An Uncertain Place

by Fred Vargas

‘Vaudel didn’t want a son.’

  ‘He especially didn’t want to leave behind him vulnerable descendants who would be exposed to his enemies.’

  ‘What enemies?’

  ‘If I told you it wouldn’t help. They were the mad imaginings of the man, created over the years and lodged in the caverns of his mind. It’s medical, not police work. At the point he’d reached, you’d have to be a speleologist.’

  ‘Imaginary enemies, you mean?’

  ‘You don’t want to go there, commissaire.’

  Lucio was waiting for them in the tool shed, his huge hand stroking the kitten, which was rolled up in a damp towel on his knees.

  ‘She’s going to die,’ he said hoarsely, his voice full of tears which Adamsberg could not understand, since it was a mystery to him how anyone could be so affected over a cat. ‘She can’t feed. Who’s this?’ Lucio asked ungraciously. ‘We don’t need an audience, hombre.’

  ‘This gentleman is a specialist on cats with dislocated jaws who can’t feed. Mind out, Lucio, and give him the cat.’

  Lucio scratched his absent arm, and obeyed, still looking suspicious. The doctor sat down on the bench and took the cat’s head in his thick fingers – he had enormous hands for his size, not unlike Lucio’s large single hand. He felt her slowly all over, back and forth. Charlatan, Adamsberg was thinking, now feeling more upset than he should have been, as he looked at the kitten’s limp little body. Then the doctor moved to the pelvis, and put his fingers on two points, as if playing a trill on a piano, and they heard a weak mew.

  ‘Her name’s Charm,’ Lucio said grudgingly.

  ‘We can fix the jaw,’ said the doctor. ‘Don’t worry, Charm, we’ll have you right in a minute.’

  The large fingers – to Adamsberg they were getting more and more enormous, like the ten arms of Shiva – came back to the jaw and held the kitten’s head in a pincer grip.

  ‘Now, now, Charm,’ he murmured, as he moved his thumb and finger. ‘Did you get your jaw blocked when you were born? Did the commissaire twist your head? Or were you frightened? Just a few minutes more and we’ll be on the way. There now. I’m going to press your TMJ.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Lucio warily.

  ‘The temporo-mandibular joint.’

  The kitten relaxed, as if it was made of plasticine, and allowed itself to be put to the mother’s teat.

  ‘There, there,’ crooned the doctor gently. ‘The jaw joint was dislocated caudally left and cephalically right, so of course it couldn’t move, the injury was stopping the sucking movement. Seems to be fine now. Let’s just wait a little, to see if it stays that way. I also adjusted the sacro-iliac joint. All consequences of a slightly eventful birth, don’t worry. She’ll be a tough little thing, take good care of her. No harm in her, she’s got a sweet nature.’

  ‘Yes, doctor,’ agreed Lucio, who had become respectful, as he watched the kitten sucking away like a steam engine.

  ‘And she will always want her food because of the five days.’

  ‘Ah, like Froissy,’ said Adamsberg.

  ‘Another cat?’

  ‘No, one of my colleagues. She eats all the time, and hides stashes of food, but she’s as thin as a rake.’

  ‘An anxiety disorder,’ said the doctor wearily. ‘She should get it seen to. So should everyone, me included. You wouldn’t have a glass of wine or something, would you?’ he broke off suddenly. ‘If it’s not too much trouble. It’s that time of day. It may not look it, but this stuff uses up a lot of energy.’

  Now he looked nothing like that professional pompous bourgeois Adamsberg had first seen across the arms of the lieutenants. The doctor had loosened his tie and was rumpling his grey hair with his fingers, looking like a simple man who had just finished a good job of work, and hadn’t been sure whether he’d manage it an hour earlier. He’d like a drink, and the request made Lucio react at once.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ asked the doctor as Lucio shot off towards the hedge.

  ‘His daughter has banned alcohol and tobacco. So he has to hide them in the bushes. He puts the cigarettes in a double plastic container against the rain.’

  ‘His daughter knows he does that, I bet.’

  ‘Yes, she does.’

  ‘And he knows that she knows?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The way of the world, all these hidden agendas. What happened to his arm?’

