by Fred Vargas
* * *
Danglard went back to his office to pick up his bulky leather briefcase, which made him look like a British schoolteacher or perhaps a priest in civvies, and followed Adamsberg across the Council Chamber. Adamsberg stopped beside Retancourt.
‘Can I see you at the end of the day?’ he said. ‘I’d like you to relieve me for something.’
‘No problem,’ said Retancourt, scarcely lifting her eyes from the filing cabinet. ‘I’m on duty till midnight.’
‘Fine, see you later then.’
Adamsberg was already out of the door when he heard the silly laugh of Brigadier Favre and his nasal voice saying:
‘He needs her to relieve him, does he? Big night tonight, Retancourt, the deflowering of the violet! The boss is from the Pyrenees, so he likes mountains. The bigger the better.’
‘One minute, Danglard,’ said Adamsberg holding back his deputy.
He returned to the Council Chamber with Danglard behind him, and went straight over to Favre’s desk. There was a sudden silence. Adamsberg caught hold of the metal table and gave it a violent shove. Papers, reports, photographic slides went flying with a crash as it toppled over. Favre, still holding a beaker of coffee, sat stock still, without reacting. Adamsberg took the back of the chair and tipped it backwards, so that the coffee spilled over the brigadier’s shirt.
‘Take back what you just said, Favre, apologise, and say you regret it. I’m waiting.’
‘Oh, shit,’ thought Danglard putting his hand over his eyes. He saw from his stance how tense Adamsberg was. In the last two days, he had seen more new emotions overtake his boss than in years of working together.
‘I’m waiting,’ Adamsberg repeated.
Favre leaned forward to try and recover a little of his lost dignity in front of his colleagues, who were by now stealthily moving towards the epicentre of the confrontation. Only Retancourt, the butt of Favre’s insulting words, had not budged. But she had stopped filing papers.
‘Withdraw what?’ Favre said hoarsely. ‘It was the truth, wasn’t it? You are an ace mountain climber, aren’t you?’
‘Favre, I’m waiting,’ said Adamsberg once more.
‘Oh bollocks,’ muttered Favre, starting to get to his feet.
Adamsberg grabbed Danglard’s black briefcase, took out a bottle of wine and smashed it against the metal table leg. Splinters of glass and wine flew all over the room. He took a step towards Favre, the broken bottle neck in his hand. Danglard tried to hold back the commissaire, but Favre had pulled out his service revolver and was pointing it at Adamsberg. Dumbstruck, the rest of the squad had frozen in their tracks, staring at the brigadier who had dared to level a gun at his boss. And staring too at their commissaire principal, whom they had seen angry only twice in the whole year, and then it had blown over very quickly. Everyone was searching for a quick way to defuse the confrontation, hoping that Adamsberg would recover his usual detached manner, drop the bottle and walk away with a shrug of his shoulders.
‘Drop the gun, you fucking idiot,’ said Adamsberg.
Favre threw down the revolver with an insolent look, and Adamsberg lowered the bottle. He had the unpleasant feeling of having gone over the top, the secret certainty that he had looked ridiculous, without being sure whether he or Favre had come off worst in that respect. He loosened his fingers. At that moment, the brigadier, in a furious outburst, straightened up and threw the jagged base of the wine bottle at him, cutting Adamsberg’s left forearm as cleanly as a knife.
Favre was quickly overpowered, put on a chair and held fast. Then faces turned to the commissaire, waiting for his instructions in this unprecedented situation. Adamsberg made a gesture to stop Estalère who was reaching for a telephone.
‘It’s not deep, Estalère,’ he said, his voice back to its usual calm, and holding his arm up against his body. ‘Just tell the police doctor to come over, he can handle it.’
He nodded to Mordent and gave him the top half of the broken bottle.
‘Put this in a plastic bag, Mordent. It’s evidence that I started the fight. Attempt to intimidate a subordinate. Pick up his Magnum and the base of the bottle, as evidence for a charge of aggression without intention to …’
Adamsberg ran his other hand through his hair trying to think of the right words.
‘Yes, there bloody was intention,’ shouted Favre.
