Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand (7 page)

Danglard passed him the glass and Adamsberg swallowed two mouthfuls.

‘After that, I had just one idea in my head, to bring the judge to justice. He left our region, because he too was affected by rumours surrounding the case. I wanted to track him down, and get him prosecuted, so as to clear my brother’s name. Because I knew, and I was the only one who knew, that Fulgence was guilty. Guilty of the murder and guilty of destroying Raphaël too. I followed him relentlessly for fourteen years, all over the country, chasing him through press reports and archives.’

Adamsberg put his hand on the files.

‘Eight murders, eight people stabbed, with three wounds in a row. Between the years 1949 and 1983. Lise was killed in 1973. All eight murders had been solved, eight culprits easily caught, virtually weapon in hand. Seven poor sods in jail, as well as my brother, gone to perdition. Fulgence always escaped. The devil always escapes. Read the files, take them back home with you, Danglard. I’m going to the office to see Retancourt. I’ll call round at your place late tonight, OK?’

IX

ON HIS WAY HOME, DANGLARD MULLED OVER WHAT HE HAD LEARNT. A
brother, a crime and a suicide. An almost-twin brother, accused of murder, driven from the world, and dead. A drama so traumatic that Adamsberg had never spoken of it. In such circumstances, what credence could be given to his accusations, based simply on having seen the silhouette of the judge on a woodland path, and having found a garden fork in his barn? In Adamsberg’s place, he too would have desperately sought a culprit to take the place of his brother. And instinctively, he too might have pointed the finger at the well-known hate-figure of the village.

‘I loved my brother better than myself.’ It seemed to Danglard that Adamsberg had somehow been holding Raphaël’s hand in his, ever since the night of the murder. He had removed himself in this way from the world of ordinary people for the last thirty years, since he could not join it without risking letting go of that hand, abandoning his brother to guilt and death. In that case, only the posthumous clearing of Raphaël’s name and his return to the world would release Adamsberg’s fingers. Or alternatively, Danglard told himself, clutching the briefcase tightly, recognising his brother’s crime. If Raphaël really had been the killer, his brother would have to face it one day. Adamsberg couldn’t spend his entire life chasing a false phantom, in the shape of a terrifying old man. If the dossiers led in that second direction, he would be obliged to hold the
commissaire
back, and force him to open his eyes, however brutal and painful that might be.

* * *

After supper, once the children were in their rooms, he sat down at his table, in an anxious frame of mind, having lined up three beers and three files. The children had all gone to bed too late. He had had the badly-timed idea of telling them the story of the toad that smoked cigarettes, puff, puff, puff, bang. The questions had come in thick and fast. Why did the toad smoke? Why did it explode? What size melon did it look like? Did its guts fly very high in the air? Would it work for snakes? Danglard had in the end had to forbid them to carry out any experiments along these lines: they were not to put a cigarette in the mouth of any snake, toad or salamander, lizard, pike or in fact any creature whatsoever.

But finally, by eleven o’clock, the schoolbags were all packed, the dishes had been washed and the lights were out.

Danglard attacked the dossiers in chronological order, memorising the names of the victims, the place and time of the crime, and the identity of the perpetrators. Eight murders, all committed, he noted, when the number of the year was uneven. But after all, odd or even years are a fifty-fifty matter, and can hardly be called a coincidence. The only thing that really linked these various murders was the unshakeable conviction of the
commissaire
that they were connected; nothing immediately suggested that they were the work of the same man. Eight murders, all in different regions of France: Loire-Atlantique, Touraine, Dordogne, Pyrenees. True, one could imagine that the judge had moved about a lot, to avoid being traced. But the victims were also very diverse, in age, sex and appearance: young, middle-aged and old, male and female, fat and thin, blond and dark. That didn’t seem to fit the obsessional pattern of a serial killer. And the weapons were different in each case: kitchen knives, sharpened screwdrivers, carpenters’ awls, hunting knives, flick knives, chisels.

Danglard shook his head, feeling somewhat discouraged. He had been hoping to follow Adamsberg’s lead, but such a variety of circumstances created a serious obstacle.

