by Fred Vargas
‘How did you guess?’
‘He’s been traipsing round the office muttering to himself for the last hour, preoccupied, anxious even. But no one knows why.’
‘I do.’
‘Ah. Where is the wind blowing you this time, Jean-Baptiste?’
‘Towards the recluse spider.’
‘The one there’s been stuff about in the papers, down south? Biting people?’
‘The very same.’
‘I see,’ said Veyrenc.
Not that Adamsberg presumed that Louis Veyrenc de Bilhc (to give him his full name) would defend his cause, or in any way support his curiosity about the wicked doings of the spider. But the thought of having to justify himself under Danglard’s disapproving and piercing gaze bothered him, the more so since he could not really explain it. Still, Danglard, however upset he was, would never pick an open fight with Veyrenc. No one did. Or any other kind of fight. Not that they feared a violent response from Veyrenc, such as might come from Retancourt or Noël. He was a calm person. But his face and body expressed a kind of granite density, against which you would dash your teeth and claws to no effect. And the quickness of his mind adapted to every bend in the road, without ever seeming surprised or taken aback.
Both natives of the Béarn region, Adamsberg and Veyrenc had inherited from their mountain childhood some unbreakable material – suppleness in one case, stability in the other. Whereas a puff of air could waft Danglard into the wastelands of anguish.
VIII
Danglard had vehemently refused to swallow a single helping of garbure, which to him meant a soup concocted from leftover vegetables, fit only for hardened mountain-dwellers. He was delicately making his way through some stuffed suckling pig. Since the first course (duck liver pâté) accompanied by a glass of Jurançon, his mood had lifted. The best way to nip in the bud any of the commandant’s growing objections to something was to take him out to dinner, and make sure it was a good one. But for all that, he never lost sight of the trajectory he was launched on. Just as wine had never made him forget anything. And he could not be intimidated by other people. He was the only person who could fill himself with dread.
‘Don’t beat about the bush, Danglard,’ said Adamsberg, who was feeling more light-hearted. ‘Come on, let’s have it.’
‘I’m not beating about any bush. I’m eating my food while it’s hot.’
‘As Voisenet’s mother recommends.’
‘As everyone’s mother recommends,’ said Veyrenc, helping himself to more garbure.
‘It’s called a recluse spider, also known as the violin spider, because of its markings,’ Adamsberg insisted.
‘Its Latin name is Loxosceles rufescens,’ said Danglard with precision. ‘Loxosceles reclusa in the Americas, but rufescens over here. There are hundreds of species.’
Estelle, the proprietress of the restaurant, a woman of forty or so, came over to ask Veyrenc whether he wished her to warm up the garbure, because it was not a good idea to eat it cold. She did so while laying a hand on his shoulder. Veyrenc refused with a smile, a smile that with an almost magnetic effect prevented her lightly posed hand leaving his shoulder. Adamsberg’s glance met Veyrenc’s brown eyes. The days when they had crossed swords over a woman were long gone.
‘Known to you, commandant?’ Adamsberg asked.
‘Who, the woman who owns this place? Vaguely. You’ve tried to make me eat that soup here before.’
‘No, I meant the recluse spider. It’s known to you?’
‘No, but I’ve read about it.’
And Adamsberg knew that Danglard would have been able to read, in two hours, thirty times more than he had now read himself.
‘And why did you read about it?’ he asked, while signalling to Estelle that she could bring them their cheese: a mature ewe’s milk Tomme. ‘Creepy-crawlies aren’t your thing.’
‘Just a minute, commissaire. I’d like red wine with the cheese.’
‘Here, that’ll be Madiran.’
‘Yes, I know about your regional specialities.’
Once his glass was full and the cheese in front of him, Danglard became visibly more relaxed.
‘Because I saw that note lying on your desk,’ he replied.
‘I know. And that’s why you’re here.’
