by Fred Vargas
‘Commissaire?’
Adamsberg put his hand up to request silence, took out his notebook slowly, and wrote down the last sentence he had pronounced: The doctor pulls a bone from his mouth. Then he reread it, following it with his finger, like a man who cannot understand what he is seeing. He put the notebook away, and his eyes reverted to normal.
‘Sorry, I was thinking,’ he said, by way of apology.
‘About what?’
‘No idea. And the doctor then identifies this bone,’ he repeated. ‘What does he do? Throw his meat on the fire? Tell them the truth? Well, yes, probably. And they all suddenly realise what these life-saving meals that they’ve been eating for days actually consisted of. Did they, all the same, go on and finish eating Adélaïde Masfauré? Or had they already known the truth, about the legionnaire? Did they just accept it? Then when the fog finally lifts, the killer gives them orders and threatens them, without meeting any resistance. None of them wants to go telling the world about what they’ve done, and now we know why. But afterwards, anything can happen. Someone becomes ill, gets depressed, has a religious conversion, or perhaps is just smitten with terrible remorse. There’s always the risk one of them will confess, and we saw what happened with Gauthier. So the killer keeps an eye on them. All of them. Because yes, he has eaten two human beings like everyone else, but above all he had killed them, knowing that it was in order to have something to eat.’
Adamsberg at last drank up his coffee, which had been well and truly stirred.
‘Well, so what?’ said Retancourt, becoming distant once more, returning almost to her attitude of the previous day. ‘All right, now we know the true story about this desperate group of tourists on the warm island. But where does that get us in the end?’
‘We know there’s still a murderer haunting them.’
‘But a murderer who didn’t kill either Alice Gauthier or Henri Masfauré or Breuguel or Gonzalez. A murderer who isn’t our murderer, the one we’re after. A murderer who had nothing to do with the attacks on the Robespierre society.’
‘I think,’ Adamsberg murmured, ‘I know why the Robespierre chess game isn’t moving.’
‘Tell us then.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You just said you thought you did.’
‘It was a manner of speaking, Retancourt.’
Retancourt leaned back heavily in her chair.
‘Whether they died and were then eaten, or whether some guy deliberately killed them and then they were eaten, we still reach the same conclusion: it gets us nowhere. We’ve come all this way for nothing.’
‘Veni vidi non vici: I came, I saw, I didn’t conquer,’ said Veyrenc.
At the neighbouring table, Rögnvar was indiscreetly getting Almar to translate their conversation for him. The story belonged to him, it was his right. He hoisted himself on to his crutches, told Gunnlaugur not to touch the chessmen, and came to stand in front of Retancourt, Almar behind him, to interpret.
‘Víóletta,’ he said, ‘one cannot but respect a woman who has held the afturganga at a distance. Such that even your comrade’s leg will be all right. If it wasn’t for you, Víóletta, he would have . . .’ and he pointed eloquently to his own missing leg. ‘And Berg would have died. Because he made a mistake and lingered on the island. Whereas you understood that was the wrong thing to do. You understood that from the start, didn’t you, Víóletta, long before you saw the fog?’
Retancourt frowned, and without apparently realising it, moved her chair a little closer to Rögnvar, the local madman, Rögnvar, the local wise man, and looked at him.
‘Yes. That’s true,’ she said.
‘When?’
‘When we got there,’ said Retancourt, after thinking. ‘They wanted to write down the runes engraved on the rock. I said – well I think I shouted – not to do it or we’d waste time.’
‘You see,’ said Rögnvar, seating himself on a stool, which Eggrún had hurriedly brought up. ‘You knew. And you’d known for a long time, since you left your own town, Paris, where you can sit on cafe terraces in winter. You didn’t want to come, but you knew. So you came.’
Rögnvar was leaning forward, his long, still-blond hair almost touching Retancourt’s forehead. Adamsberg watched this sight in amazement. Retancourt, the leader of the positivist faction in the squad, the materialists, caught in the toils of Rögnvar. Retancourt captured by the spirits of Iceland. No, they certainly hadn’t come here for nothing.
