by Fred Vargas
‘Adamsberg,’ Zerk groaned.
‘Pathetic,’ said Paole. ‘So he doesn’t demolish his father after all. First little scratch and he calls him for help: por, qos. What were you trying to tell him?’
‘SOS. But I didn’t get it right. He won’t understand. Leave me alone, I won’t tell, I won’t say anything, I don’t know anything.’
‘Ha, but I need you, my boy. The police got a long way on this. So I’m going to leave you here, nailed to your chair. You decided to mutilate yourself, and you’ll be found dead at the scene of your crime – a fitting end. I’ve got a lot of things to do, and I want a bit of peace.’
‘So do I,’ gasped Zerk.
‘You!’ said Paole, pocketing the mobile. ‘What have you got left to do? Make your precious jewellery? Sing in your precious choir? Eat your supper? Who would care, you poor boy? You’re no use to anyone. Your mother’s left the country, your father doesn’t want anything to do with you. But at least you’ll accomplish something by your death. You’ll be famous.’
‘Please. I won’t tell, I’ll go far away. Adamsberg will never find out.’
Paole shrugged.
‘Naturally, he won’t find out. His pea brain’s not much bigger than yours, he’s just a windbag, like father, like son. Anyway, it’s a bit late to start calling him now. I’m afraid he’s no longer with us.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Zerk, twisting in his chair.
Paole leaned on the handle of the knife stuck into his hand and made the blade move in the wound.
‘Calm down. He’s as dead as a doornail. He’s walled up in the vault where Plogojowitz’s victims are all buried, in Kiseljevo, in Serbia. So he’s going to come riding to the rescue, is he?’
Paole then started to speak in a low voice, as if for himself alone, and the last hope ebbed from Zerk’s young face.
‘But you’re forcing me to move more quickly. Sooner or later they’ll trace your call, and they’ll identify who you are and where you are. So they’ll know where we both are. We’ve got a little less time than we bargained for, so prepare yourself, young man, and say your goodbyes.’
Paole had moved away from the armchair, but he was still too close to Zerk. By the time Adamsberg had opened the door and taken aim, he would have had four seconds’ warning to shoot at Zerk. Four seconds to distract him. Adamsberg took out his notebook, letting fall all the bits of paper that were chaotically pushed inside. The one he wanted was recognisable, a crumpled and dirty sheet on which he had copied the text from Plogojowitz’s grave. He took out his mobile and composed a text as quickly as he could: ‘Dobre veče proklet’ (= Good evening Cursed one). On the next line: ‘Plogojowitz’. Not very good, but the best he could manage. It would hold the man up for a minute or two, enough time to get between him and Zerk.
The phone bleeped in Paole’s pocket. He looked at the screen, frowned, and the door burst open. Adamsberg faced him, having moved in front of the young man, to cover him. Paole tilted his head, as if the sudden entry of the commissaire was some kind of music-hall act.
‘Oh, that’s your idea of a joke, is it, commissaire?’ said Paole, pointing to the phone. ‘You don’t say Dobro veče at this time of night, you say Laku noć.’
Paole’s scornful insouciance destabilised Adamsberg. He showed no interest in him at all. As if he were no more of a problem than a tuft of grass in the road. Still covering Paole with the gun, Adamsberg reached behind him and yanked out the knife.
‘Get out, Zerk! Move!’
Zerk hurtled out of the room, banging the door behind him, and they heard him run down the corridor.
‘How touching,’ said Paole. ‘And now, Adamsberg, it’s just the two of us. We’re both standing here, we’re both armed. You’ll aim for the legs, I’ll aim for the heart, and if you shoot first, I’ll still shoot you, won’t I? You haven’t a chance. My fingers are ultra-sensitive and my sangfroid is total. In such a strictly technical situation, your door to the unconscious is no use to you at all. On the contrary, it’s an obstacle. You’re still making the same mistake as in Kiseljevo. Walking around on your own. Like in the old mill. Yes, I know,’ he said, raising his large hand. ‘Your men are on their way.’
