This Night's Foul Work (18 page)

Just then Noël came into the cafe and found a place, in a green light, between two colleagues. Adamsberg glanced at his wristwatches. At this time, Noël should have still been going towards the river and have got as far as Saint-Michel. The
commissaire
hesitated, then said nothing. From his stubborn expression and insomnia-darkened eyes, it was clear that Noël was looking for an excuse to do something – lob a ball into play, for instance – either to pacify or to provoke. Better to bide one's time.

‘As for this Shade,' he went on, ‘approach her with the utmost caution, it's dangerous territory. We need to find out whether Claire Langevin
wore navy leather shoes, if possible whether they were polished, and in particular polished underneath.'

‘Underneath?'

‘You heard, Lamarre, polished on the soles. Like you put wax on the underneath of skis.'

‘What for?'

‘It insulates the wearer from the ground, so that they glide across it without touching it.'

‘Ah, I didn't know that,' said Estalère.

‘Retancourt, will you go to the last address we had for the nurse, that house? Try to find out from the estate agent where her belongings are. They might have been thrown out, or they may have been kept. And go and see the last patients she had dealings with.'

‘The ones she didn't kill,' pointed out Estalère.

There was a short silence, as so often after the naïve remarks of the young officer. Adamsberg had explained to everyone that Estalère would settle down with time and that one had to be patient. So everyone tended to protect him, even Noël, since Estalère was not a sufficiently credible rival to pose any threat.

‘Go via the lab, Retancourt, and take a technical team with you. We need to look closely at the floors of the house. If she really did polish the underside of her shoes, there might be some traces on the floorboards or tiles.'

‘Unless the agency has had the whole place cleaned.'

‘True. But as I said, we're proceeding logically for the time being.'

‘So we check for marks.'

‘And above all, Retancourt, you have to protect me. That's your mission.'

‘Protect you? From … ?'

‘Her. It's possible that she's after me. Apparently, according to the expert, she may want to eliminate me, so that she can carry on and rebuild the wall I tore down when we caught her.'

‘What wall?' asked Estalère.

‘The wall inside her,' said Adamsberg, tracing a line with his finger from his forehead to his navel.

Estalère leaned forward in concentration.

‘Is she a dissociator?' he asked.

‘How did you know?' asked Adamsberg, who was always astonished at the sudden flashes of intuition from the young
brigadier
.

‘I read Lagarde's book. She talks about “inner walls”. I remember it perfectly. I remember everything.'

‘Well, you're quite right. she's a dissociator. You could all reread the book, in fact,' said Adamsberg who had still not done so himself. ‘I can't remember the exact title.'

‘Either Side of the Crime Wall,'
said Danglard.

Adamsberg looked at Retancourt, who was flipping through the photographs of the elderly nurse and registering the details.

‘I don't have time to protect myself from her,' he said. ‘And I'm not really convinced enough to take steps. I've no idea what kind of danger it might be, from what direction it might come, or what precautions to take.'

‘How did she kill the prison guard?'

‘Stabbed him in the eyes with a fork, among other things. She would kill with her fingernails if she could, Retancourt. According to Lagarde, who's familiar with her, she's incredibly dangerous.'

‘Well, get a bodyguard,
commissaire
. That would be the most reasonable thing to do.'

‘I'd rather it was you – I'd have more confidence.'

Retancourt shook her head, weighing up the gravity of the mission and the irresponsibility of the
commissaire
.

‘I can't help you at night,' she said. ‘I'm not going to sleep standing up outside your door.'

‘Oh, night-time's not a problem,' said Adamsberg with an airy wave of the hand. ‘I've already got a bloodthirsty ghost keeping me company in the house.'

‘Really?' asked Estalère.

‘A certain Saint Clarisse, who was killed by a heavy-fisted tanner in 1771,' said Adamsberg, with a touch of pride. ‘She's called “the Silent Sister”. She used to rob old folk and cut their throats. A direct rival for our nurse, if you like. If Claire Langevin tried to get into my house at night, she'd have a job to get near me. Because Saint Clarisse has a penchant for killing women, especially old ones. So you see, I'm not afraid.'

