‘Say hullo to the squirrel on sentry duty for me.’
‘Ah, you noticed him? Gerald?’
‘That’s his name?’
‘Yup. At night he sleeps in a little hole in the drainpipe where it’s been covered in anti-freeze. Cunning little fellow. And in the daytime he’s back on duty. You know he had some woman trouble himself?’
‘I didn’t know that. I was in a hole too.’
‘Did you notice he had a girlfirend?’
‘Yes, I did notice that.’
‘Well, his girlfriend gave him up for a while. Gerald was so upset he stayed in the hole all day. So back home I crushed some hazelnuts, and put them by his drain. After three days, he cracked and came out. The boss wanted to know who the dope was who was bringing Gerald food, so you can bet your boots I kept mum. I was already in his bad books over you.’
‘And now?’
‘He didn’t stay off duty long, he’s back on the job and the girlfriend’s returned.’
‘Same one?’
‘Now that I can’t tell you. With squirrels it’s hard to tell. But, hey, Gerald I’d recognise him anywhere. Would you?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
Sanscartier gripped his shoulder again and Adamsberg reluctantly let him go into the departure lounge.
‘Come back and see us,’ beamed Laliberte, with a hearty shake of his hand. ‘I owe you one, and I wanted to tell you. Feel free to come over and see the red leaves in the Fall, and you could even go trail walking again: it’s been exorcised now.’
Laliberte kept hold of Adamsberg’s hand in his iron grip. Over the superintendent’s face where he had never seen more than three expressions, bonhomie, rigour and anger, there now passed a reflective look which altered his face. There’s always something else under the surface, like in Pink Lake, he thought.
‘Know what I think?’ Laliberte went on. ‘We need a few of them in our job, cloud shovellers.’
He let go his hand, and disappeared after the others. Adamsberg watched as his massive back disappeared into the crowd. He could still see Sanscartier. He would have liked to take a sample of his goodness, put it on to a disk and isolate it, so that he could inject a little into his own DNA.
The seven other members of the squad were heading for the exit. He heard Voisenet’s voice calling him and turned round, rejoining them slowly, holding the sergeant’s thick jacket over his shoulder.
Strap on your skis and follow your nose, cloud shoveller.
Put all this in your pipe.
And smoke it.
Notes
‘De
The Canadian DNA Data Bank is situated in the Ottawa headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police/Gendarmerie royale du Canada, but the ‘annex’ in Gatineau Federal Park is invented, and the episodes concerning DNA profiling in this novel are a mixture of the real and the fictional; they do not represent the RCMP’s actual modes of procedure. The following article (which appears in both French and English) was drawn upon for details of DNA profiling procedures: Joanna Kerr, ‘RCMP’s DNA Data Bank Sets a World Standard’,
Translator’s note:
Canadian French differs more in terms of idiom and vocabulary from the French spoken in France than Canadian English does from British or US English. The French characters here sometimes find the language difficult to follow, but the examples have necessarily been cut or modified in translation.
French police ranks, which were renamed some years ago along the same lines as the
FRED VARGAS is a historian, archaeologist and an internationally best-selling author. Her novel,
Fred Vargas
