A Climate of Fear

by Fred Vargas

  Adamsberg took out his pistol and loaded it, then approached the window carefully.

  ‘Did you shut the main gate, Victor?’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then he must have come through the woods. Is there a gun here?’

  ‘Yes, two shotguns.’

  ‘Fetch them. Give one to Amédée.’

  ‘I’ve never handled a gun,’ said Amédée weakly.

  ‘Well, you’re going to now. You just press the trigger. And watch out for the recoil.’

  ‘Maybe it’s someone who heard you banging the gate fit to wake the dead and has come to take a look,’ said Victor.

  ‘No, Victor,’ said Adamsberg as he peered out into the night. ‘It’s your “monster” out there.’

  Victor, head down, went into the kitchen to fetch the two shotguns and gave one to Amédée.

  ‘You’re sure?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He’s going along the side of Amédée’s pavilion,’ said Adamsberg. ‘The night’s as black as soot, I can hardly see him. Did you tell him, Victor, that I’d travelled to Iceland, and found the bones?’

  ‘Of course not – are you crazy?’

  ‘Well, how come he’s here then?’

  A brief gleam of moonlight shone out then it was dark again. Shit, a sub-machine gun, an MP5? Or some other fucking hardware.

  ‘Oh God,’ breathed Adamsberg, moving towards the door. ‘He’s armed to the teeth.’

  ‘What?’ said Amédée.

  ‘He’s got a sub-machine gun. He could take out ten men in a few seconds.’

  ‘Have we got a chance?’ asked Amédée, trying to shoulder his gun.

  ‘Just one. Not ten, not even two. Turn the sofa round with its back to the door. Kneel down behind it, one each side. It’s a solid bit of furniture, it’ll protect you for a while. And don’t move.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m going out. Does the door squeak, Victor?’

  ‘No.’

  Adamsberg opened it cautiously.

  ‘When he crosses the drive,’ he whispered, ‘he’ll show up a bit under the street lamp. But I won’t. He’ll be a target and that’s our one chance.’

  ‘The lamp goes out at midnight,’ whispered Amédée, sounding defeated.

  ‘What’s the time now?’

  ‘Three minutes to.’

  Adamsberg swore again under his breath and slipped outside, moving along the left-hand wall for three metres towards the trunk of a plane tree. The man now ventured a step on to the drive, making the gravel crunch. Unlike himself, the killer was not dressed entirely in black. Adamsberg could glimpse the pale triangle of his shirt, and fired four times. There was a cry of pain, and the street lamp went out.

  ‘Just my arm, you sonofabitch,’ yelled the man, ‘and the left hand’s perfectly good. Went to the island, did you, you dimwitted cop? And what did you find there?’

  ‘The bones of your victims!’

  Adamsberg aimed again, before the man could shift the MP5 to his uninjured arm. Three seconds’ grace, and he aimed for the knee. The man fell to the ground and his shots went harmlessly into the foliage of the plane tree. His weapon was heavy, too heavy, three kilos in his left hand, and it was hard to hold the handguard with his injured right hand. It’s not so easy to manipulate an MP5.

  ‘You can just give me those fucking bones, Adamsberg,’ he yelled, ‘or I’ll kill your two kids when I’m done with you.’

  The man was bursting with rage, and his voice had become high-pitched, screaming hoarsely. Solid and determined, uncrushable, he had struggled upright, his right arm dangling, and Adamsberg saw his shadow approach slowly, dragging one leg. He ran back inside the pavilion and double-locked the door – an illusory form of defence.

  Another couple of seconds’ grace, time to join the brothers in the shelter of the sofa. How many shots did he have left? Two, possibly.

  A burst of fire smashed the lock, and was followed by a second salvo, the bullets going into the wall or into the frame of the sofa. The two brothers fired their shotguns at random, but without connecting. In the flares from the shots, Adamsberg could see the barrel of the MP5, which was shaking and barely under control, but which was pointing straight at them.

  ‘Come out, Victor!’ the man shouted. ‘I’ll give you one chance to save them. Céleste and her fucking piglet, they’re bleeding in the woods. They tried to stop me.’

  ‘Don’t move, Victor,’ ordered Adamsberg.

