Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

by Fred Vargas

  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.’

  ‘Same thing for case number 4, where the scapegoat was another teenager, also in a small village. Probably the judge thought that finding a brand new weapon in the possession of a youngster might seem suspicious, and the trick would be discovered. So he chose an old screwdriver, longer than the prongs on the trident, and mutilated the wounds with that.’

  ‘I suppose that makes sense,’ Danglard said.

  ‘It makes sense, because it fits together like a jigsaw. Same man, same implement. Because I checked, Danglard. When the judge moved out, I went and searched the Manor. Most of the garden tools were still in the barn, but not the fork. He’d taken his precious instrument with him.’

  ‘But if all this is so obvious, why on earth wasn’t he found out before this? You said you were after him for fourteen years?’

  ‘For four reasons, Danglard. First of all, forgive me, but everyone reasoned exactly the same way you’re doing, and stopped right there. The weapons were different and so were the wounds, so there was no connection between these m
urders. Secondly, the geographical regions of each inquiry were quite far from each other, and as you know, communication between different police forces isn’t all it might be. And next, because every time, there was an ideal suspect ready on hand, with the evidence sitting right beside him. Finally, don’t forget that the judge was powerful and virtually untouchable.’

  ‘OK, but when you put this dossier together, why weren’t you listened to?’

  Adamsberg gave a wry smile.

  ‘Because I had zero credibility. Every magistrate on these cases knew I had a personal axe to grind, and they thought my accusations were obsessive and subjective. They all thought that I would have dreamed up any scenario to clear Raphaël’s name. And you think that too, don’t you, Danglard? And what was more, my whole hypothesis implicated this powerful man. I was never allowed to get anywhere. “Adamsberg, just get it into your head that it was your brother that killed that girl. His disappearance proves it, if nothing else.” Then I would be threatened with a libel suit.’

  ‘Right, so you were blocked,’ Danglard summed up.

  ‘What about you, capitaine, are you convinced? Do you understand that the judge had already killed five other victims before he attacked Lise, and two more afterwards. Eight murders, stretching over some thirty-four years. He’s no ordinary serial killer, he has a cold-blooded, meticulous plan, stretching over an entire lifetime, measured, programmed, scheduled. I found out about the first five crimes by searching the police records, and I may have missed something. As for the next two after Lise, by then I was following the judge’s movements and watching the press. Fulgence knew I would never give up, so I forced him to keep moving. But he kept slipping through my fingers. And you must see, Danglard, that it’s not over. Fulgence has risen from the grave to kill a ninth victim in Schiltigheim. It’s his signature, I know it. Three blows in a straight line. I’ll have to go there myself to check the measurements, but you’ll see, Danglard, the line won’t be longer than 16.9 centimetres. The weapon was brand new. The suspect is some poor old wino, a vagrant, and he can’t remember a thing. It’s all there.’

  ‘All the same,’ said Danglard, pulling a face, ‘if you include Schiltigheim in the sequence, that gives us a series of murders spread over what? Fifty-four years? I’d say that was unprecedented in the annals of crime.’

  ‘The Trident is an unprecedented character. A monster, exceptional in all respects. I don’t know how I can persuade you of that. You never met him.’

  ‘All the same,’ said Danglard again, ‘you’re suggesting he stopped in 1983 and then started again twenty years later. That just doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Who says he hasn’t killed in the interval?’

  ‘You do. You said you had watched the press like a hawk. And then nothing happens for twenty years.’

  ‘That’s quite simply because I stopped looking in 1987. I told you I tracked him for fourteen years, but not for thirty.’

  Danglard looked up in surprise.

  ‘But why? Did you get fed up? Did someone lean on you?’

  Adamsberg stood up and walked about for a moment or two, his head hanging down towards his injured arm. Then he came back to the table, supported himself with his right hand and leaned forward towards his deputy.

  ‘Because in 1987, he died.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘He died. Judge Fulgence passed away, about sixteen years ago, of natural causes, in Richelieu, the last place he was living, on 19 November 1987. The death certificate indicated a heart attack.’

  ‘Good God, are you sure?’

  ‘Of course. I heard about it straight away and I went to his funeral. The press was full of obituaries. I saw his coffin lowered into the grave and saw the monster buried under the earth. And on that terrible day, I despaired of ever being able to clear my brother’s name. The judge had got away from me for good.’

  There was a long silence, which Danglard did not know how to break. Out of countenance, he automatically smoothed the files on the table with his hand.

  ‘Go ahead, Danglard, say something. Say what you’re thinking.’

  ‘Schiltigheim,’ murmured Danglard.

  ‘Precisely. Schiltigheim. The judge has come back from hell, and I’ve got a chance to catch him again. Do you understand? One more chance. And this time he isn’t going to get away with it.’

  ‘If I’m reading you right,’ Danglard said hesitantly, ‘he’s got a disciple, a son perhaps, or an imitator.’

