by Fred Vargas
Yes, he had a headache alright.
XXXIV
MARC RAN A LONG WAY, UNTIL HE COULD RUN NO MORE, AND HIS LUNGS were aching. Panting for breath, with his sweat-soaked shirt sticking to his back, he sat down on the first milestone he found. Dogs had pissed all over it. He didn’t care. His head was ringing as he sat there with his hands squeezing his temples, and trying to think. Sickened and distracted, he was trying to calm down sufficiently to get his thoughts in order. He must avoid stamping his foot as he used to over the plastic balls. Or letting tectonic plates wander round his head. He would never manage to clear his brain, sitting on a stone that stank of piss. He needed to walk, slowly, just to walk along. But first he needed to get his breath back. He looked around to see where he was. On the avenue d’Italie. Had he really run that far? He got up carefully, mopped his brow and went towards the nearest Métro station: Maison-Blanche, the white house. That reminded him of something. Ah yes, the white whale. Moby Dick. The five-franc coin nailed up in the refectory. That was typical of the god-father, playing games, when everything was ending in horror. He must go back up the avenue d’Italie. Walking with careful steps. Get used to the idea. Why didn’t he want Sophia to have done all this? Because he had met her one morning, in front of the gate? And yet Christophe Dompierre’s dying accusation was there, blindingly clear. ‘Siméonidis S’, even if the S was the wrong way round. Marc suddenly froze. He started walking again. Stopped. Went into a café for a cup of coffee. Took up his walk again.
It was nine that evening by the time he got home, with an empty stomach and a heavy head. He went into the refectory to get himself a piece of bread. Leguennec was there, talking to his godfather. Each of them had a deck of playing cards in his hands.
‘There’s this old clochard, Raymond, hangs around the Pont d’Austerlitz,’ Leguennec was saying. ‘He’s a pal of Louise’s. He says a la-di-da lady came to find her about a week ago, on a Wednesday. He’s absolutely sure it was a Wednesday. This woman was well dressed, and when she talked, she kept putting her hand to her throat. Spades.’
‘She made some kind of proposition to Louise?’ asked Vandoosler, putting three cards down, one of them face up.
‘Yes. Raymond doesn’t know what it was, but Louise was secretive about having a date with someone, and she was “bloody pleased with herself”. What a business! She was about to get bumped off in a car in Maisons-Alfort. Poor old Louise. Your call.’
‘No clubs. I’m discarding. What does the police doctor have to say?’
‘He thinks it fits, because of the teeth. He would have thought the teeth would have survived better. But the ancient Louise had hardly any left. So that explains it. Maybe that was why Sophia picked her. I’m taking your hearts, and I’m harpooning the jack of diamonds.’
Marc pocketed the bread and put a couple of apples in his other pocket. He wondered what strange game the two policeman were playing. But he didn’t care. He hadn’t finished walking yet. Nor had he got used to the idea yet. Going out again, he went down the other side of rue Chasle, passing the Western Front. It would soon be dark.
He walked around for another two full hours. He left one apple core on the parapet of the Saint-Michel fountain, and the other on the plinth of the Belfort Lion on the place Denfert-Rochereau. It was hard getting close to the lion and climbing up onto the plinth. There’s a little rhyme that says that the Belfort Lion comes down at night and pads around Paris. At least you can be sure that that really is a fairy story. When Marc jumped down again, he felt a lot better. He came back to rue Chasle, with his head aching a bit still, but calmer. He had digested the idea. He knew where Sophia was now. He had taken some time to work it out.
He came into the darkened refectory, feeling composed. Half-past eleven. Everyone must be asleep. He put on the light and and picked up the kettle. The horrible photo was no longer on the table. Instead there was a bit of paper with a message from Mathias: ‘Juliette thinks she knows where she is. I’m going to Dourdan with her. I’m afraid she might be going to help her run away. I’ll call Alexandra if I need to. Caveman greetings. Mathias.’
Marc put the kettle down with a bang. Oh God, the idiot!’ he muttered. ‘The bloody idiot.’ He ran up to the third floor, four steps at a time. ‘Lucien, get dressed!’ he shouted, shaking his friend by the shoulder.
Lucien opened his eyes, ready to retort something.
