An Uncertain Place

‘No harm done,’ said Josselin, opening the door to his flat. ‘And how is little Charm? The kitten who wouldn’t feed,’ he explained, seeing that the name hadn’t registered with Adamsberg.

‘All right, I suppose. I haven’t been home since yesterday.’

‘With all this fuss in the press, I’m not surprised. Still, can you let me know how she’s doing, please?’

‘What, now?’

‘It’s important to follow up one’s patients for the first three days. Would you be offended if I receive you in the kitchen? I wasn’t expecting you, and I really need something to eat. Perhaps you haven’t eaten either, I’d guess? In which case we could share a simple meal? Don’t you think?’

I wouldn’t say no, thought Adamsberg, who was searching for an adequate way of talking to Josselin. People who said ‘don’t you think?’ always disconcerted him on first acquaintance. As the doctor took off his jacket and put on an old cardigan, Adamsberg called Lucio, who was astonished that he should be asking after Charm. She was fine, her strength was coming back. Adamsberg passed on the message and the doctor snapped his fingers with satisfaction.

It goes to show that you can’t rely on appearances and, as they say, we never really know other people. Adamsberg had rarely been received with such simple and natural cordiality. The doctor had left his pompous manner behind, like his jacket on the coat stand, and proceeded to lay the table casually – forks on the right, knives on the left – before tossing a salad with grated cheese and pine nuts, cutting a few slices of smoked ham, and putting on to the plates two scoops of rice and one of pureed figs, using an ice-cream scoop, which had been lightly oiled with his finger. Adamsberg watched him move around, fascinated, as he glided like a skater from cupboard to table, deploying his large hands with the utmost grace, a sight combining dexterity, delicacy and precision. The commissaire could have watched him for ever, as one might a dancer accomplishing movements one could never do oneself. But Josselin took a mere ten minutes to get everything on the table. Then he looked critically at the half-full bottle of wine, which was standing on the counter.

‘No,’ he said, putting it down, ‘I so rarely have visitors that it would be a pity.’

He bent down to look under the sink, surveyed what was there, and re-emerged with agility, showing his guest the label on a fresh bottle.

‘Much better, don’t you think? But to drink it all on one’s own would be like having a birthday party with no guests. Rather sad, don’t you think? Good wine tastes a lot better if it’s shared. So if you’ll do me the honour of joining me?’

Sitting down with a contented sigh, he tucked his napkin familiarly into his collar, as Emile might have done. Ten minutes later, the conversation had become as relaxed as his practised gestures.

‘The concierge thinks you’re a guru,’ said Adamsberg. ‘He says you’ve got golden fingers, can put anything right.’

‘Not at all,’ replied Josselin with his mouth full. ‘Francisco likes to believe in something beyond him, and that’s understandable, given that his parents were “disappeared” under the dictators.’

‘The sons-of-bitches-God-damn-them-to-hell.’

‘Just so. I’m spending a lot of time trying to settle the trauma, but he keeps blowing a fuse all the time.’

‘He’s got a fuse?’

‘Everyone does, more than one as a rule. In his case it’s F3. It’s a sort of safety valve, like in a security system. It’s just science, commissaire. Structure, agency, networks, circuits, connections. Bones, organs, connective tissue, the body works like a machine, you understand?’

‘No.’

‘Take this boiler,’ said Josselin, pointing to the wall. ‘Is it just a set of distinct elements, tank, water pipes, pump, joints, burner, safety valve? No, it’s a synergetic whole. If the pump gets furred up, the valve flips, and the burner goes out. You see? It’s all connected, the movement of each element depends on all the others. Well, so if you sprain your ankle, the other leg tries to compensate, you put your back out, your neck gets stiff and gives you a headache, next thing you know you feel sick and lose your appetite, your actions slow down, anxiety creeps in, the fuses blow. I’m simplifying of course.’

‘Why did Francisco’s fuse blow?’

‘He’s got a blocked zone,’ said the doctor, pointing to the back of his own head. ‘It’s his father. That box is shut, the basal-occipital won’t move. More salad?’

He served Adamsberg without waiting for an answer, and refilled his glass.

‘And Emile?’

‘His mother,’ said the doctor, munching noisily, and pointing to the other side of his head. ‘Acute sense of injustice. So he goes round bashing other people. But much less these days.’

‘And Vaudel?’

‘Ah, we’re getting to the point.’

‘Yes.’

‘Since the press has revealed so many details, the police can’t keep it a secret any more. Can you tell me about it now? Vaudel was horribly chopped up, is what they seem to say. But how, why, what was the killer after? Did you discover any logic, some sort of ritual?’

‘No, just a sort of unending panic, a fury that couldn’t be resolved. There must be a system there somewhere, but what it is we don’t know.’

Adamsberg got out his notebook and drew from memory the diagram showing the points the murderer had attacked most fiercely.

‘You’re good at drawing,’ said the doctor, ‘I can’t even draw a duck.’

‘Ducks are difficult.’

‘Go on, draw me one. I’ll be thinking about this diagram and the system while you do it.’

‘What sort of duck – flying, roosting, diving?’

‘Wait,’ said the doctor, smiling. ‘I’ll fetch some proper paper.’

He came back with some sheets of paper and moved the plates aside.

‘A duck in flight.’

‘Male or female?’

‘Both if you can.’

Then he asked Adamsberg to draw a rocky coastline, a pensive woman and a Giacometti sculpture, if possible. He waved the drawings about to dry the ink, and propped them up under the lamp.

‘Now you really have got golden fingers, commissaire. I would like to examine you. But you don’t want that. We’ve all got closed rooms we don’t want strangers to walk into, don’t you think? Don’t worry, I’m not a clairvoyant, I’m just a pragmatic practitioner with no imagination. You’re different.’

Carefully putting the drawings on the windowsill, the doctor carried the bottle and glasses through to his sitting room, along with the Vaudel diagrams.

‘What did you make of this?’ he asked, pointing with his large fingers at the elbows, ankles, knees and skull on the diagram.

‘Well, we thought the killer destroyed what made the body work, the joints, the feet. But it doesn’t take us very far.’

‘But also the brain, liver and heart. He was also intent on demolishing the soul, don’t you think?’

‘That’s what my deputy thought. More than a murderer, he’s a destroyer, a Zerquetscher, as the Austrian policeman said. Because he destroyed someone else, outside Vienna.’

‘Someone related to Vaudel, by any chance?’

‘Why?’

The doctor hesitated, then, noticing the wine was finished, took out a green bottle from a cupboard.

‘Some poire eau de vie – like a drop?’

No, he wouldn’t like a drop, after such a long day, but it would spoil the atmosphere, if he let Josselin drink the liqueur alone, so Adamsberg watched him fill two small glasses.

‘It wasn’t a single blocked zone I found in Vaudel’s skull, it was much worse.’

The doctor fell silent, hesitating again, as if wondering whether he should go on, then raised his glass and put it down again.