Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand (32 page)

‘My apologies for my suspicions,
capitaine.’

‘Logic isn’t your strong point, that’s all. In future, don’t count on it.’

‘That’s what I’ve been telling you for years.’

‘No, not logic in general, just
your
logic. Where can you find a safe house? That make-up won’t protect you for ever.’

‘I thought of going to Clémentine’s.’

‘Yes, good idea,’ said Danglard approvingly. ‘They won’t think of that, and you won’t be disturbed there.’

‘But cooped up there for the rest of my days.’

‘I know. That’s what I’ve been thinking of for the last week.’

‘Are you sure, Danglard, that my lock wasn’t forced?’

‘Certain. The visitor used the key. It must be someone from the office.’

‘A year ago, I didn’t know anyone there except you.’

‘Well, perhaps one of them knew you. You’ve put plenty of people behind bars, after all. That can spark off hate, thirst for vengeance. Perhaps a family member who wants to make you pay? Someone who’s trying to get back at you, using this old business of the judge.’

‘But who would have known about the Trident case?’

‘Everyone saw you go off to Strasbourg.’

Adamsberg shook his head.

‘Nobody else could have known the link between Schiltigheim and the judge. Unless I’d told them. There’s only one person who would make the connection. Himself.’

‘Do you really think your walking corpse went to the office? Took your keys, searched your files, to find out what you thought you were on to at Schiltigheim? Anyway the living dead don’t need keys, they just walk through walls.’

‘Very true.’

‘Look, can we agree just one thing about the Trident? You can call him the Judge, or Fulgence if you like, but let me call him the Disciple. A real live person who for some reason is trying to carry on the judge’s work. I’m willing to grant you that much and it’ll avoid a lot of tension.’

Danglard threw another ball up into the air and caught it.

‘Sanscartier,’ he said, changing the subject abruptly. ‘You said he wasn’t that convinced?’

‘According to Retancourt. Does it matter?’

‘I liked the guy. A bit slow of speech, yes, but I liked him. His reaction on the spot is interesting. And what about Retancourt? What did you think of her?’

‘Exceptional.’

‘I’d have liked to do a bit of close combat with her,’ said Danglard with a sigh which seemed to contain genuine regret.

‘I don’t think it would work with someone your size. It was a remarkable experience, Danglard, but it’s not worth committing murder just to give it a try.’

Adamsberg’s voice had become gruff. The two men walked slowly to the back of the room, since Danglard had decided Adamsberg had better leave by the garage exit. Adamsberg was still carrying the sleeping child in his arms. He knew the endless tunnel he was about to enter, and so did Danglard.

‘Don’t use the metro or bus,’ Danglard advised him. ‘Go there on foot.’

‘Danglard, who else could possibly have known I had no memory of 26 October? Apart from you.’

The
capitaine
thought for a moment, rattling his coins in his pocket.

‘Just one other person,’ he concluded. ‘The one who helped you lose it.’

‘Logical.’

‘Yes, my sort of logic.’

‘But who, Danglard?’

‘Someone who was there with us, among the eight people? Take out you, me and Retancourt, that leaves five, Justin, Voisenet, Froissy, Estalère, Noël. Someone who could look in your files.’

‘And the Disciple, what do you make of him?’

‘Nothing much. I’m concentrating on more concrete elements.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as your symptoms that night of the 26th. Now that’s something that really bothers me. The wobbly legs for instance.’

‘I’d had a hell of a lot to drink, as you know.’

‘Yes. Were you taking any pills? Tranquillisers?’

‘No, Danglard, I don’t think I’m the kind of person who normally needs a tranquilliser.’

‘True. But your legs wouldn’t carry you, that’s what it felt like, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Adamsberg in surprise. ‘They just wouldn’t hold me up.’

‘But only after you hit the branch. That’s what you told me. Sure of that?’

‘Yes, but what of it?’

‘It just bothers me. And the next day, no bruises, no pain?’

‘My forehead was hurting, I had a headache, and I felt sick, I told you. What’s bothering you about the legs?’

‘Let’s just say it’s a missing link in my logic. Forget it for now.’

‘Capitaine
, can you give me your pass-key?’

Danglard hesitated, then opened his bag and took it out, slipping it into Adamsberg’s pocket.

