by Fred Vargas
So they there were, at the sharp end, with a squad of twenty-six men and women under their command.
“I was wondering,” Adamsberg said as he ran the flat of his hand over the damp plaster, “whether what happens to cliffs doesn’t also happen to us.”
“What happens to cliffs?” Danglard snapped.
Adamsberg had always been a slow talker, hovering around his main point and sometimes forgetting entirely where it was; Danglard found it increasingly hard to put up with.
“Well, the rock isn’t, so to speak, all of a piece, on a cliff by the sea. I don’t know, but let’s say it’s made up of hardstone and softstone.”
“Softstone isn’t a geological term, sir.”
“That’s as may be. At any rate, there are harder bits and softer bits in a cliff, like there are in all living things, like there are in you and me. So you’ve got a cliff, all right? And as the sea laps at it, and washes it, and splashes over it, the soft bits begin to melt.”
“‘Melting’ is not the right word, sir.”
“That’s as may be. At any rate, bits drop off and the harder bits start to stick out. And as the sea and the storms go on bashing away at the cliff, the weaker parts vanish into thin air. When it gets to be an old man, the cliff is all craggy and hollow, like a ruined castle or keep. Like a gaping jaw with a stony bite. What you’ve got where the soft bits were are gaps, holes and voids.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Well, I was wondering whether flics – and heaps of other people exposed to life’s stormy seas – don’t suffer erosion as well. Lose their soft bits, keep their tough bits, grow hard and craggy and hollow. Basically, fall to pieces.”
“So you think you’re turning into a stone jaw?”
“I guess so. I could be turning into a flic.”
Danglard pondered the point.
“As far as your personal geological make-up is concerned, sir, I reckon you are not eroding normally. I’d put it this way, sir: your soft bits are quite hard and your hard bits are fairly soggy. So the result is rather unique.”
“Does that make any difference?”
“All the difference in the world, sir. Soft rocks that resist erosion turn things upside down.”
Danglard tried to imagine himself in the same light as he put another clip of papers into a hanging file. “So what would happen, sir, if you had a cliff made entirely of soft rock – and let’s say the cliff is a flic in this case.”
“He’d erode into a tiny pebble and then vanish for good.”
“How reassuring.”
“But I don’t think you can get that sort of cliff arising naturally in the environment. Especially not if it’s a flic.”
“Let’s hope you’re right, sir.”
A young woman stood uncertainly at the Commissariat door. The door did not actually say “Commissariat,” but there was “Brigade Criminelle” in bright black lettering on a door plate affixed to the lintel. It was the only thing that was clean about this otherwise filthy and dilapidated building, where four workman with an ear-splitting power drill were still putting iron bars on the outside windows. Maryse reckoned that whatever was on the door, there had to be policemen behind it, nearer to hand than at the Commissariat down the road. She took a step towards the door, then checked herself. Paul had warned her that the police would just laugh her off. But she was worried, what with the children and all. What would it cost her? Five minutes of time, no more. She would just say what she had to say, and then go.
“My poor Maryse,” Paul had said, “the flics won’t take a blind bit of notice. But if that’s what you want to do, go tell them!”
A fellow emerged from the side door, went past her down the street and then turned back. Maryse stood there fiddling with her handbag strap.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
The man was short and dark, and he looked like a pig’s breakfast. His hair was all tousled and he’d rolled his jacket sleeves halfway up his unshirted forearm. Looked like a guy with troubles to tell, just like she had. But he was on his way out.
“Are they nice, inside?” Maryse asked him.
The dark fellow shrugged. “Depends on who you get.”
“Do they listen?”
“Depends on what you tell them.”
“My nephew thinks they’ll make fun of me.”
The man leaned his head to one side and looked at Maryse attentively.
“So what’s this all about?”
“My block, a couple of nights ago. I’m sick with worry because of the kids. If there was a nutter inside the other night, how do I know he’s not going to come back? Am I right?”
Maryse was blushing and biting her lip.
