by Fred Vargas
‘I looked at the dog, I know Fleg, he’s not hurt. When he doesn’t want to get up, there’s nothing to be done with him. He won’t leave here until they take his mistress away. If then.’
‘She must have fainted,’ said the fat gendarme unhelpfully, ‘or perhaps tripped over a chair. And fallen.’
Adamsberg shook his head, refusing to discuss it. Léone had been hit because of the butterfly in Brazil whose wing she had seen move. But which detail had she seen? And where? The little town of Ordebec itself could offer thousands of details a day, thousands of beats of the butterfly’s wings. And as many linked events. Including the murder of Michel Herbier. And somewhere among this mass of fluttering wings, one had vibrated in front of Léone’s eyes, and she had had the faculty of seeing or hearing it. But which one? Finding a butterfly’s wing in a settlement of two thousand inhabitants was trickier than the proverbial needle in the haystack. Something which had never seemed insurmountable to Adamsberg: all you had to do was burn down the haystack and you’d find the needle.
The ambulance had drawn up in front of the house and its doors clanged open. Adamsberg stood up and went out. He waited until the paramedics had cautiously slid the stretcher into the vehicle, and gently touched the old woman’s hair with the back of his hand.
‘I’ll be back, Léo,’ he said to her. ‘Brigadier, please ask Capitaine Émeri to have her guarded day and night, twenty-four-hour watch.’
‘Right you are, commissaire.’
‘Nobody must get into her room.’
‘Right you are, commissaire.’
‘Waste of effort,’ said the doctor coolly, as she got into the ambulance. ‘She’s unlikely to live beyond nightfall.’
Walking even more slowly than usual, Adamsberg went back into the house which the fat brigadier was now guarding. He ran water over his hands, washing off Léo’s blood, and wiped them with the towel he had used the previous evening to dry the dishes, then draped it neatly over the back of a chair. A blue-and-white tea towel with a pattern of bees on it.
Despite his mistress’s departure, the dog hadn’t moved. He was still whining quietly, with every breath.
‘Take care of him, will you?’ Adamsberg said to the gendarme. ‘Give him some sugar, and don’t leave him here.’
* * *
In the train, mud and leaves dried on the soles of his shoes and flaked off in a number of dark clumps, attracting disapproving glances from the woman sitting opposite. Adamsberg picked up a fragment, moulded to the pattern of his boot, and slipped it into his shirt pocket. The woman couldn’t know, he reflected, that she was sitting alongside the sacred remains from the Chemin de Bonneval, trampled by the hooves of the Ghost Riders. Lord Hellequin would be back to strike at Ordebec – he still had three living souls to capture.
XI
It had been two years since Adamsberg had seen Momo, the youth who liked torching fancy cars. He would be about twenty-three now, too old to be still playing with matches, too young to have given up his campaign. There was a shadow of stubble on his cheeks, but the new attempt to look manly didn’t make him look any more impressive.
The young man had been put in the interview room, which had no natural daylight or ventilation. Adamsberg observed him through the two-way mirror, and saw him slumped in his chair, staring at the floor. Lieutenants Noël and Morel were questioning him. Noël was pacing around, playing carelessly with the yo-yo he had confiscated from the young man. Momo had won championships with it.
‘Who put Noël on the job?’ Adamsberg asked.
‘He’s only just taken over,’ explained Danglard, looking uneasy.
The questioning had been going on since morning and Danglard had not yet ordered a halt. Momo had been sticking to the same version of events for hours: he had been waiting on his own in this park in the Fresnay district, he had found these brand-new trainers in his cupboard at home, and had taken them out of the bag. If there was petrol on his hands, it must have come from the shoes. He had no idea who Antoine Clermont-Brasseur was, never heard of him.
‘Has he had anything to eat?’ Adamsberg asked, over the intercom.
‘Yes.’
‘And to drink?’
‘Two Cokes. Good grief, commissaire, what are you imagining? We’re not torturing him.’
‘The prefect called up in person,’ Danglard intervened. ‘We’ve got to get a confession out of him by tonight. Straight from the top, Ministry of the Interior.’
