by Fred Vargas
‘It was written on a photo in the kitchen.’
‘No, Amédée’s dead. Long time ago. We don’t talk about it.’
‘Why not?’ asked Adamsberg, ignoring the warning signs.
‘What’s it to you?’
‘You never know. With a ghost about, understand? You have to think of everything.’
‘Well, perhaps so,’ Oswald conceded.
‘My neighbour says that the dead don’t leave us if they haven’t finished their lives. They come back to worry the living for centuries.’
‘You mean Amédée hadn’t finished living?’
‘You tell me.’
‘He was coming back home from another woman, one night,’ Oswald said, with some reticence. ‘He had a bath, so my sister wouldn’t guess. And he drowned.’
‘In the bathtub?’
‘Like I said. He must have taken a queer turn or a stroke. And in the bath, there was water, right? And if your head goes under water, you can drown, just like in a pond. That was what finished my sister’s mind off.’
‘Was there an inquest?’
‘Of course. They got everyone sweating with panic for weeks. You know what the cops are.’
‘They suspected your sister?’
‘They drove her crazy, yes. Poor woman. She hasn’t the strength to lift a sack of potatoes. So how she could have drowned a big lad like Amédée in his bath, I don’t know. Especially since she was barmy about him, stupid bugger that he was.’
‘Wait a minute. You said he was as sharp as a needle.’
‘You catch on quickly too, don’t you?’
‘What do you mean, then?’
‘He’s not the boy’s father. Gratien’s from her first marriage, her first husband. He died and all, if you want to know, two years after they married.’
‘What was his name?’
‘He was from Lorraine. Not from round here. Cut his legs with a scythe when he was mowing a meadow.’
‘Your sister doesn’t seem to have much luck.’
‘You can say that again. That’s why, round here, they don’t make fun of her little ways. She’s entitled, if it comforts her.’
Oswald jerked his head, as if relieved to have finished with the subject.
‘Now what I’ve told you, please don’t go shouting it from the rooftops. This is a family story, and it stays in the village. We’ve forgotten it, and that’s that.’
‘I never repeat things, Oswald.’
‘Don’t you have stories like this as well, kept in your village?’
‘I’ve got one, yes. But at the moment it’s getting out of the village.’
‘Not a good idea,’ said Oswald, shaking his head. ‘It might seem a little thing but it’s like a monster getting loose.’
Oswald’s nephew, a lad with freckled cheeks like his uncle’s, was standing in front of Adamsberg, his shoulders drooping. He didn’t dare refuse to speak to the senior policeman from Paris, but it put him severely to the test. Stare fixed on the ground, he described the night he had seen the ghost; the story echoed what Oswald had said.
‘Did you tell your mother?’
‘Course I did.’
‘And she wanted you to tell me about it?’
‘Yes. After you came here for the concert.’
‘Do you know why?’
The boy suddenly hunched his shoulders.
‘People say all kinds of rubbish,’ he said. ‘My mother’s got her own ideas, you got to understand her, that’s all. Anyway, she must be right, ‘cos here you are asking about it.’
‘Your mother’s quite right,’ said Adamsberg, to calm the lad.
‘People say things their own way,’ Gratien insisted. ‘Ain’t any one way better than another, though.’
‘No, no,’ Adamsberg agreed. ‘Just one more thing and I’ll let you go. Shut your eyes. Now tell me what I look like and what clothes I’m wearing.’
‘Really?’
‘If the commissaire says so,’ Oswald intervened.
‘OK, you’re not so tall,’ Gratien began, timidly. ‘’Bout the same as my uncle. Brown hair … is it OK to say anything?’
‘Everything you can think of.’
‘Hair’s bit of a mess, then, some of it’s hanging in your eyes, the rest pushed back. Big nose, brown eyes, black jacket, canvas, lot of pockets, sleeves pushed up. Trousers … black as well, I think, a bit worn, and you’re not wearing shoes.’
‘Shirt, sweater, tie? Concentrate.’
Gratien shook his head, his eyes squeezed tight shut.
‘No,’ he said firmly.