“Look, this is the Brigade Criminelle here,” the man said, waving at the grimy frontage. “It’s for murders. You know, when someone gets killed.”
“Oh!” said Maryse in consternation.
“Go down to the station on the boulevard, please. It’s lunchtime, they’ll not be too busy, and they’ll listen to you properly.”
Maryse shook her head vigorously. “No, I can’t do that. I can’t because I’ve got to be back in the office at two and the manager is a right dragon. Can’t the men here pass it all on to their boulevard branch? I mean, flics all work for the same firm, don’t they?”
“Well, not quite,” the man answered. “But what’s happened? A burglary?”
“Oh no.”
“A fight?”
“Oh no.”
“Tell us what it was, it’ll make it easier to put you on the right track.”
“OK, OK,” Maryse blurted out, beginning to quake.
The man propped his elbow on a parked car and waited patiently for Maryse to find her words.
“It’s black paint,” she explained. “Or rather, thirteen black paintings, on all the front doors of the staircase. They scare me. I’m on my own with the kids, you see.”
“Paintings? You mean pictures?”
“Oh no, not pictures. They’re fours. Number 4s. Big black 4s, like they were old-fashioned or something. I wondered if it wasn’t some gang doing it for a lark. Maybe the flics know what it is, maybe they’ll understand. But maybe they won’t. Paul told me, ‘If you want to get laughed at, go tell the flics.’”
The scruffy fellow stood up straight and took Maryse by the arm. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go and get that all down, and then you’ll have nothing more to worry about.”
“Hey, wouldn’t it be better to find a flic first?”
He looked at her for an instant with his eyebrows raised.
“I am a flic,” he said. “Commissaire Principal Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, at your service.”
“Oh!” said Maryse in embarrassment. “Excuse me!”
“No harm done, madam. Incidentally, what did you think I was?”
“I don’t dare say.”
Adamsberg led the way through his new warren.
“Need a hand, sir?” asked a bleary-eyed brigadier on his way out to lunch. Adamsberg steered the woman gently towards his office and stared at the young man in an attempt to remember who he was. He still hadn’t really met all the juniors in his new squad, and he had terrible trouble remembering the names. They had all realised this early on, and now made a point of giving their names every time they said so much as good morning to the boss. Adamsberg hadn’t quite decided whether they meant to be kind or to take the piss – but he wasn’t very bothered either way.
“Lieutenant Noël,” the man said. “A hand, sir?”
“A young woman cracking up, that’s all. Some kind of silly joker in her block, or maybe just a wall artist. She just a needs a bit of support, that’s all.”
“We’re not supposed to be social workers, are we?”
Lieutenant Noël curtly zipped up his bomber jacket.
“And why shouldn’t we be, Lieut …”
“Lieutenant Noël.”
“… tenant Noël,” Adamsberg finished.
He t
ried to register the face and the name: box-head, pale face, crew cut, and big ears add up to: Noël. Noël means tired-out, touchy and maybe tough. Big ears plus tough guy make Noël.
“We’ll talk about that later, Lieutenant Noël. She’s in a hurry.”
“If the lady needs supporting,” said another and equally unnameable brigadier, “I’m ready and waiting, sir.” Then with a smirk he stuck his thumbs in his belt. “I’ve got all it takes right here.”
Adamsberg turned slowly towards the man.
“Brigadier Favre, sir.”
“While you’re here, brigadier, you are going to learn something that may surprise you,” Adamsberg said slowly. “In this branch, women are not just little dumplings with a hole in the middle. If this comes as news to you, as I fear it might, then let me encourage you to learn a little more about them. Women have legs and feet underneath; you will also find a torso and a head when you look at their upper parts. Think about that, Brigadier Favre. Assuming you have something to think with.”
Adamsberg went through his mental memory routine as he entered his own office. Fleshy face, bushy eyebrows, prize hooter and birdbrain all add up to: Favre. Favre means hooter, brows and birds.