‘No, don’t ask, don’t start talking. I need you! Hurry!’
Marc rushed up to the fourth floor and shook Vandoosler awake.
‘She’s going to get away!’ Marc said, panting. ‘Quick! Juliette and Mathias have gone! That idiot Mathias doesn’t realise the danger. I’m going with Lucien. Go and get Leguennec out of bed, and make him bring his men to Dourdan, number 12 allée des Grands-Ifs!’
Marc rushed out again. His legs ached from all the walking he had done. Lucien was coming downstairs, drowsy from sleep, pushing his feet into his shoes, a tie in his hand.
‘Come and find me in front of Relivaux’s house,’ said Marc, pushing past him.
Hurtling down the steps, he ran across the garden and shouted up at Relivaux’s house. Relivaux appeared at the window, looking wary. He was only lately returned, and the news about the name Dompierre had written on the car had apparently left him in a state of collapse.
‘Throw me the keys to your car!’ yelled Marc. ‘It’s a matter of life and death!’
Relivaux did not stop to think. A few seconds later, Marc caught the keys as they sailed over the gate. Say what you like about Relivaux, he was good at throwing.
‘Thanks,’ Marc yelled.
He turned on the ignition, moved off, opening the passenger door to pick up Lucien. Lucien tied his tie carefully, put a small flat bottle on his thigh, adjusted the angle of his seat backwards and settled comfortably.
‘What’s in the bottle?’ asked Marc.
‘Cooking rum. Just in case.’
‘Where d’you get that?’
‘It’s mine. Got it to make cakes.’
Marc shrugged. That was Lucien for you.
Marc drove fast, gritting his teeth. In Paris at midnight you could generally get through very quickly. But it was Friday night and the traffic was heavy. Marc was sweating with anxiety, overtaking, jumping traffic lights. Only when he got out of Paris and onto the empty main road did he feel able to talk.
‘What the hell does Mathias think he’s playing at?’ he exclaimed. ‘He believes he can manage a woman who’s already liquidated tons of people. He doesn’t realise. He’s worse than a bison!’
As Lucien didn’t reply, Marc glanced across at him. The dope was fast asleep again.
‘Lucien!’ Marc shouted. ‘Come on, look lively!’
But there was nothing to be done. Once he had decided to go to sleep, you couldn’t wake him if he didn’t want you to. Same as with the Great War. Marc put his foot down even harder.
He braked to a halt in front of number 12 allée des Grands-Ifs at one o’clock in the morning. The big wooden gate to Sophia’s house was closed. Marc hauled Lucien out of the car and propped him up.
‘Atten-shun!’ he shouted at him.
‘OK, OK, don’t shout so loud,’ said Lucien. ‘I’m awake. I always wake up if I know I’m really needed.’
‘Hurry up,’ said Marc. ‘Give me a leg-up like the other time.’
‘Take your shoe off then.’
‘Good grief, Lucien! We may be too late already. Just help me up, never mind the shoes.’
Marc put his foot on Lucien’s linked hands and hauled himself to the top of the wall. He had to make an effort to get astride it.
‘Your turn,’ he said. ‘Bring that dustbin over, and stand on it and grab my hand.’
Lucien found himself alongside Marc, astride the wall. The sky was cloudy and it was pitch dark. Lucien jumped down, with Marc behind him. Once on the ground, Marc tried to find his bearings. He thought of the well. He had been thinking about the well for some time. The
well, water. Mathias. The well, the place where so many medieval crimes were committed. Where was the fucking well? Over there, a pale patch. Marc ran towards it, with Lucien behind him. He couldn’t hear anything, no sound except his own footsteps and Lucien’s. He was beside himself with fear. Frantically, he pulled away the heavy planks across the coping. Shit, he hadn’t brought a torch. Anyway, it was ages since he had owned a torch. Two years? Yes, about two years. He leaned over the coping and called Mathias’ name.
No reply. Why was he so sure about the well? Why was he not going to the house or the wood behind it? No, he was absolutely certain it had to be the well. It’s easy, it’s clean, it’s medieval, and nobody ever finds out. He lifted up the heavy zinc bucket and lowered it gently down. When he heard it touch the surface of the water, far below, he wedged the chain and put one leg over the coping.
