Seeking Whom He May Devour (26 page)

“Where did it happen?”

“Where I said. Here, in Bourg-en-Bresse.”

Adamsberg ran his fingers through his hair, raised the curtain, and got down from the lorry.

XXIX

HE CAUGHT UP
with the bourg-en-bresse police at Place du Calvaire. It was at the edge of town, almost in the country, at a three-way junction of minor roads. A stone cross marked the spot. The
flics
were busying themselves over the corpse of a man aged about seventy, who had had his shoulder torn open and his throat slit.

Commissaire
Hermel, who was almost as short as Adamsberg, sported a droopy moustache and had his spectacles pushed up over sticking-out ears. He came to shake hands.

“I was told you’d been on this case since the beginning,” he said. “I’m glad to have your assistance.”

Hermel was a cordial and pliant fellow, who did not care to see Adamsberg as a potential rival. The latter quickly gave him all the information he had. Hermel listened with his head down and rubbed his cheek.

“It all fits,” he said. “Apart from the wounds, we’ve got a pretty clear paw-print to the left of the body. It’s the size of a saucer. A vet’s on his way to look it all over.
But
everybody is running late on Sunday morning.”

“What time did it happen?”

“Around 2 a.m.”

“Who discovered the body?”

“A nightwatchman on his way home.”

“Have we got an ID yet?”

“Fernand Deguy, former mountain guide. He’s been living in retirement in Bourg-en-Bresse for fifteen years or so. His house is round the corner. I’ve just informed the family. Talk of a disaster. Eaten by a wolf!”

“Does anyone know what he was doing out at that time?”

“We haven’t had a proper talk with the wife yet. She’s in no condition. But he was often up late. When there was nothing to watch he would go out for a walk in the countryside.”

Hermel waved at the distant hills.

“To watch where?”

“On TV.”

“There wasn’t anything worth watching last night,” a
lieutenant
piped up. “Saturday night. I watched the programme all the same, it’s my only quiet evening.”

“He would have done better to follow your example,” said Hermel pensively. “Instead of which off he went out into the open. And he crossed the path of the man you really don’t want to meet.”

“Could you put together everything you can find out about the man?” Adamsberg asked.

“What for?” said Hermel. “It hit him out of nowhere. It could have been anyone.”

“That’s what I’m wondering. Could you do that for me, Hermel? Collect all the facts you can lay your hands on? The Villard-de-Lans people are doing the same on Sernot for me. We’ll see if anything matches.”

Hermel shook his head.

“The poor old fellow was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. “What good will it do to know when he bought his first pair of skis?”

“I don’t know. I would like to have that information, though.”

Hermel pondered. He knew Adamsberg by reputation. The man’s request seemed inept, but he’d do what was asked. A fellow-officer had told him that Adamsberg often seemed inept. But there was something appealing about the man.

“As you wish, old chap,” Hermel said. “We’ll open a file.”

“
Commissaire
,” the
lieutenant
said as he came back towards them, “I found this in the grass, beside the body. It’s brand-new.”

In the palm of his hand the
lieutenant
held out a crumpled ball of blue tissue. Hermel put on his gloves and unfolded it.

“It’s a piece of paper,” he said grumpily. “Maybe it’s a flyer. What do you make of it, old chap?”

Adamsberg picked it up by the tips of his fingernails and looked it over.

“Do you ever stay in hotels, Hermel?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Do you see all those bits and bobs you usually pocket, off the bathroom shelf?”

“Of course.”

“Mini-bars of soap, mini-shoe polish, mini-toothpaste tubes, and mini-handwipes? You see what I’m talking about?”

“Of course.”

“All that rubbish you stuff in your case when you leave?”

“Of course.”

“Well, that’s what it is. It’s the envelope that contained complimentary cleansing tissue. It comes from a hotel.”

Hermel took the crumpled paper back, pulled down his spectacles, and looked at it more closely.

“Le Moulin,” he read out. “There’s no hotel called Le Moulin in Bourg-en-Bresse.”

“You’ll have to scour further afield,” said Adamsberg. “And double quick.”

“Why the hurry?”

