by Fred Vargas
‘Or murder. The girl was apparently pretty out of it when Stubby Down was killed. Her friend Bones could very well have put the gun in her hand and pulled the trigger.’
‘And that’s what happened, Weill, is it? Really?’
‘Yes. Technically, she fired the shot. So Mordent has to deliver something really big to get a deal. Who’s on the next rung up? In your view.’
‘Brézillon. He’s giving Mordent orders. But I can’t think he’s involved in any plot.’
‘Never mind. Third rung of the ladder has to be the judge who’s agreed in advance to get the Mordent girl off. What does he get out of it? That’s what you need to know, Adamsberg. Who asked him to go easy on her, who’s he working for?’
‘Sorry,’ said Adamsberg, finishing his beer. ‘I haven’t had time to worry about all this. Danglard was the one who twigged. I’ve been dealing with cut-off feet, that bloodbath in Garches, Émile getting shot, the Austrian murder, the Serbian uncle, my own fuses blowing, the cat out there having kittens, so, sorry, I’ve got no idea and I’ve had no time to study this ladder you’re talking about, with all these people on it.’
‘But they’ve had plenty of time to worry about you. You’re way behind.’
‘I can believe that. Shavings from my pencil are already with the Avignon police, picked up in Pierre junior’s kitchen. All I’ve been able to do is stall the procedure. I’ve got about five or six days before they’ll be on to me.’
‘It’s not that I really want to get into this,’ said Weill slowly, ‘but I don’t like these people. They work on my mind like bad cooking on my stomach. Since you need to make yourself scarce, I could probe some of the rungs on the ladder for you.’
‘The judge?’
‘Beyond the judge, I would hope. I’ll call you. But not on your regular number or mine.’
Weill put two brand-new mobiles on the table and slid one across to Adamsberg.
‘Yours, mine. Don’t switch it on until you’re over the frontier, and never when you’re using your other phone. Your regular mobile doesn’t have GPS, does it?’
‘Yes. I need Danglard to be able to get hold of me if my mobile gives out. What if I’m all alone at the edge of the forest?’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘Nothing,’ Adamsberg said, smiling. ‘Just this demon who prowls around at Kisilova. And then there’s Zerk who’s on the loose somewhere.’
‘Who’s Zerk?’
‘The Zerquetscher. That’s what the Viennese call him. The Crusher. Before Vaudel, he massacred someone in Pressbaum.’
‘Well, he won’t be looking for you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Neutralise the GPS, Adamsberg, you’re being imprudent. Don’t give them a way to reach and arrest you, or cause some accident, you never know. I repeat: you’re looking for a murderer and someone wants at all costs to stop you finding him. Keep your regular phone switched off as much as possible.’
‘There’s no risk, only Danglard has the GPS signal.’
‘Trust no one, when the high-ups get started with their bribes and their deals.’
‘Danglard is the exception.’
‘Nobody’s an exception. Every man has his price, his demons, everyone has a grenade under the bed. It makes a great chain of people around the globe who’ve got each other by the balls. Let’s call Danglard an exception, if you like, but someone somewhere will be watching Danglard’s every movement.’
‘What about you, Weill? What’s your price?’
‘Well, I have the good fortune to be very fond of myself. It reduces my greed and what I can ask the world for. All I want is to live in grand style, in a big eighteenth-century town house, with a staff of cooks, a live-in tailor, two cats purring at my feet, my own personal orchestra, a park, a terrace, a fountain, a few mistresses and chorus girls about the place, and the right to insult anyone I like. But no one is about to give me anything like that. So they don’t try to buy me, I’m too complicated and far too expensive.’
‘I can give you a cat. There’s a little girl-cat here, one week old, as soft as cotton wool. She’s always hungry, precious and delicate, she’d fit your grand house very well.’
‘I haven’t got the first brick of the house yet.’
‘It’s a start, the first rung on the ladder.’
‘I might be interested. But get rid of the GPS, Adamsberg.’
‘I’d have to trust you.’
‘Men who are dreaming of ancient glories don’t make good traitors.’
Adamsberg passed him the phone and drank the very last drop of beer. Weill removed the battery and took out the location chip with his thumbnail.
