by Fred Vargas
“This is outstanding apple brandy,” Danglard said, pointing to his glass on the counter. “Among the best calva I’ve ever come across.”
A hand fell on Adamsberg’s shoulder from behind. Ducouëdic motioned to follow him to the table at the back of the room.
“Since you’re in the area, I’d better tell you that the town crier is the one and only person in town who knows my real name. Got that? Here, my name is Decambrais.”
“Just a minute,” said Adamsberg, who wrote down the name in his memory-jogger.
Plague, Ducouëdic and white hair makes Decambrais.
“I saw you jot something down during the newscast,” Adamsberg said as he put his notebook away again.
“Ad number 10. I’m making an offer for the runner beans. You get good vegetables here, you know, at rock-bottom prices. Now, as for the ‘special’ …”
“The special?”
“The message from the nutter. For the first time the plague has been referred to directly, under the transparent mask of ‘affliction’. That was one of its names. It had many others – the malady, the infection, the contagion, the fevers … People tried to avoid saying its real name, out of fear. So the man continues to advance. He has almost named it, he’s near to his goal.”
A diminutive young blonde with her hair done in a bunch came up to Decambrais and shyly put her hand on his sleeve.
“Marie-Belle?” he asked.
She stood up on tiptoes and kissed the old man on the cheek.
“Thank you!” she said with a smile. “I knew you’d get there in the end.”
“It was nothing, Marie-Belle,” Decambrais smiled back.
The young woman departed with a wink and left the Viking on the arm of a tall dark fellow with auburn shoulder-length hair.
“Pretty girl,” said Adamsberg. “What did you do for her?”
“I got her brother to put on a jumper,” said Decambrais. “And believe me, it was hard going. The next hurdle comes in November, when I have to get him to wear a jacket. I’m working on it already.”
Adamsberg gave up trying to follow the story. He reckoned he was getting into some convoluted piece of local life, which didn’t interest him one bit.
“Another thing,” Decambrais added. “You’ve been spotted. There were people in the square who already knew you were from the police.” Decambrais looked Adamsberg up and down. “I cannot imagine what gave you away.”
“The town crier?”
“Possibly.”
“Doesn’t matter. Might even be a good thing.”
“Is that your assistant over there?” Decambrais asked with a stab of his chin in the direction of Danglard.
“Commissaire Danglard.”
“Bertin the barman is currently telling him all about the rejuvenating effect of his very special home-made calva. At the rate your commissaire is lapping it up, he’ll be fifteen years younger in no time at all. I’m just pointing out the facts, for your information, sir. A quite outstanding brew, in my experience, but it tends to put you out of action for the whole of the following morning, speaking conservatively.”
“Danglard is frequently out of action in the morning.”
“Oh, all right then. But all the same he ought to be told that the concoction has a stunning effect. Literally. Teaches you what it must be like to be brain-dead. To feel like a cat in an aquarium.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No, it’s like being away for the day.”
Decambrais nodded and left; he thought it better not to shake the hand of a commissaire principal in front of so many people. Adamsberg carried on watching Danglard turn the clock back, and around eight he made him sit down at the dining table and get something solid inside.
“Why should I?” Danglard asked in bleary-eyed indignation.
“To have something inside you to bring up tonight. Vomiting on an empty stomach can be painful.”
“What a good idea,” gurgled Danglard. “Let’s have dinner.”
XIII
ADAMSBERG CALLED A cab to take Danglard home from the Viking and then had himself dropped off at Camille’s. From below, in the street, you could see lights on in her studio. He leaned on the bonnet of a parked car for a few minutes to rest his tired eyes on the brightly lit loft. Camille’s body would soon cleanse him of the wearisome worries of the day; all those crazy notions of plot and plague would split into shreds and tatters and waft away on a breeze.