‘What, then?’
‘Grey T-shirt.’
‘Open your eyes. You’re a perfect witness, very rare.’ The teenager smiled, reassured by having passed this test.
‘It’s dark as well,’ he said proudly.
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘You didn’t trust what I said before? About the ghost?’
‘Anyone’s memories can change a bit, over time. What do you think the ghost was doing? Just walking about? Drifting here and there.’
‘No.’
‘Looking in the air? Pacing up and down, waiting? Do you think it was expecting someone?’
‘No, what I think it was doing, it was looking for something, a grave maybe, but it wasn’t in no hurry. It wasn’t going quickly.’
‘So what scared you about it?’
‘It was the way it walked. And all that grey floaty stuff wrapped round it. I’m still scared.’
‘Try and forget it – I’ll take care of it now.’
‘But what can you do about it, if it was the figure of Death?’
‘We’ll see, said Adamsberg. ‘We’ll think of something.’
XXIV
ON WAKING, VEYRENC FOUND THE COMMISSAIRE ALREADY UP AND DOING. Veyrenc, having lain down fully dressed, had slept badly: now and then a picture of either the vineyard or the High Meadow would flash before his eyes. One or the other. His father was lifting him up off the ground, he was in pain. Was it November or February? Before the late grape harvest, or after? He could no longer see the scene clearly, a headache was pulsing at his temples. Caused either by the rough wine served in the café in Haroncourt, or by the painful confusion of his memories.
‘We’re going back to Paris, Veyrenc. Don’t forget, no shoes in the bathroom. She’s had a tough life.’
Oswald’s sister served them a huge breakfast, the kind that kept ploughmen going until midday. Contrary to the tragic person whom Adamsberg had been expecting, Hermance was cheerful and talkative, and indeed kind-hearted enough to melt a hundred hearts of stone. She was a tall, rather angular woman who moved around cautiously, as if she was surprised to find herself alive. Her chatter was composed of the most trivial non sequiturs, some pointless, some completely odd, and she could evidently keep it up for hours. In a sense, it was a work of great artistry, a lacy network of words, woven so fine that it contained only holes.
‘… eat something before going to work, that’s what I say every day,’ Adamsberg heard. ‘Work makes you tired, yes, when I think of all that work. Yes, indeed, that’s it, isn’t it? You must have some work to do, I expect, I saw you came in a car. Oswald has two cars, one for work, he ought to wash that van. It carries mud everywhere, and that just makes more work, well, there you are. I didn’t make your eggs too hard. Gratien, now, he won’t eat eggs, of course. That’s how he is, other people are different, aren’t they? One thing and another, that’s what makes it all so difficult, so there you are.’
‘Hermance, said Adamsberg cautiously. ‘Who suggested you talk to me? About the thing in the graveyard, I mean.’
‘Oh yes, that’s what I said to Oswald. Yes, better do that, it can’t do any harm, but if it doesn’t do any good, come to that, well, there you are, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, er, there you are,’ said Adamsberg, trying to communicate on the same wavelength as Hermance. ‘So someone advised you to talk to me about it? Hilaire, perhaps, or A
nglebert? Or Achille? Or the priest?’
‘Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? We can’t have disgusting things like that in the graveyard, and afterwards you just wonder, don’t you, and that’s what I said to Oswald, it wouldn’t hurt to ask you. Yes, indeed.’
‘We’re on our way now, Hermance,’ said Adamsberg, intercepting a glance from Veyrenc who was signalling to him to give up.
The two men put their shoes on outside the house, after taking care to leave their room as tidy as a stage set. From behind the door, Adamsberg could hear Hermance continuing to talk to herself.
‘Ah yes, that’s work isn’t it? Mustn’t let things get on top of you.’
‘A bit missing there,’ said Veyrenc sadly, as he tied his laces. ‘Either she was born like that or she lost it somewhere.’
‘Lost it somewhere, I think. Both her husbands died young and suddenly, one after the other. We can mention that here, but we’re not allowed to repeat anything about it outside Opportune-la-Haute.’
