Dog Will Have His Day (3 page)

Vincent had taken out a small pair of scissors and was cutting articles out of his pile of newspapers.

‘You doing like I do now? Collecting press cuttings?’

‘The pupil has to copy the master till the master gets fed up and boots him out, and that’s the sign that the pupil’s ready to become a master in turn, yeah? Am I bothering you?’

‘Not at all. But you’re not paying enough attention to the provinces,’ said Kehlweiler, shuffling through the pile of newspapers Vincent had collected. ‘This stuff’s too Parisian.’

‘Haven’t got time. I’m not like you, I don’t have people sending me their discoveries from all over France, I’m not a veteran chief. One day, I’ll have my own secret squad. So who are the people in your grand army?’

‘Guys like you, or women like you, journalists, activists, the unemployed, troublemakers, whistle-blowers, judges, cafe owners, philosophers, cops, newspaper vendors, chestnut sellers, er . . .’

‘OK, I get the picture,’ said Vincent.

Kehlweiler looked quickly at the iron grid round the foot of the tree, then at Vincent, then around them.

‘Have you lost something?’ Vincent asked.

‘In a way. And what I’ve lost on the one hand I get the feeling I’ve found on the other. You’re sure nobody else has been sitting here this morning? You haven’t nodded off to sleep over the stuff you’re reading?’

‘After seven in the morning, I never go back to sleep.’

‘Good for you.’

‘The provincial press,’ Vincent went on obstinately, ‘is full of common or garden crime, going nowhere, just small-town incidents, time after time, and it doesn’t interest me.’

‘And you’re wrong. A premeditated crime, a private slander, an arbitrary denunciation, they all go somewhere, to a big dunghill where bigger things are fermenting, large-scale crime, collective operations. Better look at it all, without weeding it. I’m a generalist.’

Vincent muttered something, while Kehlweiler got up to go and stare at the flat metal grid round the base of the tree. Vincent knew Kehlweiler’s theories by heart, including the story of the left hand and the right hand. The left hand, Louis would announce, lifting his arms and spreading his fingers, is imperfect, clumsy and hesitant, and therefore a salutary source of muddle and doubt. The right hand, firm, assured, competent, is the driver of human genius. Mastery, method and logic all proceed from it. But look out now, Vincent, this is where you have to follow me carefully: lean just a little too far to the right, a couple of steps further, and you see discipline and certainty looming up, yes? Go further still, three steps, say, and it’s the tragic plunge into perfectionism, the impeccable, then the infallible and the pitiless. Then you’re only half a man walking, leaning over to your extreme right, unheeding the great value of muddle, a cruel imbecile closed to the virtues of doubt: it can creep up on you more sneakily than you imagine, you think you’re safe, but you have to watch it, you have two hands, we’re not like dogs. Vincent smiled and flexed his hands. He had learned to watch out for men who walked leaning one way, but he wanted to concern himself entirely with politics, whereas Louis always wanted to have a finger in every pie. But now, Louis was still standing with his back against the tree, looking down at the grid.

‘What the heck are you doing?’ asked Vincent.

‘That little white thing on the grid round the tree – see it?’

‘Sort of.’

‘I’d like it if you could pick it up for me. With my knee, I can’t crouch down.’

Vincent got up with a sigh. He had never challenged any suggestion by Kehlweiler, the high priest of muddle, and he wasn’t about to start now.

‘Use a handkerchief, I think it’ll be smelly.’

Vincent shook his head, and handed Kehlweiler the small object in a piece of newspaper because he didn’t have a handkerchief. He sat back down on the bench, picked up his scissors and seemingly paid no further attention to Kehlweiler: there are limits to one’s tolerance. But out of the corner of his eye, he observed him looking at the little object from every angle, in the piece of newspaper.

‘Vincent?’

‘Yes.’

‘It didn’t rain early this morning?’

‘No, not since two in the morning.’

Vincent had started doing the weather report for a local paper and he kept an eye on it every day. He knew a lot about the reasons why water sometimes falls from the sky and sometimes stays up there.

‘And this morning, nobody’s been here? You’re sure? Not even someone walking their dog and letting it piss against the tree?’

‘You keep making me say the same thing ten times over. The only human being who came near was Marthe. Did you notice anything about Marthe, by the way?’ Vincent added, bending over the paper, and cleaning his nails with the tip of the scissors. ‘Seems you saw her yesterday.’

‘Yes, I went to catechism class in the cafe.’

