Have Mercy On Us All

by Fred Vargas

  “He’s doing it to keep under cover. In the first place it means he’s not saying anything for himself, since the messages are all quotations. A clever ploy, as he’s not giving himself away.”

  “I don’t trust guys who keep their noses that clean.”

  “And in the second place he quotes passages from the distant past, whose meaning is clear to no-one but himself. That’s called deep cover.”

  “Mind you,” said Joss with a wave of his knife, “I’ve nothing against the past. I even put a chapter from Everyman’s History of France into the newscasts, as you well know. It goes back to my schooldays. I used to like history lessons. I didn’t pay attention, but I liked them.”

  Joss finished his plate, and Decambrais ordered a fourth carafe. Joss glanced at the toff. He was putting it away by the gallon, not counting all that he must have drunk while waiting for Joss to turn up. Joss could stay the pace, but even so he could feel his grip slipping. He looked hard at Decambrais. Yes, the aristo was beginning to wobble. He must have been drinking so as to summon up courage to broach the question of the room. Joss realised that he was backing off as well. As long as they kept on talking about this and that, they weren’t talking about the hotel, and that was a step in the right direction.

  “It was the teacher I really liked,” Joss added. “I’d have liked it even if he’d been talking Chinese. He was the only one I missed after I got thrown out. There wasn’t much milk of human kindness at Tréguier, believe you me.”

  “What the hell were you doing at Tréguier? I thought you were from Le Guilvenec.”

  “I was doing bugger all, and that’s a fact. They’d put me in the boarding school to straighten me out. A waste of ammo, because Tréguier threw me out two years later and sent me back to Le Guilvenec, seeing as what a bad influence I’d been on the other boys.”

  “I know Tréguier,” Decambrais said off-handedly as he filled another glass.

  Joss gave him a quizzical glance.

  “You know Rue de la Liberté, then?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Well, that’s where it was, the boys’ boarding school.”

  “Yes.”

  “Just after the church.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to say ‘yes’ to everything?”

  Decambrais looked like he was falling asleep. He shrugged his shoulders. Joss shook his head.

  “You’re full to the gills, Decambrais. You can’t take any more.”

  “Yes, I am pissed, and I do know Tréguier. The two assertions are neither incompatible nor contradictory.”

  Decambrais drained his glass and motioned to Joss to replenish it.

  “Bullshit,” said Joss as he acceded to the aristo’s silent request. “It’s all bullshit, you just want to give me the soap. But if you think I’m going to roll over on my back just because some boozer confesses to having been to Brittany, then you’re making a big mistake. I’m not a patriot, I’m a sailor. I know Bretons with brains no bigger than any foreigner’s.”

  “So do I.”

  “Do you mean me to take that personally?”

  Decambrais shook his head unconvincingly. A rather long silence ensued.

  “But tell me the truth, do you really know Tréguier?” Joss asked with the persistence of a drunk.

  Decambrais drained his glass and said “Yes” once again.

  “Well, I hardly know the place,” said Joss in a burst of melancholy. “The head warder, Father Kermarec, found a way of keeping me in detention every Sunday. I think I only ever saw the town through the windows, and all I knew of it was what the other boys told me. Memory’s a real bitch, because I know the name of the bastard who ran Tréguier but I can’t recall the name of the history teacher who was the only one to take my side.”

  “Ducouëdic.”

  Joss slowly raised his head.

  “What was that?”

  “Ducouëdic,” Decambrais repeated. “Your history teacher.”

  Joss narrowed his eyes to a slit and leaned heavily over the table.

  “That’s it. Ducouëdic, Yann Ducouëdic. Hang on, Decambrais, are you tailing me? What are you after? Are you a flic? That’s right, isn’t it, Decambrais, you work for the flics! All these messages, they’re just bullshit, aren’t they? And the room, that’s another piece of bullshit! Cooked up so as to steer me into your nasty little flic’s net!”

  “Are you afraid of the police, Le Guern?”

  “What’s that to you?”

