Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

‘So rich, he didn’t know what to do with it. But he kept control of it all himself. I used to lift small sums now and then, from his account, to help out my friends. That was how it started. I wasn’t very good at it in those days, and he caught me at it.’

‘And that led to a bust-up?’

‘The bust-up, as you call it, was messy. There was a lot of publicity. After the divorce, I started to explore his bank accounts more systematically, but I said to myself, Josette, if you’re going to be any good at this, you have to learn about finance and think big. And it just grew from there. By the time I was sixty-five, with computers around, I was ready for the big time.’

‘Where did you meet Clementine?’

‘In the fleamarket, oh, thirty-five years ago. I used to run a little antique shop my husband had set up for me.’

‘He wanted her to have something to occupy her,’ Clementine said, as she stood over Adamsberg seeing that he was eating up as instructed. ‘Only the best stuff, mind, nothing tatty. We had fun in those days, didn’t we, Josette, m’dear?’

‘Here’s our solicitor,’ said Josette, pointing to the screen.

‘About time too,’ said Clementine, who had never touched a keyboard in her life.

‘This is the right name, yes? Maitre Jerome Desseveaux and Partners, Boulevard Suchet in Paris.’

‘You’ve got into his files?’ said Adamsberg, fascinated, pulling his chair closer.

‘Yes, it’s as if we were walking round the room. He’s got a very big practice now, seventeen partners and thousands of files. Put your tennis shoes on, commissaire, we’re going hunting. What was the name again?’

‘Fulgence, Honore Guillaume.’

‘Several files here for that name,’ said Josette after a few moments. ‘But nothing dated later than 1987.’

‘That’s when he died. He must have changed his name.’

‘Do you have to do that if you die?’

‘Depends on what work you have on hand, I guess. Try Maxime Leclerc, who might have bought a property in 1999.’

‘Yes, here he is,’ said Josette. ‘He bought a property called Das Schloss in the Bas- Rhin departement. That’s the only file in that name.’

Fifteen minutes later, Josette had provided Adamsberg with a list of all the properties bought by the Trident between 1949 and 1987, the Desseveaux office having taken over the earlier files. So the same vassal had been taking charge of the judge’s affairs not only up to his death, but also in his afterlife, since he had handled the recent purchase of Das Schloss.

Adamsberg was in the kitchen, stirring a bechamel sauce with a wooden spoon, under Clementine’s orders. That is to say, he had to keep stirring at constant speed, making figures of eight in the pan. Those were her express instructions, to prevent lumps from forming. The location and names of the properties bought by the judge confirmed strikingly what he already knew about Fulgence’s past. They each corresponded to one of the murders with three stab wounds which he had collected during his long inquiry. For ten years, the judge had been on circuit in Loire-Atlantique, in north-west France, living at a house called Le Castelet-les-Ormes. In 1949, he had killed his first victim, about thirty kilometres away, a 28-year-old man, Jean-Pierre Espir. Four years later, in 1953, in the same sector, a young girl, Annie Lefebure, had been murdered in circumstances very like those of Elisabeth Wind. The judge had struck again six years later, in 1959, and this time his victim was a young man, Dominique Ventou. At which point he had prudently decided to sell Le Castelet. And Fulgence had moved to his second circuit, in Indre-et-Loire, also in the west. The lawyer’s files recorded the purchase of a small seventeenth-century chateau, Les Tourelles. In this area, he had killed two men, 47-year-old Julien Soubise and, four years later, an older man, Roger Lentretien. In 1967, he had left the region and moved to Le Manoir, in Adamsberg’s native village in the Pyrenees. He had waited six years before killing Lise Autan. This time, the threat from the vengeful young Adamsberg had obliged him to move on at once, and he had relocated to the Dordogne, living in a large farm called Le Pigeonnier. Adamsberg actually knew this aristocratic property, since he had located it and turned up there, but too late, as in Schiltigheim. The judge had already left before he traced him, following the murder of 35- year-old Daniel Mestre.

Adamsberg had then followed his trail to the Charente, still in the west, after the case of the murder of Jeanne Lessard, aged 56, in 1983. He had been quick off the mark, and had confronted Fulgence in his new address, La Tour-Maufourt. It was the first time that he had seen the man in ten years, and his haughty imperiousness had not changed. The judge had laughed at the accusations of the young policeman, and threatened him with every kind of harassment and the destruction of his career if he went on pestering him. He had another two dogs by then, dobermans, who could be heard barking in their kennel. Adamsberg had been intimidated by the judge, who was no easier to confront now than when he had been a teenager back at the Manoir. He had however listed the eight murders of which he was accusing him, from Jean-Pierre Espir to Jeanne Lessard. Fulgence had pressed the end of his cane into Adamsberg’s chest, and shoved him backwards pronouncing a few final words, calmly and courteously as if he were wishing him farewell.

‘Do not touch me, do not attempt to come near me. I can bring a thunderbolt down on your head whenever I please.’

Then putting down the cane, he had taken out the keys to the kennel, and repeated the exact formula he had used ten years earlier.

‘I’ll give you a start, young man. I will count to four.’

And as in the past, Adamsberg had had to run for it, followed by the frantic barking of the dobermans. In the train, as he recovered, he had done his best to react with disdain to the judge’s high and mighty airs. He was not going to allow himself to be reduced to ashes by the pressure of a cane on his chest from this would-be aristocrat. He had carried on with his enquiries, but the sudden departure of Fulgence from La Tour- Maufourt had taken him by surprise. It was only when the judge’s death was reported, four years later, that Adamsberg had discovered the name of his final retreat, a town house in Richelieu, Indre-et-Loire.

Adamsberg carried on stirring his figures of eight in the bechamel. In a way this activity helped him to keep going, and not to visualise himself in the demoniacal skin of the Trident, attacking Noella on the portage trail as Fulgence would have done.

While manipulating his wooden spoon and listening to its comfortable sound, he planned the next sortie into the underground internet he would have to make with Josette. He had had doubts about her expertise, imagining that she was exaggerating her powers: the fantasy life of an old woman in her final years. But no, he really did have access to a bold and practised hacker, in the shape of this former high-society lady. He was simply filled with admiration. He took the pan off the fire, as the sauce reached the desired consistency. At least he had managed not to ruin the bechamel sauce.

He picked up Josette’s Mafia-style mobile to call Danglard.

‘Nothing to report yet,’ came the reply. ‘It’s going to take a long time.’

‘I’ve found a short cut, capitaine.’

‘What do you mean, a way through the ice?’

‘I’ve got some solid information. The same lawyer acted for Fulgence, buying all his properties up to the date of his death. but he’s also handled the house purchases of… er, the disciple.’ Adamsberg was prudent enough to add, ‘Or at any rate the Haguenau Schloss.’

‘Where are you, commissaire?’

‘I’m in a solicitor’s office on the Boulevard Suchet. I can get into it easily. I’m wearing tennis shoes, so as not to make a noise. Deep-pile carpets, modern filing cabinets, ventilator fans. Very chic.’

‘Ah.’

‘But since his death, the properties have all been bought under other names, like Maxime Leclerc. So I might be able to trace them over the last sixteen years, but I’d need to imagine the kind of names Fulgence might choose.’

‘Yes, I suppose that’s right,’ Danglard agreed, doubtfully.

‘But I can’t do that. I don’t know much about etymology and names. Can you give me a list of names that might