This Poison Will Remain

by Fred Vargas

Adamsberg just had time to gather up his photos. Veyrenc grabbed the folder and they both ran to the platform.

  Adamsberg sent Irène a text: V. sorry about the chocolate, no time to pay.

  Irène texted back: Don’t worry, I’ll get over it.

  Two new texts were awaiting him. One from Retancourt: Have a nice time? and Adamsberg showed it to Veyrenc with a smile.

  ‘Retancourt is moving our way,’ he said. ‘We’ll soon be four, instead of three. What was that Racine poem?’

  ‘Corneille, you mean.’

  ‘You’ll have to change it.’

  ‘We set off only four, but at once by our side, / As we came to the port, hundreds more for us cried –’

  ‘So there you are,’ Adamsberg interrupted him, raising his hand. ‘With four of us working, we’ll be able to question the five victims.’

  ‘Eleven victims.’

  ‘Yes, but four of the eleven didn’t get infected at all, and two only slightly. They didn’t suffer like the others.’

  ‘Still, absolutely not a reason to rule them out. They were part of the target group, they’d take the side of the ones who were badly affected. And the ones who got off with no harm might feel guilty about the others. It’s called “survivor guilt”. They might even become more vengeful and aggressive than the others.’

  ‘All right, eleven. We’ll have to ask Froissy to trace them for us.’

  Adamsberg replied to Retancourt: Very. An intensely relaxing day.

  Interesting?

  VERY interesting.

  ‘There’s a message from Voisenet too. He’ll be at the station waiting for us. What time do we get in?’

  ‘21.53.’

  ‘He says shall we go for a garbure?’

  Veyrenc nodded.

  ‘Yes, they’re open on Sundays.’

  ‘You know that?’

  ‘Yes. Shall we ask Retancourt to join us? Swell the ranks?’

  ‘No, impossible, she’s at a Vivaldi concert tonight.’

  ‘And you know that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Adamsberg typed a last text, slipped his phone into his pocket and went straight off to sleep. Veyrenc stopped short in mid-sentence, always taken aback by the commissaire’s ability to sleep suddenly. His eyelids were closed, but not quite, leaving a narrow slit like in a cat’s eye. Some said you couldn’t always tell whether the commissaire was asleep or awake, even when he was walking along, and that he hovered between the two states. Perhaps it was during those moments, Veyrenc told himself, as he opened Dr Cauvert’s folder, that Adamsberg was thinking. Perhaps those were the mists through which he could see clearly. He lowered the tray at his seat and drew up a list of the nine members of the Recluse Gang. Then a list of their victims, Louis, Jeannot, Maurice . . . where were they now? The one without a leg, the one without a foot, the one without a cheek, the one without a testicle, and the one with the hideous-looking arm?

  He read the rest of the report carefully, shaking his head. All the members of the Recluse Gang had fetched up in the orphanage as a result of tragic circumstances. Their parents had died, or been deported during the war, the father had been murdered by the mother, or vice versa, a parent had been imprisoned for rape or murder, a whole litany of tragedy. After the time with the recluse spiders, came the time they attacked girls. They’d managed on only one occasion to get inside the girls’ dormitory (supposed to be ‘inviolable’) and the janitor had stopped them as they started pulling off blankets and sheets from the beds. As Dr Cauvert had said, these kids had managed to get in everywhere.

  ‘He’s neurotic,’ said Adamsberg quietly, without opening his eyes.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Cauvert, you said so yourself.’

  ‘Jean-Baptiste, get it into your head once and for all that every one of us is neurotic. It all depends on the balance we manage to work out afterwards.’

  ‘Me too? I’m neurotic?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Ah, good.’

  Adamsberg went back to sleep, while Veyrenc went on taking notes. The closer the train got to Paris, the more Danglard’s face loomed up before him. For heaven’s sake, what had got into him? Adamsberg’s anger had faded, he hadn’t mentioned it again. But Veyrenc knew that he was heading for some kind of showdown.

  XIX

  Veyrenc stopped on the platform, about fifteen metres away from Voisenet, who was smoking an illicit cigarette in one of the best ventilated sites in Paris.

