‘It’s as clear as the water in the pool. As soon as I saw that fork, the evidence exploded in my face.’
‘Like the toad’s guts?’
‘If you must. An outpouring of vice and wickedness, the real insides of the Lord and Master of the Manor. But then there he was at the barn door, watching me, holding his two dogs on the leash, the terrifying dogs who had torn Jeannot to bits. And when Judge Fulgence was watching you, Danglard, even when you were eighteen years old, it put the fear of God into you. He asked me what I thought I was doing, with that contained anger in his voice that was second nature to him. I said I’d come to play a trick on him, to unscrew the bolts in his workbench. I’d done that kind of thing so often over the years that he believed me, and with a royal wave of his hand he pointed to the way out and said, “I’ll count to four, young man, to give you a start.” I ran like crazy towards the garden wall, because I knew that on the count of four he would unleash the dogs. One of them got hold of my clothes, but I was able to pull myself free and get over the wall.’
Adamsberg pulled up his trouser leg and showed a long scar on his calf.
‘Judge Fulgence’s teethmarks are still there.’
‘His dog’s, you mean.’
‘Same thing.’
Adamsberg took a sip of the gin from Danglard’s glass.
‘At the trial, they took no account of my having seen Fulgence in the woods. I was too subjective a witness. But in particular, they didn’t accept the trident as the murder weapon. And yes, the spacing of the prongs was exactly the same as the wounds. That coincidence held them up a bit, and they took expert evidence again, because they were terrified of the judge, who was starting to make threats. But their second examination relieved them. The depth of the perforations didn’t correspond. They were too deep by half a centimetre. What cretins! As if it wasn’t easy enough to have plunged the screwdriver into each of the wounds and then put it in my brother’s hand. They weren’t just fools, they were cowards. The examining magistrate in charge of the case was just a lackey in the hands of Fulgence. They preferred to believe it was the work of a kid of sixteen.’
‘And did the depth of the wounds correspond to the screwdriver?’
‘Yes. But of course I couldn’t suggest that, since the weapon had mysteriously disappeared.’
‘Yes, very mysteriously.’
‘Raphael had everything stacked against him. She was his girlfriend, he met her there regularly every night, and she’d just announced she was pregnant. According to the magistrate, he was panicked by the news, so he killed her. But you see, Danglard, there was vital evidence missing, if they were going to convict. No weapon, because it had disappeared, and no witness to testify that Raphael was up there at the time. And he wasn’t there, because he had been playing cards with me, since leaving his friends. I swore that under oath.’
‘And as a policeman, your word counted double?’
‘Yes, I took advantage of that. I lied from start to finish. And now if you want to go and fish the murder weapon out of the pool, go ahead.’
Adamsberg looked at his deputy through half-closed eyes and smiled a little for the first time since he had been speaking.
‘You’d be wasting your time of course,’ he said. ‘I went and pulled it out later and threw it into a dustbin in Nimes. Because water is not to be relied on, nor is its god.’
‘So he was acquitted then, your brother?’
‘Yes. But the rumours went on, getting worse and worse. Nobody would speak to him in the village, they avoided him, out of fear. And he was haunted by this black hole in his memory, and didn’t know whether he really had done it or not. Do you see, Danglard? He honestly didn’t know whether he had murdered the girl he loved. So he dared not go near anyone. I ruined half a dozen cushions, trying to prove to him that if you stab someone three times, you simply can’t do it in a straight line. I must have given hundreds of demonstrations. But it was no good, he was completely destroyed, he kept his distance from everyone. I was away in Tarbes, I couldn’t hold his hand every day. And that’s how I lost my brother, Danglard.’
Danglard passed him the glass and Adamsberg swallowed two mouthfuls.
‘After that, I had just one idea in my head, to bring the judge to justice. He left our region, because he too was affected by rumours surrounding the case. I wanted to track him down, and get him prosecuted, so as to clear my brother’s name. Because I knew, and I was the only one who knew, that Fulgence was guilty. Guilty of the murder and guilty of destroying Raphael too. I followed him relentlessly for fourteen years, all over the country, chasing him through press reports and archives.’
Adamsberg put his hand on the files.
‘Eight murders, eight people stabbed, with three wounds in a row. Between the years 1949 and 1983. Lise was killed in 1973. All eight murders had been solved, eight culprits easily caught, virtually weapon in hand. Seven poor sods in jail, as well as my brother, gone to perdition. Fulgence always escaped. The devil always escapes. Read the files, take them back home with you, Danglard. I’m going to the office to see Retancourt. I’ll call round at your place late tonight, OK?’
IX
ON HIS WAY HOME, DANGLARD MULLED OVER WHAT HE HAD LEARNT. A brother, a crime and a suicide. An almost-twin brother, accused of murder, driven from the world, and dead. A drama so traumatic that Adamsberg had never spoken of it. In such circumstances, what credence could be given to his accusations, based simply on having seen the silhouette of the judge on a woodland path, and having found a garden fork in his barn? In Adamsberg’s place, he too would have desperately sought a culprit to take the place of his brother. And instinctively, he too might have pointed the finger at the well-known hate-figure of the village.
‘I loved my brother better than myself.’ It seemed to Danglard that Adamsberg had somehow been holding Raphael’s hand in his, ever since the night of the murder. He had removed himself in this way from the world of ordinary people for the last thirty years, since he could not join it without risking letting go of that hand, abandoning his brother to guilt and death. In that case, only the posthumous clearing of Raphael’s name and his return to the world would release Adamsberg’s fingers. Or alternatively, Danglard told himself, clutching the briefcase tightly, recognising his brother’s crime. If Raphael really had been the killer, his brother would have to face it one day. Adamsberg couldn’t spend his entire life chasing a false phantom, in the shape of a terrifying old man. If the dossiers led in that second direction, he would be obliged to hold the
After supper, once the children were in their rooms, he sat down at his table, in an anxious frame of mind, having lined up three beers and three files. The children had all gone to bed too late. He had had the badly-timed idea of telling them the story of the toad that smoked cigarettes, puff, puff, puff, bang. The questions had come in thick and fast. Why did the toad smoke? Why did it explode? What size melon did it look like? Did its guts fly very high in the air? Would it work for snakes? Danglard had in the end had to forbid them to carry out any experiments along these lines: they were not to put a cigarette in the mouth of any snake, toad or salamander, lizard, pike or in fact any creature whatsoever.
But finally, by eleven o’clock, the schoolbags were all packed, the dishes had been washed and the lights were out.
Danglard attacked the dossiers in chronological order, memorising the names of the victims, the place and time of the crime, and the identity of the perpetrators. Eight murders, all committed, he noted, when the number of the year was uneven. But after all, odd or even years are a fifty-fifty matter, and can hardly be called a coincidence. The only thing that really linked these various murders was the unshakeable conviction of the