He propped himself up against his office wall so as to face the woman who was now perching almost apologetically on the edge of a chair. “Now tell me all about it. You’ve got kids, you’re on your own. Where exactly do you live?” To calm Maryse down Adamsberg scribbled her name and address and other answers on a notepad.
“So these 4s were painted on the doors, have I got that right? All in one night?”
“Oh yes. Every door had a 4 yesterday morning. Really big ones, as big as this,” said Maryse as she showed Adamsberg a distance of maybe two feet between her two hands.
“No signature? No initials?”
“Oh yes, there was something. Underneath each 4 there were three really small capital letters: CTL. Sorry: CLT.”
Adamsberg wrote that down. CLT.
“In black like the numbers?”
“Oh yes, black.”
“Nothing else? Nothing on the front of the block, nothing in the stairwell?”
“Just the doors. Black paint, like I said.”
“The number, was it painted correctly, or was it a bit different or distorted? Like a logo, for instance?”
“Oh yes. I’ll draw it if you like. I’m a dab hand at drawing, you know.”
Adamsberg passed over his pad and Maryse concentrated on reproducing a large printed 4, with the downstroke splayed at the foot like a Maltese Cross, and two notches on the outer leg of the cross.
“There you are.”
“You’ve done it back to front,” Adamsberg said gently as he took back his notepad.
“That’s because it is backwards. It’s a backwards 4, with a fat foot and two little notches at the end of the crossbar. Do you know what it is? Is it a make of burglars? Are they called CLT? Or what?”
“Burglars usually leave as few signs on front doors as they can manage. What are you frightened of?”
“I think it’s Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves that put the wind up me. The story about the murderer who marked all the doors with a big X.”
“In the story, Ali Baba only marked one door. If I’m not mistaken, it was his wife who marked all the others so as to confuse him.”
“That’s true,” said Maryse, who seemed genuinely comforted.
“It’s just graffiti, really,” Adamsberg said as he showed Maryse out. “Teenagers from down the street, I should guess.”
“The point is I’ve never seen a 4 like that down our street.” Maryse had lowered her voice to a whisper. “Nor have I ever seen graffiti on front doors up the staircase. Because graffiti are supposed to be on the street, aren’t they? For everyone to see.”
“There’s all kinds, you know. Scrub your front door and forget all about it.”
Maryse left and Adamsberg tore the sheets out of his pad, screwed them up into a ball which he then aimed at the bin. Then he went back to his leaning wall so as to think while standing about how to pump the mental filth out of people like Favre. Not easy to do. There was something twisted deep down inside the man; and he would hardly be aware of it. All Adamsberg could hope was that the rest of the squad didn’t have the same problem. Especially as there were four women in it.
As he always did when he let himself have a good think, Adamsberg quickly lost touch and fell into a kind of void close to sleep. Ten minutes later he came back to the surface with a start, then got the list of his team out of his desk drawer and began a memory session: reciting over and over the names of each one of the twenty-seven members he had to get into his head, with the exception of Danglard’s. In the margin he entered next to the name of Noël: Ears, Toughguy, and next to Favre’s: Hooter, Brows, Birds.
Then he went out to have the coffee that his encounter with Maryse had put off. The coffee-maker and snack dispenser still hadn’t been delivered to the office; there were constant squabbles over chairs and writing paper; the electricians were still putting in the computer cables, and workmen had only just started barring up the ground-floor windows. What would crimes be without iron bars? Murderers would just have to control themselves until the Brigade had got itself into shape. So he might as well carry on musing in the fresh air and rescuing damsels in distress. He could have a think about Camille, too; he’d not seen her for more than two months. Unless he was mistaken, she was due back tomorrow, or maybe the day after, as he wasn’t sure what day it was anyway.
V
ON TUESDAY MORNING Joss handled the ground coffee with heightened care and attention. He’d not slept well. The fault surely lay with the “room to let” sign dangling before his eyes but quite out of reach.
