Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

side.

Adamsberg got up and on his way out squeezed Vetilleux’s shoulder lightly with his good hand, meaning ‘I’m going now, but I’m counting on you.’

On the way back to the office, the guard asked Adamsberg if, with respect, sir, he would mind telling him the story about the bear. Adamsberg was saved by Trabelmann’s appearance.

‘So what do you think?’ asked Trabelmann.

‘He had quite a bit to say.’

‘Ah, did he now? Not with me. He just sits there in a heap, sort of collapsed.’

‘Yes. It’s a warning sign. Don’t take this the wrong way, commandant, but with an alcoholic as far gone as he is, depriving him of drink too suddenly is dangerous. He might just die on you.’

‘I do know that, commissaire. He gets a glass of wine with every meal.’

‘If I were you, I’d triple the dose. Believe me, commandant, it would be best.’

‘Right you are,’ said Trabelmann without taking offence. ‘And in all this chat from him,’ he went on, sitting down at the desk, ‘did anything interesting turn up?’

‘Not stupid. He catches on fast, and he’s even fairly sensitive.’

‘Could be. But once a guy starts drinking like that, he’s had it. There are men who beat their wives, but they can be meek and mild until nightfall.’

‘But Vetilleux doesn’t have any form, does he? Never been in any fights? Did the Strasbourg police confirm that?’

‘Affirmative. No, he’d never given them any trouble. Until now. Are you going to tell me you’re on his side?’

‘I listened to him.’

Adamsberg rapidly recounted the interview with Vetilleux, naturally leaving out the hip flask bit.

‘One possibility that can’t be ruled out,’ he concluded, ‘is that Vetilleux was bundled into the back of a car. He says he felt warm and comfortable, but at the same time he felt sick.’

‘So commissaire, you’ve dreamed up a car, a trip out to the countryside, and a driver, just because “he felt warm”. And that’s it?’

‘Yes. That’s it.’

‘You make me laugh, Adamsberg. You make me think of the guys who pull rabbits out of hats.’

‘The rabbits really do come out of the hats though, don’t they?’

‘You’re thinking about this other wino, I suppose?’

‘A la-di-da wino who drank from his own bottle and carried a plastic cup around with him. A wino who’d seen better days. And was “oldish”.’

‘But a wino all the same.’

‘Possibly, but not definitely.’

‘Tell me something, commissaire. In all your career, has anyone ever been able to make you change your mind?’

Adamsberg took a moment to try and think honestly about the question. ‘No,’ he admitted finally, with a touch of regret in his voice.

‘That’s what I was afraid of. So let me tell you you’ve got an ego the size of a kitchen table.’

Adamsberg squeezed his eyes shut without replying.

‘I’m not trying to pick a quarrel, commissaire. But in this case, you’ve come here with a load of your own dreamt-up ideas that nobody else has ever believed. Then you try and rearrange the facts till they suit you. I don’t say there aren’t some interesting things in your version. But you don’t look at the other side, you don’t even listen to it. And I’ve got a suspect who was found drunk, a few feet away from the victim, with the weapon at his side and his fingerprints all over it. Do you hear what I’m saying?’

‘I perfectly understand your point of view.’

‘But you couldn’t give a damn about it, could you? And you’ll carry on with your own theory. Other people can just take a running jump, can’t they, with their work and their ideas and impressions. Just tell me one thing. There are killers still walking the streets all over France. Cases we’ve never solved, you or me, sacks of them in the archives. And you don’t bother yourself with them. So why this one?’

‘When you read dossier no. 6, for the year 1973, you’ll see that the teenager who was brought to trial was my brother. It ruined his life and I lost him.’

‘That’s your “childhood memory,” is it? You might have said so earlier.’

‘You wouldn’t have listened to the rest of the story. You’d have said I was too closely involved, that it was too personal.’

‘Affirmative. Nothing like having one of your relations in the shit, to send a policeman off the straight and narrow.’

He pulled out dossier no. 6 and put it on top of the pile with a sigh.

‘Listen, Adamsberg,’ he said. ‘Because of your reputation, I’ll look at your dossiers. So we’ll have had a full, frank and impartial exchange of information. You’ve had a look at my patch, I’ll look at yours. Fair enough? I’ll see you again tomorrow morning. There’s a perfectly good hotel, a couple of hundred metres up the road on the right.’

Adamsberg walked for a long time along country roads, before checking into the hotel. He couldn’t blame Trabelmann, who had been very cooperative, all things considered. But the commandant wouldn’t go along with him, any more than anyone else. Everywhere, he had had to face incredulous stares; everywhere, he had had to carry the weight of the judge on his shoulders, alone.

Because Trabelmann was right in one respect – about him, Adamsberg – he would not abandon his theory. The measurements of the wounds in this case were once more within the limits of the original trident. Vetilleux had been picked out, followed, and plied with a litre of wine by the man with the cap pulled over his eyes. Who had taken good care not to touch any of his companion’s saliva. Then Vetilleux had been taken by car and dropped off close to the scene of the crime, which had already been committed. The old man had only had to press the weapon into Vetilleux’s hand, and throw it down beside him. Then he had driven off, disappearing calmly from the face of the earth, leaving his latest scapegoat in the hands of the zealous Commandant Trabelmann.

XI

ARRIVING AT THE GENDARMERIE AT NINE O’CLOCK NEXT MORNING, Adamsberg saluted the duty officer, the same one who had wanted to know the story about the bear. The officer indicated with a gesture that the storm signals were hoisted. And indeed Trabelmann had lost all his conviviality of the previous day. He was standing waiting in his office, his arms folded and his back ramrod-stiff.

‘What the fuck are you playing at, Adamsberg?’ he said in a voice tense with fury. ‘Paris police think the gendarmes are a bunch of idiots, or what?’

Adamsberg stood facing the commandant without speaking. In this kind of situation, it was best to let people have their say. He guessed what had happened. But he had not imagined Trabelmann would have worked so quickly. He had underestimated him.

‘Judge Fulgence died sixteen years ago!’ Trabelmann shouted. ‘He’s dead, dead and buried, kaput! This isn’t a fairy story, Adamsberg, it’s science fiction. And don’t tell me you didn’t know. Your notes stop in 1987.’

‘Yes, of course I know. I went to his funeral.’

‘And you’ve made me waste a whole day on your crazy story? Just to tell me that this figment of your imagination killed the Wind girl at Schiltigheim? You didn’t think for one minute that a stupid gendarme like Trabelmann might have checked up on the judge’s current whereabouts?’

‘It’s true, I didn’t think you would have got that far yet, and I apologise. But if you took the trouble to check the record, at least it means that you were intrigued enough by the Fulgence story to follow it up.’

‘What the hell is your game, Adamsberg? Are you on a ghost hunt? I hope not, or you shouldn’t be in the police