by Fred Vargas
‘I’m really sorry, Pelletier,’ said Victor to the stable master, who was feeling Hecate’s hock anxiously. ‘I wanted to catch him.’
‘Well, you didn’t manage it, lad, did you?’
‘He’d gone off towards Sombrevert. She caught her leg against a low branch.’
Pelletier stood up and pressed his cheek against that of the mare, ruffling her mane.
Fancy that, Adamsberg said, once more, to himself.
‘Nothing broken,’ said Pelletier. ‘Bloody lucky for you, or I’d have let you have it. You shouldn’t take Hecate to go chasing off like that, Artemis would be the one, she sees a branch, she jumps it, and you damn well know that. Now Hecate’s in pain, I’m going to put a poultice on her.’
As he started to lead the mare away, he turned towards the policemen.
‘Oh, and while we’re at it,’ he shouted back, ‘you needn’t waste any of your precious fucking time looking up my record, I’ll tell you all about it. Yeah, I’ve done four years, for beating up the missus. Broke her arm, knocked her teeth out an’ all. Twenty-five years ago. Seems she’s got herself dentures and married again. So now you know. It’s no secret, everyone here knows, I’ve never pretended it didn’t happen. But I didn’t do the boss in, if that’s what you’re wondering. I only go for women, and only my own, got no woman any more anyway.’ And Pelletier stalked off with dignity, leading the mare tenderly by the neck.
VII
CÉLESTE HAD MADE some more coffee – ‘To mop up the emotions’, she said, as she might have spoken of mopping up a spill – with tea for Amédée. She had augmented the refreshments with some biscuits and a little fruit cake. Danglard helped himself without waiting to be asked, followed by Bourlin. It was past seven in the evening, and he had had hardly any lunch. They were back in the large room on the ground floor, with its tall windows, its layers of carpets, its statues and pictures hung cheek by jowl round the walls.
But without their shoes.
‘Nobody’s allowed in here with horse manure on their soles,’ Céleste had announced. ‘I’m sorry, I must ask all these gentlemen to take off their shoes.’
So they were all sitting in their socks, creating a rather incongruous atmosphere which somewhat detracted from the authority of the forces of order. Adamsberg had preferred to take off his socks as well, on the principle that it is always more elegant to be naked than half dressed – but Bourlin reacted by protesting that he had no manure on his soles. To which Céleste had replied, in a tone that brooked no dissent, ‘Everyone always has horse manure on their soles.’ Adamsberg thought she was quite right, and persuaded Bourlin to comply. This was not the moment to lose their recent ally. She requested them once more to keep their voices down.
‘All right, yes, it’s true,’ said Amédée, after crossing and uncrossing his legs several times, one thigh over the other, his red socks emerging from his torn jeans. ‘It’s true. I didn’t want to talk to you. So I ran away. That’s all.’
‘To talk to us about your father, or about Alice Gauthier’s letter?’ asked Bourlin.
‘About Alice Gauthier. And the letter. It’s between her and me. And I don’t think I’ve any right to show it you without her permission. I don’t know why you’re so interested in it, it’s just her business and mine.’
‘But we can’t get her permission,’ said Bourlin, stretching his big hands out on the tablecloth and hiding his feet under the table. ‘Because Madame Gauthier died last Tuesday. And it was the last letter she wrote.’
‘But I saw her on Monday!’ said Amédée naively.
The instinctive, almost animal reaction that people always have, as if the fact that you saw someone on a Monday means it is impossible for them to have died on the Tuesday. Sudden death is always incomprehensible.
‘But the doctor said she had months to live yet,’ the young man went on. ‘That’s why she was settling her affairs, big and small. I’m quoting her own words.’
‘She slit her wrists in the bath,’ said Bourlin.
‘She can’t have!’ said Amédée firmly. ‘She’d just begun this big jigsaw puzzle, a painting by Corot. And she was hoping to finish the sky before she died. The sky’s the hard bit. The heavens are “hard both to work out, and to get to”, I’m quoting her again.’
‘She might have been lying to you.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Because you knew her well?’
‘Monday was the first time I ever met her.’
‘And it was her letter that made you go to see her?’
‘What else? And now I suppose you want to see it, the letter?’
