This Night’s Foul Work

‘Monsieur Velasco, it takes a lot to bother me.’

Adamsberg scraped off the surplus cement with his trowel.

‘Well, just suppose for a moment that it did bother you,’ insisted the old man. ‘Suppose you asked yourself why nobody had bought this house.’

‘Let me see. It’s got an outside privy. People don’t like that these days.’

‘They could have built an extension to reach it, as you’re doing now.’

‘I’m not doing it for myself. It’s for my wife and son.’

‘God’s sakes, you’re not going to bring a woman to live here, are you?’

‘No, I don’t think so. They’ll just come now and then.’

‘But this woman, your wife. She’s not proposing to sleep here, is she?’

Adamsberg frowned as the old man gripped his arm to gain his attention.

‘Don’t go thinking you’re stronger than anyone else,’ said the old man, more calmly. ‘Sell up. These are things that pass our understanding. They’re beyond our knowing.’

‘What things?’

Lucio shifted his now extinguished cigarette in his mouth.

‘See this?’ he said raising his right arm, which ended in a stump.

‘Yes, said Adamsberg, with respect.

‘I lost that when I was nine years old, during the Civil War.’

‘Yes.’

‘And sometimes it still itches. It itches on the part of my arm that isn’t there, sixty-nine years later. In the same place, always the same place,’ said the old man, pointing to a space in the air. ‘My mother knew why. It was the spider’s bite. When I lost my arm, I hadn’t finished scratching. So it goes on itching.’

‘Yes, I see,’ said Adamsberg, mixing his cement quietly.

‘Because the spider’s bite hadn’t finished its life – do you understand what I’m saying? It wants its dues, it’s taking its revenge. Does that remind you of anything?’

‘The stars,’ Adamsberg suggested. ‘They go on shining long after they’re dead.’

‘All right, yes,’ admitted the old man, surprised. ‘Or feelings. If a fellow goes on loving a girl, or the other way round, when it’s all over, see what I mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘But why does he go on loving the girl, or the other way round? What explains it?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Adamsberg patiently.

Between gusts of wind, the hesitant March sunshine was warming his back, and he was quite happy to be there, building his wall in this overgrown garden. Lucio Velasco Paz could go on talking all he wanted, it wouldn’t bother Adamsberg.

‘It’s quite simple. It’s because the feeling hasn’t run its course. It’s beyond our control, that kind of thing. You have to wait for it to finish, go on scratching till the end. And if you die before you’ve run your life’s course, same thing. People who’ve been murdered, they go on hanging about, their presence makes you itch non-stop.’

‘Like spider bites,’ said Adamsberg, bringing the conversation back full circle.

‘Like ghosts,’ said the old man, seriously. ‘Now do you understand why nobody wanted your house? Because it’s haunted, hombre.’

Adamsberg finished cleaning his cement board and wiped his hands.

‘Well, why not?’ he said. ‘Doesn’t bother me. I’m used to things that pass my understanding.’

Lucio tilted his chin and looked at Adamsberg sadly. ‘It’s you, hombre, who won’t get past her, if you try to be clever. What is it with you? You reckon you’re stronger than her?’

‘Her? You’re talking about a woman, then?’

‘Yes, a ghostly woman from the century before the one before, the time before the Revolution. Ancient wickedness, a shade from the past.’

The commissaire ran his hand slowly over the rough surface of the breeze- blocks.

‘Indeed,’ he said, suddenly pensive. ‘A shade, you said?’

II

ADAMSBERG WAS MAKING COFFEE IN THE LARGE KITCHEN-LIVING ROOM OF his new house, still feeling unaccustomed to the space. The light glanced in through the small window-panes, and shone on the ancient red floor-tiles dating from the century before the one before. The room smelled of damp, of woodsmoke, of the new oilcloth on the table, an atmosphere that reminded him of his childhood home in the mountains, when he thought about it. He put two cups without saucers on the table, in a rectangular patch of sunlight. His neighbour was sitting bolt upright, clasping his knee with his good hand. That hand was large enough to strangle an ox between its thumb and index finger, having apparently doubled in size to compensate for the absence of the other.

‘You wouldn’t have anything to pep up the coffee, by any chance? If that’s not too much trouble.’

Lucio looked suspiciously at the garden, while Adamsberg searched for something alcoholic in the cases he had not yet unpacked.

‘Your daughter wouldn’t like a drink, would she?’ asked the commissaire.

‘She doesn’t encourage me.’

‘Now what’s this one?’ asked Adamsberg, pulling out a bottle from a tea chest.

‘A Sauternes, I’d say,’ was the opinion of the old man, screwing up his eyes like an ornithologist identifying a bird from a distance. ‘It’s a bit early in the day for a Sauternes.’

‘Doesn’t seem to be anything else here.’

‘We’ll settle for that, then,’ decreed the old man.

Adamsberg poured him a glass and sat down alongside, letting his back feel the patch of sunlight.

‘How much do you know about the house?’ Lucio asked.

‘That the last owner hanged herself in the upstairs room,’ said Adamsberg, pointing at the ceiling. ‘And that’s why nobody wanted the house. But that doesn’t worry me.’

‘Because you’ve seen plenty of hanged people?’

‘I’ve seen a few. But it’s not the dead who’ve ever troubled me. It’s their killers.’

‘We’re not talking about the real dead here, hombre, we’re talking about the others, the ones who won’t go away. And she’s never gone away.’

‘The one who hanged herself?’

‘No, the one who hanged herself did go away,’ explained Lucio, swallowing a gulp of wine, as if to recognise the event. ‘Do you know why she hanged herself?’

‘No.’

‘It was the house that made her go mad. All the women who’ve lived here have been troubled by the ghost. And then they die.’

‘What ghost?’

‘The convent ghost. A silent one. That’s why the street is called the rue des Mouettes.’

‘I don’t follow,’ said Adamsberg, pouring out coffee.

‘There used to be a convent here, in the century before the one before. Nuns who were forbidden to speak.’

‘A silent order.’

‘Right. It used to be called the rue des Muettes, the Street of Silent Women, but as people forgot the real name, and said it wrong, they started to call it the rue des Mouettes, which just means the Street of Seagulls.’

‘Nothing to do with birds, then,’ said Adamsberg, disappointed.

‘No, they were nuns, but the old name was harder to pronounce. Anyway, one of these silent sisters dishonoured the house. With the devil, they say. Well, I have to admit, there isn’t any evidence for that bit.’

‘So what do you have evidence of, Monsieur Velasco?’ asked Adamsberg,