‘And where are these famous trainers?’
‘Here,’ said Danglard, pointing to a desk. ‘They still reek of petrol.’
Adamsberg looked them over without touching them and nodded.
‘Yes, soaked to the ends of the laces,’ he agreed.
Brigadier Estalère hurried in, followed by Mercadet, holding a telephone. Without the unexplained protection of Adamsberg, young Estalère would long ago have left the squad for some little police station in the provinces. All his colleagues more or less thought that Estalère wasn’t up to the job, or indeed that he was completely stupid. His big green eyes were always wide open, as if he were trying to take in everything in the world around him, but he failed to register the most obvious things. The commissaire treated him as if he were a promising youngster, and assured everyone that he would realise his potential one day. And every day the young officer made scrupulous efforts to learn and understand. But over the two years he had been with them, nobody had yet seen this famous promise come to anything much. Estalère followed in Adamsberg’s footsteps like a traveller setting his compass, without any critical spirit; and at the same time he idolised Lieutenant Retancourt. The clash between the procedural methods of his two role models caused him the greatest perplexity, since Adamsberg journeyed by roundabout paths, while Retancourt moved in a straight line towards her objective, with the realistic reflexes of a buffalo heading for a waterhole. So the young brigadier often stopped at the fork in the road, unable to decide which way to go. At such moments of crisis, he went off and fetched coffee for everyone in the squad. This task he carried out to perfection, since he had memorised all the preferences, however minor, of all his colleagues.
‘Commissaire,’ Estalère now said breathlessly, ‘there’s been a disaster in the lab.’ He stopped to check his notes. ‘The samples taken from Momo are non-viable. An incident of contamination took place where they were stored.’
‘In other words,’ Mercadet interrupted – being on this occasion wide awake – ‘one of the technicians spilt a cup of coffee on the slides.’
‘Tea, actually,’ Estalère corrected. ‘Enzo Lalonde will be back to take more samples, but we won’t get the results before tomorrow.’
‘Annoying,’ Adamsberg murmured.
‘But since the traces of petrol might be getting fainter, the prefect has ordered us to see Momo’s hands are tied so that he can’t touch other surfaces.’
‘The prefect has already been told about the contamination?’
‘He calls the lab every hour,’ said Mercadet. ‘The guy with the cup of coffee got an earful.’
‘Tea, the guy with the cup of tea.’
‘Same thing, Estalère,’ said Adamsberg. ‘Danglard, call the prefect and tell him he needn’t bawl out the technician, we’ll have a confession from Momo by ten this evening.’
Adamsberg went into the interview suite, carrying the trainers by his fingertips, and with a nod of his head sent Noël out. Momo gave a smile of relief when he recognised him, but the commissaire shook his head.
‘No, Momo. Your days as leader of the gang are over. Do you understand who you set light to this time? Know who it was?’
‘Yeah, they told me, guy’s got a building firm and metal factories. Clermont.’
‘And who sells his products, Mo. All over the world.’
‘All right, he sells them.’
‘In other words, you burnt to death one of the pillars of French manufacturing, no less. You understand?’
‘It wasn�
�t me, commissaire.’
‘That’s not what I’m asking you. I’m asking if you understand.’
‘Yes.’
‘You understand what?’
‘That he was a pillar of the French economy.’ There was a trace of a sob in Momo’s voice.
‘In other words you’ve set fire to the whole fucking country. As we speak, the Clermont-Brasseur company is in chaos and stock exchanges all over Europe are nervous. Get it now? No, don’t start telling me stories about mystery rendezvous, parks and strange trainers. What I want to know is whether you were aiming deliberately at Clermont-Brasseur, or whether you got him by chance. Involuntary or premeditated homicide in other words. It makes a big difference.’
‘Commissaire, I dunno what you’re getting at.’
‘Don’t move your hands. Was he your target? Did you want to go down in the history books? If so, you’re on the right track. Put on these gloves and these trainers. Or just one, that’ll be enough.’
‘They’re not mine.’
‘Just put one on,’ said Adamsberg, raising his voice.
