by Fred Vargas
‘Exactly. So it means we have been gently led by the hand to that pile of shoes in Higg-gate.’
‘Who by?’
‘By Lord Fox, perhaps. Or more likely by his Cuban friend who disappeared so fast. He knew Stock would be along, and that we would be with him.’
‘And pray why would we have been gently led there?’
‘Because Garches, being such a catastrophic case, was certain to be sent to us. The killer knew that, and even if he was passing on to some new stage by getting rid of his collection – perhaps it had got too dangerous – he didn’t want to just throw it away without getting any recognition. He wanted there to be a trail between the operations of his youth and those of his maturity. He wanted it to be known. That we would still be thinking about Higg-gate when Garches happened. The foot-chopper and the Zerquetscher belong in the same story. Remember that the murderer paid special attention to the feet of both Vaudel and Plögener. And where’s this Kissilove?’
‘Kisilova. On the south bank of the Danube, very close to the Romanian frontier.’
‘Is it just a little village or a small town?’
‘Just a village, only about eight hundred inhabitants.’
‘If the foot-chopper had followed a corpse there, people would have noticed.’
‘After twenty years, not many people are going to be able to remember.’
‘Did your uncle ever say whether there was any kind of vendetta between families in the village, some kind of clan warfare? The doctor said that Vaudel was living with some kind of obsession like that.’
‘No, never,’ said Danglard, after pausing for thought. ‘The place was full of enemies: ghosts, ogres, ogresses, and of course the “great demon” who lived in the wood. But no family feuds. In any case, commissaire, if you’re right, the Zerquetscher is watching us.’
‘Since London, yes.’
‘And he won’t let us get into the Kiseljevo tunnel, whatever’s in there. I advise you to take care. I don’t think we can handle this.’
‘No, probably not,’ said Adamsberg, thinking of the blood on the piano.
‘Have you got your gun?’
‘It’s downstairs.’
‘Well, keep it by your bed.’
XXIII
THE STAIRS IN THE OLD HOUSE WERE COLD ON THE FEET, being made of traditional red tiles and wood, but Adamsberg didn’t mind. It was 6.15 a.m., and he was coming down in peaceful mood, as he did every morning, having quite forgotten his tinnitus, Kisilova and the rest of the world, as if sleep had restored him to a naive, absurd and illiterate state, with his waking thoughts directed exclusively at eating, drinking and washing. He stopped on the last but one stair, as he saw in his kitchen a man with his back to him, framed in the morning sun, and wreathed in cigarette smoke. The intruder was of slight build with dark, curly, shoulder-length hair. Probably young, he was wearing a black T-shirt that looked new, decorated with a white design showing a ribcage from which drops of red blood were dripping.
The silhouette was unfamiliar, and alarm bells went off in his vacant brain. This man’s arms looked strong, and he was waiting with a definite purpose. Plus he was fully clothed, whereas Adamsberg was naked, on the stairs, without a plan and without a weapon. The gun that Danglard had advised him to put by his bed was lying on the table within reach of the stranger. If Adamsberg could manage to turn left to the bathroom without making a sound, he would be able to get to his clothes and the P38 wedged between the lavatory cistern and the wall.
‘Put some clothes on, scumbag,’ said the man without turning round. ‘And forget about the gun, I’ve got it.’
He had quite a high-pitched voice but was talking tough-guy stuff, a bit too tough-guy, signalling danger. The man lifted the back of his T-shirt to show the butt of the P38 jammed into the top of his jeans, against his tanned back.
There was no way out through the bathroom, and no way out via the study. The man was blocking the front door. Adamsberg slipped his clothes on, unscrewed the blade from his razor and put it in his pocket. Was there anything else? A nail clipper. Into the other pocket. Laughable, because the guy now had two guns. And if he was not much mistaken, he was face to face with the Zerquetscher. The thick hair, the rather short neck. And on this June morning, it was the end of the road. He had not followed Danglard’s anxious advice and now daybreak was here, blocked by the outline of the Zerquetscher under his repulsive T-shirt. Just on this very midsummer morning, when the light was falling on every blade of grass, on the bark of every tree, with its exalting and universal precision. Yesterday too, the light had been like that. But he could see it better this morning.