Then Rögnvar put his large hand on the lieutenant’s knee. Who would have dared to do that in the squad?
‘But you are wrong, Víóletta,’ he said.
‘Why?’ asked Retancourt in a whisper, unable to look away from Rögnvar’s piercing blue eyes.
‘You just said –’ and here Rögnvar pursed his lips – ‘that you’d come all this way for nothing. You said, brave Víóletta, that it didn’t get you anywhere.’
‘Yes, I did say that, Rögnvar. Because it’s the truth.’
‘No.’
‘But, Rögnvar, you don’t know anything about the case we’re working on in Paris.’
‘No, I don’t know about it and I don’t care. But listen to this, Víóletta, listen carefully.’
‘All right,’ Retancourt agreed.
‘The afturganga never summons in vain. And his offering always points out the way to go.’
‘But look here, Rögnvar, the afturganga took your leg. Was that pointing in any direction?’
‘That’s different. I wasn’t summoned. I violated the island. Berg though, he was summoned.’
‘Say that sentence again.’
‘The afturganga never summons in vain. And his offering always points out the way to go. No, don’t write it down,’ said Rögnvar, gripping Retancourt’s wrist. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll always remember it.’
Looking out of the plane window, Adamsberg watched the island of Grimsey disappear, still partly wreathed in fog, with a feeling of nostalgia he had not foreseen. Tall Eggrún had kissed him au revoir, and on the harbour, the local men had all stood together to wish them farewell. Gunnlaugur, Brestir and Rögnvar, of course, raising their hands, along with the other fair-headed fishermen whose names he didn’t know.
Tonight, Paris. And then tomorrow. Tomorrow, he would have to explain to the squad about his escapade, which had not, it was true, made the Robespierre chessboard budge one millimetre. He wasn’t bringing back the killer, only a bottle of brennivín, presented to them by Gunnlaugur. But he would still have to give an account of himself. Argue, synthesise, organise his presentation, all the things he hated doing. And he would be facing a sea of hostile faces, except for those of Froissy, Estalère, Justin and Mercadet (whose own handicap made him sympathetic to other people’s).
‘Veyrenc,’ he said, ‘would you do the report back tomorrow to the squad? I know it won’t be much fun. But since Château said you have the physique of a Roman senator, I’m sure you’d do it better than me. And Retancourt will back you up.’
‘They’re going to be hopping mad.’
‘Obviously.’
‘I’ll tell them,’ said Veyrenc calmly: he was sitting with his leg outstretched in the aisle, having had an anticoagulant injection administered by Almar. ‘But you try to win over Voisenet and Mordent on to our side. Voisenet because he likes anything related to fish, and Mordent because he’s a folk-tale buff. He’ll really relish the story of fighting the afturganga and Víóletta the Brave.’
‘I don’t want to “win them over”, Veyrenc. They have to work out their own ways, which aren’t the same as mine.’
‘That’s why they’re mad at you. And you can understand why they haven’t followed you.’
‘Not really,’ said Adamsberg softly.
*
Shortly before they landed at Roissy-CDG, Adamsberg drowsily opened his notebook at the page where he had written down that morning in the guest house: The doctor pulls a bone from his mouth. Underneath it, he noted the r
emark Veyrenc had passed about Château: ‘He’s lying through his teeth.’ Then he drew an arrow and wrote: ‘Robespierre. He is him. And he’s got them.’
The lights had been extinguished, the seat belts were fastened, the seats returned to the upright position. The plane had begun its descent and they could already see the headlights of cars on the motorway. Adamsberg woke Veyrenc and showed him the page in the notebook. Veyrenc shook his head without understanding.
‘It was you that said it,’ Adamsberg insisted. ‘After our first visit to the assembly. You said “That was him”.’
‘Robespierre, you mean?’
‘Yes, and you were right. He was Him.’