Amédée Masfauré spoke quickly with a sharper manner than his mild features would lead you to expect. He took an envelope from his inside pocket and passed it to the large commissaire, with a stiff, awkward gesture. Adamsberg and Danglard leaned over to read it.
Cher Monsieur,
You don’t know me, so this letter will surprise you. It’s about your mother, Marie-Adélaïde Masfauré, and her tragic death on that terrible rock in Iceland. You’ll have been told she died of exposure. That is not true. I was on the same trip, I was there, I know. And for ten years, I haven’t found the courage to speak about it, or the peace of mind to get a good night’s sleep. Very egotistically, because I am an egoist, now that I am at death’s door, I would like to tell you the truth you have the right to know, which has been kept from you, by me and by others. I would ask you to come and see me as soon as you can, one day between 7 and 8 in the evening, when I am alone, without my nurse.
Yours faithfully,
Alice Gauthier
33a rue de la Tremblay
75015 Paris
Staircase B, 5th floor facing the lift
PS Take care no one sees you, come into the building by the back entrance, which is at 26 rue des Buttes. The lock is easy to operate with a small screwdriver unless it is broken again, which it is all the time.
Bourlin folded the letter again with a serious expression.
‘We didn’t know you had lost your mother.’
‘Well, it was ten years ago,’ Amédée said. ‘I didn’t get to go with my parents on the trip to Iceland, I was just seventeen at the time. She had this sudden urge to go and “purify herself in the eternal ice”. I’ll always remember those words and her enthusiasm. My father let himself be persuaded, in fact he got fired up about it. The eternal ice wasn’t really his thing, but it was hard to resist my mother, she was so full of energy. She was funny, optimistic, irresistible really. Other people may tell you she was a bit overpowering, but that was because everything amused her, she wanted to do everything. So they went on this trip. Her, my father and Victor. Victor was very excited by the holiday, he’d never been out of the country before. And they came back alone, just my father and him. She’d frozen to death, was what they told me.’
Amédée sniffed, and not knowing how to go on, massaged his toes, wriggling them about.
‘Yes, I remember now,’ Danglard intervened. ‘Was it that case of a dozen French tourists, marooned for two weeks in the fog? On some island in the north? They survived only by eating seals that had come ashore.’
‘You said you didn’t know about my mother,’ Amédée reacted. ‘But it looks like you’ve already made enquiries.’
‘No, no, I just remember seeing about it in the papers, that’s all.’
‘The commandant remembers everything,’ Adamsberg explained.
‘That’s like Victor then,’ said Amédée, changing knees and twisting his other foot in his hands. ‘He’s got a fantastic memory. That’s why my father employed him. He doesn’t need notes for writing up the minutes of a meeting. And yet he knows nothing about chemistry.’
‘So,’ Adamsberg continued gently, ‘Madame Gauthier gave you a different version, did she, about your mother’s death?’
Amédée abandoned his foot and put his arms on the table. He twisted his fingertips like spiders’ legs. He was one of those peop
le who can bend the last joint of their fingers backwards or forwards. It made a kind of little dance, rapid and intriguing, on the tabletop.
‘She said in the letter she was an egoist, and that was too true. She didn’t give a damn about me, and what her fucking revelations might do to me! She just wanted to go to heaven with wings and a precious white robe and that was all. Well, she doesn’t deserve a white robe. It’s because of her that my father’s dead now. And because of me. Because of what that bloody woman said.’
Céleste had left the room, and came back to put a box of tissues down alongside her little one. He blew his nose and left the tissue crumpled on the table.
‘Thanks, Nana,’ he said in a softer voice.
‘Do you mind if we record this conversation?’ asked Bourlin.
Amédée seemed not to hear, or not to care. So Bourlin switched on his small recorder.
‘So what did this bloody woman say?’ Adamsberg pursued.
‘That my mother had been murdered on the island! And that everyone had hushed it up.’
‘Murdered? Who by?’
‘She refused to give me a name. She explained that she had to keep it secret for my own protection. Protection, my foot! She said this man was terribly dangerous, evil, ruthless. Abominable, a monster. He’d already bumped off another member of the group before that, some sort of Foreign Legion guy, who wouldn’t obey him. This man had got out his knife, and he’d killed the legionnaire, just like that. Everyone else was horrified, except the killer. And he dragged the body away and chucked it into the sea, in the middle of the ice floes.’
