by Fred Vargas
The doctor looked round the two poor little rooms, which indicated near-abject poverty rather than the means to buy expensive aromatherapy products.
‘But it doesn’t mean anything,’ he said tentatively.
‘That’s because you weren’t attending a woman who died a month or two back. Same smell there. Do you remember it, Danglard? You were there.’
‘I didn’t notice anything.’
‘Roman, what about you?’
‘Sorry, nothing.’
‘It was the same smell. So the same person could have been here and in the other case, just before they died. Who was the district nurse, doctor?’
‘A very competent woman. I’d recommended her to him.’
The doctor rubbed his shoulder, looking embarrassed.
‘She’s past retiring age. She has been, well, I have to say, working unofficially. So she could visit my patients every day without them having to pay too much. When there’s no money left, you have to turn a blind eye to the rules.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Claire Langevin. She’s very competent, forty years’ experience in hospital nursing and a specialist in geriatrics.’
‘Danglard, call the office. Get them to check with the old lady’s GP – call him and ask what was the name of the nurse who visited her.’
They stood talking shop for about twenty minutes while Danglard went back to the patrol car. The doctor had pulled out from under the patient’s bed a bottle of home-made fortified wine.
‘He always offered me a little glass of this stuff – real rot-gut.’
Then he had put it back under the bed, looking sad. Danglard returned.
‘Claire Langevin,’ he announced.
Silence. All eyes were on the commissaire.
‘A killer nurse,’ said Adamsberg. ‘One of the sort they call angels of death. When they come down to earth, they kill. And when they fall, they really fall.’
‘Oh my God,’ whispered the doctor.
‘How many other patients have you recommended her to, doctor?’
‘Oh my God.’
In under a month, the macabre list of the thirty-three victims of the death-dealing angel had been established: in hospitals, private nursing homes, clinics and in their own houses. She had spent the last half-century working in France, Germany and Poland, distributing death by injecting air bubbles into arm after arm.
One February morning, Adamsberg and four of his men had surrounded her suburban villa, with its gravel paths and neat little flower beds. Four experienced men, used to dealing with tough male killers, but that day reduced to a state of impotence, sweating with unease. When women went off the rails, Adamsberg said, the world seemed to teeter on its axis. In fact, he had confided to Danglard as they walked up the path, men only allow themselves to kill each other because women don’t, but when women cross the red line, the universe tilts.
‘Maybe,’ Danglard had said, feeling as upset as the others.
The door had opened on a very wrinkled old woman, neat and poised, who had asked the police to please be very careful of her flowers, her paintwork and her borders. Adamsberg had considered her carefully, but could find nothing in her face, neither the flame of hatred nor the fury of killing he had sometimes detected in others. Nothing but a blank-faced and unnaturally thin old woman. The men had handcuffed her almost in silence, reciting their usual formulae, to which Danglard had added under his breath: ‘Do not condemn woman if she stoops to such crime/Who knows with what torments she has fought all this time.’ Adamsberg had assented, without knowing who Danglard was supplicating with this evening prayer in broad daylight.
‘Yes, of course I remember the case,’ said Danglard with a shudder. ‘But she’s nowhere near here. They’ve got her under lock and key in Freiburg. She can’t be sending a shade over you from there.’
Adamsberg had stood up. Pressing his hands against the wall, he was watching the rain still falling.
‘No. Ten months and five days ago, Danglard, she somehow managed to kill a prison guard. And got herself out of the prison.’
‘Good God,’ said Danglard, crushing his plastic cup. ‘Why weren’t we told?’
‘The Baden Land authorities neglected to send us a message. Administrative slip-up. I only heard about it when I got back from leave.’
‘Have they found her?’
Adamsberg made a vague sign towards the street.
‘No, capitaine. She’s still out there somewhere.’
XIV
ESTALÈRE HELD OUT HIS HAND, DISPLAYING THE THREE PIECES OF GRAVEL from Clignancourt as if they were diamonds.