‘That’s why Hilaire hinted that Hermance brought bad luck. Men would be afraid to marry her, it could be the death of them.’
‘Once you get a reputation like that, you can never get rid of it. It sticks to you like a tick in your flesh. You can pull the tick off, but the jaws stay in there, still working away.’
A bit like Lucio’s spider, Adamsberg thought to himself.
‘Since you seem to know a few of the people round here, who do you think advised her to see you?’
‘I don’t know, Veyrenc. Maybe nobody at all. She was probably worried about the ghost for her son’s sake. I think she’s scared stiff of the gendarmes, after the inquest on Amédée. And she had must have heard Oswald mention me.’
‘Do people really think she killed both her husbands?’
‘They don’t really think that, but they wonder about it. Whether she could have killed them in person, or maybe just by willing it. We’ll take a look at the graveyard before we go back.’
‘What are we looking for?’
‘Whatever the ghost was up to. I promised the young man I’d sort it out. But Robert didn’t talk about a ghost, he talked about a “thing,” and Hermance talked about “disgusting things” in the graveyard. Or perhaps we should try another tack.’
‘What?’
‘To try and understand why they dragged me all the way out here.’
‘If I hadn’t driven you,’ Veyrenc objected, ‘you wouldn’t be here at all.’
‘Yes, lieutenant, I know. But it’s just a feeling.’
A shade passing, thought Veyrenc.
‘Apparently Oswald gave his sister a puppy,’ he remarked. ‘But it died.’
Adamsberg was walking up and down the grassy alleyways of the little graveyard, holding an antler in each hand. Veyrenc had offered to take one of them for him, but Robert had made it very clear that they were not to be separated. Adamsberg paced round the site, taking care not to knock the great horns against the monuments on the tombs. It was a modest graveyard, and only minimally maintained. Grass was growing up through the gravel in the walks. Most people here could not afford large funeral vaults and many graves were simply grassy mounds, some marked with a wooden cross bearing a name painted on it in white. The tombs of Hermance’s two husbands had been covered by thin limestone slabs, plain grey and without flowers. Adamsberg was anxious to leave, yet he lingered, enjoying the obstinate ray of spring sunshine as it warmed the back of his neck.
‘Where did this lad Gratien see the figure?’ asked Veyrenc.
‘Over there,’ said Adamsberg, pointing.
‘And what should we be looking for?’
‘Dunno.’
Veyrenc nodded, without showing annnoyance. Except when it came to Pyrenean valleys, the lieutenant was not the kind of man to be impatient or short-tempered. This near-cousin did resemble Adamsberg in a way, as he calmly accepted the improbable or the difficult. He too was enjoying the sunshine on his back, and was tempted to stay as long as possible, walking through the wet grass. Adamsberg strolled round the little church, noticing the spring brightness which announced its presence by making the slate roof and the marble stones shine.
‘Commissaire,’ Veyrenc called.
Adamsberg walked over to him, taking his time. The sunlight was playing on the red streaks in Veyrenc’s hair. If the stripes had not been the result of torture, Adamsberg would have found them quite attractive. Out of evil came forth sweetness.
‘I know we don’t know what to look for,’ said Veyrenc, pointing to a grave. ‘But this is another woman who had bad luck. Dead at thirty-eight, a bit like Elisabeth Châtel.’
Adamsberg considered the grave, a mound of earth, waiting for a headstone. He was beginning to understand the lieutenant a little, and knew that he would certainly not have called him over for nothing,
‘The song of the earth, can you hear it?’ said Veyrenc. ‘Can you decipher what it’s telling us?’
‘If you’re talking about the grass growing on the grave, I can see some blades that are short and some that are long.’
‘One might think – but only if one was looking for something to think – that the short blades have grown later than the others.’
The two men fell silent, each asking himself at the same moment whether he was really looking for something to think.
‘They’ll be waiting for us in Paris,’ Veyrenc objected to himself.
‘One might think,’ said Adamsberg, ‘that the grass at the head of the grave is shorter, and therefore a later growth than the rest. It makes a sort of circle. And this woman is from Normandy, like Elisabeth.’