  ‘Does Voisenet smoke?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Perhaps he pinched it from his son.’

  ‘He doesn’t have a son.’

  ‘Then I don’t know.’

  ‘Ever see Balzac?’

  ‘No, Louis, the occasion never arose.’

  ‘Well, take a look at Voisenet, and you see Balzac. He doesn’t have the frowning eyebrows. And he’s not quite as fat yet, but add a black moustache and then you have Balzac.’

  ‘So Balzac’s not dead, all things considered?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘That’s good to know.’

  * * *

  *

  Estelle welcomed the three police officers with no sign of surprise. For as long as their problem lasted, she’d be seeing the policeman with the russet streaks every night. It was starting to feel like a habit, and the habit was turning into a vague desire. When their case was solved, they’d vanish, and he would go with them. She decided to withdraw a bit, and make herself less welcoming this evening.

  ‘For a change,’ said Voisenet, ‘I’m going to order the suckling pig tonight. Is that a good idea?’

  ‘In Danglard’s opinion, certainly,’ said Veyrenc.

  ‘But what weight should be put on Danglard’s opinion now?’ asked Adamsberg. ‘On pork, yes, agreed, but not beyond. You’ve had some echoes of it, Voisenet, have you? Apparently, Noël thumping the desk caused a bit of a stir.’

  Voisenet lowered his head and clasped his hands on his stomach. Veyrenc stood up and went to the counter to order. It had not escaped Adamsberg’s attention that Estelle was avoiding looking at his Béarn colleague. She was moving one of her pawns back, so Veyrenc was moving one forward.

  ‘I guess he thought he was doing the right thing,’ said Voisenet.

  ‘I don’t care what he thought. If Mordent and Noël hadn’t intervened, I’d be getting a reprimand by now. It’s what you think that I care about.’

  ‘He’d had a lot to drink, for sure.’

  ‘That’s no explanation, he’s always had a lot to drink.’

  ‘He thought he was doing the right thing.’

  ‘He was doing the wrong thing.’

  Voisenet remained head down, and Adamsberg gave up. He didn’t want to torment his lieutenant, putting him between a rock and hard place.

  ‘Is that,’ Voisenet suddenly replied, ‘because you’ve found something to prove he’s done the wrong thing? You’ve seen the archives?’

  ‘Yes, the lot. The “bad boys” had all been in a gang in the orphanage. And the gang had a name.’

  Veyrenc, back at the table, took out the folder from his bag and laid it in front of the lieutenant. With its label uppermost: ‘The Recluse Gang: Claveyrolle, Barral, Lambertin, Missoli, Haubert and Co.’

  Voisenet didn’t notice as Estelle brought over his dish of pork, not even acknowledging her with a nod. His eyes were riveted on the label.

  ‘God in heaven,’ he said in the end.

  It seemed to Adamsberg that everyone made an appeal to God or his Holy Mother when they discovered these recluses from seventy years back.

  ‘More like the Devil,’ he said. ‘The former director said that the Devil had got into them. Claveyrolle, Barral and the rest.’

  ‘But what the hell were they doing with recluses? Were these real recluses, I mean spi
ders, or women?’

  ‘What do you mean, women?’ asked Adamsberg.

  ‘Well, you know, in medieval times, there were these women who shut themselves up to offer their lives to God. Recluses they were called.’

  ‘No, no, we’re talking about spiders. Eat your food before I show you the pictures, Voisenet. Veyrenc will give you a rundown of what we found – he read the whole folder in the train.’

  ‘How do you know? You were asleep.’

  ‘Very true.’

  Veyrenc summarised their discoveries to Voisenet, who was eating mechanically, without seeming to taste his dish, concentrating on what his colleague was telling him. He hadn’t even touched his glass of Madiran.

  ‘Now, take a sip of wine, Voisenet, because I’m going to show you the photos.’

  Which once more fell on the table like a set of sinister playing cards. Voisenet obeyed and took several mouthfuls of wine. At the sight of the little amputees, the boy without a testicle, the one without a cheek, and the one with the hideous arm, he grimaced in horror. Then he pushed the pictures away, finished his glass and put it down firmly on the table.

