Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

eye that the level of gin in the glass had magically risen.

‘Where were we?’

‘You were talking about the old priest’s illuminated books.’

‘Yes. There were other books there too, poetry, picture books. I would copy and draw things from them and read a bit here and there. I was still doing it at eighteen. One evening I was sitting at his big kitchen table with its greasy surface, reading and scribbling, when it happened. That’s why I still remember, word for word, a bit out of a poem. It’s like a bullet embedded in my skull that I can’t get out. I’d put the book back and gone out for a walk on the mountainside at about ten o’clock. I climbed up to the Conche de Sauzec.’

‘Eh?’

‘Sorry, a little hill overlooking our village. I was sitting there on a rock, repeating to myself these lines I’d just read and that I was sure I would have forgotten by the next day.’

‘And they were?’

‘What god, what harvester of eternal summertime,

Had, as he strolled away, carelessly thrown down

That golden sickle in the field of the stars?’

‘It’s by Victor Hugo.’

‘Ah. And who asks the question?’

‘Ruth, the woman who bares her breast.’

‘Ruth? I always thought I asked the same question myself.’

‘No, it was Ruth. Hugo wasn’t to know you would come along. It’s the end of a long poem, Boaz asleep, it’s famous. But tell me something. Did it work for frogs too? Puff, puff, bang? Or was it just toads?’

Adamsberg threw him a look of despair.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Danglard, gulping another mouthful of gin.

‘I was reciting this to myself anyway, because I liked the sound of it. I had just done my first year as a probationer at the police station at Tarbes. I was back in the village on leave. It was late August, the nights were beginning to get cool, and I started off home. I was washing my face at the sink as quietly as I could – there were nine of us in a couple of rooms – when Raphael came rushing in like a madman, with blood on his hands.’

‘Raphael?’

‘My younger brother. He was sixteen.’

Danglard put the glass down, open-mouthed.

‘Your brother? I thought you only had sisters. Five of them.’

‘I did have a brother, Danglard, almost like a twin, we were so close. It must be almost thirty years ago now that I lost him.’

Stunned, Danglard maintained a respectful silence.

‘He was seeing a girl from the village, in the evenings, up by the water-tower. It wasn’t just a teenage fling, they really loved each other. Lise, the girl, wanted to get married as soon as they were of age. But that was a nightmare for my mother, and as for Lise’s family, they were furious. They really didn’t want their little girl to get involved with the likes of our Raphael. We were the lowest of the low. And her father was the mayor. So you see.’

Adamsberg stopped for a moment before he could carry on.

‘Raphael grabbed my arm and said: “She’s dead, Jean-Baptiste, she’s dead, she’s been killed.” I put my hand over his mouth, washed the blood off him and pulled him outside. He was crying. I asked him over and over, “What happened, Raphael, tell me for God’s sake.” He just kept saying: “I don’t know, I don’t know.” Finally he said, “I found myself on my knees, up there by the water-tower, with blood all over me, and this big screwdriver in my hand, and she was dead, Jean-Baptiste, dead, with three stab wounds in her stomach.” I begged him not to shout, or cry, I didn’t want the family to hear. I asked him if the screwdriver belonged to him. “I don’t know, it was just in my hand.” “But what were you doing before that, Raphael?” “I can’t remember, Jean-Baptiste, I swear to God. But I know I’d gone out and got drunk with my pals.” “Why?” “Because she was pregnant. I was beside myself, but I’d never have touched a hair of her head.” “But then what happened, Raphael? Between drinking with your pals and the water-tower.” “I went through the wood to meet her as usual. And because I was frightened, or because I was drunk, I was running and I hit my head on the sign.” “What do you mean?” “The sign to Emeriac, it must have been across the path. Next thing, I found myself by the water-tower. Three red wounds, Jean-Baptiste, and I was holding this screwdriver.” “And you can’t remember what happened in between?” “No, not a thing. Maybe the blow on my head made me go out of my mind, or maybe I am out of my mind, or maybe I’m a monster. I can’t remember… I can’t remember hitting her.”

So I asked him what he had done with the screwdriver. He’d left it up there, by her body. I looked at the sky and I thought, we’re in luck, it’s going to rain. Then I told Raphael to wash himself properly, to get into bed, and if anyone asked him later, to say that we’d been playing cards in our little backyard since quarter-past ten, when he left his friends – have you got that, Raphael? We were playing ecarte, you won five games and I won four.’

‘Providing a false alibi,’ remarked Danglard.

‘Absolutely, and you’re the only person who knows about it. I went running up there and Lise was lying just as he had described, with those stab wounds in her stomach. I found the weapon, sticky with blood up to the hilt, and the handle covered with bloody fingerprints. I pressed it on to my shirt to get its measurements, then I put it under my coat. It was raining a bit by then, enough to muddy the footprints near the body. I went and threw the weapon into a pool in the Torque.’

‘The what?’

‘The Torque, the river that runs nearby and forms big pools, we call them launes. Anyway I threw it in where the water’s quite deep, and chucked a lot of stones on top of it. It wasn’t going to surface for some time.’

‘False alibi, plus concealing material evidence.’

‘Exactly, and I’ve never regretted it. I’ve never, ever, had the slightest remorse. I loved my brother better than myself. Do you think I was going to let him go down?’

‘That’s for you to say.’

‘But something else I can say, is that I’d seen Judge Fulgence out that night. Because while I’d been up on the mountain earlier, on the Conche de Sauzec, I could see down into the valley, and I’d seen him going past. It was him all right. I remembered that later, while I was holding my brother’s hand to get him off to sleep.’

‘Could you really see that well?’

‘Yes, you could see the path through the trees, silhouettes stood out against it.’

‘Did he have the dogs? Was that how you recognised him?’

‘No, it was because he was wearing the summer cape. His outline was like a triangle. Most of the men in the village were stocky and much shorter than him. It was the judge for sure, Danglard, walking along the track to the water-tower.’

‘Raphael was out that night too, and so were his pals. Who were blind drunk. And you were out yourself.’

‘Never mind. Listen to the rest, and you’ll understand. The next day, I climbed the wall of the Manor and went poking about the outbuildings. And in the barn, with a lot of spades and shovels, I found a three-pronged garden fork. A trident, Danglard.’

Adamsberg raised his right hand with three fingers up.

‘Three prongs, three holes in a row. Look at the photo of Lise’s body,’ he said, taking it out of the file. ‘Look at that straight line of puncture marks. How could my brother, who was in a state of panic and very drunk, possibly have made three stab wounds in a perfectly straight line?’

Danglard examined the picture. It was true that the wounds ran in an absolutely straight line. He understood now why Adamsberg had been using a ruler to measure the Schiltigheim pictures.

‘How did you get hold of this picture? You were just a trainee policeman, a probationer.’

‘I pinched it,’ said Adamsberg calmly. ‘The fork was a very old garden tool, Danglard, it had a handle that was polished and decorated, and the crossbar was rusty. But the prongs were clean and shiny, without a trace of soil or a mark of any kind. Cleaned, polished, smooth as could be. What does that tell you?’

‘Well, it’s suggestive, but it’s not clear proof of anything.’