This Night’s Foul Work

‘It was the same smell. So the same person could have been here and in the other case, just before they died. Who was the district nurse, doctor?’

‘A very competent woman. I’d recommended her to him.’

The doctor rubbed his shoulder, looking embarrassed.

‘She’s past retiring age. She has been, well, I have to say, working unofficially. So she could visit my patients every day without them having to pay too much. When there’s no money left, you have to turn a blind eye to the rules.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Claire Langevin. She’s very competent, forty years’ experience in hospital nursing and a specialist in geriatrics.’

‘Danglard, call the office. Get them to check with the old lady’s GP – call him and ask what was the name of the nurse who visited her.’

They stood talking shop for about twenty minutes while Danglard went back to the patrol car. The doctor had pulled out from under the patient’s bed a bottle of home-made fortified wine.

‘He always offered me a little glass of this stuff – real rot-gut.’

Then he had put it back under the bed, looking sad. Danglard returned.

‘Claire Langevin,’ he announced.

Silence. All eyes were on the commissaire.

‘A killer nurse,’ said Adamsberg. ‘One of the sort they call angels of death. When they come down to earth, they kill. And when they fall, they really fall.’

‘Oh my God,’ whispered the doctor.

‘How many other patients have you recommended her to, doctor?’

‘Oh my God.’

In under a month, the macabre list of the thirty-three victims of the death-dealing angel had been established: in hospitals, private nursing homes, clinics and in their own houses. She had spent the last half-century working in France, Germany and Poland, distributing death by injecting air bubbles into arm after arm.

One February morning, Adamsberg and four of his men had surrounded her suburban villa, with its gravel paths and neat little flower beds. Four experienced men, used to dealing with tough male killers, but that day reduced to a state of impotence, sweating with unease. When women went off the rails, Adamsberg said, the world seemed to teeter on its axis. In fact, he had confided to Danglard as they walked up the path, men only allow themselves to kill each other because women don’t, but when women cross the red line, the universe tilts.

‘Maybe,’ Danglard had said, feeling as upset as the others.

The door had opened on a very wrinkled old woman, neat and poised, who had asked the police to please be very careful of her flowers, her paintwork and her borders. Adamsberg had considered her carefully, but could find nothing in her face, neither the flame of hatred nor the fury of killing he had sometimes detected in others. Nothing but a blank-faced and unnaturally thin old woman. The men had handcuffed her almost in silence, reciting their usual formulae, to which Danglard had added under his breath: ‘Do not condemn woman if she stoops to such crime/Who knows with what torments she has fought all this time.’ Adamsberg had assented, without knowing who Danglard was supplicating with this evening prayer in broad daylight.

‘Yes, of course I remember the case,’ said Danglard with a shudder. ‘But she’s nowhere near here. They’ve got her under lock and key in Freiburg. She can’t be sending a shade over you from there.’

Adamsberg had stood up. Pressing his hands against the wall, he was watching the rain still falling.

‘No. Ten months and five days ago, Danglard, she somehow managed to kill a prison guard. And got herself out of the prison.’

‘Good God,’ said Danglard, crushing his plastic cup. ‘Why weren’t we told?’

‘The Baden Land authorities neglected to send us a message. Administrative slip-up. I only heard about it when I got back from leave.’

‘Have they found her?’

Adamsberg made a vague sign towards the street.

‘No, capitaine. She’s still out there somewhere.’

XIV

ESTALERE HELD OUT HIS HAND, DISPLAYING THE THREE PIECES OF GRAVEL from Clignancourt as if they were diamonds.

‘What is it, brigadier?’ asked Danglard, hardly taking his eyes off his computer screen.

‘It’s for him, commandant. What he asked me to find.’

Him. Adamsberg.

Danglard looked at Estalere without seeking to understand, and hurriedly pressed the button on the intercom. It was after nightfall, and his children were waiting for him to come home for supper.

‘Commissaire? Estalere’s got something for you. He’s on his way,’ he added for the young man’s benefit.

Estalere didn’t budge, still holding out his hand.

‘Take it easy, Estalere. He’ll be along in a minute. He never rushes.’

When Adamsberg came in five minutes later, the young officer had still hardly changed position. He was waiting, transformed into a statue by hope. He kept repeating to himself the commissaire‘s words at the conference: ‘Take Estalere, he’s got good eyesight.’

Adamsberg examined the trophy the young man offered him.

‘So they were waiting there, after all?’ he said with a smile.

‘Outside, by the door, up against the step.’

‘I knew you’d find them for me.’

Estalere stood upright, as pleased as a baby bird returning home from its first flight.

‘Right. Off to Montrouge,’ said Adamsberg. ‘We’ve only got one day left, so it will have to be a night-time job. Better be four people, six if possible. Justin, Mercadet and Gardon are on duty. They can go with you.’

‘Mercadet’s on night shift, but he’s asleep,’ pointed out Danglard.

‘Well, take Voisenet then. And Retancourt, if she agrees to put in some overtime. When she wants to, Retancourt can go without sleep, drive for ten nights in a row, cross Africa on foot and catch up with a plane in Vancouver. She channels her energy, it’s magic.’

‘I know, commissaire.’

‘You’ll have to check out all the parks, gardens, waste patches and so on. Don’t forget building sites. Take samples everywhere.’

Estalere went off practically at a run, clutching his treasure.

‘Do you want me to go too?’ asked Danglard, switching off his computer.

‘No, go home and have supper with the kids. I’ll do the same, because Camille is playing in a concert at Saint-Eustache.’

‘I can ask the neighbour to come in and give them their supper, if you want. We’ve only got twenty-four hours.’

‘Big Eyes will manage all right. He won’t be on his own.’

‘Why do you think he opens his eyes so wide?’

‘He must have seen something when he was a child. We all saw something when we were children. Some of us stayed with our eyes too wide open, or our body too big or our head too vague or…’ Adamsberg stopped himself and forced the thought of the New Recruit’s ginger streaks out of his mind. ‘I think Estalere found the gravel all on his own. I think Retancourt didn’t want to know, and just sat having a drink with the New Recruit. A beer, probably.’

‘Could be.’