‘Who told you all that stuff?'

‘My neighbour, an ancient Spaniard with one hand. He lost the other in the civil war. He says the nun's face is like a wrinkled walnut.'

‘How many did your one kill?' asked Mordent, who seemed amused by the story. ‘Seven, like in fairy tales?'

‘Spot on.'

‘And you've seen her?' asked Estalère, disconcerted by the smiles all round.

‘Just a legend,' said Mordent, separating the syllables as was his habit. ‘Clarisse doesn't exist.'

‘Just as well,' said the
brigadier
. ‘But is your Spaniard crazy or what?'

‘Not at all. He was bitten by a spider on the arm he's lost, and it still itches sixty-nine years later. He scratches a point in the air.'

The arrival of the waiter distracted Estalère from his perplexity. He jumped up to place a collective coffee order. Retancourt, taking no notice of the clatter of crockery, was still looking at the photos of the nurse, while Veyrenc was talking to her. The New Recruit had not shaved and he had that soft indulgent look of a man who has been up all night making love. That reminded Adamsberg that he had let Ariane get away while he had been sleeping like a log in her car. The reflections from the windows lit up the strange colours of the
lieutenant
‘s striped hair.

‘Why is it your job to protect Adamsberg?' Veyrenc was asking Retancourt. ‘Just you, on your own?'

‘It's become a habit.'

‘I see:

Retancourt smiled, distracted for a moment from her preoccupations.

‘Is that really what you want, Veyrenc?' asked Adamsberg, trying not to sound too cold. ‘Or is that just poetic licence? Do you really want to help Retancourt protect me? Think before you answer, and estimate the danger. Making up verse won't help.'

‘Retancourt's perfectly capable of handling it,' interrupted Noël.

‘Shut up,' said Voisenet.

‘Yeah, just shut up,' said Justin.

Adamsberg realised that on the staff Justin sometimes played exactly the same role as the punctuator at Haroncourt, while Noël was the most aggressive of the contradictors.

The waiter brought the coffees, which provided a brief interlude. Estalère passed them round with scrupulous attention, making sure that everyone had the right one. The others let him do it: they were used to it.

‘I accept,' said Veyrenc, somewhat tight-lipped.

‘What about you, Retancourt?' Adamsberg asked. ‘Do you accept him?'

Retancourt looked at Veyrenc in a clear-eyed and neutral way, appearing to weigh up his capacity to help her, visibly assessing him by some standard of her own making. She looked almost like a horse-dealer appraising her animal, and the examination was sufficiently unsettling to cause a silence round the table. But Veyrenc took no offence at the process. He was the New Recruit, it was his job. And
he had himself provoked this irony of fate. He was to protect Adamsberg.

‘OK, I accept,' Retancourt concluded.

‘Very well,' said Adamsberg.

‘Him?' said Noël, between gritted teeth. ‘But he's new round here, for fuck's sake.'

‘He's got eleven years' service,' retorted Retancourt.

‘Well, I'm against', said Noël, raising his voice. ‘This guy won't protect you,
commissaire
, he hasn't the slightest wish to.'

Well spotted, thought Adamsberg.

‘Too late, it's been decided,' he decreed.

Danglard was observing the scene anxiously, while filing his nails and weighing up Noël's obvious jealousy. The
lieutenant
zipped up his leather jacket, as he did whenever he was about to overstep the line.

‘It's up to you,
commissaire,'
he said with a harsh laugh, as the green light flickered across his face. ‘But to fight a monster like that you need a tiger. And far as I know,' he said, jerking his chin towards the New Recruit's hair, ‘there's more to a tiger than stripes.'

