This Night's Foul Work

by Fred Vargas

  By midnight, Danglard, at last feeling calmer about King David, and soothed by the serenity emanating from Adamsberg, was finishing the last of the bottle he had brought with him.

  ‘Burns well, your fire,’ he commented.

  ‘Yes, that was one of the reasons I wanted this house. Remember old Clémentine’s fireplace? I spent night after night in front of it. I would light the end of a twig and make circles in the dark, like this.’

  Adamsberg put out the overhead light and plunged a long twig into the flames, then traced circles and figures-of-eight in the near-darkness.

  ‘Pretty,’ said Danglard.

  ‘Yes, pretty, and mesmerising.’

  Adamsberg gave the twig to his deputy and rested his feet on the brick surround, pushing his chair back.

  ‘I’m going to have to drop the third virgin, Danglard. Nobody seems to believe in her, nobody wants to know. And I haven’t the slightest idea how to find her. I’ll have to abandon her to her fate and her cups of coffee.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Danglard, blowing gently on the end of the twig to rekindle it.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe you’re going to let her drop. Nor am I. I think you’ll go on looking. Whether the others agree or not.’

  ‘But do you think she even exists? Do you think she’s in danger?’

  Danglard drew a few figures-of-eight.

  ‘The hypothesis based on the De Reliquis is very fragile,’ he replied. ‘It’s like a thread of gossamer, but the thread does exist. And it links together all these odd elements in the story. It even links up to the business of shoe polish on the soles of the shoes and dissociation.’

  ‘How?’ asked Adamsberg, taking back the twig.

  ‘In medieval incantatory ceremonies, people drew a circle on the ground. In the middle of it would be the woman who would dance and call up the devil. The circle was a way of separating off one piece of ground from the rest of the earth. Our killer is working on a piece of ground that belongs just to her, spinning her thread inside her own circle.’

  ‘Retancourt hasn’t gone along with me about this thread,’ said Adamsberg, rather grumpily.

  ‘I don’t know where Retancourt is,’ said Danglard, pulling a face. ‘She didn’t come into the office again today. And there’s still no reply from her home.’

  ‘Have you called her brothers?’ asked Adamsberg with a frown.

  ‘Called her brothers, called her parents, called a couple of her friends I had the numbers of. Nobody’s seen her. She didn’t let us know she wouldn’t be in. And nobody in the squad has any idea what she’s up to.’

  ‘What was she working on?’

  ‘She was supposed to be on the Miromesnil murder with Mordent and Gardon.’

  ‘Have you listened to her answering machine?’

  ‘Yes, but there are no particular messages about meeting anyone.’

  ‘Are any of the squad cars missing?’

  ‘No.’

  Adamsberg threw down the twig and stood up. He paced around the room for a few moments with folded arms.

  ‘Capitaine, raise the alarm.’

  XLIII

  NEWS OF THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LIEUTENANT VIOLETTE RETANCOURT FELL like a bombshell in the offices of the Serious Crime Squad, immediately repressing any rebellious mutterings. In the ominous panic which began to spread, everyone realised that the absence of the large blonde officer deprived the building of one of its central pillars. The dismay of the cat, who had gone to curl up between the photocopier and the wall, reflected fairly accurately the morale of the staff, with the difference that the officers, armed with her description, were engaged in non-stop searching, inquiring at all the hospitals and gendarmeries in the country.

  Commandant Danglard, only just recovering from his own moral crisis over King David, and prey to his usual pessimism, had taken refuge quite openly in the basement where he was sitting on a chair near the boiler, knocking back white wine in full view of anyone who cared to look. Estalère, at the opposite extremity of the building, had gone up to the coffee-machine room and, rather like the Snowball, had curled up on Lieutenant Mercadet’s foam cushions.

  The shy young receptionist, Bettina, who had only recently started working at the switchboard, walked across the Council Chamber, which seemed to be plunged in mourning, and where the only sound was the clicking of telephones and a few repeated words – yes, no, thanks for calling back. In one corner, Mordent and Justin were talking in low voices. Bettina knocked quietly at Adamsberg’s door. The commissaire, hunched on his high stool, was staring at the ground without moving. The young woman sighed. Adamsberg urgently needed to get some sleep.