Adamsberg was not a fearful man, through some lack of anticipation or emotion, or perhaps because of his way of opening his arms to the chances life offered. He went into the kitchen and around the table. How was it that at this moment he should be capable of thinking of coffee, of wanting to brew some and drink it?
The Zerquetscher. So young, good Lord, that was his first thought. So young, but with a face deeply marked, angular, bony and lined. So young, but his features altered by the choice of a fixed path. He was concealing his anger with a mocking smile, just showing off really, a boastful kid. Mocking death too, a mortal combat which gave him that pale complexion and that cruel and stupid expression. Death was displayed on the T-shirt, with another ribcage design on the chest. Under the breastbone, the legend was a mock-dictionary definition: ‘Death: end of life, marked by the extinction of breath and the rotting of the flesh. Dead: finished, nothing.’ This individual was already dead and he meant to take others with him.
‘I’ll make some coffee,’ Adamsberg said.
‘Don’t play the fool, mister,’ said the young man, drawing on his cigarette and putting one hand on the gun. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know who I am.’
‘Of course I know. You’re the Zerquetscher.’
‘The what?’
‘The Crusher, the most vicious killer of the new century.’
The man smiled, satisfied.
‘I would like some coffee,’ Adamsberg said. ‘You can shoot me first or after, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got the guns, you’re blocking the way out.’
‘Huh,’ said the man, ‘you make me laugh.’ He moved the revolver nearer the edge of the table.
Adamsberg put a filter paper in the funnel with three heaped tablespoons of coffee. He measured two bowlfuls of water and poured them into a saucepan. Better to be doing something than nothing.
‘You don’t have a proper coffee-maker?’
‘Tastes better this way. You haven’t had any breakfast? As you like,’ said Adamsberg into the silence, ‘but I’m going to eat something.’
‘You’ll eat if I say so.’
‘If I don’t eat anything, I won’t understand what you’re saying. I imagine you came here to say something.’
‘You think you’re so high and mighty,’ said the man. The smell of coffee began to fill the kitchen.
‘No, I’m just preparing my last breakfast. Does that bother you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘OK, go ahead and shoot then.’
Adamsberg put two bowls on the table with sugar, bread, butter, jam and milk. He had not the slightest desire to die from a bullet fired by this sinister character who was blocked somewhere, as Josselin might say. Or to get to know him. But talk and get them talking, that was the first rule you learned, before even learning to handle a gun. ‘Words,’ the instructor had said, ‘are the deadliest weapons if you know exactly where to aim them.’ He also said it was quite difficult to find the right place in the head to aim the words, and if you were off target the enemy tended to shoot at once.
Adamsberg poured the coffee into the two bowls, pushed some sugar and bread towards the enemy, whose eyes did not move under the black bar of his eyebrows meeting across the middle.
‘Tell me at least what you think of it,’ Adamsberg said. ‘Apparently you’re quite a cook.’
‘How w
ould you know that?’
‘Through Monsieur Weill, your downstairs neighbour. He’s a friend of mine. He also likes you, Zerquetscher. I’ll say Zerketch if you don’t mind.’
‘I know what you’re up to, scumbag. You’re trying to make me talk, tell you the story of my life, fucking stuff like that, like the fucking over-the-hill cop you are, and then you’ll try to confuse me and kick me in the balls.’
‘Story of your life, sorry, I don’t give a damn.’
‘Huh, really?’
‘No,’ said Adamsberg sincerely, regretting the fact.
‘Well, you’re wrong,’ said the young man through clenched teeth.
‘Maybe so. But that’s the way I am. Couldn’t give a damn about anything really.’
‘Not about me?’
‘Not about you.’
‘So what does interest you, scumbag?’
‘Nothing. I must have missed out on something when I was born. See that light bulb up there?’
‘Ha, don’t try to make me look up!’
