by Fred Vargas
‘I take my coffee with a drop of barley-water,’ Ariane explained politely, without turning to face the desk.
‘We don’t have any,’ said Veyrenc. ‘We can’t make cocktails here.’
‘Pity.’
‘I don’t think there’ll be any barley-water in prison,’ murmured Danglard. ‘The coffee’s undrinkable. And the food’s fit for animals. It’s really filthy stuff, what they give the prisoners.’
‘And why in the name of all that’s holy are you talking to me about prison?’ asked Ariane, with her back to him.
Adamsberg closed his eyes and prayed to the third virgin to come to his assistance. But just then the third virgin was fast asleep in the hotel in Haroncourt between clean, pale blue sheets, and blissfully ignorant of the troubles of the man who’d saved her. Veyrenc gulped his coffee and put the cup down, with a discouraged shrug.
‘Cease the struggle, my lord!
With cunning and brute strength you have fought the good fight;
Ramparts and battlements have fallen to your might.
But the wall that resists, the prize you cannot claim,
Will block you for ever, for madness is its name.’
‘I agree, Veyrenc, said Adamsberg, without opening his eyes. ‘Take her away, with her wall and her cocktails and her hatred. Get her out of my sight!’
‘Six syllables,’ Veyrenc noted. ‘Get her out of my sight. A hemistich. Not bad.’
‘At that rate, Veyrenc, all cops would be poets.’
‘If only,’ muttered Danglard.
Ariane snapped her cigarette lighter shut and Adamsberg opened his eyes.
‘I need to go to my flat, Jean-Baptiste. I don’t know what you’re up to, or why, but I’m professional enough to guess. You’re holding me for more questioning, aren’t you? So I need to get my things.’
‘We’ll fetch anything you need.’
‘No. I want to look for them myself. I don’t want your men putting their great paws all over my clothes.’
For the first time, Ariane’s expression, which Adamsberg could see only in profile, became set and anxious. She would herself have diagnosed this as Omega moving on to the attack. Because Omega needed to do something vital.
‘They’ll have to come with you, while you pack a case. But they won’t touch anything.’
‘I don’t want them to be there, I want to be on my own. It’s private, it’s intimate. You can understand that, surely, can’t you? If you’re scared I’ll try to escape, you can station as many fuckwits as you like outside.’
As many fuckwits as you like. Omega was coming to the surface. Adamsberg watched Ariane’s profile, her eyebrow, her lip, her chin, and detected there a tension caused by some fresh thought.
No cordials in prison, just piss-awful coffee. No more cocktails in prison, neither the violine nor the grenaille, no crème de menthe, no marsala. Above all, no magic potion. But the mixture was almost ready. All she needed was the quick of the third virgin and the wine of the year. Well, the matter of wine could easily be fixed, it was simply there to bind the mixture together, and water would do at a pinch. The third virgin was out of reach, of course, so there was no question of eternity. But since the mixture was almost complete, it might provide long life. How much? A hundred years? Two hundred? A thousand? That would keep you going in prison, without needing to worry or start over. But where was the mixture? It was the fear of never being able to drink it that was making her clench the cigarette between her teeth. Between Ariane and the hard-won treasure there were now several ranks of policemen.
And the treasure was the only proof of the murders. Ariane would never confess. The mixture, the mixture alone, with its hairs from the heads of Pascaline and Elisabeth, its remains of cat, stag and human bones, would demonstrate that Ariane had followed the dark path of the De reliquis. To get hold of it now was as essential for her as it was for the commissaire. Without the potion, he wouldn’t have much chance of making a charge stick. These are just the fantasies of a cloud shoveller, the examining magistrate would say, and Brézillon would back him up. Dr Lagarde was so famous that the threads painfully pulled together by Adamsberg would look flimsy indeed.
‘So the potion’s in your flat,’ said Adamsberg, his eyes not leaving Ariane’s taut profile. ‘Probably in some hiding place where Alpha’s ordinary habits wouldn’t find it. You want it and I want it, but I’m the one who’ll find it. I’ll take my time and I’ll pull the building apart if I have to, but I’ll find it.’