The man consulted his watch and sat down. ‘We have a few minutes, I’ll easily catch up with the young man. A few minutes to find out how you traced me. I don’t mean tonight and the idiot Armel’s message. You do know your son’s a complete imbecile, don’t you? No, I mean when you came to my surgery, two days ago, for your tinnitus. You knew then, didn’t you, because your head was resisting me all the time. How did you know?’
‘In the vault.’
‘And?’
Adamsberg was finding it hard to speak. The memory of the vault could still immobilise him, the memory of the night with Vesna. He tried to think of the moment the door had opened and Veyrenc had come in, when he had drunk Froissy’s cognac.
‘The little kitten,’ he said. ‘The one you wanted to kick to death.’
‘Yes, didn’t have time for that. But it will be done, Adamsberg. I always keep my word.’
‘“I killed that kitten. Just one kick did it. Making me rescue her, that got up my nose.” That’s what you said.’
‘Correct.’
‘Zerk had brought the kitten out from under a woodpile. But how would he know it was a female? A week-old kitten. Impossible. Lucio knew and I knew. And you knew, doctor, because you’d treated her. Just you.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Paole. ‘I see my mistake. But when did you realise that? At once?’
‘No, when I saw the kitten again, back home.’
‘Always slow on the uptake, Adamsberg.’
Paole stood up and a shot rang out. Stupefied, Adamsberg stared as the doctor fell to the floor. He was hit in the stomach on the left side.
‘I was aiming for his legs,’ said the anxious voice of Madame Bourlant. ‘I’m not a very good shot.’ The little old woman trotted over to the man gasping on the floor, while Adamsberg picked up the gun and telephoned for the emergency services.
‘He’s not going to die, is he?’ she asked, leaning over him.
‘No, I think the bullet is lodged in the gut.’
‘It’s only a .32,’ said Madame Bourlant as if she were describing her skirt size.
Paole’s eyes appealed to the commissaire.
‘The ambulance is on its way, Paole.’
‘Don’t call me Paole,’ the doctor ordered in a strangled voice. ‘There are no more Paoles now that the wicked ones are all wiped out. The Paoles are saved. Understand, Adamsberg? They’re free. At last.’
‘Have you killed them all? The Plogojowitzes?’
‘I didn’t kill them. Eliminating creatures is not killing. They weren’t humans. I do good in the world, commissaire, I’m a doctor.’
‘Then you’re not human either, Josselin.’
‘I wasn’t quite. But now I am, yes.’
‘You’ve wiped them all out?’
‘The five big ones, yes. There are two shroud-eaters still alive, women. But they can’t reconstitute.’
‘I only know about three: Pierre Vaudel-Plog, Conrad Plögener and Frau Abster-Plogerstein. And Plogodrescu’s feet, but that’s a long time ago.’
‘Someone’s ringing at the door,’ said Madame Bourlant, timidly.
‘It’ll be the ambulance men – go and open it.’
‘What if it isn’t the ambulance?’
‘It will be. Go on, for heaven’s sake, woman.’
The little old woman went off, muttering again about the bad manners of the police.
‘Who is she?’ asked Josselin.
‘Next-door neighbour.’
‘How did she manage to shoot me?’
‘No idea.’
‘Loša sreća.’
‘The other two, doctor. Who are the other two people you killed?’
‘I haven’t killed any people.’
‘The two other creatures then.’
/> ‘The grand master, Plogan, and his daughter. Terrible forces of evil. I started with them.’
‘Where?’
The paramedics came in and put down a stretcher, taking out their equipment. Adamsberg gestured to them to wait a few moments.
Madame Bourlant was listening hard to the conversation, shaking with fear.
‘Where?’
‘In Savolinna.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Finland.’
‘When? Before Pressbaum?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is Plogan their real name?’
‘Yes. Veiko and Leena Plogan. Dreadful creatures. He reigns no more.’
‘Who?’
‘I never pronounce his name.’
‘Peter Plogojowitz?’
Josselin nodded.
‘In Highgate. Finished. His line’s died out now. Go and see for yourself – the tree will die on Highgate Hill. And the tree roots around his tomb in Kiseljevo, they’ll die too.’
‘What about Pierre Vaudel’s son. Isn’t he a Plogojowitz too? Why did you let him live?’