‘And you saw her home?’

‘Yes,’ said Kehlweiler, sitting down again and still contemplating the small object wrapped in newspaper.

‘And you didn’t notice anything?’ asked Vincent with an edge of aggression.

‘Well. Let’s say she wasn’t on top form.’

‘And that’s all?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s all!’ cried Vincent brusquely. ‘You spout lectures about the planetary importance of small-town murders, you look after your toad, you spend a quarter of an hour fiddling with some bit of rubbish from under the tree, but about Marthe, whom you’ve known for twenty years, you didn’t notice anything. Bravo, Louis, bravo, well done!’

Kehlweiler looked at him sharply. Too late, said Vincent to himself, and anyway, what the hell. Kehlweiler’s eyes, green with long dark lashes that looked as if he was wearing too much mascara, could move from dreamy vagueness to painfully incisive intensity. His lips became a straight line, all his habitual mildness disappeared like a flock of sparrows. Kehlweiler’s face looked then like those majestic profiles carved on to cold medals, no fun at all. Vincent shook his head as if chasing away a wasp.

‘Tell,’ said Kehlweiler simply.

‘Well, Marthe has been on the streets for a week now. They took over all those attics to make them into fancy apartments. The new landlord has chucked everyone out.’

‘Why didn’t she tell me? They must have been given notice ahead of time. Stop that, you’ll hurt yourself with those scissors.’

‘The tenants campaigned to keep their lodgings, and they were all chucked out.’

‘But why didn’t she tell me?’ repeated Louis, louder.

‘Because she’s proud, because she’s ashamed, because she’s frightened of you.’

‘The bloody idiot! And what about you? Couldn’t you have told me? For God’s sake, stop it with the scissors, your nails are quite clean enough, aren’t they?!’

‘I only found out the day before yesterday. And no one knew where you were.’

Kehlweiler stared again at the object wrapped in newspaper. Vincent gave him a sidelong glance. Louis was good-looking, except when he was irritated like this, with his hawklike nose and jutting chin. Irritation didn’t improve anyone’s looks, but with Louis it was worse: his three-day stubble and his staring eyes with their heavy lashes could be scary. Vincent waited.

‘Know what this is?’ Kehlweiler asked finally, passing him the bit of newspaper.

Louis’s face was getting back to normal, emotion was returning under his brows and life to his lips. Vincent examined the object. He couldn’t concentrate. He had just shouted at Louis and that didn’t often happen.

‘I’ve no idea what this piece of shit is,’ he said.

‘Getting warm. Carry on.’

‘It’s unrecognisable, funny shape . . . oh hell, Louis, I couldn’t give a toss what it is . . .’

‘Go on, try harder.’

‘If I make a big effort, it might remind me of what was left on my plate after my gran cooked pigs’ trotters for me. I hated them, she thought it was my favourite food. Grans are funny sometimes.’

‘Wouldn’t know,’ commented Kehlweiler, ‘never knew my grandmother.’

He bundled his book and papers back into the plastic bag, pocketed the object still wrapped in newspaper, and slid the toad into the opposite pocket.

‘You’re keeping the pig’s trotter?’ asked Vincent.

‘Why not? Now, where can I find Marthe?’

‘The last few days she’s been sheltering under the awning by tree 16,’ Vincent muttered.

‘I’m off. Try to get a shot of our target.’

Vincent nodded and watched Kehlweiler disappear with his slow steady steps, leaning a little to one side because of the knee that had been demolished in a fire. He took a sheet of paper and wrote: ‘Didn’t know his grandmother. Check if same for grandfather.’ He made notes of everything. He had picked up from Kehlweiler his mania for wanting to record everything except domestic crime. It was difficult to find out anything about the man though. He didn’t give much away. You might know he came from central France, but that didn’t get you very far.

Vincent didn’t even hear old Marthe, as she dropped down on to the bench.

‘Any luck?’ she said.

‘Christ Almighty, Marthe, you frightened me. Don’t talk so loud.’

‘So, any luck? The fascist?’

‘No, not yet. I’m patient. I’m almost certain I recognised him, but people’s faces get older.’

‘You ought to take notes, my boy, plenty of notes.’

‘I realise that. Know something? Louis never knew his grandmother?’

Marthe shrugged her ignorance.

