by Fred Vargas
‘Very well, in that case,’ said Danglard, making for the door again.
‘I said I’d like you to stay, Danglard.’
‘So it is an order.’
‘Because I know perfectly well you’re not starving to death. You’re not going for lunch, you’re running away. And I know you well enough by now to predict that running away will ruin your soul. Sit down.’
Danglard did not take a chair facing Adamsberg, but strode rather fast – hastened by anger – to his original seat about five metres away.
‘What are you afraid of, commandant? That I’m going to run you through with a sword? I already asked you, Danglard: have you forgotten what I’m like, after all these years? But if you’re opting for prudence, it’s up to you.’
‘True prudence means seeing from the start of something what its end will be.’
‘Another quotation. It’s easy to wriggle out of anything with a quotation, especially when you know about a thousand.’
‘That way you understand everything.’
‘So you’re predicting a sorry end to this investigation.’
‘I should be sorry to see you fall headlong into the sands.’
‘In that case, explain yourself, Danglard. Explain why you went right ahead and split the squad down the middle. Explain why you were going to complain about my wanderings to the divisionnaire. Explain why I’m going headlong into the sands.’
‘As regards Brézillon, it’s very simple: We are not obliged to praise or honour our leaders, we have to obey them at the time of obedience and check them when the time comes to check them.’
‘You’re beginning to get on my nerves with your quotations. You’re sticking to your guns, are you, after what you’ve just heard? Which convinced the whole of the rest of the squad? So please, for the love of God, explain yourself, Danglard.’
‘It’s impossible.’
‘Why?’
‘Because something that can be explained in several ways does not merit any explanation.’
‘Well, when you’ve returned to your normal self, let me know,’ said Adamsberg, standing up.
The commissaire left the room, slamming the door and grabbed Veyrenc by the arm.
‘Let’s go into the yard,’ he said. ‘It’s become a habit, and I have blackbirds to feed. There’s a female nesting in the ivy.’
‘Blackbirds are quite capable of feeding themselves.’
‘Birds are dying in their millions, Louis. Do you ever see any sparrows in Paris now? It’s a wholesale slaughter. And the male is very thin.’
Adamsberg made a detour to call on Froissy.
‘She keeps the victuals,’ he explained.
‘I’ve made some progress on the eleven victims,’ said Froissy, without turning her head, as they came in. ‘Six of them are already dead. Gilbert Preuilly, André Rivelin, Henri Trémont, Jacques Sentier, Ernest Vidot, the one with the bad arm, and Maurice Berléant, the one who was impotent. There are five left: Richard Jarras and René Quissol, who had harmless bites, both live in Alès. Louis, the one who lost a leg, Marcel, whose cheek was damaged, and Jean, who lost a foot, are all in the Vaucluse département: Louis and Marcel live in Fontaine-de-Vaucluse and Jean lives in Courthézon, about fifty kilometres away.’
‘So the three who suffered the most are still close together. And not that far from Nîmes. How old are they now?’
‘Louis Arjalas is seventy-six, Jean Escande is seventy-seven, and Marcel Corbière is eighty-two.’
‘Send me their addresses, family situation, state of health, anything you can find.’
‘Already sent.’
‘Got their former occupations?
‘Of the five, in no particular order, one sales rep, one antiques dealer, one restaurant owner, one in hospital admin and one primary teacher.’
‘What about the stink bugs? How many of them are left to kill?’
‘Well, if you put it that way,’ said Froissy with a sigh. ‘Four of them have died: César Missoli, Denis Haubert, Colin Duval and Victor Ménard. Then there are the three who died as a result of the recluse bites.’
‘So there are three left.’
‘Alain Lambertin, Olivier Vessac and Roger Torrailles.’
‘And where do these ones live?’
‘Lambertin’s in Senonches, near Chartres, Vessac in Saint-Porchaire, near Rochefort, and Torrailles at Lédignan, near Nîmes. I’ve sent all this to your phone.’