  ‘He lost it during the Spanish Civil War when he was nine years old.’

  ‘But there was something else there, a wound that hadn’t healed? A bite? I don’t know, some unfinished business.’

  ‘Just a minor thing,’ said Adamsberg, with a slight gasp of surprise. ‘A spider bite that itched.’

  ‘He’ll be itching for ever,’ said the doctor fatalistically. ‘Because it’s in there,’ he said, tapping his forehead, ‘etched into the neurones. They still don’t understand that the arm’s gone. It lasts for years, and knowing why makes no difference.’

  ‘So what’s the point of knowing why?’

  ‘It reassures people, which is something.’

  Lucio was on his way back with three glasses arranged between his fingers and a bottle clutched under his stump. He put it all down on the shed floor, and took a long look at the kitten, now firmly clamped on to its mother’s teat.

  ‘She’s not going to burst now, is she, from feeding too much?’

  ‘No,’ said the doctor.

  Lucio nodded, filled the glasses and invited them to toast the kitten’s health.

  ‘The doctor knew about your arm and the itch,’ said Adamsberg.

  ‘Naturally,’ said Lucio. ‘Spider bite, that’ll go on itching till kingdom come.’

  XII

  ‘THAT GUY,’ SAID LUCIO, ‘MAY BE AN ACE, BUT I WOULDN’T want him touching my head. He’d have me back sucking like a baby.’

  Exactly what he was doing at that moment, Adamsberg reflected, as Lucio sucked the edge of his glass with a sound like a newborn child. Lucio much preferred to drink straight from the bottle. He had only brought out glasses for the occasion because they had company. The doctor had gone an hour since, and they were sitting in the shed, finishing off the bottle and watching the litter of kittens, now fast asleep. Lucio took the view that you finished a bottle once you had opened it, because the wine would go off. Either you finish or you don’t start.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t like to have him come near me again either,’ agreed Adamsberg. ‘He just put his finger here’ (he showed the place on the back of his neck) ‘and it seemed something funny happened. “Interesting case” he called it.’

  ‘In doctor language, that means something’s wrong.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you agree with the funny stuff, you don’t need to worry.’

  ‘Lucio, can you imagine for a minute you’re Émile?’

  ‘OK,’ said Lucio who had never heard of Émile till this moment.

  ‘You’re someone who likes a fight. You’re compulsive, fifty-three years old, not unreasonable, but you fly off the handle now and then, you’ve been rescued from a life of crime by an old eccentric who hires you as a handyman, which includes playing giant games of noughts and crosses, over a glass of Guignolet.’

  ‘Stop there,’ said Lucio. ‘Can’t stand Guignolet.’

  ‘But you have to imagine you’re Émile, and that’s what the old man gives you.’

  ‘If you say so,’ said Lucio reluctantly.

  ‘OK. Forget the Guignolet, imagine something else. It doesn’t really matter.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Now imagine your old mother’s in a home, and your dog’s been boarded out at a farm, because you’ve been in and out of jail, total of eleven years, all in all. And imagine that every Saturday you get in your van, and first you take your mother out for a meal, then you go and see your dog, taking it some meat for a treat.’

  ‘Wait a minute, I can’t see the van.’

  Lucio poured out the last of the win
e.

  ‘Blue, curved corners, battered paintwork, back window dirty and a rusty ladder on the roof rack.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Now, suppose you always wait for the dog outside this farm, he jumps the gate and comes to eat with you, and you spend some of the night with him in the back of the van, then you have to leave at four in the morning.’

  ‘Wait a minute. Can’t see the dog.’

  ‘What about the mother, you can see her?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘The dog’s long-haired, off-white with a few patches, floppy ears, and it’s quite small, about the size of a football, a mongrel with big eyes.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Now imagine the old boy’s been murdered, and he’s left lots of money to you, cutting out his son. So you’re suddenly rich. Imagine the cops suspect you could have killed him, and they want to pull you in.’

  ‘No need to imagine that, it’s what they’d do, for sure.’

  ‘OK. Now suppose you kick one of these cops in the balls, you hit another one, breaking a rib, and you make off like a shot.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘What do you do about your mother?’