It was true that the wounds did present converging features: in every
case there were three deep perforations inflicted somewhere on the torso, below the ribs, always preceded by a blow on the head sufficient to render the victim unconscious. But then in all the murders committed in France in half a century, what were the chances of finding three wounds to the abdomen? Very high. The abdomen offered a large, easy and vulnerable target. And as for the three blows, that was not so unusual either. Three blows to make sure of killing the victim. Statistically, the number of cases with three stab wounds was high. It couldn’t be called a signature or a mark of identity. Just three blows, more or less the norm in murder cases.

Opening his second can of beer, Danglard looked attentively at the wounds. He had to do his homework conscientiously, so as to be certain one way or the other. It was unquestionably the case that the three wounds were in a straight line, more or less, in all the murders. And it was true that anyone dealing three separate frenzied blows would be most unlikely to place them in a straight line. That certainly pointed towards a fork or trident. And the wounds were all deep, which could also be explained by the force of a tool with a handle, whereas it was rare for a knife to penetrate three times up to the hilt. But the detailed reports appeared to wipe out that train of thought. The blades used varied in width and length. Furthermore, the spacing between the perforations varied from one case to another, as did the alignment. Not by very much, sometimes just a third or a quarter of a centimetre, with one of the wounds slightly out of line. But such differences appeared to rule out the use of the same weapon in every case. Three very similar blows, but not similar enough to point to a single weapon and a single hand behind it.

What was more, all the cases had been cleared up, the guilty parties having been arrested and sometimes even having confessed. But with the exception of one other teenager just as vulnerable and mixed-up as Raphaël, all those found guilty were individuals on the margins of society, homeless tramps or vagrants, habitual drunkards, and all, at the time of arrest, had presented with a spectacularly high alcohol count in their bloodstream. It would hardly have been difficult to extract confessions
from people already so disturbed, and who had so quickly given up on themselves.

Danglard pushed away the large white cat sitting on his feet. The cat was warm and heavy. He hadn’t changed the cat’s name since Camille had left it with him the year before, when she took off for Lisbon. Then the kitten had been a fluffy little ball with blue eyes, and he had called it Snowball. It had grown up sweet-natured, without scratching the furniture or the walls. Danglard could never look at the cat without thinking about Camille, who was similarly not very good at self-defence. He picked up the cat under the stomach, took one of its paws and scratched at the little pad. But the little claws did not come out. Snowball was a one-off. He put it down on the table and finally let it return on top of his feet. If that’s what you want, stay there.

None of those arrested, Danglard noted, could remember having committed the murder. That amounted to an astonishing run of cases of amnesia. In his career in the police, he could think of only two cases where there had been loss of memory after a murder, both caused by a refusal to consider the dreadfulness of the act, as the perpetrator went into denial. But that kind of psychological amnesia could hardly explain eight cases. Alcohol on the other hand, that might do it. As a young man, when he had been a serious drinker, he could recall waking up with no memory of the night before, so that his friends had had to fill him in on it the next day. He had started to cut back after being told that he had stood up on a table in Avignon, stark naked, and declaimed, to much applause, a passage of Virgil. In Latin. He was already starting to put on weight, and the thought of what he must have looked like appalled him. Very merry, according to his friends (male), quite charming according to his friends (female). Yes, alcohol-induced amnesia was something he knew about, but it was unpredictable. Sometimes, if you drank yourself silly, you could remember everything afterwards, and sometimes you couldn’t.

Adamsberg knocked twice quietly at the door. Danglard took the cat under his arm and went to open it. The
commissaire
glanced at the cat.

‘OK on that front?’ he asked.

‘As well as can be expected,’ said Danglard.

Subject closed, message understood. The two men sat down at the table and Danglard put the cat back to sit on his feet before explaining the doubts he had about this genuine or false string of murders. Adamsberg listened to him, his left arm held tight across his body, his right hand propping up his cheek.