  “Keep it to yourself, then. But I am not a policeman.”

  “Pull the other one. How did you know about my Ducouëdic, then?”

  “He was my father.”

  Joss froze in position, with his elbows on the table and his chin jutting out. He was drunk, and he was suspended in disbelief.

  “Bullshit,” he muttered after a heavy pause.

  Decambrais unbuttoned his jacket and fumbled about for a while until he found the inside pocket. He pulled out his wallet and extracted an identity card which he handed to the ex-mariner. Joss looked at it this way and that, and went over name, mugshot, date and place of birth with his finger, as if checking up on his own eyes. Hervé Ducouëdic, born in Tréguier, seventy years old.

  When Joss looked up, Decambrais had put his index finger over his lips. Mum’s the word. Joss nodded agreement. Complications. He could see there were complications, despite having had one too many. But there was such a din in the Viking that there was no real danger of being overheard.

  “So … what’s this about ‘Decambrais’?”

  “Crap.”

  Well, hats off. Hats off to the toff. To give him his due. Joss took the time to have another hard think.

  “And so, are you or aren’t you an aristocrat?”

  “Am I what?”

  “An aristo.”

  “An aristocrat?” Decambrais put his ID card back into his wallet. “Look here, Le Guern, if I were an aristocrat, would I be slaving away making lace for a living?”

  “But you could be a ruined aristocrat.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m the first without the second. Shirtless. Down on my uppers. Cleaned out. And Breton.”

  Joss leaned back in his chair, flabbergasted and bereft, like a man who has just realised his pet theory doesn’t hold water.

  “Be careful, Le Guern. Not a word of this to anyone, you understand?”

  “Lizbeth?”

  “Not even Lizbeth knows. Nobody must know.”

  “So why did you tell me?”

  “Tit for tat,” Decambrais explained as he emptied his glass once more. “One good turn deserves another. Of course, if it makes you change your mind about the room, don’t hesitate to say so. It would be perfectly comprehensible.”

  Joss sat up to attention.

  “So are you still going to take it?” Decambrais asked. “Because there is a waiting list, you know.”

  “I’ll take it,” Joss blurted out.

  “Well, see you tomorrow, then.” Decambrais stood up. “And thank you for the messages.”

  Joss tugged at the toff’s sleeve.

  “Decambrais, what’s special about these messages?”

  “They’re sly and they’re smelly. I’m pretty sure that they’re dangerous, as well. As soon as I see the light, I’ll let you know.”

  “The beacon,” said Joss dreamily. “As soon as you see the beacon.”

  “That’s right. When I see the beacon.”

  VIII

  MOST OF THE 4s had already been removed from the front doors of the three blocks, especially from the two in the eighteenth arrondissement, which inhabitants said had been marked ten and eight days ago, respectively. But as they’d been daubed with high-quality acrylic paint, blackish trace-marks were still clearly visible on the wooden door panels. On the other hand, Maryse’s staircase still had several untouched examples, which Adamsberg had photographed before they were wiped. They had been done free-hand, not with a stencil, but th
ey all displayed the same features: about three feet high, with strokes that were a good inch wide, they were all reversed, with a splay-footed downstroke and a double notch on the crossbar.

  “Nice work, isn’t it?” Adamsberg said to his number two, who had not said a word throughout. “He must be very gifted. He does it in one go, as if he was writing a Chinese character. Doesn’t need to make corrections or to go over it again.”

  “No doubt about that,” said Danglard as he got into the passenger seat. “A firm and elegant hand. Very talented.”

  The photographer stowed his equipment in the boot and Adamsberg drove off at a gentle pace.

  “Do you need the prints urgently?” Barteneau asked.

  “No, not at all,” said Adamsberg. “Let me have them when you can.”’

  “The day after tomorrow, then. I’ve got some prints to make for the Quai tonight.”

  “Ah, and another thing. No need to mention this little job to the Quai. It’s just a friendly excursion. All right?”

  “If he’s that talented,” Danglard mused, “maybe he is a real painter.”