‘It hasn’t worked for months. I haven’t changed it, I just get on with things in the dark.’
‘Just what I thought about you. Useless fucking wanker.’
‘Well, a wanker does want something, doesn’t he?’
‘Yeah,’ admitted the young man after a moment.
‘But I don’t. Otherwise, yes, I agree with you.’
‘And you’re chicken, you remind me of this old geezer I know, a real bullshitter, he thinks he knows it all.’
‘Too bad.’
‘He was in this bar one night. And these six guys come at him. Know what he does?’
‘No.’
‘He lies down on the ground. Like a wimp! He says, “Go ahead, guys.” So they tell him to get up. But he just lies there, hands folded on his belly, like a fucking woman. And in the end they say, “Stuff this for a lark. OK, grandad, come and have a drink.” And you know what he says?’
‘Yes.’
‘You do?’ asked the boy.
‘Yes, he says: “What kind of drink? Not if it’s only Beaujolais.”’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said the young man, disconcerted.
‘So then,’ Adamsberg went on, dunking some bread in his coffee, ‘the six thugs think, hmm, cool customer, pick the old man up, and after that they’re all friends. But I wouldn’t call him chicken. I’d say it took some guts. But that was Weill – eh? I’m right, aren’t I, it was Weill?’
‘Yeah.’
‘He’s quick-witted. I’m not.’
‘He’s better than you? At police stuff?’
‘Are you disappointed? You want a higher-class enemy?’
‘No. They say you’re the best cop in the business.’
‘So our meeting was written in the stars.’
‘More than you think, scumbag,’ said the young man with a nasty smile, but swallowing his first mouthful of coffee.
‘Would you mind calling me something else?’
‘Yeah, I can call you pig if you want.’
Adamsberg had now finished his bread and his coffee. It was the time when he normally set off for the office, half an hour’s walk. He felt tired, sickened by this exchange, fed up with this man and with himself.
‘Seven o’clock,’ he said. ‘Now this is when my neighbour will go out and take a leak against a tree. He has to piss every hour and a half, day and night. It doesn’t do the tree much good. But I tell the time by him.’
The man gripped the gun and watched Lucio through the window.
‘Why does he have to piss so often?’
‘Prostate trouble.’
‘See if I care,’ said the young man furiously. ‘I’ve got TB, eczema, ringworm, enteritis, and I’ve only got one kidney.’
Adamsberg cleared away the bowls.
‘Ah, well, I see why you want to kill everyone then.’
‘Yeah. Another year and I’ll be dead.’
Adamsberg pointed towards the Zerquetscher’s cigarettes.
‘Does that mean you want one?’
‘Yes.’
The packet slid across the table.
‘Yeah, condemned man gets one last smoke, traditionally. But what else do you want? You want answers, you want to understand? You won’t find anything. Ask away.’
Adamsberg took out a cigarette and gestured with his fingers for a light.
‘You’re not scared?’
‘So-so.’
Adamsberg inhaled deeply, which made his head swim.
‘Just why did you come here?’ he asked. ‘To walk into the lion’s den? To tell me your little story? To get absolution? To take a look at the enemy?’
‘Yeah,’ said the young man, though it wasn’t clear what that referred to. ‘I wanted to see what you looked like before leaving. No, it wasn’t that. I came here basically to fuck up your life.’
He was threading the holster on his shoulder, but getting entangled in the straps.
‘You’ve got it on the wrong way round. That strap there goes on the other arm.’
The young man started again. Adamsberg watched him without moving. There came a muted mewing sound and claws scratched the door.
‘What’s that?’
‘A cat.’
‘You keep pets? How pathetic, only wimps have pets. Yours?’
‘No, she belongs to the garden.’
‘You have kids?’
‘No,’ said Adamsberg prudently.
‘Easy to say no, isn’t it? Easy not to give a damn about anything? To faff about up in the sky while other people have to slog away down here?’
‘In the sky?’
‘Yeah. Known as the cloud-shoveller.’
‘You’re well informed.’
