by Fred Vargas
VI
COMMISSAIRE BOURLIN HAD driven fast. He had been waiting for his colleagues for fifteen minutes, stamping about outside the high wooden gates that barred the entrance to the stud farm, the Haras de la Madeleine. Unlike Adamsberg, who was oblivious to the symptoms of impatience, Bourlin was an impetuous man, always rushing ahead of things.
‘What the fuck were you up to, Adamsberg?’
‘We had to stop twice,’ Danglard explained. ‘Once for the commissaire to view a rainbow that was almost complete, and once for me to look at an amazing Templar granary.’
But Bourlin had stopped listening, and was pulling the bell at the gate.
‘Carpe horam, carpe diem,’ Danglard murmured, standing two paces back. ‘Seize the hour, seize the day, Horace’s advice.’
‘Big place,’ commented Adamsberg, looking at the estate through the hedge which, in this month of April, had few leaves. ‘The stud farm must be down on the right, I suppose, those wooden buildings. Plenty of money. A pretentious house with a gravel drive. What do you think about it, Danglard?’
‘It will have replaced an old chateau. The two lateral pavilions or lodges either side of the drive are seventeenth century; they must be dependencies that were once attached to a more impressive building. Probably knocked down during the Revolution. Except for that tower, over there in the woods, that must have survived. See its top? A watchtower, much older. If we went over to take a look, we might find its foundations date back to the thirteenth century.’
‘But we’re not going over to take a look, Danglard.’
A woman opened half the heavy gate, after a lot of clanking of chains. Over fifty, small and thin, but as Adamsberg noted, her face was rosy and she had plump cheeks rather out of keeping with the rest of her body. Round cheeks but a skinny frame.
‘Monsieur Amédée Masfauré?’ Bourlin asked.
‘Down at the stables, you’ll have to come back after six. And if it’s about the termite inspection, it’s been done.’
‘Police, madame,’ said Bourlin, taking out his ID card.
‘Police? But we’ve already told you everything! Haven’t we had enough trouble? You’re not going to start all that palaver up again, are you?’
Bourlin exchanged a look of incomprehension with Adamsberg. What had the police been doing here? Before him?
‘When were the police here, madame?’
‘Nearly a week ago now! Don’t you people talk to each other? On Thursday morning, right after it happened, the gendarmes were here in a quarter of an hour. And again the next day. They questioned everyone, we all had to take our turn. Isn’t that enough?’
‘After what happened, madame? What do you mean?’
‘No, obviously you don’t check with each other,’ said the little woman, shaking her head in a manner more irritated than worried. ‘Anyway, they said they’d finished, and they gave us back the body. They kept it for days. Maybe they did a post-mortem and found nothing.’
‘Whose body, madame?’
‘Why, the boss’s, of course,’ she cried, detaching each syllable. ‘He killed himself, poor man.’
Adamsberg had taken himself outside the group and was walking in circles, hands behind his back, kicking pieces of gravel in front of him. Watch out, he remembered, go round in circles and you’ll corkscrew yourself into the ground. Another suicide, dear God, the very day after Alice Gauthier’s. Adamsberg listened to the difficult conversation now taking place between the thin little woman and the bulky commissaire. Henri Masfauré was Amédée’s father. He had killed himself on Wednesday night, with his shotgun, but his son had only found him next morning. Bourlin wouldn’t let go: offering his sympathies, he was very sorry, but he was here about something completely different, nothing so serious, he assured her. What was that? A letter from a Madame Gauthier to Monsieur Amédée. This lady was now dead, and Amédée must have received her last wishes.
‘We don’t know any Madame Gauthier.’
Adamsberg pulled Bourlin a few paces away.
‘I’d like to take a look at the room where the father shot himself.’
‘It’s the son, Amédée, I want to see, Adamsberg. Not some empty room.’
‘We need to see them both, Bourlin! And contact the gendarmes to see what they think about the suicide. What gendarmerie would that be, Danglard?’
‘Here, between Sombrevert and Malvoisine, I think it must be Rambouillet. Captain Choiseul – like the statesman of the same name under Louis XV – is a competent chap.’
