A Climate of Fear

by Fred Vargas

  ‘So why were the gendarmes following you?’ asked Retancourt, who had no obstacle to enquiring either.

  ‘I was speeding,’ said Adamsberg with a smile. ‘I refused to stop and drove away from them.’

  Mercadet looked at him in amusement.

  ‘But why did you act like that with the gendarmes, commissaire?’asked Voisenet, in a slightly subdued voice. Since, in the end, the arrest of the killer had changed the whole situation and low profiles seemed to be called for. Although, so far as he understood it at present, the arrest appeared to have been the product of pure chance.

  ‘So that they would follow me, Voisenet.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No! But their arrival saved the day. I was faced with an MP5, and had only my service pistol, and the Masfauré brothers had a shotgun each. But a sub-machine gun’s heavy, and the killer was having to use his left hand, and couldn’t aim it accurately. It slowed him down, he missed several times, and that’s what saved us. Without the gendarmes of Saint-Aubin turning up, I’m not sure we would have survived,’ Adamsberg concluded calmly.

  Estalère had now served the coffees, and they all welcomed the diversion. For once, nobody stopped making noises with their spoons and saucers, which went on for quite a long time.

  ‘So was all this pure chance then?’ asked Noël. ‘The fact that the killer came after you?’

  ‘You’ll have to speak up, Noël,’ said Adamsberg, pointing to his ear, ‘I’m still a bit deaf after the gunshots.’

  ‘Pure chance? That the killer was out there?’ repeated Noël, more loudly.

  ‘No, not at all, lieutenant. I had gone out to see Victor, in order to draw the murderer’s face for him to view. After all that time when he was just lurking away in my mind, sheltering behind his masks, it was only last night that he really appeared to me.’

  ‘You had some clues?’ asked Danglard, feeling he could not remain silent after the fairly brave interventions of Voisenet and Noël.

  ‘Yes, plenty.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell us about them?’

  ‘I did nothing but that, commandant. You were in possession of all the same elements as I was –’ and at this point Adamsberg did raise his voice – ‘as was the entire squad you have been leading since I left for Iceland. I told you that the Robespierre chessboard wasn’t moving, it was at stalemate, whereas “animals move”. I told you to go looking for movement. I told you that the Sanson, Danton and Desmoulins leads were unimportant. And there were plenty of other clues too. Why was it the “occasional” people, who only came sometimes to the assemblies, who were being attacked, if the point of it all was to reach Robespierre? Why was the guillotine sign sometimes so inconspicuous? And yet so obscure? Why were those brand-new books on Iceland left at Jean Breuguel’s flat? Why was Victor keeping determinedly silent? Why was there all this fear everywhere? Was it genuine? False? Why would someone wear a wig to hang Vincent Bérieux? You all received the photographs of the scene of crime, like I did. Why was the rope not suspended from the middle of the garage? Why was it hooked to one side? I even told you about that yesterday in my text message: white wig, victim not talking. You had all these elements to hand the same way I did. But for some time now, you haven’t wanted to see or hear. And yet, commandant, didn’t all those things add up to something rather consistent?’

  Danglard had had neither the time nor indeed the desire to note down all these scattered facts, that is if something like ‘animals move’ counted as a fact. Justin and Froissy were attempting to do so quickly, while all Danglard could see for the moment was a cloud of red ladybirds, which he must certainly have missed, scattered across the valley of the Chevreuse.

  ‘So they weren’t my elements, Danglard,’ Adamsberg went on, ‘they were yours too, and everyone else’s.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Agreed? What’s agreed? Which one of you, Danglard, Voisenet and Mordent, you who know such a lot, told me that seal meat doesn’t taste of fish? No one. You’ve all read the statements made by Victor and Amédée about the tragedy in Iceland. According to Amédée, the man came back one night dripping with blood and stinking of fish, hauling along a dead seal. He also said that Alice Gauthier had retained a memory of that evening as a delicious meal tasting like a giant salmon. Then Victor told us afterwards of the same miraculous fishing expedition: kilos of fish. And he said that when they got to Grimsey, they stank of seal blubber and rotten fish from head to toe. I did tell you that the two brothers had had time to coordinate their version of events before they spoke to us. That there were too many coincidences between their accounts, like the “monster” and the trousers in flames when the murderer fell on the fire. I told you, Danglard, that this story was far from being the truth. So did you go back and study their statements? No, because at that stage, nobody wanted to hear any more about Iceland or that place out at Le Creux. But we hadn’t finished exploring Le Creux. We’d left it open, we’d missed a path somewhere, and we’d walked away from it.’

