Have Mercy On Us All

by Fred Vargas

  Once he was up and away on his two feet, Adamsberg’s agitation subsided as quickly as it had risen, and he resumed his natural tempo – slow, steady and calm. He circled round and back towards the Brigade without having thought very much during his walk, but he had the feeling that these graffiti were not some teenagers’ stunt, nor any kind of tit-for-tat. There was something unpleasant about those sets of numbers; something awkward; something vaguely sinister.

  The Brigade building came into view, and Adamsberg knew that he should better not mention any of this to Danglard. Danglard hated seeing his boss’s mind drift on a swell of unsubstantiated feelings, the root cause, in his view, of all the mistakes the police ever made. At best Danglard would call it all a waste of time. Adamsberg had given up trying to explain that wasting time was never a waste of time, because Danglard remained totally resistant to what he saw as an illicit mode of thought – thinking unsupported by rationality. Adamsberg’s problem was that he had never known how to think any other way. He didn’t have a system, in fact, or a philosophy or a persuasion or even a liking for his kind of musing. It was just the way he worked; it was the only way he could.

  Danglard, looking stolid after a copious lunch, was at his desk, testing the computer network that had just been booted.

  “I can’t manage to download the fingerprint files from the central server,” he grumbled as Adamsberg wandered past. “What are they playing at, I ask you? Do we have authorised access or do we not?”

  “It’ll download eventually,” Adamsberg said soothingly. It was easier for him to keep calm about it, as he never got too involved with computers.

  Adamsberg’s informatic incompetence didn’t bother Danglard one bit, since he was as happy as a sandboy when playing with data bases. His capacious and well-ordered mental faculties were entirely suited to saving, sorting and merging as many megabytes as came his way.

  “There’s a message on your desk,” Danglard said without raising his eyes from the screen. “Queen Matilda’s girl. She’s back.”

  Danglard only ever called Camille “Queen Matilda’s girl”; the habit went back to the time when the Matilda in question had given him quite an upset, of an aesthetic and sentimental sort. He worshipped Queen Matilda and his devotion spilled over on to her daughter Camille. Danglard thought Adamsberg fell far short of the level of care and attention that Camille deserved; some of Danglard’s grunts and his silent reproaches made Adamsberg quite aware of the disapproval of his number two, despite the fact that the latter was generally quite careful not to meddle in other people’s business. The present moment was a case in point: without saying anything directly, Danglard was making it clear that Adamsberg had been wrong not to try to get news of Camille for the past two months. And he blatantly disapproved of Adamsberg going around of an evening with another girl on his arm, no more than a week ago. On that occasion neither man had said a word to the other.

  Adamsberg walked behind his deputy and looked over his shoulder at the flickering screen.

  “Listen, Danglard, there’s some bloke playing around at painting funny kinds of 4s on apartment doors. In three different blocks, actually. One in the thirteenth arrondissement, and two in the eighteenth. I’m wondering if I shouldn’t go take a look.”

  Danglard’s fingers hovered over his keyboard.

  “When?”

  “Well, right now. As soon as we can get the photographer lined up.”

  “What for?”

  “Well, so as to photograph the things before people scrub them off. Unless they’ve already been wiped.”

  “But what for?”

  “I don’t like those 4s. Not one bit.”

  Damn. Now he’d said it. Danglard hated him saying “I don’t like this” or “I don’t like that”. It wasn’t a flic’s job to like or to dislike. A flic’s job is to get on with the job and to keep on thinking at the same time. Adamsberg went back into his office and found the note from Camille. If he was free this evening she would be too. If not, please call. Adamsberg nodded to himself. Yes, of course he would be free.

  Feeling better for that, he picked up the telephone and asked to be put through to the photographer. Meanwhile, Danglard, whose face expressed perplexity and irritation, had burst into his office.

  “Danglard, tell me, what does the photographer look like?” Adamsberg asked. “And what is his name?”

  “The whole team was introduced to you three weeks ago,” said Danglard, “and you shook the hand of every man jack in the room, and every woman too. You even spoke to the photographer.”