  ‘Monsieur le commissaire, she said, sitting down discreetly. ‘When do we think Lieutenant Retancourt went missing?’

  ‘Well, she didn’t come in on Monday morning, Bettina, that’s all we know. But she could have gone missing on Saturday, Sunday or even Friday evening. It could be three days ago, or five.’

  ‘Just before the weekend, on Friday afternoon, she was smoking a cigarette out in the entry with the new lieutenant, the one with fancy hair, in two colours. She said she was going to leave the office early, because she had a visit to make.’

  ‘A visit or an appointment?’

  ‘Is there a difference?’

  ‘Yes. Try to remember, Bettina.’

  ‘Well, I think she used the word visit.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No. They went off towards the big room, so I didn’t hear any more.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Adamsberg, blinking his eyes.

  ‘You ought to get some sleep, sir. My mother says that if you don’t sleep, the mill starts grinding its own stone.’

  ‘She wouldn’t go to sleep. She’d look for me day and night, without eating or sleeping till she found me. And she would find me.’

  Adamsberg slowly pulled on his jacket.

  ‘If anyone asks, Bettina, I’m at the Bichat Hospital.’

  ‘Ask one of them to drive you. That way you could nap for twenty minutes in the car. My mother says snatching forty winks here and there is the secret.’

  ‘But all the officers are busy looking for her, Bettina. They’ve got better things to do.’

  ‘I haven’t,’ said Bettina. ‘I’ll drive you over.’

  Veyrenc was taking his first tentative steps in the corridor, leaning on a nurse’s arm.

  ‘We’re improving,’ said the nurse. ‘We’ve got less of a temperature this morning.’

  ‘Let’s go back to his room,’ said Adamsberg, taking Veyrenc’s other arm.

  ‘How’s the leg?’ he asked, once they had got Veyrenc on to the bed.

  ‘Not bad. Better than you,’ said Veyrenc, struck by Adamsberg’s exhausted features. ‘What’s happened now?’

  ‘She’s vanished. Violette. For either three or five days. She’s nowhere to be found, she hasn’t given any sign of life. It can’t have been intentional, because all her stuff’s still there. She was just wearing her ordinary jacket and had her little backpack.’

  ‘Dark blue?’

  ‘Yes.

  ‘Bettina told me that you were talking to her on Friday afternoon in the hall. And apparently Violette said something about a visit she had to make, that she was going to leave early.’

  Veyrenc frowned.

  ‘A visit? And she told me about it? But I don’t know who her friends are.’

  ‘She told you about this, and then you both walked into the Council Chamber. Try and remember, please, lieutenant – you may have been the last person to see her. You were smoking.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Veyrenc, lifting his hand. ‘Yes, she had promised she’d call in on Dr Roman. She said she went in about once a week, to try and distract him. She kept him up to date with the investigations, showed him photos, sort of trying to bring him up to speed.’

  ‘What photos?’

  ‘Forensic photos, commissaire, the ones of corpses. That’s wh
at she was showing him.’

  ‘OK, Veyrenc, I see.’

  ‘You’re disappointed.’

  ‘Well, I’ll go and see Roman. But he’s completely vague, with his vapours as he calls them. If there had been anything to take notice of, he’d be the last to realise it.’

  Adamsberg sat for a moment without moving, in the comfortable padded hospital chair. When the nurse came in later with his supper tray, Veyrenc put his finger to his lips. The commissaire had been asleep for about an hour.

  ‘Shouldn’t we wake him?’ whispered the nurse.

  ‘He couldn’t have held out a minute longer. We’ll let him sleep another hour or two.’

  Veyrenc telephoned the squad while examining his tray.

  ‘Who am I talking to?’ he asked.

  ‘Gardon,’ said the brigadier. ‘Is that you, Veyrenc?’

  ‘Is Danglard there?’

  ‘Well, he is, but he’s practically out of commission. Retancourt’s disappeared, lieutenant.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Can you get me Dr Roman’s phone number?’

  ‘Yeah, coming up. One of us was going to come and see you tomorrow. Do you need anything?’