Noël, who was listening from behind the glasses, shrugged with annoyance.
‘Now he’s driving this kid to tears, hard as he can. And I’ll get the blame, because they all think I’m the vicious bastard round here.’
‘Give it a rest, Noël,’ said Mercadet. ‘We’ve got our orders. The fire that kid lit has gone right up to the Palais de Justice, we need a confession.’
‘And since when has our commissaire been so keen to obey orders?’
‘Since his head’s been on the block. Normal, isn’t it, to want to save your own skin?’
‘Of course it’s normal,’ said Noël, walking away. ‘But not from him. In fact, it disappoints me.’
Adamsberg came out of the interview room and handed the trainers to Estalère. He met the confused looks of his colleagues, especially Commandant Danglard.
‘You carry on, Mercadet, I’ve got this Normandy business. Now that Mo’s lost confidence in me, he’ll soon go to pieces. Put a ventilator in there, his hands will sweat less. And as soon as the technician gets the second set of results, send them to me.’
‘I thought you were opposed to charges being brought,’ said Danglard, rather precisely.
‘But since then, I’ve seen his eyes. He did it, Danglard. Sad, but true. Whether it was deliberate murder or not, we don’t know yet.’
If there was one thing about Adamsberg that Danglard disapproved of more than anything else, it was his habit of considering his hunches as solid fact. Adamsberg regularly replied that hunches were facts, material elements as valuable as a lab test. That the brain was a mega-laboratory quite capable of sorting and analysing any given data, such as for example the expression on someone’s face, and deriving virtually cast-iron results from it. This false logic infuriated Danglard.
‘It’s not a matter of seeing or not seeing, but of knowing.’
‘And we do know, Danglard. Mo sacrificed this old man on the altar of his political convictions. Today in Ordebec, someone smashed the skull of an old lady like throwing a glass on the floor. I’m in no mood to be lenient towards murderers.’
‘This morning, you thought Momo had fallen into a trap. This morning, you said he’d surely have got rid of his shoes instead of keeping them in his cupboard like a gift for the prosecution.’
‘Mo thought he was being too clever by half. By buying some new shoes and getting us to think they were a plant. But he was the planter.’
‘You think that because of the way he looks at you?’
‘For example.’
‘And what evidence did you find in his eyes?’
‘Arrogance, cruelty, and now a blue funk.’
‘So you’ve taken samples of all those things and analysed them?’
‘Danglard,’ said Adamsberg, with slightly menacing gentleness, ‘I told you I was in no mood to argue the case.’
‘I’m appalled,’ Danglard muttered.
Adamsberg took out his phone to call the hospital in Ordebec. He made a sign with his hand to Danglard, a sort of sweeping aside of objections.
‘Go home, commandant, that’s the best thing for you to do right now.’
Around them, seven colleagues had appeared to listen to the exchange. Estalère looked shattered.
‘And that goes for the rest of you too, if you think you can’t take what’s coming. I just need two men here with Mo, Mercadet and Estalère.’
The group, having been given its marching orders, dispersed in silence, puzzled and disapproving. Danglard, trembling with rage, had stalked off as fast as his awkward gait would let him, on his long legs which always looked as useless as melting candles. He went down the spiral stairs to the cellar, took out a bottle of white wine that he kept behind the boiler, and took a few rapid swigs. It was a pity, he told himself, that for once he had managed to hold out until 7 p.m. without touching a drop. He sat on the packing case he used as a bench, forcing himself to take deep breaths to calm down and above all to tame the pain of disappointment inside him. He felt a kind of panic, he who had been so fond of Adamsberg, who had counted on the seductive meanders of his mind, on his detachment and, yes, on his gentle nature, a rather simple and usually unvarying one. But time had passed and repeated success must have corrupted Adamsberg’s original character. Certainty and self-assurance must have seeped into his consciousness, bringing with them new elements, ambition, arrogance, rigidity. Adamsberg’s celebrated nonchalance was tilting and beginning to show its darker side.