‘Whatever you say,’ said Ariane, dragging on her cigarette, then exhaling the smoke, once more looking indifferent and relaxed. ‘May I have your permission to visit the lavatory, commissaire?’
‘Veyrenc, Mordent, go with her. Stay close to her.’
Ariane went out of the room, slowly, on her platform shoes, and held tightly by her two guards. Adamsberg followed them with his eyes, puzzled by her sudden about-turn and the pleasure she had taken from her cigarette. You smiled, Ariane. I’m going to take your treasure and you smiled.
I know that smile. It was the same one as in that café in Le Havre, after you’d thrown my beer away. And the same one when you persuaded me to go after the nurse. The smile of the victor to the one who’s about to lose. A triumphant smile. I’m going to get hold of your fucking potion, yet you’re smiling.
Adamsberg leapt to his feet and pulled Danglard by the sleeve.
LXIV
DANGLARD RAN AFTER THE COMMISSAIRE WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING, HIS LEGS stiff with fatigue, and followed him to the door of the staff washroom where Mordent and Veyrenc were standing guard.
‘Go on, commandant,’ Adamsberg ordered. ‘Kick the door in.’
‘But … but I can’t …’ Mordent began.
‘Kick the door in, for God’s sake! Veyrenc, help me.’
The lavatory door gave in after three shoves from the shoulders of Veyrenc and the commissaire. The ibex charging in unison, Adamsberg had time to think as he grabbed Ariane’s arm and took hold of the thick brown phial she was holding. The pathologist screamed. And in that long, ferocious and nerve-rending scream, Adamsberg at last understood what the real nature of an Omega could be. He would never witness it again. Ariane collapsed into unconsciousness, and when she came to, a few minutes later in the cells, Alpha was back in place, calm and sophisticated.
‘The potion was in her handbag,’ said Adamsberg, staring at the little bottle. ‘She took some water from the basin to mix it up and she was just going to drink it.’
He raised his hand and looked carefully at the phial by the light of the lamp, examining the thick liquid inside. The men looked at the small bottle with a certain reverence, as if it were holy oil.
‘She’s very clever,’ said Adamsberg. ‘But she wasn’t able to hide that cunning little smile of her Omega, a smile of victory. And she smiled when she was sure I thought the potion was in her flat. So it had to mean the bottle was somewhere else. About her person, obviously.’
‘Why didn’t you confiscate her bag before?’ asked Mordent. ‘It was a big risk – those toilet doors are solid.’
‘I simply never thought of it before, Mordent. I’ll put this bottle in the safe. I’ll be with you in a minute, and we can all go home.’
Half an hour later, Adamsberg stood inside his front door and locked it firmly. He carefully extracted the brown phial from his jacket pocket and placed it in the centre of the table. Then he emptied the remains of a small bottle of rum into the sink, rinsed it out, found a funnel, and slowly poured half the mixture into it. Tomorrow, the brown phial would go to the lab, and there was plenty of the potion left for analysis. Nobody else had seen through the dark glass exactly how much liquid was inside it, so no one would know that he had taken a generous dose out of it.
Tomorrow, he would visit Ariane in her cell. And he would discreetly pass over the rum bottle. Then the pathologist would remain completely serene in prison, being certain she would survive long enough to complete her project. She
would swallow the revolting mixture as soon as he had his back turned and would go to sleep like a devil sated.
And why, Adamsberg wondered, as he put the two small bottles back into his jacket, should he care that Ariane should remain serene in prison? When he could still hear that harsh scream in his ears, full of madness and cruelty? Because he had once been a little in love with her, had once desired her? No, it wasn’t even that.
He went to the window and looked out into the garden in the night. Lucio was taking a leak under the hazel tree. Adamsberg waited a few moments, then went out to him. Lucio was looking up at the cloudy sky and scratching the spider’s bite.
‘Can’t sleep, hombre?’ he asked. ‘Have you finished the job?’
‘Almost.’
‘Difficult nut to crack, eh?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah, what men will do,’ sighed Lucio. ‘And women.’
The old man walked off towards the hedge and came back with two cold bottles of beer, which he opened with his teeth.