‘Make sure the chain stays in place,’ he told Lucien. ‘Don’t move away from the goddamn well. And, whatever you do, take care. Don’t make a sound, don’t alert her. Four, five, six corpses, she’s past counting. Give me the rum.’
Marc began the descent. He was scared. The well was narrow, dark, slimy and cold, like all wells. But the chain was strong. He thought he had gone down about six or seven metres when he felt the bucket, and icy water on his ankles. He let himself slide in up to his thighs and his skin almost burst with the cold. He felt the inert mass of a body against his legs and wanted to scream.
He called him, but Mathias didn’t reply. Now that Marc’s eyes were used to the darkness, he lowered himself further into the water, up to the waist. With one hand, he felt the body of the hunter-gatherer, who had allowed himself to be tipped into the well, like a complete cretin. His head and knees were still above water. Mathias had managed to press his long legs against the walls of the well. It was lucky the well was so narrow. He had succeeded in wedging himself in place, but how long had he been in this freezing water? How long had he been here, sliding, centimetre by centimetre, downwards, till he was swallowing that black water?
He couldn’t haul Mathias to the top if he was a deadweight. Mathias would have to be able to hold on.
Marc wrapped the chain round his right arm, and pressed his legs against the bucket, confirmed his grip, and began to pull Mathias up out of the water. He was so big and heavy. The effort was exhausting. Gradually Marc managed to pull him clear, and after a quarter of a hour’s effort, Mathias’ head and shoulders were resting on the bucket. Marc held him up with his leg, by bracing it against the wall, and with his left hand managed to pull the bottle of rum out of his jacket pocket. If Mathias still had some life left in him, he certainly wouldn’t like the cooking rum. He poured it as best he could into his friend’s mouth. It was going everywhere, but Mathias spluttered. Not for a second had Marc allowed himself to think that Mathias would die. Not the hunter-gatherer. Marc gave him a few clumsy slaps and tipped more rum into him. Mathias groaned. He was coming up from the depths.
‘Can you hear me? It’s Marc.’
‘Where are we?’ asked Mathias in a croaking voice. ‘I’m freezing. I’m going to die.’
‘We’re in the well? Where do you think?’
‘She pushed me in!’ stammered Mathias. ‘She hit me and pushed me in. I didn’t hear her coming.’
‘I know,’ said Marc. ‘Lucien is at the top. He’s going to pull us up.’
‘He’ll rupture himself,’ muttered Mathias.
‘Don’t worry about him. He’s good at front-line jobs. Come on, drink this.’
‘What the fuck is this stuff?’ Mathias was almost inaudible.
‘It’s cooking rum for cakes, it’s Lucien’s. Is it warming you up?’
‘Have some yourself. This water’s paralysing.’
Marc swallowed a few mouthfuls. The chain around his arm was biting and burning into his flesh.
Mathias had closed his eyes again. He was breathing, that was as much as you could say for him. Marc whistled and Lucien’s head appeared in the little circle of light far above.
‘The chain!’ said Marc. ‘Start hauling it up, but very gently, and whatever you do don’t let it go down again. If it jerks, I’ll have to let go.’
His voice sounded echoing and deafening in his ears. But perhaps his ears were frozen.
He heard a clanking sound. Lucien was releasing the chain, while holding on so that Marc did not fall lower. Lucien was a trooper, alright. The chain started to go up, slowly.
‘Pull it up link by link,’ Marc called. ‘He weighs as much as a bison.’
‘Has he drowned?’ Lucien called down.
‘No! Haul away, soldier!’
‘What a bloody shambles!’ came the reply.
Marc was holding onto Mathias by his trousers. Mathias kept his trousers up with a thick cord which was handy to grip on to. That was the only advantage that Marc could see for the time being of Mathias’ rustic habit of holding his trousers up with string. The hunter-gatherer’s head banged from time to time against the walls, but Marc could see the parapet approaching. Lucien heaved Mathias out and laid him on the ground. Marc climbed over the parapet and let himself fall to the grass. He unwound the chain from his arm, pulling a face. The arm was bleeding.
‘Take my jacket to put round that,’ said Lucien.
‘Did you hear anything?’
