by Fred Vargas
‘The recluse doesn’t either.’
‘What do you mean?’
Voisenet realised that the light bulb that had switched on in Adamsberg’s head was still there. His expression was usually so vague that you couldn’t miss it when the spark appeared in his eyes.
‘It eats insects, like birds do. So it must eat insecticides. That’s part of the big debate on the internet to explain the deaths.’
‘Go on.’
‘I don’t know whether I ought to “go on”, sir. What are we up to with this recluse spider? What business is it of ours?’
‘Put it another way. What is the recluse up to?’
‘It’s biting people, and by bad luck it chanced on some old men. And they died.’
‘And why did it attack just old people?’
‘I think it might have bitten anyone, but we only noticed the old men. Usually, like all spiders, the recluse gives a harmless bite. That’s to say, it doesn’t inject any venom at all. The bite’s to warn you off, but the spider doesn’t want to waste venom on humans, we’re not her food supply. With a mild bite, all you see is two little red spots on your skin and nobody bothers about them. Someone who’s bitten doesn’t even know he’s come across a recluse. See? Or else, another possibility, it only empties one of its two venom glands, to save its supply. And the reaction will still be quite minor. Same result, no one’s bothered. And there are some people who don’t react to spider bites at all. They might have a little pink mark, followed by a swelling, coming to a bit of a head, but it all goes away on its own.’
‘So?’
‘Well,’ said Voisenet, refilling their glasses, ‘that could mean that fifteen people have been bitten since the warm weather started, but they never noticed. Except for these three men.’
Adamsberg shook his head.
‘But you said, didn’t you, that the recluse spider isn’t aggressive?’
‘No, that’s right, it hides away in holes, it’s timid. Hence its name. It cloisters itself from the world. It doesn’t spin a web in the corner of a window like the big spiders you see round the house.’
‘Big black ones, yes?’
‘Yes. Harmless by the way. But the recluse just comes out prudently at night to feed and once a year to mate.’
‘So it rarely bites anyone?’
‘Only if it has no choice. You could have recluse spiders in your house for years and never see one or get bitten. Unless you happen to put your hand on it as it creeps along in its timid way.’
‘Right. So a bite is very rare. And how many bites were recorded last year?’
‘Something like five or seven for the whole season.’
‘And now we’ve had three, these old people, in three weeks. Not to mention the fifteen others that might not have been noticed, and the season’s only just beginning. Do we have any statistics about recluse bites?’
‘No, because nobody’s ever been bothered about them. Their bite isn’t fatal.’
‘We’re getting to it now, Voisenet. Were there any elderly victims last year?’
‘Yes.’
‘And did they die?’
‘No.’
‘Young victims?’
‘No, they didn’t die either.’
‘Did everyone who was bitten have the same reaction, what you call a minor one?’
‘According to what I read, yes.’
‘See what I’m getting at, Voisenet? There’s something wrong. Three old men have been bitten, and three have died, or as good as. And that’s something new. Sorry, there’s no dessert, no fruit or anything.’
‘Well, fruit is stuffed as full of pesticides as spiders are. As is wine,’ added the lieutenant, examining his glass before taking another sip.
Adamsberg cleared the table, pulled his chair up in front of the empty grate, and sat down with his feet on the fender.
‘Three dead, or as good as,’ Voisenet repeated. ‘Agreed, it isn’t normal. And that’s exactly what people are talking about.’
‘What’s it like, a bad reaction to a recluse bite? Why would you die?’
‘Well, its venom isn’t neurotoxic, which is the case for most spiders. It’s necrotic. That’s to say, it decomposes the flesh around the wound. The necrosis can spread up to twenty centimetres long and ten across.’
‘I’ve seen some photos of the wounds online,’ Adamsberg said. ‘Black, deep and repulsive. Like gangrene.’
‘That’s right, it is a kind of gangrene. But with antibiotics, it regresses, and can be healed. Sometimes the necrosis is serious enough for plastic surgery to be needed, to get the limb looking more or less normal. One time, this guy lost his ear. Eaten away.’
‘Sounds atrocious.’
‘Ah, you see, my moray eel seems nice and clean by contrast.’
‘Yes, I guess so.’
‘Although an eel’s bite can cause a bad infection too, because of the bacteria between its teeth. And that’s the point, sir, the necrosis caused by the spider can trigger a general sepsis or reach vital organs. Or it can destroy the red blood corpuscles, and damage the liver and kidneys. But for heaven’s sake, that’s extremely rare! Only in the case of very young children or very old people. Whose immune system has either not got going properly or has started to fail.’
Voisenet stood up in turn, took a few steps, then leaned on his chair.
‘That’s what we have, sir. Three men, whose bites were fatal because they were old. And that’s it. End of story.’
‘Because they were old, end of story?’ repeated Adamsberg. ‘But in that case, what are all these people discussing on the internet?’
‘Well, everything. Except that there’s no police investigation going on.’
‘What are they talking about then?’ Adamsberg insisted.
‘The cause of death. There are two theories. The one that’s causing the most panic online is that the spiders have somehow mutated: because they’ve absorbed so many insecticides and other rubbish that changes their organism, the venom of recluse spiders may have mutated to become deadly.’