  “Well, that’s as may be, Danglard. In fact, you’re surely right. But all the same it does not provide an answer to my question. What does he look like and what’s he called?”

  “Daniel Barteneau.”

  “Barteneau, Barteneau, that’s a hard one. And his face?”

  “Quite thin. Sparky, big smile, excitable.”

  “Anything special?”

  “Lots of little freckles, reddish hair.”

  “That’s handy,” said Adamsberg as he reached for the list in his drawer. “That’s very handy.”

  He leaned over the desktop and wrote down: Thin. Redhead. Photographer …

  “Remind me of the name …”

  “Barteneau.” Danglard almost spat it out. “Daniel Barteneau.”

  “Thank you,” said Adamsberg as he finished writing it down in his memory-jogger. “Did you realise we have a real dickhead in the squad? I said a dickhead, but there may be others.”

  “Favre, Jean-Louis.”

  “Hole in one. So what are we going to do with him?”

  Danglard shrugged with a broad sweep of his arms. “That’s a problem for the whole wide world,” he said. “Can we try to make improvements to him?”

  “That would take at least fifty years.”

  “What are you messing about with these 4s for?”

  “Aha.” He opened his notebook on the page where Maryse had made her drawing. “That’s what they look like.”

  Danglard glanced at the sketch and gave the pad back to Adamsberg.

  “Was any offence committed? Any violence?”

  “No, nothing apart from brush strokes. It won’t cost anything to go have a look. Anyway, until we’ve got the windows barred down here, all the real cases have to be handled by the Quai des Orfèvres.”

  “That’s no excuse for taking on nonsense. There’s lots to do so as to get things set up properly.”

  “This isn’t nonsense, Danglard, I promise you.”

  “Graffiti.”

  “When did wall-daubers ever decorate stairwell doors? In three different places in Paris?”

  “They could be jokers. Or the next avant-garde.”

  Adamsberg shook his head slowly.

  “No. There’s nothing avant-garde about this. On the contrary. It’s much murkier than that.”

  Danglard shrugged his shoulders.

  “I know what you mean,” Adamsberg said as they left the office. “I do know.”

  The photographer was coming into the courtyard and moving towards them over the builders’ rubble. Adamsberg shook his hand. The name that Danglard had made him rehearse had now slipped his mind entirely. The best thing would be to copy the notes in his mind-jogger into a pocketbook so he could have it to hand at all times. He’d get on with it tomorrow, because this evening there was Camille, and Camille came ahead of Bretonneau or whatever the man’s name was. Danglard came up behind his chief and said over his shoulder “Hallo, Barteneau”.

  “Hallo, Barteneau,” Adamsberg parroted, with a glance of gratitude towards his number two. “Let’s go. Avenue d’Italie. Nothing nasty today. We just need some art photos.”

  From the corner of his eye Adamsberg could see Danglard putting on his jacket and tugging at the bum-flaps to make sure it sat squarely on his shoulders.

  “I’ll be coming with, if I may,” he mumbled.

  VII

  JOSS HURRIED DOWN Rue de la Gaîté at t
hree and a half knots. He’d not stopped wondering since yesterday afternoon if he’d really heard the old bookworm aright, when he’d said “The room’s yours, Le Guern”. Yes, of course, he had heard him say that, but did the words really mean what Joss thought they ought to mean? Did they mean that Decambrais was actually prepared to rent his room to the Breton Brute? With carpets and Lizbeth and dinner and all? Of course that’s what the words meant. What else could they mean? But saying that yesterday was one thing. Maybe the aristo had had a night of inner turmoil and woken up this morning firmly resolved to back out. Joss was sure that he would sidle up to him after the morning newscast and say how sorry he was, but the room had already been let – first come, first served, you know.

