The Ghost Riders of Ordebec: A Commissaire Adamsberg Mystery

by Fred Vargas

  An ambiguous and slightly uneasy exchange, Adamsberg thought as he put down the phone. Émeri had been politely mocking him. He had let him get started, when he already knew all about the visit by a local resident. His unwillingness to be drawn was understandable. Having someone who saw visions on your patch was not a gift from heaven.

  Gradually the office was filling up. Adamsberg usually got there early. The large figure of Retancourt briefly blocked the light from the door, and Adamsberg watched as she moved heavily towards her desk.

  ‘The pigeon opened its eyes this morning,’ he said. ‘Zerk fed it through the night.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Retancourt calmly. She wasn’t given to showing emotion.

  ‘If he lives, he’s going to be called Hellebaud.’

  ‘Elbow? Funny name.’

  ‘No, Hellebaud, with an h. It’s some old name. An uncle or a nephew, of someone or other.’

  ‘Fine,’ the lieutenant said, switching on her computer. ‘Justin and Noël want to see you. Apparently Momo, our local pyromaniac, is at it again, but this time it’s serious. The car was completely burnt out as usual, but someone was asleep inside. According to the scene-of-crime people, an elderly man. Involuntary manslaughter at least – he won’t get away with six months this time. They’ve launched the investigation, but they would appreciate – what shall I say? – some guidance from you.’

  Retancourt stressed the word ‘guidance’ with apparent irony. Because for one thing, she didn’t consider Adamsberg capable of giving any, and for another she generally disapproved of the way the commissaire allowed himself to float with the flow of inquiries. This contradiction in their approach had been latent since the beginning and neither she nor Adamsberg had tried to resolve it. Which didn’t prevent Adamsberg having the instinctive affection for Retancourt that a pagan would have for the tallest tree in the forest. The only one that offers real refuge.

  The commissaire went over to the desk where Justin and Noël were noting down the latest information about the burnt-out vehicle with the man inside. Momo the firebug had just torched his eleventh car.

  ‘We’ve left Mercadet and Lamarre stationed by the flats where Momo’s pad is, Cité des Buttes,’ Noël explained. ‘Car was in the fifth arrondissement, rue Henri-Barbusse. Top-of-the-range Mercedes, as per usual.’

  ‘This man who died, do they know who he was?’

  ‘Not yet. Nothing left of his ID, or the number plates. The lads are working on the motor. Attack on a toff, it’s got Momo written all over it. He never tries anything outside the fifth.’

  ‘No,’ said Adamsberg, shaking his head. ‘This one’s not Momo. We’d be wasting our time.’

  In itself, wasting time didn’t bother Adamsberg. He was impervious to impatience and didn’t rush to follow the usually hasty rhythms of his colleagues, just as his colleagues couldn’t follow his slower meanderings. Adamsberg didn’t have a method, still less a theory, but it seemed to him that as far as time was concerned it was in the almost imperceptible interstices of an inquiry that the choicest pearls were sometimes to be found. Like the little shells that slip into cracks in the rock, far from the crashing breakers of the open sea. At any rate, it was there that he tended to come across them.

  ‘Go on, it’s classic Momo,’ Noël was insisting. ‘The old geezer must have been waiting for someone in the car. It was dark, and he must have dropped off. Best-case scenario, Momo didn’t notice him. Worst-case, he set fire to the car, passenger and all.’

  ‘No, it can’t be Momo.’

  Adamsberg visualised quite clearly the face of the young man in question, obstinate and intelligent, rather delicate under his shock of dark curly hair. He didn’t know why he hadn’t forgotten Momo, or why he liked him. While listening to his colleagues, he was simultaneously phoning about train times to Ordebec, since his car was in the garage for repairs. The little woman hadn’t appeared again and the commissaire presumed that since she had failed in her mission, she had gone back to Normandy. The commissaire’s ignorance about the Furious Army must have overwhelmed the last shreds of her courage. Because it must have taken courage to come and tell a cop about a horde of thousand-year-old demons.