‘No, but here comes your uncle.’
‘He took his time! Slap Mathias on the face, and rub his limbs. I think he’s lost consciousness again.’
Leguennec was the first to arrive, at a run, and knelt down by Mathias. He did have a torch.
Marc got up, nursing his arm, which seemed to have turned to stone, and went to meet the six policemen.
‘I’m sure she’s hiding in the copse,’ he said.
They found Juliette ten minutes later. Two men brought her over, holding her by the arms. She appeared exhausted, and was covered in scratches and bruises.
‘She …’ panted Juliette. ‘I ran away …’
Marc rushed at her and grabbed her shoulder.
‘Shut up!’ he shouted at her. ‘Just shut up, d’you hear!’
‘Should I stop him?’ Leguennec asked Vandoosler.
‘No,’ whispered Vandoosler. ‘There’s no danger. Let him alone. This was his discovery. I suspected something like this, but …’
‘You should have told me, Vandoosler.’
‘I couldn’t be sure. But medieval historians have special ways of thinking. When Marc gets his mind in gear, he gets straight to the answer. He takes it all in, important stuff and rubbish, and then all at once he goes for it.’
Leguennec looked at Marc, who was standing stiff and pale, his hair soaking wet, and still gripping Juliette’s shoulder with his left hand, covered in shining rings, a large hand close to her throat and looking dangerous.
‘What if he does something stupid?’
‘He won’t do anything stupid.’
Leguennec, all the same, motioned to his men to stand close around Marc and Juliette.
‘I’m going to see to Mathias,’ he said. ‘It looks as if he had a close shave.’
Vandoosler remembered that when Leguennec had been a fisherman, he had also been in offshore rescue. Water, water everywhere.
Marc had let Juliette go now and was staring straight at her. She was ugly, she was beautiful. He felt sick. Maybe it was the rum? She wasn’t moving a muscle. Marc was shaking. His wet clothes were clinging to him and turning his body to ice. Slowly he looked around for Leguennec among the men clustered together in the darkness. He saw him further off, alongside Mathias.
‘Inspecteur,’ he said hoarsely, ‘give orders to have the tree dug up back in rue Chasle. She’s underneath it, I think.’
‘Under the tree?’ said Leguennec. ‘But we’ve already dug there.’
‘Exactly,’ said Marc. ‘The place we’ve already searched, the place nobody will open up again. But that’s where Sophia is.’
Now Marc was shivering all over. He found the
little bottle of rum and drank what remained in it. He felt his head swimming and wanted Mathias to make a fire for him, but Mathias was lying on the ground. He wished he too could lie down, and scream perhaps. He wiped his forehead with the wet sleeve on his left arm, which was still functioning. The other arm was hanging limp, and blood was running onto his hand.
He looked up. She was still staring at him. Of all her plans, now in ruins, all that remained was that rigid body and the bitter resistance of her gaze.
Feeling stunned, Marc suddenly sat down on the grass. No, he didn’t want to look at her any longer. He even regretted what he had already seen.
Leguennec was hoisting Mathias into a sitting position.
‘Marc …’ Mathias was saying.
His croaking voice reached Marc, shaking him into speech. If Mathias had had more strength he would have said: ‘Tell them, Marc.’ That’s what he would say, the hunter-gatherer. Marc’s teeth were chattering and the words came out in fragments.
‘What Dompierre wrote …’ he said.
Head down, cross-legged, he was pulling out the grass in tufts, as he had under the beech tree. He scattered the tufts all round him.
‘He wrote Sophia’s name in a funny way: Siméonidis S. We thought he had written that last S the wrong way round, because he was trying to summon up strength. We said it looked a bit like a 2, and we were right, it wasn’t an S at all, it was a figure 2.’
Marc shivered. He felt his uncle pulling off his jacket and his dripping wet shirt. He didn’t have the strength to help him. He was still pulling up grass with his left hand. Now someone was wrapping him in a coarse blanket, which he felt against his skin, one of the blankets from the police van. Mathias was draped in one as well. It was scratchy, but warm. He relaxed a bit, huddled himself into it, and his jaw became less clenched. He kept his eyes fixed on the grass, instinctively so as not to have to look at her.