Amédée blew his nose again. They were getting to the crucial point, his mother’s death, and he was reluctant to go on.
‘Go on,’ whispered Adamsberg.
‘So, three days later, or four, I don’t know, when they were even weaker, because of the cold and hunger, and the fog still hadn’t lifted, this monstrous man said “he wanted to screw someone before he croaked”. The others didn’t dare say anything, because since he’d killed the legionnaire everyone was scared stiff of him. He’d become their leader, he was terrorising them. But the doctor – because there was a doctor in the group, they called him “Doc” – did stand up to him a bit, and said something like, “You wouldn’t have the energy to do that, this is no time for boasting,” and that enraged the guy, and he said to my father: “You think I can’t screw your missus?” And my father staggered to his feet, and the others all intervened then to stop the fight.’
Amédée picked up another tissue.
‘We’re really sorry about this,’ said Bourlin.
‘So that night, my mother cried out, and everyone woke up. This man, he was on top of her and his hands were already . . . well, his hands were groping . . . My mother had enough strength to push him away and he fell backwards into the fire. Actually, that doesn’t surprise me,’ said Amédée, smiling briefly. ‘The man leapt up, and he had to slap his backside to put out the flames, he looked ridiculous, you see, humiliated. And the worst of it was my mother laughed, and called him all kinds of names, she said he was a pig, a bastard and a lot more, she had a big vocabulary, my mother, But she didn’t keep her mouth shut, more’s the pity. Because this guy went mad, he fell on her, and stabbed her, one blow to the heart. And he dragged her away, and threw her into the ice too. And my father didn’t make a move. Not him, not anyone else either.’
The young man picked up two more tissues. There was a little pile growing round his constantly moving fingertips.
‘So, I asked, why didn’t they kill him?’ Amédée went on. ‘There were ten of them! Ten against one! What Alice Gauthier said was “leadership, domination”. See, this guy was the only one left with strength enough to go and forage around the island for something to eat. In case a puffin or razorbill or something might land there. So they all shut up and waited, they were exhausted, couldn’t raise a finger. And one day, stinking of fish and covered with blood, he appeared with a seal. He’d broken its spine with a stick. My father and the doc got up to help him pull in the beast and cut it up. The man told them to put stones on the fire to heat, and they grilled the meat on that.’
This time, Amédée wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
‘Alice Gauthier, when she told me this, her gimletty little eyes were shining, like it was the best gastronomic treat of her life, like it was some giant salmon or something. They made the seal last a few days. Actually, you have to admit the man could have killed the lot of them and kept the seal for himself, but no, he brought food for the whole group. We have to recognise that, Gauthier said. And when the fog did lift in the end, that’s how they had enough strength left to hike across the frozen ice and get back to Grimsey Island. But here’s the thing.’
Now that he had finished telling the atrocious story about his mother, Amédée’s voice had become more audible and less choked with tears.
‘This is the scary thing. The man told the others: “Those two died of cold. Is that clear? We found them frozen to death in the morning. If one of you squeals, I’ll kill you, like I did the seal. And if that isn’t enough, I’ll kill your children, your wife, or if you don’t have a wife, your mother or brother or sister, or anyone I can find. You let slip a syllable of this, and it’s curtains for you. You might say to yourself: ‘I’ll tell the police, he’ll go to jail.’ Big mistake! I’ve got men devoted to me, they’re like slaves. They’ll get a message as soon as we get to Grimsey by the. . .”’
At this point, Amédée frowned, searching in his troubled memory.
‘Alice Gauthier, she said some strange word. Yes, he’d tell his men via the “tölva”. The tölva means computer, she said. Because in Iceland, they make up these new words so as not to have Americanisms, and tölva in Icelandic means the “witch that counts”, so it’s a computer, see. My mother would really have liked that, the “witch that counts”. She couldn’t cope with computers.’
And the young man smiled, for a moment oblivious to the presence of the three cops.