‘Course I am, it’s all on the Internet. Pictures of you, your famous cases. Like when you chased that guy in Lorient and he threw himself into the harbour.’
‘He didn’t drown.’
There was another more urgent and panicky sound of mewing.
‘What the fuck’s the matter with that cat?’
‘She’s probably in trouble. Just had her first litter and doesn’t know what to do. Maybe she’s lost one of the kittens somewhere. Take no notice.’
‘You say take no notice, because you’re a cold bastard, you don’t care about anyone.’
‘OK, Zerketch, go and see.’
‘Ha! And let you get away, scumbag?’
‘All right, lock me in the study, the window’s barred. You take your guns with you, and you go and see. If you’re not a cold bastard like me, go on, prove it.’
The young man inspected the study, keeping the gun trained on Adamsberg.
‘Don’t you dare budge from there.’
‘If you do find a kitten, lift it from underneath or by the scruff of the neck, not by the head.’
‘Ha,’ laughed the young man, ‘hark at Adamsberg, fussy as the cat’s mother.’
He laughed again and locked the study door. Adamsberg listened to what was happening in the garden and heard the sound of wooden boxes being moved and then Lucio’s voice.
‘The wind blew these boxes over,’ he said, ‘and there’s a kitten trapped underneath. Come on, hombre, you can see I’ve only got one arm. Who are you anyway? And what are all these guns for?’
Lucio’s imperious voice was probing the ground.
‘I’m a relation. He’s teaching me to shoot.’
Not bad, Adamsberg thought. Lucio respected the family. He heard the sound of the boxes being moved and a tiny mewing sound.
‘See it?’ Lucio said. ‘Is it hurt? I can’t stand the sight of blood.’
‘Yeah, well, I like it fine.’
‘Hombre, if you’d seen your old grandad shot in the stomach, and if you’d seen your own arm cut off and spraying blood like a fountain, you wouldn’t say that. What did your mother teach you? Pass me that kitten, I don’t trust you.’
Gently does it, Lucio, Adamsberg muttered to himself, clenching his teeth.
That’s the Zerquetscher you’ve got out there, can’t you see, he could blow up any moment? He might trample on the kitten and cut you up in the tool shed. Shut up, take the kitten and get out of it.
The door banged and the young man came stamping back into the study.
‘Stupid bloody kitten under some boxes, couldn’t even find its way out. Like you,’ he added, sitting down facing Adamsberg. ‘Your neighbour’s no fun, I prefer Weill.’
‘Look, Zerketch, I’ve got to get out. Sitting still too long makes me edgy. It’s the only thing that does. But it makes me really edgy.’
‘No kidding,’ scoffed the young man. waving the gun. ‘So the cop’s had enough, the cop wants to get out.’
‘That’s right, you got it. See this bottle?’
Adamsberg was holding a little glass tube filled with liquid, no bigger than a perfume sample.
‘If I were you, I wouldn’t touch the gun till you hear what I’ve got to say. See the cork? I take it off and you’ll be dead. In less than a second, in 74.3 hundredths of a second to be precise.’
‘You bastard,’ said the young man. ‘Is that why you’re so pleased with yourself? Why you aren’t scared?’
‘I haven’t finished explaining. The time it takes for you to slip the safety catch on your gun is 65 hundredths of a second, and then to press the trigger, 59 hundredths. Time for the bullet to hit, 32 hundredths. Total: one point fifty-six seconds. Result, you’re dead before the bullet hits me.’
‘What’s that bloody stuff?’ The young man had stood up and was walking backwards, holding his hand towards Adamsberg.
‘Nitrocitraminic acid. Turns into a lethal gas on contact with air.’
‘So you’ll snuff it with me, fucker.’
‘I still haven’t finished explaining. All us cops in the squad get immunised by a special course of injections for two months, and believe me that’s no picnic. If I push the top off, you’ll die – your heart will dilate and burst – but what will happen to me is I’ll be sick, and empty my guts out for three weeks, and I’ll have a skin rash, and lose my hair. But after that I’ll recover.’
‘You wouldn’t do it.’