  ‘Something to eat, brigadier.’

  ‘You’re in luck. It’s Froissy who’ll be coming.’

  At least that’s one bit of good news, thought Veyrenc, as he called the doctor. A very distant voice answered. Veyrenc had never met Roman, but he was obviously in some kind of fog of absent-mindedness.

  ‘Commissaire Adamsberg will be round to see you at about nine o’clock, doctor. He asked me to warn you.’

  ‘Er, yes, if you say so,’ said Roman, who seemed supremely indifferent to the news.

  Adamsberg opened his eyes a little after eight.

  ‘Oh shit,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you wake me, Veyrenc?’

  ‘Even Retancourt would have let you sleep. Victory comes only to the man who has slept.’

  XLIV

  DR ROMAN SHUFFLED OVER TO OPEN THE DOOR, THEN SHUFFLED BACK TO his armchair, as if he were on skis.

  ‘Don’t ask how I am, Adamsberg, it annoys me. Do you want a drink?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a coffee.’

  ‘Can you get it yourself? I’m just not up to it.’

  ‘Come and keep me company in the kitchen, then.’

  Roman sighed and shuffled on his skis to a chair in the kitchen.

  ‘Do you want a cup?’ asked Adamsberg.

  ‘Yes, put in as much as you like, nothing stops me sleeping, twenty hours out of twenty-four. A lot, eh? I don’t even have time to get bored.’

  ‘Like a lion. You know a lion sleeps twenty hours a day?’

  ‘It has vapours too?’

  ‘No, it’s just made that way. Doesn’t stop it being king of the animals.’

  ‘But a deposed king. You’ve found a replacement for me, Adamsberg.’

  ‘I didn’t have any choice.’

  ‘No,’ said Roman, closing his eyes.

  ‘Don’t the medicines help?’ asked the commissaire, looking at the pile of boxes on the table.

  ‘They’re stimulants. They wake me up for about a quarter of an hour, long enough to work out what day it is. What day is it?’

  The doctor’s voice was thick, dragging out the vowel sounds as if something was stopping him articulating clearly.

  ‘This is Thursday. And last Friday night, six days ago, you were visited by Violette Retancourt. Do you remember?’

  ‘I haven’t lost my wits, you know – it’s just that I don’t have any energy. Or taste for anything.’

  ‘But Retancourt brought you some stuff you like to see. Forensic pictures, photos of corpses.’

  ‘That’s right,’ smiled Roman. ‘She’s very considerate.’

  ‘She knows what keeps you happy,’ said Adamsberg, pushing a bowl of coffee towards the doctor.

  ‘You look all in, mon vieux,’ commented the doctor. ‘Exhausted physically and mentally.’

  ‘You haven’t lost your touch, have you? I’m in the middle of an investigation that’s like a horror movie, and it’s slipping away from me. I’ve got a Shade that won’t leave me alone, a nun in my own house and a new lieutenant who’s biding his time till he nails me. I’ve just spent all night rescuing him from a gang who were after him. And then, the next day, I find out that Retancourt has vanished into thin air.’

  ‘Thin air? Has she got the vapours too?’

  ‘She’s disappeared, Roman.’

  ‘Yes, I heard what you said.’

  ‘Did she say anything to you last Friday? Anything that might give us a lead? Did she say she was worried about anything?’

  ‘No. I don’t see what could ever worry Retancourt, and the more I think about it, the more I think I ought to have got her to try and deal with my own vapours. No, mon vieux, we talked shop. At least we pretended to. After three-quarters of an hour, I tend to drop off.’

  ‘Did she tell you about the district nurse? The angel of death?’

  ‘Yes, she told me all about that, and the graves that had been opened. She comes quite often, you know. Heart of gold, that girl. She even left me some of the photos, to give me something to do if I could work up any interest.’

  Roman extended a limp arm over the mass of papers on the kitchen table and pulled out a bundle which he slid over to Adamsberg. Some enlarged colour photographs showed the faces of La Paille and Diala, the details of their wounds, the traces of injections in their arms, and the photographs of the two corpses of Montrouge and Opportune. Adamsberg pulled a horrified face at the last two and put them at the botttom of the pile.