He walked up the seven flights of stairs and crept silently into the loft. Camille always left the door on the latch when she was composing so she wouldn’t have to break off in the middle of a bar. She was wearing her professional headset and she kept her hands on the keyboard while giving Adamsberg a coded smile that meant she hadn’t finished work. Adamsberg stood around in the meanwhile, listening to the music that leaked through the phones. Camille worked on for ten minutes before switching off the synthesiser and releasing her ears from the equipment.
“Action movie?” Adamsberg enquired.
“Sci-fi,” said Camille as she stood up. “A TV series. I’ve got a contract for six episodes.”
Camille drew closer and put her arm around him.
“It’s about an alien who turns up without warning,” she explained. “He’s got supernatural powers and intends to use them to do people in. No idea why. Nobody seems to be interested in the why. Wanting to do people in seems to need no more explanation than wanting a drink. He wants to do people in and that’s that. What makes him special is that he doesn’t sweat.”
“I’ve got something like that, too,” said Adamsberg. “A science-fiction case. I’m just at the start of episode one, and I haven’t yet worked out what the story is. Someone has turned up who aims to do everyone in. What makes him special is that he speaks Latin.”
In the middle of the night Camille shifted in bed and woke Adamsberg up. She had fallen asleep with her head on his midriff, and had ended up almost smothered by Adamsberg’s arms and legs. He was vaguely puzzled by this. He extricated himself with infinite care to give Camille all the room she needed.
XIV
AS NIGHT FELL the man slid down the little alley that led to the tumbledown house. He knew the uneven cobblestones like the back of his hand. He knocked five times on the familiar worn surface of the old wooden door.
“Is that you?”
“It’s me, Narnie. Open up.”
A large, plump old woman showed him into the front room by the light of a torch, as there was no electricity in the narrow hallway. He’d offered many times to have Narnie’s house fixed up but such ideas had been consistently turned down.
“One day, Arnaud,” she used to say. “When it’s your money you’re offering. Mod cons don’t mean much to me anyway.”
Then she would point to her feet in their coarse black moccasins and say: “You know how old I was before they could afford to buy me a pair of shoes? I was four. Up to the age of four I went around in bare feet.”
“You’ve told me that before, Narnie. But right now the leak in the roof is rotting the boards in the attic floor. I don’t want to have you falling through the ceiling, that’s all.”
“You’ve got your own stuff to worry about.”
The man sat down on the flowery sofa. Narnie brought in a bottle of Madeira and a plate of girdle cakes. She put it all down on the low table, and said: “Times were, when I made your girdle cakes with the skin of the milk. But you can’t get milk that has a proper skin these days. It’s dead and done with. You can leave it on the sill for a week, it’ll turn sour before it makes any skin. It’s not milk they sell you these days, it’s dishwater. So I have to use cream instead. I’m sorry, Arnaud, but I have to.”
“I know, Narnie,” Arnaud said as he poured the Madeira into the rather large glasses the old woman had laid out.
“Does it affect the taste a lot?” she asked
“No, the cakes are just as tasty, really. You shouldn’t get upset about them.”
> “You’re right, no more of this nonsense. How far have you got?”
“Everything’s ready.”
Narnie’s face spread into a wide, harsh smile.
“How many doors?”
“Two hundred and fifty-three. I’m getting faster. They’re really beautiful, you know. Very elegant.”
The old woman beamed with a kindlier smile.
“You’ve got many gifts, Arnaud my boy, and I swear by the Holy Bible that you’ll come into them all.”
Arnaud smiled as well and laid his head on the old woman’s broad and sagging bosom. She smelled of perfume and olive oil.
“All of them, my boy,” she repeated as she stroked his head. “They’re all going to die, every last one, and all on their own.”
“Every last one,” said Arnaud, with a tight squeeze of the old woman’s hand. Then she gave a start.
“Have you got your ring, Arnaud? Where’s your ring?”
“Don’t worry,” he said as he sat up. “I just put it on the other hand.”
“Show me.”