  He heard once more Lucio’s hoarse voice saying: ‘There’s a pathway you haven’t seen. This guy’s playing games.’

  ‘So did you read their statements again, commissaire?’ asked Kernorkian, in a non-committal voice.

  ‘Yes, I did, to note down the similarities between what they said. Why were they lying, and what was it they were actually lying about? Salmon, fish, stinking fish, these kept cropping up insistently in both accounts. Now you, Danglard, and you, Voisenet, know better than I would that seals are mammals, not fish. In fact I only knew that because you told me.’

  ‘But surely,’ Estalère ventured, ‘seals eat tons of fish. So wouldn’t their meat smell of it?’

  Adamsberg shook his head.

  ‘Doesn’t alter the fact that their meat does not smell of fish. Any more than beef smells of grass.’

  ‘I see,’ said Estalère thoughtfully. ‘So what does seal meat taste like?’

  ‘Something between liver and duck, with overtones of salt and iodine.’

  ‘How do you know that? Did you eat some in Grimsey?’

  ‘No, I asked someone.’

  Adamsberg walked a few paces back and forth.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ he said in the end, ‘I did tell you, several times, that this investigation had been from the start like a huge tangled knot of seaweed.’

  Which isn’t a ‘fact’, Danglard said to himself, while Justin noted it down all the same.

  ‘And that you can’t just plunge into a thing like that. We were pulling out tiny little broken fragments, and getting drawn into other traps. We had elements, clues, but they were floating, dozens of them, just under the surface without any apparent connection between them, in a sort of fog. The whole thing had been drowned in confusion by this twisted and determined killer. We needed some serious event to trigger a movement and bring the mass up into the air. So as to be able to draw his face.’

  ‘The face of the killer?’ asked Estalère conscientiously.

  ‘Of the killer, yes.’

  ‘And to show it to Victor before showing us?’ said Danglard.

  ‘Correct, Danglard. Because Victor knew perfectly well who the killer was.’

  ‘How was that?’

  ‘Because he attended meetings of the Robespierre association, with his employer Masfauré. I needed his witness statement, and in the end I got it. No, in fact it was Amédée who gave it away. I’m not sure Victor would ever have talked. But Amédée was feeling trusting, he had rediscovered his childhood friend and brother.’

  ‘So it wasn’t a waste of time, after all,’ said Veyrenc, ‘to make that expedition to the farm at Le Thost.’

  ‘What was the trigger event then?’ asked Mordent, his long heron-neck shrunk down inside the grey feathers of his sweater. ‘The one you needed to bring the mass up to the surface?’

  ‘The sound of a wooden stick hitting the floor. Which you might also have noticed, Danglard, because you were there with me that evening. But yo
u weren’t really concentrating, you were angry about my leaving for Grimsey.’

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Voisenet.

  ‘Veyrenc kept tapping his crutch on the floor at my house yesterday evening. And it all came up into clear water. It had to. Although, at first, I had thought it was Fouché. I just had to extend the field a little.’

  Danglard felt completely lost. Adamsberg’s words conveyed nothing to him. He needed a clear, organised answer. He suspected that the commissaire was enjoying wrapping them in the mists of his personal island.

  ‘This murderer, who was at large in the Robespierre society,’ he spoke up firmly, ‘who is he then, commissaire?’

  ‘The same person as the killer in Iceland.’

  There was an oppressed silence, some intakes of breath, the sounds of cups being fidgeted with, pencils being put down or chewed, and Estalère felt it might be the right moment for a second round of coffee. Whatever many of his colleagues thought of him, Estalère had been following, with all its combinations of the serious and the trivial, the complex construction of the opposition mounted against Adamsberg.

