by Fred Vargas
“I don’t see why you’re getting so steamed up,” said Watchee in a measured tone. “He had to kill that man, and so he killed him. A werewolf ne’er misses its mark.”
“There were ten gendarmes patrolling the town!”
“A werewolf is a match for twice as many. Get that into your skull.”
“Do we know who the victim was?” Camille asked.
“An old fellow, that’s all we know. He slashed him outside town, two kilometres off, up in the hills.”
“Whatever has he got against old men?” Camille muttered.
“Folk he knew,” Watchee mumbled. “He doesn’t like folk. Any folk.”
Camille poured herself some coffee and cut a slice of bread.
“Sol,” she said. “You were in town last night. Did you hear nothing?”
Soliman shook his head. “Adamsberg’s asked us to go and wait for him in the main square. In case we have to take off quickly for Châteaurouge. The police will very likely move the whole incident room over there.”
Camille drove slowly into Belcourt and parked the sheep wagon in a shady spot on the main square, between the gendarmerie and the town hall.
“We wait here,” said Soliman.
They were all sitting in the cab and not talking. Camille had her arms stretched out over the steering wheel and looked at the deserted village streets. At eleven o’clock on a Friday the centre of Belcourt seemed virtually uninhabited. Every now and again a woman went by with a shopping basket. A nun in a grey habit glanced up at them from a stone bench opposite the church, then went back to reading a heavy leather-bound tome. Half past struck on the church bell; then a quarter to twelve.
“Nuns must be really hot in summer,” Soliman observed.
Then the cab fell silent once more. The church bell struck noon. A police car came out of a side street and parked in front of the gendarmerie. Adamsberg, Aimont and two other gendarmes got out. He nodded to the sheep wagon and followed his fellow-officers into the building. The square was white-hot under the midday sun. The nun did not shift from where she sat in the patchy shade of a plane tree.
“Abnegation, self-sacrifice, renunciation,” said Soliman. “Maybe she’s waiting for a date. Or for a visitation.”
“Shut up, Sol,” said Watchee. “You’re disturbing me.”
“And what are you doing that can be disturbed?”
“You can see for yourself. I’m watching.”
A quarter past chimed out on the clock and Adamsberg appeared at the door of the gendarmerie. He was alone. He began to walk across the wide cobbled square towards the sheep wagon. When he was halfway across Watchee suddenly shot out of the cab, tripped on the steps, and fell heavily onto the pavement.
“Lie down flat, young fella!” he bellowed for all he was worth.
Adamsberg knew it was meant for him. He flung himself to the ground just as a shot rang out, shattering the quiet of the square. By the time the nun could take aim a second time he had dashed behind the stone bench and got his left arm around her neck in a vice-like half nelson. His right arm was all bloody and hung uselessly at his side. Camille and Soliman were sitting stock-still with their hearts pounding. Camille was the first to react. She jumped down from the lorry and rushed to Watchee, who was still on the ground, grinning broadly, and muttering, “Well done, young fella, well done.” Four gendarmes were running to Adamsberg.
“If you don’t let go,” the girl screamed, “I’ll shoot all four of them!”
The gendarmes came to a stop five metres off.
“And if they shoot, I’ll finish off grandad!” she added, aiming her weapon at Watchee, who remained lying where he had fallen, with Camille trying to help him get his head upright. “And I shoot straight! This piece of shit here can tell you I shoot straight!”
Silence settled on the square like a cloud of darkness. They all stood or lay where they were, nailed, as it were, to the spot, unable to move a limb. Adamsberg still had the girl’s neck in the crook of his elbow. He leaned forward and brought his lips to her ear.
“Listen to me, Sabrina,” he said softly.
“Let go of me, you bastard,” she forced out of her empty lungs. “Or else I’ll finish off grandpa and every last flic in this shitty dump.”
“I’ve found your little boy, Sabrina.”
Adamsberg could feel the girl’s muscles tensing.
“He’s in Poland,” he went on, his lips almost kissing the cowl. “One of my men has gone over there.”
