Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

last word. Since Adamsberg obviously wanted to have the last word, let him have it. This kind of verbal sparring wasn’t going to resolve their quarrel.

In the Chapter Room, Adamsberg beckoned Noel over.

‘Where are we with the Favre business?’

‘He’s been questioned by the divisionnaire, and suspended until the inquiry has concluded. You’re to be questioned tomorrow at eleven o’clock in Brezillon’s office.’

‘I saw the note.’

‘There wouldn’t be any problem, if you hadn’t smashed the bottle. Given the way he is, he couldn’t know whether you were going to attack him with it or not.’

‘Neither did I, Noel.’

‘What?’

‘Neither did I,’ Adamsberg repeated calmly. ‘At the time, I’m not sure what might have happened. I don’t think I would have attacked him, but I’m not certain. Stupid bastard that he is, he just made me furious.’

‘For Christ’s sake, commissaire, don’t say anything like that to Brezillon, or you’ve had it. Favre would be able to plead legitimate self-defence and as for you, who knows where it could go? You’d have lost all credibility, all authority, do you realise?’

‘Yes, Noel,’ Adamsberg replied, surprised by the level of solicitude unexpectedly being shown by his lieutenant. ‘At the moment, I’m all on edge. I’m dealing with a ghost and it isn’t easy.’

Noel was used to incomprehensible remarks from his superior officer, so he made no comment.

‘But not a word to Brezillon,’ he added anxiously. ‘No introspection or attacks of conscience. Just say you broke the bottle to intimidate Favre. That you were going to drop it, naturally. That’s what we all thought, and that’s what we’ll say.’

The lieutenant looked directly at Adamsberg, waiting for his agreement.

‘Yes, very well, Noel.’

Shaking hands, Adamsberg had the curious feeling that their positions had momentarily been reversed.

XIII

ADAMSBERG WALKED THE COLD STREETS FOR A LONG TIME, HUGGING his coat round him, and still carrying his overnight bag. He crossed the Seine, then started walking uphill to the north, without any destination in mind, his thoughts jangling in his head. He would have liked to return to that moment of calm, three days earlier, when he had put his hand on the cold tank of the heating system. Ever since then, he seemed to have been at the centre of a series of explosions, like the toad with its cigarette. Several toads in fact, going off at short intervals. A cloud of entrails thrown in the air and raining down images of blood. The sudden appearance of the judge from the depths, the idea of the dead awakening, the three stab wounds in Schiltigheim, the hostility of his closest colleague, his brother’s features, the spire of Strasbourg Cathedral (142 metres), the prince transformed into a dragon, the bottle brandished in Favre’s face. And his outbursts of rage, against Danglard, against Favre, against Trabelmann, and insidiously, against Camille who had left him. No, that was wrong, he was the one who had left Camille. He was getting things the wrong way round, like the prince and the dragon. Getting angry with everyone. So, what you mean, Ferez would have said calmly, is that you’re angry with yourself. Oh, go fuck yourself, Ferez.

He stopped walking when he realised that as he had zigzagged through the chaos of his thoughts, he had reached the point of wondering whether if you stuffed a dragon into the doors of Strasbourg Cathedral, the whole thing would explode, puff, puff, bang. He leaned against a lamp post, looked around to make sure no posters of Neptune were lying in wait for him, and passed his hand across his eyes. He was worn out and the injured arm was making him feverish. He swallowed two painkillers without water and looking around, saw that he had arrived at Clignancourt.

His way ahead was clear. Turning right, he set off for the tumbledown house of Clementine Courbet, tucked away in a little sidestreet near the fleamarket. He had not seen the old woman for a year, since the case of the painted door signs. And he had not known if he would ever see her again.

He knocked at the wooden door, suddenly feeling happy, hoping the grandmotherly figure would be at home, bustling about in her kitchen or her attic. And that she would recognise him again.

The door opened to reveal a large woman in a flower-print dress covered with a faded blue overall.

‘Oh, commissaire, I’m sorry, I can’t shake hands,’ Clementine said holding out her forearm. ‘I’m in the middle of cooking.’

Adamsberg shook the old woman’s arm, and she wiped her floury hands on her apron before returning to the stove. He followed her in, feeling reassured. Nothing seemed to surprise Clementine.

‘Now come on in, put your bag down, and make yourself comfortable.’

Adamsberg sat on a kitchen chair and watched her at work. A sheet of pastry was rolled flat on the wooden table and Clementine was cutting out rounds with a glass.

‘Cookies for tomorrow, m’dear,’ she explained, ‘because I’m fresh out of them. Help yourself from the tin, there’s a few left. And then can you pour us out two little glasses of port, that won’t do you any harm.’

‘You think I need it, Clementine?’

‘You’re in trouble. Did you know, I’ve got the boy married now?’

‘To Lizbeth?’ asked Adamsberg, pouring out the port and helping himself to a biscuit.

‘Yes, just a while back. What about you?’

‘Ah well, I’m afraid it’s the opposite for me.’

‘Oh, now surely she wasn’t giving you the run around, a nice man like you?’

‘On the contrary.’

‘Your fault then, was it?’

‘Yes, my fault.’

‘Well, it’s very wrong of you,’ announced the old woman, absorbing a third of her port. ‘A lovely girl like that.’

‘How do you know she’s lovely, Clementine?’

‘I spent some time in your police station, m’dear. And in there, my word, they do gossip, they talk, you find things out.’

Clementine put the biscuits in the oven of her old gas cooker, shut the creaking door, and watched them anxiously through the smoke-stained glass window.

‘You know what it is, don’t you, with men who run after girls, they cause trouble when they think they’re in danger of being hooked, don’t they? And then they blame their poor sweetheart.’

‘What do you mean, Clementine?’

‘Well, now, if they’ve really fallen for someone, it makes it more difficult to run around. So the poor sweetheart, they take it out on her.’

‘And how do they do that?’

‘What do you think, m’dear? They let her know good and proper that they’re cheating on her, right and left. And it’s not going to stop. So then the wee girl, she starts crying, and oh no, he doesn’t like that a bit. Of course not, nobody likes making people cry. So then, he walks out.’

‘And what happens next?’ asked Adamsberg, hanging on her words as if the old woman were recounting him some fantastic epic.

‘Well, then he’s in trouble, isn’t he? Now he’s lost his true love. Because running around’s one thing, and loving someone’s another. Not the same at all.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because running around doesn’t make a man happy. But being in love stops him running. So the man, he goes first one way then the other, and never really happy either. And the poor girl pays for it, but then after that, so does he.’

Clementine opened the oven door, glanced in and shut it again.

‘You’re quite right, Clementine.’