by Fred Vargas
‘Good-looking guy,’ said Lieutenant Hélène Froissy, pushing towards Adamsberg her laptop, which showed a photo of a miserable-looking Nassim Bouzid. ‘Long eyelashes, honey-coloured eyes, looks like he’s wearing make-up, very white teeth and a charming smile. Everyone adores him in the building, and they all use him as their handyman. Nassim will change a light bulb for you, fix a leaking pipe, Nassim never says no.’
‘Which makes the husband conclude that he is a weak and servile creature,’ said Voisenet. ‘Come from nowhere, going nowhere, was how he put it.’
‘Unbelievable,’ said Noël again.
‘And the husband is jealous?’ asked Adamsberg, who had started to take a few scribbled notes.
‘He says not,’ said Froissy. ‘He thinks the affair’s beneath his contempt, but it would have suited him because of the divorce.’
‘So?’ asked Adamsberg, turning to Mordent. ‘You mentioned strategy, commandant.’
‘He’s banking on police reflexes. He thinks we’re all uneducated, racist and stereotypical: if we’re faced with a high-status lawyer who uses language so sophisticated as to be incomprehensible, and an Arab handyman, the cops will always go for the Arab.’
‘So what are these sophisticated and incomprehensible words he uses?’
‘Hard to say,’ said Voisenet, ‘because I didn’t understand. Words like “aperception”, or wait, hetero-something, “heteronomous”. Does that mean something to do with sexual deviance? He used it about the lover.’
All eyes turned to Danglard for help.
‘No, it means “other-directed”, the opposite of autonomous, which means “self-directed”. It would be worth trying to play him at his own game,’ said Danglard.
‘I’ll count on you to do that, commandant,’ said Adamsberg.
‘If you say so,’ said Danglard, cheering up somewhat at this thought, and for a moment forgetting Adamsberg’s perplexing absent-mindedness and his current uninformed approach. It was clear that the commissaire had not retained much from the report over which he, Danglard, had taken such trouble.
‘He quotes a lot of stuff too,’ said Mercadet, surfacing from a short nap.
Mercadet was one of the squad’s two brilliant IT experts, just a little behind Hélène Froissy, but he suffered from narcolepsy and his fellow officers all respected and even covered up for their colleague’s handicap. If it had come to the ears of their hierarchical superior, the divisionnaire, Mercadet would have been sacked on the spot. What can you do with a cop who falls uncontrollably asleep every three hours?
‘And this lawyer, Maître Carvin, expects us to react to his damn quotations,’ Mercadet went on. ‘He wants us to recognise – or rather, not to recognise – where they’re from. He’s banking on us being ignorant, playing at humiliating us, no question.’
‘For instance?’
‘Well, take this,’ said Justin, flicking open his pad. ‘About Nassim Bouzid, again: “Men do not flee from deception so much as from being damaged by deception.”’
They were once more expecting to hear from Danglard, who would save them from the repeated disdain of the lawyer, but out of delicacy, Danglard refrained from identifying the author of the quotation, so as to put himself on an equal footing with his more ignorant colleagues. This modesty was not understood, but they readily forgave him, since you can’t ask anyone, however frighteningly learned, to know every quotation in literature.
‘What it means in plain language,’ said Mordent, ‘is that Carvin is kindly providing a motive for Bouzid to murder: killing his mistress to escape the damage caused by the adultery and so avoid the break-up of his family.’
‘And who’s the quotation by, Commandant Danglard?’ asked Estalère, breaking with the general reluctance and demonstrating his usual lack of tact, or possibly his incurable stupidity, as some thought.
‘It’s by Nietzsche,’ Danglard finally admitted.
‘Is he someone important?’
‘Very.’
Adamsberg went on sketching for a moment, wondering, as he often did, what deeply entrenched mystery accounted for Danglard’s phenomenal memory.
‘Oh, right!’ said Estalère, looking stunned, and opening wide his big green eyes.
But Estalère was always wide-eyed, as if he could never get over his stupefaction at everything in life. And no doubt he was quite right, Adamsberg thought. The fate of this poor woman, atrociously crushed to death, was certainly enough to leave anyone staring, perplexed, into the night.
