by Fred Vargas
‘Lille’s in two hours,’ said Camille.
‘An hour for you, and an hour for me,’ said Adamsberg.
A few minutes before Lille, Adamsberg dressed in the dark. Then he helped Camille to get dressed, slowly. True enough, neither of them was feeling happy.
‘Goodbye, my love,’ he said.
He stroked her hair and kissed her.
He didn’t want to watch the train as it pulled out. He stayed on the platform, his arms folded. He realised that he had left his jacket in the compartment. He imagined that Camille had perhaps put it on, and that its sleeves fell down over her fingers, that she would look pretty like that, that she had opened the window and was watching the countryside go by in the night. But he wasn’t in the train, so he didn’t know what Camille was doing now. He wanted to walk out and find a hotel near the station. He would see his petite chérie again. For an hour. Let’s say one more hour before the end of his life.
The hotel manager said the only available room looked out on the railway. He said that didn’t matter.
‘Danglard, this is Adamsberg. Have you still got Le Nermord sitting there? He’s not asleep? Good. Tell him I won’t give him the satisfaction of dying for now. No, that wasn’t the reason I called. It’s because of the fashion magazine. Read the magazine, read all the articles by Delphine Vitruel. Then read the books by the great historian of Byzantium again. You’ll see then that she wrote his books for him. All on her own. All he did was put the documentation together. And with her vegetarian lover backing her up, Delphine was sooner or later going to kick against the pricks. As Le Nermord well knew. She would end up daring to speak out. And then everyone would know that the famous historian had never existed, and that she had been the one who did the thinking and writing for him. His wife. Everyone would know that he was useless, a pathetic domestic tyrant, a rat. That was the motive, Danglard, nothing else. Tell him killing Delphie didn’t solve anything. And I hope it kills him.’
‘You sound very hard-hearted tonight,’ said Danglard. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in Lille. And I’m not feeling happy, not happy at all, mon vieux. But it’ll pass. It’ll go over, I’m sure. You’ll see. Back tomorrow, Danglard.’
Camille was smoking in the corridor, her hands deep in the sleeves of Jean-Baptiste’s jacket. She didn’t want to look at the landscape. In a few moments she would be out of France. She would try to stay calm. After the frontier.
Lying on his hotel bed, Adamsberg was waiting to fall asleep, his hands clasped behind his head. He switched the lamp back on, and pulled his notebook from his back pocket. He didn’t think it really helped. But still.
With a pencil he wrote:
‘Am in bed in hotel room in Lille. Have lost my jacket.’
He stopped and thought. Yes, it was true he was in bed in Lille.
Then he added:
‘Can’t sleep. So I’m taking my time, lying on this bed, thinking about my life.’
FRED VARGAS was born is Paris. A historian and archaeologist by profession, she is now a bestselling novelist and a two-time winner of the CWA International Dagger Award. Her novels include Have Mercy on Us All, Seeking Whom He May Devour, The Three Evangelists, Wash This Blood Clean From My Hands, and This Night’s Foul Work.
SIN REYNOLDS is a historian, translator and former professor at the University of Stirling in Scotland.
VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2010
Copyright © 1996 Éditions Viviane Hamy, Paris
English translation copyright © 2009 Siân Reynolds
Published by arrangements with Harvill Secker, one of the publishers in
The Random House Group Ltd.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2010. Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2009, and simultaneously in Great Britain by Harvill Secker, a division of the Random House Group Ltd., London. Originally published in France under the title L’Homme aux cercles bleus by Éditions Viviane Hamy, Paris, in 1996.
Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Vintage Canada with colophon is a registered trademark.
www.randomhouse.ca
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Vargas, Fred
The chalk circle man / Fred Vargas; translated from the French by Siân Reynolds.
(The Commissaire Adamsberg series)
Translation of: L’homme aux cercles bleus.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37403-5
I. Reynolds, Siân II. Title. III. Series: Vargas, Fred. Commissaire Adamsberg series.
PQ2682.A697H6413 2010 843′.914 C2009-905273-3
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books By This Author
Title Page
Chapter 1 - I
Chapter 2 - II
Chapter 3 - III
Chapter 4 - IV
Chapter 5 - V
Chapter 6 - VI
Chapter 7 - VII
Chapter 8 - VIII
Chapter 9 - IX
Chapter 10 - X
Chapter 11 - XI
Chapter 12 - XII
Chapter 13 - XIII
Chapter 14 - XIV
Chapter 15 - XV
Chapter 16 - XVI
Chapter 17 - XVII
Chapter 18 - XVIII
Chapter 19 - XIX
Chapter 20 - XX
Chapter 21 - XXI
Chapter 22 - XXII
About the Author
Copyright