  ‘Commissaire, he’s already torched ten cars, he’s famous for it. They all admire him on his estate. He’s moving up, he wants to go big time. For him there’s not much difference between a Merc and the guy inside it, they’re both class enemies.’

  ‘There’s all the world of difference, Noël, and he won’t make the jump. I know this lad, he’s been in youth custody twice before. But Momo would never torch a car without checking if there was someone in it.’

  * * *

  There was no station at Ordebec, it seemed; you had to get off at Cérenay and take a bus. He wouldn’t be there until five o’clock, which was rather a long excursion for a short walk. But it would be light enough in the summer evening to give him time to cover the five kilometres known as the Chemin de Bonneval. If a murderer had wanted to exploit the Lina girl’s madness, or fantasies, this was where, perhaps, he might have left the body. This escape to the forest was no longer a half-formed duty he felt vaguely obliged to fulfil for the little woman, but a healthy break. He could already imagine the smell of the path, the shadows, the carpet of leaves under his feet. He could easily have sent one of his juniors, or even persuaded Capitaine Émeri to go there. But the idea of exploring it for himself had made its way in his head that morning, gradually, inexplicably, though with the obscure feeling that certain inhabitants of Ordebec were in deep trouble. He switched off his mobile and turned his attention to the two lieutenants.

  ‘Find out everything you can about this old man who was burnt,’ he said. ‘Momo’s got a reputation in this part of the fifth arrondissement, and it would be easy to frame him for murder by using his MO, which isn’t complicated. All the killer would need would be some petrol and a short fuse. He gets the man to wait in the car, comes back under cover of darkness, and sets it alight. Find out about the victim, whether he could see and hear properly. And find out who was driving the car, whether it was someone the old man would have felt perfectly safe with. It shouldn’t take you long.’

  ‘Shall we check Momo’s alibi all the same?’

  ‘Yes. But get the remains of the petrol analysed – octane level and so on. Momo uses two-stroke, mixed with oil. Check the formula, it should be on file. But don’t try to reach me during the afternoon, I’m out now until this evening.’

  ‘Where?’ Justin’s enquiring glance said silently.

  ‘I’m going to look for some ancient riders in a forest. I won’t be long. Tell the others. Where’s Danglard?’

  ‘At the coffee machine,’ said Justin, pointing to the first floor. ‘He went to carry the cat to its feeding bowl, it was his turn.’

  ‘And Veyrenc?’

  ‘At the other end of the building,’ said Noël with a malicious smile.

  Adamsberg found Veyrenc in the office furthest from the large shared central office, leaning against a wall.

  ‘I’m immersing myself,’ he said, pointing to a pile of folders. ‘I’m looking at what you’ve been up to in my absence. My impression is that the cat’s put on weight, and so has Danglard. He looks better.’

  ‘Well, of course he’s put on weight! He spends the entire day next to Retancourt, lying on the photocopier.’

  ‘You mean the cat? If people didn’t carry him to his feeding bowl, he might make up his mind to walk for himself.’

  ‘We did try, Louis. He just didn’t eat, and we stopped the experiment after four days. He can walk perfectly well. When Retancourt goes away, he’s quite capable of jumping down from his perch and sitting on her chair. But if you meant Danglard, he’s got a new girlfriend: he met her at the London conference.’

  ‘That explains it. Still, when he met me this morning he seemed to be bristling with irritation. Did you ask him about the Riders?’

  ‘Yes. Very ancient, he said.’

 
; ‘Yes, very,’ said Veyrenc with a smile. ‘In the oldest of haunts lie the powers of the dead / Seek not for these secrets, buried deep under dread.’

  ‘I’m not seeking them, I’m just going for a stroll along the Chemin de Bonneval.’

  ‘Is that a grimweld?’

  ‘Yes, the one near Ordebec.’

  ‘And did you tell Danglard about your little expedition?’

  Veyrenc was tapping into his computer.

  ‘Yes, and like you say, he was bristling with irritation. He loved telling me about the Riders, but he doesn’t like me going after them.’