“You’re lying!” Sabrina hissed viciously.
“He’s not far from Gdańsk. Put your gun down.”
“You’re lying!” Sabrina was almost gasping, but her arm was still out straight, and trembling.
“I’ve got his picture in my pocket,” Adamsberg went on. “They took a snap of him the day before yesterday, on his way home from school. I can’t reach it as you’ve injured my right arm. And if I let go with my left arm you’ll put more lead in me. So how are we going to manage, Sabrina? Do you want to see your boy? Do you want to get him back? Or do you want to blow everyone’s brains out and never see him again?”
“It’s a trap,” she hissed back at him.
“Let one of the gendarmes come over. He’ll get the photograph and show it to you. You’ll recognise him. You’ll see that I’m not lying.”
“No flic’s coming near me.”
“Then someone unarmed.”
Sabrina thought for a few moments. She was still struggling for air in the grip of Adamsberg’s arm.
“OK,” she whispered.
“Sol!” Adamsberg called out. “Come over here, mortal slow, with your arms away from your sides.”
Sol came out of the lorry and walked towards them.
“Come up round behind the bench. In my left inside breast pocket there’s an envelope. Lift it out, open it, and take out the photograph. Show it to the lady.”
Sol did as he was told and took from the envelope a black-and-white photograph of an eight-year-old boy. He held it in front of the girl. Sabrina looked down at the picture.
“Now put the photograph on the bench, Sol, and go back to the lorry. So, Sabrina, do you recognise the lad?”
She nodded.
“We’ll get him back,” Adamsberg said.
“He’ll never let him go,” Sabrina breathed.
“Believe me, he will. He’ll give him up. Put your gun down. I’m very fond of the old man lying on the pavement. I’m very fond of the two people in the lorry. I’m very fond of the four gendarmes over there, though I don’t know them any more than you do. I’m fond of me. And I’m fond of you, Sabrina. If you make a move they’ll take a pot-shot at you. Wounding a police officer is not a nice thing to do.”
“They’ll put me in clink.”
“They’ll put you where I tell them to put you. I’m in charge of you. Lower your gun. Give it to me.”
Sabrina let her arm fall. She was shivering through and through. The gun fell to the ground. Adamsberg slowly released her neck, nodded to the gendarmes to stand back, walked round the bench and picked up the weapon. Sabrina hunched up and burst into tears. Adamsberg sat down next to her, carefully took off her grey cowl, and stroked her russet hair.
“Stand up,” he said softly. “One of my men will come and get you. His name’s Danglard. He’ll take you back to Paris, and you’ll wait for me to get back. I’ve still got stuff to sort down here. But you’ll wait for me. And we’ll go and get the boy.”
Sabrina rose unsteadily to her feet. Adamsberg put his good arm around her waist and led her into the gendarmerie. One of the gendarmes was attending to Watchee’s ankle.
“Help me hoist him into the lorry,” Camille said. “I’ll drive him to a doctor.”
“It stinks in here,” said the gendarme, lowering Watchee onto the first bed on the left.
“It doesn’t stink,” Watchee said. “It smells of sheep wax.”
“Is this where you live?” the gendarme asked, rather taken aback
by the way the lorry was kitted out.
“Temporarily,” Camille said.
At this point Adamsberg climbed inside. “How is he?”
“Ankle,” the gendarme said. “I don’t think anything’s broken. But you’d better have a doctor look at it. You’d better see a medic too, sir,” he added, seeing the commissaire’s arm in its first-aid bandage.
“Yes,” said Adamsberg. “The wound’s not deep. I’ll take care of it.”
The gendarme saluted and climbed down. Adamsberg sat on the side of Watchee’s bed.
“How about that for a lark?” the old man said with a broad grin. “I saved your bacon, young fella.”
“If you hadn’t shouted, that bullet would have gone straight through the middle of me. I didn’t recognise her. My mind was on Massart.”
“Whereas yours truly,” said Watchee, pointing to his eye, “was watching. You have to admit, I ain’t called Watchee for nothing.”
“You’ve earned your name, old man.”