  ‘No, that’s not it at all. He wasn’t married, he has no children. The judge is a solitary predator. Schiltigheim is his work, not some copycat crime.’

  Anxiety stopped the capitaine speaking for a moment. He wavered, then opted for sympathy.

  ‘This recent murder has unsettled you. It’s a terrible coincidence.’

  ‘No, Danglard, no, it’s not.’

  ‘Commissaire,’ Danglard began carefully, ‘the judge has been dead for sixteen years. He’s nothing but dust and bones.’

  ‘So what? Do you think I give a damn? It’s the Schiltigheim girl that matters to me now.’

  ‘Good grief,’ exclaimed Danglard, running out of patience, ‘what do you believe in? The resurrection of the body?’

  ‘I believe in actions. It’s him all right and one more chance for me to catch him. And I’ve had signs too.’

  ‘What do you mean “signs”?’

  ‘Signs, warnings. The barmaid, the poster, the drawing pins.’

  Danglard stood up as well now, this time really alarmed.

  ‘Great God in heaven, “signs”? Are you turning into a mystic? What are you chasing after, commissaire? A ghost? A zombie? And where does the creature live? In your mind?’

  ‘I’m going after the Trident. Who was living not far from Schiltigheim quite recently.’

  ‘But he’s dead! Dead!’

  Under his capitaine’s thunderstruck gaze, Adamsberg started to put the files back in his briefcase, carefully, one by one.

  ‘The devil snaps his fingers at death, Danglard.’

  Then he picked up his coat and, waving his good arm, said goodbye.

  Danglard sat down again, in desperation, and raised the can of beer to his lips. Adamsberg was a lost soul, caught up in a spiral of folly. Babbling about drawing pins, a barmaid, a poster and a zombie. It had gone much further than he had realised. Mad, doomed, carried off by some evil wind.

  After a few hours sleep, Danglard arrived late at the office. A note had been left on his desk. Adamsberg had taken the train to Strasbourg that morning and would be back the following day. Danglard spared a sympathetic thought for Commandant Trabelmann and prayed he would be indulgent.

  X

  FROM A DISTANCE, ACROSS THE FORECOURT OF STRASBOURG RAILWAY station, Commandant Trabelmann looked short, thickset and tough. Setting aside the military haircut, Adamsberg concentrated on the commandant’s round face and detected in it both determination and a sense of humour. There was perhaps some chink of hope there for opening the impossible dossier he was bringing. Trabelmann shook hands, giving a brief laugh, for no reason. He spoke loudly and distinctly.

  ‘Battle wound?’ he said, pointing to the arm in the sling.

  ‘A difficult arrest,’ Adamsberg confirmed.

  ‘How many does that make?’

  ‘Arrests?’

  ‘Scars.’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘I’ve got seven. There’s not a flic in the regular police who can beat me for stitches,’ concluded Trabelmann of the gendarmerie. ‘So, commissaire, you’ve brought along your childhod memory, is that it?’

  Adamsberg pointed to his briefcase with a smile.

  ‘It’s all in here. But I’m not sure you’re going to like it.’

  ‘Well. It costs nothing to listen,’ said the other, opening his car door. ‘I’ve always enjoyed fairy stories.’

  ‘Even ones about murder?’

  ‘Do you know any other kind?’ asked Trabelmann, as he started the engi
ne. ‘Cannibalism in Little Red Riding Hood, attempted infanticide in Snow White, the ogre in Tom Thumb.’

  He braked at a traffic light and laughed again.

  ‘Murders, nothing but murders everywhere,’ he went on. ‘As for Bluebeard, he was the original serial killer. What I used to like in the Bluebeard story was the fatal spot of blood on the key, that would never come off. It was no use trying to wash it or scrub it off, it kept coming back like a mark of guilt. I often think about that when a criminal gets away. I say to myself, all right, my boy, run all you like, but the bloodstain will come back and then I’ll catch up with you. Don’t you do that?’

  ‘The story I’ve got here is a bit like Bluebeard. There are three bloodstains in it that are wiped out and then keep coming back. But it’s like in the stories: only people who believe in them can see them.’

  ‘I’ve got to go round by Reichstett to pick up one of my men, so we’ve got a bit of a drive ahead of us. Why don’t you start telling me your story now? Once upon a time there was a man …’

  ‘Who lived alone in a huge manor with two dogs,’ Adamsberg went on.

  ‘A good start, commissaire, I like it!’ said Trabelmann with a fourth burst of laughter.

  By the time they had reached the small car park in Reichstett, the commandant was looking more serious.

  ‘All right. Your story’s got some convincing elements, I won’t deny that. But if it was your man who killed our Mademoiselle Wind – and I’m saying if, please note – that would mean he’s been going round the country with this all-purpose trident for fifty years or more. Do you realise that? How old was your Bluebeard when he started on his killing spree – still in short pants?’

  Different style from Danglard, thought Adamsberg, but the same objection; naturally.