‘Because,’ Estalère went on, concentrating hard, ‘you don’t have to be important to know that we’re scared of the result of telling a lie. Otherwise it wouldn’t matter, would it?’
‘Very true,’ Adamsberg agreed, ever ready to defend the young man, something the others could never understand.
Adamsberg lifted his pencil. He had been sketching the outline of his friend Gunnlaugur watching the fish market on the quayside. Plus the seagulls, flocks of seagulls.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘what are the arguments one way or the other?’
‘The lawyer has his alibi, the video games place,’ said Mordent. ‘But it isn’t worth a damn, because with the crowd of other players shouting and getting excited, and riveted to their screens, who would miss him if he nipped out for a quarter of an hour? And he has a vast amount of money in the bank. If he was to divorce, he’d stand to lose half of his four million, two hundred thousand euros.’
‘Four million, two hundred thousand?’ asked a timid junior officer, Lamarre, speaking for the first time. ‘How many years’ pay would that mean for us?’
‘Don’t go there, Lamarre,’ said Adamsberg, raising his hand. ‘It’d be too painful. Carry on, Mordent.’
‘But then again, there’s no particular evidence against him. Nassim Bouzid looks in a trickier position, because there are some material elements. In the 4x4, they found three white dog hairs near the passenger seat and a scrap of red thread on the brake pedal. According to the preliminary forensics, the hairs are indeed from Bouzid’s dog. And the thread matches the kilim in his dining room. As for the car keys, he could have got the spare any time from his mistress. All their keys hang up in the entrance hall of their flat.’
‘So why would he take the dog with him, if he wanted to kill his mistress?’ asked Froissy.
‘Well, Bouzid is married himself. It would be a good excuse to his wife to say he was taking the dog round the block to do its business.’
‘And what if the dog had already been round the block?’ asked Noël.
‘No,’ said Mordent. ‘It was his regular time for taking the dog out. Bouzid readily agrees he left the house about that time, but he totally denies ever having been Laure Carvin’s lover. He even says he didn’t know the woman. Maybe by sight in the street. So if he’s telling the truth, Carvin the lawyer must have singled him out as a fall guy, somehow got hold of some dog hairs and fibre from the carpet, because where Bouzid lives, the front-door lock would open with a hairpin. Don’t those two details look a bit over the top to you?’
‘Exactly. Just one bit of evidence would have done,’ Adamsberg agreed.
‘That’s a failing of people who are too proud of their own intelligence,’ said Danglard. ‘Their infatuation blinds them, they can’t gauge what other people might do, they go too far one way or another. So contrary to what they imagine, their judgement isn’t infallible.’
‘And,’ said Justin, putting his hand up, ‘Bouzid says when he takes the dog in his own car, he always puts him in a holdall. And we didn’t find any dog hairs at all in his car. Or fibres from the carpet.’
‘Are the two men the same height?’ Adamsberg asked, turning his portrait of Gunnlaugur face down on the table.
‘Bouzid is shorter.’
‘So he would have had to adjust the driving seat and the mirrors? How were they?’
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br /> ‘In position for someone taller. He could have readjusted them afterwards, or else the lawyer could have left them as they were. You can’t be certain either way.’
‘Fingerprints in the car? Steering wheel, controls, doors?’
‘Had a nice nap on the plane, did you?’ said Veyrenc with a grin.
‘Yes, maybe I did, Veyrenc. And it stinks.’
‘Too right, it stinks – we’re getting nowhere with this.’
‘No, I meant it stinks here, in the room. Can’t you smell anything?’
His colleagues all raised their heads at once to sniff the air. Funny thing, Adamsberg thought, humans always instinctively lift their heads up about ten centimetres when they are trying to smell something. As if ten centimetres were going to alter anything. Driven by an animal reflex established back in the mists of time, the group of police officers looked like nothing so much as a mob of meerkats trying to pick up the scent of a predator on the wind.
‘Yeah, smells a bit of fish,’ said Mercadet.
‘Smells like a whole fish market,’ Adamsberg said.
‘I can’t smell a thing,’ said Voisenet, rather firmly. ‘Well, it can wait.’
