by Fred Vargas
“It’s twenty-four carat. Ninety-six cases, thirty-four of them fatal. Rag pickers from the shanties and a few people in the city centre. Particularly nasty in Clichy, where whole families went down. Their kids used to collect dead rats from the rubbish tips.”
“Why didn’t it get worse?”
“Vaccination and prevention. But the main reason seems to be that rats had acquired much higher resistance to the disease. You could call it the death rattle of European plague. Even so, it didn’t peter out in Corsica until 1945.”
“And is the stuff about the cover-up true as well? And ‘disease number 9’?”
“I’m sorry, commissaire, but it’s all true. You can’t deny it, I’m afraid.”
Adamsberg hung up and paced around the room. Something about the 1920 epidemic had clicked in his mind with a noise that sounded like the spinning of a dial that opens a secret passage. Adamsberg had found the starting point. Now he reckoned he had the courage to go through the secret door and down that dark and musty staircase – the back stairs of History. His mobile phone rang and he got an earful of Brézillon ranting on about the morning papers.
“What’s all this rubbish about a police cover-up?” the Super screamed. “What’s all this utter crap about plague in 1920? Influenza epidemic, sure! But plague? Get a rebuttal out to the press this minute, Adamsberg. No discussion.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. It’s all true.”
“Are you trying to take the piss, Adamsberg? Or are you looking forward to spending more time mowing your Pyrenean lawn?”
“I’m not trying anything, sir. There was an outbreak of plague, it happened in 1920, there were ninety-six cases and thirty-four deaths, and the police and the government tried to keep it hush-hush.”
“Put yourself in their shoes, Adamsberg!”
“I am in their shoes, sir.”
A moment’s silence. Then Brézillon slammed the receiver down.
Justin or perhaps Voisenet came in the door. Voisenet, most likely.
“Going up like a volcano, sir. People are calling from all over the place. The whole of Paris knows all about it. People are panicking and painting 4s on anything flat. Don’t know which way to turn, sir.”
“Don’t turn any way. Let it go.”
“If you say so, sir.”
The mobile phone rang again and Adamsberg went back to his wall-prop position. Would it be the Ministry of the Interior? Or the state prosecutor? When all about him were losing their cool, Adamsberg found it easier to keep his head. Ever since he’d got his bearings back, his tenseness had slackened off by degrees.
It was Decambrais on the line. Only he wasn’t ringing to say he’d read the papers and that we were about to fall off a cliff. Decambrais was still focusing on the “specials” that he was the first to see, before they got to the AFP. The plague-monger was still giving the town crier a modest head start, maybe because he felt he owed it to the man who’d given him his first audience, or maybe to say thank you for not having grumbled about it.
“This morning’s ‘special’,” Decambrais said. “A tricky one. It’s long, so get pencil and paper first.”
“I’ve got both.”
Threescore years and ten had passed since the last lash of that fearsome scourge and men went freely about their business when dot dot dot, there came into port dot dot dot, a ship laden with cotton and other merchandise. Dot dot dot.
“Commissaire, I’m giving you the suspension points out loud so you can write down the text as it is written.”
“I understand. Go on, please. Slowly.”
But the licence given to voyagers to enter the city with their baggage and their mixing with the inhabitants soon had dire effects. For as early as dot dot dot messire dot dot dot who were physicians went to warn the aldermen of the city that having been called on the morning of dot dot dot to the side of an ailing sailor, Eissalene by name, they judged him to be sick with the Contagion.
“Is that it?”
“No, there’s a curious epilogue about the aldermen’s state of mind that’s going to make your boss’s day.”
“I’m all ears.”
The aldermen were fearful on receiving such counsel. As if they had already foreseen the misfortunes and dangers which they would soon endure, they fell into a slough of despond which spoke outwardly of the anguish in their souls. Verily, we should not be surprised that fear of the pestilence and its first steps in the city threw their minds into a frenzy, for the Holy Writ doth tell us that of the three plagues that the Lord threatened to visit on His People the Pestilence is the harshest and least forgiving.
