by Fred Vargas
“Oh I see,” said Adamsberg, pensively. “And why not. Do you have many clients?”
“Can’t complain.”
“What do people come to see you about?”
Joss began to wonder whether Decambrais had got the right address, or whether this odd flic ever bothered to do any work. There was no terminal in the room, just papers in piles on the desk, on the chairs, on the floor, all covered with notes and doodles. The commissaire hadn’t sat down but stood leaning against the white wall with his arms to his side, and was leaning his head down so as to look at Decambrais from underneath his eyelids. Joss reckoned the flic’s eyes were the same colour and consistency as fucus, that brown and slippery seaweed that ties itself into knots around ships’ screws. Those eyes were just as soft, just as vague and just as shiny, but they had no sparkle and no clear object. The spherical vesicles of that kind of seaweed were called floaters, and Joss reckoned the word suited Adamsberg’s eyes to a T. The commissaire’s floaters were buried beneath a protective overhang of untidy, bushy brows. A hook nose and bony features gave the face some counterbalancing weight all the same.
“Well, mainly for love,” Decambrais went on. “Too much, too little, or none at all, that’s what they come about. Or else because it’s not the kind they want, or because they just can’t get hold of it because of this or that or other …”
“Things,” Adamsberg prompted.
“Other things,” Decambrais concurred.
“Look, Ducouëdic,” Adamsberg said as he took off from the wall and paced around the room, “this is a special unit here. We deal with murder. So if it’s your old mishap that’s the issue, if there’s a sequel or if you’re being bothered by it one way or another, I really can’t …”
“No, this isn’t about me,” Decambrais interrupted. “But we’ve not come about a crime, either. At least, not yet.”
“Threats?”
“Maybe. Anonymous announcements. Announcements of death.”
Joss put his elbows on his knees and began to pay amused attention. The bookworm was going to have a hard time making sense of his abstruse anxieties.
“Directed at a particular individual?”
“No. Announcements of general destruction and catastrophe.”
“OK,” said Adamsberg as he continued to pace up and down. “Are we dealing with a prophet of the Second Coming? Prophesying what? The apocalypse?”
“Bubonic plague.”
“Well, well,” said Adamsberg. He took a moment to think. “That rather changes things. How does he announce the coming of the plague, then? By mail? By phone?”
“By means of my friend here,” Decambrais said with a gracious nod towards Joss. “Monsieur Le Guern is by profession a town crier, the business was established by his great-great-grandfather. He gives the news broadcast for the Edgar-Quinet – rue Delambre crossing area. He’ll explain better than I can.”
Adamsberg turned his somewhat weary face to Joss.
“I’ll put it in a nutshell,” said Joss. “People who’ve got something to say leave messages for me and I read them out. Not very hard. All you need is a voice that carries and good timekeeping.”
“And so?”
“Every day, and two or three times a day now,” Decambrais interjected, “Monsieur Le Guern finds he has short texts announcing the coming of the plague to read out. Each message brings us nearer to the outbreak.”
“OK,” said Adamsberg, reaching for the logbook, but so clumsily that he made it plain that the interview was nearing its end. “Since when?”
“Since August 17,” said Joss.
Adamsberg froze in mid-movement and his eyes darted towards the ex-sailor.
“Are you sure?”
That was when Joss realised he had been wrong. Not about the date of the first “special,” but about the commissaire’s eyes. A hard sharp light had switched on inside the seaweed like a tiny fire bursting forth from the gelatinous pod. So he went on and off like a beacon.
“August 17, morning trawl. Straight after dry dock.”
Adamsberg put the logbook aside and went back to pacing. August 17 was the date of the first flat-daubing, or at least of the first notification of the plague of 4s. Rue de Chaillot. Two days later, second outbreak, in Montmartre.
“And the second message?” Adamsberg asked.
“Two days later, on August 19,” Joss replied. “Then one on August 22. Then they came thicker and faster. Almost daily since August 24, and several times a day for the last while.”
“Can I see?”