  “But they aren’t works of art, you know. I really don’t think so.”

  “On the other hand the whole set of 4s might just be some kind of art project. For instance, if he tackled hundreds of buildings all over Paris, he would get into the news eventually. The papers would call it a major project to take the community hostage, an ‘artistic intervention’. Give them six months, and the man’s name would be out.”

  “Yes. You’re probably right,” said Adamsberg.

  “I’m sure he is,” the photographer chimed in.

  Adamsberg suddenly recalled the name: Brateneau. No, Barteneau. Thin plus redhead plus photographer equals Barteneau. Splendid. But no way could he find the man’s first name. Still, you mustn’t ask for the moon, even from yourself.

  “There was once a fellow in Nanteuil, where I come from,” Barteneau continued, “who painted about a hundred dustbins in the space of a week. Bright red, with black polka dots. Then he hung them on telegraph poles. The result was the whole town looked like it had suffered an invasion of huge ladybirds sitting on giant twigs. Well, within a month, the prankster landed a job on local radio, and since then he’s become the local talking head on culture.”

  Adamsberg drove on quietly, finding crafty ways to get round the evening rush hour jams, and eventually they drew near to the Murder Squad HQ.

  “There’s something that doesn’t fit,” he said when he’d stopped at a red light.

  “I’ve got it,” said Danglard.

  “What?” said Barteneau.

  “The guy did not paint the doors of all the flats,” Adamsberg answered. “He painted all except one of the doors. In each of the blocks. But the missed door is not in the same place in each of the blocks. Sixth floor left on Maryse’s stair, third floor right at rue Poulet, and fourth floor left at rue Caulaincourt. Doesn’t fit very well with ‘action art’.”

  Danglard chewed his lip, one side then the other.

  “Asymmetry is what guarantees the work’s status as art, not decoration,” he suggested. “It signifies that the artist is offering us a reflection on the world and not a wallpaper design. It’s the missing piece in the jigsaw, the hole in the wall, the clinamen, the throw of the dice, the perfection of imperfection.”

  “That’s as may be, but the dice were loaded,” Adamsberg added.

  “The true artist is the master of chance.”

  “But he isn’t an artist,” muttered Adamsberg.

  He parked on the street in front of the Brigade and pulled on the handbrake.

  “All right,” said Danglard, “what is he, then?”

  Adamsberg crossed his arms on the steering wheel, looked into the far distance and thought hard.

  “Could you please try not to say ‘I don’t know’, sir?”

  Adamsberg smiled. “In that case I had better keep quiet.”

  Adamsberg strode home at a good pace as he really did not want to be late for Camille. He showered and then slumped into an armchair to daydream for half an hour, since Camille was usually punctual. The only thought that ruffled the surface was that he felt naked under his clothes, as he often did when he hadn’t seen Camille for a while. True, being naked under clothing is the natural condition of humankind. But the logical deconstruction of Adamsberg’s observation didn’t worry him one bit, because the fact remained that when he was expecting Camille he felt naked under his clothes, whereas when he was working, he did not. The difference was perfectly clear and obvious to him, and to hell with logic. And deconstruction.

  IX

  ON THURSDAY, IN a state of agitated impatience, in three short return trips fitted into the gaps between his three newscasts, and with the help of the van that Damascus lent him, Joss moved his belongings to his new digs. The young man also lent his muscles on the last round, to help get the heavy stuff down six flights of stairs. But there really wasn’t very much of it: a sea chest covered in black canvas with copper studs, a wall mirror with a painted panel above depicting a three-master in dock, and a heavy, hand-carved armchair made by Joss’s great-great-grandfather during one of his brief sojourns at home.