“I doubt the Super has fallen into a slough of despond,” Adamsberg remarked. “He’s more inclined to throw other people into a pile of shit.”
“I know what you mean. I’ve been through it myself, in a different context. A fall guy has to be found. Are you nervous about keeping your job?”
“We’ll see about that. What does today’s broadcast say to you, Decambrais?”
“It says that it’s long. It’s long because it has two purposes. One, to make public fear seem justified by showing that the authorities were right to be scared. Two, to forecast more killings. And to forecast them precisely. I’ve got an inkling what’s going on here, Adamsberg, but I have to go and check. I’m not a specialist.”
“How’s Le Guern’s audience doing?”
“Bigger than yesterday evening. It’s getting hard to find standing room in the square at the newscast hour.”
“The captain should start charging admission. Then at least someone would be doing well out of all this.”
“Careful, commissaire. I must warn you not to make that kind of joke. The Le Guerns may be rough customers, sir, but they’ve never stolen a farthing.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Well, Joss’s deceased great-great-grandfather is adamant about it. He comes to pay a call every now and again. It’s not like he’s dropping in every afternoon, but it is a fairly regular event.”
“Decambrais, did you paint the 4 shape on your front door this morning?”
“Are you trying to rub me up the wrong way, commissaire? I’ve taken my stand against morbid superstition. I’ll fight it on the beaches, I’ll fight it in the streets, I’ll never surrender! I, Ducoüedic, Hervé, Breton by birth and obstinate by nature, will stick my finger in the dyke until my dying day! Alongside Le Guern. And Lizbeth. You are cordially invited to join the resistance.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Decambrais was in full spate.
“Superstition is the rotten fruit of human stupidity! Stupidity is the seedbed of disinformation! And the sole product of disinformation is disaster! Superstition is the greatest pestilence mankind has ever known and it has killed more people than all plagues put together! Commissaire, please do try to catch the plague-monger before you’re sacked. I don’t know whether he’s aware of what he is doing, but he is wronging the population of Paris by driving it back down to the very lowest basement of human nature.”
Adamsberg hung up with a pensive smile on his face. “Aware of what he is doing.” Decambrais had put his finger on the thread that had been teasing Adamsberg’s mind since the previous evening. He was just beginning to see where that thread might lead. With his transcription of the last “special” in front of him, Adamsberg rang Vandoosler again while Justin, or maybe Voisenet, came into the office and used sign language to tell him that the total number of buildings affected by the plague of do-it-yourself 4s had just gone over the seven hundred mark. Adamsberg acknowledged the information with a measured blink. At the current rate of progress the figure would be in four digits by the evening.
“Vandoosler? Adamsberg here again. I want to read you this morning’s special, have you got time? It’ll take a moment or two.”
“Go ahead.”
Marc listened carefully to the commissaire’s calm voice relating how disaster was about to enter the city in the per
son of a young man called Eissalène.
“What does it mean, then?” Adamsberg asked when he’d finished reading, as if he was consulting a human dictionary. It didn’t occur to him that a solution to the mystery of the latest message wouldn’t be instantly forthcoming from the truckloads of knowledge that Marc Vandoosler had stacked up in his brain.
“Marseille.” Marc’s answer was loud and clear. “The plague is going to hit Marseille.”
Adamsberg was expecting some kind of diversionary tactic, since the plague-monger’s message alluded to a fresh outbreak, but he hadn’t imagined it would be outside of Paris.
“Are you quite sure of that, young man?”
“Sure as sure can be. The message refers to the Grand Saint-Antoine, a ship out of Syria and Cyprus that docked off Marseille, at the Fortress of If – you know, the island of Monte Cristo – on 25 May 1720, carrying a cargo of infected silk and with half its crew already dead. The names omitted from the message are those of two physicians, Peissonel and his son of the same name, who raised the alarm. The passage he’s quoting is pretty well known, as is the epidemic. It carried off almost half the population of Marseille.”