‘Where were we?’
‘Fingerprints,’ said Mordent, who, since he was sitting at the far end of the long table by Danglard, couldn’t smell anything odd.
‘OK, go ahead, commandant.’
‘Well, the fingerprints,’ he said, pecking away at his notes like a heron, ‘give us nothing conclusive. Because everything had been wiped. Either by Bouzid or by the lawyer who wanted to incriminate Bouzid. Not so much as a hair on the headrest.’
‘Not so simple,’ murmured Mercadet, to whom Estalère had now served two very strong cups of coffee.
‘That’s why we decided to call you back a bit early,’ said Danglard.
So it was him, Adamsberg deduced. It was Danglard who had brought him back, as if it were a real emergency, tearing him away from his relaxed spell in Iceland. The commissaire observed his oldest colleague through narrowed eyes. Danglard had been afraid for him, no doubt about it.
‘Can I see what these two men look like?’ he asked.
‘You’ve seen the photos,’ said Froissy, moving her laptop towards him again.
‘I’d like to see a video, from the questioning.’
‘Which bit of the questioning?’
‘Doesn’t matter. And you can turn the sound down. I just want to get an idea of their expressions.’
Danglard stiffened. Adamsberg had always had a detestable tendency to judge people by their faces, separating the good from the bad, something Danglard considered totally reprehensible. Adamsberg knew this quite well, and sensed his colleague’s apprehension.
‘Sorry, Danglard,’ he said with one of his lopsided smiles, which often seduced reluctant witnesses, or disarmed his opponents. ‘But this time, I’ve got a quotation in my defence. I found it in a book someone had left on a seat at Reykjavik airport.’
‘Well, tell us all about it then.’
‘One moment, I don’t know it by heart,’ he said, feeling in his pocket. ‘Here we are: “Everyday life shapes the soul, and the soul shapes the physiognomy.”’
‘Balzac,’ muttered Danglard.
‘Exactly. And you’re an admirer of Balzac, aren’t you, commandant?’
Adamsberg’s smile grew broader and he folded up the scrap of paper.
‘What book is it in?’ asked Estalère.
‘Who cares which book?’ snorted Danglard.
‘It was,’ said Adamsberg, coming to Estalère’s defence, ‘a story about this priest, honest but not very bright, and some nasty individuals get the better of him. It happens in Tours, I think, on the Loire.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘That, Estalère, I’ve forgotten.’
Disappointed, Estalère pushed away his pencil. He venerated both Adamsberg and the massive police lieutenant, Violette Retancourt, who was the exact opposite of the chief. He tried to imitate Adamsberg in every respect, such as reading this book for example. On the other hand, he had instinctively given up trying to imitate Retancourt. Because no man or woman was her equal, and even the arrogant Noël had finally realised as much. In the end, Danglard came to the young man’s rescue.
‘It’s called Le Curé de Tours, The Priest of Tours.’
‘Thank you,’ said Estalère warmly, noting it down clumsily, because he was dyslexic. ‘Still, Balzac didn’t bust a gut making up the title, did he?’
‘Estalère, one doesn’t say of Balzac that “he didn’t bust a gut”.’
‘Of course, commandant, I won’t say that again.’
Adamsberg turned to Froissy.
‘OK, Froissy,’ he said, ‘let’s have a look at these two guys. While I’m doing that, the rest of you can take a break.’
* * *
*
Ten minutes later, sitting alone in front of the computer screen, Adamsberg suddenly realised that apart from the first few moments of Carvin’s interview, he had seen and heard nothing. Brestir, his friend in Iceland, had invited him to go fishing, with the approval of the others on the quay. A great honour for a foreigner without doubt, an honour granted to the man who had overcome the perils of the Devil’s Island, a few kilometres out to sea, its black and sinister profile visible from the harbour. Adamsberg had been allowed to help sort out the fish caught in the nets, throwing back juveniles, pregnant females and non-edible species. He had spent the last ten minutes on the slippery deck, his hands plunged into the nets, scratching himself on the fishes’ scales. He returned abruptly to the image of Maître Carvin’s face, paused the computer and went out to rejoin his colleagues, who were now scattered around the large open-plan office.
