by Fred Vargas
‘They couldn’t give a shit. Thick as two short planks. They didn’t even stir themselves to take a look.’
‘And you did?’
‘Yeah, this time we did. The Champ de Vigorne, that’s close to us, understand?’
‘So is it a tenner or a niner?’
‘A tenner, of course. Oswald, he just talks a lot of rubbish to annoy. His mother was from Opportune, just by where they found the stag. So, of course, he’s showing off about it. But come on, dammit, are you coming up here for a drink or not? We can’t wait for ever.’
Adamsberg was trying to think of the best way to wriggle out of the situation, which was difficult, since Robert considered the slaughter of the stags as weighing the same in the balance as two men who’d had their throats cut. In the obstinacy stakes, it seemed that Normans – these ones, at any rate – were as bad as the Béarnais, at least the ones from the Gave de Pau and Ossau valleys.
‘I can’t, Robert, I’ve got a ghost on my hands.’
‘Well, Oswald’s got one too, and that doesn’t stop him coming out for a drink.’
‘He’s what? Oswald?’
‘He’s got a ghost on his hands, like I said. In the graveyard at Opportune-la-Haute. Well, it was his nephew that saw it. He’s been going on about it for a month now.’
‘Put Oswald on the line.’
‘Can’t, he’s gone out. But if you come, he’ll be back here. He wants to see you too.’
‘Why?’
‘Because his sister’s asked him to see you, about the thing in the graveyard. Maybe she’s right, ‘cos the police in Evreux, they don’t want to know.’
‘But what was it, this thing, Robert?’
‘Don’t ask me, I don’t know.’
Adamsberg consulted his watches. Almost seven o’clock.
‘I’ll see what I can do, Robert.’
The commissaire put the mobile back in his pocket, and gazed ahead of him. Veyrenc was still sitting in the car.
‘Something urgent?’
Adamsberg leaned his head against the glass of the window.
‘No, it’s nothing.’
‘But he was talking about a heart being torn out.’
‘It’s a stag, lieutenant. Up there, they’ve got someone who gets his kicks cutting up stags, and that’s got them all in a sweat.’
‘A poacher?’
‘No, not at all, someone who just likes killing stags. And they’ve got a ghost too, a Shade, up there in Normandy.’
‘Nothing to do with us, though, is it?’
‘Nope, not at all.’
‘So why are you going?’
‘I’m not going, Veyrenc. I can’t do anything about it.’
‘I thought you seemed like you wanted to go.’
‘Too tired and it’s of no importance,’ said Adamsberg, opening his door. ‘I’d end up smashing the car and me with it. I’ll call Robert later.’
The car’s doors slammed. Adamsberg locked it. The two men prepared to separate a few yards further on, in front of the Brasserie des Philosophes.
‘If you want,’ Veyrenc said, ‘I could drive and you could sleep. We could get up there and back in the evening.’
Adamsberg, his mind a blank, stared at the car keys he was still holding.
XXII
COMING IN THROUGH THE RAIN, ADAMSBERG PUSHED OPEN THE DOOR of the café in Haroncourt. Anglebert had risen to greet him, standing stiffly, a posture immediately adopted by the rest of the tribe.
‘Sit down, man from the Béarn,’ said the old man, shaking his hand. ‘We kept some food warm for you.’
‘Two of you?’ asked Robert.
Adamsberg introduced Veyrenc as a colleague, an event which occasioned another round of handshakes, with a little more suspicion, and the arrival of an extra chair. All of them cast quick glances at the striking hair of the newcomer. But there was no risk here of questions about this phenomenon, however unusual. That did not prevent the men from pondering the strange apparition, and working out ways to find out more about the disciple whom the commissaire had brought along. Anglebert was examining the similarities in appearance of the two policemen, and drawing his own conclusions.
‘A cousin a few times removed,’ he said, filling up the glasses.
Adamsberg was beginning to understand the way the Norman mind worked: in a sly and crafty fashion, contriving to put a question without ever asking directly. The intonation would drop at the end of the sentence, as if for a false statement.