“Because then we’d have a chance of finding the room where Massart slept last night.”

“The hotel isn’t going to fly away.”

“But it would be a whole lot more useful to get there before the cleaning lady.”

“Do you think this thing belonged to the killer?”

“It’s possible. It’s the sort of thing you stuff in your pocket and which only falls out if you lean right over. And who would have been leaning right over, right here, at the foot of this cross?”

By ten a Hôtel du Moulin had been found at Combes, about sixty kilometres from Bourg-en-Bresse. A car bearing Hermel, Adamsberg, the
lieutenant
and two forensics set off at once from the police station.

“He’s crafty,” Adamsberg opined. “He murders along his marked-out itinerary, but he hides well away from it. You might as well whistle as try to find him on his itinerary. He can be anywhere.”

“If it is him,” said Hermel.

“It is,” said Adamsberg.

They drew up in front of the Hôtel du Moulin, an upmarket two-star, just before eleven.

“Even craftier,” said Adamsberg as he cast an eye over the façade. “He reckons the
flics
will be looking for him in low dives, and he’s not wrong either, so he stays in classy places.”

The young woman at reception was barely able to help them. A man had made a reservation by telephone yesterday and she had not seen him check in. Customers were given the door code. She had come on at six o’clock, and he was gone at dawn, around six-thirty. No, she hadn’t seen him, she was laying the tables for breakfast. He had left his key on the counter. No, he had not signed the register yet, and he hadn’t settled up. He had said he would be staying three nights. No, she had not seen his car, or anything else. No, he did not have a dog. There was a man, and that’s all.

“You won’t be seeing him again,” Hermel said.

“Which room?” Adamsberg asked.

“Room 24, second floor.”

“Has the cleaner been in?”

“Not yet. We start with the first floor.”

They worked over the room for two hours.

“He wiped everything,” said the fingerprint specialist. “He’s a wary bugger, and very careful. He’s taken off the
pillowcase
and he’s taken the towels with him.”

“Give it all you’ve got, Juneau,” Hermel told him.

“Yes, sir,” Juneau said. “They always think they can beat the world, but they always leave something behind.”

Juneau’s colleague called from the bathroom.

“He cut his fingernails on the windowsill,” he told them.

“Because he’d got some of the victim’s blood stuck under them,” said Hermel.

“Two nail clippings got into the fillister.”

The forensic officer slid his tweezers into the narrow gap and extracted the clippings which he put into a Ziploc. Juneau rescued a fine black hair from disappearing down the shower drain.

“He didn’t see everything. They invariably leave something behind.”

Once they got back to the police station at Bourg-en-Bresse, it took them two hours to get the Puygiron police unit to collect samples from Massart’s shack and to send the material they’d gathered to the pathology department at Lyon, for comparison.

“What are we supposed to be looking for?” asked the Head Deputy at Puygiron.

“Hair and nail clippings,” said Hermel. “Every last bit of finger- and toenail you can find. Take fingerprints too, they might be useful.”

“We’ll find what we find,” the Head Deputy said. “We’re not paid to manufacture how should I say evidence for you.”

“That’s my motto, too,” Hermel said, without losing his temper. “Collect what’s there.”

“Massart is dead. He went missing on Mont Vence.”

“I have someone with me who is not convinced that that’s the case.”

“A really tall guy? Athletic? Fair, long hair?”

Hermel looked Adamsberg up and down. “No,” he said. “None of the above.”

“I’ll say it again,
Commissaire
. Massart fell somewhere up in the how should I say Alps.”

“Perhaps he did. But it would be better to be quite sure, wouldn’t it? For your sake as well as for mine. I need those samples pretty damn quickly.”

“Today is Sunday,
Commissaire
.”

“That means you’ve got ample spare time this afternoon to rake over Massart’s place and to have the samples couriered to Lyon no later than this evening. We’re dealing with murder, and the murderer is at large. Are you reading me, Head Deputy?”

Hermel rang off a short time later, scowling.

“One of those sorts of people who’ll do anything to put a spanner in the works of the non-military force. I do hope he’ll make a thorough job of the search.”