“Now that boy, Eissalène, the one the physicians went to see, do you know where they saw him?”
“Place Linche, called place de Lenche nowadays, just back of the north quay in the Vieux-Port. The primary seat of the contagion was in Rue de l’Escale, but the street disappeared long ago.”
“Could you conceivably have got any of that wrong?”
“No, sir, there’s not a shadow of a doubt. It is Marseille. I can send you a xerox of the original passage if you want some supporting evidence.”
“No need, Vandoosler. Thank you very much.”
* * *
Adamsberg felt shattered by this turn of events. He left his office and went to see Danglard in the conference room where alongside thirty other officers he was trying to cope with telephone callers and to track the path and intensity of the hurricane of mumbo-jumbo. The room reeked of stale beer and even more of human sweat.
Danglard put down the phone and jotted a number on his pad. “Soon there won’t be a can of paint left in the whole of Paris,” he muttered. He raised his dripping brow and looked at Adamsberg.
“Marseille,” said the commissaire as he stuck the transcription of the special in front of his number two. “The plague-monger’s on the move. We’re going on a trip, Danglard.”
“Good Lord! The docking of the good ship Grand Saint-Antoine!”
“You’re familiar with the passage, then?”
“You said Marseille, so it rings old bells. But I’m not sure I would have twigged without that clue.”
“Is it better known than all the other texts the plague-monger has pilfered?”
“Oh yes, definitely. The Marseille outbreak was the last epidemic in France, and dreadful it was too.”
“Not quite the last,” Adamsberg said as he handed his deputy the article on “Disease Number 9”. “Read that and you’ll understand why by this evening there won’t be a man or woman alive in Paris who’ll believe a word the police say.”
Danglard read the piece and nodded agreement.
“It’s a disaster,” he said.
“Please don’t use that word, Danglard, I beg you. Get me the Super in Marseille, in the Vieux-Port station.”
It took Danglard barely a second to consult his mental filing cabinet of all the police chiefs, superintendents and commissaires in the land (he also knew the names of every county, town and borough by heart).
“His name is Masséna. His predecessor was a complete thug who got himself relegated for suggesting that Arab immigrants should be beaten to pulp, and then acting on it. Masséna got promoted in his place. He’s a reliable and decent fellow.”
“That’s just as well,” Adamsberg said. “Because we’re going to have to team up with him.”
At five past six Adamsberg took up position on Place Edgar-Quinet in time to hear the late final newscast but it taught him nothing new. Ever since the monger had been obliged to use ordinary mail instead of the urn to get his messages to the town crier, he’d lost his freedom to vary between morning, lunchtime and evening newscasts. Adamsberg was aware of that. What he’d come for was to get a good look at the people milling round Le Guern’s soapbox. There were far more of them than there had been earlier that week and many of them had to crane their necks to glimpse the face of the “Crier” who was now famous for being the mouthpiece of the contagion. The two officers who kept the square under twenty-four-hour watch were also on hand to give Joss Le Guern protection if the crowd should turn nasty during a newscast.
Adamsberg was propping up a tree quite near the soapbox and Decambrais was giving him the rundown on the regulars who were there. He’d drawn up a neat list of about forty names, set out in three columns, for the “very regular,” the “fairly regular” and the “occasional,” with a fourth column for physical features “after the fact” as Le Guern might have said. He’d used red underlining for the people who laid bets on the outcomes of shipwrecks in the Atlantic approaches as retold every day in Everyman’s History of France; blue underlining for people who shot off to work as soon as the newscast was over; yellow for the idlers who hung around chatting in the square or drifted into the Viking; and purple for locals whose attendance was affected by street market hours. Decambrais used the list to point out the faces corresponding to the names that Adamsberg needed to memorise.
Carmella, three-master flying the Austrian flag, 405 register tons, in ballast out of Brest for Cardiff, ran aground on Gazck-ar-Vilers. Fourteen crew on board. All saved.
