by Fred Vargas
Victor laid his head on his knees, as if it weighed too much. Adamsberg supported his chin.
‘Don’t go to sleep, I’m holding you. Rest your head on my fist. Carry on.’
‘Wanna be sick.’
‘You will, don’t worry. What did you realise?’
‘Where?’
‘When you got back safely to Grimsey.’
‘That I could never have done it. I saw my mother again, dead, among the rocks and the snow, and I would have hated being the one who’d done it. Whereas, in another few hours, if that bastard hadn’t done it, that horrible thing, I might have. And then I’d have killed myself.’
‘That’s what you realised?’
‘Yes. Bring me some horse manure. And if you want to charge me, go ahead, see if I care. I don’t give a shit any more.’
‘Charge you with what? I don’t have any evidence one way or the other.’
‘But you’re going to look for it.’
‘No, the time’s run out on those murders, Victor. They’re beyond the statute of limitations.’
‘Well, look for some evidence, for God’s sake, look for it! Or Amédée will always wonder whether I stabbed his mother to death!’
‘How are we supposed to look for evidence, if you won’t tell us any more about that man?’
‘I dunno where he is, I dunno who he is! I. Don’t. Know. Who. He. Is!’
‘You’re not telling the truth, Victor. But you can lean over and throw up now, it’s over.’
What, there on the grass, by the table? Danglard shook his head. It had happened to him, rarely, but he’d always taken trouble to be discreet about it.
‘Help me, Amédée,’ said Adamsberg, as he caught hold of Victor’s shoulder. ‘We need to make him kneel, head down. You press his stomach, I’ll bang his back.’
Ten minutes later, when Amédée had thrown a few spadefuls of earth on the grass, Veyrenc and Danglard helped Victor up, took him to the lodge and put him to bed, followed by the others. Adamsberg leaned up against the bedroom wall thoughtfully, his arm up and his index finger extended.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Danglard.
‘What?’
‘With your finger?’
‘Oh, that. A fly. It had fallen into the bottom of a glass. I rescued it.’
‘Yes, but what are you doing now?’
‘Nothing, Danglard, just waiting for it to dry off.’
Veyrenc had removed Victor’s shoes and dropped them on the ground.
‘You don’t need to stay,’ Adamsberg said to Amédée, who was sitting like a servant at the end of his brother’s bed. ‘He’ll sleep like a log now until the morning. He just drank himself into a state. He fell into the bottle of port, and he needs to dry out, that’s all.’
‘Dry out?’
‘Yes,’ said Adamsberg, watching the fly rub its wings together. ‘He’ll be fine by tomorrow afternoon.’
Now the fly was rubbing its front legs together. It tried moving a centimetre on Adamsberg’s fingernail, wiped itself again, and took off.
‘Takes longer for a man,’ he remarked.
XXXI
THEY DINED AT the Auberge du Creux, where mélanie had agreed to put on a special menu. Danglard tested the pommes paillasson for texture with his fingertip, just as Bourlin had.
‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘I mean the dinner. As for the events of this afternoon, hard to say.’
‘You can’t test an investigation with your fingertip,’ Veyrenc said.
‘Quite.’
‘It would be practical if you could: is it medium rare, just right, overcooked, spoiled, fit to chuck out?’
‘This isn’t an investigation,’ said Adamsberg. ‘We’re off-piste, as Retancourt very sharply informed me. We have no business stirring up this story, and whatever happened on that warm rock, it’s beyond the statute of limitations, we can’t handle it.’
‘So what did we come out here for?’ Danglard asked.
‘To learn something, and to liberate some ghosts.’
‘That’s not our job.’
‘Still, we did it,’ said Veyrenc. ‘As to how successful we were, that’s another matter. Did we liberate any ghosts, Jean-Baptiste?’
‘Yes, we did do that, we really did. It means there’s one more who won’t go and wail in the haunted tower. But it’s a lot harder to work out whether we actually learned the truth.’
‘You don’t believe Victor?’ asked Danglard.