‘Shut up, you dope!’ cried Noël. ‘Don’t make things worse for yourself. You’ve done enough damage.’
Adamsberg looked at Noël in surprise. Normally Noël would smile and back up the crude sallies his colleague came out with. But a gap had opened up between Noël’s tolerance and Favre’s aggression.
‘Without intention to cause grievous bodily harm,’ Adamsberg went on, making a sign to Justin to take down his words. ‘Motive for the confrontation, Brigadier Joseph Favre’s insulting remarks regarding Lieutenant Violette Retancourt and defamation of character.’ Adamsberg looked round to count the number of officers in the room.
‘Twelve eye-witnesses,’ he added.
Voisenet had made him sit down, pulled back the sleeve from his left arm and was applying first aid.
‘Confrontation proceeded as follows,’ Adamsberg continued in a tired voice. ‘Superior officer issued a reprimand, accompanied by a show of violence and intimidation, without making physical contact or injuring any part of the body of the said Joseph Favre.’
Adamsberg clenched his teeth while Voisenet pressed a cotton pad on his arm to stop the bleeding.
‘Brandishing of service weapon and sharp implement on the part of the brigadier, occasioning slight injury caused by a piece of glass. You can do the rest, write the report without my signature, and send it to the disciplinary tribunal. Don’t forget to photograph the state of the room.’
Justin got up and came over to the commissaire.
‘What shall we say about the bottle of wine,’ he whispered. ‘Do we say you took it out of Danglard’s bag?’
‘We say I picked it up off the table.’
‘Reason for the presence of a bottle of wine in the office at three-thirty in the afternoon?’
‘A little party at midday,’ suggested Adamsberg, ‘to celebrate the squad’s decision to go to Quebec.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Justin in relief. ‘Good idea.’
‘What do we do about Favre?’ asked Noël.
‘Suspension from duty and confiscation of his gun. The magistrate can decide whether he was an aggressor or whether it was a case of self-defence. We’ll deal with the rest when I get back.’
Adamsberg rose to his feet, leaning on Voisenet’s arm.
‘Be careful,’ Voisenet said to him. ‘You’ve lost an awful lot of blood.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Adamsberg. ‘I’m going to the police doctor right away.’
Leaning on Danglard’s arm, he went out leaving his officers stupefied, unable to collect their thoughts or, for the moment at least, to pass judgment on what had happened.
VIII
ADAMSBERG HAD GONE HOME WITH HIS ARM IN A SLING, AND PUMPED full of the antibiotics and painkillers that Dr Romain, the staff doctor, had made him swallow. The cut had needed six stitches.
His left arm being numb because of the local anaesthetic, he opened his bedroom cupboard clumsily with one hand, and called Danglard to help him pick up a box file from the lower shelf where it was sitting among old pairs of socks. Danglard put the box on a coffee table and the two men sat down facing each other.
‘Can you take out the papers, Danglard? Sorry, I can’t do anything with this arm.’
‘Why in heaven’s name did you break the bottle?’
‘Are you defending that scumbag?’
‘I agree, Favre’s full of shit. But when you smashed the bottle, you drove him to violence. He’s that kind of character. And as a rule, you’re not.’
‘Well, maybe when I come across that kind of character, I change my habits.’
‘Why didn’t you simply su
spend him, like you did last time?’
Adamsberg made a gesture of impotence.
‘Pressure?’ suggested Danglard cautiously. ‘Neptune?’
‘Could be.’
Meanwhile Danglard had pulled eight files out of the box, all labelled with a title: ‘Trident no. 1’, ‘Trident no. 2’, and so on up to 8.
‘And talking of the bottle in your briefcase, things are going too far on that front.’
‘And that’s none of your business,’ said Danglard using the commissaire’s own words.
Adamsberg nodded agreement.
‘Anyway,’ Danglard went on, ‘I’ve made a new resolution.’
Touching his pompom, but deeming it best not to mention that, he announced, ‘If I get back from Quebec alive, I’ll only drink one glass at a time.’
‘Of course you’ll get back, because I’ll be holding the string. So you can start on the new regime right now.’
