the sink and the other by Camille’s synthesiser. Adamsberg looked up at the provocative square of light, watching for the new father’s shadow. The idea of someone else taking possession went through him like a drill, conjuring up the vision of a muscular man, walking about in the nude with his firm buttocks and flat stomach, an image that burned itself into his brain.
From the little cafe at street level came welcoming smells, and the hum of people drinking. Just like
This was the second time in his life he had deliberately got drunk, or at least since he was a teenager, thought Adamsberg, pushing open the steamed-up cafe door. Perhaps he would not try mixing his drinks tonight. Or again, perhaps he should. After all, in another five weeks he would be sitting in Brezillon’s armchair, having lost his memory, his job, his brother, his girl from the north, and his freedom. It was hardly the moment to be scared of mixing his drinks. Bloody labradors, he thought, downing his first cognac, and he decided to stuff them into some of the windows on the cathedral facade, with their back legs kicking in the air. When he had succeeded in filling all the orifices of the jewel of Gothic architecture with his imaginary menagerie, what would happen to the monument? Perhaps it would choke for lack of air and fall down. Or perhaps puff, puff, it would explode. Would it just collapse inwards, he wondered, ordering his second cognac, And what would they do with the ruins, not to speak of all the creatures lying beneath the masonry? Big problem for the canons of Strasbourg.
How about stuffing the windows of the Mounties’ headquarters with surplus animals while he was at it? Starving the atmosphere of oxygen and filling it with the stinking breath of the beasts. Laliberte would drop dead. He would have to save Sanscartier the Good of course, and the kindly Ginette. But would there be enough animals? It was a serious question, since you needed really big creatures. Moths and snails wouldn’t do. Good big creatures, preferably spitting smoke like dragons. But you couldn’t easily locate a dragon, they hide away sneakily in caves.
Well, of course he knew where to find some dragons, in a Mah Jong set, he thought, hitting the counter with his fist. All he knew about the Chinese game was that there were dragons in it, of various colours. He would just have to find some, like old Guillaumond with his three fingers, and push the reptiles in randomly, into all the doors and windows. Red ones for Strasbourg, green ones for Ottawa.
Adamsberg was unable to finish his fourth glass and staggered out to the moped. He couldn’t undo the lock, so instead he pushed open the door of Camille’s block of flats, and climbed up the seven storeys, clinging on to the bannister. He’d have a word with the new father, give him a piece of his mind, that’s what he’d do, and see him off. Might keep his labradors though, and add them to the judge’s dobermans. They’d do very well for some of the cathedral windows. But not Cargo, he was a good dog, and on Adamsberg’s side in all this, as was his little beetle-mobile phone. A foolproof plan, he thought as he leaned on Camille’s door. But a thought stopped him as he was about to ring the bell. A pang of memory. Look out. Last time you were drunk, you killed Noella. Don’t go in. You don’t know who you are, you don’t know what you’re capable of. Yes, but he really needed those labradors.
Camille opened the door, and was amazed to find him on the landing.
‘Are you alone?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘No dogs?’
He was having difficulty forming his words. Do not go in, roared the waters of the Ottawa River. Do not go in.
‘What dogs?’ asked Camille. ‘Jean-Baptiste, you’re drunk. You turn up out of the blue at midnight, and you start babbling about dogs.’
‘I’m talking about Mah Jong. Let me in.’
Unable to react quickly enough to stop him, Camille stood aside. He sat down clumsily on a stool at the bar in the kitchen, where the remains of her supper were still lying. He fiddled with the glass, the water jug, the fork, feeling its points. Camille, looking perplexed, had gone to sit crosslegged on her piano stool in the middle of the room.
‘I know your grandmother had a Mah Jong set,’ Adamsberg began again stumbling over the words. ‘I bet she didn’t let you dilute, did she? Dilute an’ I’ll shoot you!’
Ah, grandmothers, always good for a laugh, eh?
LII
JOSETTE SLEPT BADLY AND WAS WOKEN AT ONE IN THE MORNING BY A nightmare: out of her printer, pages of paper, all of them bright red, were spilling all over the room. Nothing could be read on them, because of their glossy red surface.
She got up quietly and tiptoed into the kitchen, where she helped herself to some cookies and maple syrup. Clementine came to join her, wrapped up in a huge dressing gown, like a nightwatchwoman.
‘I didn’t want to wake you,’ Josette pleaded.
‘Something going on in that little head, isn’t there,’ declared Clementine.
‘It’s just that I couldn’t sleep. Nothing really, Clemmie.’
‘Not your machine giving you headaches?’
‘Yes, I suppose it is. In my dream, I couldn’t read anything it printed.’
‘You’ll manage it, Josette, m’dear. I’m sure you can.’
But manage what, Josette wondered.
‘Clemmie, I thought I was dreaming about blood. All the paper was red.’
‘Was the machine leaking red ink?’
‘No, just the sheets of paper.’
‘Well then, it couldn’t be blood.’
‘Has he gone out?’ asked Josette, realising that Adamsberg was not sleeping on the couch.
‘Suppose so. He must be worrying about something. He’s fretting away too. Eat up and drink this too, m’dear, it’ll help you sleep,’ she said, offering Josette a bowl of warm milk.
After putting away the biscuit tin, Josette was still wondering what, if anything, she was going to manage. She put a sweater on over her pyjamas and sat brooding over the computer, without switching it on. Michel’s laptop was alongside, a useless but irritating ruin. She would have to get to the real answer, Josette thought, the one she was trying to chase unsuccessfully in her dream. The unreadable pages were a sign that she had not decoded Michel’s scraps of message properly. A big mistake crossed out in red.
Well, that must be it, she thought, going back to her version of the fractured sentence. It was silly to think people would put in those details if they were really talking about a drugs deal. You wouldn’t put the town, the kind of drug and so on. A dealer surely wouldn’t put out an email message like that. He might as well have put his name and address on the internet. She had set off completely along the wrong track, and her book had been corrected in red.
Josette patiently took up the succession of letters and tried various combinations without success:
‘I must have gone wrong, and I’m trying to understand why.’
‘Do you know what I think?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Well it looks like double Dutch to me. In some other language from some other country. Would you like some more hot milk?’