‘He was very convincing,’ said Veyrenc. ‘He went as far as he could. He confessed in front of his brother that he had intended to kill their mother. That was more than brave, it was crazy.’
‘Port does make you crazy,’ remarked Danglard knowingly. ‘His need to confess was stronger than his fear, so he broke down the barriers.’
‘Well, the barriers were already well damaged by the port,’ said Veyrenc.
‘It’s like I said. Sweet alcohol reaches the brain with the speed of an acrobat on a trapeze.’
‘But in the end,’ Adamsberg went on, ‘a miracle “saved his soul”. Another killer got in first, and committed the “monstrous act” instead of him. So Victor comes out of it all as white as the driven snow in Iceland.’
‘In vino veritas,’ said Danglard.
‘No, I don’t agree, Danglard. I’ve never thought alcohol led to speaking the truth. To pain, yes, it does cause that.’
‘So why did you keep pressing the drink on him?’
‘So he would take the brakes off, and career downhill as far as he could. But that doesn’t mean he’s reached the end of the road. Even when he’s drunk himself silly and the barriers are badly damaged, the unconscious will be guarding its most precious property, the way Marc guards Céleste. We won’t get any more out of him. I was waiting for the results from that stream of emotion and half-truths. I hinted as much to Retancourt at midday today. And she is violently against.’
‘Against what?’ asked Danglard.
‘She just says all this is nothing to do with us, full stop.’
‘She’s right.’
‘Yes. So she won’t come along. I thought of her, and you, Louis, to come with me.’
Neither Veyrenc nor Danglard asked ‘Where?’ There was a silence, one of those pregnant silences in which even the sound of cutlery on plates seems inappropriate. Veyrenc put his knife and fork down. He picked up the wanderings of Adamsberg’s mind faster than anyone else, perhaps because he came from the same mountains in the Pyrenees.
‘When do we go?’ he asked, in the end.
‘Tuesday. I’ve booked three tickets to Reykjavik, or however you pronounce it. Takes three and a half hours. Then forty minutes to . . .’ Adamsberg pulled out a notebook from his inside pocket. ‘. . . to Akureyri,’ he read out slowly. ‘Then a short flight to the little island of Grimsey. And opposite the harbour, from the end of the jetty, you can see the islet with the warm stone. At this time of year, the pack ice will be breaking up, so we’ll need to find a fisherman to take us. It won’t be easy, what with the local superstitions about the little island. Even to get someone to hire a boat from.’
‘To find what?’ asked Danglard. ‘Rocks, a few snowdrifts? Unless you plan to lie on the warm stone so you can live for ever.’
‘No, I’m not interested in the stone.’
‘Well, what then?’
‘How should I know, Danglard? I haven’t started looking yet.’
Danglard put his knife and fork down in turn.
‘Well, you said it yourself. This isn’t an investigation, and it’s none of our business.’
‘Yes, I did say that.’
‘And you could be hauled over the coals for this.’
‘As Retancourt already warned me. She practically threatened to go and inform on me to the divisionnaire.’
‘Retancourt isn’t a grass,’ said Veyrenc.
‘No, but she’s furious, and she might do anything to stop me going.’
‘Well, she’s comple
tely in the right,’ said Danglard very firmly.
‘What time Tuesday?’ asked Veyrenc.
‘You’re coming?’
‘Of course,’ said Veyrenc in his habitually calm way. An ‘ancient Roman’, as Château had called him.
‘What do you mean “of course”?’ cried Danglard, suddenly finding himself isolated, facing his two colleagues.
‘He’s going, so I’m going,’ said Veyrenc. ‘It interests me too. I agree with Jean-Baptiste, Victor hasn’t finished telling us everything. He’s lying, and very well too. Hard to detect.’
‘So how did you manage to detect it?’
‘By watching Amédée’s face. Something else happened in Iceland. It would be interesting to find out what.’
‘Interesting! But plenty of things are interesting!’ Danglard exploded. ‘I’d like to visit all the Romanesque churches in France, that would be “interesting”, but can I get to do that? I’d like to go and see the woman I met in London, because she’s going to dump me if I don’t go over there. And have I got time to do that? With four murders already and more to come?’