He's hit the spot, Danglard had time to think, before Veyrenc turned deathly pale and got to his feet opposite Noël. Then he sat down again, as if all the strength had gone out of him. Adamsberg read on the New Recruit's face such suffering that a knot of pure rage formed in his stomach, relegating the war of the two valleys into the far distance. Angry outbursts were so rare with Adamsberg that they were dangerous, as Danglard well knew. He stood up in turn, and moved round the table quickly, seeking to fend off a scene. Adamsberg had hauled Noël to his feet and, pressing his hand hard against his chest, was pushing him step by step towards the street. Veyrenc sat motionless, one hand involuntarily on his cursed hair, without even looking at them. He was simply aware that two women, Retancourt and Hélène Froissy, were sitting silently beside him. As long as he could remember, apart from his chaotic love life, women hadn't hurt him: they had never made insults or
flippant remarks about his hair. Since the age of eight, he had always had girls as friends, never a single male companion. He had no idea how to talk to men and didn't want to.

Adamsberg returned to the brasserie six minutes later, alone. The tension within him had not yet dissipated, leaving his face as if illumined with a pale glow, not unlike the strange luminescence of the windows.

‘Where's he gone?' asked Mordent cautiously.

‘Off with the seagulls, and still flying. And if I have my way, he'll stay in the air for some time.'

‘But he's already had his leave,' Estalère remarked.

This conscientious interruption had a calming effect, as if someone had opened a little window painted yellow in a room full of smoke.

‘Well, he can take a bit more,' said Adamsberg, more mildly. ‘Now, into your teams,' he said, glancing at his watches. ‘You can pick up the photographs of the nurse from the office. Danglard will coordinate.'

‘Not you?' asked Lamarre.

‘No, I'm going on ahead. With Veyrenc.'

The paradoxical situation was in part beyond the control of either Adamsberg or Veyrenc, who found no verses to declaim to restore his equilibrium. He now found himself assigned to protect the
commissaire
, while Adamsberg was now Veyrenc's defender, responsibilities neither of them had wished for. Provocation can lead to undesirable consequences, Adamsberg reflected.

The two men spent a couple of hours combing the market, arranging things so that they did not have to speak directly to each other. Veyrenc did most of the questioning, while the
commissaire
appeared to be vaguely looking for some unspecified object to buy. As daylight faded, Adamsberg pointed to an abandoned wooden chest and called a pause. They sat at opposite ends of the chest, leaving maximum space between
them. Veyrenc lit a cigarette, which removed the need to say anything.

‘Awkward business, working together,' said Adamsberg, chin in hand.

‘Yes,' agreed Veyrenc.

‘You're right,
lieutenant
, the gods are to blame. They get bored, so they drink and play games, and we find ourselves trampled underfoot. Both of us. Our own plans are thrown off course, and all for the gods' amusement.'

‘You don't have to do this legwork. Why didn't you stay back at the office?'

‘Because I'm looking for a fireguard.'

‘Ah. You have an open fire?'

‘Yes. When Tom starts walking it'll be dangerous. So I'm looking for a fireguard.'

‘There was one back in the middle aisle. With a bit of luck, the stall might still be open.'

‘You might have said earlier.'

Half an hour later, by which time it was dark, the two men were trudging back up the aisle, carrying an ancient and heavy fireguard; Veyrenc had spent a long time beating down the price, while Adamsberg had been testing its stability.

‘It's fine,' Veyrenc said as they put it down beside the car. ‘Good-looking, solid, and not too dear.'

‘Yes, it's fine,' Adamsberg agreed. ‘If you can push it on to the back seat I'll pull it from the other side.'

Adamsberg took the wheel and Veyrenc did up his seat belt. ‘OK if I smoke?'

‘Go ahead,' said Adamsberg, starting the engine. ‘I used to smoke for years. All the kids used to smoke secretly in Caldhez. I guess it was the same with you in Laubazac.'

Veyrenc opened the car window.

‘Why did you say “in Laubazac”?'

‘Because that's where you lived, two kilometres from the Veyrenc de Bilhc vineyard.'

Adamsberg drove slowly, taking the bends without haste.

‘Well, what of it?'

‘Because it was there, in Laubazac, that you were attacked. Not in the vineyard. Why did you lie, Veyrenc?'