  ‘A killer,’ Adamsberg continued, ‘that we went looking for on Fox Island. Where it all began. Where, as I said to you, something was still budging. Because I did tell you, didn’t I? A movement that went on creating waves, until the attempt on Vincent Bérieux and then on us, last night.’

  ‘What’s his name then?’ asked Danglard, who could perfectly well hear the muffled reproaches beneath the surface of Adamsberg’s calm voice.

  ‘Charles Rolben, he’s a “high-up judge”, I’m told. Nothing less. Six murders, five attempted murders.’

  ‘Who counts in the six?’ asked Noël, pulling down the zip of his leather jacket, possibly as an unconscious sign of opening up.

  ‘On the island, Eric Courtelin and Adélaïde Masfauré. Back here, Alice Gauthier, Henri Masfauré, Jean Breuguel, Angelino Gonzalez. Attempted murders: Vincent Bérieux, the Masfauré brothers and me. Plus seriously wounding Céleste. And Marc,’ he added.

  ‘Quite a tally,’ Mercadet commented.

  ‘But apart from you, Céleste, Amédée and the ones on the island,’ Danglard said, ‘they were all members of the Robespierre association.’

  ‘But that isn’t the fucking point, Danglard,’ Adamsberg said in exasperation. ‘You still don’t want to understand. They were all members of the tourist group that got marooned in Iceland. Jean Breuguel was the “civil servant” Victor told us about, the one who laughed when he sat on the warm stone. Angelino Gonzalez was the specialist on little auks. Vincent Bérieux was the one Victor thought was a ski instructor. All members of the group! And they’d all eaten the bodies of their companions. Is that something trivial, Danglard? Isn’t that something pretty colossal? A colossal lead that you didn’t think I should be following up.’

  Danglard pushed his notes away from him, and poured himself a glass of water. The commandant was giving in, as they all understood. Adamsberg was waiting for this shift before he gave them a clearer account, if he could manage it.

  ‘If it was Iceland all along,’ asked Mordent, ‘how could you manage to draw a portrait of the killer from the island? This Charles Rolben, whoever he is?’

  ‘Because we did know him, Mordent. He was a member of the Robespierre association, like all the others.’

  ‘François Château?’

  ‘Not Château, commandant, but the one who was afraid. The one who asked for police protection.’

  ‘Lebrun!’ said Retancourt.

  ‘Lebrun, the bloodthirsty, egotistical, violent killer, so well disguised under his make-up, his beards and wigs. And with his nondescript features which could be modified as he wanted. The “monster” as Amédée called him. Remember when he took the role of Couthon, Danglard? Was he so insignificant then? And wasn’t he openly enjoying the ferocity of his colleague Leblond playing Fouché?’

  Danglard nodded curtly.

  ‘You may remember then, that evening, in his role as the paralysed Couthon in his wheelchair, how he kept tapping his cane on the floor. And remember that we were told the killer on the island had a stick with which he tapped the ice? Only one of the founders of the association would have come up with the idea of instituting compulsory meetings there for the survivors from the island. To watch them, looking out for any weaknesses, or failings. It was an idea of genius: he could see them repeatedly at his beck and call, but in an assembly where everyone was wearing costume and make-up, and to cap it all anonymous. Who would ever be able to notice them? And if any of them were to die – any of these “infiltrators”, even several of them – why would the cops go poking around in Iceland for the explanation? Much more likely that they’d go for Robespierre, the name that still arouses so many passions. Yes, they’d head for Robespierre. And that’s where we all went running, and I led the way.’

  ‘But if he wanted to get us away from the Icelandic lead, and move us in the other direction,’ asked Veyrenc, ‘why didn’t he make the sign clearer, more readable?’

