by Fred Vargas
‘Don’t worry,’ said Retancourt, ‘he’ll come all right.’
Their feet skidded on the slippery rocks which sometimes fell away under them, and their hands slipped on the patches of gleaming ice.
‘What idiot ever said down was easier than up?’ said Veyrenc, as at last they reached the beach.
‘Danglard said something like that,’ said Adamsberg. ‘But he meant downing wine, I think. Let’s see if we can locate their fireplace. Fourteen days continuously burning, it ought to have left some trace. Let’s move forward like in fingertip searches.’
The two men walked slowly, carefully examining the surface of the rocks, while Retancourt, manifestly thinking it a waste of time, and with much ill will, looked vaguely left and right.
‘And when we find the fireplace,’ she said eventually, ‘we’ll know what? That they made a fire. Which we also knew already.’
‘What are these holes?’ asked Adamsberg, stopping still. ‘Here, there, and over there?’ and he walked on again.
Small orifices, about as large as ratholes, regularly spaced about fifty centimetres apart.
‘They must have been for posts,’ Retancourt pronounced. ‘Look, they make two parallel lines.’
‘So what do you conclude, lieutenant?’
‘I think that guy who didn’t want anyone to steal his fish must have had his herring smokery here. Because lighting a fire up on the top wouldn’t make sense. You don’t smoke fish inside a wooden shed, unless you want the whole thing to go up in flames. He put it here, out of the wind, just a light structure, so he could hang up his fish.’
Retancourt stopped speaking to follow the line of holes.
‘Twenty-eight posts,’ she said. ‘A structure of about four metres by two. Well, big deal. We’ve discovered an old herring smokery.’
‘But how did he manage to make these holes?’
‘Like anyone else, used a crowbar and put a small stick of dynamite down.’
‘OK then,’ said Veyrenc. ‘So it must be here that the group camped. If the fisherman thought this the best place, they must have too, basic animal instinct.’
‘But there’s no sign of a fire,’ said Retancourt. ‘No brown or black stains on the rocks. The ice has eaten it all away. Journey’s end.’
Retancourt was right, and Adamsberg looked down at the ground in silence. A smooth surface, telling them nothing, which the frost and polar wind had scoured clean of any traces, as if with a wire brush.
‘What about in the holes though?’ said Adamsberg. ‘Down inside them?’
He put down his backpack and quickly took out his blanket, rations, tools, compass and gas burner, until he found a spoon and some plastic sachets. Without noticing that Retancourt had turned to face the west and was sniffing the wind deeply.
‘Get a spoon out too, Louis, and help me. If you find anything, put it inside these sachets. The erosion won’t have got right inside these holes and they may not be frozen at the bottom.’
‘What are we looking for?’ asked Veyrenc, as he pulled out his own picnic canteen.
‘Seal blubber. Dig.’
The post holes were no more than ten centimetres deep, and both men could easily reach to the bottom of the hollows in the rock. Adamsberg examined the contents of his first spoonful: a mixture of charcoal, with bits of black or reddened rock.
‘If it isn’t black like soot,’ he said, ‘leave it, it means the fire wasn’t there.’
‘Right.’
‘There were twelve of them, they surely didn’t make a tiny little fire, it was probably about a metre and a half across. You look there, I’ll look here.’
‘Finished,’ said Veyrenc, standing up. ‘No charcoal in the other holes, the fire must have stopped here.’
‘And here,’ said Adamsberg, closing his last sachet. ‘Louis . . .’
‘What?’
‘What do you think this is?’ he said, holding out a little white pebble.
‘Retancourt’s disappeared,’ said Veyrenc, standing up. ‘I’m sorry, I know she’s a goddess for you, but her bad temper is really starting to get on my nerves.’
‘Same here,’ said Adamsberg, while nevertheless looking anxiously around for her.
‘Up there,’ said Veyrenc, pointing at the plateau. ‘She’s gone way back up there, what the fuck’s she up to?’
‘Getting away from us. Look, what is this?’ he repeated, showing him the white stone. ‘Be careful, take your glove off.’