  Yep, thought Joss, that’s what was going to happen, no later than a few minutes from now. That jelly-kneed old fraud had been most relieved to learn that Joss wasn’t going to blurt out the business about the lace, and that’s why he’d had a sudden burst of generosity and offered his room to the old sea dog. But now he was going to take it back. That’s Decambrais for you – a bore, and a louse to boot. Just like he’d always thought.

  Joss unhitched his urn in high dudgeon and manhandled it on to the table at Rolaride. If there was another slur on the old bookworm in the trawl, then maybe he would not keep his mouth shut this morning. Why shouldn’t he be a bigger louse than Decambrais? He rifled through the ads but didn’t find anything of that kind. On the other hand the fat ivory envelope was there, with its thirty-franc fee.

  “This fellow,” Joss muttered as he smoothed out the sheet, “isn’t going to stop for a good long while.”

  But he could hardly grumble about it from a business point of view. The nutcase was bringing him in almost a hundred francs a day, all by himself. Joss furrowed his brow as he read:

  Videbis animalia generata ex corruptione multiplicari in terra ut vermes, ranas et muscas; et si sit a causa subterranea videbis reptilia habitantia in cabernis exire ad superficiem terrae et dimittere ova sua et aliquando mori. Et si est a causa celesti, similiter volatilia.

  “Bugger that,” said Joss. “Now he’s writing Italian.”

  Joss climbed up on to his stand at 0828 and the first thing he did was to make sure Decambrais was standing at his customary doorpost. It was the first time in two years that he was keen to see him in the audience. Yes, there he was, in his grey suit, groomed to perfection, slicking back a wisp of his white hair and pretending to read his leather-bound tome. Joss cast him an evil glance, and then launched into item number one in his fine and resonant voice.

  He felt he’d rushed through the newscast faster than usual in his haste to find out how Decambrais was going to eat his words. He almost bungled his closing Everyman’s History of France as a result, and resented Decambrais all the more for it. “French steamer,” he concluded brusquely, “300 tons, struck the rocks of Penmarch and then drifted as far as La Torche, where it sank at anchor. All lost.”

  When the newscast was over Joss made himself hump his tackle back to the shop, where Damascus was just raising the steel shutters. They shook hands, and Damascus’s felt unnaturally cold – as well it might, given the weather and the fact that the young man went around in nothing more than a vest. If he carried on like that he was going to catch his death.

  “Decambrais is expecting you at eight this evening at the Viking,” said Damascus as he laid out the coffee cups.

  “So he can’t send his own messages?”

  “He’s got appointments all day long.”

  “Maybe he has, but I’m not at his beck and call. He doesn’t call all the shots just because he’s a toff.”

  “Why do you call him a toff?” asked Damascus with surprise.

  “Come on, lad, wake up. De Cambrais has to be an aristocratic name, doesn’t it?”

  “I’ve no idea. Never thought about it. In any case, he’s flat broke.”

  “There are plenty of penniless aristocrats, you know. Actually, they’re the best kind.”

  “Oh, right,” said Damascus. “I didn’t know that.”

  Damascus poured hot coffee into the cups and didn’t seem to notice the scowl on the sea dog’s face.

  “Are you going to put that pullover on today or tomorrow?” Joss asked rather crossly. “Did you know that your sister is worried sick about you?”

  “I will soon, Joss, I will.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, lad, but while you’re at it, why don’t you wash your hair as well?”

  Damascus raised his face in astonishment and shook his long, brown, wavy hair back over his shoulders.

  “My mother used to say that a man’s hair is his fortune,” Joss said. “You could hardly claim to be looking after your assets properly, now could you?”

  “Is my hair dirty, then?” the younger man asked in genuine puzzlement.

  “Well, yes, it is a bit. Don’t get me wrong, now. I’m saying this for your own good, Damascus. You’ve got lovely hair and you should take better care of it. Doesn’t your sister ever tell you?”

  “Sure she does. Just that I forget.”

  Damascus took hold of a bunch of hair and looked at it.

  “You’re right, Joss, I’ll do it right away. Can you mind the store for me? Marie-Belle won’t be in before ten.”