‘Don’t go taking risks. And you’d better have this,’ he said passing him some banknotes. ‘You can’t go near a cash machine.’

‘Thanks, Danglard.’

‘Do you mind giving me back my kid before you go?’

‘Sorry,’ said Adamsberg passing the child across.

Neither man said ‘au revoir’. An indecent expression, if you don’t know whether you will ever meet again. An ordinary everyday expression, Adamsberg thought, as he went off into the night, but which he would not now be able to use.

XLI

CLÉMENTINE HAD TAKEN IN THE EXHAUSTED COMMISSAIRE WITHOUT
showing the least surprise. She had settled him in front of the fire and forced him to eat up some pasta and ham.

‘This time, Clémentine, I haven’t just come for supper,’ Adamsberg said. ‘I need a safe house. I’ve got every
flic
in France after me.’

‘It happens,’ said Clémentine calmly, passing him a pot of yoghurt with a spoon planted in it. ‘The police don’t always think the same way we do, it’s their job. Is that why your face is all made up?’

‘Yes, I had to escape from Canada.’

‘That’s a smart suit you’re wearing.’

‘And I’m a
flic
too,’ said Adamsberg, going on with his idea. ‘So I’m chasing myself. I’ve been so stupid, you can’t imagine, Clémentine.’

‘How was that?’

‘By doing something very, very stupid. In Quebec, I got roaring drunk, met a girl and killed her with a trident.’

‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Clémentine. ‘We’ll pull out the sofa and put it near the fire with two nice quilts, you’ll sleep like a prince. I’ve already got Josette sleeping in the little office, so that’s all I can offer you.’

‘Perfect, Clémentine. Your friend Josette – can we can count on her keeping her mouth shut?’

‘Josette’s seen better days. When she was young, she was a real lady, rich, you can’t imagine. Not like now. She won’t talk about you, any more than you will about her. And that’s enough of your nonsense
about tridents, m’dear, it sounds to me like your monster’s been at it again.’

‘I just don’t know, Clémentine. It’s between him and me now.’

‘That’s good, a real fight,’ said Clémentine approvingly, as she fetched the quilts. ‘That’ll buck you up.’

‘I hadn’t looked at it that way.’

‘Of course it will, or else you’d get bored. You can’t spend all day sitting here eating pasta. But do you perhaps have some idea whether it was him or you?’

‘Trouble is,’ said Adamsberg as he helped pull the sofa over, ‘I’d drunk so much that I can’t remember a thing about it.’

‘Something like that happened to me when I was expecting my daughter. I tripped on the pavement and afterwards I couldn’t remember anything at all.’

‘Were your legs too wobbly to carry you?’

‘Oh no. Apparently I went running all over the place afterwards like a rabbit. What was I running after? Goodness knows.’

‘Goodness knows,’ repeated Adamsberg.

‘Well, what’s it matter, m’dear? We never know what we’re running after in this life. So if you run a bit more or a bit less, makes no difference.’

‘Are you sure it’s all right for me to stay, Clémentine? I won’t be in your way?’

‘Ah no, m’dear, not at all, I’m going to fatten you up. You’ll need your strength to run.’

Adamsberg opened his bag and gave her the bottle of maple syrup.

‘I brought it from Quebec for you. You can eat it with yoghurt or bread or pancakes. It would go well with your cookies too.’

‘Now, that’s really kind of you. With all your troubles, that touches my old heart. It’s pretty, that bottle. They get it from trees, I do hear.’

‘Yes. Actually the bottle is the most difficult thing to make. For the syrup, they just cut the tree trunks and out it comes.’

‘Now that’s practical, if you like. If only pork chops grew on trees.’

‘Yes. Or truth.’

‘Oh truth, you won’t find that so easily. Truth now, it hides away like
mushrooms, and no one knows why.’

‘How do you get at it then, Clémentine?’

‘It’s the same as mushrooms. You have to lift up the leaves, one by one, in dark places. It can take a long time.’

For the first time in his life, Adamsberg slept until midday. Clémentine had re-lit the fire and was tiptoeing around to do her cooking.

‘I need to make an important visit, Clémentine,’ said Adamsberg as he drank his coffee. ‘Can you help me get the make-up right? I can shave my head, but I don’t know how to put this foundation stuff on my hands.’

The shower had left his complexion streaky, as his own dark skin showed through.