XLI
THE MEMBERS OF the squad were sitting in unaccustomed places at the long table in the council chamber that Friday morning – a public holiday as it happened, the first of May – and Estalère’s coffee round was thrown into confusion. Instinctively, as they waited for Adamsberg to arrive, different factions had formed and were sitting together. At the top of the table, at the far end of the room, Danglard and Mordent had not changed their positions, as befitted those holding temporary responsibility. But instead of the usual seating arrangements, Retancourt had taken a chair at the other end, as if facing Danglard, with Froissy and Estalère on one side, Mercadet and Justin on the other. To his own right, Danglard noted, sat the hesitant dissenters, including Voisenet and Kernorkian. To his left, the determined opponents, of whom Noël had become the leader. Brigadier Lamarre, only just back from leave in Granville, and unaware of the situation, had sat down between two empty chairs and was quickly reading the reports for the last two weeks.
It wasn’t unlike the Robespierre assemblies, Danglard thought, with its Jacobins, its Girondins, its Dantonists, and its ‘Plain’ in the middle. He sighed. Something was rotten in the kingdom of Adamsberg, and he had a sneaking suspicion that some of this was primarily his fault. Sulking in his tent, he hadn’t sent a single message to Iceland to ask how the fruitless expedition was going, and yet he had believed the mission would be a dangerous one. True, he had received nothing either. But he was under no illusion: Adamsberg would not be bringing back anything in his bags, not even a bottle of brennivín for him.
Veyrenc made a rather impressive entry on his crutches and sat on a chair that Retancourt had saved for him, next to her. He turned sideways and asked Estalère to fetch a stool to rest his ankle on.
Danglard gave a start. So Veyrenc had been injured! How had that happened? And looking at the faces of both Veyrenc and Retancourt, which seemed paler and more drawn than usual, he realised they must have been through some misadventure. And he, Danglard, normally the loyal deputy chief, but now entrenched in his dogged and contrary irritability, had not asked for their news. He expelled from his mind this attack of remorse, and prepared to listen to Lieutenant Veyrenc’s report. Which would of course lead nowhere. And that was what hurt most.
‘Are we going to wait for Adamsberg?’ he asked, glancing at his watch.
‘No,’ said Veyrenc, looking round at the hostile faces or bowed heads, and meeting the commandant’s eyes.
‘Injured, lieutenant?’ asked Mordent.
‘A rather risky fight on the deserted shores of the warm island.’
‘Who were you fighting?’ asked Danglard, in surprise. ‘If the island was deserted?’
‘Ah well,’ said Veyrenc. ‘He crept up behind us, hiding well out of sight/The shingle was black, and his body was white./He gave us an offering we took for our own./In place of his payment, he bit to the bone.’
Vyerenc made a sweeping gesture with his arm, which to him indicated the afturganga, but which Danglard read as: ‘You couldn’t possibly understand.’ Not that there was a great deal of difference.
‘So you reached the island,’ said Danglard, ‘and then what?’
‘If you’ll allow me, I’ll tell you what happened in order, at my own pace.’
‘Feel free, go ahead,’ said Danglard curtly.
*
How long had it been, he asked himself in an access of melancholy, since a meeting of the squad had taken place in such an icy atmosphere? And he was well aware that the tone of his own voice was making a major contribution to this. A thought ran rapidly through his head, and made him shudder. Had Adamsberg’s disappearance, not to say desertion, leaving him, Danglard, temporarily in charge, been to his personal advantage? Did he really, subconsciously, want to replace Adamsberg as chief? And if so, since when? Since he had put on that flashy purple silk frock coat, which made him look so impressive, since he had felt – and enjoyed, admired – Robespierre’s power of dominating the assembly? But as the new chief by default, what in fact had he done or discovered that had in any way advanced the Robespierre investigation? Apart from providing encyclopedic knowledge when asked. And what about Noël, Voisenet and Mordent? Had any one of them brought even a grain of sand to the inquiry?
Grains of sand. By a simple and rapid association of ideas, Danglard saw once more Céleste’s paintings, that is to say her single painting with its dots of red. Which you had to look at with a magnifying glass, to see that they were ladybirds. Was that it, Céleste’s obscure message? Was she drawing attention to the smiling dignity of small things, minuscule and neglected? Had he been going forward without a magnifying glass, unable to pick out even a single ladybird?