  Joss had had a bad night imagining ever more fearsome things to be afraid of. What with two litres of red wine inside him, Decambrais – Hervé Ducouëdic, that is – had spilled too many beans. Joss was afraid that the old fraud might wake up in a sober panic and send him packing to the ends of the earth. But nothing like that happened. Decambrais took it all in his stride. At 0830 sharp, there he was leaning on his door post, book in hand as per usual. If he had any regrets – and he probably did – or if he quaked at the thought of having placed his deepest secret in the callused hands of a stranger – and a Breton beast to boot – well, he didn’t let it show. And if he had a headache, and he must have, just as Joss did, well, he didn’t let that show either. He looked just as collected and concentrated as he usually did when he heard the two messages that morning which fell into the category that both of them now referred to as “the specials”.

  Joss gave them to him that evening when he’d finally settled in. Once he was at last on his own in his new room for the first time, he took off his shoes and socks, closed his eyes, relaxed his arms and stood blissfully still on the carpet. That very same moment Nicolas Le Guern, born at Locmaria in 1832, came to sit on his huge bed with its wooden posts, and said good evening.

  “Good evening to you,” said Joss.

  “Nice one, my lad,” the ancestor said as he leaned on his elbow on the quilt.

  “Not bad, eh?” Joss replied, half opening his eyes.

  “You’re better off here than you were over there. Didn’t I tell you newscasting had real potential?”

  “You’ve been saying that for seven years. Is that the reason you turned up tonight?”

  “Those messages,” old Le Guern drawled as he scratched his stubbly cheek, “those screeds you call ‘specials’, the ones you’re passing on to the toff, well, if I were you, I’d give them a wide berth. They don’t smell right.”

  “They’ve been paid for, old fellow, and top rate too.” Joss was putting his socks and shoes back on.

  The ancient mariner shrugged. “If I were you, I’d give them a wide berth.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning what it means, Joss my lad.”

  Decambrais, quite unaware that Nicolas Le Guern was visiting on the first floor of his house, was working away in his cubbyhole on the ground floor. He reckoned that this time one of the “specials” had rung a bell – faintly, to be sure, but maybe it was the ring of truth.

  The morning’s trawl had contained what Joss called “the next chapter from the gobbledegook guy”. That’s just it, Decambrais thought: it was a quotation that followed on from the last, from the middle of some source text. The mystery scribe had avoided quoting from the beginning of it. But why? Decambrais read and reread the messages in the hope that something in these
familiar yet unplaceable sentences would suddenly give away the name of their author.

  Up (and with my wife, who has not been at church a month or two) … Now I am at a loss to know whether it be my Hares-foot which is my preservative against wind, for I never had a fit of the Collique since I wore it.

  Decambrais sighed and put the sheet down, then turned to the other one, the one that had rung a bell:

  Et de eis quae significant illud, est ut videas mures et animalia quae habitant sub terra afugere ad superficiem terrae et pati sedar, id est, commoveri hinc inde sicut animalia ebria …

  He had scribbled a quick and over-literal translation under it, with a question mark in the middle: And among the things that are a sign of it, there is that you see rats and animals that live under ground fleeing towards the surface and suffering(?), that is to say that they come forth from that place like drunken animals …

  He’d been grappling with that sedar for an hour, because it was not a word of Latin. He was pretty sure it was not a copying error, because the pedant was in all other respects quite meticulous, and even used ellipses to indicate omissions from the source text. So if the pedant had written sedar, it must be because sedar occurred in the middle of a passage that was in all other respects written in impeccable medieval Latin. Decambrais slowly clambered up the steps of his library ladder to fetch another dictionary, and then stopped dead in his tracks.

  Arabic. It was a word of Arabic origin.

  He climbed back down in almost feverish haste and sat at his desk with his hands flat on the screed, as if to make sure it would not fly away. Arabic and Latin: a hybrid text. Decambrais shuffled through the papers on his desk to find all the others that referred to subterranean beasts coming to the surface, including the first Latin text that Joss had read out the previous day, and that begin in almost exactly the same way: You will see …

  You will see animals born of corruption, such as worms, frogs and flies, multiply beneath the earth, and if the reason for it is also subterranean you will see reptiles that live in the depths coming to the surface of the earth, abandoning their eggs, and sometimes dying. And if the cause is in the air, the same will happen to the birds.