by Fred Vargas
Fckng address fast.
Adamsberg came back to the table and typed in Léo’s address unwillingly, his mood darkened. Clouds gathering in the west, rain tonight.
‘Problems?’
‘A colleague is coming out here,’ said Adamsberg, pocketing the mobile.
‘Well, we were always round at Léo’s,’ Lina continued regardless. ‘She educated us, her and the count. They say she isn’t going to survive, that her mechanism can’t function any more. You found her, they say. And she said something to you.’
‘Just a minute,’ said Adamsberg, holding up his hand to make her stop. He took out a pen and wrote ‘mechanism’ on his paper napkin. A word which the doctor with the name of a fish had used. A word that made his eyes mist over, and awakened an idea in there somewhere, but he couldn’t identify it. He put the napkin in his pocket and looked at Lina with the eyes of a man waking from sleep.
‘So did you see your father among the Riders, when you were eleven?’
‘There was one man with them, yes, but there was all this flame and smoke, he had his hands up to his face, screaming. So I couldn’t be sure it was him. But I suppose it was. I recognised his shoes.’
‘And was anyone seized the second time?’
‘That time, there was an old woman. We knew her, she used to go round throwing stones at people’s shutters, and shouting curses, she was the kind of woman who scared the local kids.’
‘Was she supposed to have murdered anyone?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Unless perhaps her husband. He’d died long before.’
‘And did she die?’
‘Yes, nine days after the army appeared. But peacefully, in her bed. After that I never saw the Riders until this last time, a month ago.’
‘And the fourth living person, did you not recognise them? Man, woman?’
‘A man, but I’m not sure. Because a horse had fallen on him, and his hair was on fire, you see. I couldn’t make out his face.’
Lina put her hand on the curve of her stomach, as if to appreciate with her fingers the meal she had eaten so voraciously.
* * *
It was four thirty by the time Adamsberg arrived back at Léo’s house on foot. His body was feeling the strain from having struggled against its desires. From time to time, he took out the paper napkin, looked again at the word ‘mechanism’ and put it back in his pocket. No, the word meant absolutely nothing to him. If there was an idea in there somewhere, it must be lying in the deepest recesses, wedged under a rock in the ocean and masked by fronds of seaweed. Sooner or later, it would release itself and float zigzagging up to the surface. It was the only way Adamsberg knew how to think. Wait, cast his net across the surface of the water, and see what it caught.
In the guest house, Danglard, his sleeves rolled up, was in charge of preparations for supper, while holding forth under the attentive gaze of Zerk.
‘It’s very rare for anyone’s little toe to look good,’ he was saying. ‘It’s usually twisted, deformed and turned under, not to mention the nail, which is very reduced in size. Now, when they’ve browned on one side, you can turn them over.’
Adamsberg leaned against the jamb of the door and watched as his son obeyed the commandant’s instructions.
‘And it’s our shoes that do that to it?’ Zerk was asking.
‘Evolution. We walk less than we did, so the little toe has atrophied, it’s gradually disappearing. One day, thousands of years from now, it will just be a fragment of toenail on the side of the foot, like on a horse. But shoes don’t help of course.’
‘Like wisdom teeth. They don’t have room to come through.’
‘Correct. The little toe is the wisdom tooth of the foot, so to speak.’
‘Or the wisdom tooth is the little toe of the mouth.’
‘Yes, but if you put it that way, it’s less easy to understand.’
Adamsberg came inside, and poured himself a cup of coffee.
‘How did it go?’ Danglard asked.
‘She irradiated me.’
‘Bad vibes?’
‘No, golden. She’s a bit plump, her teeth stick out a bit, but she irradiated me.’
‘Dangerous,’ commented Danglard disapprovingly.
‘I don’t know if I ever told you about this kind of honey cake I once had at my aunt’s when I was little, called a kouglof. She’s like that, only life-size.’
‘Remember that this Vendermot woman is a morbid fantasist.’
‘Possibly. But that’s not the way she seems. She’s both confident and childlike, chatty and prudent.’
‘Perhaps her toes are not so pretty.’
