by Fred Vargas
‘Meaning what, capitaine?’ asked Adamsberg.
‘There’s a Maupassant story about a man who’s haunted by the death of his sweetheart, and he’s in despair that he’ll never see her face again. So, since he’s determined to look at her one last time, he digs up her grave till he reaches his beloved’s face. Which doesn’t look anything like the face he adored. All the same, he embraces her in her decayed state, and after that, instead of the perfume of his mistress, it’s the odour of her death that he carries round with him.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Adamsberg. ‘Charming.’
‘That’s Maupassant for you.’
‘Just a story, all the same. And the point of stories is to stop them happening in real life.’
‘Well, you never know.’
‘Jean-Baptiste,’ called the doctor. ‘Do you know how this woman died?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, I’m going to tell you. She had the back of her skull smashed in. Either she was hit with a heavy weapon, or perhaps something fell on her.’
Adamsberg moved away, lost in thought. An accident in the case of Elisabeth Châtel, and an accident in this case too – unless they were looking at two murders. Suddenly he felt disorientated. To kill two women, in order to open their graves three months later, seemed beyond all understanding. He waited in the damp grass for Ariane to finish her inspection.
‘Nothing else,’ said the doctor as she was hauled up out of the grave. ‘They haven’t taken so much as a tooth. I got the impression that the digging was aimed at the upper part of the head. Possibly whoever it was wanted some hair from the corpse. Or an eye,’ she added calmly. ‘But of course by now …’
‘I know what you’re going to say, Ariane,’ Adamsberg interrupted. ‘No eyes left.’
Danglard took refuge by the church, feeling thoroughly sick. He sheltered between two buttresses, forcing himself to study the typical construction of the little church, which had a chequerboard pattern of black flint and red brick. But the voices still reached him, despite the distance.
‘Well, if someone wanted a lock of hair,’ Adamsberg was saying, ‘why couldn’t they have cut it off the body earlier?’
‘If they had access to it.’
‘Look, I can imagine a sort of passion after death, like this Maupassant story, if you like, for one woman, Ariane, but hardly for two. Is it possible to see if the hair has been disturbed?’
‘No,’ said the doctor, taking off her gloves. ‘She had short hair and there’s no sign of it being tampered with. It’s possible that you’re dealing with some kind of fetishist tomb-disturber, with such a crazy obession that she has two strong men digging up graves to satisfy it. You can seal it up again whenever you like, Jean-Baptiste, we’ve seen all there is to see.’
Adamsberg approached the grave and read once more the name of the dead woman: Pascaline Villemot. He had already asked for information on the cause of death. He would probably gather something about it from village gossip before the official data reached him. He picked up the two large antlers which had remained on the ground and gave the men orders to fill the hole in again.
‘What are you doing with those?’ asked Ariane in surprise, as she climbed out of the overalls.
‘Stag’s antlers.’
‘I can see that, but why are you carrying them?’
‘Because I can’t leave them them here, Ariane, or in the café.’
‘As you like,’ said the doctor without insisting. She could see from Adamsberg’s eyes that his mood had taken him off into the unknown and that it was no use asking him questions.
XXVII
RUMOUR HAD GOT TO WORK, RUNNING FROM TREE TO TREE ALONG THE roads between Opportune-la-Haute and Haroncourt. Robert, Oswald and the punctuator walked into the little café where the police team was eating dinner. As Adamsberg had more or less expected.
‘God’s sakes, this grisly stuff’s following us round,’ said Robert.
‘Going ahead of you, to be more precise,’ said Adamsberg. ‘Have a seat,’ he went on, moving up to make room.
This time, Adamsberg was in charge of the group of men and the roles were subtly reversed. The three Normans looked discreetly at the strikingly beautiful woman who was eating with relish at the other end of the table, taking alternate sips of wine and water.
‘She’s a doctor, the police pathologist,’ Adamsberg explained, to help them cut short their usual circumlocutions.
‘And she’s working with you?’ said Robert.
