by Fred Vargas
‘Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg?’
‘Himself.’
‘I must admit that receiving a visit from a senior police officer because of a few recluse spider bites does surprise me a bit.’
‘Me too, professor. But I’m under orders.’
‘And you obey them. What a job! No opportunity to think for yourself, believe me, I feel sorry for you.’
You couldn’t make this guy up, Adamsberg thought. Then Pujol turned to stare at the little woman who was hauling herself to her feet with some difficulty, hampered by her bag and her walking stick. Adamsberg helped her, gently taking her arm, and picking up the bag.
‘Sorry, please excuse me, it’s my arthritis.’
The professor had not lifted a finger to help and waited until the woman was standing up before extending his hand.
‘Irène Royer-Colombe? Is that right? Follow me, please, both of you.’
Pujol set off at a smart pace along the corridors, while Adamsberg, slowed down by the little woman, whose elbow he was still holding, couldn’t keep up.
‘Take your time,’ he said to her.
‘No manners, has he? But perhaps I’m wrong, jumping to conclusions. I didn’t know you were a police chief, and I said “cop”. Please forgive me, I’m so sorry.’
‘No harm done, I said “cop” before you did.’
‘Ah, that’s true.’
* * *
*
Seven minutes of corridors, at the slow pace of Irène Royer, creaky parquet floors, formalin, various jars on shelves, until they reached the very small office of Professor Pujol.
‘Go ahead, ask your questions,’ he said, even before sitting down. ‘I should warn you, my speciality is the Salticidae family, nothing to do with your recluse. I’ve heard of it, of course. It’s this business about it biting people in Languedoc-Roussillon, isn’t it? Commissaire?’
‘The rumours all over the internet, after five bites in three weeks and three fatalities – all old men – are starting to make people come up with theories and spreading panic. The police hierarchy doesn’t like panic, because it could lead to violence.’
‘And I’ll tell you something,’ Irène Royer added, ‘you don’t know the half of it up here in Paris. But down there, there’s a kind of witch-hunt. Sales of vacuum cleaners have shot up, to get them out of their little haunts.’
‘Good for business then,’ said Pujol, picking up a toothpick and fiddling with his jaw.
‘Witch-hunts of all kinds. In my village, people know that I don’t kill recluses.’
‘That’s commendable.’
‘It may be commendable, but I’ve already had a stone through my window. I told the gendarmes, but they don’t know what to do, or what to think: should they be helping to get rid of these so-called “mutant” recluses, or cut the numbers of “invaders”? Or just do nothing at all? They’ve no idea.’
‘That’s where you can help us,’ put in Adamsberg. ‘My superiors want a scientific opinion, so as to advise the local authorities.’
‘An opinion on what?’
‘Well, has there been a sudden increase in the number of recluse spiders? Because, some say, of climate change.’
‘Out of the question,’ said Pujol, with a disdainful curl of his lip, disdain for the ignorant and credulous. ‘Arachnids aren’t rodents. They don’t suddenly multiply as spermophiles do for example.’
‘Well,’ Adamsberg insisted, ‘some people are saying that the fall in bird numbers, because of insecticides, and pollution, might have meant more small spiders are surviving.’
‘As with all species, if some disappear, others take their place. When the passerines’ numbers drop for instance, that’s sparrows, blue tits and so on, other hardier species move in and prosper. Crows for example. So the small spiders are still going to get eaten in the same quantity. Next question?’
Adamsberg took a moment to note this down. You couldn’t make him up, he thought again.
‘Well, there’s another hypothesis doing the rounds: mutation,’ he went on. ‘What people are saying –’
‘What people are saying! You mean on social media?’
‘Yes.’
‘In other words, idiots, ignorant people, who get steamed up over some crackpot hypothesis, about things of which they know nothing.’
‘Well, professor, the social media are places that start humming and spread rumours. Like I said, my superiors don’t like rumours. And as I told you, what they want is a firm opinion before they put out official denials.’
‘I’ve been arguing with people for three weeks on social media,’ Irène Royer put in. ‘It was a waste of time. I might just as well have been . . .’
‘... pissing in the wind,’ she was going to say, Adamsberg thought.
‘... pouring water into a funnel,’ was what she actually said. ‘Only a scientific announcement can deal with them.’
‘And what do you say to these people, Madame Royer, on these networks?’
‘Madame Royer-Colombe actually, but all right, it’s easier just to say Royer, everyone else does. I tell them that the recluse spiders hide themselves away, it’s not often you see them. They’re not aggressive, they don’t jump or anything. And their venom isn’t fatal, well, OK, perhaps it could be for very old people with a failing system –’
‘An immunodeficient system,’ Pujol interrupted.
‘And it’s the time they wait too, before they go to the doctor, because they don’t know how to recognise a recluse spider bite.’
‘Well, roughly speaking that’s right. I might phrase it differently.’
‘But you didn’t answer my question about mutation,’ Adamsberg pressed him. ‘This terrifies people, but it fascinates them too, they want it to be true and fear it at the same time. They say that spiders eat huge quantities of insects.’
‘Which is correct.’
‘And that since insects these days are pumped full of insecticides, the spiders are absorbing toxins that could affect their venom.’