Arnaud held out his right hand with the ring on the second finger. Narnie passed her thumb over the diamond that glinted on Arnaud’s palm. Then she slipped the ring off and put it on his left hand.
“Keep it on the left and never take it off again.”
“All right. No need to fuss.”
“On the left, Arnaud, and on the ring finger.”
“Sure.”
“We’ve been waiting and waiting for years on end. And tonight we’re going to get there. I thank the Lord for letting me live to see this night. And if He has let me live so long, Arnaud, it’s because He wanted me to see it. He wanted me to be there so as you could get it done.”
“That’s true, Narnie.”
“Let’s drink to your salvation, Arnaud.”
Narnie put her arm through Arnaud’s, raised her glass and chinked it against his. They stayed interlocked as they took several sips of Madeira without speaking.
“Now no more of this nonsense,” said Narnie. “Is everything in place? Have you got the door code and the floor number? How many of them will there be inside?”
“He lives on his own.”
“Come on up, I’ll give you the necessary, you mustn’t hang around here too long. I’ve starved them for the last forty-eight hours, they’ll be all over him, like flies on dogshit. Put your gloves on.”
Arnaud followed her to the loft ladder.
“Be careful on that thing, Narnie.”
“Mind you own business. I use it twice a day.”
Narnie climbed up to the attic which echoed with high-pitched squeals.
“Calm down, my dearies! Give me some light, Arnaud, on the left.”
Arnaud directed the torch towards a huge cage swarming with a score of rats.
“Look at that one croaking in the corner. I’ll have newborns to replace her tomorrow morning at the latest.”
“Are you sure they’re infected?”
“Packed to the gills, they are. You wouldn’t be doubting my skill, would you now? On the eve of the great deed?”
“Of course not, Narnie. But I’d rather you let me have ten of them instead of five. To make doubly sure.”
“You can have fifteen if you want. If it helps to keep you calm.”
The old woman bent down to pick up a canvas bag lying on the attic floor beside the cage.
“Died of plague yesterday, this one did!” she said as she waved the bag in Arnaud’s face. “We’ll comb the fleas from his coat, and hey presto. Light me down.”
Arnaud watched Narnie toiling in the kitchen over the dead rat.
“Do be careful. What if you get bitten?”
“I’m quite safe, as I’ve told you before,” said Narnie with a grunt. “And I’ve got olive oil all over, from head to toe. Satisfied?”
Ten minutes later she had finished. She threw out the rat with the rubbish and handed Arnaud a fat envelope.
“Twenty-two fleas,” she said. “That gives you plenty to spare.”
Arnaud slid the package into the inside pocket of his jacket.
“I’m off, then.”
“Open it quickly, in one go, and slip it under the door. And don’t be afraid. You’re in charge now.”
She held him in her arms for a moment.
“So let’s get on with it. It’s your move now. May the Lord watch over you. And keep an eye out for the flics.”
XV
ADAMSBERG WENT INTO the office around nine next day. It was a saturday, with only a skeleton staff on duty, and no hammer drills working. Danglard was off too, presumably paying the due price for his experiment in self-rejuvenation at Bertin’s bar. Adamsberg was only aware of that pleasant weariness in his thigh and back muscles which afflicted him after a night spent with Camille. The muffled echo of the night before which was lodged in his physical being would last until about 2 p.m. Then it would vanish.
He spent the morning ringing round all the stations in the metropolitan area once again. Nothing to report, they all said. Not a single suspicious death in any of the blocks that had been daubed with the 4 symbol. But three new complaints of defacement had been received, for blocks located respectively in the first, sixteenth and seventeenth arrondissements of Paris. All of the new graffiti were 4s, and all of them had that CLT signature or logo underneath. Adamsberg concluded his telephone survey with a call to an old friend at the Quai des Orfèvres.