‘She’s just examined the corpse of Pascaline Villemot.’
Robert indicated with a tilt of his chin that he had understood, and that he disapproved of such activity.
‘Did you know that someone had disturbed her grave?’ Adamsberg asked him.
‘I just knew Gratien had seen a ghost. You said it was going ahead of us.’
‘Ahead in time, Robert. We’re some months too late. We’re way behind the events.’
‘You don’t seem to be in much of a hurry,’ observed Oswald.
Veyrenc, whose nose was in his plate at the other end of the table, confirmed that with a nod of his head.
‘But beware the river that runs so deep and slow,
Meandering quietly as the winds start to blow,
And fear its coiled strength in the coming ordeal
For water relentless will always conquer steel.’
‘What’s he muttering about, that skewbald cop?’ asked Robert in a low voice.
‘Careful, Robert, don’t ever call him that. It’s personal.’
‘OK,’ Robert agreed. ‘But I can’t understand what he’s saying.’
‘He’s saying there’s no hurry.’
‘He doesn’t talk like ordinary folk, your cousin.’
‘No, it runs in the family.’
‘Oh, if it runs in the family, that’s different,’ said Robert with respect.
‘Stands to reason,’ murmured the punctuator.
‘And he’s not my cousin,’ added Adamsberg.
Robert was nursing a grudge. Adamsberg could work that out easily, from the way he was gripping his glass in his fist and grinding his teeth, as if he were chewing a piece of straw.
‘What’s up, Robert?’
‘You came because of Oswald’s ghost, not because of the stag.’
‘How do you know that? The two things happened at the same time.’
‘Don’t try to fool me, man from the Béarn.’
‘Do you want to take the antlers back?’
Robert hesitated.
‘No, now you’ve got ‘em, they’re yours. But don’t separate them. And don’t go forgetting them.’
‘I haven’t let them out of my sight all day.’
‘Good,’ said Robert, reassured. ‘And what is this ghost, anyway? Oswald said it was the figure of Death.’
‘Yes, he’s right in one way.’
‘And in another way?’
‘Let’s say it’s someone or something that doesn’t bode any good, far as I can see.’
‘And you come running,’ Robert whispered, ‘as soon as an idiot like Oswald tells you someone’s seen a ghost. Or when a poor woman like Hermance, who’s lost her wits, asks to see you.’
‘Someone else who’s not too bright, the caretaker in the cemetery at Montrouge, saw one as well. And in that cemetery too someone had had a grave dug up, and the coffin opened.’
‘Why did you say they’d “had” it dug up?’
‘Because two big lads were paid to do the work, and now they’re both dead.’
‘Couldn’t this person do it himself?’
‘It was a woman, Robert.’
Robert’s mouth fell open and he swallowed a large gulp of wine.
‘I can’t believe that,’ said Oswald. ‘It’s not human.’
‘But that’s what happens, Oswald.’
‘And the one who goes around ripping out stag’s hearts. That’s a woman, too?’
‘What’s that got to do
with it?’ asked Adamsberg.
Oswald thought for a moment, looking into his glass.
‘Too many things going on round here all at once,’ he said at last. ‘Maybe they’re connected.’
‘Criminals have their preferences, Oswald. The kind of people who rob tombs aren’t the same kind of people who kill stags.’
‘Takes all sorts,’ said the punctuator.
‘This here ghost,’ said Oswald, hazarding a direct question, ‘are we talking about the same one? The one who floats about and then digs up graves?’
‘I think so.’
‘Are you going to do something about it, then?’
‘If you can tell me anything about Pascaline Villemot, I’m listening.’
‘We only saw her on market days, but I can tell you now that she was as innocent as the Virgin Mary, and she didn’t have much of a life.’
‘It’s one thing to die,’ said Robert, ‘but it’s worse if you haven’t lived.’
And it still itches, sixty-nine years later, Adamsberg thought.
‘Do you know how she died?’
