This Night’s Foul Work

‘The remains of the gravel they left on the floor.’

‘But commissaire, it’s almost a fortnight since the men were in the cafe.’

‘What sort of floor is it? Tiled?’

‘Yes, black and white.’

‘Of course,’ said Noel, with a shout of laughter.

‘Ever tried to sweep up gravel? Without losing a single piece? Emilio’s bistro won’t be a palace. With a bit of luck, some of that gravel will have got into a corner and stuck there, waiting for us to find it.’

‘So if I’ve got this right,’ Retancourt said, ‘we’ve got to go up there and look for a little bit of stone?’

Sometimes Retancourt’s old hostility to Adamsberg surfaced, although their relations had been transformed, during a previous case, by an exceptional episode of close bodily contact which had welded the lieutenant and the commissaire together for life. But Retancourt was one of the positivists, and considered that Adamsberg’s mysterious directives obliged members of the squad to operate too much in the dark. She reproached the commissaire with insulting the intelligence of his colleagues and failing to make the effort to clarify for them where he was heading, or to throw them a gangplank across the marshes of his thoughts. For the simple reason, as she well knew, that he was incapable of it. The commissaire smiled at her.

‘You’ve got it, lieutenant. A patient little white stone waiting in the dark forest. It will take us straight to the crime scene, just like the stones in Tom Thumb.’

‘That’s not quite right,’ pointed out Mordent, who was a specialist in myths, legends and indeed horror stories. ‘The pebbles help Tom Thumb to find his way back home, not to the Ogre’s house.’

‘OK, Mordent. But what we want to find is the Ogre. So we’re doing it the other way round. Didn’t the six other boys end up in the Ogre’s house anyway?’

‘Seven,’ said Mordent pedantically, raising seven fingers. ‘But if they found the Ogre, it was precisely because they couldn’t find the pebbles.’

‘Well, we’re going to look for them.’

‘If these pebbles exist,’ added Retancourt.

‘Of course.’

‘And if they don’t?’

‘They do, Retancourt.’

And on this firm statement from Adamsberg’s private Mount Olympus, to which no other mortal had access, the conference on La Chapelle ended. There was a scraping of chairs, the plastic cups were thrown away and Adamsberg called Noel over.

‘Noel, stop bellyaching,’ he said gently.

‘She didn’t need to rescue me. I’d have got out of it by myself.’

‘Three guys with iron bars? Come off it, Noel.’

‘I didn’t need Retancourt to go playing the US cavalry.’

‘Yes, you did. There’s no dishonour in it just because she’s a woman.’

‘I don’t consider her a woman. She’s the size of an ox, for God’s sake – she’s a freak of nature. I don’t owe her.’

Adamsberg rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand, as if testing his shave, the signal of a crack in his phlegmatic facade.

‘Let me remind you, lieutenant, why Favre had to leave this outfit, after his persistent troublemaking. Just because his place is empty, there’s no need for someone else to try and fill it.’

‘I’m not taking Favre’s place, I’ve got a perfectly good one of my own, and I’ll do things my way.’

‘Not here, Noel. If you do things your way and they clash with ours, you’ll have to do it somewhere else. With the more limited members of the force.’

‘Limited? Did you hear Estalere? And Lamarre burbling about statues? And Mordent with his blessed Ogre?’

Adamsberg consulted his two watches.

‘I’ll give you two and a half hours to go for a walk and clear your head. Go down to the Seine, take a long look at it and come back.’

‘I’ve got reports to finish,’ said Noel, hunching his shoulders in protest.

‘You didn’t understand me, lieutenant. That’s an order, and a mission. You go out, and you come back in a sane frame of mind. And you’ll do it every day if necessary, for a year if necessary, until looking at the sea-gulls over the river tells you something. Just go now, Noel, and keep out of my sight.’

XI

BEFORE GOING INTO CAMILLE’S BLOCK OF FLATS TO EXTRACT THE NEW RECRUIT, Adamsberg peered at his own eyes in a nearby car mirror. OK, he thought, straightening up. If he looks melancholy, I look melancholy in spades.

He climbed the seven floors to Camille’s studio and approached her door. There were muffled sounds of life. Camille was trying to get the child to sleep. He had explained to her how to cup the baby’s head in her hand, but it didn’t seem to work for her. He had an advantage on that score, if nowhere else.

On the other hand, there was no sound coming from the broom cupboard which was being used as the sentry box for the duty officer. The quite good-looking New Recruit with the melancholy air must have gone to sleep. Instead of watching over Camille’s safety, as his mission demanded. Adamsberg knocked on the door, tempted to give him an unfair dressing-down – unfair since it was obvious that being cooped up in that little cubicle for hours on end would have made anyone fall asleep, especially someone given to melancholy.

But there was no need. The New Recruit opened the door at once, cigarette in hand, and nodded briefly in recognition. Neither deferential nor nervous, he was simply trying to collect his thoughts rapidly, as one herds sheep into a fold. Adamsberg shook hands with him, while observing him candidly. A mild-looking man, but not all that mild. Energy and a certain potential for anger lay behind those eyes which were indeed melancholic. As for his features, Danglard had painted too depressing a picture, professional pessimist that he was, giving up the battle before it had started. Yes, he was quite good-looking, but only up to a point, and then only if you were disposed in his favour. And this man was hardly any taller than himself. He was certainly more heavily built, both his face and body carrying a certain amount of soft tissue.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Adamsberg, ‘I missed our appointment.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I was told something urgent had come up.’

The voice was well pitched, light and slightly husky. Quite pleasant. The New Recruit stubbed out his cigarette in a pocket ashtray.

‘Yes, it was very urgent.’

‘Another murder?’

‘No, the first day of spring.’

‘OK,’ said the New Recruit, after a slight pause.

‘How’s this guard duty going?’

‘Long and monotonous.’

‘Not interesting?’

‘Not at all.’

Perfect, thought Adamsberg. He was in luck. The man was blind, unable to spot that Camille was one in a thousand.

‘We’ll suspend it, then. I’ll get a team from the thirteenth arrondissement to relieve you.’

‘When?’

‘Right away.’

The New Recruit glanced at the broom cupboard and Adamsberg wondered whether he was regretting something. But no, it was just his generally melancholy expression that suggested he clung on to things longer