  He emptied his magazine, but the man had moved towards the window now and Adamsberg missed him. It was all over. The monster was going to wipe out all three of them. Could he have guessed this would happen? Could he have predicted this? With one last effort, the commissaire picked up the coffee table and hurled it towards the killer, who stood upright again, amid the debris of the table, dazed perhaps, but unsinkable. When suddenly, two torchbeams lit him up from behind.

  The windowpanes exploded as two shots hit the indestructible gunman in the legs, without warning. Gun in hand, Adamsberg saw the two traffic cops who had stopped him earlier, holding torches. The one who walked bow-legged then pinned the man to the ground, while his colleague seized the MP5. Good thing I drank that port, Adamsberg thought. And absurdly in this scene of carnage, he heard Rögnvar’s deep voice saying: ‘The afturganga does not abandon those he has summoned.’

  Victor had switched the lights back on. Adamsberg put his hand on the shoulder of one of the gendarmes.

  ‘Two casualties in those woods, call the emergency services.’

  Then he followed Victor at a run towards the cabin. The boar was lying on the ground panting: it had been wounded in the belly. Céleste, one hand in the animal’s fur, the other gripping her pipe, was groaning. Adamsberg examined her. She had taken more than one bullet in the thigh. But it looked as if she had escaped more lightly than Marc, since the artery did not appear to be touched.

  ‘Should I give her some water?’ asked Victor.

  ‘Don’t move her, just talk to her, keep her awake. Pass me your shirt.’

  Adamsberg rolled up the cloth to make a tourniquet and tied it tightly round the wound. Then he took off his T-shirt and passed it to Victor. ‘Press that against Marc’s belly, he’s lost a lot of blood.’

  Bare-chested under his jacket, Adamsberg ran back to guide the paramedics, whose siren he could hear. He made them take their ambulance to the edge of the wood, then the two men and two women followed him down the path. Céleste was placed on the first stretcher and carried rapidly away.

  ‘Where’s the second casualty?’ asked the woman who had stayed behind.

  ‘There,’ said Adamsberg, pointing to Marc.

  ‘Are you taking the piss?’

  ‘Bring up the other stretcher!’ Adamsberg shouted.

  ‘Calm down, sir, please.’

  ‘It’s commissaire, Commissaire Adamsberg! Bring up the other stretcher and save this poor animal, for God’s sake!’

  The woman raised her hand, in a gesture of conciliation, nodded, and made a call for emergency veterinary services. Ten minutes later, Marc had also been transported away. Adamsberg knelt down and picked Céleste’s pipe off the ground, then stood back up and looked at Victor. There was no need to say anything, both men were dripping with sweat and looked shattered.

  Back in the pavilion, a doctor was attending to the wounds of the killer, who had taken bullets in his arm, one knee and both calves, and lay groaning on the ground.

  ‘Your name, brigadier?’ Adamsberg asked.

  ‘Drillot. A priori, when we saw the scene, we thought the individual had to be floored fast. You’re a commissaire, he had a machine gun. That was our operational view. But note, a priori. Don’t go telling us now we shot without issuing a warning, we didn’t have time.’

  ‘I’ll state that you warned him before you broke the window.’

  ‘Thank you, but we can’t take him in, until we know wh
at it’s for.’

  Adamsberg sank into the armchair, which had somehow survived the shooting. Rather like the bottle of wine Angelino Gonzalez had been carrying.

  ‘He’s killed six people,’ he said in a toneless voice, then pulled out a cigarette and lit it. ‘Two of them ten years ago in Iceland, four more in the course of the last month. He attempted to murder someone else last night. And this evening, he has injured a woman and her companion, and he intended to kill all three of us.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ asked the bow-legged gendarme. ‘I’m Brigadier Verrin,’ he added.

  ‘No idea. Did you get our circular, all gendarmeries should have done, about a murderer who left a sign at the crime scene? This sign,’ he added, and he drew it quickly on one of the sketches which he had picked up from the floor.

  Verrin nodded.

  ‘Yes, we did, commissaire.’

  ‘Well, he’s that man.’

  Verrin hurried out on his bandy legs. Victor walked into the room, now strewn with plaster from the walls and the ceiling. He held out a clean shirt to Adamsberg.