‘Thanks, Froissy. We’ll wait in the corridor, if you can find some cake. We might have a bite too, as we haven’t had anything to eat.’
‘What are we doing hanging about in the corridor?’ asked Veyrenc.
‘You know perfectly well Froissy doesn’t open her food store in front of anyone. She thinks no one knows about it.’
After several long minutes, Froissy emerged with a heavy basket covered with a tea towel, saying, ‘Can I come with you? I like feeding the birds.’
As he followed the lieutenant, food provider for the whole squad, Adamsberg repeated: ‘Little Louis, little Jeannot, little Marcel.’
‘Worrying, eh?’
‘Yeah. And they’re living near each other. Reminds you of the other gang, doesn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily. They’ve stayed in touch because they’re locked together by the same memories – understandable.’
‘But ten years ago, Louis threatened Claveyrolle, and said “I’m not alone”.’
‘I haven’t forgotten that.’
‘It’s really not easy to put recluse spiders in someone’s trousers. Getting in the house while he’s asleep. Old people are light sleepers.’
‘You could always slip something into their drinks.’
‘But we come up against the same old étoc,’ said Adamsberg, as they reached the courtyard. ‘You’d have to be able to slip sixty goddamn spiders into their goddam trousers. And get them all to bite at the same place. Would you be able to do that?’
Adamsberg sat on the stone steps facing the courtyard and let his neck and shoulders relax in the warm air. Froissy crumbled the cake on the ground under the nest.
‘What’s she got in the basket?’ asked Veyrenc.
‘It’ll be our lunch, Louis. On china plates with proper knives and forks. A high-quality cold meal, wild boar pâté, leek quiche, guacamole, fresh bread, or whatever. You didn’t seriously think she was just going to give us some cake?’
The two men ate their lunch – which was indeed delicious – in a few minutes, and Froissy, looking pleased, collected the plates, leaving them two bottles of water.
‘Danglard’s going off the rails,’ said Veyrenc.
‘He’s not the same man. He’s changed, there’s something new going on. It’s as if we’ve lost him.’
‘I think it’s something personal.’
‘Against me? That would be new, Louis.’
‘Against you because you’re launching this investigation, not the same thing. He really doesn’t want this investigation to go ahead. Today, he should have accepted that he was wrong. He’s perfectly capable of doing that normally. He only had to raise his arm.’
‘You think there’s something lurking in the depths?’
‘Something nasty, like that eel. And it matters desperately. If he’s reached this stage, it’s nothing to do with theory or far-seeing judgement. It’s something personal.’
‘As you said.’
‘Very personal. Intimate. I said, if you remember, that it’s some kind of deep fear.’
‘For someone else?’
‘Could be.’
Adamsberg leaned back against the upper steps and half closed his eyes, letting the sun shine on his face. Then he sat back up and called Froissy on his phone.
‘One more thing, Froissy. If you don’t mind, can you find out something ab
out Danglard for me? He’s got two sisters, one of them’s about fifteen years older than him. She’s the one that interests me.’
‘Investigate the commandant’s family?’
‘Yes, Froissy.’
He pocketed the phone and slumped back again, face in the sun.
‘What’s that about?’ asked Veyrenc.
‘You said it yourself, Louis. Very personal. Intimate. And what’s more personal than your close family? “Deep fear”, you thought. On whose behalf? His family’s. Never challenge a moray eel about his family.’
‘Or a buffalo.’
‘Or any creature. Look, the blackbird’s getting tame, he’s hopping over to us.’
‘You’re right, he is a bit thin.’
* * *
*
Froissy called back after six minutes. Adamsberg switched on the speaker for Veyrenc.
‘I don’t know how you knew this, sir. He has a sister, Ariane, fourteen years older than him. And she married a man.’
‘Yes, all right, lieutenant. Who was the man?’
There was a pause.
‘Are you still there, Froissy?
‘Yes. She married Richard Jarras.’
‘Our Richard Jarras?