‘Don’t tell Maria, will you?’ he said, handing one to Adamsberg. ‘Women get so het up. That’s because they’re perfectionists, you understand, they have to see the whole job through. Whereas a man, he’ll do a bit here, a bit there, and then botch it together, or even just leave it half-done. But a woman has to follow her idea through for days and months, without even a drop of beer.’
‘I’ve arrested a woman tonight who was just about to finish the task she’d set herself.’
‘A big one?’
‘Gigantic. She was preparing a diabolical potion that she wanted to swallow. And I thought it was probably best in the end that she should swallow it. So that her task is pretty much finished. Right?’
Lucio drained his bottle and threw it over the wall.
‘Yes, of course, hombre.’
The old man went back home and Adamsberg took a leak under the tree himself. ‘Yes, of course, hombre.’ Otherwise the bite would itch till the end of her days.
LXV
‘THIS IS WHERE WE’RE GOING TO END THE STORY, VEYRENC,’ SAID ADAMSBERG, stopping under a large walnut tree.
Two days after the arrest of Ariane Lagarde, and faced with the scandal which the news had caused, Adamsberg had felt a pressing need to go and cool his feet in the waters of the Gave. He had bought two tickets to Pau, and dragged Veyrenc off with him, without consulting him. They had now arrived in the Ossau valley and Adamsberg made his colleague climb the rocky path up to the chapel of Camalès. They had just come out on to the High Meadow. Veyrenc looked around with a dazed expression, at the field and the mountain tops. He had never been back to this meadow.
‘Now that we’re free of the Shade, we can sit down in the shade of the walnut tree. But not for too long, because we know it’s unlucky. Just long enough to deal with this itch from the past. Sit down, Veyrenc.’
‘Where I was, that day?’
‘For instance?’
Veyrenc walked about five metres and sat cross-legged in the grass.
‘The fifth boy, under the tree, can you see him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who is it?’
‘You.’
‘Yes, me. I’m thirteen years old. Who am I?’
‘A gang leader from the village of Caldhez.’
‘Correct. And what do I look like?’
‘You’re standing up. You’re watching the whole thing, but you don’t intervene. You have your hands behind your back.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re hiding some sort of weapon, a stick or something, I don’t know.’
‘You saw Ariane the other night, when she got to my office. She had her hands behind her back too. Was she carrying a weapon?’
‘No, of course not, that was quite different. She was handcuffed.’
‘An excellent reason to have your hands behind your back. I was tied up, Veyrenc, like a goat at the end of its chain. My wrists were tied to the tree. I hope you’ll understand now why I didn’t intervene.’
Veyrenc ran his hand through the grass several times.
‘Tell me what happened.’
‘There were two rival gangs in Caldhez. The gang from the bottom of the village, by the fountain, with Fernand as its leader; and the gang at the top of the village by the wash house, which was led by me and my brother. We used to fight all the time – wars, plots, battles, it was all we thought about. Just kids’ games, until Roland and a few other boys arrived. At that point, the fountain gang turned into a really nasty outfit. He wanted to wipe us out and run the village. It was like gang warfare in the city. We resisted as best we could, but he hated me more than anyone else, he really had it in for me. The day they went after you, Roland came and cornered me, with Fernand and Big Georges. “We’re taking you to watch something, motherfucker,” he said. “Keep your eyes open, and after that you’ll keep your mouth shut, because if you don’t, motherfucker, we’ll do the same to you.” They dragged me up here and tied me to the tree. Then they went into the chapel to wait for you. It was your usual route home from school. They jumped you, and you know the rest.’
Adamsberg realised that he had started to call Veyrenc ‘tu’ without realising it. As kids do. Both of them, up on the High Meadow, were kids again.
‘We-ell,’ said Veyrenc, pulling a face and not looking entirely convinced.
‘Give me leave to show doubt, to my ears this is new.
How can I be convinced that what you say is true?’