Adamsberg left the hearth to fetch a packet of cigarettes left by his son Zerk on the sideboard. He pulled out a crumpled one.
‘And the other theory?’
‘Global warming. The power of the venom is increased by heat. The most dangerous spiders in the world live in hot countries. Last year, France had one of its hottest summers ever. Then the following winter wasn’t wintry at all. And now, it’s already been abnormally warm for three weeks. So the toxicity of the venom could have increased, possibly the size of the creatures too, and their glands.’
‘That’s not daft.’
‘Daft or not, commissaire, it’s nothing to do with us.’
‘I need to know more. About the victims and about the recluse.’
‘About the victims? Are you serious?’
‘Something’s wrong somewhere, Voisenet. It isn’t normal.’
‘OK. Global warming, pesticides? Do you find it normal that we can’t eat apples any more?’
‘No, I don’t. Is there somewhere in Paris where I could find some specialists on insects?’
‘Spiders aren’t insects.’
‘Ah yes, of course, Veyrenc already told me that.’
‘In the Natural History Museum, there’s a lab devoted to spiders. But please don’t go dragging me over there, sir.’
After his lieutenant had left, Adamsberg went back to sit down, rubbing his neck to get rid of a vague tension. This feeling had come over him for the first time when he was looking at Voisenet’s computer screen and had come face-to-face with the recluse spider. The tension had been accompanied by a slight malaise. A minor, passing trouble, that surfaced if he talked about the spider, then disappeared. It would go over, it was going over already. Something itching, as Lucio would
undoubtedly have said.
VII
Two days after Carvin’s arrest, the serious crime squad went into paperwork mode, something that was always accompanied by a nervous silence, with people tiptoeing round the office, shoulders bent, faces tense and concentrated, or sitting with eyes glued to their screens. In the same way, the cat, curled up on the warm photocopier, its head scarcely visible and its fur laid down flat, seemed to have shrunk by a third of its normal size. Retancourt, who was the cat’s principal carer, assisted by Mercadet, had noted that the creature seemed sensitive to paperwork phases, as others were to those of the moon, and tended to curl into a tight ball more often than during the active stage of an investigation. Not that Retancourt watched it constantly. But she did fill its bowl three times a day. And three times a day she had to take the cat up to the first floor, into the room with the drinks machine. Because the cat refused to eat anywhere else, and would have allowed itself to starve to death rather than eat a meal on the ground floor. One had to carry it upstairs at such times, even though in its infrequent playful moods, it was quite capable of climbing up and coming down the stairs in a sprightly fashion. The cat dictated, Retancourt obeyed, because this great ball of fluff had once saved her life. During the paperwork phase, Retancourt did not even try to unfold the creature, but picked up its soft bulk in two hands, like an offering.
The previous day had brought the squad the last elements of the investigation, like the last wayward surges of a falling tide. Analysis had confirmed that the earth under Carvin’s fingernails and clinging to the car keys was identical. At six in the evening, the lawyer had been transferred to temporary custody at the Santé prison. A prison where, inmates claimed, the courtyard walls were so filthy you were afraid to lean against them, in case you got stuck.
The paperwork phase always followed the same protocol. Each officer involved had to write up his or her own actions. These reports went to Commandant Mordent, who took it upon himself to sort out this disparate mass of paper, while Froissy and Mercadet assembled the photographic evidence and forensic reports. The whole lot was then delivered to Commandant Danglard, who would be responsible for the final draft of the official report, its completeness, accuracy, coherence and readability. By some good fortune, since this was an exhausting task, Danglard, who had a quasi-neurotic passion for paperwork and the written word in all its forms, was the only member of the squad who actually liked this stage. His reports were regarded as outstanding by the hierarchy and contributed, alongside their detection results, to the reputation of the squad.
In his capacity as an officer concerned in the investigation, Adamsberg too was supposed to give an account of his actions and words. Avoiding writing himself, he dictated an oral account to Justin, who tidied it up for him. At the end of the process, all Adamsberg had to do was sign Danglard’s report, which was known as The Book, on account of the perfection of its form.
* * *
*
For the third time, the commissaire called a thirty-minute halt with Justin. He switched on his computer and plunged back into the web of the recluse spider. The third victim had died in the night at the hospital in Nîmes, carried off by one of the worst consequences of the venomous toxins: necrosis of the vital organs.
Adamsberg had already noted, under the heading ‘Recluse or Violin Spider’, a few facts about the two previous victims.
Albert Barral, born in Nîmes, died three weeks ago, 12 May, aged 84; insurance broker, divorced, two children.
Fernand Claveyrolle, born in Nîmes, died a week after Barral, on 20 May, aged 84; art teacher, twice married and divorced, no children.
To whom he now added: Claude Landrieu, also born in Nîmes, died 2 June, aged 83; shopkeeper, married three times, five children.
And that very day, a local newspaper reported that a woman, Jeanne Beaujeu, who had just returned from three weeks’ holiday and heard about the deaths, had gone to hospital in Nîmes asking to have her own wound, now healing, to be examined. She stated that she had been bitten by a spider on 8 May, but since the bite had not spread beyond a slight irritation, she had merely taken the medicine prescribed by her doctor. She was forty-five.