He spat a few times on the pebble, then rubbed it with his sweater before putting it into Veyrenc’s palm. Then he sat down and waited in silence.
‘Not a stone,’ said Veyrenc.
‘No. Test it with your teeth, don’t swallow it.’
Veyrenc bit a few times on the object with his canines.
‘Solid and porous,’ he said.
‘It’s a bone,’ said Adamsberg.
The commissaire stood up, without speaking, put the little fragment, about the size of a marble, inside the sachet, and looked at it through the plastic.
‘That didn’t come from a seal,’ he said. ‘It’s too small.’
The wind carried towards them words being shouted by Retancourt, who had gone up on to the plateau. Now she was skidding down the slope, on her back, feet in the air ahead of her, arms outstretched to catch at handholds, sliding from time to time on a patch of ice in order to move faster. Adamsberg was still rolling the little bone between his fingers, through the plastic, while Veyrenc watched with interest the astonishing descent of the sturdy lieutenant.
‘In her yellow oilskins, like that, she looks like a snowplough.’
‘You know, don’t you, that Retancourt can convert her energy into anything she likes, depending on the circumstances,’ Adamsberg explained. ‘So if she wants to be a snowplough, that’s what she becomes, quite simple.’
‘Do you think she sat on the warm rock? Or maybe she saw the afturganga?’
‘Maybe. Louis, this didn’t come from a seal,’ Adamsberg repeated.
‘A bird then, a tern or something that died here.’
‘It’s too big for a tern.’
‘Well, a puffin then.’
*
And now Retancourt was running towards them. Adamsberg stuffed his six sachets into the inside pocket of his anorak just in time, before Retancourt grabbed them both by the arm, without slackening her pace.
‘To the boat, now!’ she shouted, pulling them along.
‘Oh shit!’ Veyrenc protested, wrenching himself away and kneeling down to try and stuff his things back inside the rucksack.
Retancourt gripped the stolid Veyrenc by the collar, and shook him violently.
‘Never mind your damn bag! Or yours, commissaire! I’m telling you to run for your lives!’
In a way, the two men had no choice. Retancourt had got behind them and was propelling them forward with all her might.
‘Faster, for God’s sake, can’t you run?’
Adamsberg realised that although the sky was still just as blue, the air had changed consistency, bringing a damp smell with it. He turned his head and could see forming on the plateau a white layer of mist, as threatening as a lava flow, already wiping out the sight of the old sheds.
‘It’s the fog, Veyrenc, run!’
They reached the edge of the shingle just as the site of the herring smokery, where their bags were still lying, had already become half enveloped in mist. As he ran, Veyrenc twisted his ankle on the uneven pebbles, and fell full-length. Retancourt hauled him upright and, putting her arm under his shoulder, carried on, dragging the lieutenant with her.
‘No, commissaire! Don’t try to help, I can manage. Get to the boat, start the engine, for God’s sake!’
And now they could no longer see the site of the smokery, or the shingle beach. No, the mist didn’t advance at the speed of a galloping horse, it was bearing down on them like an express train, or a monster, or an afturganga.
Adamsberg couldn’t ‘s
tart the engine’. On his own, he was not strong enough to heave the boat off the shingle and into the water. He glanced towards the harbour on Grimsey, which was still in bright sunlight. Even so, they had already switched on the lighthouse. It must be to guide them. But through the bright sky, it was hard to spot the yellow flashing light. Adamsberg could still see ten metres behind him. Retancourt let Veyrenc drop to the ground so that she could help the commissaire launch the boat. Adamsberg jumped in, started the engine and helped drag Veyrenc over the gunwale, as Retancourt, standing in the water, hoisted him up by the waist.
‘Give it everything,’ said Veyrenc, holding his ankle in both hands, ‘the fog’s gaining on us.’
Adamsberg set a course towards the port and put the engine at full throttle. With the wind behind them, they had no need to tack, and he steered straight for the jetty, keeping first about fifteen metres ahead of the fog, then ten, then seven. It was about three metres from their stern, when they grounded rather roughly on the slipway, and several hands helped them back on to terra firma.
