Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

Carcassonne.’

‘Because he had authority, because his views commanded respect. Well. As I said, at least you’ve given me a laugh, Adamsberg.’

A man in a white coat hurried up to them.

‘Please, gentlemen, show some respect.’

‘Morning, Menard,’ said Trabelmann.

‘My apologies, commandant, I didn’t see it was you.’

‘Let me introduce a colleague from Paris, Commissaire Adamsberg.’

‘I’ve heard the name,’ said Menard, shaking hands.

‘He’s got a remarkable sense of humour,’ said Trabelmann. ‘Menard, we need to see the caisson containing Elisabeth Wind.’

Menard carefully pulled up the mortuary sheet to display the body of the young victim. Adamsberg looked at it without moving for several seconds, then gently lifted the head to examine bruises on the neck. After that, he concentrated on the puncture wounds in the abdomen.

‘As I recall,’ Trabelmann said, ‘the line of wounds runs to about 21 or 22 centimetres.’

Adamsberg shook his head doubtfully, and took a tape measure out of his bag.

‘Can you help me, Trabelmann? I’ve only got one good hand.’

The commandant ran out the tape measure. Adamsberg put one end at the outside edge of the first wound and measured the exact length from there to the outside edge of the third.

‘16.7 centimetres, Trabelmann. I told you, it’s never much more than that.’

‘Matter of pure chance.’

Without replying, Adamsberg used a wooden ruler as a marker and measured the maxium width of the wounds.

‘0.8 centimetres,’ he announced, snapping the tape measure back in its case.

Trabelmann, looking slightly bothered, contented himself with a slight twitch of his head.

‘I suppose you can provide me with a note of the penetrative depth of the wounds, back at the station?’ asked Adamsberg.

‘Yes, I can – along with the awl, and the man who was holding it. And his fingerprints.’

‘But will you at least do me the favour of taking a look at these files?’

‘I’m no less professional than you, commissaire. I don’t leave any lead unexplored. Ha!’

Trabelmann laughed again, for no reason that Adamsberg could detect.

* * *

At Schiltigheim gendarmerie, Adamsberg put the bundle of files on the commandant’s desk, while an officer brought him the murder weapon in a sealed plastic bag. The tool was of a standard make and brand new, except for the dried blood on the shaft.

‘If I’m following you rightly,’ said Trabelmann, sitting down at the desk, ‘and that’s a big if, we would need to look for someone buying four of these, not just the one.’

‘Yes, but it would probably be a waste of time. The man in question’ – Adamsberg dared not pronounce the name of Fulgence again – ‘would never make the elementary mistake of walking into a hardware store and buying four identical tools. That would attract attention to him in the most amateur way. That’s why he chooses ordinary cheap makes. He can get them from several different shops, spacing out his purchases.’

‘That’s true, it’s what I’d do too.’

Once back in the office, the commandant’s tough persona was becoming more established and his sense of humour was vanishing. Perhaps it was because he was now sitting behind his desk, in his official surroundings, Adamsberg thought.

‘He might have bought one of these in Strasbourg in September, another in Roubaix in July, and so on,’ he said. ‘We’ve got no chance of following that lead.’

‘That’s that, then,’ said Trabelmann. ‘Well, do you want to see the suspect? Another few hours in here and he’ll be confessing. I’m warning you, when we picked him up, he had the equivalent of about a bottle and a half of whisky inside him.’

‘That’s why he can’t remember anything.’

‘The amnesia is what’s getting you worked up, isn’t it? Well I’ll tell you something, commissaire, it doesn’t surprise me one bit. Because by saying he can’t remember a thing, and pleading temporary insanity, this character’s sure to get ten or fifteen years knocked off the sentence. Worth a try, isn’t it? And everyone knows that. So I believe in your killers and their amnesia about as much as in your Prince Charming turning into a dragon. But go ahead, Adamsberg, take a look at him yourself, if you want to.’

* * *

Bernard Vetilleux, a gaunt man in his middle years, with an unhealthily puffy face, lay sprawled across the bed in his cell. He watched without displaying the remotest interest as Adamsberg walked in. This or any other cop, why should he give a shit? Adamsberg asked if he was prepared to answer some questions, and he agreed.

‘But I ain’t got nothing to say,’ he said in a voice without expression. ‘I dunno what happened, can’t remember.’

‘Yes, I know. But before all that, before they picked you up on the road?’

‘Don’t even know how I got there, guv. Don’t like walking. Couple of kilometres is a long way for me.’

‘Yes, but before that,’ repeated Adamsberg. ‘Before you were on the road, what were you doing, can you remember?’

‘Yeah, I remember that, course I can. I haven’t forgotten the rest of my bleedin’ life, have I? Just how I got to be on the fuckin’ road and all that stuff after.’

‘I know,’ Adamsberg repeated patiently, ‘but before that.’

‘I was drinking, wasn’t I?’

‘Where?’

‘At the counter, to start with.’

‘What counter?’

‘In the bar, Le Petit Bouchon, by the greengrocer’s. See, I know where I was, at least.’

‘Then what?’

‘Then they chucked me out, as per usual, I was broke. But I was so pissed I couldn’t even hold my hand out. So I looked for somewhere to kip down. Because it’s bleedin’ cold here, I tell you. And my usual spot, these other so- and-sos had pinched it, and they had dogs with ’em. So I had to move on, and where I went was in this playground I know, with a sort of plastic cube-thing the kids play in. It’s a bit warmer in there, it’s kind of like a dog kennel. Little door, and on the floor there’s soft stuff like moss, only not real moss, so the kids don’t get hurt.’

‘What playground was this?’

‘It’s got ping-pong tables, it’s by the bar, ’cause I don’t like walking, I told you.’

‘And after that? You were on your own there, were you?’

‘Ah no, there was this fella, wasn’t there, he was after the same pitch. Bugger that, I thought. But I changed my mind pretty quick, ’cause this guy he had a couple of litres with him. My lucky day, seemingly, so what I said was, you want to come in here, you share the hooch. And he said OK, you’re on, fair enough. Piece of luck.’

‘Remember anything about him, what he looked like?’

‘Can’t remember everything, can I? I’d had a skinful already, and it was pitch dark. Anyway you don’t ask questions, someone comes along with some booze. I wasn’t interested in him, just his bottles.’

‘Come on, surely you can remember something about him. Try. Just tell me anything you noticed, what he talked like, how he drank. Was he big or small, old or young, does anything at all come back?’

Vetilleux scratched his head as if to try and get his mind working, then sat up on the bed and looked at