‘He’s just an ordinary man. He wasn’t born with teeth. Cursed blood doesn’t run in all the branches.’
Adamsberg straightened up, but the doctor caught him by the sleeve.
‘Go and see, Adamsberg,’ he begged. ‘You know. You’ll understand. I need to know.’
‘See what?’
‘The tree on Highgate Hill. On the south side of the chapel, a big oak tree that was planted in the year of his birth, in 1663.’
Go and see the tree? Obey the demented wishes of a Paole? With his idea that Plogojowitz was in the tree, like the uncle in the polar bear?
‘Josselin, you’ve cut the feet off nine corpses, you’ve massacred five human beings, you locked me into that vault of hell, you’ve manipulated my son, and you were about to kill him.’
‘Yes, yes, I know. But just go and see the tree.’
Adamsberg shook his head in disgust or lassitude, stood up and gestured to the paramedics to take him away.
‘What is he talking about?’ asked Madame Bourlant. ‘Family problems?’
‘That’s exactly right. Where did you shoot from?’
‘Through the hole in the wall.’ Madame Bourlant took him into the corridor with her little steps. Behind an engraving, the thin partition wall had been pierced by a hole about three centimetres across, giving on to the piano room between two tapestries.
‘This was Émile’s lookout post. Since Monsieur Vaudel always left all the lights on, you were never sure if he’d gone to bed or not. Émile could look through the hole and see if he had left the desk. Émile, you know, used to pinch the odd banknote. Vaudel was rolling in money.’
‘How did you know all that?’
‘Oh, Émile and I got on all right. I was the only person round here who didn’t give him the cold shoulder. We had our little secrets.’
‘Like the revolver.’
‘No, that was my husband’s. Oh my goodness, I’m still shaking. Shooting a man, that’s not something you do every day. I was aiming low, but it jumped up. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t mean to shoot, I just came to see what was happening. And then, well, your police weren’t arriving, so it looked to me as if you’d had it, monsieur, so I thought I should do something.’
Adamsberg agreed. Yes. He would absolutely have had it. It was only twenty minutes since he had crept into the bathroom. A ferocious hunger suddenly made his stomach rumble.
‘If you’re looking for the young man,’ added the little old woman, trotting off to the cellar again, ‘he’s in my living room, trying to do something about his hands.’
XLVI
DANGLARD’S TEAM WAS FOLLOWING THE AMBULANCE, WHILE Voisenet’s was conducting the inquiry in the Vaudel house. Adamsberg had found Zerk sitting in the next-door living room, looking just as intimidated as he had when faced with Paole, and surrounded by four armed police officers. His hands were swathed in thick bandages, which Madame Bourlant had fastened with safety pins.
‘I’ll look after this one myself,’ said Adamsberg, hauling Zerk to his feet by one arm. ‘Madame Bourlant, have you got any painkillers?’
He made the young man take a couple of pills, and shoved him out towards his car.
‘Put your seat belt on.’
‘Can’t,’ said Zerk, holding up his bandaged hands. Adamsberg nodded, pulled across the seat belt and fastened it. Zerk sat passively wordless, shattered, as if deprived of sense. Adamsberg drove in silence. It was about five in the morning and almost light. He wasn’t sure what to do. He could follow the rules technically, or face what he had to head-on. A third solution, the kind Danglard would always whisper to him, was to steer matters to a compromise, elegantly, English fashion. But that kind of elegance wasn’t in his make-up. Feeling drained and vaguely discouraged, he just drove on without thinking. What did it matter, to have it out or not? What was the point? He could just let Zerk go off and live his life, without taking any further notice of him. Or he could drive to the end of the world without saying a word. Or he could leave him there. Clumsily, with his bandaged hands, Zerk had managed to take out a cigarette. But he couldn’t light it. Adamsberg sighed, pressed the cigarette lighter and handed it to him. Then he picked up the second mobile. Weill was calling.
‘Did I wake you, commissaire?’
‘I haven’t been to bed.’
‘Neither have I. Nolet has found the witness, a man who was in school with Françoise Chevron and Emma Carnot. He got Carnot surrounded half an hour ago. She was armed and on her way in person to her school friend’s apartment.’