  ‘I’ve given him a sleeping pill,’ he said. ‘He’s gone off now.’

  ‘Who do you mean?’ asked Brigadier Drillot, who had his notebook out.

  ‘Amédée Masfauré, the son of one of the victims.’

  ‘Well, you’ll all have to give me your identities properly,’ said the gendarme stiffly.

  The paramedics had now taken the wounded man away. Brigadier Verrin hurried back in.

  ‘Found his ID in the car,’ he said. ‘Name’s Charles Rolben! I phoned the gendarmerie. And do you know who that is, Charles Rolben?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Adamsberg.

  ‘A judge. A high-up judge. Very high up. That’s what the station just told me: “Don’t make waves, no waves, you’d better be bloody sure.” Got any evidence? Because someone like that, we have to handle him with kid gloves. The commanding officer is having kittens.’

  ‘Look, brigadier,’ said Adamsberg, ‘you just saw this very high-up judge wielding an MP5, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You will find bullets from that gun in the body of Céleste Grignon, who was shot in the woods with her companion. And embedded in the walls of this room. And in the leather on the sofa. Yes, brigadier, that man is a merciless killer. I can even tell you he likes killing. He’s killed without the slightest compunction. His first two victims were among a group of tourists who got stranded on an island off Iceland. You might remember the case?’

  ‘Yes, vaguely. But perhaps there was some serious motive?’

  Victor looked imploringly at Adamsberg.

  ‘No motive whatsoever,’ Adamsberg lied. ‘He’s completely insane. He stabbed the first victim, then he attempted to rape a woman and killed her afterwards. Let’s all go home now, brigadier, you know where to contact me. You’ll get a preliminary report on Monday. Or rather Monday night. Because it’ll be long, very long.’

  ‘That’s as may be, commissaire, but we haven’t finished with you.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Speeding, driving under the influence, refusing to accompany officers, evading arrest.’

  ‘Ah. That. So you followed me, did you?’

  ‘No, we lost you. But we found you by tracking your mobile phone.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Adamsberg slowly, ‘your commanding officer will be obliged to report upstairs: you fired on a high-up judge, from behind, without any warning.’

  ‘Fuck that,’ growled Drillot. ‘You said you would cover us.’

  ‘And I say drop the charges of being drunk in charge and evading arrest. The situation was urgent, as I told you several times when you pulled me over. A cop can’t know, when he’s just had a couple of glasses of port with a friend, that he could get called out urgently within the hour.’

  ‘Three glasses, I’d say,’ remarked Drillot.

  ‘Two, brigadier. I couldn’t have been positive.’

  ‘If I understand you right, commissaire,’ said Drillot, screwing up his eyes, ‘you’re casting doubt on our account.’

  ‘Indeed I am.’

  Verrin made a sign to his colleague and nodded.

  ‘So how are you going to explain why we followed you?’ he asked.

  ‘For speeding. You didn’t pull me over, but because I was certainly driving too fast, you chased me here.’

  ‘All right. That’ll work.’

  ‘Accepted,’ said Drillot.

  ‘Where have they taken Céleste? The woman who was wounded in the woods.’

  ‘Hospital in Versailles.’

  ‘And Marc?’

  ‘Who’s Marc?’

  ‘The wild boar.’

  ‘What wild boar?’

  The SOC team was now all over the pavilion, and Adamsberg walked out. Victor came to the car with him and leaned in at the window.

  ‘You didn’t tell them anything about what happened in Iceland?’

  ‘No. You were right to be scared of him. We’ll meet again. With Amédée.’

  ‘What for?’ asked Victor, looking anxious again.

  ‘To have a meal at the inn. You can order the menu, and we’ll invite Bourlin.’

  ‘And that man I saw in the inn that day? The so-called tax inspector?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right, that was him too. He must have already decided to keep on my tail.’

  ‘Commissaire,’ called Victor, as the car started away. Adamsberg braked, and Victor ran a little way to catch up.

  ‘You do believe me, don’t you, that I didn’t eat my mother?’

  ‘I believe you all right, Victor. Someone who eats ducks to help his brother certainly doesn’t eat his mother.’

