Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

‘In a hairdresser’s, before I took up massage.’

Retancourt had probably lived several lives, Adamsberg thought. He allowed her to move his head about, soothed by the light touches and the regular sound of the scissors. At ten past eight she took him over to look in the mirror.

‘Pretty good, eh?’ she said with the pride of a little girl passing a test.

Yes, it was exactly like Raphael’s. Raphael’s hair was shorter than Jean-Baptiste’s, and neatly layered at the back. Adamsberg thought he looked different now, more severe and conventional. Yes, when he was wearing a suit and tie, for the few yards’ walk across the parking lot, his appearance ought not to alert the police. By eleven o’clock in any case, they’d be certain he had long since fled the hotel.

‘It was easy,’ said Retancourt, still smiling. The immediate operational future did not seem to be worrying her.

By ten past nine, the lieutenant was sitting in her bath, while Adamsberg was behind the door, both in complete silence.

Adamsberg raised his arm slightly to look at his watches: nine twenty-four and a half. Three minutes later, the police burst into the room. Retancourt had told him to breathe slowly and he was doing his best to comply.

The Mounties’ fast retreat, on seeing the bathroom door open, and Retancourt’s furious reaction all happened as planned. She banged the door in their faces and less than twenty seconds later, the close contact position, body against body, had been assumed. In a voice indicating contained anger, Retancourt gave the Mounties permission to come in and get on with it, for God’s sake. Adamsberg clung on tight to her waist and belt, his feet off the ground, his cheek pressed into her wet back. He had been sure his lieutenant would stagger when he took his feet off the ground, but nothing of the kind happened. Retancourt, as she had said, had turned herself into a pylon. He felt as if he were clinging to a maple tree. She didn’t even wobble or lean against the wall. She stood up straight, arms folded in the ample bathrobe, without a tremor. The sensation of total solidity stupefied Adamsberg and left him strangely calm all at once. He felt he could have stayed there for an hour quite safely. But by the time he had absorbed this feeling of stability, the cop had completed his quick check of the bathroom and gone out, shutting the door behind him. Retancourt quickly dressed and went back into the bedroom, where she continued to yell at the three Mounties for walking into her room like that and surprising her in her bath.

‘We did knock first, ma’am,’ said the voice of one he didn’t recognise.

‘Well, I didn’t hear you!’ Retancourt retorted. ‘And stop messing up my stuff. I’ve already told you, the commissaire told me to stay here. He wanted to see the super on his own this morning.’

‘When did he say that?’

‘When we parked in front of the hotel, seven o’clock this morning. He must be over in Laliberte’s office by now.’

‘Nope, no way. He’s not over in the RCMP base, he’s not in his room. Your boss has done a runner!’

From behind the door, Adamsberg understood that Retancourt was reacting with a shocked silence.

‘No, no, he was due there at nine,’ she said firmly. ‘He’s sure to be over there. Don’t try and tell me any different.’

‘Christ, woman, don’t you understand? He’s fooled us and gone AWOL.’

‘No, that can’t be right. He won’t have gone without me, we’re supposed to work together, we’re a team. Something must have happened to him.’

‘Wake up, lieutenant! Your fucking boss is the devil on skates, and he’s fooled you too.’

‘I don’t get it,’ Retancourt muttered obstinately. ‘He wouldn’t do that.’

The voice of another cop – it sounded like Philippe-Auguste, Adamsberg thought – broke in.

‘Nothing in here.’

‘Nope, nothing,’ came the dry voice of Portelance.

‘Don’t worry,’ said the first voice. ‘When we catch him, he can do his explaining to you, if you’re his “team- mate”. Come on, we’ve got to search the rest of the hotel.’

He shut the door, apologising again for bursting in rudely.

At eleven, wearing a grey suit, white shirt and tie, Adamsberg walked calmly over to his brother’s car. There were police all over the place, but he didn’t glance at them. At eleven-forty, his bus left for Montreal. Retancourt had told him to get off one stop before the terminus. All he had in his pockets was Basile’s address and a note from Retancourt.

As he watched the trees go past the bus window, he thought he had never been sheltered so solidly and securely as against Retancourt’s gleaming white body. Better than the mountain crannies where his great-uncle had taken refuge. How on earth had she managed it? It was a complete mystery. One that all Voisenet’s chemistry would never be able to explain.

XXXVII

LOUISSEIZE AND SANSCARTIER APPROACHED LALIBERTE’S OFFICE, without enthusiasm, to present their report.

‘The boss is about to go ape,’ said Louisseize in a whisper.

‘Yeah, he’s been cursing like crazy since this morning,’ said Sanscartier with a smile.

‘You think that’s funny?’

‘What’s really funny, Berthe, is that Adamsberg has given us all the slip. He’s rattled Laliberte’s cage all right.’

‘Well, laugh if you like, but we’re the ones who are going to pick up the tab.’

‘It’s not our fault, Berthe, we did our best. Want me to do the talking? He doesn’t scare me.’

Standing at his desk, Laliberte was completing the orders he was now issuing by telephone: photographs of the suspect to be circulated, roadblocks, police checks at all the airports.

‘Well?’ he yelled, hanging up. ‘Where did you look?’

‘We searched the whole park, superintendent,’ Sanscartier replied. ‘Nothing. He might have gone for a walk and had an accident. Met a bear?’

The superintendent wheeled round and turned on his sergeant. ‘Have you completely lost it, Sanscartier? Don’t you get it? He’s cut and run.’

‘We don’t know that for sure. He meant to come back. After all, he kept his promise about sending us all those files on the judge.’

Laliberte thumped the table with his fist.

‘His story’s a load of bullshit! Take a look at that,’ he said, holding out a sheet. ‘His precious judge died sixteen years ago! So put that in your pipe and smoke it.’

Sanscartier registered the judge’s date of death without showing surprise and nodded.

‘Maybe there’s a copycat at work,’ he suggested. ‘After all, the trident story seemed to fit.’

‘His story’s ancient history. We’ve been taken for a ride and that’s all there is to it.’

‘I didn’t think he was lying.’

‘If he wasn’t lying, it’s even worse. It means he’s completely cuckoo and living in a world of his own.’

‘He didn’t seem crazy to me.’

‘Don’t make me laugh, Sanscartier. His story was strictly for the birds.’

‘But he didn’t invent those other murders, did he?’

‘Look, sergeant,’ said Laliberte, motioning to Sanscartier to sit down, ‘you’ve been off message for a few days now, and my patience is running out. So listen hard, and get thinking. That night, Adamsberg was in a black mood, right? He’d had so much to drink he couldn’t see straight, right? When he was chucked out of L’Ecluse, he was all over the place, talking rubbish. The barman told us that, right?’

‘Right.’

‘And aggressive with it. “Come any nearer and I’ll spear ye.” Spear ye, Sanscartier,