  Lucio sucked his glass.

  ‘I’m not going to see her, the cops are sure to be watching her home. So I’ll send her a letter in the post to tell her not to worry.’

  ‘And what do you do about the dog?’

  ‘Do the cops know where the dog’s shacked up?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, then I can go and see him, tell him that I’ve got to lie low, he might not see me for a bit but, not to worry, I’ll be back.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When will I be back?’

  ‘No, when will you go and see the dog?’

  ‘Right away, of course. They might catch me, so I’ve got to tell the dog first. But my mother – I suppose my mother’s still got her marbles?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Well, if I was in prison, the cops would tell her anyway. But they won’t tell the dog. No way. None of them would think to do that … So yeah, telling the dog, I’ve got to do that, and the sooner the better.’

  Adamsberg stroked Charm’s silky belly, emptied his glass into Lucio’s, and got up, brushing the seat of his trousers.

  ‘Now then, hombre,’ said Lucio, ‘if you’re going to try and see this guy before he sees the dog and before the dog sees the cops, you’d better put your skates on.’

  ‘I didn’t say that’s what I’d do.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  Adamsberg drove slowly, aware that fatigue and the wine had made inroads on his energy. He had switched off his mobile and the car’s GPS in case there was a police officer somewhere with the same thought processes as Lucio – which was not likely, even in Mordent’s stories and legends. He had no clear plan what to do about the violent Émile. Except what Lucio had suggested: to get to Châteaudun before the cops thought of the dog. Why? Because of the different kinds of horse manure? No. He hadn’t known about them when he had let Émile go – if that was what he really had done. So? Was it because Mordent had come galumphing in like a buffalo across his path? No. Mordent was going off his rocker, that was all. Because Émile was a decent guy? No. Émile wasn’t a decent guy. Because Émile might starve to death in the sticks somewhere, because a depressed cop had acted stupidly? Maybe. But fetching him back to prison, was that any improvement on dying in the sticks?

  Adamsberg was not good at the complications of ‘maybe’, whereas Danglard loved them, and would go out on a limb in his delight, drawn by the dark abyss of anticipation. Adamsberg was simply heading for the farm, that was all, praying none of the others had overheard his conversation that morning with Émile the Basher, Émile the Lucky Heir Apparent, now owner of houses in Garches and Vaucresson. While Danglard was at that very moment arguing with himself in the Channel Tunnel, getting drunk on champagne, and all because he had this idea that, maybe, some lunatic had cut off his uncle’s feet, or perhaps the feet of his uncle’s cousin, in some faraway mountain village. Meanwhile, Mordent was staring up at the walls of Fresnes prison, and what in the name of all that was holy could they do for Mordent?

  Adamsberg parked on the verge, in the shelter of a wood, and went the last five hundred metres on foot, gingerly, trying to get his bearings. The dog was supposed to jump some gate, but which one? He walked for about half an hour around the outskirts of the farm – three-quarters dairy, one-quarter beef – and his legs were getting tired by the time he located the most likely gate. In the distance, other dogs were barking loudly at his approach, and he flattened himself against a tree, standing as still as he could, while checking his bag and his gun. There was a smell of dung in the air, which he found reassuring, as everyone does. Now he must not drop off to sleep, but wait, and hope that Lucio was right.

  On the warm breeze, a faint animal sound like a whimper from beyond the gate reached him from time to time, perhaps fifty metres further on. Some woodland creature? A rat or a stoat? Something no bigger than that. He leaned against the tree, and flexed his legs, trying not to fall asleep. He imagined how Émile would get here, walking, hitching lifts with truck drivers who weren’t fussy if he offered to buy them a drink. What was Émile wearing? That morning he had worn a greasy jacket with ragged sleeves on top of his blue overalls. He pictured Émile’s hands before some words came back to him. Two hands making the shape of the dog. ‘No bigger than that.’ Adamsberg dropped to one knee and listened more carefully to the distant whining. No bigger than that. The dog?

  Cautiously, he made his way towards the sound. From about three metres away he saw a small white shape, the dog, running in panicky movements round a body on the ground.