‘Removed?’ asked Adamsberg, since, being from the Pyrenees, he was entitled to ask questions.
‘Further off than a first cousin,’ explained Hilaire. ‘Anglebert’s my cousin four times removed. As for this one,’ he said, pointing to Veyrenc, ‘you’re about six or seven times removed.’
‘Could be,’ Adamsberg conceded.
‘Anyway, he’s from your part of the country.’
‘Not far off, true.’
‘Police is full of guys from the south-west, then,’ Alphonse asked, without seeming to ask.
‘Before him, I was the only one.’
‘Veyrenc de Bilhc’, the New Recruit said, presenting himself.
‘Veyrenc will do,’ said Robert, simplifying.
There were several nods to signify that this proposal was accepted. It still didn’t enlighten anyone about Veyrenc’s hair. That enigma would clearly take years to solve and they would have to be patient. A second plate was brought for the New Recruit, and Anglebert waited until both men had finished eating before making a sign to Robert to get down to business. Robert solemnly set out photographs of the stag on the table.
‘It’s not in the same position,’ said Adamsberg, to try and stimulate in himself an interest he did not feel.
He was not even capable of saying why he had come at all, or how Veyrenc had understood that he wanted to come.
‘Two shots hit him full on, in the chest, he collapsed on his side and the heart’s down on the right.’
‘So the killer doesn’t have a standard approach.’
‘Just wants to kill the animal, full stop.’
‘Or get at its heart,’ put in Oswald.
‘What are you going to do about it, man from the Béarn?’
‘Go and take a look.’
‘What, now?’
‘If one of you can take me there. I’ve brought some torches.’
The abruptness of this proposal took them aback.
‘Well, I suppose so,’ said the old man.
‘Oswald could go with you. He could go and see his sister.’
‘Could do,’ said Oswald.
‘You’ll have to give them a bed for the night. Or bring them back here. No hotel up in Opportune.’
‘We have to get back to Paris tonight,’ said Veyrenc.
‘Unless we stay here,’ said Adamsberg.
An hour later they were examining the scene of the murder. Once he had viewed the animal, lying in the path, Adamsberg understood at last the genuine pain felt by the men of the village. Oswald and Robert both lowered their heads in distress. It was an animal, a stag, yes, but it was also a scene of pure savagery, a massacre of beauty.
‘A cracking male,’ said Robert with an effort. ‘Still had plenty of life in him.’
‘He had his herd,’ Oswald explained. ‘Five hinds. Six fights last year. I tell you, a stag like that, he’d fight like a hero, he’d have kept his hinds another four or five years before another male could beat him. Nobody from round here would have shot this one. Used to call him the Red Giant. His fawns are sturdy little things, you could see that right off.’
‘See, he had these three red patches on the right, and two on the left. That’s why they called him the Red Giant.’
A brother, or at least a cousin a few times removed, thought Veyrenc, folding his arms. Robert knelt down by the huge carcass and stroked its hide. In this wood, in the middle of the night, under the pouring rain, with these unshaven men standing round him, Adamsberg
had to make an effort to remember that somewhere else, at the same time, cars were moving through streets and television sets were working. Mathias’s prehistoric times seemed to be appearing in front of him, intact. He was no longer quite sure whether the Red Giant was an ordinary stag, or perhaps a man, or even some divine being who had been slaughtered, robbed and despoiled. The kind of stag that prehistoric men painted on the walls of a cave, in order to honour its memory.
‘We’ll bury him tomorrow,’ said Robert, rising heavily to his feet. ‘We were waiting for you, see. We wanted you to see it with your own eyes. Oswald, pass me the axe.’
Oswald felt in his big leather pouch and brought the axe out without a word. Robert felt the edge with his fingers, knelt again alongside the stag’s head, then hesitated. He turned to Adamsberg.
‘You do the honours, man from the Béarn,’ he said. ‘Cut off the antlers.’
‘Robert …’ said Oswald, uncertainly.
‘No, I’ve thought about it, Oswald, he deserves them. He was tired, he was back in Paris, but he came all this way for the Red Giant. He gets the honour, he gets the antlers.’