‘I managed to pull my penknife out of my back pocket. And because I’d seen lots of films, I tried to cut the cords. But we’re never in a film, Veyrenc. If we were in a film now, Ariane would have confessed. In real life, her wall has remained intact. So I was getting nowhere, sweating away, trying to get through the cord. The blade slipped and my knife fell on the ground. When you passed out, they untied me quickly and dragged me off down the path at a run. It was a long time before I dared try and go back to the High Meadow to find my knife. Winter was over, the grass had grown. I looked everywhere but I never found it.’
‘Does that matter?’
‘No, Veyrenc. But if the story’s true, there’s a good chance the knife’s still here, stuck somewhere in the ground. The song of the earth, remember? That’s why I brought the pickaxe along. You’re going to look for the knife. It should still be open, just as it fell. My initials are carved on the wooden handle, JBA.’
‘Why don’t we both look?’
‘Because you’re not sure if you believe me. You might still accuse me of dropping it in the earth while I was digging. No, I’m going to walk away, with my hands in my pockets and I’m going to watch you. We’re going to open another grave, looking for a living memory. But it would surprise me if it’s more than a few inches from the surface.’
‘It might not be there at all,’ said Veyrenc. ‘Someone might have come along a few days later and picked it up.’
‘If they had, we’d have heard about it. Remember that the cops were looking for the fifth boy. If someone had found my knife, with my initials on it, I’d have been caught. But they didn’t find the fifth boy, and I kept my mouth shut. I couldn’t prove anything. If the story’s true, the knife should still be there, thirty-four years later. I wouldn’t ever have dropped my precious knife on purpose. If I didn’t pick it up myself, it’s because I couldn’t. I was tied up.’
Veyrenc hesitated, then stood up and took the pickaxe while Adamsberg walked off a little distance. The surface was hard, and the lieutenant spent over an hour under the walnut tree, at regular intervals picking up clods of earth and crumbling them in his fingers. Then Adamsberg saw him drop the pickaxe and pick something up from the ground, wiping the earth off it.
‘Find it?’ he asked, coming up. ‘Can you read anything on it?’
‘JBA,’ said Veyrenc, as he finished cleaning the handle with his thumb.
He handed the knife to Adamsberg without a word. The blade was rusty, the handle’s varnish worn away,
and the carved initials were full of black earth – and perfectly legible. Adamsberg turned it over in his hand, his penknife, the damned penknife which hadn’t managed to cut the cords, and hadn’t helped him to come to the rescue of a little kid bleeding from an attack by the vicious Roland.
‘It’s yours if you want it,’ said Adamsberg, offering it, taking care to hold it by the blade. ‘It’s a male principle, a symbol of how both of us were impotent that day.’
Veyrenc nodded and accepted it.
‘Now you owe me ten centimes,’ Adamsberg added.
‘Why?’
‘It’s a tradition. If you give a sharp object to anyone, the other person has to give you a coin to prevent it cutting him. I wouldn’t like you to have bad luck on my account. You keep the knife, I’ll take the ten centimes.’
LXVI
IN THE TRAIN ON THE WAY BACK, VEYRENC WAS TROUBLED BY ONE LAST IDEA.
‘Someone who’s a dissociator,’ he said, looking grave, ‘doesn’t know what they’ve done, right? They repress the memory.’
‘That’s the theory, according to Ariane. We’ll never know whether she was just play-acting when she refused to confess, or whether she’s a genuine dissociator. Or indeed if such a thing really exists.’
‘If it did exist,’ said Veyrenc, with a crooked smile, ‘would I have been able to kill Fernand and Big Georges and then wipe it from my memory?’
‘No, Veyrenc.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because I checked. I got your employment records and your worksheets from Tarbes and Nevers, which was where you were at the time of the murders. The day Fernand was murdered, you were accompanying someone to London. When Big Georges was killed, you were under arrest.’
‘I was?’
‘Yes, for insulting a superior officer. What was that about?’
‘What was his name?’
‘Pleyel, like the pianos.’
‘Yes,’ Veyrenc said, remembering. ‘He was someone like Devalon. We had a scandal on our hands, political corruption. Instead of doing his job, he did what the government told him, provided false documents and got the main offender out of trouble. I wrote a few harmless lines about him, and he didn’t like that.’