“I couldn’t do anything to help Suzanne,” he said bleakly. “But you I could help. I saved your skin, young fella.”
Adamsberg nodded.
“If you’d let me keep my rifle,” the shepherd added, “I’d have shot her before she could hurt you.”
“She’s just a kid, Watchee. Shouting was quite enough.”
“Well, maybe,” said Watchee sceptically. “What did you whisper in her ear?”
“I changed the points on the line.”
“Oh, yes,” said Watchee with a smile. “I remember.”
“I owe you one.”
“Indeed you do. You can get me some vin blanc. There’s no Saint-Victor left.”
Adamsberg got out of the back of the lorry and went to give Camille a hug, saying not a word.
“Look after yourself,” Camille said.
“Yes. After Watchee’s been seen by the doctor, head for Châteaurouge. Pull up on the edge of town, on the D44.”
XXXIII
WHEREVER THEY HALTED they followed the same identical and strict routine for setting up camp, never the smallest variation, so that Camille was beginning to muddle all the town and village outskirts where she had parked the sheep wagon. Their system, the fruit of Soliman’s organised and meticulous mind, had the advantage of allowing them to reconstruct a familiar and soothing environment in places as unhomely as parking lots and lay-bys. Soliman would set up the wooden crate and the rusty folding stools to the rear of the vehicle for meals, see to the washing on the offside, and lay out the reading and relaxation area on the nearside. Camille therefore did her composing in the cab, but came down to the reading corner to study her A to Z of Tools for Trade and Craft.
Camille found these stable arrangements gave her a vital prop in their chaotic and hazardous pursuit of Massart. Four folding stools were not very grand things to be attached to, but for the time being they provided essential reassurance. Especially now that her life stretched out before her in complete and radical disarray. She had not dared to phone Johnstone today. She was afraid some part of her disarray would show through. The Canadian was a methodical man, he would be sure to notice something in her voice.
Soliman had spent the rest of that afternoon carrying Watchee around in his arms, getting him out of the lorry, getting him back into the lorry, taking him to pee and to eat, all the while insulting him for being a senile shepherd.
“You really did come a cropper on those steps,” he reminded him.
“But for me,” Watchee replied with regal hauteur, “your young fella wouldn’t be around any more.”
“But you really did come a cropper, old man.”
Camille sat down on the red-and-green striped stool, which was hers by right. Soliman carried Watchee to his yellow stool and propped his bad leg on the upturned bowl. His was the blue stool. The fourth, blue-and-green, was Adamsberg’s. Soliman did not want folk switching stools.
Adamsberg came back to occupy his stool around nine in the evening. A gendarme drove his car back for him, and a second officer walked him over to the lorry without presuming to inquire why he preferred the company of gypsies to the convenience of a hotel in the nearby town of Montdidier.
Adamsberg dropped like a stone onto his rightful seat. His arm was in a sling and his face betrayed stress. With his left hand he speared a sausage and then three baked potatoes and clumsily dumped them onto his plate.
“Handicap,” said Soliman. “‘An encumbrance or difficulty that weighs upon effort; disability that puts a person at a disadvantage.’”
“In the boot of my car,” said Adamsberg, “there are two cases of wine. Bring them over.”
Soliman uncorked a bottle and filled the four glasses. Seeing as it wasn’t blanc de Saint-Victor, anyone could serve it. Watchee tasted it suspiciously before expressing acceptance with a nod of his head.
“Tell us, young fella,” he said, turning to face Adamsberg.
“Same story,” said Adamsberg. “The man was killed by a single bite after being hit on the head. We’ve got pretty good prints of the beast’s two front feet. Like Sernot and Deguy the victim’s not a spring chicken. He’s a retired commercial traveller. Been round the world twenty times over, selling cosmetics.”
He got out his jotter to jog his memory.
“Paul Hellouin,” he said. “He was sixty-three.”
He put the jotter back in his pocket.
“This time,” he went on, “we found three hairs near the wound. They’ve gone off to the IRCG at Rosny. I’ve asked them to get a move on.”