‘There are some nights like that, Weill, when hunger stalks the world. Arnold Paole was arrested an hour ago. It was Dr Paul de Josselin. He was about to kill Zerk at the house in Garches.’
‘Any damage?’
‘Zerk’s hands are badly cut, Josselin’s in hospital in Garches with a bullet in his gut. Not life-threatening.’
‘Did you shoot him?’
‘No. The woman next door did. She’s sixty years old, five foot nothing, weighs a handful of kilos and had a .32.’
‘Where’s the young man now?’
‘With me.’
‘Are you bringing him back?’
‘Sort of. He can’t use his hands yet, so he’ll need some help. Tell Nolet to seal off Françoise Chevron’s house, they’ll try everything they can to get Emma Carnot out of the mess she’s in and keep it pinned on Chevron’s husband. And tell them to keep Carnot incommunicado for forty-eight hours. No statement to the press, not a word. The girl will be in court tomorrow. I don’t want Mordent to have been eaten alive for nothing.’
‘Naturally.’
Zerk passed him his cigarette end with a questioning look, and Adamsberg stubbed it out in the ashtray. In profile, as the light of morning came up, Zerk with his beaked nose and weak chin, apparently dreamily pursuing vague ideas, looked remarkably like Adamsberg, so much so it was a wonder that Weill had never noticed it. Josselin had stated confidently that Zerk was an imbecile.
‘I smoked your cigarettes in Kiseljevo,’ said Adamsberg. ‘The packet you left in my house. All but one.’
‘Josselin went on about some place called Kiseljevo.’
‘It’s where Peter Plogojowitz died in 1725. That’s where they built this special vault for his nine victims, and that’s where Josselin imprisoned me.’ Adamsberg felt an icy shiver run down his back.
‘So that bit was true,’ said Zerk.
‘Yes. It was freezing. And every time I think of it, I feel cold again.’ Adamsberg drove for a couple of kilometres without speaking.
‘He shut the door of the vault and he talked to me. He imitated your voice very well: “Know where you are now, scumbag?”’
‘That sounded like me?’
‘Very. “Everyone will know that Adamsberg abandoned his kid, and how the kid turned out. Because of you. You.” It sounded pretty convincing.’
&n
bsp; ‘And you thought it was me?’
‘Naturally I did. Like the little shit you were when you came to see me, “to fuck up my life”. That’s what you promised, wasn’t it?’
‘So what did you do in the vault?’
‘I practically suffocated in there until the morning.’
‘And who found you?’
‘Veyrenc. He’d been tailing me all the time to try and stop me arresting you. Did you know that?’
Zerk looked out of the window. It was broad daylight by now.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Where are we going now? Fucking police headquarters, I suppose.’
‘Did you not notice that we’re driving away from Paris?’
‘So where’re we going?’
‘Where the road runs out. The seaside.’
‘OK,’ said Zerk, closing his eyes. ‘And what are we supposed to do there?’
‘Eat something. Warm ourselves by the sun. Look at the water.’
‘I’m in pain. That asshole really hurt me.’
‘I can’t give you any more painkillers for an hour or two. Try to sleep.’
Adamsberg stopped the car facing the sea, when the road ran into the sand. His wristwatches and the height of the sun indicated that it was about half past seven. The beach was smooth and deserted, stretching out into the distance, with no sign of life except for a few groups of silent white birds. He got out of the car quietly. The calm sea and cloudless blue sky seemed very provocative, not at all suited to these last ten days of savage turmoil. They were inappropriate too for the state of things between himself and Zerk, with distress and bemusement sprouting like wild grass on a rubbish heap. A great storm over the sea would have been better, with the dawn coming up like thunder and a mist hiding the horizon. But nature had decided otherwise, and if she had chosen this still perfection, he would absorb it for an hour. Anyway, his fatigue had left him now, and he felt wide awake. He lay down on the sand which was still cool from the night, and raised himself on one elbow. At this hour, Vlad would be at the kruchema. Possibly as high as a kite. He punched in his number.
‘Dobro jutro, Vlad.’
‘Dobro jutro, Adamsberg.’
‘Where’s your phone? I can’t hear you very well.’