‘Shrinking with evolution,’ put in Zerk.
‘Doesn’t bother me.’
‘If it’s reached that stage,’ Danglard said, ‘you’re no longer fit to pursue this inquiry. You can cook the dinner and I’ll take over from you.’
‘No, I’m going to visit her brothers at seven. Veyrenc is coming down this evening, commandant.’
Danglard took the time to pour half a glass of water on to the pieces of chicken, covered the pan and turned down the gas.
‘Now you let it simmer for an hour like that,’ he said to Zerk, before turning to face Adamsberg again. ‘We don’t need Veyrenc. Why did you ask him to come?’
‘He invited himself, for no reason. Danglard, in your view, why would a woman put a shawl round her shoulders if it’s a hot day?’
‘It might rain,’ said Zerk. ‘There are clouds in the west.’
‘To hide something she’s ashamed of,’ Danglard contradicted him. ‘A blemish perhaps or the mark of the devil.’
‘Well, it still doesn’t bother me,’ Adamsberg repeated.
‘Those who see the Furious Army, commissaire, are not sunny, benevolent individuals. They must be dark and sinister souls. Irradiated or not, you’d do well to bear that in mind.’
Adamsberg didn’t answer, but brought out his napkin once more.
‘What’s that?’ Danglard asked.
‘It’s a word that doesn’t mean anything to me, “mechanism”.’
‘So who wrote it?’
‘I did of course.’
Zerk nodded, as if he understood perfectly.
XXIII
Lina showed him into the main room, where three men were waiting, lined up behind the large table and looking wary. Adamsberg had asked Danglard to come along, so that he could verify the irradiation for himself. The commissaire easily identified the middle brother, Martin: tall, skinny and brown, like a branch of dried wood, the one who had had to eat the food scraped out of the table leg. Hippolyte, the oldest brother, aged about forty, had an impressive head, and blond hair rather like his sister’s, but without the same radiance. Tall and solidly built, he was extending a large, slightly deformed hand. At the end of the table, Antonin watched apprehensively as the two men approached. Thin and dark like Martin, but better proportioned, he was holding his arms folded tightly across his waist in a posture of protection: the youngest one, the one made of clay. About thirty-five, looking a bit older perhaps, because of his drawn face, in which his anxious eyes seemed very large. From her armchair in an inconspicuous corner of the room, the mother made only a slight movement of her head. She was wearing a shabby grey blouse instead of the flowered overall.
‘We wouldn’t have let Émeri across the threshold,’ Martin explained, waving his arms about jerkily like a huge grasshopper. ‘But you’re different. We were waiting for you before having an aperitif.’
‘Very nice of you,’ said Danglard.
‘We’re nice people,’ said Hippolyte, agreeing calmly, and putting glasses on the table. ‘Which one is Adamsberg?’
‘I am,’ said Adamsberg, sitting down on an old chair, the legs of which were tied together with string. ‘This is my deputy, Commandant Danglard.’
He noticed then that all the chairs were reinforced with string, no doubt to stop them breaking and causing Antonin to fall. Perhaps that was als
o the explanation for the rubber cladding nailed to the surrounds of the doors. It was a big house, but sparsely equipped and in poor repair, with holes in the plaster, cheap plywood furniture, draughts under the doors, and walls which were almost bare. There was a buzzing sound in the room, so loud that Adamsberg instinctively put his hand to his ear, as if his tinnitus of the previous months had returned. But Martin moved quickly towards a closed wicker basket.
‘I’ll take this out,’ he said. ‘If you’re not used to it, the noise they make’s annoying.’
‘Crickets,’ Lina explained in a whisper. ‘He’s got about thirty in the basket.’
‘Is Martin really going to eat them tonight?’
‘The Chinese eat them,’ Hippolyte assured him, ‘and the Chinese have always been years ahead of us. Martin cooks them in pastry with sausage meat, eggs and parsley. I prefer them in a quiche.’
‘The flesh of crickets helps strengthen the clay,’ Antonin put in. ‘The sun does too, but you have to be careful or it dries out.’