  ‘So you were right, commissaire. There really was a recluse spider affair. Long ago. And it’s come back to life, eight legs and all. The descendants of the spiders of the past, returning in the hands of one of the ex-victims.’

  ‘Yes, Voisenet.’

  ‘Or,’ added Veyrenc, ‘it could be several ex-victims. Maybe even all of them acting together.’

  ‘About ten years ago, in a café in Nîmes, Claveyrolle mentioned meeting Little Louis. The one who lost his leg. And Little Louis had threatened him. Claveyrolle had told him to piss off, like in the past, but Louis said to look out, he wasn’t alone.’

  ‘You think the victims might have formed a gang too?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘All right, but Landrieu, the third man who died, he’s not in the gang. That’s like an étoc, as we say in Brittany. A reef you don’t see till you hit it.’

  A reef, the hidden rock on which ships founder. Voisenet had grown up in Brittany.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Adamsberg. ‘Claveyrolle and company went over the wall at night. They might have met up with Landrieu wandering round Nîmes. In fact, it’s quite probable. So what about this woman who was raped, Voisenet? Justine Pauvel?’

  The lieutenant sighed, rubbed his forehead, reliving the difficult two hours he had spent with the woman.

  ‘We get a bit of training for this in the police, don’t we?’ he said. ‘How to talk to women who’ve been raped, and above all get them to talk. But not enough, really, sir. It was over an hour before I could get past her resistance. She clammed up, she didn’t want to say a word. And you know, I did do the training, and I think I can be tactful. I respect women, but they don’t seem to want to talk to me. Maybe it’s the way I look.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the way you look?’ asked Veyrenc.

  ‘I’m heavy-looking and heavy-handed,’ said Voisenet. ‘That may have made a difference for this woman.’

  ‘Perhaps it was simply that you’re a man, Voisenet,’ said Adamsberg, touched by Voisenet’s negative judgement of himself.

  ‘Yes, we should have sent a woman to see her,’ Voisenet said. ‘They tell us that too in training. Anyway, this Justine, she was shattered, really shattered. In the end, she did agree to talk. Since if she’d agreed to see me in the first place, it must have been that she wanted to, one way or another. What did I do? I dressed correctly, as you can see, I took her flowers and a dessert, just a light one, chocolate mousse with fruits. That probably sounds stupid, but perhaps it helped a bit. She’s totally turned off men, that’s true, she doesn’t want to see them at all. She’s remained frightened and ashamed, because she never got justice. Well, we learn that in training too. But I lied to her, I said we’d get her justice. And that calmed her down.’

  ‘We might be able to, lieutenant.’

  ‘I’d be surprised.’

  ‘Has she any idea who did it?’

  ‘She swears she didn’t recognise anyone, and that she couldn’t give any description. If only there had just been the one! But there were three of them. Three! She was only sixteen, a virgin.’

  Voisenet stopped, rubbed his brow again and took some pills from his pocket.

  ‘Headache, ‘he said, ‘she gets one every day apparently.’

  ‘Eat something,’ said Veyrenc, pushing the cheese board towards him.

  ‘No thanks, Veyrenc, sorry, but this isn’t easy for me.’

  ‘Three?’ said Adamsberg. ‘A gang rape then?’

  ‘Yes. In a van – classic ploy. One driving. Two to pick the target. The driver stops to ask the way, the other two jump on the girl and drag her into the van. She gave me a newspaper article about her “godfather”, in case I wanted to speak to him. This man, Claude Landrieu, our spontaneous witness. Apparently she doesn’t know yet that he’s dead. It’s just an interview with the paper, in which he says he’s terribly shocked. Of no interest for us.’

  ‘With a picture of his shop, perhaps?’ asked Adamsberg.

  ‘Yeah, sure, why not, he would get some free publicity that way.’

  ‘Show it to me, lieutenant. I find it strange that she should have given it to you.’

  Without understanding, Voisenet fished out the old newspaper cutting from his wallet. Veyrenc poured out some more wine, and this time Voisenet drank it with pleasure. He was feeling better.