Decambrais handed him the latest sheets they’d kept. Adamsberg looked through them rapidly.
“I don’t see what makes you link these with the plague.”
“I tracked down the sources,” said Decambrais. “These messages are all quotations from old treatises about plague – there have been hundreds of them over the centuries. Our message-writer has got as far as the premonitory signs. He’ll soon be at the heart of the matter. We’re really very close to it. The last message, the one that came this morning,” Decambrais said as he pointed to one of the pieces of paper on the table, “stops just short of the actual word ‘plague’.”
Adamsberg read that morning’s special:
[…] when many move about like shadows on a wall, when dark vapours rise like fog from the earth […] when can be seen in men a great lack of self-confidence and much jealousy, hatred and licence […]
“In fact, I think we’ll get there tomorrow,” said Decambrais. “That’s to say tonight, for our man. Because of the Diary.”
“You mean those random fragments of daily life?”
“They’re not random at all. The extracts are all in chronological order, from the year 1665, the year of the Great Plague of London. In a few days’ time, Pepys sees his first corpse. Tomorrow, I think. Yes, tomorrow.”
Adamsberg gave a great sigh as he reshuffled the papers on his desk.
“And what do you reckon we’ll see tomorrow?”
“No idea.”
“Probably nothing at all. But it really isn’t nice, is it?”
“Quite so.”
“But completely imaginary.”
“I know. The last outbreak of plague in France faded away in Marseille in 1722. It’s become a legend.”
Adamsberg ran his fingers through his hair (maybe that was his way of combing, Joss thought) then gathered the messages together and gave the clip back to Decambrais.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Should I go on reading them out?” Joss asked.
“Oh yes, please don’t stop. And come and tell me what happens next.”
“And if nothing happens?”
“People who are that organised and bizarre nearly always end up making some kind of physical appearance, if only fleetingly. I would be interested to know what your man comes up with to conclude his campaign.”
Adamsberg showed the pair out of the building and walked slowly back to his office. The whole story was extremely unsettling. Ghastly. It had no connection at all with the 4s except the coincidence of the dates. But all the same he was inclined to go along with Ducouëdic’s train of thought. Tomorrow, the diarist was going to see his first corpse on the streets of London, the first visible sign of the plague. Adamsberg took out his address book while still standing up and flicked through it to find the number of the medievalist that Camille had mentioned. That was where that she’d seen the reverse 4. He looked up at the wall clock that had just been installed: five to eleven. If the man was working as a cleaner there wasn’t much chance he would be home. But a young man answered the phone. He sounded eager.
“Marc Vandoosler?”
“He’s out. He’s manning the front lines, big drive on floors and laundry. I can leave a message at his bunk, if you like.”
“Thank you,” said Adamsberg, somewhat taken aback.
He heard the receiver being put down, then the scrabbling sound of paper and pencil being brought to the ready.
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“At your service, sir. Whom might I say?”
“Commissaire Principal Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, Murder Squad.”
“Bloody hell!” The voice went serious all of a sudden. “Is Marc in trouble?”
“Not at all. Camille Forestier gave me his number.”
“Aha. Camille,” the voice said, quite plainly. But the intonation on “Camille” was such that Adamsberg, who was not a jealous man, nonetheless felt a jolt, or rather, surprise. Camille was connected to vast worlds and uncountably many people of whom he knew nothing and did not care to know. When he came across one of them he always got a little shock, as if he had just bumped into an undiscovered continent. But who said Camille was not a queen of many lands?
“It’s about a drawing,” Adamsberg went on. “Or rather, a design, a rather mysterious shape. Camille said she’d seen a reproduction of it in one of the books at Marc Vandoosler’s place.”
“Quite possibly,” said the voice. “But it’s not going to be a very recent book.”
“Excuse me?”
“Marc’s only interested in the Middle Ages,” said the voice with just a touch of disdain. “He barely deigns to go as far as the sixteenth century. I don’t suppose the Brigade Criminelle has a particular interest in medieval historiography, does it?”
“You never know.”
“OK,” said the voice. “Can you describe the target?”