‘Émeri told me about it. How long have you had this clay problem?’
‘Since I was six.’
‘What does it affect, your muscles, or is it ligaments, nerves?’
‘No, it affects parts of my bones. But the muscles are attached to the bones so they find it harder to work the clay bits. So I’m not very strong.’
‘I see.’
Hippolyte opened a bottle of port and poured it into the glasses – which were old mustard pots, either opaque or badly wiped. He took one across to his mother who hadn’t budged from her corner.
‘Eno yad eh si gniog ot eb deruc,’ he said with a broad grin.
‘One day he is going to be cured,’ Lina translated, in some embarrassment.
‘How do you do that?’ asked Danglard. ‘Saying the letters backwards.’
‘You just have to read the word backwards in your head. What’s your name, your full name?’
‘Adrien Danglard.’
‘Neirda Dralgnad. Sounds quite nice, Dralgnad. You see, it’s not so hard.’
And for once, Danglard felt he had been bested by an intelligence absolutely superior to his, or at least one which had developed extraordinarily in a certain direction. He was outclassed and for a moment distressed. Hippolyte’s natural talent seemed to sweep away all his classic culture, which seemed stale and second-hand. He knocked back his port in one mouthful. It took the roof off your mouth, no doubt the cheapest in the shop.
‘So what do you want from us, commissaire?’ asked Hippolyte with his big grin – producing an effect that was vaguely attractive, jolly even, but at the same time rather sinister. Perhaps because he seemed to have kept some of his baby teeth, which made his mouth look irregular. ‘Do you want us to tell you what we were doing the night Herbier died? Which was when anyway?’
‘July the twenty-seventh.’
‘What time?’
‘We don’t know that, because the body was only found much later. The neighbours saw him going off at 6 p.m., and from his house to the chapel would take about a quarter of an hour. He must have had to push the moped the last thirty metres or so. The murderer was waiting there, at about 6.15, let’s say. And yes, I do need to know where you were.’
The four siblings looked at each other as if they had been asked a ridiculous question.
‘But what would that prove?’ asked Martin. ‘If people don’t tell you the truth, what would you do?’
‘If you lie to me, I’ll be suspicious of course.’
‘But how would you know?’
‘I’m a cop. I hear thousands of lies. Over time, you get to recognise when people are lying.’
‘How?’
‘It’s something about the way they look or blink, or move parts of their body, or in the tremors in their voice, or how quickly they speak. It’s as if the person suddenly developed a limp, instead of walking normally.’
‘For instance,’ said Hippolyte, ‘if I don’t look you in the eye, that means I’m lying?’
‘It could be the opposite,’ said Adamsberg with a smile. ‘The twenty-seventh was a Tuesday. I’d like to hear from Antonin first.’
‘All right,’ said the youngest brother, hugging his arms to his body. ‘I practically never go out. What I mean is, it’s dangerous for me to be out of doors. I work from home, on websites, buying and selling antiques and second-hand furniture. It’s not much, but it’s a sort of job. On Tuesdays I don’t go out at all, because it’s market day in town, and there’s always a lot of pushing and shoving until late in the afternoon.’
‘No, he didn’t go out,’ put in Hippolyte, refilling the only empty glass on the table – Danglard’s. ‘Nor did I. Ew erew lla ereh rof erus.’
‘He said we were all here for sure,’ Lina translated. ‘But no, Hippo, that’s not true. I stayed late at the office to finish a file. We had to put in a big report by the thirtieth. I came home to make the supper. Martin came to the office sometime in the afternoon, to bring us some honey. He had his baskets.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Martin, who was pulling on his long fingers and making the joints crack. ‘I went to collect stuff from the forest, and was probably out until about seven. After that it’s too late, the creatures are back in their holes.’
‘Sey, ouy era thgir,’ admitted Hippo.
‘After supper, if there’s nothing on the telly, we often play dominoes, or dice games,’ said Antonin. ‘That’s fun,’ he said naively. ‘But that night, Lina didn’t play with us, she was reading over her file.’
‘Ton os doog nehw ehs si ton gniyalp.’