  ‘That was where he showed another stroke of genius, Veyrenc. If you give the cops, or anyone else for that matter, a clue that’s too obvious, they’re going to be suspicious. “It’s too good to be true”, “it’s a trap”, we’re being pushed in a certain direction, and it’s suspect, But if you force them to think, and bring them to believe that they, the cops, have worked out through their own wits the meaning of the clue, then they’ll be totally committed to their discovery. The more effort has gone into it, the greater one’s attachment to it. If by any chance we hadn’t worked it out, then François Château’s letter, which was authentic and sincere, would have taken us straight to the Robespierre path. Everybody we showed it to denied that they knew the sign, except Lebrun, who had invented it. Just for us, exclusively for us. Neither too clear nor too obscure. And of course, once three murders had appeared in the papers, Lebrun pushed Château to get in touch with us. Better than that. Just in case we were still tempted to go looking in Iceland, he put the three brand-new books in Jean Breuguel’s flat. Which said to us that, aha, the killer wants us to keep thinking in terms of the Iceland business. He’s slipped up, we thought, like the idiots we were. But the slip-up was deliberate of course. What better way to make us give up on Iceland? Which we did. All of us. We were drawn into the orbit of the Robespierre circle where – and I’ll say it again – nothing was moving. Why? Because nothing was happening there. Lebrun had forced us to play on this chessboard with over seven hundred other players on it, but the pawns weren’t moving. Because the real pawns were moving somewhere else. And we’d have stagnated on this stationary chessboard till the end of time without any result, because there wasn’t one to be found there.’

  ‘Until all the members of the Iceland group had been killed off,’ said Mercadet.

  ‘Without our getting near guessing the identity of the killer,’ Voisenet admitted.

  ‘Right, lieutenant. Lebrun? The amiable Lebrun? The one who helped us by pointing out the group of descendants. A group that led precisely nowhere. And also pointing out to us, playing with fire perhaps, but there was no risk, like when you put your finger through a candle flame, the group of “infiltrators” whom, as he confided in us, he distrusted. The infiltrators’ group, which was in fact none other than the Icelandic group, that he summoned twice a year to the assembly, in order to check them out and warn them once more to keep their mouths shut.’

  ‘I don’t get it about the candle,’ said Estalère.

  ‘I’ll show you sometime,’ said Adamsberg. ‘How to do it without getting burned. “Who were these infiltrators?” Lebrun was asking us. Perhaps anti-Robespierrists out for vengeance? Royalists? Spies? And maybe Robespierre himself was eliminating them. In his madness? And why not? Poor Lebrun ended up “fearing” for himself. And we believed him.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ said Voisenet, returning to his normal self. ‘We’ve been played for fools from start to finish.’

&nbs
p; ‘Not to the finish, Voisenet. Until too much immobility started to appear abnormal or suspicious. Until, once we’d gone round in circles, we started to wonder if there wasn’t some other lead to follow. Or one that had been abandoned and lost from view. But there was only one.’

  ‘Iceland,’ Noël admitted.

  And once more Adamsberg recognised the courage of the usually thuggish Noël, since he was surrendering without shame.

  ‘There is one thing,’ said Adamsberg. ‘When Lebrun came round here, in my absence, to ask for more protection, did he discover somehow or other that I was in Iceland? I thought we’d told him I was away on family matters.’

  Danglard slowly raised his arm, in silence.

  ‘It was my fault,’ he said. ‘When I was arguing with him about the protection, I let something slip.’

  ‘What kind of “something”, Danglard?’

  The commandant summoned up the courage to look Adamsberg in the eye, feeling like Danton, he told himself, marching towards the sacrifice.

  ‘I told him we’d do what we could while you were away, because you’d gone off on holiday to Iceland.’

  ‘It wasn’t a small “something” then, Danglard.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It was that information he’d come to find out, because he’d seen my car was still outside my house. He’d been spying on me since the very beginning of the investigation. And you gave him the information, because you were irritated with me. So you can imagine his reaction. I was going back to Iceland. Following up a lead he had taken such trouble to destroy, because he wanted us to concentrate on the unfathomable Robespierre circle. So then he attacked Vincent Bérieux. Bérieux was the anonymous “cyclist” of the association, the “ski instructor” on the Icelandic trip. And he hangs him, taking care to dress up first in an eighteenth-century wig. Why? To send us back to Robespierre at all costs. And he does better than that. He fixes the rope to the side, near a chain which Bérieux might grab hold of, and near a set of shelves where he could get a foothold. The rope was in any case very coarse, a slipknot wouldn’t work too well with it. And he knew perfectly well that Bérieux, given his physical strength, might manage to extract himself. As he in fact did.’