‘That was why I had to see you in person,’ he said, giving it back.
XXIX
COACH 17 FOR BELGRADE HELD A LUXURY COMPARTMENT: two bunks were made up with white sheets and red blankets, and there were bedside lamps, polished side tables, a washbasin and towels. Adamsberg had never travelled in such luxury before, and checked his tickets. Yes, berths 22 and 24. There must have been some mistake at the accounts department of Travel and Foreign Missions at police headquarters, and there would be hell to pay at some point. Adamsberg sat down on his couchette, feeling as satisfied as a burglar who happens on a fortune. He settled in as if in a hotel, spread out his files on the bed, examined the menu for dinner ‘alla francese’ which would be served at ten: cream of asparagus soup, solettes à la Plogoff, blue cheese from the Auvergne, tartufo, coffee and Valpolicella to drink. He felt just the same jubilation as when he had returned to his foul-smelling car in Châteaudun and found Froissy’s surprise provisions. So, he mused, it’s not the actual quality that gives pleasure but the unexpected well-being, regardless of the components.
He went on to the platform to light one of Zerk’s cigarettes. The young man’s lighter was black too, with a red design on it depicting the circuits of the brain. He had no difficulty spotting Uncle Slavko’s grandson, whose hair was as straight and black as Dinh’s, tied back in a ponytail, and whose eyes were amber-coloured and narrow over high Slavic cheekbones.
‘Vladislav Moldovan,’ the young man who was about thirty introduced himself, with a grin that covered his whole face. ‘You can call me Vlad.’
‘Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg. Thank you for agreeing to accompany me.’
‘On the contrary, it’s my pleasure. Dedo only took me twice to Kiseljevo, the last time I was fourteen years old.’
‘Dedo?’
‘My grandfather. I’ll go and visit his grave and tell him stories like he used to me. Is this our compartment?’ he asked, hesitating.
‘Foreign Missions must have mixed me up with someone important.’
‘Wow,’ said Vladislav, ‘I’ve never slept like someone important before. You need that if you’re going to confront the demons of Kiseljevo. I know some people who would rather stay hidden in a hut.’
Chatty fellow, said Adamsberg to himself, thinking that this was probably a professional deformation in someone who worked as a translator and interpreter. Vladislav translated from nine languages, and for Adamsberg, who could hardly remember Stock’s full name, this kind of brain was as strange as Danglard’s encyclopedic equipment. He was only afraid the young man with the sunny disposition would engage him in endless conversation.
‘Adrien Danglard – Adrianus, my grandfather used to call him – didn’t tell me why you’re going to Kiseljevo. As a general rule, people don’t go to Kiseljevo.’
‘Because it’s a small place, or because it has demons?’
‘Do you come from a village?’
‘Yes, Caldhez, a tiny place in the Pyrenees.’
‘Are there demons in Caldhez?’
‘Two: a nasty troll in a cave, and a singing tree.’
‘Wow. And what are you looking for in Kiseljevo?’
‘The roots of a story.’
‘It’s a very good place for roots.’
‘Have you heard about the murder in Garches?�
��
‘The old man who was chopped to bits?’
‘That’s it. Well, we found a note in his writing with the name of Kiseljevo in Cyrillic script.’
‘What has this got to do with my dedo? Adrianus said this was for Dedo.’
Adamsberg looked out of the window, trying to come up with an instant idea, which was not his strong point. He should have thought earlier of a plausible explanation. He didn’t intend to tell the young man that some Zerk had cut off his dedo’s feet. Things like that might pierce holes in the soul of a grandson, and destroy his sunny disposition.
‘Danglard listened to a lot of Slavko’s stories. And Danglard collects information the way a squirrel collects nuts, much more than he would need for twenty winters. He thinks he recalls that this man Vaudel – that was the victim’s name – went to live at some point in Kisilova, and that it was your Slavko who told him about this. It seemed perhaps that Vaudel was getting away from some kind of enemy by going to Kisilova.’