Feeling on the brink of some nameless distress, Danglard poured himself a large glass of water and drank it off, which was unusual for him, while Veyrenc began his presentation, starting at the point they left the harbour of Grimsey for the island, with none of the local men to accompany them. Veyrenc left out Rögnvar’s warnings, and his leg lost to the afturganga.
When he reached the point about identifying the human bones and what they signified about that long-ago drama – namely cannibalism – Veyrenc’s account inevitably caused shock waves of revulsion and astonishment, exclamations, indignation, questions and horror. For a short while, this exceptional information overcame the factions and moods. Adamsberg had not been wrong: what had happened on that island had been completely different from the story they had heard before.
Veyrenc remained aloof, watching the turbulence in the squad, and proceeded next to tell them about Retancourt’s decisive action, which had rescued them from the lethal fog, without lingering over it in any attempt to inspire pity. There were a few appreciative whistles and nods. That was until they had settled down, and Noël could launch into an attack on the actual significance of the expedition.
In the end, what precisely had it brought them?
Precisely? However astonishing the results, in what way did it advance their current investigation?
There was confusion, various opinions were voiced, inconclusive discussion followed.
‘Kernorkian,’ Danglard interrupted, ‘what about your report on the way Lebrun–Leblond slipped between our fingers? What was the result of checking the network of back alleys, cellars, roofs, courtyards? The commissaire did ask you to do that.’
‘Yes, commandant, it’s done.’
‘Done, but you didn’t tell me what the conclusion was?’
‘Sorry, commandant, I thought I was supposed to report directly to the commissaire on his return.’
A vague bitterness once more flooded Danglard’s mind, a bitterness he had never experienced and did not like. He filled his glass of water and took a few gulps to dilute it.
‘In the commissaire’s absence, I’m replacing him. So was there some escape route through the cellars?’
‘No, commandant, there wasn’t any kind of back entrance via cellars or courtyards. But you can get out across the roofs. The zinc sheets are flat and there are easy slopes. Between the two buildings, there’s a gap of only thirty centimetres, protected by an anti-pigeon grid, so you don’t have to be an athlete to get across. Then there’s a skylight, through which you can get into number 22, and then exit via the car park into a side street. And that’s probably how they ma
naged to come away from François Château’s place without us spotting them.’
‘Right, well, on Monday night, stick to Leblond via this exit, and find out where he lives. Take Voisenet and Lamarre. A car and a motorcycle.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And what else?’ asked Noël. ‘Sweet FA! Four deaths! And we’re still chasing these puppets, Château, Lebrun, Leblond, Sanson, Danton and the rest of them, out of seven hundred people! Because we haven’t a clue what we’re doing. While the commissaire goes swanning off to solve a tourist mystery in Iceland.’
‘At his own expense,’ Justin pointed out quietly.
‘But he’s not here,’ said Noël firmly, to approving grunts from the seven uniformed officers of the squad.
‘If the investigation’s at a standstill, it isn’t his fault,’ said Mercadet. ‘So if you’ve got any bright ideas, Noël, we’re all agog.’
‘Is Adamsberg the only person who’s supposed to do any thinking?’ asked Retancourt.
‘Is he even doing that?’ retorted Noël. ‘The investigation’s stuck because he’s not doing anything, and he’s not doing anything because he keeps running off to Le Creux or the North Pole. And his inaction affects the rest of us, it pins us down. It, er, saps our initiative.’
‘Nobody asked you to be so sensitive to his influence,’ observed Mercadet.
‘I can’t see what’s so wrong,’ added Froissy. ‘All the interviews and interrogations have been done, everything’s been followed up.’
Adamsberg, who had arrived late on purpose, was leaning against the door listening to the last exchanges.
‘And they still haven’t led us anywhere,’ said Mordent. ‘Like throwing sand into the sea.’
‘And why was that?’ asked Justin, eyeing Danglard.
‘Yes, his mind was on Iceland,’ said Danglard. ‘But that episode is closed now.’
Adamsberg chose that moment to push open the door, causing total silence to fall.
