‘Yeah, right, no way you can go out for now,’ said Basile, ‘and you can’t go paying with your credit cards. The
‘Seven days confined to barracks then,’ Adamsberg said.
‘It’s no big deal,’ said Basile. ‘You’ve got all you need here. We can read the papers. They’ll all be talking about us, it’ll be a laugh.’
Basile didn’t seem to take anything seriously, even sheltering a potential murderer in his flat. Violette’s word appeared to be good enough for him.
‘I like to walk,’ said Adamsberg with a wry smile.
‘There’s a long corridor in the flat. You’ll just have to use it for exercise. Violette, I think we’d better turn you into a desperate housewife, OK? I’ll get you a smart suit and a necklace and we’ll dye your hair darker.’
‘OK. For the
‘Good idea,’ said Basile. ‘It would really change the way he looks. Tweed suit, beige check I think, receding hairline, and a bit of a pot-belly.’
‘We’ll whiten the rest of his hair,’ said Retancourt. ‘Get some foundation too, I think we ought to make his complexion paler. And some lemon juice. It needs to be professional quality make-up.’
‘I gotta colleague does the cinema column, he’ll know where to get studio make-up. I’ll fetch some stuff tomorrow and develop the photos in our lab.’
‘Basile is a photographer,’ Retancourt explained. ‘For
‘A journalist?’
‘Yup,’ said Basile with a friendly pat on his shoulder. ‘And here’s a godalmighty scoop sitting at my table. You’re in a hornets’ nest now. Scarey, eh?’
‘It’s a risk,’ said Adamsberg, smiling faintly.
Basile burst out laughing.
‘It’s OK,
XXXIX
ADAMSBERG MUST HAVE COVERED SOMETHING LIKE TEN KILOMETRES over the week, pacing up and down in Basile’s corridor. After being cooped up for seven days, he was almost able to take pleasure in walking freely in the Montreal airport terminal. But the place was crawling with cops, which took away his appetite for relaxation.
He glanced at himself sideways in a glass door, to check if he passed muster as a salesman aged about sixty. Retancourt had done a fantastic job, and he had let her manipulate him like a puppet. The transformation had tickled Basile. ‘Make him look depressed,’ he had advised Violette, so that was what they had done. His expression was much altered, under eyebrows which had been whitened and plucked. Retancourt had taken the trouble even to dye his eyelashes and half an hour before they left the house, she put a drop of lemon juice in the corner of each eye. His bloodshot gaze and pale complexion made him look tired and unhealthy. His nose, lips and ears remained unchangeable however, and seemed to him to betray his identity at every turn.
He felt for his new ID papers in his pocket, checking now and then to make sure they were there. Jean-Pierre Emile Roger Feuillet was the name Violette’s brother had provided for him, in an impeccably forged passport. It included stamps from Roissy and Montreal attesting to his voyage out. Professional stuff. If the brother was as capable as the sister, the Retancourts were a family of experts.
His real papers had been left with Basile, in case his bags were examined. What a pal Basile had been. He had fetched the Canadian newspapers every day. The virulent articles about the runaway murderer and his accomplice had delighted him. And he was considerate too. So that Adamsberg should not feel too lonely, he had often walked up and down the corridor with him. He liked going on outdoor hikes himself and understood that the prisoner felt cooped up. They would chat as they walked, and after a week Adamsberg had heard all about Basile’s various girlfriends, as well as the geography of Canada from Vancouver to the Gaspe peninsula. Still, Basile had never heard about the fish in Pink Lake and promised he’d go and take a look. You should see Strasbourg Cathedral too, if ever you come to little old France, Adamsberg had told him.
He went through security, trying to empty his mind of worries, as Jean-Pierre Emile Roger Feuillet would have, if he were on his way back to France to interest his company in placing orders for maple syrup. But strangely, the faculty of emptying his mind, which normally came to him quite naturally and spontaneously, seemed very hard to achieve that day. He, who could usually daydream at any moment and miss whole chunks of other people’s conversations, who was forever shovelling clouds, now found himself breathing rapidly and processing a thousand jumbled thoughts in his head as he went through the routine baggage checks.
But the officials showed no interest in Jean-Pierre Emile Roger Feuillet and once he was in the departure lounge, Adamsberg forced himself to relax and buy a bottle of maple syrup. A very typical gesture on the part of Feuillet, taking a present for his mother. The sound of jet engines starting up and then taxi-ing to take-off produced in him a relief that Danglard would never have been able to conceive. He watched the Canadian landscape disappear beneath them, imagining that there were hundreds of Mounties down there, engaged in their fruitless search.
Now all he had to do was get through immigration at Roissy. And of course Retancourt still had to make her getaway, after an interval of two and a half hours. Adamsberg was worried for her. Her new persona as a rich suburban housewife was unsettling – and had given Basile plenty of fun – but Adamsberg was afraid that her figure would give her away. The image of her naked body flashed in front of his eyes. Impressive, yes, but well- proportioned. Raphael was right, Retancourt was indeed a beautiful woman, and he reproached himself for not having seen this before, preoccupied as he was with her vigour and determination. Raphael had always been more sensitive than he.
Seven hours later, the plane touched down on French soil at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport. He went through customs and passport control and for a moment felt ridiculously free. It was a mistake. The nightmare was going to continue now in another country. In front of him, the future was as empty and white as an icefield. Retancourt could at least go back to the office, arguing that she had been afraid that the Mounties would arrest her for complicity. But for him a journey to nowhere was about to begin. Accompanied only by the aching doubt about his forgotten actions. He would almost rather have been guilty and killed someone, than have to carry around the terrible vagueness about what had happened on the night of October 26.
Jean-Pierre Emile Roger Feuillet went through all the checks at Roissy, but Adamsberg could not bring himself to leave the airport until he knew whether Retancourt had arrived safely. He wandered about for a couple of hours in the terminal buildings, trying to make himself inconspicuous, and imitating Retancourt’s invisibility at RCMP headquarters. But he need not have bothered, since Jean-Pierre was obviously of no interest to anyone, just as in Montreal. He kept checking the arrivals boards, to see when the jumbo jets were arriving on long-haul flights. His own jumbo jet, he thought: Retancourt. Without whom he would now be rotting in a Canadian jail, and completely without hope. Retancourt, his escape route on a 747.
The inconspicuous Jean-Pierre therefore stationed himself without too much panic about twenty metres from the arrivals gate. Retancourt must have channelled all her energy into becoming Henriette Emma Marie Parillon. He clenched his fists, as the passengers started pouring into the hall, but couldn’t see her anywhere. Had she been picked up at the airport? Taken back to headquarters? Grilled all night? And what if she had cracked? Mentioned Raphael’s name? Or her brother’s? Adamsberg grew irritated at all the strangers as they walked past him looking relieved that their flight was over, clutching their bags full of maple syrup and fluffy caribous. He was angry that they were not Retancourt. A hand caught his arm and drew him further into the hall. It was Henriette Emma Marie Parillon.
‘You must be nuts!’ whispered Retancourt, while maintaining the haughty expression of Henriette.
They travelled together as far as Chatelet metro station, where Adamsberg suggested to his
