This Night’s Foul Work

‘They suspected your sister?’

‘They drove her crazy, yes. Poor woman. She hasn’t the strength to lift a sack of potatoes. So how she could have drowned a big lad like Amedee in his bath, I don’t know. Especially since she was barmy about him, stupid bugger that he was.’

‘Wait a minute. You said he was as sharp as a needle.’

‘You catch on quickly too, don’t you?’

‘What do you mean, then?’

‘He’s not the boy’s father. Gratien’s from her first marriage, her first husband. He died and all, if you want to know, two years after they married.’

‘What was his name?’

‘He was from Lorraine. Not from round here. Cut his legs with a scythe when he was mowing a meadow.’

‘Your sister doesn’t seem to have much luck.’

‘You can say that again. That’s why, round here, they don’t make fun of her little ways. She’s entitled, if it comforts her.’

Oswald jerked his head, as if relieved to have finished with the subject.

‘Now what I’ve told you, please don’t go shouting it from the rooftops. This is a family story, and it stays in the village. We’ve forgotten it, and that’s that.’

‘I never repeat things, Oswald.’

‘Don’t you have stories like this as well, kept in your village?’

‘I’ve got one, yes. But at the moment it’s getting out of the village.’

‘Not a good idea,’ said Oswald, shaking his head. ‘It might seem a little thing but it’s like a monster getting loose.’

Oswald’s nephew, a lad with freckled cheeks like his uncle’s, was standing in front of Adamsberg, his shoulders drooping. He didn’t dare refuse to speak to the senior policeman from Paris, but it put him severely to the test. Stare fixed on the ground, he described the night he had seen the ghost; the story echoed what Oswald had said.

‘Did you tell your mother?’

‘Course I did.’

‘And she wanted you to tell me about it?’

‘Yes. After you came here for the concert.’

‘Do you know why?’

The boy suddenly hunched his shoulders.

‘People say all kinds of rubbish,’ he said. ‘My mother’s got her own ideas, you got to understand her, that’s all. Anyway, she must be right, ‘cos here you are asking about it.’

‘Your mother’s quite right,’ said Adamsberg, to calm the lad.

‘People say things their own way,’ Gratien insisted. ‘Ain’t any one way better than another, though.’

‘No, no,’ Adamsberg agreed. ‘Just one more thing and I’ll let you go. Shut your eyes. Now tell me what I look like and what clothes I’m wearing.’

‘Really?’

‘If the commissaire says so,’ Oswald intervened.

‘OK, you’re not so tall,’ Gratien began, timidly. ‘’Bout the same as my uncle. Brown hair… is it OK to say anything?’

‘Everything you can think of.’

‘Hair’s bit of a mess, then, some of it’s hanging in your eyes, the rest pushed back. Big nose, brown eyes, black jacket, canvas, lot of pockets, sleeves pushed up. Trousers… black as well, I think, a bit worn, and you’re not wearing shoes.’

‘Shirt, sweater, tie? Concentrate.’

Gratien shook his head, his eyes squeezed tight shut.

‘No,’ he said firmly.

‘What, then?’

‘Grey T-shirt.’

‘Open your eyes. You’re a perfect witness, very rare.’ The teenager smiled, reassured by having passed this test.

‘It’s dark as well,’ he said proudly.

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘You didn’t trust what I said before? About the ghost?’

‘Anyone’s memories can change a bit, over time. What do you think the ghost was doing? Just walking about? Drifting here and there.’

‘No.’

‘Looking in the air? Pacing up and down, waiting? Do you think it was expecting someone?’

‘No, what I think it was doing, it was looking for something, a grave maybe, but it wasn’t in no hurry. It wasn’t going quickly.’

‘So what scared you about it?’

‘It was the way it walked. And all that grey floaty stuff wrapped round it. I’m still scared.’

‘Try and forget it – I’ll take care of it now.’

‘But what can you do about it, if it was the figure of Death?’

‘We’ll see, said Adamsberg. ‘We’ll think of something.’

XXIV

ON WAKING, VEYRENC FOUND THE COMMISSAIRE ALREADY UP AND DOING. Veyrenc, having lain down fully dressed, had slept badly: now and then a picture of either the vineyard or the High Meadow would flash before his eyes. One or the other. His father was lifting him up off the ground, he was in pain. Was it November or February? Before the late grape harvest, or after? He could no longer see the scene clearly, a headache was pulsing at his temples. Caused either by the rough wine served in the cafe in Haroncourt, or by the painful confusion of his memories.

‘We’re going back to Paris, Veyrenc. Don’t forget, no shoes in the bathroom. She’s had a tough life.’

Oswald’s sister served them a huge breakfast, the kind that kept ploughmen going until midday. Contrary to the tragic person whom Adamsberg had been expecting, Hermance was cheerful and talkative, and indeed kind- hearted enough to melt a hundred hearts of stone. She was a tall, rather angular woman who moved around cautiously, as if she was surprised to find herself alive. Her chatter was composed of the most trivial non sequiturs, some pointless, some completely odd, and she could evidently keep it up for hours. In a sense, it was a work of great artistry, a lacy network of words, woven so fine that it contained only holes.

‘… eat something before going to work, that’s what I say every day,’ Adamsberg heard. ‘Work makes you tired, yes, when I think of all that work. Yes, indeed, that’s it, isn’t it? You must have some work to do, I expect, I saw you came in a car. Oswald has two cars, one for work, he ought to wash that van. It carries mud everywhere, and that just makes more work, well, there you are. I didn’t make your eggs too hard. Gratien, now, he won’t eat eggs, of course. That’s how he is, other people are different, aren’t they? One thing and another, that’s what makes it all so difficult, so there you are.’

‘Hermance, said Adamsberg cautiously. ‘Who suggested you talk to me? About the thing in the graveyard, I mean.’

‘Oh yes, that’s what I said to Oswald. Yes, better do that, it can’t do any harm, but if it doesn’t do any good, come to that, well, there you are, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, er, there you are,’ said Adamsberg, trying to communicate on the same wavelength as Hermance. ‘So someone advised you to talk to me about it? Hilaire, perhaps, or Anglebert? Or Achille? Or the priest?’