‘Mutations, that is to say modification of DNA information, happen all the time. The flu virus mutates every year. But it’s still flu. There’s never a mutation that totally modifies an animal organism.’
‘But you get children born with four arms and stuff like that,’ said the woman.
‘That’s an individual chromosome anomaly, nothing to do with mutation. Do you think, Madame Royer, that a mutant spider with eighteen legs and super-powerful venom is suddenly going to materialise and go chasing after humans? Don’t confuse genetic reality and horror movies. You follow me? Well, to close the subject, yes indeed, spiders are full of insecticide from their diet. As we are, too. As are insects, which die of it. And birds, which also die of it. Well, so do the spiders. There’s more likely to be a drop in their population than a rise.’
‘So, mutation is out of the question?’ asked Adamsberg, still taking notes.
‘That’s right, no mutation. If you really want to invest resources in this, commissaire, get the Ministry of the Interior to analyse the toxin present in the blood of victims who have died of loxoscelism.’
‘Loxoscelism?’ said Adamsberg, pen raised.
‘That’s what we call the morbid strain present in the recluse. So you should apply to the APC –’
‘The APC?’
‘The Anti-Poison Centre in Marseille.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘You ask them at the APC to do a comparison with the venom of the recluse from last year, and measure the rise in toxicity. The patients must have had blood tests which will have been preserved. You follow me? Do that if you want. That’ll be fun, believe me.’
‘Very well, that’s good news on the whole,’ said Adamsberg closing his notebook. ‘No population increase and no mutation. So how would you explain the fact t
hat already this summer, by 2 June, we’ve seen five recluse bites and three actual fatalities?’
‘Well, the fatalities, as madame here suggests, probably result from an unfortunate delay in seeking treatment, on the part of immunodeficient individuals, who fell victim to haemolysis or sepsis. As for the other two cases, it’s the rumours, and the to-do in local papers and the internet that have prompted the people concerned to come forward. If there hadn’t been this ridiculous scare last year about the American recluse spider – now that one is dangerous – spreading to France, this wouldn’t be happening. As a rule, if someone is bitten by a recluse, the bite is harmless, no venom is injected, or very little. In the rare cases where it injects all the venom from both glands, the person will notice it and go straight to the doctor who will prescribe antibiotics. But people don’t seem to know this. Is that all?’
‘Not quite, professor. Is it possible that an individual, let us say with malicious intent, could introduce a whole lot of recluses into someone’s house?’
‘In order to kill some other person?’
‘Yes.’
‘You must be joking, commissaire.’
‘I have my orders.’
‘Ah, I was forgetting, your orders. You must be better placed than me to know that there are a thousand infinitely simpler ways of murdering someone. Let’s suppose – though it’s ridiculous, isn’t it? – that your psychopath wants to use some kind of animal toxin. Well, he’d choose to take it from vipers, for heaven’s sake! A single viper can deliver, if it wants to, 15 milligrams of venom. I’ll spare you its LD 50, that is, the lethal dose that’s 50 per cent efficient on a group of mice, weighing 20 grams per individual. You follow me? So to kill a man with viper venom, he’d have to be bitten four or five times. And if you know how to get four or five vipers to do that, please tell me, that would be fun. So just think about the little recluse. Its stock of venom is tiny. Even if it empties both glands in a single bite, which, I repeat, is actually rare, you’d need, let me think, we don’t have a LD 50 rate for recluses, just glandular estimates . . .’
There was a silence while the professor did some calculations in his head. ‘Right,’ said Pujol finally, with a smile, ‘you’d need the equivalent of forty-four recluse glands to be sure of killing someone. That would be twenty-two spiders, all biting this victim, which would be quite an achievement for a solitary non-aggressive species of spider. And you’d probably have to have about sixty, in practice, to take account of the harmless bites. To kill three men, one hundred and eighty recluses. So your psychopath would have to get hold of almost two hundred recluses, and then let them loose on his intended victims, his enemies presumably, and just hope they’d do the job. But why would they, I ask you! Two hundred! And I’d remind you that they’re hard to find. They aren’t called recluses for nothing.’
‘Quite,’ said Irène Royer. ‘Hard to catch too, even if you know where they are. You know what I had the privilege of seeing one day? A whole swarm of baby spiders flying away with the wind on their gossamer.’
‘You were lucky, madame, it’s a fine sight. But let me pursue the commissaire’s theory about a group attack. Don’t you think that after having been bitten, let’s say three times, the victim would realise something was wrong and get out of bed, if that’s where it happened? Would he wait to be bitten sixty times? So you see, commissaire, the suggestion’s preposterous. But if you ever find this extraordinary aggressor, please bring him here . . .’
. . . and it’ll be fun, Adamsberg mentally finished Pujol’s sentence.
‘Well, as far as I’m concerned, professor, that’s the end of it. Thank you for your time.’
And he stood up, followed by Irène Royer.
‘And you too, madame? You’re satisfied?’
‘Yes, likewise. Thank you. Excuse me, I’m sorry to have bothered you.’
* * *
*
‘You didn’t need to apologise,’ said Adamsberg when they were back in the corridor, ‘not to someone as . . .’