  ‘You got involved, Voisenet,’ said Adamsberg.

  ‘Yes, a bit.’

  Adamsberg concentrated on the old press cutting, with its photograph of Landrieu, a middle-aged man with a bloated face, in his luxury chocolaterie, where an assistant in overalls was serving a line of customers. He frowned, reopened the folder belonging to Dr Cauvert, and took out the photos of the nine members of the Recluse Gang, a series taken from when they arrived at the orphanage until they reached the age of eighteen, when they left. Veyrenc let him study the pictures, without asking any questions.

  Several long minutes later, the commissaire looked up with a smile, almost a triumphant grin, as if he’d been in a fight. He hadn’t noticed any movement around him and looked at his full glass in surprise.

  ‘Did I pour this out?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I did,’ said Veyrenc.

  ‘Ah, I didn’t notice.’

  He put his large hands flat down on the table, one on the press cutting, the other on the photos.

  ‘Bravo, Voisenet!’ he said.

  He raised his glass to his lieutenant who nodded, still without understanding.

  ‘Here’s Claude Landrieu,’ he said. ‘OK, we know that. And here’s his shop, his customers, his assistant. And the newspaper dates from two days after the rape. As does the photo.’

  ‘It doesn’t have a date on it.’

  ‘We know the rape happened on 30 April. On 1 May, the shop would have been closed, it’s a public holiday, but the police station would of course have been open. So Landrieu rushes over there with the list of boys he says his “goddaughter” might have known. The newspaper, must be an evening one, must date from 2 May. And so does the photo. On the counter, if you look carefully, you can see the sprays of lily of the valley, still looking fresh, because they’d have been delivered, shops get them in for the holiday. Yes, that photo was taken very soon after the rape. Not that Landrieu would have been best pleased about it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because here,’ said Adamsberg, pointing to one of the customers, ‘we can see Barral. And this one is Lambertin.’

  Veyrenc shook his head and seized the photograph.

  ‘I don’t see it,’ he said. ‘The last snaps you got of Barral and Lambertin are from when they were eighteen. How can you identify them in their fifties? Voisenet?’

  Ve
yrenc passed the lieutenant the press cutting and the photographs of Barral and Lambertin when young. Adamsberg drank a mouthful of Madiran, sitting patiently and quite serene.

  ‘No,’ said Voisenet, passing the photographs back. ‘I don’t see it either.’

  ‘Good grief, use your eyes! I’m telling you those two are not in that queue to buy chocolates. It’s Barral and Lambertin.’

  Neither Voisenet nor Veyrenc contradicted him. They knew that the commissaire’s visual acuity was unusual.

  ‘All right,’ said Voisenet, with a burst of energy. ‘Let’s say it’s them. What the hell are they doing there, anyway?’

  ‘Two days after the rape?’ said Adamsberg. ‘They’re coming round to see if there’s any news. They want to know how the “spontaneous witness statement” went. The one their pal Landrieu gave the local cops.’

  ‘So why didn’t they come the day before then? It was 1 May, they’d have had the day off work.’

  ‘Not very discreet. Better to turn up in the shop once it opened, and exchange a quick nod and a wink. That’s probably how they got in touch. A word, a sign, in the shop.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To go out and find a girl. I’m telling you Justine Pauvel was raped by this so-called “friend of the family”, a guy she’d trusted since she was a child. She would have got in his van without hesitation. Then she was raped by the three of them, Landrieu, Barral, Lambertin.’

  ‘So she must know them.’

  ‘Of course she knows. At least about the “godfather”. That’s why she gave you the cutting. She’s never been able to bring herself to tell anyone. Doesn’t prevent her wanting revenge. Another point. Thirty years on, the Recluse Gang was still in existence. As well as Claveyrolle and Barral, we can add Lambertin and Landrieu.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Veyrenc agreed.

  ‘Neither dispersed, nor reformed. The young stink bugs from the orphanage had grown up. No more slipping spiders into the pants of some poor little kid. When stink bugs grow up, they turn to sex attacks, like they tried in their last years at the orphanage.’

  ‘But how?’ asked Voisenet. ‘If they couldn’t get into the girls’ section?’