‘What is it, brigadier?’ asked Danglard, hardly taking his eyes off his computer screen.
‘It’s for him, commandant. What he asked me to find.’
Him. Adamsberg.
Danglard looked at Estalère without seeking to understand, and hurriedly pressed the button on the intercom. It was after nightfall, and his children were waiting for him to come home for supper.
‘Commissaire? Estalère’s got something for you. He’s on his way,’ he added for the young man’s benefit.
Estalère didn’t budge, still holding out his hand.
‘Take it easy, Estalère. He’ll be along in a minute. He never rushes.’
When Adamsberg came in five minutes later, the young officer had still hardly changed position. He was waiting, transformed into a statue by hope. He kept repeating to himself the commissaire‘s words at the conference: ‘Take Estalère, he’s got good eyesight.’
Adamsberg examined the trophy the young man offered him.
‘So they were waiting there, after all?’ he said with a smile.
‘Outside, by the door, up against the step.’
‘I knew you’d find them for me.’
Estalère stood upright, as pleased as a baby bird returning home from its first flight.
‘Right. Off to Montrouge,’ said Adamsberg. ‘We’ve only got one day left, so it will have to be a night-time job. Better be four people, six if possible. Justin, Mercadet and Gardon are on duty. They can go with you.’
‘Mercadet’s on night shift, but he’s asleep,’ pointed out Danglard.
‘Well, take Voisenet then. And Retancourt, if she agrees to put in some overtime. When she wants to, Retancourt can go without sleep, drive for ten nights in a row, cross Africa on foot and catch up with a plane in Vancouver. She channels her energy, it’s magic.’
‘I know, commissaire.’
‘You’ll have to check out all the parks, gardens, waste patches and so on. Don’t forget building sites. Take samples everywhere.’
Estalère went off practically at a run, clutching his treasure.
‘Do you want me to go too?’ asked Danglard, switching off his computer.
‘No, go home and have supper with the kids. I’ll do the same, because Camille is playing in a concert at Saint-Eustache.’
‘I can ask the neighbour to come in and give them their supper, if you want. We’ve only got twenty-four hours.’
‘Big Eyes will manage all right. He won’t be on his own.’
‘Why do you think he opens his eyes so wide?’
‘He must have seen something when he was a child. We all saw something when we were children. Some of us stayed with our eyes too wide open, or our body too big or our head too vague or …’ Adamsberg stopped himself and forced the thought of the New Recruit’s ginger streaks out of his mind. ‘I think Estalère found the gravel all on his own. I think Retancourt didn’t want to know, and just sat having a drink with the New Recruit. A beer, probably.’
‘Could be.’
‘Retancourt can still get mad at me.’
‘You drive everyone mad, commissaire. Why not her?’
‘Everyone, but not her. That’s what I’d like. See you tomorrow, Danglard.’
Adamsberg was lying on on his back on the new bed, with the child lying on his stomach like a little monkey clinging to its father’s f
ur. Both of them had had their supper, both of them were quiet and peaceful. They were snuggled up in the big red eiderdown that Adamsberg’s second sister had given him. No sign of the nun in the attic. Lucio Velasco had enquired discreetly about the presence there of Clarisse, and Adamsberg had reassured him.
‘Now I’m going to tell you a story, son,’ said Adamsberg in the dark. ‘A story from the mountains but not that opus spicatum. We’ve had enough of those walls. I’m going to tell you about an ibex, that’s a kind of mountain goat, in the Pyrenees, that met this other ibex. You need to know that an ibex doesn’t like it if another one comes on to his territory. He likes all the other animals – rabbits, bears, marmots, wild boar, all the birds, anything you like. But not another ibex. Because the other one wants to take over his territory and his wife. And he goes for him with his big horns.’
Thomas stirred, as if he recognised the seriousness of the situation, and Adamsberg caught his little fists in his hands.