‘Just do it, Bourlin,’ Adamsberg insisted.
His tone had changed, more imperious, more urgent, and Bourlin acquiesced, though pulling a face.
After ten minutes of confused conversation with Adamsberg, the little woman finally opened the gates wider and went ahead of them along the drive, and up to her employer’s study, on the first floor. Her confident round cheeks had partly recovered the ascendancy over her frail body. That said, she couldn’t see the slightest connection between the boss’s study and the letter from some Madame Gauthier, and it seemed to her that this cop, Adamsberg, couldn’t either. He was just getting her mixed up in it, that was all. But the policeman, with his voice or his smile, or something, reminded her of her old teacher in primary school, long ago. That teacher, he could have persuaded you to learn all your times tables in one evening.
Adamsberg now knew the woman’s name – Céleste Grignon – and that she had joined the household twenty-one years earlier, when the ‘little one’ was five years old. The ‘little one’ was Amédée Masfauré, who was sensitive and fragile, didn’t have good health, and it was important not to touch a hair of his head.
‘Here we are,’ she announced, opening the door to the study and crossing herself. ‘Amédée found him here in the morning, sitting on his chair, at his desk. He had the shotgun wedged between his feet.’
Danglard went round the room, examining the book-lined walls and the magazines piled on the floor.
‘Was he a professor?’ he asked.
‘Better than that, monsieur, he was a man of science, and better than that, he was a genius. He was a genius at chemistry.’
‘And what did he do, as a genius at chemistry?’
‘He was researching how to clean the air. Like putting a vacuum cleaner in the sky and collecting all the pollution in a bag. A huge bag, of course.’
‘Cleaning the air?’ said Bourlin abruptly. ‘You mean getting rid of CO2, carbon dioxide?’
‘Stuff like that, yes. Getting rid of the black bits, the smoke, all that rubbish they make you breathe in. He put all his money into it. A genius and a benefactor to humanity. Even the minister asked to see him.’
‘You’ll need to fill me in about that, it’s fascinating,’ said Bourlin with a tremor in his voice, and Céleste changed her mind about this man.
‘You’d be better off talking to Amédée about it. Or Victor, the secretary. But please lower your voices, the body is still in the house, you understand. In his bedroom.’
Adamsberg was walking round the dead man’s chair and his desk, a heavy piece of furniture, with an old-fashioned green leather panel on top, worn out where elbows had rested, and covered with scratch marks. Céleste Grignon and Bourlin had their backs turned to him, discussing carbon dioxide. He tore a page from his notebook, and did a quick rubbing with a pencil over the leather surface, while Danglard continued to explore the walls, examining the books and pictures. A single canvas struck a strange note in this scholarly retreat. It was a crude daub, the only word for it, of the valley of the Chevreuse, in three shades of green, spotted with little red dots. Céleste Grignon went over to him.
‘Not very good, is it?’ she whispered.
‘No,’ he agreed.
‘Not at all good,’ she went on, ‘and you wonder why Monsieur Henri would have a thing like that in his study. There’s not even any air in the landscape, and he loved the air. It’s blocked, so to speak.’
‘Yes, you’re ri
ght. Perhaps it’s a souvenir.’
‘Not at all. I know, because I painted it! Don’t be embarrassed,’ she added immediately, ‘you have an eye for what’s good and bad. No need to be ashamed of that.’
‘Perhaps if you practised,’ said Danglard tentatively, for he was indeed embarrassed, ‘perhaps if you worked at it.’
‘I do work at it. I’ve painted hundreds like that, all the same, it amused Monsieur Henri.’
‘And the little red dots?’
‘If you look closely, you get to see that they’re ladybirds. They’re what I’m best at.’
‘Is it a message of some kind?’
‘No idea,’ said Céleste Grignon, with a shrug, moving away as if completely uninterested in her work.
Having melted somewhat – since these cops were actually more polite than the gendarmes, who had treated them brusquely, as if they were machines – Céleste took them to the large drawing room on the ground floor and fetched them a tray of drinks. It would take her about twenty minutes to go and fetch Amédée from the stables. Before leaving, she repeated the admonition to keep their voices low.