  ‘Did he tell you about people being “seized”?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, you should know, if this is what you’re after, that it’s very rare for the bodies of those seized to be abandoned in a grimweld. You usually find them simply in their homes, or on a duelling ground, or down a well, or near some deconsecrated church. Because you know that abandoned churches attract the devil. As soon as the righteous leave it, the Evil One comes in, and those who are seized by the Riders are returning to the devil, that’s all.’

  ‘Logical.’

  ‘Look,’ said Veyrenc, pointing at his computer screen. ‘This is a map of the Forest of Alance.’

  ‘Here it is,’ said Adamsberg, following a path with his finger, ‘this must be it.’

  ‘And here you have the Chapel of St Antony of Alance. And there, in the other direction, south, a calvary. Those are the places you should visit. Take a cross with you for protection.’

  ‘I’ve got a pebble from the river back home in my pocket.’

  ‘That should do the trick.’

  VII

  In Normandy, the temperature was about six degrees cooler than in Paris, and as soon as he was standing on the forecourt of the almost-deserted bus station, Adamsberg turned his head to catch the fresh breeze, allowing it to run over his neck and ears, in an almost animal gesture, like a horse shaking off flies. He walked round the north side of the small town of Ordebec and half an hour later set off down the Chemin de Bonneval, to which he was directed by an ancient, hand-painted wooden signpost. Contrary to what he had expected, it was a narrow bridlepath: no doubt the idea of hundreds of armed men riding along it had made him imagine a broad and imposing avenue, under a canopy of tall beech trees. This path was much more modest, made of two long rutted tracks with grass growing between them, and on either side were ditches full of brambles, elm saplings and hazel bushes. Many blackberries were already ripe, well ahead of time, because of the abnormal heat, and Adamsberg picked some as he went along the path. He walked slowly, looking carefully at the ditches, and leisurely eating the fruit in his hand. He was surrounded by flies buzzing round his face as if anxious to taste his sweat.

  Every few minutes, he stopped to pick a fresh handful of blackberries, tearing his old black shirt on the thorns. Halfway along, he stopped suddenly, remembering he hadn’t left any message for Zerk. He was so used to living alone that letting people know when he would be away took some effort. He called his son on his mobile.

  ‘Hellebaud has stood up,’ reported the young man. ‘He ate some seeds all by himself. Then he crapped on the table.’

  ‘That’s what happens if you come back to life. Put a plastic sheet on the table for now. There are some in the attic. I won’t be back till tonight, Zerk, I’m on the Chemin de Bonneval.’

  ‘Have you seen them?’

  ‘No, it’s still too light. But I’m looking for the body of the hunter. Nobody’s been here for three weeks, there are brambles everywhere, they’re fruiting early. If Violette phones, don’t tell her where I am, she wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Zerk, and Adamsberg told himself his son was perhaps sharper than he looked. Crumb by crumb, he was amassing information about him.

  ‘I’ve changed the light bulb in the kitchen,’ Zerk added. ‘And the one on the stairs needs changing too, shall I go ahead?’

  ‘Yes, OK, but don’t put in too strong a bulb. I don’t like it when you can see everything.’

  ‘If you meet the Ghost Riders, call me!’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to, Zerk. I dare say if they go past that’ll knock out the signal. The shock of two different eras.’

  ‘Could be,’ agreed the young man and rang off.

  Adamsberg advanced another few hundred metres, probing the sides of the path. Because Herbier was dead, he was quite sure of that. It was the only point on which he agreed with Madame Vendermot, the woman who would fly away if you blew on her. At this point, Adamsberg realised he had already forgotten the name for the little seeds of the dandelion clock.

  There was a silhouette on the path and Adamsberg, narrowing his eyes, went forward more cautiously. A very long silhouette, sitting on a tree trunk, and so old and bent that he was afraid he might scare it.

  ‘Ello,’ said the old woman, in English, as she saw him approach.

  ‘Hello,’ Adamsberg replied in surprise, pronouncing the H. Following a recent visit to London, ‘hello’ was one of the few words of English he knew, along with ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

  ‘You took your time getting here from the station,’ she said.

  ‘I was picking blackberries,’ Adamsberg explained, wondering how such a confident voice could come out of this skeletal figure. Skeletal but intense. ‘You know who I am then?’