Not a very brilliant cover story, but it was enough, since just then a bell rang to say dinner was served. They decided to eat it in their compartment like really important people. Vladislav asked what ‘solettes à la Plogoff’ meant. And the steward explained in Italian that this meant sole cooked in the Breton fashion, with a sauce of oysters specially flown in from Plogoff, a village on the Pointe du Raz, the furthest western point in Brittany. He took their order, seeming to consider that this young man in a T-shirt and ponytail, with black hair covering his arms, was not a really important person, any more than his travelling companion.
‘If you’re as hairy as I am,’ Vlad said, once the steward had disappeared, ‘people send you to ride in a cattle truck. I inherited this on my mother’s side,’ he said sadly, pulling at the hairs on his forearm before breaking into a peal of laughter as abrupt as a vase shattering.
Vladislav’s laugh was deeply infectious and he seemed capable of laughing at anything without any assistance.
After the solettes à la Plogoff and the Valpolicella and the dessert, Adamsberg stretched out on the couchette with his files. He had to read everything and start from scratch again. This was the most wearing aspect of his work for him. Notes, files, reports, formal statements, where you couldn’t get through to any real sensation.
‘How do you get on with Adrianus?’ Vladislav interrupted, as Adamsberg was painfully deciphering the German file and conscientiously reading the report on Frau Abster, domiciled in Cologne, seventy-six years old. ‘And did you know that he reveres you,’ he went on, ‘but at the same time you’re driving him to distraction?’
‘Danglard is easily driven to distraction. He can do it without anyone’s help.’
‘He says he doesn’t understand you.’
‘Like earth, air, fire and water. All I can tell you is that without Danglard, our squad would long since have been shipwrecked on some terrible reef somewhere.’
‘Like the Pointe du Raz and Plogoff. That would be cool. You’d be shipwrecked with Adrianus and you could eat solettes like on the Venice–Belgrade train to console yourselves.’
Adamsberg was making no progress with the file. He was stuck on line 5 of the information about Frau Abster, born in Cologne, daughter of Franz Abster and Erika Plogerstein. Danglard hadn’t warned him about Vladislav’s non-stop talking, which was disturbing his concentration.
‘I have to read some of this standing up,’ said Adamsberg, getting up.
‘Wow.’
‘I’ll take it out into the corridor.’
‘Go ahead, have a walk and do your reading. Does it bother you if I smoke? I’ll air the compartment afterwards.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘I may be hairy but I don’t snore. Like my mother. What about you?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Too bad,’ said Vladislav, getting out his roll-ups and all his materials.
Adamsberg slipped outside. With a bit of luck, on his return, he would find Vladislav floating on waves of cannabis, and unable to speak. He took his pink and green files and walked up and down until the lights went out a couple of hours later. Vladislav was fast asleep with a smile on his face, shirtless, his torso covered with dark hair like a cat of the night.
Adamsberg felt as if he had dropped off to sleep quickly but superficially, his hand on his stomach, the fish perhaps being hard to digest. Or else the prospect of the next five or six days. He would go off to sleep for a few minutes, then wake up again with scraps of dreams about Plogoff oysters which seemed to be going round and round in his head. Frau Abster’s description superimposed itself on the menu, getting mixed up with the solette, written with the same typeface, Frau Abster born in Plogoff to Franz Abster and Erika Plogerstein. The words were stupidly entwined and Adamsberg turned on his side trying to shake himself free of them. Or maybe they weren’t so stupid. He opened his eyes, alert to the familiar alarm signal that he sometimes felt before he realised what it was telling him.
It was the name: Frau Abster, born to Franz Abster and Erika Plogerstein, he thought, switching on his bedside lamp. There was something about her mother’s maiden name, Plogerstein, which must have got confused with the solettes à la Plogoff. But why was that significant? Sitting up, he felt in his rucksack for his files, and the name of the Austrian victim suddenly emerged to join the Plogerstein/Plogoff mixture. Conrad Plögener. Adamsberg pulled out the description of the man who had been killed in Pressbaum, and held it under the lamp. Yes, Conrad Plögener, domiciled at Pressbaum, born 9 March 1961 to Mark Plögener and Marika Schüssler.
Plogerstein and Plögener. Adamsberg put the pink file on the bed and pulled out the white file, the French one. Pierre Vaudel, born to Jules Vaudel and Marguerite Nemesson.
No, nothing there. Adamsberg shook the shoulder of the long-haired cat lying on the other bunk in an elegant pose suitable for a luxury compartment.