Danglard nodded vaguely. In the commotion of the last few hours, he had forgotten that Adamsberg would be keeping the plane in the air. But just now, Danglard had more confidence in his pompom than in his superior officer. He wondered fleetingly if a sawn-off pompom was quite as powerful as the real thing, a bit like asking whether a eunuch was still potent.
‘I’m going to tell you a story, Danglard. I warn you, it’s a long one. It lasted fourteen years. It began when I was ten, it exploded when I was eighteen, and went on simmering until I was thirty-two. Don’t forget, by the way, that people sometimes fall asleep when I’m talking to them.’
‘No chance of that today,’ said Danglard. ‘But is there a chance of a little drink? I’m feeling a bit shaken after all that.’
‘There’s some gin, behind the olive oil, in the top cupboard in the kitchen.’
Danglard came back looking happier, with a glass and the heavy earthenware bottle. He helped himself, then went to put the bottle back.
‘See,’ he said. ‘I’m starting. Just one glass at a time.’
‘That stuff’s 44 per cent proof.’
‘It’s the thought that counts.’
‘Oh well, that’s different then.’
‘Yes, it’s different. And is that any of your business?’
‘All right, I’m poking my nose in, like you did. Even when they’re over, accidents leave their traces.’
‘Very true,’ said Danglard.
Adamsberg let his deputy take a few sips.
‘In my village in the Pyrenees,’ he began, ‘there was this old man. When we were kids we called him “the Lord and Master”. Grown-ups called him by his name and title: Judge Fulgence. He lived alone in Le Manoir, a big house surrounded by trees and walls. He didn’t socialise with anyone, he didn’t talk to anyone, he hated us boys and we were scared stiff of him. We would gang up to look out for him at night, when he went into the forest to take his dogs for a walk, two great big alsatians. How can I describe him to you, Danglard? I was just a kid of ten or twelve at the time. He seemed old to us, very tall, white hair brushed back, the best cared-for hands in the village, and the most elegant clothes ever seen there. As if the man were coming back from the opera every night, according to our parish priest – and priests are supposed to be indulgent on principle. Judge Fulgence always wore a white shirt, an expensive tie, a dark suit, and a grey or black woollen cape, short or long, depending on the season.’
‘A dandy then, a poser?’
‘No, Danglard. A very cold fish. When he walked into the village square, old men sitting on benches would greet him with respect, in a murmur that ran round the edge of the square, and every conversation stopped. It was more than respect, it was fascination, almost cowardice. Judge Fulgence left behind him a trail of slaves, never bothering to spare them a glance, like a ship ploughing on and leaving a wake behind it. You would have thought he was still dispensing justice in the olden days, sitting on a stone bench with the poor peasants crawling at his feet. But above all, people were afraid of him. Old and young, everyone was afraid. And nobody knew exactly why. My mother forbade us to go near the Manor, so of course we dared each other to get as close as we could. We tried some new trick every week, to see if we had balls, I suppose. The worst part, was that although he was getting on, Judge Fulgence was a man of striking beauty. Old women would whisper, hoping that heaven wasn’t listening, that he had the beauty of the devil.’
‘Perhaps that’s just the imagination of a twelve-year-old?’
With his good arm, Adamsberg felt among the files and pulled out two black and white photographs. He leaned forward and threw them on to Danglard’s knee.
‘Take a look, mon vieux, and tell me if that’s just the imagination of a child.’
Danglard studied the photographs of the judge, one three-quarters profile, the other full profile. He whistled softly.
‘Impressive, isn’t he? Film star looks?’ said Adamsberg.
‘Yes, very,’ said Danglard, putting the photographs back.
‘But no woman in sight. A loner. That’s how he was. But the way we kids were, we couldn’t leave him alone. Saturday nights, we’d dare each other to do something. Pull stones out of his walls, write graffiti on his gate, or chuck rubbish into his garden, jam jars, dead toads, birds. That’s how children are in the country, Danglard, and that’s the way I was too. In our gang there were boys who would put a lighted cigarette in the mouth of a toad, and after two or three breaths it would explode, like a firework, guts all over the place. I just used to watch. Am I boring you?’