‘And the gendarmes?’ Adamsberg said to Bourlin, as soon as she had left. ‘What did they tell you?’
‘That Henri Masfauré had killed himself, and that the evidence was indisputable. I got Choiseul himself. Everything was carefully examined. The man was sitting down, he’d wedged his shotgun between his feet, and shot himself in the mouth. His hands and his shirt were entirely covered in powder.’
‘Which finger did he use?’
‘He pressed the trigger with both hands, right thumb on top of left thumb.’
‘When you say “entirely” covered, you mean his thumb as well? Was there powder on the top of the right thumb?’
‘That’s exactly what Choiseul meant. This isn’t a fake suicide. It isn’t a case of a murderer putting the victim’s hand on the gun and then pressing his finger. And there was a motive. A terrible row between the father and son, that night.’
‘Who says so?’
‘Céleste Grignon. She doesn’t live up in the house, but she came back for her cardigan. She didn’t hear what they were saying, but they were shouting. According to the gendarmes, Amédée wanted his independence but his father kept him trapped here, insisting that he should be ready to take over as his successor at the stud farm. And they parted on furious terms, both of them were upset, and the father went out for a ride on horseback in the night to calm his nerves.’
‘And the son.’
‘He went to bed, but couldn’t sleep. He lives in one of the pavilions by the gate.’
‘Can anyone confirm that?’
‘No, but Amédée didn’t have any trace of gunpowder on his hands. Victor, the boss’s secretary – he lives in the other pavilion opposite Amédée’s – saw him come back at night, and his light went on, and stayed on. It wasn’t like Amédée to sit up late, and Victor hesitated to go and see him. The two young men get on well. So, long story short, suicide. Nothing to do with our investigation either. What I want to see is this letter from Alice Gauthier.’
Adamsberg, who found it hard to sit still for long, walked from the window to the wall and back, not in a circle.
‘And Choiseul had some analyses done?’
‘All the basic stuff. Alcohol level, 1.57. A lot, yes, but they didn’t find a glass or bottle. He must have drunk something to steel himself, but apparently cleared it away. Tests for the common drugs – negative. And for all the usual kinds of poison.’
‘What about that drug GHB?’ Adamsberg asked. ‘And what’s the other stuff, Danglard?’
‘Rohypnol.’
‘That’s the one. Very useful if you want to get someone to hold a shotgun between his legs without protesting. A few drops in his glass, which would explain why it’s disappeared. But it’s too late in any case, because there are no traces after twenty-four hours.’
‘You could try testing a hair,’ said Danglard. ‘It can stay up to seven days in hair.’
‘We don’t even need to do that to be certain,’ said Adamsberg with a shake of his head.
‘Jesus,’ said Bourlin, ‘“Confirmed suicide”. What are you thinking of? Choiseul isn’t a beginner.’
‘Choiseul didn’t know about the sign at Alice Gauthier’s place.’
‘Adamsberg, we came here about the letter.’
‘Even before reading the letter, you can call your big tick and tell him you’re not closing this file.’
Bourlin was not one to ignore such a laconic piece of advice from Adamsberg.
‘Explain what you mean,’ he said. ‘They’ll be back here in a few minutes.’
‘No fault attaches to Choiseul. You had to know what to look for to find it. This,’ he said, holding out a piece of paper to Bourlin. ‘I picked it up by rubbing the leather on the desk, which was covered with scratches. But here,’ he went on, tracing certain lines with his finger, ‘you can make it out quite well.’
‘The sign,’ said Danglard.
‘Yes. The leather was cut in order to draw it, and these scratches are quite fresh.’
The door opened, and Céleste came in, panting for breath.
‘I did tell you the little one was delicate. I told him you just wanted to see him about a letter from this Madame Gauthier, and he started shaking all over. Victor spoke to him, but he jumped on Dionysos, and galloped off into the woods. So then Victor got on Hecate and went after him. Because Amédée went without his hard hat, and without a saddle. And on Dionysos as well! He’s not strong enough to do that. He’s sure to have a fall.’