“It could help us a great deal if your friend happened to know the meaning or signification of the design in question. Do you have a fax?”
“Yes, same number.”
“Good. I’ll fax you the sketch, and if Vandoosler can tell us anything about it, we’d be most grateful if he could fax us back straight away.”
“Fine,” said the voice. “Action stations. To the left, march.”
“Excuse me, Monsieur ….”
“Devernois, Lucien Devernois.”
“This is urgent. You have to believe me. Really urgent.”
“Nil desperandum, commissaire.”
Devernois hung up. Adamsberg put the receiver down. Very puzzling, that was. You had to admit that Devernois, even if he was a bit cheeky, was at his ease talking to the police. Maybe he’d been in the army.
Adamsberg stayed propped up against his office wall until twelve thirty, waiting for the fax machine to come to life. Then he abandoned his frustrating vigil, went out for a walk and looked for a bite to eat. Anything would do, anything that turned up in the local streets that he was beginning to learn. A sandwich, or tomatoes, or a bagel, or fruit, or a pastry, or whatever. Depending on what shops there were, on his fancy, on a whim. He dawdled on purpose round the block with a tomato in one hand and a nut-bread roll in the other. He was tempted to spend the rest of the day outside and to leave the office until tomorrow. But Vandoosler might have gone home for lunch. If he had, he could have sent a reply by now, and brought Adamsberg’s lopsided paranoid construction crashing to the ground. At three he went back to his office, threw his jacket on a chair and confronted the fax machine. A sheet of thermal paper lay beneath it on the floor.
Dear Commissaire Principal,
The inverse 4 that you sent me is a faithful reproduction of the symbol that used to be painted in some parts of Europe on the lintels of doors and windows during an outbreak of plague. It is believed to have ancient origins, but it was absorbed into Christian culture and seen as a sign of the cross drawn without lifting the hand or stylus. It was also used as a merchants’ mark and a printers’ sign, but its main claim to fame is as a talisman offering protection against plague. People warded off the great affliction by drawing the inverse 4 on the doors of their houses.
Hoping this concludes your inquiry satisfactorily, I remain your devoted servant,
Marc Vandoosler
Adamsberg put one hand on his desk to steady himself and looked down at the floor with the fax hanging from his other hand. So the reverse 4 was a charm against plague. Thirty-odd blocks daubed with the sign, and a whole stack of messages in the town-crier’s inbox. Tomorrow, the Londoner of 1665 was going to see his first corpse. With furrowed brow Adamsberg plodded through the decorator’s rubbish and into Danglard’s office.
“Danglard, your radical art fellow is behaving like a real idiot.”
Adamsberg put the fax in front of his deputy, who read it with suspicion. Then he reread it.
“Hmm. Now I remember. I saw that shape in the wrought-iron balustrade of the magistrates’ court at Nancy. A historic monument, that building was. There were two 4s together, one the right way round, the other backwards way on, just like that.”
“So what do we do with your subversive installation artist, Danglard?”
“I’ve already told you. We put him on the back burner.”
“And then what?”
“We bring in someone else. A crackpot apostle who reckons he’s saving his brothers and sisters from the plague.”
“No, he’s not into saving souls. He’s predicting. And he’s planning. One thing after another. He’s setting it all up. He could go into action tomorrow, or tonight.”
Danglard had become expert in reading Adamsberg’s face. It could pass without transition from looking as cold as a rained-out bonfire to the intensity of an acetylene flame. When that happened, some still unexplained physiological process made Adamsberg’s swarthy skin glow. Danglard knew from long experience that it would be pointless to contradict the man, to express any kind of doubt or to point out logical flaws in his position. All objections would just turn to steam, like drips falling on hot coals. So he preferred to keep his doubts bottled up and to save them for a less heated moment. At the same time Adamsberg’s moments of intensity brought Danglard up against his own contradictions. The chief’s passionate intuitions cut Danglard adrift from his rational moorings, yet he had to admit that he found it oddly relaxing to throw caution and common sense to the winds. He had no choice but to listen almost passively and to ride with his boss on a cloud of ideas for which he felt no responsibility. Adamsberg’s rich and gravelly voice, his hesitations, self-repetitions and circumlocutions, which tried Danglard’s patience sorely most of the time, actually contributed to the pleasure of journeys taken on the back of a woolly idea. But what Danglard had learned most of all from their long working partnership was that Adamsberg’s muddled intuitions all too often landed right on target.