Brestir moored the boat, then with Gunnlaugur guided them to the guest house. Rögnvar followed on his crutches.
XXXVIII
IN THE DINING room of the guest house, Gunnlaugur installed them peremptorily near the largest radiator, while his wife Eggrún placed small glasses in front of each of them. Almar was waiting for them there, pacing round like a captive bull, and revealing his emotion by waving his arms in the air.
It was a long table, with benches on either side, and the Icelanders had settled themselves without a word around the little group of foreigners. Veyrenc had requested a stool to rest his foot on: it was turning blue like Rögnvar’s leg. Eggrún filled the glasses and Adamsberg dipped a finger in and tasted it.
‘Brennivín? ’ he asked.
‘Doctor’s orders,’ said Eggrún. ‘As they say, better the black death than the white one. Sometimes.’
‘We might not have died,’ said Adamsberg, looking round at several pairs of blue eyes which were examining them as if they had escaped by some miracle. ‘The fog might only have lasted ten minutes.’
‘Ten minutes – or a month,’ said Gunnlaugur.
‘It’ll last two weeks,’ Brestir forecast. ‘Now that the wind has dropped.’
The fog was now thick around all the windows of the house. It would in fact hang around Grimsey longer than predicted, almost three weeks. For now, Adamsberg nodded, and drank off his glass of brennivín, which brought tears to his eyes.
‘Good,’ said Eggrún, approvingly. ‘You drink up too,’ she ordered Veyrenc and Retancourt, who both obeyed.
Silence fell once more, and Adamsberg understood that everyone was waiting for them to tell their tale. It was only proper. A stranger had no right to carry away secrets brought back from Fox Island.
‘You saw him?’ asked Rögnvar.
As the man who had been crippled by the afturganga, Rögnvar was deemed by all entitled to open the conversation.
‘Saw him, no,’ said Adamsberg. ‘I went to greet him on the warm stone. But I didn’t sit on it,’ he explained prudently.
‘Greeted? How?’
‘I put my hand on the stone. Like this,’ he said, putting the palm of his hand flat down on the table.
It immediately reminded him of the photographs of people’s hands used as identification at the Robespierre meetings.
‘Well, all right,’ commented Rögnvar. ‘And what did he do?’
‘He sent an offering.’
‘Show us,’ Rögnvar demanded.
Adamsberg went to look for the sachets in his anorak, hoping that the islanders would not want to keep them as national treasures. After all, it was to him that the afturganga had vouchsafed them. And he had paid dearly. He put them on the table, slightly reluctantly.
‘Open them up,’ commanded Rögnvar.
‘They’re not very clean.’
‘The afturganga doesn’t offer diamonds. Open up.’
Adamsberg emptied on to the table the contents of the six sachets in six little piles. While he was doing so, Retancourt dropped off to sleep, sitting upright, without swaying, on the bench. Almar looked at her in amazement.
‘She’s capable of sleeping standing up too,’ said Adamsberg, ‘leaning against a tree, without falling. She needs the rest.’
‘Naturally,’ said Rögnvar. ‘It was her, wasn’t it?’
‘It was her that what?’
‘That saved your lives.’
‘Yes,’ said Veyrenc.
‘Because of her strength,’ said Rögnvar, ‘like I told you. She was strong enough to hold off the afturganga’s fog at a distance, before it swallowed you up.’
‘Will it bother her if we talk while she’s asleep?’ asked Eggrún in concern.
‘Not in the least,’ Rögnvar replied, instead of Adamsberg who was carefully sorting out the six little heaps of black dust with his finger.
It was not only the first sachet that contained a little white stone. Sachets 3 and 6 did as well. A total of five white stones – like the ones Tom Thumb used, Mordent would have commented.
‘And this stuff?’ Brestir asked.
‘Is what remains from the camp of those twelve French people, ten years ago,’ Adamsberg replied.
‘No, it can’t be,’ said Gunnlaugur. ‘Nothing would be left on that place.’
‘We found these materials in some holes,’ Veyrenc explained. ‘They were post holes, made for the herring smokery, long before. And this stuff was down inside them.’