He looked up from his bowl of coffee, his baguette and garlic sausage, and cast an angry glance around his gloomy cabin. The plaster was all cracked, there was no proper bed, and to get to the toilet you had to go out on to the landing. He could have afforded a better place on the money he was making, but half of it went back to his mother at Le Guilvenec. The long and the short of it, he told himself, is that you can’t keep warm if you know your mother’s in the cold. Joss knew that the bookworm couldn’t charge very much, because his rooms weren’t self-contained and the rental income wasn’t declared. To be fair to the man, Decambrais wasn’t one of those scavengers who take an arm and a leg for a pint-sized piece of property in Paris. In fact, Lizbeth paid no rent at all, in return for doing the shopping, making the dinner, and keeping the sole bathroom clean and tidy. Decambrais did all the other chores – hoovering the hall and stairs, washing the woodwork, laying the table for breakfast. For a man of his years, he certainly wasn’t taking it easy.
Joss dipped his bread in the coffee, took a bite and chewed it slowly as he waited for the shipping forecast to come up on the radio that he’d set to low. The bookworm’s vacancy had everything going for it. It was a stone’s throw from Gare Montparnasse, just in case. It was roomy, it had central heating, a proper bed, oak flooring and well-worn rugs. When she’d first got there Lizbeth hadn’t worn shoes for days on end, for the sheer pleasure of feeling warm carpet underfoot. Then there would be hot dinners every day. Joss could grill bream, open oysters and squeeze a lemon, but that was just about all he could manage in the galley; so for seven years he’d been eating mostly out of tin cans. And last of all there would be Lizbeth in the next room. No, of course he would never try anything, never put his callused old hands on a woman who was his junior by a quarter of a century. And in fact, Decambrais had also always done the right thing by Lizbeth. She had told Joss a dreadful story about her first night, when she lay down on the carpet. Well, the toff hadn’t batted an eyelid. Hats off to him, I say – that’s what you call style. If the toff could cope in that quarter, well so could Captain Joss. Say what you like, the Le Guerns may be rough customers, but they never took anything that wasn’t theirs.
But that was the sticking point. Decambrai
s thought Joss was a rough customer, and so would never let him have the room. No point dreaming about it, then. Or about Lizbeth, or hot dinners, or central heating.
But he was still thinking about it when he emptied out the urn an hour later. He saw the thick ivory envelope straight away and ripped it open with his thumb. Thirty francs inside. The rate was going up all on its own. He glanced at the text without bothering to read it all through. The incomprehensible witterings of that crackpot were getting really tiresome. Then he sorted the “can dos” from the “better nots” almost unconsciously. The latter pile included the following message: Decambrais is a queer and he makes his own lace. Same as yesterday, but the other way round. Not very original, my friend! You’ll soon be repeating yourself. Just as Joss was about to put that message in the “return to sender” pile, his hand hovered in mid-air for a little longer than it had the day before. Rent me the room or I’ll put the whole bang shoot into the newscast. Blackmail, that’s what it would be.
At 0828 Joss was on his orange-box stand ready to go. All the cast were in position, like members of the corps de ballet in a show that had now been running for more than two thousand performances: Decambrais on his doorstep, with his head down in his book; Lizbeth to starboard in the middle of a little group; Bertin to port behind the red-and-white-striped curtains of the Viking; Damascus to the stern, leaning against the shop window of Rolaride, not far from the tenant of Decambrais’s room number 4, almost hidden by a tree trunk; and finally all the regular fans standing round in a semicircle, each occupying as if by ancient tradition the same spot they had been in the previous day.
Joss launched the newscast.
One: Looking for a fruitcake recipe that stops the raisins from all settling at the bottom. Two: There’s no point in your closing your door to hide your filthy habits. God above will judge you and your little tart. Three: Helen, why didn’t you come? I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. Signed, Bernard. Four: Lost in the square: six bowls. Five: For sale: ZR7750 1999, 8,500 km, red, alarm, windscreen and engine cowling, 3,000 francs.
Some newcomer raised a hand in the crowd to indicate his interest in the last item. Joss had to break off to growl “Later on, at the Viking”. The arm went down in embarrassment as fast as it had shot up.
