up.’
‘Noella, that’s you?’
‘Yes. In the end, she found a girlfriend to take her in.’
‘I see,’ said Adamsberg again, having already listened to more than he needed to.
‘So I’m waiting,’ she went on, lighting another cigarette. ‘I’m making some quick bucks working in a bar in Ottawa, and as soon as I’ve saved up enough, I’m going back to Paris. Not very bright, eh?’
‘Why are you out here so early?’
‘She comes to listen to the wind. She comes here often, morning and evening. I tell myself that even if you’re lost, you have to find somewhere to be. I’ve chosen this stone. What’s your name?’
‘Jean-Baptiste.’
‘And your other name?’
‘Adamsberg.’
‘And what do you do?’
‘I’m a cop.’
‘That’s a laugh! Here they call them pigs. My chum, he’d say, oh-oh, here come the pigs, and you wouldn’t see him for dust. Are you working with the Gatineau cops?’
Adamsberg nodded and took advantage of the sleet that was beginning to fall, to get away.
‘Bye for now,’ she said, without budging from her stone.
At two minutes to nine o’clock, he was parking in front of the RCMP. Laliberte gave him a hearty wave from the doorway.
‘Come on in!’ he shouted. ‘What about this weather! Hey, man, what have you been up to, with all that mud on your pants?’
‘I fell over on the portage path by the river,’ explained Adamsberg, rubbing at the marks.
‘You been out walking already? No kidding?’
‘I wanted to see the river, the rapids, the trees, the old portage.’
‘Hey, an outdoor freak,’ cried Laliberte with a laugh. ‘So you took a dive?’
‘A dive? In the river? No, sorry, I don’t always understand, you mean a fall?’
‘Right, don’t apologise, I won’t take it personally. Hey, call me Aurele. I mean, yeah, how d’you come to fall?’
‘The path’s steep in places, I slipped on a stone.’
‘No bones broken at least.’
‘No, no, I’m fine.’
‘One of your men is here already, the big slouch.’
‘Don’t call him that, Aurele, he knows what it means.’
‘How come?’
‘He reads books. He may look sloppy, but there’s not an ounce of slackness in that head. Only he does find it a bit hard getting up in the morning.’
‘Let’s grab a coffee while we wait,’ said the superintendent heading for the machine. ‘Got some change?’
Adamsberg took a handful of unfamiliar coins from his pocket and Laliberte extracted the right one.
‘Decaff or regular?’
‘Regular,’ Adamsberg chose, hopefully.
‘This’ll set you up,’ said Aurele, handing him a huge plastic cup full of very hot coffee. ‘So you go out for a breath of fresh air every morning, do you?’
‘I go walking. Morning, daytime, evening, doesn’t matter when. I just need to walk.’
‘Right,’ said Aurele with a smile. ‘Or perhaps you’re on the lookout for a girl?’
‘No, I’m not. But since you mention it, there was one, funnily enough, sitting by the Champlain stone, at eight in the morning. Seemed a bit odd.’
‘Pretty weird, I’d say. A chick on her own, on the trail, could be a hooker. Nobody goes there. Don’t get hooked, Adamsberg. It could be big trouble.’
Usual conversation of men round the coffee machine, thought Adamsberg, here or anywhere else.
‘OK, off we go,’ concluded the superintendent. ‘No more talk about girls, we’ve got work to do.’
Laliberte gave out instructions to the teams of two in the big room. Danglard had been assigned to the innocent-looking Sanscartier. Laliberte had paired the women with each other, probably out of a feeling that it would be more correct, allocating the large Retancourt to the slim Louisseize, and Froissy to Ginette Saint-Preux. Today’s task was on-the-spot collection. They would visit eight houses belonging to public-spirited citizens who had agreed to take part in the experiment. Each officer had a DNA collection kit. They would place their samples on a special card for collecting body fluids, said Laliberte, holding this object high in the air as if it was a sacred Host. It neutralised any bacterial or viral contamination, without the need for freezing.
‘A new technique, which gives us an economy, one, of time, two, of money, three, of space.’
While listening to the strict instructions of the superintendent, Adamsberg was leaning forward on his chair, his hands in his pockets, which were still damp from the walk. His fingers encountered the green brochure he had picked up from the table, in order to return it to Ginette Saint-Preux. It was by now damp and crumpled and he took it out carefully, trying not to tear it. Discreetly, he spread it out on a table with the palm of his hand, to smooth it back into shape.
‘Today,’ Laliberte continued, ‘we will collect, one, sweat, two, saliva, and three, blood. Tomorrow, tears, urine, snot and dirt from under the nails. And semen from those citizens who have agreed to fill a test tube.’
Adamsberg gave a start, not because of the public-spirited citizens and their test tubes, but because of what he had just read on the damp brochure.
‘Check properly,’ Laliberte said loudly, turning to the Paris team, ‘that the codes of the cards correspond to those on the kits. As I always say, you have to remember three things: rigour, rigour and more rigour. That’s the only way to get the job done.’
The eight teams moved towards the cars, armed with the addresses of the citizens who were obligingly lending their homes and their bodies to the series of samples. Adamsberg stopped Ginette as she went by.
‘I wanted to give you this back,’ he said, handing her the green brochure. ‘You left it in the restaurant but I thought you’d be needing it.’
‘Goodness, yes, I wondered where I’d put it.’
‘I’m sorry, it’s got wet.’
‘Never mind. I’ll take it to the office. Can you tell Helene I’ll be right back?’
‘Ginette,’ said Adamsberg, holding her back by the arm and pointing to the brochure. ‘That Camille Forestier, the viola player, is she always in the Montreal quintet?’
‘No, she isn’t. Alban told me their viola player’s on maternity leave. She was already six months pregnant when they needed to start rehearsals.’
‘Alban?’
‘The first violin, a friend of mine. He met this Camille Forestier, who’s French, and auditioned her. She was good, so he took her on at once.’
‘Hey, Adamsberg,’ called Laliberte, ‘get a move on there.’
‘Thanks, Ginette,’ said Adamsberg, joining his partner.
‘What did I say?’ said the superintendent, as he climbed into the car, laughing once more. ‘Always after the ladies, aren’t you? And with one of my inspectors too, on your second day here. Fast worker or what?’
‘It’s not what you think, Aurele, we were talking about music. Classical music,’ added Adamsberg, as if ‘classical’ somehow lent respectability to their conversation.
‘Music, my eye!’ laughed the superintendent, switching on the engine. ‘Don’t play the little plaster saint with me. You saw her downtown last night, right?’
‘It was quite by chance. I was eating at the
‘Drop it with Ginette, she’s married. And happily married.’