  ‘Very good-quality prints, as you see. Retancourt has been spoiling me. You really have got a heap of shit here,’ observed the doctor, tapping the pile of photographs.

  ‘Yes, I realise that, Roman.’

  ‘There’s no one harder to catch than these methodical maniacs, until you’ve cottoned on to their obsession. And since their obsession is always completely crazy, you’re always in the dark.’

  ‘Is that what you said to Retancourt? You discouraged her?’

  ‘I’d never dare try to discourage your lieutenant.’

  The commissaire saw Roman’s eyelids start to droop, and filled up his bowl of coffee again at once.

  ‘Give me a couple of uppers as well. The red and yellow box.’

  Adamsberg put two capsules in the hollow of Roman’s hand, and the doctor swallowed them.

  ‘OK,’ said Roman, ‘where were we?’

  ‘What you said to Retancourt the last time you saw her.’

  ‘Same as I said to you. Your murderer is completely insane and very dangerous.’

  ‘Do you agree it’s a woman?’

  ‘Obviously. Ariane’s the best. If that’s what she says, you can be absolutely sure of it.’

  ‘I know what the killer is after, Roman. She wants absolute power, divine potency, eternal life. Didn’t Retancourt tell you that?’

  ‘Yes, she read out to me the old recipe for the potion,’ said Roman, tapping the photos. ‘And yes, you’re spot on with that, “the quick of virgins”.’

  ‘The quick of virgins,’ Adamsberg murmured. ‘She couldn’t have told you much about that, because that’s the one bit we didn’t understand.’

  ‘You didn’t understand?’ asked Roman, looking stunned, and seeming to come back to life as he talked shop. ‘But it’s staring you in the face. It’s as obvious as your mountain.’

  ‘Forget my mountain. What do you mean? Tell me what it is, this “quick”.’

  ‘What do you think, slowcoach? The quick and the dead. The quick is what remains alive even after death: it defies death and even old age. Hair, of course. When you’re an adult and your body has stopped growing, the only thing that carries right on growing all the time is your hair.’

  ‘Unless it falls out.’

  ‘Well, women don’t go bald, stupid. Hair, nails. Both the same thing anyway, both keratin. The quick of the virgins must be
their hair. Because, in the grave, it’s the only part of the body that doesn’t decay. It’s anti-death, an antidote to death if you like. It isn’t rocket science. Are you following me, Adamsberg, or have you got the vapours as well?’

  ‘I’m following you,’ said Adamsberg, looking amazed. ‘It’s clever, Roman, and more than probable.’

  ‘Probable? Don’t you believe me? It’s absolutely certain – it’s in the photos, for pity’s sake.’

  Roman pulled over the pile of photos, then yawned and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘Get some cold water from the tap on the dishcloth. Rub my head with it.’

  ‘The dishcloth’s filthy.’

  ‘Never mind. Hurry up.’

  Adamsberg obeyed and rubbed Roman’s head hard with the cold cloth, as one might rub down a horse. Roman emerged from the treatment looking red-faced.

  ‘Better?’

  ‘It’ll do. Give me the rest of the coffee and pass me the photo.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The first woman, Elisabeth Châtel. And fetch me my magnifying glass from my desk.’

  Adamsberg placed the glass and the ghastly photo in front of the doctor.

  ‘There,’ said Roman, pointing to the right temple on Elisabeth’s skull. ‘Some locks of her hair have been cut off.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘The quick of virgins,’ said Adamsberg, looking at the photo. ‘This crazy woman has killed them to get at their hair.’

  ‘Which had resisted death. On the right of the skull, you’ll note. Remember the text?’

  ‘The quick of virgins, on the dexter hand, sorted by three in equal quantities.’

  ‘Dexter, on the right. Because the left, sinister, is the dark side, in Latin. The right means life. The right hand leads to life. You follow?’

  Adamsberg nodded silently.

  ‘Ariane did think it might be hair,’ he said.

  ‘I think you’re a bit sweet on Ariane.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Your blonde lieutenant.’

  ‘So why didn’t Ariane notice if the hair had been cut?’