‘I know,’ he interrupted. ‘Do you think I haven’t had all the time in the world to analyse and compare the measurements of the wounds? I know them all by heart. I know how deep they were, the form they took, and all the deviations and differences from case to case. But you have to realise that Judge Fulgence has absolutely nothing in common with an ordinary mortal. He would never be so stupid as to use the same weapon every time. No, Danglard. This man is powerful. But he kills with his trident. It’s the emblem and sceptre of his power.’

‘Well, it has to be one thing or the other,’ objected Danglard. ‘Either it’s a single weapon or several. The wounds have differences.’

‘It comes to the same thing. What’s so striking about the differences is that they’re
tiny
, Danglard, absolutely tiny. The space between the perforations, in whatever direction, may vary. But the variation is always small. Look at them again. Whatever the distribution, the maximum length of the line is never more than 16.9 centimetres. That was the case when my brother’s girlfriend, Lise Autan, was killed, and I know the judge used the trident then: 16.9 with a space of 4.7 centimetres between the first wound and the second, and 5 between the second and the third. Look at the other victims. Number 4, Julien Soubise, killed with a knife: 5.4 centimetres and 4.8, in a total length of 10.8 centimetres. Number 8, Jeanne Lessard, murdered with a chisel, 4.5 centimetres and 4.8 centimetres, total length 16.2. The longest totals are when the weapon was a chisel or a long screwdriver, and the shortest with a knife, because the blade is thin. But the total is never greater than 16.9 centimetres. Now how do you explain that, Danglard? Eight different murderers, each killing the victim with three blows, in a straight
line never longer than 16.9 centimetres? Since when has there been a mathematical maximum limit for stabbing someone in the stomach?’

Danglard frowned, without speaking.

‘As for the other type of variation,’ Adamsberg went on, ‘the width of the tines, that’s even smaller, never more than 4 millimetres, even when the weapon was a knife, and less if it was some kind of pointed tool. The widest perforation is 0.9 centimetres. Not more, never any more. That was the width of each wound in the case of Lise. How do you explain that? By the use of a ruler? By some sort of agreement among killers? These suspects were all roaring drunk, what’s more, so wouldn’t you think their hands would be unsteady? And they suffered from amnesia. And all of them were confused. Yet not one of them contrived to stab outside a thin rectangle 16.9 centimetres by 0.9 centimetres. Is that some kind of miracle, Danglard?’

Danglard reflected quickly, and conceded that the
commissaire
’s argument was persuasive. But he still couldn’t see how all the murders were perpetrated with a single weapon.

‘Well, look,’ said Adamsberg doing a rapid sketch. ‘Take a three-pronged agricultural fork. Here’s the handle, here’s the reinforced crossbar and here are the three prongs. The handle and the crossbar stay the same, but the prongs change. Do you get it, Danglard?
The prongs were changed
. But of course they couldn’t exceed the extent of the crossbar, 16.9 centimetres long, and the perforations 0.9 centimetres across in this case.’

‘You mean to say that our man takes off the metal prongs every time, and solders some other blades on?’

‘Yes, you’ve got it,
capitaine
. He can’t change the original implement. He’s neurotically attached to it, as serial killers often are, and that attachment is the clearest proof that we’re dealing with a psychopath. The weapon has to be the same one, for him that’s an absolute necessity. The handle and the crossbar are the soul and spirit of the weapon. But to evade detection, the judge modifies the prongs every time, by fixing on blades from knives or screwdrivers or whatever.’

‘That’s not so easy, to solder blades.’

‘Yes it is, Danglard, it’s quite simple. And even if the solder isn’t all that firm, the weapon is only going to be used once. To penetrate vertically, not to dig the earth.’

‘Well, in that case, if you’re right, the murderer would have to get hold of four knives or something similar for every killing: three to take off the points and attach them to the trident, and one to put in the hands of the poor sod who’s going to take the rap.’

‘Exactly. And that isn’t so complicated either. That’s why in virtually every case, the weapon found on the spot was an ordinary everyday one, and above all brand new. A brand new implement, belonging to a tramp, is that likely?’

Danglard rubbed his chin reflectively.

‘He didn’t do it that way for your brother’s girlfriend, did he? According to you, he stabbed her with the fork, then pushed the screwdriver into the wounds.’