‘Names of the “victims”, ages, occupations, dates of death, makes it look like the start of an investigation, doesn’t it? I should be informed if there are upcoming jobs for the squad.’
‘You don’t mean that, Danglard. It isn’t an investigation.’
‘In that case, I was mistaken. If it’s a game, then that’s another matter.’
Adamsberg’s expression suddenly darkened.
‘No, it’s not a game.’
‘Well, what is it then?’
‘Five victims, three deaths,’ said Veyrenc. ‘In such a short space of time. There might be –’
‘Might be?’ Danglard interrupted him.
‘– some shadow looming over that.’
‘One that might spread its wings,’ Adamsberg added.
Danglard shook his head and pushed back his empty plate.
‘Three deaths. Correct. But that’s a matter for doctors, epidemiologists and zoologists, not for us. No way. It’s well outside our competence.’
‘That’s something we need to check out,’ said Adamsberg. ‘Which is why I’ve got an appointment tomorrow with a specialist on spiders, no idea what you call someone like that, a spiderologist or an arachnologist or something, never mind what, at the Natural History Museum.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Danglard. ‘Well, I don’t want to believe it. Come back to earth, commissaire. Good grief, what kind of fog is blinding you now?’
‘I can see perfectly well in a fog,’ said Adamsberg curtly, putting his hands palm down on the table. ‘Better than elsewhere in fact. So I’ll be clear, Danglard. I don’t believe there’s been a sudden increase in recluse spiders. I don’t believe their venom has mutated. So seriously and so abruptly. I think these three men were murdered.’
There was a silence before Danglard, looking stunned, spoke again. Adamsberg’s large hands remained firmly down on the table.
‘Murdered?’ repeated Danglard. ‘By recluse spiders?’
Adamsberg took his time to reply. His hands left the table and fluttered a little in the air.
‘In a way, yes.’
* * *
*
Veyrenc and Adamsberg were walking back, jackets unbuttoned in the warm air of early June, having taken the precaution of accompanying Danglard home, dazed as he was, not by the wine, but by the commissaire’s declaration.
‘This appointment at the museum, Jean-Baptiste, the word is indeed arachnologist.’
‘Wait a bit, I’d better write that down.’
Adamsberg took out his notebook, wrote the word, spelled out for him by Veyrenc, and accompanied it with a rapid sketch of a spider.
‘No, spiders have eight legs. I already told you that.’
‘And insects six,’ said Adamsberg correcting his drawing. ‘I remember now.’
He put the notebook back in his pocket and his fingers encountered a crumpled cigarette stolen from his son Zerk. He brought it out, half empty of tobacco, and lit it.
‘So you can see that far through the fog,’ said Veyrenc calmly, as they walked on.
‘Yes. What should I do?’
‘What you’re doing. I can’t see through fog. But I can sometimes see a little ahead.’
‘And what can you see ahead?’
‘That shadow, Jean-Baptiste.’
IX
At 1.50 p.m., Adamsberg, a little ahead of time, was waiting for his appointment with Professor Pujol, the arachnologist – he checked the word one last time in his notebook. Eight legs. Loxosceles rufescens. Last night, on the
way home, Danglard had mused out loud about the etymology of the word Loxosceles, although no one had asked him to. It must come from loxo, meaning oblique and, by extension, devious or walking crookedly. Possibly also from celer, one who hides. A crabwise walker that hides. But Danglard was not satisfied with derivations that mixed Greek and Latin roots.
The commissaire was sitting on a rickety wooden bench, in a room that smelled of old parquet floors, dust, formalin and possibly dirt. He wondered how he was going to justify his visit, and found no answer.