‘No,’ said Danglard, swallowing a tiny sip of gin, trying to make it last with a mournful look, as if he had no money for more.
Adamsberg wasn’t concerned on that score, since he had observed Danglard fill the glass to the brim in the first place.
‘No, no,’ said Danglard. ‘Go on.’
‘Nobody knew anything about his past or his family. We only knew, and this was like a warning bang on the gong, that he had once been a judge. Such a powerful judge that his influence still ran in the land. Jeannot, one of the most daring boys in our gang—’
‘Sorry, can I just ask,’ said Danglard with a concerned look. ‘The toad, did it really explode, or was that just a figure of speech?’
‘It really exploded. It would puff up to the size of a melon and then suddenly, bang, it exploded. Where was I?’
‘You’d got to Jeannot.’
‘Yes, so Jeannot, bit of a daredevil, we all looked up to him, climbed right over the wall of the Manor. And when he got among the trees, he chucked a stone through a window of the Lord and Master’s house. Well, the upshot of that was, Jeannot got hauled in front of a court in Tarbes. When his trial came up, he still had the scars from where the alsatians had almost torn him to pieces. The magistrate gave him six months in an approved school. Just for a stone, thrown by a kid of eleven. That was how powerful Judge Fulgence was. His arm was so long that he could just bend the entire judicial system any way he liked with a wave of his hand.’
‘But how did the toad manage to smoke the cigarette?’
‘Danglard, are you listening to me at all? I’m telling you about a man sent by the devil, and you’re fussing about the blasted toad.’
‘Yes, of course I’m listening, but I was curious about the toad smoking.’
‘Well, it just did. If you put a lighted cigarette in its mouth, the toad would begin to swallow smoke, not like a chap leaning nonchalantly up against a bar, no. Like a toad, puffing and puffing without stopping. Puff, puff, puff, and then bang, it exploded.’
Adamsberg waved his good arm in the air to illustrate the toad’s entrails flying about. Danglard followed the curve with his eyes and shook his head as if he was registering something of great importance. Then he apologised again.
‘Carry on,’ he said, taking another mouthful of gin. ‘So, Judge Fulgence was powerful. Was Fulgence his first name or his surname?’
‘His surname. Honoré Guillaume Fulgence.’
‘It’s an odd name, Fulg
ence. It comes from the Latin fulgur, thunderbolt, or lightning strike. I suppose it suited him down to the ground.’
‘I think that’s what our old priest used to say. In our house we were non-believers, but I spent a lot of time in the priest’s house. First of all because there was sheep’s cheese and honey to eat there, which is very good to eat combined. And then he had masses of leatherbound books. Most of them were religious, of course, with big illuminated pictures, red and gold. I just loved those pictures. I copied dozens of them. There wasn’t much else to copy in our village.’
‘Was everyone old in your village?’
‘That’s what it seems like when you’re little.’
‘But why, when they gave him a cigarette, did the toad start puffing at it, puff, puff, till it burst?’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, I don’t know, Danglard,’ said Adamsberg raising his arms in the air.
The instinctive movement brought a spasm of pain. He quickly lowered his left arm and put his hand on the dressing.
‘Time for another painkiller,’ said Danglard, looking at his watch. ‘I’ll fetch it.’
Adamsberg nodded, wiping sweat from his forehead. That bastard Favre.
Danglard disappeared into the kitchen with his glass, made a lot of noise with cupboards and taps, and came back with some water and two tablets for Adamsberg. Adamsberg swallowed them, noting out of the corner of his eye that the level of gin in the glass had magically risen.
‘Where were we?’
‘You were talking about the old priest’s illuminated books.’
‘Yes. There were other books there too, poetry, picture books. I would copy and draw things from them and read a bit here and there. I was still doing it at eighteen. One evening I was sitting at his big kitchen table with its greasy surface, reading and scribbling, when it happened. That’s why I still remember, word for word, a bit out of a poem. It’s like a bullet embedded in my skull that I can’t get out. I’d put the book back and gone out for a walk on the mountainside at about ten o’clock. I climbed up to the Conche de Sauzec.’