Adamsberg stood up and went to gaze at the lime tree outside his window. So it wasn’t just old people. As Voisenet would no doubt point out to him. Sure enough, returning to his desk, he found an email from the lieutenant:
See that? A woman of 45 had a non-fatal bite. It’s because they were old!
To which Adamsberg replied:
Thought you were dropping the whole subject. You should be sweating over your report.
You too, sir.
Justin, punctual as ever, turned up at the door that moment, the half-hour pause being up. Back to the report. Adamsberg closed down the screen and, still standing, described to the junior officer his two car journeys with Carvin and Bouzid.
‘Just as there are no two identical dandelions in the world,’ he added.
‘I can’t write that,’ said Justin, shaking his head. ‘It’ll only get us into trouble.’
‘As you like.’
Then Adamsberg sent Justin across to the forensic team which had examined the windscreens, and immediately went back to his computer, plunging into the social media which had sprung into activity once more, following the report of a fourth spider bite. The polemic inspired by this non-harmful case centred on the existence or otherwise of some kind of mutation in the recluse spider.
At 6.06 p.m., there was a sudden aggressive post from someone writing as Léo.
Léo: You’re pissing us all off with this ageist stuff. I’m 80 years old, I got bitten by a spider on 26 May, and I didn’t make a big fuss about it, didn’t even see the doc. And here I am.
Arach: Good on you, Léo. That’s reassuring.
Léo: Just got a little blister, that’s all.
Mig: No mutation then?
Cerise33: Nobody suggested they’d all mutated.
Zorba: Whatever, there are still way too many bites. Either the spiders have got more aggressive, cos of the insects they eat, or there are more of them cos of the heat. Or maybe cos there’s not so many birds around these days.
Craig22: Zorba’s right. It’s 2 June today and there’ve been 5 bites. That’s a lot. In 3 months how many will there be? 40? And people have died!
Frod: Yeah but they were old.
Léo: Can you just stop this shit about the old? You’ll be old one day too.
Arach: Calm down, Léo, no one’s getting at you. But maybe you’ve got a good constitution.
Léo: 39 years working a crane, all weathers. So what does that tell you about my constitution, eh?
Adamsberg added to his list:
Jeanne Beaujeu, 45, first victim in order of date, bitten on 8 May, healing up.
Léo, 80, crane operator, bitten on 26 May, just a blister, healed itself.
Then he read another email from Voisenet.
Seen that site with the guy Léo? Not all the old people die. But Craig22 is right. Too many bites, it isn’t even high summer.
Adamsberg replied:
Thought you were dropping it.
Yes I am!
Doesn’t look like it. But there are years when we get plagues of ladybirds, aren’t there?
Must be something like that. A plague of recluses. Many more bites, and three old guys who couldn’t fight off the venom. That’s it. You should drop it too, commissaire.
I’m not following this, I’m doing my report.
Me too.
Adamsberg leaned back in his chair. Perhaps the spider had bitten him too. Just its name seemed to trigger something in him, piercing his thoughts, mingling with that first memory of looking at Voisenet’s computer screen while smelling the awful stink of his moray eel. The stiff neck had come back and gone again several times over the last three days, a fleet
ing visitor but a persistent one.
And all that because of a word, a sound. Which had nothing to do, for instance, with the Lac de Cluses, where his father used to take the family paddling, a dazzling memory of being soaking wet. Unlike the grey floating cobwebs this spider seemed to bring with it, concealing perhaps some hidden fear. Adamsberg sat upright. It would pass. He had completed the report with Justin’s help by eight thirty. Most of the officers had left for home by then. Not Danglard though. The commandant had wandered into his office while he was still dictating to Justin, leaning on the open window. And Adamsberg had not had time to hide his note with the names of the spider’s five victims. Danglard had seen it. And the commissaire knew that when Danglard saw something written down, he read it, and when he’d read it, he’d remember it. And he was certainly not going to appreciate the heading ‘Recluse or Violin Spider’ at the top of the sheet. He would know that the boss must already have done an internet search for it.
Adamsberg sensed that Danglard would surely be waiting for him this evening. He quickly telephoned Lieutenant Veyrenc.
‘Louis, still here?’
‘Just leaving.’
‘Anything on this evening?’
‘Remains of shepherd’s pie.’
‘Home-made?’
‘No, shop-bought.’
‘So, how about supper with me at La Garbure?’
‘You’re after local atmosphere, are you? And you need me?’
* * *
*
Garbure is a traditional dish of the Pyrenees region, and you probably have to have grown up there to like this cabbage soup mixed with other home-grown root vegetables, and if possible some pork shank. At the restaurant called La Garbure, they usually added duck leg confit. What was more, the proprietress had a weakness for Veyrenc’s chiselled face, his rather feminine lips and the fourteen russet locks contrasting with the rest of his dark hair.
‘I just might bring along an extra diner,’ Adamsberg explained. ‘Who won’t be in too good a mood, I fear.’
‘Danglard?’
