so as to pass through here. But he could equally well be 200 kilometres away.”

  “It does not seem wise to me, sir, to leave chance altogether out of the picture,” Aimont insisted, with embarrassment. “Those two men who died were in the habit of going out in the dark. Nothing is to say they did not quite simply cross Massart’s path.”