‘But Robert,’ Oswald insisted. ‘He’s not from round here.’
‘Well, he is now,’ said Robert, putting the axe in Adamsberg’s hands.
Adamsberg found himself holding a sharp weapon, and being pulled towards the stag’s head.
‘You cut them for me,’ he said to Robert. ‘I don’t want to make a mess of it.’
‘Can’t do that. You want ‘em, you have to cut ‘em off yourself.’
Guided by Robert, who held the beast’s head down on the ground, Adamsberg gripped the axe and struck six blows close to the skull, in the places indicated by the Norman’s finger. Robert took back the axe, lifted the antlers and put them in the commissaire‘s arms. About four kilos each, Adamsberg estimated, feeling their weight.
‘Don’t lose them now,’ said Robert. ‘They bring long life.’
‘Well,’ put in Oswald, ‘that’s not for sure, but they won’t hurt.’
‘And never separate them,’ Robert went on. ‘Hear what I’m saying? Never put one somewhere without the other.’
Adamsberg nodded in the dark, gripping the ridged antlers in his hands. It was certainly not the moment to drop them. Veyrenc shot him an ironic glance.
‘Do not stumble, my lord, ‘neath the trophies of life,’ he murmured.
‘I didn’t ask for this, Veyrenc.’
‘They were offered to you, you yourself gripped the knife,
Do not seek to escape the strange chance of this night
Which makes you the bearer of hope and new light.’
‘That’ll do, Veyrenc. Carry them yourself, or shut up.’
‘No, my lord, neither one nor the other.’
XXIII
OSWALD’S SISTER, HERMANCE, OBSERVED TWO RITUALS WHICH WERE supposed to protect her from the dangers of the world: not to stay awake after ten at night, and not to allow anyone into the house wearing shoes. Oswald and the two policemen went up the stairs silently, holding their muddy shoes in their hands.
‘There’s only one spare bedroom,’ Oswald whispered, ‘but it’s a big one. Is that all right?’
Adamsberg nodded, though he was far from eager to spend the night with the lieutenant. Similarly, Veyrenc was relieved to note that the room contained two high wooden bedsteads, about two metres apart.
‘Between the two couches, the valley must be deep,
So that bodies and souls are separate in sleep.’
‘The bathroom’s next door,’ Oswald added. ‘Don’t forget to stay barefoot. You put your shoes on, you could be the death of her.’
‘Even if she doesn’t find out?’
‘Everything gets found out here, especially things that didn’t ought to be. I’ll be downstairs, man from the Béarn. We should have a word.’
Adamsberg threw his damp jacket over the rail of the left-hand bed and gently laid the antlers on the floor. Veyrenc had already lain down fully dressed, facing the wall. The commissaire joined Oswald in the little kitchen.
‘You cousin’s asleep already?’
‘He’s not my cousin, Oswald.’
‘The hair, I suppose that’s something personal?’
‘Very,’ said Adamsberg. ‘Now, what have you got to tell me?’
‘It’s not me wants to tell you, it’s Hermance.’
‘But she doesn’t know me, Oswald.’
‘Maybe someone told her about you.’
‘Who?’
‘Parish priest, perhaps. Don’t ask. Hermance, she’s not what you might call reasonable. She’s got her own ideas all right, but we don’t always know where they come from.’
Oswald’s voice had trailed off sadly, and Adamsberg changed the subject.
‘Never mind, Oswald. Tell me about the ghost.’
‘Wasn’t me that saw it, it was my nephew. Gratien.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Over five weeks ago, one Tuesday night.’
‘And where?’
‘In the graveyard, of course. Where do you think?’
‘What was your nephew doing in the graveyard?’
‘He wasn’t in there, he was in the lane that goes up the top of it. Well, goes up or down, depending which way you’re facing. Tuesdays and Friday nights, he meets his girlfriend up there when she’s worked her shift. Whole village knows about it, except his mother.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Seventeen. With Hermance going off to sleep at ten, like clockwork, it’s easy for him to slip out. Mind now, don’t give him away.’