‘But if we spent all the time visiting graveyards, we’d probably find thousands of blades of grass all different lengths.’
‘Yes, that’s right. But there’s no reason not to check whether there’s a hole under the short grass, is there?’
‘It’s for you to judge, my lord, if the signs we see here
Are the products of chance, or are something to fear.
And if the dark pathway you now desire to trace
Will lead us to success or else into disgrace.’
‘Better find out right away,’ said Adamsberg, placing the antlers on the ground. ‘I’ll tell Danglard we’re extending our stay in the country.’
XXV
THE CAT TIPTOED ROUND THE OFFICES OF THE SERIOUS CRIME SQUAD, FROM one secure perch to another, from one knee to the next, from a brigadier’s desk to a lieutenant‘s chair, as if crossing a stream on stepping stones without wetting its feet. It had started life as a little ball of fluff following Camille in the street, and had continued under the protection of Adrien Danglard, who had been obliged to give it lodging at the office. All because this cat was incapable of looking after itself, being completely without that rather disdainful independence which most cats so grandly display. Although it was an uncastrated male, it was the embodiment of dependence on others and inclined to non-stop sleep. The Snowball, as Danglard had baptised it when he took it in, was quite unlike the sort of cat a squad of police officers might have adopted as a mascot. The team took it in turns to look after the big, soft, furry creature, scared of its own shadow, which needed to be accompanied when it went anywhere, whether to eat, drink or relieve itself. But it had its favourites. Retancourt was the leader by far in this respect. The Snowball spent most of its days close to her desk, snoozing on the warm lid of one of the photocopy machines. The machine in question could not be used without giving the cat a fatal shock. In the absence of the woman he loved, the Snowball trailed back to Danglard or, in unvarying order of preference, to Justin, Froissy and, oddly enough, Noël.
Danglard considered himself lucky when the creature deigned to walk the twenty metres to its feeding bowl. One time in three, it would give up and roll on to its back, obliging someone to take it to the food or to its litter tray in the drinks room. That Thursday, Danglard was holding the cat under his arm, like a floorcloth hanging down on both sides, when B
rézillon telephoned, wanting Adamsberg.
‘Where the devil is he? His mobile’s not on. Or perhaps he’s refusing to answer it.’
‘I don’t know, Monsieur le divisionnaire. But I expect he’s dealing with some pressing matter.’
‘Oh, bound to be,’ said Brézillon with a harsh laugh.
Danglard put the cat down, so that the divisionnaire‘s anger should not frighten it. The consequences of the expedition to Montrouge had exasperated Brézillon. He had already told the commissaire to stop following up that particular lead, since tomb-robbers were never murderers, according to all the psychiatric records.
‘You’re not very good at lying, Commandant Danglard. Please inform him that I expect him to be back at his desk by five this afternoon. And what about the death in Reims? Still working on it?’
‘Sorted, Monsieur le divisionnaire.’
‘And this nurse who’s on the run? What the devil are you doing about her?’
‘We’ve put out her description. She’s been reported in twenty different places already this week. We’re following them up and checking.’
‘And Adamsberg’s in charge of that?’
‘Yes, of course, sir.’
‘From a country graveyard in Opportune-la-Haute?’
Danglard swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of white wine and shook his head at the cat. It was clear that the Snowball was on the verge of becoming an alcoholic and needed watching. His only independent forays were to find the personal caches used by Danglard. He had recently discovered the one underneath the boiler in the basement. This was proof positive that the Snowball was not the imbecile everyone took him for, that he was in fact a cat of exceptional flair. But, alas, Danglard could hardly inform anyone else of this prowess.
‘As you see, it’s pointless trying to put one across me,’ Brézillon went on.
‘Not trying to, sir,’ said Danglard, sincerely.
‘The Squad is on a hiding to nothing. Adamsberg’s leading it astray, and you’re all following him. If you don’t already know what he’s up to, which frankly would surprise me, I’ll tell you what your boss is doing right now. He’s exploring an inoffensive grave in some godforsaken village out in the sticks.’