A plump little woman of about seventy, walking with a stick, approached the bench. Either because she was anxious or distrustful, she took care to sit down over a metre away from the commissaire. She tucked the stick alongside her, but it fell to the floor. All the walking sticks in the world do that, Adamsberg said to himself, immediately jumping to pick it up. He handed it back to the woman with a smile. She was wearing a flowered blouse, an old-fashioned cardigan and oversized jeans, the legs rolled up over grey trainers. Since he too took no trouble over the way he dressed, Adamsberg could spot a ‘provincial’ outfit, as they would say in the great stone city. She reminded him of his mother who wore bulky woollen jackets, their buttons sewn firmly on, with too much thread, so that they wouldn’t come off. This woman was not particularly pretty, but she had a friendly round face, permed hair dyed some shade of blonde, and heavy-framed glasses that didn’t suit her. And like his mother, she had two deep lines between her eyebrows, from too much frowning; she must have been rather strict bringing up her children.
Adamsberg wondered what this woman could be doing on this bench, why she had come this far. She was holding a small black bag on her knees and opened it to take out a plastic box, which she examined, then put back. She checked at least four times that she hadn’t forgotten the box. This was why she was here.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Would you be kind enough to tell me the time?’
‘Sorry, I don’t have it.’
‘So what are those two watches doing on your wrist?’
‘Yes, they are watches, but they don’t work.’
‘Why are you wearing them then?’
‘I don’t know . . .’
‘Sorry, sorry, it’s none of my business. Excuse me.’
‘Not to worry, no harm done.’
‘No, but it’s just I don’t like being late.’
‘You’ve got an appointment here? What time?’
They could have been two patients in a dentist’s waiting room, chatting to cover their apprehension. But since this was not a dentist’s surgery, each was also curious about the motives of the other. And concerned that the other person might jump the queue.
‘Two o’clock,’ she said.
‘Same as me then.’
‘Who with?’
‘Professor Pujol.’
‘Same as me,’ she said with a frown. ‘So he’s seeing us together. That doesn’t sound right to me.’
‘Perhaps he’s a busy man.’
‘But what do you want to see him about? If that isn’t being too nosy? To get your watches repaired?’
She gave a merry little laugh, without malice, then choked it off quickly. She had nice teeth, still white for her age, and looked ten years younger when she smiled.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just like my little joke.’
‘No harm done,’ Adamsberg said again.
‘But what are you here for?’
‘Well, let’s say I’m interested in spiders.’
‘You must be, if you’re coming to see Professor Pujol. Are you some kind of amateur arachnologist?’
‘You could say that.’
‘And you’ve got a problem with a spider?’
‘Yes, I suppose so. What about you?’
‘Oh, I’m bringing him one. Sometimes they like to have specimens. Because this one’s rare.’
Then the little woman seemed to think, looking straight ahead, and weighing up gravely the pros and cons of what she was about to do. She looked hard at her companion, without being nosy, she hoped. A little man, dark, thin, with muscles as tight as sinews. A head . . . but what could one say about his head? Very irregular features, high cheekbones, hollow cheeks, a large Roman nose and a crooked smile that was quite attractive. Having thought about the smile, she took a decision, brought out her precious box and held it out to him.
Adamsberg looked closely at the brown creature curled up behind the yellowing plastic. A dead spider doesn’t look like anything at all. If you squash a huge house spider, what’s left is a little lump. Today, talking about the recluse, even seeing it for the first time, did not trigger any alarm bells in his head. Same thing the previous evening at dinner. He had no idea why, and didn’t try to work it out. He must just be getting used to it.
‘You don’t know what it is?’ asked the woman.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Never seen a dead one perhaps?’
‘No.’
‘But you can see its back?’
‘Yes.’
‘Doesn’t anything strike you about the cephalothorax?’
Adamsberg hesitated. He had read something about this. The other name for the recluse was the violin spider. Because apparently there was a violin shape on its back. He had looked at the pictures online, but frankly he hadn’t seen anything like a violin.
‘It’s the pattern, is it?’
‘I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but if you’re an arachnologist, then I’m the Pope.’
‘True,’ said Adamsberg, handing her back the box.
‘Which spider is it that interests you?’