  ‘Not exactly. Lionel saw you get off the Paris train and on to the bus. Then Bernard told me, and what with one thing and another, here you are. Seeing what’s going on at the moment, the chances are you’re a policeman from Paris. There’s a bad atmosphere in these parts. Incidentally, Michel Herbier is no great loss.’

  The old woman sniffed loudly and wiped a drop off the end of her very long nose with her hand.

  ‘And you were waiting for me?’

  ‘Not at all, young man, I’m waiting for my dog. He’s besotted with the bitch on that farm, just over there. If I don’t bring him over to cover her now and again, he’s impossible. Renoux, the farmer, is furious, he says he doesn’t want his yard full of little mongrels. But what can you do? Nothing. And I’ve had a summer cold, and haven’t been able to bring him out for ten days.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid, all alone on this path?’

  ‘What of?’

  ‘The Furious Army?’ Adamsberg suggested tentatively.

  ‘Oh don’t worry,’ said the old woman with a shake of her head. ‘In the first place it isn’t dark, and in any case, I don’t see them. It isn’t given to everyone.’

  Adamsberg could see a huge blackberry above the old woman’s head but he didn’t dare disturb her to reach it. It was strange, he reflected, how instinctively the urge to pick berries returns to humans the minute they go into a forest. That would have pleased his friend, the prehistoric scholar Mathias. Because when you think about it, it’s the act of gathering that’s bewitching. Blackberries in themselves aren’t all that marvellous a fruit.

  ‘My name’s Léone,’ said the woman, wiping another drop from her large nose. ‘Usually known as Léo.’

  ‘Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, commissaire from the Serious Crime Squad in Paris. Glad to have met you,’ he added politely. ‘And now I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘If it’s Herbier you’re after, you won’t find him along there. He’s lying in a pool of dried blood, up by St Antony’s Chapel.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes, and he’s been dead for some time. Not that anyone will grieve for him, but it’s not a pretty sight. Whoever did it didn’t mess about, you can’t even see his face.’

  ‘Was it the gendarmes who found him?’

  ‘No, young man, it was me. I often take flowers to the chapel, I don’t like to leave St Antony all alone. St Antony protects animals. Do you have an animal?’

  ‘I’ve got a sick pigeon.’

  ‘There you are then. When you go to the chapel, you need to make a request. He helps people find things that are lost as well. As I ge
t older, I lose lots of things.’

  ‘You weren’t upset? By finding a corpse up there?’

  ‘It’s not the same if you’re expecting it. I knew he’d been killed.’

  ‘Because of the Ghost Riders?’

  ‘Because of my age, young man. Hereabouts, a bird can’t lay an egg without my knowing about it or feeling it in my bones. So for instance, last night you can be sure a fox took a chicken from Deveneux’s farm. He only has three legs and no tail.’

  ‘The farmer?’

  ‘The fox. I’ve seen his droppings. But believe me, he’s quicker than you’d think. Last year this coal tit took a fancy to him. First time I’ve ever seen anything like it. It would perch on his back and he never snapped at it. Just that one, no other bird, mark you. The world’s full of details, have you noticed? And since no detail is ever repeated in exactly the same shape and always sets off other details, there’s no end to it. If Herbier’d still been alive, he’d have finished up killing that fox, and while he was at it, the coal tit as well. That would have led to a lot of trouble during the local elections. But I don’t know whether the coal tit has come back this year. Out of luck.’

  ‘And have the gendarmes come? You’ve told them?’

  ‘Now, how could I do that? I had to wait for my dog. So if you’re in a hurry, you can just call them yourself.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ said Adamsberg after a moment. ‘The gendarmes don’t like Paris cops coming and sticking their noses in.’

  ‘So why are you here then?’

  ‘Because a woman from Ordebec came to see me. So I thought I’d take a look.’

  ‘Mother Vendermot? She’s frightened for her brood. And she’d certainly have done better to keep her mouth shut. But this business has upset her so much she couldn’t resist going for help.’

  A large beige dog with long floppy ears emerged suddenly from the bushes with a yap, and came to lay its head on its mistress’s long thin legs, closing its eyes as if to offer thanks.