‘Maybe it’s tempting providence to talk about it. But she was knocked on the head by a stone, must have fallen out of the church wall, when she was weeding the bed underneath. They found her stretched out on her face, and the stone right beside her.’
‘Was there an inquest?’
‘The Evreux gendarmes came, and they said it was an accident.’
‘Was it, though?’ said the punctuator.
‘Was it what?’
‘Maybe it was an act of God’.
‘Don’t be bloody stupid, Achille. The whole world’s in chaos, God’s got better things to do than chuck stones at Pascaline.’
‘Did she work round here?’ Adamsberg asked.
‘She helped out at the shoe shop in Caudebec. But the one who knew her best is the priest. She was always going to confession. He’s got fourteen parishes, so he only comes here every other Friday. At seven sharp, those days, Pascaline was always down in the church. And she was probably the only woman in Opportune who’d never been with a man, so you wonder what she found to confess.’
‘Where’s he saying mass tomorrow?’
‘He’s not doing it any more. Finished.’
‘What do you mean? Is he dead?’
‘You’ve got death on the brain,’ commented Robert. ‘No, he’s not dead, but as good as. He’s depressed. It happened to the butcher in Arbec, and he was like it for two years. You’re not ill, but you go to bed and don’t want to get up. And you can’t say why.’
‘Sad,’ punctuated Achille.
‘My grandmother would’ve called it melancholy,’ said Robert. ‘Sometimes it would end up in the village pond.’
‘And the priest doesn’t want to get up?’
‘Seemingly he’s up and about, but he’s a changed man. Only with him, we can guess why. It’s because someone stole his relics. Knocked him sideways, they say.’
‘His pride and joy, they were,’ remarked Achille.
‘These relics, they’re supposed to be Saint Jerome’s bones, they were in the church in Le Mesnil. He was proud of them, all right. Mind you, three chicken bones rattling round in a glass case, that’s all they were.’
‘Oswald, don’t insult the Lord, we’re at table!’
‘I’m not insulting anyone, Robert. All I said was, Saint Jerome relics? Pull the other one, they’re fakes. Well, some people’ll believe anything. Still, for our priest it was like he’d had his guts pulled out.’
‘But can we go and visit?’
‘I just told you, the relics are gone.’
‘No, I mean call on the priest.’
‘Oh, that I don’t know. Me and Robert, we don’t have anything to do with priests, it’s like the cops. Can’t do this, can’t do that, always on at you about something.’
Oswald poured generous helpings of wine all round, as if to demonstrate his independence of the priest’s exhortations.
‘Some people,’ said Robert, dropping his voice, ‘say the priest slept around. They say, well, he’s a man like anyone else.’
‘So they say,’ said the punctuator darkly.
‘Just gossip? Or is there any evidence of that?’
‘That he’s a man?’
‘That he slept around,’ said Adamsberg patiently.
‘It’s because of his depression. When someone just collapses like that, and won’t say why, people generally say it’s because of a woman.’
‘That they do,’ said Achille.
‘And do they whisper any woman’s name?’ asked Adamsberg.
‘No idea,’ said Robert, clamming up. He threw a rapid glance at Adamsberg, then at Oswald, which might indicate, Adamsberg thought, that Hermance was somehow involved. During this brief exchange, Veyrenc was muttering as he attacked his apple tart:
‘The gods are my witness, I struggled without cease,
To conquer my poor heart, and find a time of peace.
But my mistress’s grace and the warmth of her heart
Pierced my soul with the force of a dagger’s sharp dart.’
The members of the Crime Squad stood up, preparing to return to Paris. Adamsberg, Veyrenc and Danglard were to stay on at the small hotel in Haroncourt. Back in its entrance hall, Danglard tugged Adamsberg’s sleeve.
‘Have you made your peace with Veyrenc?’
‘We’ve declared a truce. Because we’ve got work to do.’
‘You don’t want to hear about the four names you gave me?’
‘Tomorrow, Danglard,’ said Adamsberg, taking his room key off the hook. ‘I can hardly stand upright now.’