‘The recluse.’
‘The recluse? So you’re the same as everyone else? You’re scared?’
‘No. I’m a cop.’
‘A cop? Let me get this straight.’
The little woman stared ahead of her again, then turned to Adamsberg.
‘When people die, the cops get involved. But you’re not going to arrest recluse spiders for murder, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Mind you, they’d love it in a prison cell, if you just gave them a little pile of wood to hide in. Sorry, sorry, just joking.’
‘Not at all, no harm done.’
‘Wait for me to work it out. Now, I get it. When people start panicking, then the police get involved. To bring things under control. So what you’re doing, you’ve come to get information, so that you can tell your bosses or your juniors what they need to do to reassure people.’
Adamsberg realised that this little woman had just provided him with the perfect explanation to justify his request for an appointment with Professor Pujol.
‘That’s right,’ he said with a smile. ‘Orders from my bosses. As if we didn’t have enough to do.’
‘You should have phoned me, you could have saved yourself a lot of time.’
‘But I didn’t know you!’
‘No, of course not. You didn’t know me. This one in the box is a recluse spider. Sometimes they need to extract its venom.’
‘Is it dangerous, the recluse?’
‘What do you think? Of course, with old people, it’s worse. But especially if people wait days and days. They’re so ignorant. They don’t know that if you get a little blister, it could be a recluse bite. Best to go to the doctor and get antibiotics. But no, they wait, especially if they’re old. Because that’s what old people do, they don’t rush. If it’s swollen, they say, “Oh, it’s just an insect bite, it’ll go over.” And normally, fair enough, they’re not wrong. What if we rushed off to hospital every time we saw a pimple? But a recluse bite doesn’t always go over. Of course, when they see a big black patch, then they rush off to hospital. And sometimes, well, it’s too late.’
‘You seem to know a lot about the recluse spider.’
‘That’s because I’ve got quite a few in my house.’
‘And you’re not scared?’
‘No, I know where they live, I don’t disturb them, that’s all. I wouldn’t disturb any spider. I like all kinds of creatures. Oh, well, there is one, one I can’t stand. A nasty creature, the cellar beetle. You know about it? I say, this professor’s late, he’s not bothered, is he? With all the trouble I took to get here. I don’t know if I will give him my spider in the end. So, anyway, the horrible stinking cellar beetle, know what that is?’
‘No, never heard of it.’
‘Oh, you must have. It’s a big black beetle, but a kind of dirty black. Like shoes that’ve never been cleaned. It’s got lots of names, stink beetle, stink bug, angel-of-death beetle.’
‘What’s it done to deserve that?’
‘It likes dark places, cellars, dirty places. Oh, it’s a filthy creature. And if you disturb it, instead of running away, it lifts up its bum, oops, language, please excuse me, sorry, sorry, it lifts up its back end, and it squirts out nasty smelly stuff. It’s itchy too, if you get it on you. They’re quite big, four centimetres long where I live. You must have seen them. Where are you from?’
‘The south-west, Béarn. What about you?’
‘Cadeirac, near Nîmes. But you must have seen them. Wherever there’s shit, you’ll find these beetles. Oh, language, excuse me, sorry.’
‘OK, no harm done.’
‘Well, if I see one of those, I squash it with a piece of wood or a stone, before it gets time to squirt at me. What worries me, I’ve seen two of them recently, not in the cellar but in the house. And I don’t like that.’
‘Because it’s an angel of death?’
‘I don’t know about death, but they certainly bring bad luck. No one wants to see one of them. The first one crawled out from behind my gas cylinder. And the other out of my boot. Bold as brass. And you know what they feed on? Rat droppings, no, I’m not joking.’
Professor Pujol was coming to meet them, his white lab coat flapping open, a large bearded man with rimless glasses, a bald head, and the stern expression of someone who has been disturbed in his serious work. He held out his hand to Adamsberg first.