‘Sorry,’ he said, returning to them. ‘So then this man said, more or less: “If I’m in prison that won’t change anything. You know what I’m capable of. And you all owe me a huge debt. I saved your pathetic lives, you bunch of losers, not one of you was capable of finding stuff to eat, not one of you put in any effort, not one of you came out in the fog with me. No, you just gave up, and stuck around the fire like a lot of wimps, but you were glad enough to eat my seal.” And that was true, Alice Gauthier said. Just as it was also true that they were all terrified of him. Herself included, she insisted on that. And that’s why for ten years, nobody has denounced the man who killed my mother and the legionnaire. Not even my father! He kept his mouth shut as well, he was so scared. He wasn’t afraid to tackle the planet’s air, but he was frightened of this man.’
Amédée was getting distraught: standing up, he banged his double-jointed hand on the table, scattering the paper tissues.
‘Yes, that’s why I yelled at him. After I left Alice Gauthier’s flat, I hung about in Paris for a couple of days, I was shattered, furious, and I never wanted to see my contemptible father again. In the end, I came back here on Wednesday night and I went for him. That’s not what I told the gendarmes, I gave them some story about how I wanted my independence and so on. I called him everything under the sun. He was broken, my father, I was glad, really glad, to see him on his knees, wallowing in his shame. The great genius, who’d let his wife’s murderer go free. So without even finishing his whisky – ’
‘Excuse me,’ said Bourlin, ‘he was drinking whisky?’
‘Yes, like every night, two glasses. He went dashing out like a coward to ride one of the horses, and before that, with his hand on the doorknob he said: “He’d told us that he’d kill our children with us. So yes, I protected myself, but I was protecting you too. Put yourself in my place.” And I just shouted, “I’d rather be dead than in your place!” I went back to my lodge, feeling mad. I heard the horse come b
ack, and I was still wishing my father would roast in hell. Then after about three hours, I began to see reason again. Yes, of course, my father had wanted to protect me. So in the morning, I went over there to have a calmer talk with him. I went up to his study, and I found him, dead. He’d killed himself, because of me.’
Amédée pulled his fingers until they cracked, another thing he could do. Céleste was weeping silently in a corner. Adamsberg poured out the rest of the coffee, the cake was finished, half past eight was striking from some village clock somewhere, and it was getting dark.
‘That’s all,’ said Amédée. ‘Maybe I’m not giving you the exact words she said, the dialogues and all that, I don’t have a memory like Victor’s. But that’s pretty much what happened. Well, at least my mother pushed him arse first into the fire, and she was the only one there with any spirit. Will you have to tell anyone about what happened in Iceland?’
‘No,’ said Bourlin.
‘Can I go now?’
‘Just one thing,’ said Adamsberg, pushing a drawing across to him. ‘Have you ever seen this sign?’
‘No,’ said Amédée, in surprise. ‘What is it? An H? For Henri?’
‘So there we are,’ said Bourlin, once Amédée had gone, and rubbing his stomach to calm the hunger that was beginning to torment him. ‘After making her confession, Alice Gauthier put her conscience in order and slit her wrists in the bath. Amédée’s right, she was only telling him this for her own peace of mind, without worrying about the consequences for the young man. If this “monster” kills everyone who gives him away, Amédée’d better keep his mouth shut from now on.’
‘Don’t put it in the report that he’s been speaking to us.’
‘What report?’ said Bourlin.
The three men walked slowly down the dark drive. Danglard was walking on the edge of the gravel, so as not to damage his shoes, and Adamsberg on the verge, since he never missed a chance to walk on grass. Proof according to his divisionnaire, who admired Adamsberg’s intelligence but didn’t like him, that the commissaire had never reached a normal level of civilisation. Since the Paris authorities had allowed plants to grow between the grids round the city’s trees, Adamsberg often went out of his way to walk on the grids, tiny patches of wild nature. Just now, as he trod on the plants on the verge, one of them left on his trousers some tiny sticky balls you had to pull off one by one. He lifted his right leg, saw through the dark a dozen or so of these clinging on to the cloth, and plucked one off. They attached themselves quickly, clever little things, and didn’t give up easily, although they didn’t have legs. The name of this plant, known to every child, he had quite forgotten.