Danglard put the bottle back in its hiding place, inconsolable. He heard the door of the office slam shut as the others obeyed orders and one by one left the building, hoping that tomorrow would bring better things. The obedient Estalère would be staying on guard with Momo, accompanied by Lieutenant Mercadet, who would probably nod off. Mercadet’s cycles of sleep and wakefulness were about three and a half hours. Being ashamed of this weakness, the lieutenant wasn’t in a position to challenge the commissaire.
Danglard got to his feet listlessly, thinking ahead to the evening meal with his five children, to dispel the echoes of the quarrel. His five children, he thought with fierce tenderness, as he gripped the handrail up from the basement. His real life was there, not with Adamsberg. He could resign, and why not? Go over to London and see the woman he loved but saw so little of. This near-resolution brought him a feeling of pride, injecting a little energy into his troubled mind.
* * *
Adamsberg, locked in his office, heard the door bang several times as his disconcerted colleagues left the building, a site now infected with unease and resentment. He had done what he had to do, and had nothing to reproach himself with. He’d been a bit crude in going about it, but the pressing urgency of the case left him little choice. Danglard’s angry outburst had surprised him. It was odd that his old friend hadn’t backed him up and followed him as he almost always did. Especially since Danglard was convinced Mo was guilty. His keen intelligence had been caught napping. But the waves of anxiety that often engulfed the commandant also prevented him seeing simple realities, distorting everything as they flooded over him and closing his eyes to the obvious. Never for very long.
At about 8 p.m. he heard Mercadet’s slow footsteps, bringing Mo to his office. In an hour, the lot of the young arsonist would be sealed and tomorrow he would have to face his colleagues’ reactions. The only one he really dreaded was Retancourt’s. But this was no time to hesitate. Whatever Retancourt or Danglard might think, he had looked into Mo’s eyes and read them clearly, and that made his next steps inevitable. He stood up to open the door, pocketing his phone. Léo was still clinging on to life, back in Ordebec.
‘Sit down,’ he said to Mo, who shuffled in head down, to hide his eyes. Adamsberg had heard him sobbing, his defences were dropping.
‘He hasn’t admitted anything,’ said Mercadet in a neutral tone.
‘Won’t be long now,’ said Adamsberg, pressing the youn
g man’s shoulder to make him sit down. ‘Mercadet, will you cuff him please, and then go and get a bit of rest upstairs?’
He meant, go to the room with the drinks dispensers and the cat’s feeding bowl, where Mercadet had installed cushions on the floor for his cyclical siestas. He had got in the habit of using the breaks to carry the cat up to its bowl and then they both had a nap. According to Retancourt, since the cat and the lieutenant had formed this bond, Mercadet’s sleep was more productive and his siestas shorter.
XII
Capitaine Émeri’s telephone rang when he was in the middle of dinner. He picked it up irritably. Dinner time was for him a luxurious and beneficial interlude which he protected in a near-obsessive manner, within a comparatively modest lifestyle. In his official lodgings, the largest of his three rooms had become his dining room, and there was always a crisp white tablecloth laid. On the cloth sat two sparkling pieces of silverware inherited from Marshal Davout: a fruit bowl and a bonbonnière, both stamped with the imperial eagle and his ancestor’s initials. Émeri’s housekeeper was in the habit of discreetly turning the cloth if it was soiled, to save on laundry, since she felt no respect for the long-dead Prince of Eckmühl.
Émeri wasn’t stupid. He knew that this homage to his ancestor was a form of compensation for a life which he himself regarded as humdrum, and a character showing none of the marshal’s famous audacity. Lacking sufficient courage, he had ducked out of a military career like his father’s, opting instead for the gendarmerie nationale, while his conquests were restricted to the opposite sex. He judged himself harshly, except at the sacred hour devoted to dinner, when he countenanced a self-indulgent escape. Sitting at table, he thought of himself as having personality and authority, and this daily dose of narcissism gave him renewed energy. His staff knew that he was not to be interrupted during the meal. So Brigadier Blériot’s voice was hesitant.
‘Very sorry, sir, but I thought I should inform you.’
‘Is it news about Léo?’