‘Well?’ asked Veyrenc.
‘Too soon to say,’ Adamsberg hedged. ‘I’ll need to take another look.’
‘Yeah, naturally,’ remarked Veyrenc, with a smile. He’s still clammy with Icelandic fog, he thought.
Adamsberg signalled to Froissy that he was going back to the video, then stopped short.
‘It really stinks!’ he said. ‘And it’s coming from in here.’
Lifting his nose ten centimetres in the air, he went round the room, following the trail of the horrible smell, and like a police dog, stopped at Voisenet’s desk. Voisenet was a cop and a very good one, but he had been frustrated in his youth from pursuing a career as an ichthyologist: his father had strictly forbidden him to do so, but he had carried on with his passion in secret. Adamsberg had finally managed to learn by heart that word, ichthyologist. Voisenet was an expert on fish, particularly freshwater fish. His fellow officers were used to seeing journals and articles of all kinds on the topic lying on his desk and Adamsberg allowed this to go on, if kept within limits. But it was the first time that an actual and fetid smell of fish had spilled out of Voisenet’s workspace.
Going swiftly round the desk, Adamsberg pulled from under the chair a large plastic freezer bag. Voisenet, a small short-legged man, with a shock of black hair, a prominent stomach and round rosy cheeks, drew himself up with all the dignity his shape allowed him. A man unjustly accused, held up to ridicule, his attitude said.
‘That’s personal, commissaire,’ he said loudly.
Adamsberg undid the clips on the top of the bag and opened it wide. He gave a jump and dropped the whole thing, which flopped heavily to the floor. It was years since the commissaire had been so startled. His cool, even ultra-cool temperament was usually proof against it. But apart from the pestilential odour coming from the bag, the hideous sight inside had caused the shock. The head of a repulsive creature, with staring eyes and an enormous mouth bristling with terrifying teeth.
‘What kind of shit is this?’ he cried.
‘My fishmonger –’ Voisenet began.
‘It’s not yo
ur fishmonger!’
‘No, it’s a moray eel, Uropterygius macularius, a marbled moray from the west Atlantic,’ Voisenet replied haughtily. ‘Or to be more precise, the head of a moray eel and about sixteen centimetres of its body. And no, it’s not a piece of shit, it’s a magnificent male specimen, 1m 55 long when it was alive.’
For Adamsberg to show anger was so rare that the other officers, fascinated, all crowded round murmuring, peering in to see the creature, holding their noses, then quickly turning away. Even the hard-boiled Lieutenant Noël said, ‘I guess nature slipped up there.’ Only the massive and muscular Retancourt displayed no emotion at the sight of the repugnant head and went back calmly to her workstation. Danglard smiled discreetly to himself, delighted at this outburst, which, he thought, would bring Adamsberg back sharply to the real world, with real feelings. Adamsberg himself felt rather ashamed. He regretted leaving the island of Grimsey, he regretted leaping in the air and having raised his voice, and he felt ashamed that he could not work up more interest in the terrible murder of a poor woman under the wheels of a 4x4.
‘Wow, a moray eel, that’s really something!’ said Estalère, looking more astonished than ever.
Voisenet picked up his bag with dignity.
‘I’m taking it home,’ he said, facing his colleagues as if they were a gang of ignorant enemies, prisoners of their preconceived ideas.
‘Excellent idea,’ said Adamsberg, who was now calmer. ‘Nice present for your wife.’
‘I’m going to take it over to my mother’s to get it boiled.’
‘Good thinking. Only mothers are ready to forgive anything.’
‘I paid a lot for this,’ Voisenet claimed, anxious to stress the significance of his specimen. ‘My fishmonger sometimes gets in unusual species. Last month, he had a whole swordfish with a sword a metre long. Fantastic! But I couldn’t afford it. I got a special rate for the moray eel, because it was starting to go off. So I jumped at the chance.’
‘Yes, I can well understand,’ said Adamsberg. ‘Get that horrible thing out of here right away, Voisenet. You could have left it outside in the yard. It’ll take three days to get rid of the smell.’