Breuil was a likeable and complicated fellow. He took an ironical interest in art and had a passion for high-class cookery, and neither of these avocations inclined him to make peremptory judgements about his fellow men. When Adamsberg’s promotion to commissaire principal in charge of a murder squad had ruffled feathers at headquarters, largely because of his abysmal dress sense, his apparent slackness and his incomprehensible success as a sleuth, Breuil had been one of the very few to take him as he was and to refrain from trying to bring him into line. Breuil’s tolerance was all the more precious to Adamsberg because he was by no means a small fish in the big pond of the Paris police.
“So if anything untoward should happen in any of these blocks of flats,” Adamsberg summed up, “please be so kind as to pass the message on to me. I’ve been on the case for several days.”
“You mean you want me to hand it over to you?”
“That’s right.”
“You can rely on me,” said Breuil. “But I wouldn’t worry myself sick over it meanwhile, if I were you. Guys who work at one remove like your amateur lettering artist are rarely capable of direct action.”
“But I am making myself sick with worry. And I’m watching him.”
“Have they finished putting the bars in the windows at your new place?”
“Two windows to go.”
“Come round for a meal one of these days. My chervil-flavoured asparagus mousse will amaze you. Even you, I mean.”
Adamsberg smiled as he hung up and went out with his hands in his trouser pockets to look for lunch. He ended up walking around beneath a dull September sky for nearly three hours, and got back to the office in mid-afternoon.
An unidentified flic stood to attention as he came in.
“Brigadier Lamarre,” the young man blurted while fiddling nervously with one of his jacket buttons and staring hard at the blank wall opposite. “There was a call for you at 13.41. A certain Hervé Decambrais asked you to ring back at this number.” He proffered a Post-it to his chief.
Adamsberg looked the brigadier up and down, and tried to catch his eyes. The twiddled button gave up the ghost and fell to the ground, but Lamarre stood stock still, with arms held rigid to his trouser seams. Something about him – his height, his blond hair, his blue eyes – reminded Adamsberg of barman Bertin at the Viking.
“Are you from Normandy, brigadier?”
“Affirmative, sir. From Granville, sir”
“Were you in the military, Lamarre?”
“Affirmative. Enlisted as a gendarme, sir
. Did the exam so as to get promotion and transfer to the capital, sir.”
“You have leave to pick up your button, you know,” said Adamsberg, “and you’ve got clearance for sitting down.”
Which Lamarre then did.
“And please try to look at me. In the eye.”
Lamarre’s face tautened in near-panic and his eyes remained firmly set on the paintwork.
“That was an order, brigadier. Please try harder.”
The young flic slowly rotated his head towards Adamsberg.
“Good. Stop there. Stay like that. Keep looking at my eyes. Now, brigadier, this is the police force. In the murder squad, more than in any other branch, you have to learn to be discreet, to be relaxed and to be humane. You’re going to have to infiltrate closed groups, you’re going to have to dissemble, to interrogate awkward customers, to tail them without being seen, and also to boost people’s confidence, as well as getting a wet shoulder time and again. Now, the way you are now, you can be spotted a mile off. You’re as plain as a pikestaff and just about as bendy. You’re going to have to learn to let go, and you won’t manage that overnight. So here’s training exercise number one: look at other people.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Look at their eyes, not at their hairline.”
“Yes, sir.”
Adamsberg opened his memory-jogger and inscribed in it: Viking, button and paintwork make Lamarre.
Decambrais picked up the phone on the first ring.
“I wanted to warn you, commissaire, that our guy has gone over the top.”
“Meaning?”
“Best thing is for you to hear the specials from today’s morning and noon newscasts. Ready?”
“Go ahead.”
“The first one is the continuation of the 1665 diary entry.”
“You mean Keeps’s diary?”
“Pepys’s, commissaire.”
This day, much against my will, I did … see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors and Lord have mercy upon us writ there – which was a sad sight to me, being the first time of that kind to my remembrance I ever saw.