‘Oh, stop it, Hippo,’ said Lina, ‘the commissaire isn’t here to play games with you.’
Adamsberg looked at all five of them, the mother shrinking into her chair, the luminous sister who provided their income and keep, and the three brothers who were all some kind of crazy genius.
‘The commissaire knows,’ said Hippolyte, ‘that Herbier was killed because he was evil, and also our father’s best mate. He died because the Riders decided to seize him. If we’d wanted to kill him, we could have done it ages ago. What I don’t understand is why Lord Hellequin seized our father thirty-one years ago, and only came for Herbier so long after. But we’re not supposed to question Hellequin’s plans.’
‘Lina tells me that no one has ever been charged with the murder of your father. And you don’t suspect anyone, Hippo? You came in and found Lina holding the axe?’
‘The murderer,’ said Hippo, tracing a circle in the air with his deformed hand, ‘comes from who knows where, like black smoke. We’ll never know, any more than we will for Herbier and the three others.’
‘Are they going to die?’
‘Certainly,’ said Martin, getting up. ‘Excuse me, it’s time for Antonin’s massage. Half past seven just struck. If we go past the time, it’s not good. But carry on, we can still listen.’
Martin went to fetch a bowl of yellowish mixture from the fridge while Antonin shyly took off his shirt.
‘It’s mainly celandine extract and formic acid,’ Martin explained. ‘It stings a bit, but it’s very good for absorbing the clay.’
Martin started spreading the ointment over his brother’s bony torso, and by the glances exchanged in the room, Adamsberg gathered that none of the others really believed that Antonin was half made of clay. But they played the game, looking after their brother and reassuring him. Because he had been smashed to bits when the father threw him downstairs as a baby.
‘Yes, we’re nice people,’ Hippolyte repeated, rubbing his long blond, rather grubby curls. ‘But we won’t shed any tears over our father or the other arseholes she saw being carried along by the horsemen. Have you noticed my hands, commissaire?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was born with six fingers on each hand. An extra little finger.’
‘Hippo is very special,’ said Antonin with a smile.
‘It’s not common, but it happens sometimes,’ remarked Martin,
who was now attacking his brother’s left arm, applying the ointment very precisely.
‘Six fingers on your hand is a sign of the devil,’ said Hippolyte with an even bigger grin. ‘That’s what people have always said round here. As if anyone could believe such foolishness.’
‘You believe in the Riders, don’t you?’ said Danglard, asking with a glance if he could help himself to another finger of port, rotgut though it was.
‘We know Lina sees the Riders, that’s different. If she sees them, she sees them. But we don’t believe in signs of the devil and rubbish like that.’
‘But you do believe in dead men riding on horseback along the Chemin de Bonneval.’
‘Commandant Dralgnad,’ said Hippolyte, ‘the dead can return without being sent by god or the devil. Anyway, their leader is Hellequin, not the devil.’
‘That’s right,’ said Adamsberg, who didn’t want Danglard to start an argument about Lina and her vision of the Riders. For a few minutes, he had not been following the conversation closely, but trying to work out what his own name was spelled backwards.
‘My father was ashamed of my hands with their six fingers. He made me wear mittens, he made me eat my food off my knees so as not to have my hands on the table. He was disgusted at the sight of them, and humiliated that a son of his looked like that.’
Smiles once more spread over the faces of the siblings, as if this sorry affair of the sixth finger amused them all greatly.
‘Tell them, tell them,’ said Antonin, looking delighted at the prospect of hearing the story again.
‘One night when I was eight years old, I put my hands on the table without mittens. Our father got into a terrible rage, worse than Hellequin. He fetched his axe. The same one he was chopped in two with later.’
‘It was the bullet twisting in his head,’ put in their mother suddenly, in a plaintive voice.
‘Yes, maman, it must have been the bullet,’ said Hippo impatiently. ‘He got hold of my right hand and he chopped off the finger. Lina says I fainted. Mother screamed, the table was covered in blood and Mother rushed at him. But he just picked up my left hand and cut off the other finger too.’
‘The bullet moved in his brain.’