Adamsberg tried to think of what Danglard would say.
‘Boorish . . . someone as boorish, self-important and rude. But never mind that, we’ve got our answers.’
‘Well, you got them and I did, thanks to you. Because I’m sure he wouldn’t have bothered to explain it to me. But when it’s for the cops, I mean the police, and especially a commissaire carrying out orders, he’s got to take notice, all right, that’s understandable. Good thing I didn’t give him my little box. He’d just have laughed.’
‘Now, Madame Royer, a warning. Please, I beg you, do not go spreading it on Twitter or whatever that my superiors sent me on this mission.’
‘Why not? For once, when the cops, I mean the police, do something useful for a change, you should tell people about it. Why shouldn’t I tell them?’
‘Because it wouldn’t be true. Nobody sent me on this mission.’
They had just come out of the museum entrance and the woman stopped short on the rue Buffon.
‘What? You’re not even a policeman? This was all a pack of lies? Well, I don’t approve of that, no indeed I don’t.’
‘I am a cop,’ said Adamsberg, showing her his card.
The little woman looked at it carefully then tilted her chin.
‘So you just came off your own bat? You didn’t really have any orders. You got some fixed idea in your head, did you? Seems like it to me. That’s why you asked all those questions about the poison, so you looked like you were totally ignorant.’
‘That doesn’t bother me, I’m used to it.’
‘Well, it does bother me. I could have explained it to you. You can’t kill people with recluses. They don’t want to bite, like I said. I couldn’t have given you all those figures the prof had. But it comes to the same thing. It’s not possible, just not possible.’
‘Yes, maybe. But I didn’t know you, did I?’
‘Yes, I was forgetting you didn’t know me.’
‘Madame Royer-Colombe,’ said Adamsberg who was extremely anxious not to have his name and his action bruited abroad on social networks, ‘why don’t we go for a coffee? The Étoile d’Austerlitz is just along the street. Then we could talk more openly.’
‘Madame Royer will do,’ said the woman, ‘it’s simpler, most people call me that. I don’t like coffee, thank you.’
‘Tea, or hot chocolate, then.’
‘All right, I’m going that way in any case.’
Veyrenc phoned him, as they were making their way slowly along the street, Adamsberg still holding her arm and with her bag slung on his shoulder.
‘Nothing suspicious,’ Adamsberg reported to Veyrenc. ‘The professor is odious, but he knows his onions.’
‘That’s the least he could do,’ muttered Irène Royer from beside him. ‘It’s his job, isn’t it? You don’t want to come all this way to listen to rubbish, eh?’
‘No, Louis,’ Adamsberg went on. ‘No sudden increase in numbers, no mutation, and absolutely no way you could use these creatures to kill anyone. That makes it clearer anyway.’
‘Are you disappointed?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I am, a bit. Oh, it’s nothing really.’
‘The shadow?’
‘Maybe. But we can make mistakes about a shadow, can’t we?’
‘Like we can make mistakes about the fog.’
‘Yes, we’ll just have to admit that’s the end of it.’
‘No, it’s not the end of it, Louis. Don’t forget: what’s the global statistic? Ten deaths a year caused by spiders. None to date in France.’
‘But you just said “absolutely no way”.’
‘Yes, looking at it from this angle. But what if one approached it from another one? Remember the different ways you can climb the Pic de Balaïtous in the Pyrenees? There are some routes to the top where you’re m
ore likely to fall, others that work fine.’
‘I know them, Jean-Baptiste.’
‘Just a question of the right route, Louis. The angle of approach. The right track.’
Sitting in front of her hot chocolate, Irène Royer pointed at the mobile.
‘You’ve got a funny way of talking. Sorry, sorry, not my business, but “shadow”, “route”, “angle of approach”?’
‘He’s a childhood friend. And a colleague.’
‘He’s from the Béarn then, like you.’
‘Precisely.’
‘They say people from there have hard skulls, because of the mountains. Like Bretons, with the sea. Just one little slip and the mountain lets you fall or the sea gets you. They’re elements too big for us, so you need to have a hard skull, I suppose.’
‘Possibly.’
‘But you are making your little slip, you know. You’re clinging on to your rock, and you might find yourself falling down, over the cliff.’
‘No, I’ll climb down from this rock and try another.’
‘I suppose your bosses, they don’t know anything about all this? That you’re getting worked up about the recluse? Without rhyme or reason.’
‘No, they don’t.’
‘And if they did know, you’d be in hot water?’
Adamsberg smiled. ‘Yes.’
‘That’s why you’re buying me a hot chocolate. So I won’t go spreading it on social media that this Paris commissaire is off his trolley, all on his own and his bosses don’t know. That’s why you’re being nice to me.’
‘But I am nice.’
‘And obstinate. That’s pride. You’ve got your little hunch, without knowing anything about this spider, less than a kid would know, and the prof showed you you were wrong. Yes or no?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you tell your friend, no, it’s not the end of it. When you’ve got everything there under your nose. So that’s what I call pride.’
Adamsberg smiled again. This little woman appealed to him. She had insight and summed things up well. He put a finger on her shoulder.