‘Don’t worry, there’ll be a happy ending. But today, I nearly got hit by the horns. Only I hit back and the ginger ibex ran away. One day you’ll have horns too. The mountain will give them to you. And I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or not. But it’s your mountain, so you’ll have to put up with it. Tomorrow or the next day, the ginger ibex will be back for another try. I think he’s angry.’
The story sent Adamsberg to sleep before his son. In the middle of the night, when neither of them had moved an inch, Adamsberg suddenly opened his eyes and reached for the telephone. He knew her number by heart.
‘Retancourt? Are you in bed or in Montrouge?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Montrouge, on some muddy building site.’
‘Bit of waste land.’
‘And the others?’
‘Scattered around. We’re looking everywhere, picking stuff up.’
‘Call them all in, lieutenant. Where are you exactly?’
‘Opposite 123 Avenue Jean-Jaurès.’
‘Stay where you are. I’m on my way.’
Adamsberg got up with care, put on his trousers and jacket, and attached the baby in a sling across his stomach. If he kept one hand over Tom’s head and another under his bottom, there was no risk that he would wake up. And so long as Camille did not find out that he had taken his son out on a cold night to Montrouge with a lot of bad company, namely the police, all would be well.
‘You won’t tell on me, will you, Tom?’ he whispered, wrapping the baby in a blanket. ‘You won’t tell her where we’ve been tonight? Don’t have any choice – we’ve only got one day left. Come along, little one, and stay asleep.’
A taxi put him down on the Avenue Jean-Jaurès twenty minutes later. The group was waiting for him, huddled together on the pavement.
‘Jean-Baptiste, you’re crazy to bring the baby out,’ said Retancourt, coming up to the car.
Occasionally, as a consequence of the close contact which had saved their lives, the commissaire and lieutenant moved on to first-name terms, as a train switches points, passing into the ‘tu’ of intimate complicity. They knew that their union was indestructible. An unswerving love, like all those that are never consummated.
‘Don’t worry, Violette, he’s sleeping like an angel. As long as you don’t give me away to Danglard, who would give me away to Camille, it’ll be all right. Why’s the New Recruit here?’
‘He’s replacing Justin.’
‘How many cars have you got?’
‘Two.’
‘You take one, I’ll go in the other. Meet up at the main gate to the cemetery.’
‘Why?’ asked Estalère.
Adamsberg rubbed his cheek.
‘Your gravel, brigadier. Do you remember what made Diala and Paille kill themselves laughing?’
‘They laughed at something?’
‘Yes,’ said Voisenet. ‘When Emilio told them to keep their voices down.’
‘That’s right, when Emilio said they were shouting loud enough to waken the dead. That could be because they had just been waking the dead. It was the job they’d been hired to do. Dig up someone’s grave.’
‘Oh, the big cemetery, here, in Montrouge,’ said Gardon suddenly. ‘That must be it.’
‘They must have had to open a grave. Come on. Bring all your torches.’
The cemetery attendant proved hard to wake but easy to question. In the endless nights here, a diversion, even one caused by the police, made a welcome change. Yes, a grave had been disturbed. Someone had lifted a tombstone. In fact, they’d broken it by turning it over. It had been found in two pieces alongside the tomb. The family had had a new slab put in its place.
‘And the grave?’ asked Adamsberg.
‘What about the grave?’
‘After the stone was taken off, what happened? Did they dig it up?’
‘No, they didn’t even do that. Just vandals.’
‘When was this?’
‘About a fortnight ago. It was a night between Wednesday and Thursday. I’ll look it up.’
The man pulled out of a bookcase a large register with grubby pages.
‘The night of the sixth to the seventh of March,’ he said. ‘I have to put everything down in here. Do you want the location of the grave?’
‘Later. For now, just take us there.’
‘Oh, no, no,’ said the attendant, retreating into his little cubbyhole.
‘Just take us to the grave, for Christ’s sake. How do you think we’re going to find it without you? The cemetery’s huge.’