‘Yes, commissaire,’ said Froissy sadly.
‘And how old is he?’
‘Seventy-five.’
‘His occupation?’
‘He was the one in hospital admin.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Putting it simply, he was a buyer. That is, someone in charge of the chain of requirements and orders of medicines for the hospital.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘At first at Cochin Hospital in Paris, and then in Marseille.’
‘And where in Marseille?’
‘He was employed for twenty-eight years at Sainte-Rosalie.’
‘How is it you can tell me all this so fast?’
‘Because I anticipated your questions. And yes, to the next one, it is indeed at Sainte-Rosalie that the Anti-Poison Centre is based. But still, they don’t manufacture anti-venom there, if that’s what you’re thinking. They buy it in from pharmaceutical labs.’
‘And those do have poisons.’
‘Yes, but they don’t sell them to private individuals. Give me another few minutes and I’ll get back to you.’
‘About what?’
‘Your next question.’
‘I’ve got a next question, have I? All right, Froissy, I’ll wait.’
Adamsberg got to his feet and paced up and down in front of the steps, more or less followed by the blackbird.
‘Shit,’ said Veyrenc.
‘You were right.’
‘What made you think of the sister?’
‘She lived with him for a while when his wife left him. She hauled him up out of the pit, she looked after the kids. Back in his childhood, she was already looking after him. Both parents were out at work so much the oldest sister had to mother the two younger children. I knew all that.’
‘A mother-sister.’
‘Yes. And you go troubling a moray eel’s mother-sister at your peril.’
‘Basic rule, Voisenet would say.’
Adamsberg walked round the yard again and returned to the steps.
‘If Richard Jarras was bitten by a recluse when he was a child, along with ten other boys in the orphanage, it can’t have been a secret to his family. Danglard must have already known the story of the Recluse Gang, by heart probably. Jarras may well have recounted his memories many times, repeating the names of the victims and the persecutors.
‘Names most people wouldn’t remember. But Danglard would.’
‘And when someone called Claveyrolle and someone called Barral died, it must have rung alarm bells. It gets worse. His brother-in-law was a buyer of medical supplies for Sainte-Rosalie. Danglard panicked, he put up his defences.’
‘And tried to block the investigation.’
‘He bit.’
‘Still, Froissy told you that in Sainte-Rosalie they only buy anti-venom, not poisons.’
‘So Jarras would have had to go in secret to the manufacturers. Hello, Froissy?’
‘Sainte-Rosalie orders its recluse anti-venom from a giant company called Meredial-Lab, and has contacts with its Pennsylvania factory. Because there are plenty of dangerous recluse spiders in the United States. Not just there, Mexico too.’
‘Does Meredial have another branch?’
‘In Mexico City. If someone’s selling it, it could be anyone, an employee, a clerk, a carrier, a storeman, whatever, some man or woman not above selling stuff illegally for a good price. Those labs employ thousands of people.’
‘And who would ever suspect that recluse venom would be sold on the black market?
‘Exactly. And for what purpose?’
‘And Richard Jarras,’ said Veyrenc, ‘who no doubt had access to the Meredial organigram, might have established a contact, and over the years acquired enough doses.’
‘He couldn’t have done it alone, Louis. The other victims must be behind him, maybe they shared it out.’
‘But how did Jarras find a seller he could trust?’
‘He could only do that on the spot.’
‘Froissy?’ Adamsberg called her back. ‘Can you check whether Jarras has ever been to the US or Mexico? In the last twenty years.’
‘All right. Wait and I’ll call you.’
Adamsberg went back to pacing the yard.
‘Nope,’ Froissy reported in a few minutes. ‘Never been to the US or anywhere in South or Central America. And I checked the passports of the other four, Quissol, Arjalas, Corbière and Escande. Same result.’
‘So what does he do?’ asked Veyrenc. ‘He goes fishing? He telephones somebody over there at random, asking them to send him poison under cover? Don’t like the sound of that.’
