An Uncertain Place

came to see you at home on Wednesday morning, that wasn’t him.’

‘Were you there that morning too?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you didn’t do anything? But it was the same man, Veyrenc. Zerk is Zerk.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘You’re not making any more sense than you were.’

‘Have you changed from the past, is clarity your god?’

Adamsberg got up, took the packet of Morava from the mantelpiece, and lit a cigarette from the fire.

‘You smoke now?’

‘Zerk’s fault. He left a packet with me. And I’ll go on smoking till I get him under lock and key.’

‘So why did you let him go?’

‘Just don’t bug me, Veyrenc, he was armed, I wasn’t, I couldn’t do anything.’

‘No? Couldn’t you have called up reinforcements when he’d gone? Surrounded the district? Why didn’t you?’

‘None of your business.’

‘You let him go because you weren’t certain he was the Garches murderer.’

‘I was absolutely certain he was. You don’t know anything about the investigation. So let me tell you, Zerk left his DNA in Garches on a Kleenex. And that was the same DNA that came walking in on two legs to my house on Wednesday, with the clear purpose of killing me, that morning or some other time. And let me tell you that boy is bad through and through. He didn’t once deny the murder.’

‘He didn’t?’

‘On the contrary, he was proud of it. And he went back there just to stamp on a kitten with his boot. And he wears a T-shirt covered with vertebrae and drops of blood.’

‘Yes, I know about that, I watched him go.’

Veyrenc took a cigarette from the packet, lit it and paced around the room like an obstinate wild boar. All the sweetness had vanished from his face. Adamsberg observed him. Veyrenc was protecting Zerk. So Veyrenc must be in league with Emma Carnot. Veyrenc must be waiting to push him into a hole, like all those others. But in that case, why rescue him from the vault? To get him eliminated legally?

‘Let me tell you something, Adamsberg. Thirty years ago, a certain Gisele Louvois got herself pregnant, down by the little bridge over the Jaussene. You know where I mean. And let me tell you that she went to Pau to hide the pregnancy, and gave birth there to a boy, Armel Louvois.’

‘Zerk. Yes, I know all that, Veyrenc.’

‘Because he told you.’

‘No.’

‘Yes, he did. Because he’s got it into his head that it was you that made his mother pregnant. He must have talked to you about it when he came. He’s thought of nothing else for months.’

‘All right, yes, he did. All right, he’s got it into his head. Or rather his mother must have put it into his head.’

‘And rightly so.’

Veyrenc came back to the fireplace, threw his cigarette into the flames and knelt down to poke the fire. Adamsberg now felt no gratitude at all for his former colleague. He had certainly torn off all that tape, but now he was trying to tie him up all over again.

‘Spit it out, Veyrenc.’

‘Zerk’s right. And his mother’s right. The young man down by the bridge was Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg. Without any doubt.’

Veyrenc got up, slight sweat breaking out on his forehead.

‘So that makes you the father of Zerk, or Armel if you prefer.’

Adamsberg clenched his teeth.

‘Look, Veyrenc, how can you know that, if I don’t know it myself?’

‘It often happens. Life’s like that.’

‘Listen, only once have I done something and completely lost any memory of it, and that was in Quebec, when I had had too much to drink. This was thirty years ago you’re talking about, and I didn’t drink then. What are you suggesting? That not only am I amnesiac, but have the power of being everywhere, and I made love to some girl I have never met? In my whole life, I have never slept with or even talked to a girl called Gisele.’

‘I believe you.’

‘That’s better.’

‘She hated her name, she told boys she was called something else. It wasn’t Gisele you went with that night, it was a girl called Marie-Ange. Down by the bridge.’

Adamsberg felt himself pitch down a steep slope. His skin was on fire, and his head was throbbing. Veyrenc went out of the room. Adamsberg dug his fingers into his hair. Yes, of course, he had made love to a girl called Marie-Ange, the girl with the urchin haircut, the girl with slightly buck teeth, by the bridge over the Jaussene, a slight rain falling and the wet grass which had almost put an end to it. And yes, of course, there had been a letter, received some time later, a weird letter of which he couldn’t make head nor tail, and that was from her. And yes, of course, Zerk did look like him. So this was what it was like to be in hell. To find you have a son of twenty-nine on your back, and to have that back broken on an anvil. To be the father of the man who had chopped Vaudel into bits, the man who had tied him up in the vault. Know where you are now, scumbag? No, he didn’t know where he was at all, except that he was inside a skin that was sweating and burning, with his head fallen on his knees, and tears stinging his eyes.

Veyrenc had come back in without saying a word, carrying a tray on which were a bottle and some bread and cheese. He put it down looking at Adamsberg, poured out a couple of glasses and spread the cheese on the bread (kajmak, as Adamsberg realised). Head still in hands, he watched. A cheese sandwich, well, why not? The stage he’d reached now.

‘I’m really sorry,’ said Veyrenc, holding out a glass. He pushed it against Adamsberg’s hand, as one tries with a child to get it to unclench its fingers and rescue it from its rage or distress. Adamsberg moved his arm and took the glass.

‘Well, he’s a good-looking boy,’ Veyrenc added pointlessly, as if trying to find a drop of hope in an ocean of calamity.

Adamsberg emptied the glass in a single gulp, an early shot of alcohol, which made him cough. That brought some relief. As long as he could still feel his body, he could at least do something. Which hadn’t been the case last night.

‘How did you know I’d slept with Marie-Ange?’

‘She’s my sister.’

God almighty. Adamsberg held out the glass, and Veyrenc filled it again.

‘Have some bread with it.’

‘Can’t eat a thing.’

‘Try all the same, force yourself. No, I’ve hardly eaten either, since I saw his picture in the paper. You may be Zerk’s father, but I’m his uncle. Not a whole lot better.’

‘Why is your sister called Louvois and not Veyrenc?’

‘She’s my half-sister, from my mother’s first marriage. You don’t remember Louvois? The coalman who went off with an American woman?’

‘No. Why didn’t you ever mention this when you were in the squad?’

‘Because my sister and the kid didn’t want anything to do with you. You weren’t popular.’

‘But why haven’t you been able to eat since seeing the paper? You just said Zerk didn’t kill the old man. So you’re not really sure?’

‘No, not at all.’

Veyrenc put another slice of bread into Adamsberg’s hand and both of them sadly and conscientiously swallowed mouthfuls of bread slowly as the fire died down.