‘So what?’ she muttered. ‘Louis can buy himself as many ancestors as he wants, so . . . If you listen to him, he’s got millions of them. Sometimes it’s this fellow Talleyrand, he talks a lot about him, or that other one, what’s-his-name . . . well, millions anyway. Even the Rhine, he says that’s his ancestor. He’s got to be kidding.’

Vincent smiled.

‘But his real ancestors,’ he insisted, ‘not a whisper, we don’t know anything.’

‘Well, don’t mention it, you shouldn’t embarrass people. You’re just a shit-stirrer, aren’t you, my little lad?’

‘I think you know a lot of things.’

‘Just shut up,’ said Marthe sharply. ‘This Talleyrand’s his grandad, OK? Got that? Satisfied?’

‘Marthe, don’t tell me you believe that. You don’t even know who Talleyrand is. He’s been dead 150 years.’

‘Well, I don’t give a toss who he is, or who he was, OK? If this Talleyrand slept with the Rhine and they came up with Ludwig, then they had good reasons for it, and that’s their own business. Couldn’t care less about anything else. I’m feeling pretty fed up today, so tell me what it is you’re watching for.’

‘Oh my God, Marthe, here he comes,’ whispered Vincent suddenly, clutching her arm. ‘The one I’m after. The sleazy fascist. Just look like an old hooker and I’ll be a drunk, we’ll get him.’

‘Don’t worry, I know your methods.’

Vincent slumped drunkenly on to Marthe’s shoulder and pulled a corner of her scarf over him. The man was coming out of the building opposite, they had to be quick. Under cover of the scarf, Vincent focused his camera and took several pictures through the gaps in the damp knitted fabric. Then the man vanished from sight.

‘Got him, have you?’ asked Marthe. ‘He’s in the can, is he?’

‘I think so. See you, Marthe. I’m going after him.’

Vincent went off, still looking wild-eyed. Marthe smiled. He was good at acting like a drunk. At twenty, when Ludwig had picked him up in a bar and rescued him, he was in a bad way, a long story behind him. Nice guy, Vincent, and good at crosswords too. But it would be just as well if he stopped trying to nose about into Ludwig’s life. Affection can become a bit intrusive sometimes. Marthe shivered. She was cold. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was really cold. The shopkeepers had expelled her from under the awning that morning. Where on earth was she going to go? Come on, old girl, get up, start walking, don’t freeze your backside off on 102, get walking. Marthe was talking to herself, which was not unusual.

LOUIS KEHLWEILER WALKED
into the main police station of the 5th arrondissement, ready and prepared. Worth a try. He glanced at his reflection in the glass door. His thick dark hair, a bit too long at the back, his three-day stubble, plastic bag and jacket creased from sitting on the bench would all work against him, and that was exactly what he wanted. He had waited till he got inside before starting to eat his sandwich. Since his friend Commissaire Adamsberg had left this station, taking with him his deputy Danglard, there was no shortage of imbeciles in there, and others who just put up with them. He had a bone to pick with the new commissaire, and he might have found a way of doing it. It wouldn’t hurt to try. This was Commissaire Paquelin, Adamsberg’s replacement. Louis would willingly have decommissioned him, or at least sent him far away, in any case somewhere different from Adamsberg’s old office, where he had in the old days passed some good moments, some peaceful ones and some intelligent ones.

Actually Paquelin was far from being an imbecile, that was often the problem. God, as Marthe would say, had distributed a good dose of intelligence to the mean bastards of this world, so you had to wonder about God.

For two years now, Louis had had Commissaire Paquelin in his sights. Paquelin, a petty sadist, didn’t like the Justice Ministry to meddle in his affairs, and he let that be known. He considered that the police could do without investigating magistrates, and Louis considered that the police should urgently consider doing without Paquelin. But now that he was out of the Ministry, the fight was rather more complicated.

Kehlweiler planted himself, arms crossed and sandwich in pocket, in front of the first policeman he found sitting at a computer.

The officer looked up, made a quick estimate of the man in front of him, and reached an anxious and unfavourable judgement.

‘What do you want?’

‘I wish to see Commissaire Paquelin.’

‘What about?’

‘A little thing that might interest him.’

‘What kind of little thing?’

‘It wouldn’t mean anything to you. It’s too complicated.’

Kehlweiler didn’t have anything against this particular cop. But he wanted to see the commissaire unannounced, in order to start the duel in a manner of his own choosing. And to do that, he needed to be sent from lowly constable to sergeant to inspector, until, by forcible means, he would land up face to face with the commissaire.