This Night’s Foul Work

‘If you can tell me anything about Pascaline Villemot, I’m listening.’

‘We only saw her on market days, but I can tell you now that she was as innocent as the Virgin Mary, and she didn’t have much of a life.’

‘It’s one thing to die,’ said Robert, ‘but it’s worse if you haven’t lived.’

And it still itches, sixty-nine years later, Adamsberg thought.

‘Do you know how she died?’

‘Maybe it’s tempting providence to talk about it. But she was knocked on the head by a stone, must have fallen out of the church wall, when she was weeding the bed underneath. They found her stretched out on her face, and the stone right beside her.’

‘Was there an inquest?’

‘The Evreux gendarmes came, and they said it was an accident.’

‘Was it, though?’ said the punctuator.

‘Was it what?’

‘Maybe it was an act of God’.

‘Don’t be bloody stupid, Achille. The whole world’s in chaos, God’s got better things to do than chuck stones at Pascaline.’

‘Did she work round here?’ Adamsberg asked.

‘She helped out at the shoe shop in Caudebec. But the one who knew her best is the priest. She was always going to confession. He’s got fourteen parishes, so he only comes here every other Friday. At seven sharp, those days, Pascaline was always down in the church. And she was probably the only woman in Opportune who’d never been with a man, so you wonder what she found to confess.’

‘Where’s he saying mass tomorrow?’

‘He’s not doing it any more. Finished.’

‘What do you mean? Is he dead?’

‘You’ve got death on the brain,’ commented Robert. ‘No, he’s not dead, but as good as. He’s depressed. It happened to the butcher in Arbec, and he was like it for two years. You’re not ill, but you go to bed and don’t want to get up. And you can’t say why.’

‘Sad,’ punctuated Achille.

‘My grandmother would’ve called it melancholy,’ said Robert. ‘Sometimes it would end up in the village pond.’

‘And the priest doesn’t want to get up?’

‘Seemingly he’s up and about, but he’s a changed man. Only with him, we can guess why. It’s because someone stole his relics. Knocked him sideways, they say.’

‘His pride and joy, they were,’ remarked Achille.

‘These relics, they’re supposed to be Saint Jerome’s bones, they were in the church in Le Mesnil. He was proud of them, all right. Mind you, three chicken bones rattling round in a glass case, that’s all they were.’

‘Oswald, don’t insult the Lord, we’re at table!’

‘I’m not insulting anyone, Robert. All I said was, Saint Jerome relics? Pull the other one, they’re fakes. Well, some people’ll believe anything. Still, for our priest it was like he’d had his guts pulled out.’

‘But can we go and visit?’

‘I just told you, the relics are gone.’

‘No, I mean call on the priest.’

‘Oh, that I don’t know. Me and Robert, we don’t have anything to do with priests, it’s like the cops. Can’t do this, can’t do that, always on at you about something.’

Oswald poured generous helpings of wine all round, as if to demonstrate his independence of the priest’s exhortations.

‘Some people,’ said Robert, dropping his voice, ‘say the priest slept around. They say, well, he’s a man like anyone else.’

‘So they say,’ said the punctuator darkly.

‘Just gossip? Or is there any evidence of that?’

‘That he’s a man?’

‘That he slept around,’ said Adamsberg patiently.

‘It’s because of his depression. When someone just collapses like that, and won’t say why, people generally say it’s because of a woman.’

‘That they do,’ said Achille.

‘And do they whisper any woman’s name?’ asked Adamsberg.

‘No idea,’ said Robert, clamming up. He threw a rapid glance at Adamsberg, then at Oswald, which might indicate, Adamsberg thought, that Hermance was somehow involved. During this brief exchange, Veyrenc was muttering as he attacked his apple tart:

‘The gods are my witness, I struggled without cease,

To conquer my poor heart, and find a time of peace.

But my mistress’s grace and the warmth of her heart

Pierced my soul with the force of a dagger’s sharp dart.’

The members of the Crime Squad stood up, preparing to return to Paris. Adamsberg, Veyrenc and Danglard were to stay on at the small hotel in Haroncourt. Back in its entrance hall, Danglard tugged Adamsberg’s sleeve.

‘Have you made your peace with Veyrenc?’

‘We’ve declared a truce. Because we’ve got work to do.’

‘You don’t want to hear about the four names you gave me?’

‘Tomorrow, Danglard,’ said Adamsberg, taking his room key off the hook. ‘I can hardly stand upright now.’

‘OK’, said the commandant, walking towards the wooden staircase. ‘But just in case you’re interested, two of them are already dead. That leaves three.’

Adamsberg froze, then put the key back on the hook.

‘Capitaine,’ he called.

‘I’ll get a bottle and a couple of glasses,’ said Danglard, wheeling round.

XXVIII

THREE CANE ARMCHAIRS AND A SMALL WOODEN TABLE ARRANGED IN A corner formed the reception area of the hotel. Danglard put down the glasses, lit the two candles on a brass candlestick and opened the bottle.

‘Just a token amount for me,’ said Adamsberg, pulling away his glass.

‘It’s only cider.’

Danglard poured himself a realistic helping and sat down facing the commissaire.

‘Sit on this side of me, Danglard,’ said Adamsberg, pointing to the left-hand chair. ‘And keep your voice down. Veyrenc doesn’t need to hear this from the room upstairs. Which ones have died?’

‘Fernand Gascaud and Georges Tressin.’

‘The little so-and-so and Big Georges,’ Adamsberg commented to himself, pulling at his cheek. ‘So when was this?’

‘Seven years ago and three years ago. Gascaud drowned in the swimming pool of a luxury hotel near Antibes. Tressin hadn’t done so well in the world. He lived in a shack. His Calor gas bottle exploded, set the whole place on fire.’

Adamsberg pulled his feet up on to the seat of the chair and put his arms round his knees.

‘Why did you say: “That leaves three”?’

‘Just counting.’

‘Danglard, were you seriously thinking that Veyrenc got rid of little Fernand and Big Georges?’