‘Not my department, dear,’ said Clémentine. ‘You’d do better to ask Josette. She’s got lots of make-up. She takes an hour in the morning doing her face.’

Josette, with somewhat trembling hands, set about applying the light-coloured foundation to the
commissaire
’s hands and then touched up his face and neck. She helped him replace the cushion round his waist, which made him look portly.

‘What do you do all day on your computer, Josette?’ asked Adamsberg as the old woman carefully arranged his bleached hair.

‘Oh, I transfer stuff, I balance it up, I share it out.’

Adamsberg did not try to explore this enigmatic answer. Any other time, Josette’s activities might have interested him, but not in extreme circumstances. He was chatting with her out of politeness, and because he had taken in what Retancourt said about him. Josette’s quavery voice was delicately modulated, and Adamsberg recognised the remnants of her upper-class intonations.

‘Have you been in computers a long time?’

‘I started when I was sixty-five.’

‘Not so easy to get the hang of it then, I suppose?’

‘Oh, I manage,’ said the old woman, in her fragile voice.

XLII

DIVISIONNAIRE BRÉZILLON HAD SUMPTUOUS QUARTERS ON THE AVENUE
de Breteuil, and was never home before six or seven o’clock. Furthermore, it was known in the Chat Room that his wife had gone to spend autumn in the mists and mellow fruitfulness of England. If there was one place in France where the
flics
would not go looking for a fugitive, it was the avenue de Breteuil.

Using his pass-key, Adamsberg entered the apartment quietly at five-thirty that afternoon. He sat down in an opulent reception room, with bookshelves full of works on law, administration, policing and poetry. Four topics, all carefully separated from each other. There were six shelves full of poetry – much more than the parish priest had, back in his village. Adamsberg took down a volume of Victor Hugo, taking care not to get his make-up on the precious bindings. He was looking for the golden sickle in the field of stars. A field he currently supposed to be located over Detroit, but he had not yet been able to release his sickle. At the same time, he rehearsed the speech he had prepared for the
divisionnaire:
it was a version in which he hardly, if at all, believed himself, but it was the only one that might convince his boss. He repeated whole sentences from this speech over to himself, trying to conceal the great gulfs of doubt that lurked underneath it, and to inject into his voice a note of total sincerity.

* * *

Less than an hour later, the key turned in the lock and Adamsberg lowered the book to his knee. Brézillon gave a genuine start, and was on the point of crying out, when he saw this unknown Jean-Pierre Emile Roger Feuillet sitting peacefully in an armchair. Adamsberg put his finger on his lips and going towards Brézillon, took him gently by the arm, guiding him to a chair opposite his own. The
divisionnaire
was more astonished than afraid, no doubt because Jean-Pierre Emile did not look a very threatening person. And the surprise also prevented him finding his tongue for a moment or two.

‘Hush,
Monsieur le divisionnaire
. Please don’t make a noise. It would only get you into trouble.’

‘Adamsberg!’ said Brézillon, recognising his voice.

‘I’ve come a long way for the pleasure of this interview.’

‘Not so fast,
commissaire,’
said Brézillon, once more in control of himself. ‘See that bell? If I press it, there’ll be a couple of dozen
flics
in here in two minutes.’

‘Please let me have the two minutes before you press it. I know you’ve been a lawyer, you should hear evidence from both sides.’

‘Two minutes with a murderer? That’s asking a lot, Adamsberg.’

‘I didn’t kill that girl.’

‘They all say that – as you and I know full well.’

‘But they don’t all have a mole in their team. Somebody got into my flat, before your men went in, using the spare key left at headquarters. Someone consulted my dossiers on the judge, and was already looking at them, even before my first trip to Canada.’

Hanging on to his shaky story, Adamsberg was speaking rapidly, knowing that Brézillon wouldn’t give him much time, and that he must take him by surprise as fast as possible. He wasn’t used to talking quickly, and stumbled over words like a runner hitting stones on the path.

‘Somebody knew I used the portage trail. Somebody knew I’d met this girl over there. Somebody killed her, using the same methods as the judge, and put my prints on her belt. And dropped the belt on the path, not in the frozen water. That makes too many coincidences,
Monsieur le divisionnaire
. The file’s too clear, no loose ends in it. Have you seen anything like that?’