  Once back home, Adamsberg took the time to send a very curt email to Danglard:

  Meeting of squad tomorrow at 1500 hours. Please see everyone attends.

  Then another to Brigadier-chef Oblat in Dijon.

  Murderer under arrest. Protection of Vincent Bérieux can be lifted.

  And finally to Brigadiers Drillon and Verrin.

  Many thanks!

  XLVI

  DANGLARD PARKED IN the courtyard at squad headquarters, feeling highly anxious. Adamsberg had sent his message just after 4 a.m., asking for the whole team to be called to a meeting on a Sunday. He knew that Adamsberg had been to see the fifth victim in Dijon the previous day, and that the statement from Vincent Bérieux had left them none the wiser, once again. A fat man, masked, wearing a wig and glasses.

  Danglard feared the worst as he shambled across the yard, and indeed it would be only logical. Adamsberg was going to exact reprisals. For lack of respect, insubordination: he would be within his rights to challenge several of them and ask for them to be transferred. Starting with Danglard himself. Then Noël, Mordent and even Voisenet, although the latter had been more circumspect. Danglard felt the mist of guilt stifle his breathing. It was he who, with his sarcasm and disapproval, had encouraged the others, except for Noël, who needed no encouragement to be aggressive. But all the same, he told himself, standing up straighter as he opened the door, when the ship springs a leak, someone has to bring the captain back to his senses, and tow Adamsberg to the land of the living: facts, logic, coherent courses of action. Was it not symptomatic, and seriously so, that the commissaire had gone off, against all reason, to explore the Icelandic fogs which had almost swallowed him up? And wasn’t it his, Danglard’s, responsibility to keep the ship on an even keel?

  Yes, of course it was. Cheered by the clear thought of his duty and his obligation to carry it out, however difficult the task, the commandant entered the council chamber with a confident tread. He immediately noted on the faces of the malcontents among the squad similar signs of apprehension. Adamsberg, as everyone knew, only very rarely had recourse to confrontation. But this time, they were all aware that a red line had been crossed. And the commissaire’s reactions could, on those exceptional occasions, be as rapid as they were hostile. Ma
ny of them could remember the day he had smashed the top off a bottle, when faced with the bone-headed Brigadier Favre. In this atmosphere of fear, they, like Danglard, were looking for justifications for their behaviour, to reply to the commissaire’s attack.

  As Adamsberg walked slowly into the big room, he did not look in the least combative, but in his case, that meant nothing. Each officer, depending on the side of the table where he or she was sitting, examined the chief’s face with pleasure or anxiety. He by contrast seemed clear-eyed, as if purified from some kind of trouble, which had in the past altered his features and veiled his smile. His colleagues were unaware that the infernal knot of seaweed had at last been disentangled.

  Adamsberg stayed standing, and observed that the new seating arrangement – with those for and against, the moderates and the don’t-knows – had not changed since their last meeting. For once, Estalère was rooted to the spot and Adamsberg had to make an encouraging sign for him to rush off and prepare the twenty-seven coffees. The commissaire had not planned out his speech in advance and, as always, things would emerge in their own time.

  ‘The murderer in the Robespierre circle was arrested last night,’ he announced, folding his arms. ‘He’s taken several bullet wounds and is in hospital in Rambouillet. The arrest took place after a shoot-out in Le Creux.’

  Without knowing why, Adamsberg looked down at the palm of his right hand, the one that had fired nine shots at a man. At a man who had killed two people on the island, drowned Gauthier and slit her wrists, shot Masfauré, stabbed Breuguel, pushed Gonzalez down the steps, tried to hang Bérieux and wounded Céleste.

  ‘The wounds he sustained to his arm and knee were from my gun, and the bullets in his calves were fired by two gendarmes from Saint-Aubin, Drillot and Verrin. I should say that the man was armed with an MP5, and was spraying it at three of us: Victor and Amédée Masfauré and myself. Before that, out in the woods, he had shot up Céleste and her pet boar, badly injuring them.’

  ‘What on earth was he doing at Le Creux?’ asked Froissy, who had no guilt feelings to prevent her speaking up.

  ‘He had followed my car, quite simply. As had the two gendarmes from Saint-Aubin.’