by Fred Vargas
“Good,” Camille said. “That’s fine by me. Things are fine as they are.”
“But tomorrow or the day after they won’t be the same. No more lay-by, no more lorry, no more just for the time being, no more just making do for now. No more riverbanks, either.”
“I’ll make some more of those.”
“Riverbanks?”
“Yes.”
“What with?”
“With the A to Z of Tools for Trade and Craft. You can make anything with an A to Z.”
“If you say so. What will you do with a spare riverbank?”
“Go and see if you’re around.”
“I’ll be around.”
“Maybe,” Camille said.
Next morning Camille slid into position behind the steering wheel, switched on the engine, and reversed the lorry into a three-point turn amid the clatter and rattle of old iron. Watchee, as straight-backed as ever though supporting himself on his crook, Soliman and Adamsberg stood in line to one side, solemnly watching the lorry perform this manoeuvre. Camille went forward onto the road, then reversed again with the opposite lock, and then eased the lorry forward into position with its nose to the east on the opposite side of the road, and switched off.
Adamsberg slowly crossed the road, climbed up to the cab, kissed Camille and stroked her hair, and then returned to the field where the other two and Woof stood waiting. He shook Watchee’s hand.
“You look after yourself, young fella,” Watchee said. “I won’t be there to watch out for you.”
“Not everybody needs to have you under their feet,” said Soliman.
Soliman glanced at Camille then shook Adamsberg by the hand.
“Separation,” he said. “‘The action or an act of withdrawing oneself or leaving the company of others.’”
He went over to the lorry, clambered into the cab through the nearside door, hauled Watchee up after him into his seat, and pulled the door shut. Adamsberg raised his hand, and off the livestock transporter rumbled in a clatter of wood and steel. He watched it go, and then halt eighty metres down the road. Soliman fell out of the cab and came running back towards him.
“The bowl, sod it.”
He went straight past Adamsberg and onto the lorry’s parking spot to collect the bowl that had got lost in the grass flattened by the vehicle and trampled by its crew. He walked back with long strides, quite out of breath. When he got as far as Adamsberg he held out his hand once more.
“Fate,” he said. “‘A person’s appointed lot. A fortuitous encounter. Circumstances which cause a person or thing, by chance or otherwise, to cross your path.’”
He smiled and went back to the lorry, graciously swinging the blue plastic bowl up and down. The lorry started up and disappeared around the bend in the road.
Adamsberg got out his jotter and noted down Soliman’s last definition before he forgot it.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
There are two principal organisations ensuring law enforcement in modern France. The police nationale operates in cities, whereas the gendarmerie is responsible for smaller towns and the countryside. Officers of the police nationale – such as Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg – are civil servants, answering ultimately to the Minister of the Interior; gendarmes, on the other hand, have military status and are garrisoned in places other than their home towns. Flics and gendarmes necessarily cooperate on many criminal cases, but do not always overcome mutual rivalry and mistrust.
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Published by Vintage 2008
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Copyright © Éditions Viviane Hamy, Paris, 1999
English translation copyright © David Bellos, 2004
Fred Vargas has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
First published with the title L’Homme à l’envers by
Éditions Viviane Hamy, Paris, 1999
First published in Great Britain in 2004 by
The Harvill Press
First published by Vintage in 2005
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Maps drawn by Emily Hare
Ouvrage traduit avec le concours du Ministère Français chargé de la culture – Centre National du Livre.
This work is published with support from the French Ministry of Culture – Centre National du Livre.
This book is supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as part of the Burgess Programme headed for the French Embassy in London by the Institut Français du Royaume-Uni
ISBN 9780099515975
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