‘OK’, said the commandant, walking towards the wooden staircase. ‘But just in case you’re interested, two of them are already dead. That leaves three.’
Adamsberg froze, then put the key back on the hook.
‘Capitaine,’ he called.
‘I’ll get a bottle and a couple of glasses,’ said Danglard, wheeling round.
XXVIII
THREE CANE ARMCHAIRS AND A SMALL WOODEN TABLE ARRANGED IN A corner formed the reception area of the hotel. Danglard put down the glasses, lit the two candles on a brass candlestick and opened the bottle.
‘Just a token amount for me,’ said Adamsberg, pulling away his glass.
‘It’s only cider.’
Danglard poured himself a realistic helping and sat down facing the commissaire.
‘Sit on this side of me, Danglard,’ said Adamsberg, pointing to the left-hand chair. ‘And keep your voice down. Veyrenc doesn’t need to hear this from the room upstairs. Which ones have died?’
‘Fernand Gascaud and Georges Tressin.’
‘The little so-and-so and Big Georges,’ Adamsberg commented to himself, pulling at his cheek. ‘So when was this?’
‘Seven years ago and three years ago. Gascaud drowned in the swimming pool of a luxury hotel near Antibes. Tressin hadn’t done so well in the world. He lived in a shack. His Calor gas bottle exploded, set the whole place on fire.’
Adamsberg pulled his feet up on to the seat of the chair and put his arms round his knees.
‘Why did you say: “That leaves three”?’
‘Just counting.’
‘Danglard, were you seriously thinking that Veyrenc got rid of little Fernand and Big Georges?’
‘I’m merely pointing out that if there were another three unfortunate accidents, the Caldhez gang would have ceased to exist.’
‘Two accidental deaths are quite possible, aren’t they?’
‘You don’t believe that about Elisabeth and Pascaline. So why would you believe it about those other ones?’
‘In the case of the two women, there’s a ghost been seen prowling round, and there are a lot of common elements. Both from the same area, both religious, both virgins, both desecrated after death.’
‘And in the case of Fernand and Georges, both from the same village, both in the same boyhood gang, both cases of sudden
death.’
‘What about the other two, Roland and Pierrot?’
‘Roland Seyre runs a hardware shop in Pau, Pierre Ancenot is a gamekeeper. The four of them were regularly in touch with each other.’
‘It was a very close-knit gang.’
‘So Roland and Pierre presumably know that both Fernand and Georges have come to tragic ends. They might smell a rat, if they’ve got any intelligence.’
‘Intelligence wasn’t their strong point.’
‘In that case, they ought to be warned. To be on their guard.’
‘That would be slandering Veyrenc without any proof, Danglard.’
‘Or else risking the lives of the other two without lifting a finger. When the next one’s killed by a stray bullet during a hunting expedition, or has a rock fall on his head, you might regret not having slandered him a bit earlier.’
‘Why are you so sure of yourself, capitaine?’
‘The New Recruit didn’t come here for nothing.’
‘Obviously.’
‘He came for you.’
‘Yes.’
‘We’re agreed, then. It was you that asked me to find out about these characters – you were the first to suspect Veyrenc.’
‘Suspect him of what, Danglard?’
‘Of being after your hide.’
‘Or perhaps of coming to check something out?’
‘What would that be?’
‘The identity of the fifth boy.’
‘The one you’re taking care of personally.’
‘Exactly.’
Adamsberg interrupted himself and held out his glass.
‘Another symbolic dash,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ said Danglard, pouring in a couple of centimetres.
‘The fifth boy was older than the others. He didn’t take part in the attack. During the fight he was several metres away, under the walnut tree, seemed to be the leader, giving orders. The one who tells people what to do without getting his hands dirty, get the idea?’
‘Yes.’
‘From where he was, on the ground, little Veyrenc couldn’t see his face clearly.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because Veyrenc was able to name four of the attackers, but not the fifth. He suspected someone but he wasn’t sure. The others got four years of approved school, but the fifth got away.’