‘And he’s sure not to want to talk to us,’ said Bourlin.
‘Madame Grignon, please take us down to the stables,’ said Adamsberg.
‘You can call me Céleste.’
‘Céleste, will Dionysos come when he’s called by name?’
‘He obeys a special whistle, but Fabrice is the only one who can do it. Fabrice is the stud manager. But look out, he’s a tricky customer.’
*
There was no doubt about the identity of the thickset man who came to meet them as they neared the stables. Short but strong as an ox, bearded, with the sullen face of an old bear confronting an enemy.
‘Monsieur?’ said Bourlin, holding out his hand.
‘Fabrice Pelletier,’ said the man, folding his short arms. ‘And you are?’
‘Commissaire Bourlin, Commissaire Adamsberg and Commandant Danglard.’
‘Nice gang of three. Don’t go in there, you’ll spook the horses.’
‘Well, while we’re standing here,’ Bourlin interrupted, ‘you’ve got two spooked horses already, charging through the woods.’
‘I’m not blind.’
‘Would you please call Dionysos back?’
‘If it suits me. Suits me fine anyway if Amédée’s got out of your clutches.’
‘That’s an order!’ Bourlin snapped. ‘Or you can be charged with failure to help a person in danger.’
‘I don’t take orders from anyone, except the boss. And he’s dead,’ said the man, keeping his arms firmly folded.
‘Whistle up Dionysos, or I’ll arrest you right away, Monsieur Pelletier!’
And at that moment, Bourlin looked no more ready to parley than the brutish stud master. Two old males, facing each other, claws out and jaws set in a snarl.
‘Whistle him up yourself!’
‘Let me remind you that Amédée went off without a hard hat, and riding bareback, no saddle.’
‘Bareback?’ cried Pelletier, unfolding his arms. ‘On Dionysos? But he must be crazy, the stupid kid!’
‘You see, you are blind. Now whistle up that bloody horse!’
*
The stud master strode heavily over to the edge of the trees, and gave several long whistles. They were complicated and tuneful, unexpected, coming from the lips of a man like him.
‘Fancy that,’ said Adamsberg simply.
A few minutes later, a
youngish man with a shock of curly fair hair approached them, head bowed, leading a mare by the reins. Pelletier’s sophisticated whistles could still be heard echoing through the woods.
‘This is Victor? The secretary?’ Danglard asked Céleste.
‘Yes. Oh my God, he hasn’t found him!’
Apart from his remarkable hair, this man, who looked in his mid-thirties, was far from handsome. He had a melancholy, brooding expression and unprepossessing features: a large once-broken nose, wide mouth, low brow over small close-set eyes, and a short bull-like neck. He shook hands with the three police officers without paying much attention, looking only at Céleste.
‘Céleste, I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t far ahead of me, I could hear the hooves, he’d gone off like a fool into the brushwood towards Sombrevert. Just where the storm brought all those trees down. Hecate knocked her leg on a branch, and now she’s lame, so Pelletier’ll have it in for me, won’t he?’
The distant sound of hooves made them all turn towards the woods. Dionysos appeared, riderless.
‘Holy Mother of God!’ cried Céleste, her hand to her mouth. ‘He’s been thrown!’
From further back, Pelletier was making reassuring signs to her. Amédée was following in his wake, arms dangling, looking like a shamefaced teenager caught after running away.
‘Oh,’ said Céleste, taking a deep breath, ‘Pelletier’s good, you have to admit. He can bring any animal back. You should see him when they do dressage. The boss used to say’ – and here she crossed herself – ‘ “with his character, I’d have got rid of him long ago. But you can’t do without someone like him. Got to take the rough with the smooth. Like for everyone, Céleste, the rough with the smooth.” That’s what the boss used to say.’
Amédée allowed himself to be hugged by Céleste without reacting. Then he turned to the three cops, with an expressionless face. He, by contrast with Victor, was a rather good-looking young man, with a straight nose, finely shaped lips, long eyelashes, curly dark hair. He was sweating and his cheeks were flushed from his escapade. There was something feminine about him, a romantic delicacy and charm, no sign of a beard.