‘So what next, Oswald?’
Oswald filled two small glasses with calvados and sat down with a sigh. He raised his pale eyes towards Adamsberg and drank it off.
‘Good health.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Want me to tell you something?’
He’s going to tell me anyway, thought Adamsberg.
‘This is the first time an outsider’s been let take the antlers out of the district. I’ve seen it all now.’
‘Seen it all’ is a bit much, thought Adamsberg. But obviously this business with the stag was serious. ‘They were offered to you, you yourself gripped the knife.’ The commissaire was both surprised and annoyed at himself for having memorised one of Veyrenc’s lines of verse.
‘Does it bother you if I take them?’ he asked.
Faced with a direct and intimate question, Oswald gave an oblique anwer.
‘It’s like this. Robert, he must have a deal of respect for you, do a thing like that. Then again, I suppose he knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t make mistakes, as a rule.’
‘So it’s not so bad, then?’ said Adamsberg, with a smile.
‘No, I suppose not. When all’s said and done.’
‘Well, what next, Oswald?’
‘Like I said. Then he saw this ghost.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘This shape, like a tall woman, if you could call it a woman, all grey, all muffled up, no face. Figure of death, sort of. I wouldn’t say that if my sister was here, but man to man we can say that kind of thing, can’t we?’
‘Yes.’
‘So I’ll say it. Death. Didn’t walk like ordinary people. Kind of gliding along in the cemetery, very stiff and slow. Not in a hurry, going step by step.’
‘Does your nephew like a drink?’
‘No, not yet. Just because he’s sleeping with his girlfriend doesn’t mean he’s a man yet. As for this ghost, what it did I can’t say. Or what it was looking for. Afterwards we watched to see if anyone died in the village. No, nothing like that.’
‘And that’s all he saw?’
‘Well, he ran straight home without waiting to find out. What would you do? So why did she come? Why here?’
‘I have no idea, Oswald.’
‘The priest says she appeared before, in 1809, and that was the year the apple harvest failed. The branches were bare as my a
rm.’
‘No other consequences? Besides the apples?’
Oswald stole a glance at Adamsberg. ‘Robert says you’ve seen a ghost too.’
‘I haven’t seen mine, I’ve just thought about it. It’s a sort of dark cloud, a Shade, a veil that falls over me when I’m in the office. A doctor would say I’m imagining things. Or perhaps reviving some bad memory.’
‘Doctors don’t reckon much to this sort of thing.’
‘Well, maybe they’re right. It’s probably just a dark thought. Not yet out of my head, roaming about inside.’
‘Like the deer’s antlers before they grow.’
‘Exactly,’ said Adamsberg, with a sudden smile.
This idea greatly pleased him, since it almost resolved the matter of his own dark Shade. The weight of a dark idea, formed inside the mind but not yet making its way to the outside. Like a child struggling to be born.
‘This idea, you just get it at work?’ asked Oswald, thoughtfully. ‘You don’t get it here?’
‘No.’
‘Well, something must have come into your squad,’ explained Oswald, gesturing. ‘Then the thing got in your head, because you’re the boss. That’s logical, isn’t it?’
Oswald emptied the last drop of calvados into the glasses.
‘Or maybe it’s something personal to you,’ he added. ‘Anyway, I got the boy here. He’s waiting outside.’
No choice. Adamsberg followed Oswald outside.
‘You haven’t put your shoes back on,’ Oswald pointed out.
‘It’s fine like this. Ideas can circulate through the soles of your feet.’
‘Well, if that were true,’ said Oswald with a half-smile, ‘my sister’d have plenty of ideas.’
‘And she doesn’t?’
‘Tell you God’s truth, she’s kind enough to melt a heart of stone, but there’s nothing between her ears. But there it is. She’s my sister.’
‘What about Gratien?’
‘No comparison. Takes after his father, sharp as a needle.’
‘And his father is … ?’
Oswald clammed up immediately, drawing in his horns like a snail.
‘Amédée left your sister, then?’ Adamsberg insisted.
‘How do you know his name?’