‘You didn’t tell me about that, Danglard,’ said Adamsberg, ‘about your girlfriend with the red glasses.’
‘None of your business,’ said Danglard aggressively. ‘But you, oh no, you’re swanning off to Iceland, not on any mission, quite illegally. Why? Because it’s “interesting”!’
‘Yes, very,’ Adamsberg agreed.
‘You’re saying that, commandant, because you’re jealous,’ said Veyrenc with a smile, that smile which was attractive to women, but which left Danglard quite cold. ‘You envy us, but you’re too scared of flying to come with us. The trip, the cold, the mist, the gloomy volcanic rocks. But at the same time, you’re sorry to miss out on the little inn opposite the warm rock, and the glass of brennivín.’
‘That is fucking nonsense, Veyrenc, and you know it. And, I may say, I am quite familiar with brennivín, also known as the “black death”. You’re going off without any agenda, any logic, without any rational excuse whatever.’
‘Well, you’re pretty much right,’ said Adamsberg. ‘But look, Danglard, wasn’t it you who said not so long ago that it’s always good to bring more grist to the mill of human knowledge?’
‘Leaving us with this disastrous Robespierrist imbroglio on our hands?’
‘Exactly, Danglard, it’s the right moment to go. The Robespierre business is at a standstill. All our pawns are waiting on the chessboard, but nothing’s moving. You see what I mean? Not a pawn is moving. Can you remind me who it was that said “animals move”?’
‘Aristotle,’ muttered Danglard crossly.
‘Who was an ancient sage, yes?’
‘Greek philosopher.’
‘And you admire him, don’t you?’
‘What the fuck has Aristotle got to do with this?’
‘He can help us with his wisdom. Nothing stays long without moving. The Robespierre chessboard is abnormally motionless. Abnormally so, Danglard. Sooner or later, a piece is going to move. And we’ll have to spot it. But it’s too soon, so now is a good moment to go. Anyway, I don’t have any choice.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of this itch.’
‘A Lucio-type itch?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you forgotten, commissaire,’ said Danglard, by now thoroughly furious, ‘that we do have a move to make on that chessboard, on Monday, at the next session of the assembly? We have to identify the descendants of Desmoulins and the executioner Sanson.’
‘But I’ll be there Monday night, just like you, Danglard, plus the eight officers who are on surveillance duty. Which is why I’m not leaving till Tuesday.’
‘There’ll be a mutiny in the squad. They won’t like it.’
‘It’s possible, but I’m counting on you to keep it under control.’
‘No, certainly not.’
‘Your choice, commandant. After all, you’ll be in charge.’
Danglard stood up, bursting with exasperation, and walked out.
‘He’s going to wait in the car,’ said Veyrenc.
‘Yes. Pack your bags this weekend. Warm clothes, hip flask, currency, compass, GPS.’
‘I don’t think we’ll be able to get a signal on that little island.’
‘No, probably not. Perhaps the fog will roll up and we’ll die of cold and hunger. Do you know how to skin a seal?’
‘No.’
‘Neither do I. Who should we take with us?’
Veyrenc thought for a moment, twiddling his glass on the table.
‘Retancourt,’ he said.
‘I told you, she’s against it. And when Violette is against something, she’s harder to budge than a concrete pillar. Well, too bad, we’ll have to go on our own.’
‘She’ll come,’ said Veyrenc.
XXXII
THE WEEKEND HAD not improved Danglard’s temper, and he didn’t open his mouth as he sat in the back of the car taking them on the Monday evening to the weekly session of the General Assembly of the Convention, an amalgam of the sittings held on 11 and 16 Germinal, in the spring of 1794, the ones covering the arrest and trial of Danton.
Adamsberg had spent the intervening two days packing his bags for Iceland. He already possessed survival blankets, pitons and an ice axe, being a seasoned mountain-dweller who had climbed peaks in the Pyrenees where the temperature could drop to minus 10. He had checked the weather forecast for late April in Reykjavik (which he still couldn’t pronounce) where it should be 9 degrees Centigrade – but minus 5 in Akureyri, with wind, swirling mists and possible snow. He had recruited an interpreter via the embassy, a man called Almar Engilbjarturson. Right, they’d call him Almar.
