Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

Adamsberg smiled as he went to his room. Danglard wasn’t very skilled at subterfuge. The previous night he had heard him start his car at 6.30 p.m. and return at almost two in the morning. Time to drive to Montreal, listen to the concert and do his good deed for the day. So he was short of sleep, as one could tell from the rings round his eyes. Good old Danglard, so certain that he was undetected, keeping his mouth shut about the secret that was a secret no longer. Tonight was the last concert in the series, which would mean another return trip for the gallant capitaine.

Adamsberg watched from his bedroom window, as Danglard made his furtive getaway. Drive safely and enjoy the concert, capitaine. He was watching the car’s tail-lights, when Mordent called.

‘Sorry not to get back to you before, commissaire, but we had a crisis on. A guy who was trying to kill his wife and call us at the same time. We had to surround the building.’

‘Any damage?’

‘No, his first bullet went into the piano and the second into his own foot. A complete loser, luckily.’

‘Any news from Alsace?’

‘Simplest thing is, I’ll read you the article. It was on page eight of the Friday paper. “Doubts about the Schiltigheim murder? Following the investigation by the Schiltigheim gendarmerie into the tragic killing of Elisabeth Wind on Saturday 4 October, the authorities have placed in preventive detention the man who was reported to be helping them with their enquiries, Bernard Vetilleux. However, according to information that has reached us, Vetilleux was allegedly questioned by a senior detective from Paris. According to the same source, the murder of this young girl may be linked to a serial killer who has struck elsewhere in France. This theory is however firmly rejected by Commandant Trabelmann who is leading the investigation. He dismissed it as an idle rumour, and said that the arrest of Vetilleux was on the basis of cast-iron evidence.” Is that what you were after, commissaire?’

‘Absolutely. Can you hang on to the article for me? I’ll just have to pray that Brezillon doesn’t read the Nouvelles d’Alsace.’

‘Would you prefer them not to charge Vetilleux?’

‘Yes and no. It’s hard to shovel earth.’

‘OK,’ said Mordent, non-committally. ‘Thanks for the emails. It sounds interesting but not exactly fun, all those cards and discs.’

‘Well, Justin’s in his element, Retancourt can adapt to anything, Voisenet’s supernaturally good at it, Froissy is just going through the motions, Noel is getting impatient, Estalere is perpetually amazed, and Danglard is becoming a concertgoer.’

‘And what about you, commissaire?’

‘Me? Oh I’m the shoveller of clouds. But keep that to yourself, Mordent, same as the article.’

From Mordent, Adamsberg went straight into the arms of Noella, whose growing passion was certainly a distraction from the irritating discovery in Montreal. A most determined girl, she had quickly resolved the problem of where to meet. He would pick her up at the Champlain stone, then it took them a quarter of an hour to walk along the cycle track to a bicycle-hire shop; one of its sash windows didn’t shut properly. Noella brought in her rucksack everything they needed, sandwiches, hot drinks and a camping mattress. Adamsberg left her at eleven, returning by the portage trail, which he could now walk blindfold, passing the timber site, waving to the watchman and greeting the Ottawa River before going back to sleep.

Work, river, forest, willing partner. Not so bad after all. Forget about the new father, and as for the Trident, keep repeating Sanscartier’s words: ‘You’ve got what it takes, just follow your hunches.’ Sanscartier was the one he wanted most to believe, although from various allusions by Portelance and Ladouceur, he was not thought to be the brains of the group.

There had been a slight shadow cast over the scene that evening by Noella. A short exchange, which luckily went no further.

‘Take me back to Paris with you,’ said the young woman, as she lay on the camping mattress.

‘Sorry, I can’t, I’m married,’ said Adamsberg instinctively.

‘You’re lying.’

He had kissed her then, to put a stop to any further conversation.

XXIV

THE DAYS WORKING WITH GINETTE SAINT-PREUX PASSED PEACEABLY, except for the growing complexity of the course, which obliged Adamsberg to start taking notes from his teammate’s dictation. ‘Transfer to amplification chamber, production of copies of the sample by the thermal cycler.’

‘OK, Ginette, whatever you say.’

But Ginette who was as talkative as she was determined, had spotted Adamsberg’s vague expression and was not letting him off the hook.

‘Don’t switch off, it’s not that hard to understand. Imagine a molecular photocopy machine, producing millions of examples of segments. Right?’

‘Right,’ repeated Adamsberg automatically.

‘The products of the amplification carry a fluorescent tag which makes it easy to detect with a laser-scanner. Do you get it now?’

‘Yes, Ginette, I get it fine. Just carry on, I’m watching.’

Noella was waiting for him on the Thursday evening, perched on her bike, and smiling broadly with a confident air. Once the mattress had been unrolled on the floor of the shop, she leant up on one elbow, and reached out to take something from her rucksack.

‘Surprise, surprise,’ she said, brandishing an envelope.

She waved it in front of his eyes with a laugh. Adamsberg sat up, apprehensively.

‘She’s managed to get a seat on the same flight as you, next Tuesday.’

‘Are you going back to Paris? Already?’

‘I’m going home with you.’

‘Noella, I’ve already told you, I’m married. No way.’

‘Liar.’

He kissed her again, feeling more worried than before.

XXV

ADAMSBERG LINGERED TO HAVE A CHAT WITH THE SQUIRREL ON DUTY outside the RCMP base, in order to put off for a few minutes the day working with Mitch Portelance. Today, the squirrel had recruited a little girlfriend, who was distracting him somewhat from his guard duty. Quite unlike the humourless Portelance, a high-flying scientist who had taken to genetics like a duck to water, and had dedicated his entire professional fervour to molecules of DNA. Unlike Ginette, the inspector failed to realise that Adamsberg could not follow his explanations, let alone find any enthusiasm for them, and he tended to spit out facts with a machine-gun delivery. Adamsberg took some notes now and then, trying to retain elements of this scientific harangue. ‘Deposit of every sample on to a specially-designed membrane sample comb… introduction to the sequencer.’

‘A membrane comb(?)’ Adamsberg was writing. ‘Transfer of the DNA into separator gel with the aid of an electric field. Separator gel(?)’

‘Now look what’s happening!’ said Portelance. ‘We’re witnessing a sort of molecular race, in which the fragments of DNA move through the gel to reach the finishing line.’

‘Er…really?’

‘Which is a detector that picks up the fragments as they emerge from the sequencer, one by one, in increasing order of length.’

‘Fascinating,’ said Adamsberg, drawing in his notebook a huge queen ant, pursued by about a hundred winged