And so Danglard donned his jacket without demur and followed his chief out of the building and down the street, listening to his recounting of Ducouëdic’s tale.
The two detectives got to Place Edgar-Quinet before six, in good time for the final newscast of the day. Adamsberg sauntered up and down, getting his bearings and absorbing the atmosphere, locating where Ducouëdic lived, noting the blue urn fastened to the tree, the sporting goods shop (he saw Le Guern dive into it with his cash box under his arm) and the Viking, which Danglard had seen straight away and entered for the duration. Adamsberg knocked on the window to attract his attention when Le Guern arrived. Listening to the evening news would not teach him anything he did not already know. But Adamsberg wanted to get as close as he could to the source of the messages.
He was surprised by the quality of Joss’s voice: it was strong and pleasant to listen to, and it carried easily from one side of the square to the other. The voice itself was probably the main reason why there was a good and solid crowd gathered round the ex-sailor’s little rostrum.
“One,” Joss began, fully aware of Adamsberg’s presence.
For sale, bee-keeping equipment for two hives. Two: chlorophyll comes along all by itself and trees don’t brag about it. Bigheads take note.
Adamsberg was surprised. He’d not understood the second ad, but the regulars were taking it all in their stride and waiting for the next announcement. Must have become a habit, he thought. Practice must be needed to become a proficient newscast-listener, just like for everything. Joss soldiered on, cool as a cucumber:
Three: Looking for a soul
mate, attractive if possible, but no matter if not. Four: Hélène, I’m still waiting for you. Promise never to put my hand on you ever again. Signed in despair, Bernard. Five: The silly bugger who smashed my doorbell is in for a nasty surprise. Six: 750 FZX 92, 39,000 km, new tyres and brakes, full mechanical overhaul. Seven: What’s it all about then, tell me, what’s it all about? Eight: High-class clothing alterations and repairs. Nine: If ever you get to go to Mars, have a nice trip but count me out. Ten: For sale, five boxes French runner beans. Eleven: I say no to human cloning. There are enough idiots on earth already. Twelve …
The rhythmic chant of the small ads could have lulled Adamsberg off to sleep, but he kept his eye on the crowd. Some of them jotted things down on a scrap of paper, others stood motionless, briefcase in hand and eyes on Le Guern, having a restful break after a day at the office. The newscaster glanced at the sky and announced tomorrow’s weather, followed by a shipping forecast – west, increasing force 3 to 5 towards evening – that people seemed to be happy with. Whereupon the rigmarole of practical and metaphysical small ads resumed. Adamsberg woke up completely when he saw Ducouëdic growing attentive around number 16.
Seventeen. This affliction is thus present and extant in some place, and has been since the Creation, for there is nothing new under the sun, and all that is, was created The town crier glanced at Adamsberg to indicate that the “special” had just gone by, and carried on with his job.
Eighteen. Growing ivy up party walls is not entirely safe.
Adamsberg listened to the end of the newscast, which included the surprising item about Louise Jenny, a French steamer of 546 register tons, carrying wines, liqueurs, dried fruits and preserves, which capsized off Basse aux Herbes and was driven on to Pen Bras. All lost, save for the ship’s dog. Mutterings of dismay and grunts of satisfaction greeted that last item; part of the crowd drifted off to the Viking straight away. The late final edition was over, the crier jumped off his box and picked it up with one hand. Adamsberg, somewhat bewildered, turned towards Danglard to see what his number two made of it all, but the latter had gone, to the Viking presumably, to finish his drink. Adamsberg found him with his elbow on the bar, looking quite unperturbed.