“What’s the IRCG?” Watchee asked.
“It’s the gendarmerie’s central lab for forensic investigation,” Adamsberg said. “Where they can get a man a life sentence from a thread of his left sock.”
“Good,” said Watchee. “I do like to understand.”
He contemplated the bare feet inside his heavy boots.
“I have always said that socks were strictly for the birds,” he added for his own benefit. “Now I know why. Carry on, young fella.”
“The vet came to look at those three hairs. In his view they’re not dog hairs. So they must be wolf hairs.”
Adamsberg rubbed his wounded arm and poured himself a glass of wine with his left hand, spilling drips on the side.
“This time,” he said, “he did the murder on the edge of a meadow, and there wasn’t a cross of any kind in the environs. Which tells us that Massart isn’t as picky as you think when it comes to getting the job done. And he killed him a long way away from his home, presumably because of all the policeman hanging around town. That presupposes he had a means of enticing him out. Maybe a note, or a phone call.”
“What time did it happen?”
“Around two in the morning.”
“An appointment at 2 a.m.?” Soliman was sceptical.
“Why not?”
“The guy must have suspected something.”
“It all depends on the pretext that was used. Confidential information, family secrets, blackmail, there are all sorts of ways of getting someone to go out at night. I don’t think Sernot or Deguy went out just to sniff the night air, either. They were summoned, as was Hellouin.”
“Their wives said there weren’t any phone calls.”
“Not that day, no. The meetings must have been arranged earlier.”
Soliman pursed his lips.
“I know, Sol,” said Adamsberg. “You believe in chance.”
“I do, yes,” Soliman said.
“Give me one good reason why that nice old cosmetics salesman should have gone out for a constitutional at two in the morning. Do you know many people who really do go walking in the dark? People don’t like the dark. Do you know how many genuine noctambulists I’ve come across in my whole life? Just two.”
“Who were they?”
“I am one of them, and the other is a chap called Raymond, from my village in the Pyrenees.”
“So what?” said Watchee, dismissing this Raymond as if he
were swatting a fly with his hand.
“So there’s no link between Hellouin and Deguy or Sernot, nor is there any reason he should have just bumped into Massart. But,” Adamsberg added thoughtfully, “there is something different about Hellouin.”
Watchee rolled three cigarettes in his lap. He licked the papers, stuck them down and handed one each to Soliman and Camille.
“There was at least one man who might have wanted to kill him,” Adamsberg resumed. “Which is not so common in men’s lives.”
“Does it have any connection with Massart?” Soliman asked.
“It’s an old story,” Adamsberg continued without answering the young man. “An ordinary sordid story that I find interesting. It happened twenty-five years ago in the United States.”
“Massart never set foot over there,” said Watchee.
“I find it interesting nonetheless,” said Adamsberg.
He reached into his pocket with his left hand and pulled out some pills that he downed with two gulps of wine.
“For my arm,” he said.
“Does it ache, young fella?” Watchee asked.
“It hurts.”
“Do you know the story about the man who lent his arm to the lion?” asked Soliman. “The lion found it very useful and a great invention, so he didn’t want to give it back. The man didn’t know what to do to get his rightful property back.”
“That’ll do, Sol,” Watchee cut in. And to Adamsberg he said: “Tell us that old story about America, young fella.”
“Well,” Soliman went on, “one day when the man was scooping water from the pond with only one hand, a fish without gills found itself caught in his bowl. ‘Let me go,’ begged the fish . . .”
“Put a sock in it, Sol,” Watchee shouted. Turning once more to Adamsberg: “Tell us that American thing.”
“In the beginning,” Adamsberg said, “there were two French brothers, Paul and Simon Hellouin. They worked together in a small cosmetics company. Simon set up a branch office in Austin, Texas.”
“This is a crap story,” Soliman said.
“While he was over there,” Adamsberg pursued, “Simon got into a fix by having an affair with a married woman, a French lady with an American husband. Mrs Ariane Padwell, née Germant. Are you following? I often send people to sleep when I tell stories.”