  Damascus ran off, and Joss watched him bound across the square on his way to the drugstore. Poor lad, that Damascus, Joss thought with a sigh, he was too nice for his own good, and he really was one sandwich short of the full hamper. Like a lamb to the slaughter. The complete opposite of the aristo, who was all head and no heart. Why couldn’t things be shared out more fairly in this bloody world?

  Bertin’s thunder-gong rang out at a quarter past eight in the evening. Days were now getting distinctly shorter; the square was already deep in shadow, and the pigeons had gone to roost. Joss dragged himself ungraciously to the Viking. He spied Decambrais at the back of the room, dressed in a dark suit and tie, with a white shirt that was fraying at the collar. He’d already ordered two carafes of wine. The bookworm was reading, the only person in the whole crowded bar to be doing so. He’d had all day to work up his speech, and Joss was expecting it to be nicely tied up. But Le Guerns weren’t easy folk to enmesh. Joss knew his way around nets and knots.

  Joss slumped into the seat without even saying hallo. Decambrais filled both glasses straight away.

  “Thanks for coming, Le Guern, I’d much prefer not to put the business off until tomorrow.”

  Joss just nodded his head and gulped down a large dose of wine.

  “Have you got them with you?” asked Decambrais.

  “What?”

  “Today’s ads, the specials.”

  “I don’t lug everything around on me. They’re at Damascus’s place.”

  “Do you remember what they said?”

  Joss scratched his cheek for a minute or two.

  “The fellow who keeps telling his life story was at it again, complete gobbledegook as per usual,” he said. “Then there was another one in Italian, like there was this morning.”

  “It’s Latin, Le Guern.”

  Joss said nothing for a moment.

  “Well, I don’t like it a bit. Reading out things you don’t understand is not honest work. What do you think the nutter’s after? Trying to get up everyone’s nose?”

  “Could well be. Look, would it be too much trouble to go and get the messages?”

  Joss drained his glass and stood up. Things were not going as he expected. He was in a muddle, like he had been that night at sea when the instruments went haywire and he couldn’t get a bearing. The rocks were supposed to be to starboard, but at dawn, there they were straight ahead, to the north. The ship had come terribly close to disaster.

  He went over to get the messages and came back quickly, wondering all the while if Decambrais wasn’t really to port when he thought him to starboard. He put the three ivory envelopes down on the table just as Bertin was serving the main course – veal in cream sauce wi
th boiled potatoes – and a third carafe of wine. Joss tucked in while Decambrais read out the lunchtime message under his breath.

  Up, and to the office (having a mighty pain in my forefinger of my left hand, from a strain that it received last night in struggling avec la femme que je mentioned yesterday … My wife busy in going with her woman to a hothouse to bathe herself, after her long being within doors in the dirt, so that she now pretends to a resolution of being hereafter very clean. How long it will hold I can guess.

  “I know that passage, damn it,” he said as he folded the sheet back into the envelope, “but as through a glass darkly. Either I’ve read too much or else my memory is failing.”

  “Sometimes the sextant does fail.”

  Decambrais poured more wine and went on to the next message:

  Terrae putrefactae signa sunt animalium ex putredine nascentium multiplicatio, ut sunt mures, ranae terrestres … serpentes ac vermes … praesertim si minime in illis locis nasci consuevere

  “Can I keep them?”

  “If they get you anywhere.”

  “Nowhere for the moment. But I will track them down, Le Guern, I will. The man’s playing cat and mouse with us, but one day, I’m quite sure, he’ll let something out that will tell us what we want to know.”

  “And what’s that?

  “Knowing what he’s after.”

  Joss shrugged. “With your cast of mind you could never have been a crier. Because if you stop to think about everything you have to read out, well, you’re finished. You can’t do the newscasting because you get all clogged up. A crier has to be above all that. I’ve seen some right loonies come through the urn, you know. Only I never saw any who paid over the going rate. Or any who spoke Latin. Or who wrote ‘s’ in the old way like an ‘f’. What’s that all about, I ask you.”