  ‘Émile! Shit!’

  Adamsberg raised him by the shoulder and felt the side of his neck with his fingers. There was a pulse. Through the torn clothes, the dog was anxiously licking the man’s stomach, then moving to his thigh, and making its tiny whimpering sound. It stopped to look up at Adamsberg, and made a different kind of yelp that seemed to say: glad to have some help, friend. Then it returned to its task, tearing away the cloth of the trousers, licking the thigh, trying to make it as wet as possible. Adamsberg switched on his torch and shone it on Émile’s face, now smeared with mud and glistening with sweat. Émile the Basher, felled, beaten, money doesn’t buy you happiness.

  ‘Don’t try to talk,’ Adamsberg told him. Holding Émile’s head in his left hand, he gently explored the back of the skull with his fingers. No wound there.

  ‘Blink for yes. Can you feel your foot? – I’m pressing it.’

  Yes.

  ‘And the other one?’

  Yes.

  ‘See my hand? Know who I am?’

  ‘C-commissaire.’

  ‘Yep. You’re hurt, stomach and leg. What happened? Did you get into a fight?’

  ‘Not a fight, gun. Four shots. Two got me. See the water tower?’

  Émile raised his left hand slightly. Turning off the torch, Adamsberg peered into the darkness. The water tower was about a hundred metres away, near the wood through which Émile must have dragged himself to get to the gate, which he had almost reached. Whoever did the shooting might still be there.

  ‘No time to call an ambulance, we’re getting out of here.’

  He felt all over Émile’s back.

  ‘You’re in luck. The bullet exited your side, didn’t touch the spine. I’m going to get my car. Two minutes. Tell your dog to shut up.’

  ‘Shush, Cupid.’

  Adamsberg stopped the car, without headlights, as near Émile as he could manage and lowered the front passenger seat. An official beige raincoat had been left in the back of the car, probably Froissy’s since she always took care to dress the part. With his knife, he cut off the sleeves to make two long strips, and found himself bumping against the pockets, which were bulging with objects. He shook the coat and out fell a couple of tins of pâté, some dried fruit, bi
scuits, half a bottle of water, a few sweets, a 25ml carton of wine and three miniature bottles of brandy, like you get on trains. He had a moment’s sympathy for Froissy, then offered up thanks. Her eating disorder was helpful.

  The dog was now quiet and stood aside letting Adamsberg take over. He shone the torch on the stomach wound which was now clean, the dog’s tongue having licked it all over, pulled away the shirt and removed the mud.

  ‘Your dog’s been busy.’

  ‘Dog’s saliva. Antiseptic.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ said Adamsberg, binding the wounds with the fabric strips as best he could.

  ‘Don’t know a lot, do you?’

  ‘What about you, eh? Bet you don’t know how many arms Shiva has. And I knew how to find you here. I’m going to carry you now, try not to yell.’

  ‘Thirsty.’

  ‘Later.’

  Adamsberg installed Émile in the car, carefully arranging his legs.

  ‘Guess what,’ he said. ‘We’ll let the dog come too.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Émile.

  Adamsberg drove the first few kilometres along the lanes without lights, then stopped, keeping the engine running. He opened the bottle of water, but halted his hand in mid-air.

  ‘No, I daren’t let you drink,’ he said, ‘in case your stomach’s been touched.’

  He set off again and reached a minor road.

  ‘Another twenty kilometres to Châteaudun and the hospital. Think you can make it?’

  ‘Keep me talking, gonna pass out.’

  ‘Keep looking ahead. Guy who shot you, did you see anything?’

  ‘No, behind the water tower. Must have been waiting for me. Four shots. Like I said. Just the two got me. Not a pro. I go down and I hear him coming. So I pretend to be dead. He goes for me pulse, see if that’s it. He’s panicking, right. Could have put in a couple more though. Make sure.’

  ‘Take it easy, Émile.’

  ‘This car come up the crossroads. He runs off, fast as he can. I wait a bit. Then I try to crawl up to the farm. If I’ve had it, monsieur, don’t want Cupid to wait for ever. Waiting. No way to live. Don’t know your name.’