That was the end of the news, and Joss jumped off his box.
“Now look around quickly,” Decambrais said. “Anyone who looks surprised or mystified or is frowning or scowling is a novice.”
“Newcomers, right?”
“Exactly. Anyone who’s chatting, nodding, talking with his hands is a regular.”
Decambrais went to help Lizbeth top and tail the beans they’d got cheap by the bushel, and the commissaire went over to the Viking, slid under the protruding prow and sat down at the table he’d come to think of as his. The shipwreck gamblers were standing at the bar and money was changing hands noisily. Bertin kept the book to ensure there would be no cheating. People assumed that the barman’s divinely distinguished ancestry gave him a safe and unbribable pair of hands.
Adamsberg ordered a black coffee and studied Marie-Belle’s face in profile. She was sitting at the next table and penning a letter with the appearance of effort. She had fine features and would have been a real beauty if her lips had been more firmly shaped. She had thick, wavy hair down to her shoulders, like her brother, only hers was blonde – and clean. She looked up, smiled at Adamsberg, and went back to writing. The woman called Eva was sitting next to her and trying to help Marie-Belle get the job done. Eva wasn’t so pretty, probably because she was less able to be open. Her smooth-skinned, serious face, with dark bags under the eyes, seemed to Adamsberg to come straight out of a nineteenth-century oak-panelled drawing room.
“Is that all right? Do you think he’ll understand?” Marie-Belle asked Eva.
“It’s fine. But a bit short.”
“Should I mention the weather?”
“You could.”
Marie-Belle leaned over her screed once more, gripping her pen very tightly.
“There’s a double ‘c’ in ‘succumb’,” Eva said.
“Are you sure?”
“I think so. Let me try.”
Eva wrote the word out a couple of times on scrap paper, then furrowed her brow in perplexity.
“I’m not sure any more. I’m getting in a muddle.”
Marie-Belle looked up and turned toward Adamsberg.
“Commissaire,” she said shyly, “can you tell us if ‘succumb’ has one ‘c’ or two?”
It was the first time in his life that Adamsberg had been asked to give a ruling o
n how to spell a word. He had no idea.
“In the sentence ‘However, Damascus has not succumbed to the flu’,” Marie-Belle added.
“The context doesn’t make any difference,” Eva whispered with her head still bent over the scrap.
Adamsberg explained that he didn’t know a thing about spelling. Marie-Belle seemed quite dismayed by the news.
“But you’re a police officer,” she countered.
“But that’s the way it is, Marie-Belle.”
“I have to go,” Eva said as she lightly stroked Marie-Belle’s wrist. “I promised Damascus I would help him cash up.”
“Thanks for standing in for me, you’re very kind. Because what with this letter to do, I’m not going to get away in time.”
“The pleasure’s mine,” said Eva. “It keeps my mind off other things.”
She slipped away, and Marie-Belle immediately turned to Adamsberg.
“Commissaire, should I say anything about this … this affliction? Or is that something I should keep quiet about?”
Adamsberg shook his head slowly and firmly.
“Young lady, the affliction, as you call it, does not exist.”
“But the signs on the doors? And all those black bodies?”
Adamsberg shook his head side to side once again.
“A murderer, Marie-Belle, is quite sufficient to be getting on with. But plague there is not. Not the tiniest bit.”
“Should I believe you?”
“Blindly.”
Marie-Belle smiled again and suddenly became more relaxed.
“I fear Eva has fallen for Damascus,” she said with furrowed brow, as if Adamsberg, now he’d solved her problem about mentioning the plague, was going to straighten out all the other tangled bits of life. “The even-keel counsellor says it’s fine and good, that she’s waking up to life at last, and that we have to let her go her own way. But this time, for once, I don’t see things the same way he does.”
“Because?”
“Because Damascus is in love with big Lizzy, that’s why.”
“You aren’t fond of Lizbeth, I gather?”