‘The afturganga has his own hiding places,’ said Rögnvar.
Adamsberg did not dare suggest that, in his view, the twelve French travellers had camped and eaten on the site, and that the remains of their meals had simply fallen down inside the holes, like golf balls.
‘And this was what you were looking for?’ asked Rögnvar.
‘More than we bargained for, actually.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Can I take these over there and give them a wash?’ Almar asked, with a frown. ‘The little white things?’
‘Yes,’ said Adamsberg, ‘but be careful.’
‘What is it you don’t understand?’ Veyrenc asked.
Rögnvar respected the man with the fiery locks, who had come from another world.
‘Why did the afturganga try to kill you?’ he said, shaking his head and scratching it in perplexity. ‘You must have done something stupid, Berg.’
‘I explored the holes with a little spoon,’ said Adamsberg, spreading his hands to show he couldn’t see where he had gone wrong. ‘And Veyrenc did the same. And we put what we found carefully in sachets. I did spit on one little white thing to clean it a bit.’
‘What else did you do?’ asked Rögnvar, still not satisfied.
‘I examined it, I showed it to Veyrenc, took it back to have another look. And while we were doing that, she –’ he pointed to Retancourt still sleeping like a column in a cathedral – ‘she came running towards us.’
‘Ah, that must be it,’ said Rögnvar. ‘You hung about!’
‘That’s right,’ Gunnlaugur confirmed.
‘The afturganga calls you from very far away,’ Rögnvar went on, ‘he offers you all that, and what do you do, you hang about!’
‘But what difference does that make?’
‘It means you made yourself at home. He receives you and right away you take it easy, you think you can treat it as your place. Conquered territory. So, of course –’
‘Of course,’ Gunnlaugur added.
‘– he’s going to destroy you. He calls up the white cloud and swallows you up.’
‘You mean it was discourteous of me?’ Adamsberg asked.
‘Call it that, if you like,’ said Brestir. ‘An offence. No one stays on the afturganga’s territory a minute longer than he allows.’
Almar had finished washing the little white objects, turning his head to translate from time to time, and he placed them back c
arefully alongside their respective piles of soot. He signalled to Adamsberg to come and join him at the bar. It was a sober sign, not one of his excessive gestures.
‘What’ll you have?’ asked Adamsberg.
‘A beer.’
‘It’s on me.’
‘Have one yourself as well.’
‘I’ve had enough with that brennivín. My whole jaw is still burning.’
‘You’d do better to have a beer then. Or a coffee. Have a coffee, with plenty of sugar.’
‘All right,’ Adamsberg agreed. Allowing Almar to pass the request to Eggrún, and understanding that here, in these circumstances, it was better to go along with what was proposed. Just as it had been, he remembered, in a cafe in the Normandy village of Haroncourt, on a previous case.
‘So what do you think they are, your little white things?’
‘Puffin bones?’
Almar drank off half his beer, and suggested that the commissaire drink up his coffee. Adamsberg felt a wave of fatigue settle on his shoulders. At the table, Veyrenc seemed to be quailing similarly, while Retancourt was still asleep. He put the empty cup down and stirred the brown sugar with his spoon.
‘They are the small bones at the end of a limb,’ Almar said. ‘I studied anatomy in years gone by. In Rennes.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Adamsberg, his eyes ready to close.
‘They don’t come from puffins,’ Almar said. ‘These are human bones.’
XXXIX
ADAMSBERG WENT OUT of the guest house without being able to distinguish its wall from those of the neighbouring buildings, even though they were painted red and blue. He breathed in the damp, iodine-laden smell of the fog, now sitting still on top of the village, the same smell he had noticed on the warm island, and above all the one that Retancourt had recognised, well before the others, leading her to go up to the plateau a second time to see what the west wind was bringing. Retancourt, who had overcome the afturganga’s cloud. He pulled up his anorak sleeve to consult his watches. He could see their dials, but not clearly enough to say quite where the hands were pointing. Even with the compass, now lying somewhere near the post holes on the island, they would have been unable to steer the right course, still less avoid floating blocks of ice.