“He’s been the spanner in the works from the start,” Adamsberg said.

“I can’t risk sending one of my own men down there. That would spark off an unholy row.”

“Do you know anyone in the prosecution service in Nice?”

“Used to, old chap. He moved on two years ago.”

“Try him all the same. We’d be much more comfortable knowing that one of your men was down there.”

Adamsberg got up and shook Hermel by the hand.

“Keep me up to date, Hermel. The lab results and the file of facts. Especially that file.”

“Yes, the file, I know.”

“And about that girl I’ve got trailing me – warn your men to keep their mouths tight shut. Don’t forget.”

“Is she dangerous?”

“Very.”

“Fine by me not to mention your name. Look after yourself, old chap.”

Next morning, Monday, almost all the papers featured the werewolf on the front page. Soliman came back in a sweat from town, laid the moped in the ditch, and threw the fresh bread and an armful of newspapers onto the wooden crate.

“It’s all in the fucking papers!” he bawled. “The whole story! It’s a disaster! A monumental leak! Fuck the
flics
, fuck the papers! The werewolf, the sheep, the murder victims, it’s all there! Even the map! The route! Only thing not printed is Massart’s name. We’re done for! We’re toast! When he sees that, Massart will run for it. Maybe he’s on his way already. He’s getting away, bloody sodding hell! They ought to close the borders, close the roads! Stupid tossers, those
flics
! My mother was right! The
flics
are all tossers!”

“Calm down, Soliman,” said Adamsberg. “Drink your coffee.”

“Haven’t you understood?” the young man screamed. “You’ve not given him a safety net, you’ve laid out a bloody red carpet for him to fly away on!”

“Calm down,” Adamsberg said once more. “Show me.”

Adamsberg unfolded the newspapers, passed one to Camille and one to Watchee. He paused, and then put one in front of Woof as well.

“Come on, dog. Have a read of that.”

“You call this the right time for a joke?” barked Soliman, slitting his eyes, looking murderous. “You’re having a joke and Massart’s about to slip out of our grasp and my mother’s going to stay stuck in the stink-pond for ever.”

“The pond stuff’s not altogether gospel, you know,” said Watchee.

“Sod you, you old duffer!” Soliman shouted. “Haven’t you understood anything either?”

Watchee raised his stick and tapped Soliman lightly on the shoulder.

“Shut up, Sol. Respect.”

Soliman stopped, took a deep breath, and sat down in a bit of a daze with his arms hanging loose at his sides. Watchee gave him a cup of coffee.

Camille was poring over the papers, looking at the headlines.

W
EREWOLF HEADING FOR
P
ARIS
!!

L
YCANTHROPY REVIVED
!

M
ERCANTOUR
M
ONSTER ON
H
UMAN
L
EASH

T
HE
W
OLF-MAN
’
S
W
ILD
R
IDE

Several papers gave details of the route Massart had marked out in red, and showed it on a map with stars for the locations of all the previous murders.

After ravaging the departments of Alpes-Maritimes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Isère and Ain, where it committed the latest of its murders, the Mercantour Monster is said to be now heading due north, nine days after the start of its rampage. Under the control of a bloodthirsty psychopath suffering bouts of lycanthropy, the beast is believed to be travelling parallel to the A7 autoroute about 30 kilometres east of it, as far as Chaumont, where it is expected to veer west towards the capital by way of Bar-sur-Aube and Provins.

The man is understood to travel in limited stages of between 60 and 200 kilometres. He moves at night with a wolf and a mastiff, probably in a van with blacked-out windows. He is alleged to have murdered three people so far, as well as more than 40 ewes. All sheep farmers are advised to take precautionary measures to protect their flocks using guard dogs or electrified fences. All persons male or female living along or near the minor roads shown on the map are urged not to go out alone after nightfall. Any persons able to give information likely to be of assistance to the police investigation are requested to contact their nearest
gendarmerie
or
commissariat
.

Camille put the paper down in disgust.

“The leak comes from the police,” she said. “They held a press conference. Soliman’s not wrong. If Massart has an ounce of sense, he’ll vanish before you can say Jack Robinson.”