The car was stuck in traffic near the Gare Saint-Lazare. Danglard’s anxiety got the better of his wish not to speak.
‘We’re going to be late, we’ll miss the session.’
‘We’ll get there all right, we’ll even have plenty of time to get into costume.’
The prospect of putting on his fine purple frock coat and his lace jabot slightly mollified the commandant.
‘Danglard, now I think of it, you never filled me in about Robespierre’s “painful death”.’
Expecting of course that this information would take a long time to deliver. In spite of his determination not to speak, Danglard could not resist the enquiry.
‘He was arrested on 9 Thermidor,’ he began, rather grumpily, ‘at four in the afternoon. Along with his younger brother Augustin, and the archangel Saint-Just, and a number of others. Then after being moved from place to place, when a Parisian uprising in their favour had failed to materialise – I’m keeping this short, you understand –’
‘Yes, fine, Danglard.’
‘– Robespierre ended up at the Paris City Hall. At about two in the morning, a hostile armed column forced the doors of the chamber they were in. Augustin threw himself out of the window and broke his leg. Couthon, the one who was paralysed, fell down the stairs, and as for Robespierre himself, there are two hypotheses. The more likely one is that he shot himself through the mouth, in a suicide attempt, but succeeded only in destroying part of his jaw. The other is that a gendarme by the name of Merda, I’m not kidding, that was his name, fired a shot at him. Whichever it was, Robespierre was laid out on a table, terribly wounded, his jaw hanging loose. He was stretchered to the Tuileries, where two surgeons tried to deal with him. One of them put his hand inside his mouth to extract the fragments, and brought out two teeth and some bone splinters. There was nothing they could do for him, except bind up his jaw to hold it in place. And it was only next day, at five in the afternoon, that they were all ferried to the guillotine. When it was Robespierre’s turn, Henri Sanson, that’s the son of that Charles-Henri Sanson we talked about, ripped the bandage from his face. His entire jaw came off, blood poured from his mouth and Robespierre uttered a terrible cry. A witness wrote: “What we could see of his features was terribly disfigured. He was as
pale as death, a dreadful sight.” He adds that when the executioner held up his head to the people, “It had become a monstrous, repulsive object.”’
‘Was the executioner obliged to take the bandage off?’
‘No, there’s no way it would have been an obstacle to the blade.’
‘Do we know what the Sansons looked like – any portraits?’
‘There’s one of the father, Charles-Henri. Big fat man, large head, drooping eyes under threatening brows, very long prominent nose and large blubbery lips.’
‘Apparently he liked to dissect the corpses he had decapitated,’ Veyrenc added. ‘Should be charming to meet a descendant of his tonight.’
Lebrun met them in the cloakroom, almost with open arms. He was wearing a grey wig and his neck emerged from a froth of lace over his dark red coat. He was sitting on a Louis XVI type of chair, fixed on to a trolley with two large wooden wheels. Holding a cane in his hand, he had taken on the role of the paralysed politician.
‘Citizen Couthon, good evening,’ said Danglard, who had recovered his serenity, or perhaps he had simply managed in a few minutes to escape from the troubling present by being projected back into 1794.
‘I don’t really look like him, you know,’ said Lebrun, showing amusement in turn. ‘Come now, Citizen Danglard, do I look fierce enough to be Georges Couthon, Robespierre’s “second soul”?’
‘No, not really,’ said Danglard, ‘but you’ll do.’
‘Get your costumes, leave your phones here, you know our rules. I reserved the same costumes as last week, so that you can feel you’re in character.’
The three police officers reappeared shortly, clad in black, purple and dark blue, Veyrenc rubbing his white stockings to make sure they were quite clean.
‘Are you ready to join in, Citizen Veyrenc?’ asked Lebrun.
‘Why not?’ said Veyrenc, adjusting his wig in front of the mirror.
‘Who’s presiding at the assembly tonight?’ asked Danglard.