‘Me neither, but it’s our best lead, Louis. Injecting someone with a concentrated dose of venom makes a lot more sense than stuffing sixty spiders into someone’s trousers at night.’
‘But how does Jarras – or one of the others – manage to inject the victim? They were bitten on the leg. So, he pulls out a hypodermic needle and asks the man to please offer him his ankle?’
‘No idea,’ said Adamsberg, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Posing as a doctor perhaps? Giving some kind of vaccination?’
‘Against what?’
Adamsberg looked up at the clouds, then down at the blackbird which was hopping about.
‘Bird flu?’ he said. ‘It’s reappeared in the south of France.’
‘And you think the men would fall for it?’
‘Why not? We’ll ask Retancourt to get on the case. Surveillance of Richard Jarras and René Quissol in Alès. What’s the time?’
‘Half past two. You should get those watches fixed.’
XXIII
Lieutenant Retancourt was finishing a sandwich at the Dice Thrower, the bistro at the corner of the street, not expensive but rather off-putting, on account of the grumpy attitude of the owner, a wiry little man locked in bitter social rivalry with the more upmarket Brasserie des Philosophes on the opposite corner. Adamsberg sat down at her table.
‘There’s a train at 16.07 for Alès. Does that give you time to fetch what you need from home?’
‘Cutting it fine. What’s the hurry for Alès?’
‘Surveillance job. Two men to keep an eye on. You can take Kernorkian and four juniors.’
‘So we have to watch them 24/7? Hired cars?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Who are they?’
Adamsberg waited until they were outside the café to answer her question.
‘René Quissol, but especially Richard Jarras. Two old men who were bitten by spiders as children.�
��
‘Did they lose limbs?’
‘No, these ones only had harmless bites.’
‘Why concentrate on Jarras?’
‘He worked for twenty-eight years as a buyer for the Sainte-Rosalie hospital in Marseille, the one where the APC is based.’
‘And?’
‘And this centre orders recluse anti-venom from a firm called Meredial-Lab that centralises collections of poison, in Pennsylvania and Mexico. Jarras would have had access to this circuit.’
‘OK. And we know that Jarras went there, do we?’
‘No, he never has.’
‘So how has he found an accomplice across the Atlantic?’
‘That’s all we’ve got, Retancourt.’
‘Right.’
When Retancourt was on a mission, and she had already embraced it, she didn’t use many words, concentrating her energy on the objective. No chit-chat.
‘This operation’s top secret, lieutenant.’
‘Why?’
‘Richard Jarras is married.’
‘Right.’
‘To a woman whose name is Ariane Danglard.’
‘What?’
‘Yes. His sister.’
Retancourt stopped on the pavement, in front of the tall archway of the squad’s building, blonde eyebrows puckered.
‘So now we understand what it’s about,’ she said. ‘Danglard hasn’t gone soft in the head, he’s scared.’
‘The result’s the same, lieutenant. He absolutely mustn’t know.’
‘Or he’d help this Richard to skedaddle. Tell Kernorkian not to waste time, I’ll pick up his clothes for him.’
‘The other officers will join you by late morning. Take care, Retancourt. A single injection and you’ve had it in two days.’
‘Right.’
* * *
*
Adamsberg went round the squad distributing tasks. Kernorkian and the four junior officers were to leave for Alès, to keep an eye on Richard Jarras and René Quissol. Voisenet was to go to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse and Courthézon, accompanied by Lamarre, Justin and six colleagues, in order to watch Louis Arjalas, aka Little Louis, missing one leg, Marcel Corbière, missing one cheek, and Jean Escande, aka Jeannot, missing one foot. Froissy was to trace the GPS and mobile phones of Richard Jarras and René Quissol since 10 May, the date of the first lethal bite. Mercadet was to do the same for Arjalas, Corbière and Escande. And see whether they had in any way approached the remaining three stink bugs: Alain Lambertin in Senonches, Olivier Vessac in Saint-Porchaire, and Roger Torrailles in Lédignan.