‘Vlad, tell me something!’
The young man opened his eyes, surprised. He had undone his ponytail and his straight hair was loose over his shoulders.
‘Where am I?’ he asked, like a child waking in a strange bedroom.
‘You’re in the Venice–Belgrade train. You’re with a French cop and we’re on our way to Kisilova, your grandfather’s village, Dedo’s village.’
‘Yes,’ said Vladislav firmly, finding the connections again.
‘I’m waking you up, because I need some information.’
‘Yes,’ repeated Vladislav, and Adamsberg wondered if he was still high.
‘Your dedo, who were his parents? Did their names start with “Plog”?’
Vladislav burst out laughing in the dark, and rubbed his eyes. ‘Plog,’ he said, sitting up. ‘No Plogs, no.’
‘What was your dedo’s father called? Your great-grandfather. What was his name?’
‘Milorad Moldovan.’
‘And his mother? Your great-deda.’
‘Not deda, Adamsberg. Baba.’
Vladislav laughed again briefly.
‘Baba was called Natalja Arsinijević.’
‘And anyone else he knew, his friends, his cousins? No Plogs anywhere?’
‘Zasmejavaš me, you make me laugh, commissaire, I really like you.’
And Vladislav lay down again, turning his back, continuing to chuckle into his hair.
‘No, wait!’ he said suddenly, sitting bolt upright. ‘There was a Plog. His old history teacher – he used to talk about him all the time. Mihail Plogodrescu. Actually he was a cousin, born in Romania, who came to teach in Belgrade, then he went to live in Novi Sad, but he retired to Kiseljevo. The two of them were inseparable, like brothers with an age difference of fifteen years. The weird thing was that they died just one day apart.’
‘Thanks, Vlad, go back to sleep.’
Adamsberg slipped out into the corridor in his bare feet walking on the dark blue carpet and looked at his notebook. Plogerstein, Plögener, Plogoff, Plogodrescu. A great catch, from which the solettes must of course b
e eliminated, because they had nothing to do with anything. A pity though, thought Adamsberg, crossing out the Breton name regretfully, because he wouldn’t have got as far as this without them. His two watches were showing 2.25 and 3.45 a.m. He woke up Danglard, who was apt to be tetchy at night.
‘What is it now?’ muttered the commandant grumpily.
‘Danglard, forgive me. Your nephew keeps laughing and I can’t sleep on this train.’
‘He was like that as a kid. He has a sunny disposition.’
‘Yes, you told me. Listen, Danglard, can you find something for me urgently? The names of the grandparents of Pierre Vaudel senior. Both sides and if necessary go back further, as far as you have to, until you find a Plog.’
‘What do you mean, a Plog?’
‘A surname starting with Plog. Like Plogerstein, Plögener, Plogoff, Plogodrescu. Frau Abster’s mother’s maiden name was Plogerstein, the man killed in Pressbaum was called Plögener and your uncle Slavko had a Romanian cousin called Plogodrescu. It must be his feet that are in Highgate, not your uncle’s. If that’s any consolation.’
‘And Plogoff?’
‘Just the sole we ate tonight, Vlad and me.’
‘OK,’ said Danglard. ‘I presume this is urgent. What’s behind it?’
‘I think they’re all the same family. Remember – the vendetta that Vaudel was afraid of?’
‘A vendetta against the Plog family? But why don’t they all have the same name?’
‘Diaspora, dissimulation, hiding their surname for some good reason.’
With a weight off his mind, Adamsberg managed to sleep for two hours before Danglard called him back.
‘Got your Plog,’ he said. ‘The paternal grandfather, who came from Hungary. He must have changed it to Vaudel.’
‘What was his name, Danglard?’
‘I just told you – Plog, Andras Plog.’
XXX
VLADISLAV PRESSED HIS NOSE TO THE WINDOW, GIVING A running commentary as the train pulled into Belgrade, as if it were a real adventure, now and again saying ‘Plog’ and laughing to himself. The translator’s good humour gave the expedition the feeling of a merry escapade, whereas in Adamsberg’s mind it was taking on a darker complexion the nearer they came to the hermetic village of Kisilova.