cats purring at my feet, my own personal orchestra, a park, a terrace, a fountain, a few mistresses and chorus girls about the place, and the right to insult anyone I like. But no one is about to give me anything like that. So they don’t try to buy me, I’m too complicated and far too expensive.’
‘I can give you a cat. There’s a little girl-cat here, one week old, as soft as cotton wool. She’s always hungry, precious and delicate, she’d fit your grand house very well.’
‘I haven’t got the first brick of the house yet.’
‘It’s a start, the first rung on the ladder.’
‘I might be interested. But get rid of the GPS, Adamsberg.’
‘I’d have to trust you.’
‘Men who are dreaming of ancient glories don’t make good traitors.’
Adamsberg passed him the phone and drank the very last drop of beer. Weill removed the battery and took out the location chip with his thumbnail.
‘That was why I had to see you in person,’ he said, giving it back.
XXIX
COACH 17 FOR BELGRADE HELD A LUXURY COMPARTMENT: two bunks were made up with white sheets and red blankets, and there were bedside lamps, polished side tables, a washbasin and towels. Adamsberg had never travelled in such luxury before, and checked his tickets. Yes, berths 22 and 24. There must have been some mistake at the accounts department of Travel and Foreign Missions at police headquarters, and there would be hell to pay at some point. Adamsberg sat down on his couchette, feeling as satisfied as a burglar who happens on a fortune. He settled in as if in a hotel, spread out his files on the bed, examined the menu for dinner ‘alla francese’ which would be served at ten: cream of asparagus soup, solettes a la Plogoff, blue cheese from the Auvergne, tartufo, coffee and Valpolicella to drink. He felt just the same jubilation as when he had returned to his foul-smelling car in Chateaudun and found Froissy’s surprise provisions. So, he mused, it’s not the actual quality that gives pleasure but the unexpected well-being, regardless of the components.
He went on to the platform to light one of Zerk’s cigarettes. The young man’s lighter was black too, with a red design on it depicting the circuits of the brain. He had no difficulty spotting Uncle Slavko’s grandson, whose hair was as straight and black as Dinh’s, tied back in a ponytail, and whose eyes were amber-coloured and narrow over high Slavic cheekbones.
‘Vladislav Moldovan,’ the young man who was about thirty introduced himself, with a grin that covered his whole face. ‘You can call me Vlad.’
‘Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg. Thank you for agreeing to accompany me.’
‘On the contrary, it’s my pleasure. Dedo only took me twice to Kiseljevo, the last time I was fourteen years old.’
‘Dedo?’
‘My grandfather. I’ll go and visit his grave and tell him stories like he used to me. Is this our compartment?’ he asked, hesitating.
‘Foreign Missions must have mixed me up with someone important.’
‘Wow,’ said Vladislav, ‘I’ve never slept like someone important before. You need that if you’re going to confront the demons of Kiseljevo. I know some people who would rather stay hidden in a hut.’
Chatty fellow, said Adamsberg to himself, thinking that this was probably a professional deformation in someone who worked as a translator and interpreter. Vladislav translated from nine languages, and for Adamsberg, who could hardly remember Stock’s full name, this kind of brain was as strange as Danglard’s encyclopedic equipment. He was only afraid the young man with the sunny disposition would engage him in endless conversation.
‘Adrien Danglard – Adrianus, my grandfather used to call him – didn’t tell me why you’re going to Kiseljevo. As a general rule, people don’t go to Kiseljevo.’
‘Because it’s a small place, or because it has demons?’
‘Do you come from a village?’
‘Yes, Caldhez, a tiny place in the Pyrenees.’
‘Are there demons in Caldhez?’
‘Two: a nasty troll in a cave, and a singing tree.’
‘Wow. And what are you looking for in Kiseljevo?’
‘The roots of a story.’
‘It’s a very good place for roots.’
‘Have you heard about the murder in Garches?’
‘The old man who was chopped to bits?’
‘That’s it. Well, we found a note in his writing with the name of Kiseljevo in Cyrillic script.’
‘What has this got to do with my dedo? Adrianus said this was for Dedo.’
Adamsberg looked out of the window, trying to come up with an instant idea, which was not his strong point. He should have thought earlier of a plausible explanation. He didn’t intend to tell the young man that some Zerk had cut off his dedo’s feet. Things like that might pierce holes in the soul of a grandson, and destroy his sunny disposition.
‘Danglard listened to a lot of Slavko’s stories. And Danglard collects information the way a squirrel collects nuts, much more than he would need for twenty winters. He thinks he recalls that this man Vaudel – that was the victim’s name – went to live at some point in Kisilova, and that it was your Slavko who told him about this. It seemed perhaps that Vaudel was getting away from some kind of enemy by going to Kisilova.’
Not a very brilliant cover story, but it was enough, since just then a bell rang to say dinner was served. They decided to eat it in their compartment like really important people. Vladislav asked what ‘solettes a la Plogoff’ meant. And the steward explained in Italian that this meant sole cooked in the Breton fashion, with a sauce of oysters specially flown in from Plogoff, a village on the Pointe du Raz, the furthest western point in Brittany. He took their order, seeming to consider that this young man in a T-shirt and ponytail, with black hair covering his arms, was not a really important person, any more than his travelling companion.
‘If you’re as hairy as I am,’ Vlad said, once the steward had disappeared, ‘people send you to ride in a cattle truck. I inherited this on my mother’s side,’ he said sadly, pulling at the hairs on his forearm before breaking into a peal of laughter as abrupt as a vase shattering.
Vladislav’s laugh was deeply infectious and he seemed capable of laughing at anything without any assistance.
After the solettes a la Plogoff and the Valpolicella and the dessert, Adamsberg stretched out on the couchette with his files. He had to read everything and start from scratch again. This was the most wearing aspect of his work for him. Notes, files, reports, formal statements, where you couldn’t get through to any real sensation.
‘How do you get on with Adrianus?’ Vladislav interrupted, as Adamsberg was painfully deciphering the German file and conscientiously reading the report on Frau Abster, domiciled in Cologne, seventy-six years old. ‘And did you know that he reveres you,’ he went on, ‘but at the same time you’re driving him to distraction?’
‘Danglard is easily driven to distraction. He can do it without anyone’s help.’
‘He says he doesn’t understand you.’
‘Like earth, air, fire and water. All I can tell you is that without Danglard, our squad would long since have been shipwrecked on some terrible reef somewhere.’
‘Like the Pointe du Raz and Plogoff. That would be cool. You’d be shipwrecked with Adrianus and you could eat solettes like on the Venice-Belgrade train to console yourselves.’
Adamsberg was making no progress with the file. He was stuck on line 5 of the information about Frau Abster, born in Cologne, daughter of Franz Abster and Erika Plogerstein. Danglard hadn’t warned him about Vladislav’s non-stop talking, which was disturbing his concentration.
‘I have to read some of this standing up,’ said Adamsberg, getting up.
‘Wow.’
‘I’ll take it out into the corridor.’