‘No,’ said the man. ‘No way.’
‘Are you on duty here, yes or no?’
‘There are two of us now. So I’m not setting foot in there.’
‘Two? There’s another attendant?’
‘No, someone else comes at night.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t want to know. A shape. So I’m not going in there.’
‘Have you seen it?’
‘Like I’m seeing you. Not a man, not a woman, a shape, grey, moving slowly. It slides along as if it was going to fall. But it doesn’t fall.’
‘When did you see this?’
‘Two or three nights before the stone was broken. So I’ve stopped going in.’
‘Well, we have to go in, and you’re coming with us. We won’t leave you on your own. I’ve got a lieutenant here who’ll protect you.’
‘You’re not giving me any choice, is that it? Cops, always the same. And you’ve brought a baby along? And you’re not scared?’
‘The baby’s asleep. The baby isn’t scared of anything. If he’s going in, you can, can’t you?’
Flanked by Retancourt and Voisenet, the attendant led them quickly towards the grave, still extremely anxious to get back to the safety of his hut.
‘There you are,’ he said. ‘It was there.’
Adamsberg pointed a torch at the tombstone, a horizontal slab. ‘A young woman,’ he said. ‘Who died aged thirty-six, over three months ago. Do you know how?’
‘A car crash, that’s all they told me. Sad.’
‘Yes.’
Estalère was looking at the alley between the graves.
‘The gravel, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s the same.’
‘Yes, brigadier. Take a sample, though.’
Adamsberg turned the beam of his torch on to his two watches.
‘Almost half past five. In another half an hour, we can wake the family. We’ll need their permission.’
‘To do what?’ asked the guardian, now somewhat reassured by his group escort.
‘To take the slab off.’
‘How many times is this blessed slab going to be moved?’
‘If we can’t take it up, how are we going to find out why they did it?’
‘Logical,’ murmured Voisenet.
‘But they didn’t dig anything up,’ protested the attendant. ‘I’ve already told you. There wasn’t anything out of place, not a scratch. And on the earth there w
ere still faded rosebuds from the funeral. That proves they didn’t touch it, doesn’t it?’
‘Possibly, but we need to make sure.’
‘Don’t you believe me?’
‘Listen, two men were killed two days later because of this. They got their throats cut. High price to pay, isn’t it, for turning over a tombstone? Just out of vandalism.’
The attendant scratched his stomach in puzzlement.
‘So they must have done something else,’ Adamsberg continued.
‘Well, I don’t see what.’
‘That’s what we‘re going to see.’
‘OK.’
‘And to do that we need to take the stone off again.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Veyrenc pulled Retancourt to one side.
‘Why does the commissaire wear two watches?’ he asked. ‘Is he on US time or something?’
‘No, he’s not on any time in particular. I think he already had one, then his girlfriend gave him one, so he put that one on as well. And since then he’s had two watches.’
‘Because he can’t decide between them?’
‘No, I think it’s simpler than that. He’s got two watches, so he wears two watches.’
‘I see.’
‘You’ll soon learn.’
‘I can’t work out why he thought of checking the cemetery. Given that he was asleep.’
‘Retancourt,’ Adamsberg called. ‘The men can go and rest. I’ll come back with another team when I’ve taken Tom back to his mother. Can you hold the fort until then, and take care of the permissions?’
‘I’ll stay with her,’ proposed the New Recruit.
‘Oh yes, Veyrenc?’ asked Adamsberg sharply. ‘You think you can stay awake long enough?’
‘And you don’t think I can?’
The lieutenant had briefly closed his eyes, and Adamsberg was cross with himself for alluding to it. Ibex bucks in the mountains. The lieutenant ran his hand through his strange hair. Even at night the auburn streaks showed up.
‘We’ve got work to do, Veyrenc, nasty work,’ said Adamsberg in a gentler tone. ‘If it’s waited thirty-four years, it can wait a few more days. I propose we have a truce.’
