This Night’s Foul Work

inserted into the vein. Virtually a triple signature.’

The waiter brought their coffee over and Adamsberg watched as Ariane composed her mixture.

‘You haven’t finished yet.’

‘No. I’ve got a bit of a puzzle for you.’

Ariane thought for a moment, tapping her fingers on the tablecloth.

‘I don’t like to make a statement when I’m not quite sure about something.’

‘In my case that’s just what I do like to do.’

‘Well, it’s possible that I have a clue about her madness and possibly the nature of her psychosis. She seems to me in any case to be sufficiently insane to keep her two worlds separate.’

‘Does that leave traces?

‘She put her foot on La Paille’s torso to make the final incisions. From which we can tell that she polishes the soles of her shoes.’

Adamsberg gave Ariane a blank look.

‘She polishes the soles of her shoes,’ the pathologist insisted, more loudly, as if to wake him up. ‘There were traces of shoe polish on La Paille’s T-shirt.’

‘I heard you, Ariane. I’m just trying to work out the connection between the two worlds.’

‘I’ve seen two cases like this, one in Bristol, one in Berne. Men who polished the soles of their shoes, several times a day, to preserve themselves from the filth of everyday life. Their way of isolating themselves, protecting themselves.’

‘Dissociating themselves?’

‘I don’t think about dissociation every minute of the day. But you’re right, the man in Bristol was pretty much a case. The barrier between oneself and the ground, a way of preserving one’s body from contact with the rest of the world, yes, it does remind one of the walls that dissociators build up. Particularly when it’s the ground on which crime is committed, or the ground of the dead, like the cemetery. That doesn’t mean to say that this murderer polishes the soles of her shoes every day.’

‘Just the Omega part of her, if she’s a dissociator?’

‘No, no, you’re wrong. It’s the Alpha one who wants to keep herself clear of the crimes. Omega commits them.’

‘Using shoe polish,’ said Adamsberg with a doubtful grimace.

‘Shoe polish is perceived as a waterproof material, a protective film.’

‘What colour?’

‘Navy blue. And that’s another thing that makes me think it’s a woman. Blue shoes are generally worn with navy suits, a conventional, rather austere way of dressing that one finds specifically in certain uniforms or professions: aviation, administration, hospitals, religious bodies – the list could be a long one.’

Faced with the mass of information which the pathologist was piling on the table, Adamsberg’s expression darkened. Ariane had the impression that his face was changing before her eyes, the nose becoming more hooked, the cheeks more hollow, the bone structure more evident. She had neither seen nor understood anything twenty-three years earlier. She had not noticed this man who crossed her path, had not seen that he was attractive, and that she could have taken him in her arms on the quayside at Le Havre. Now the quayside was far away and it was too late.

‘You don’t look pleased,’ she said, dropping her professional tone. ‘Do you want a dessert?’

‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Pick something for me.’

Adamsberg ate a slice of tart without noticing whether it was apple or plum, without knowing whether he might sleep with Ariane, or where he could have put his car keys since his return from Normandy.

‘I don’t think they are hanging up in the kitchen,’ he said finally, spitting out a stone.

Must be plum, he calculated.

‘Was that what was preoccupying you?’

‘No, Ariane, it was the Shade. Remember that old district nurse, and her thirty-three victims?’

‘The one with dissociation?’

‘Yes. Do you know what happened to her?’

‘Yes, naturally, because I interviewed her several times. She was sent to prison in Freiburg. She’s been as good as gold there, back in one hundred per cent Alpha mode.’

‘No, Omega, Ariane. She killed one of the guards.’

‘Good Lord. When?’

‘Ten months ago. Disjunction – followed by escape.’

The doctor poured herself half a glass of wine and swallowed it without water.

‘Tell me something,’ she said. ‘Was it really you that identified her? Just you?’

‘Yes.’

‘If it hadn’t been for you, she’d still be free.’

‘Yes.’

‘And she knows that? She understood that?’

‘I think so.’

‘How did you get on to her?’

‘By her scent. She used some stuff called Relaxol, a sort of camphor-and-orange aromatherapy oil that she dabbed on herself.’

‘Well, watch out, Jean-Baptiste. Because, for her, you’re the one who broke down the wall that Alpha mustn’t know about, at all costs. You’re the one who knows, so you need to disappear.’

‘Why?’ asked Adamsberg, drinking a mouthful from Ariane’s glass.

‘So that she can become a peaceful Alpha again, somewhere else, in another life. You’re a threat to everything she’s built up. Perhaps she’s looking for you.’

‘The Shade.’

‘I think the shade must come from something inside you, some unfinished business.’

Adamsberg’s eyes met the intelligent gaze of the doctor, and he saw once again a path in Quebec at night- time. He moistened his finger and rubbed it round the edge of his wineglass.

‘The watchman at the Montrouge cemetery saw her too. The Shade was walking in the cemetery a few nights before the tombstone was smashed. It wasn’t walking normally.’

‘Why do you make that noise with your glass?’

‘So as not to scream myself.’

‘Go ahead and scream, I’d rather that. Are you thinking of the nurse? As a possibility for the Diala and La Paille murders?’

‘Well, you described an elderly female murderer, armed with a syringe, possibly dissociated, and with a medical background. It tends to add up.’

‘Or not. Do you remember how tall she was, the nurse?’

‘No, not very clearly.’

‘Or what kind of shoes she wore?’

‘No, not that either.’

‘Well, try checking that out before you make your wineglass scream. Just because she’s out of jail doesn’t mean she can get about everywhere. Don’t forget that her speciality is killing old people in their beds. She hasn’t been known to rob tombs or go round cutting the throats of hefty young men in La Chapelle. It doesn’t fit anything we know about her.’

Adamsberg agreed. The solid reasoning put forward by the pathologist took him away from his nightmares. The Shade couldn’t be everywhere – Freiburg, La Chapelle, Montrouge. She was above all inside his head.

‘You’re right,’ he said.

‘If I were you I’d just go on investigating carefully, routine stuff, step by step. Shoe polish, shoes, the portrait of the killer I’ve worked out, any witnesses who might have seen her with Diala or La Paille.’

‘You’re advising me to proceed logically, basically.’

‘Yes. Do you know any other way?’

‘The other way is the only one I know.’

Ariane offered to drop Adamsberg off at his home, and he accepted. The drive would enable him to resolve