‘Well, they’re both dead.’
The
‘You going to ask me how they died?’
‘How did they die?’
‘Fernand drowned in a swimming pool and Georges was burnt alive in his shack.’
‘Accidents, then.’
‘Fate caught up with them, in a manner of speaking. A bit like in Racine, don’t you think?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Goodnight,
Adamsberg closed the door and stood outside in the corridor. He had to wait almost ten minutes before he heard Veyrenc’s melodious voice.
Adamsberg plunged his fists into his pockets and tiptoed away. He had tried to appear cool to calm Danglard. But Veyrenc’s words were far from reassuring. Cruelty, vengeance, war, treason and death – that’s Racine for you.
XXIX
‘WE’LL HAVE TO BE DISCREET,’ SAID ADAMSBERG, PARKING IN FRONT OF THE priest’s house in Le Mesnil. ‘We don’t want to upset a man who’s mourning the relics of Saint Jerome.’
‘I wonder,’ said Danglard, ‘whether the fact that his church in Opportune appears to have let a stone fall and kill a parishioner might not also have shaken him.’
The curate, who was not best pleased at their arrival, showed them into a small, dark but warm room, with low ceiling beams. The priest in charge of the fourteen parishes did indeed look like any other man. He had abandoned clerical garb for ordinary clothes and sat peering into a computer screen. He got up to greet them, a rather ugly man but healthy and ruddy-complexioned, looking more as if he were on holiday than suffering from depression. However, one of his eyelids was twitching like the heartbeat of a small creature, suggesting a troubled soul, as Veyrenc would have put it. In order to obtain the interview, Adamsberg had had to make a fuss about the theft of the relics.
‘I don’t imagine the Paris police would normally come as far as Le Mesnil-Beauchamp just because some holy relics go missing,’ said the priest as they shook hands.
‘No, you’re right,’ Adamsberg admitted.
‘And you’re in charge of Serious Crime, as I discovered. Am I supposed to have done something?’
Adamsberg was relieved to find that the priest did not express himself in the customary hermetic and mournful sing-song of some churchmen. This chant tended to inspire in him an irresistible melancholy, inherited from the interminable services in the freezing-cold village church of his childhood. Those were some of the only moments when his indomitable and indestructible mother had allowed herself to sigh and dab her eyes with a handkerchief, thus revealing to him, in a spasm of embarrassment, painful intimate feelings that he would rather not have witnessed. And yet it was during those Masses that he had also had the most intense daydreams. The priest now motioned them to sit opposite him, on a long wooden bench, with the result that the three policemen lined up like so many schoolboys in class. Adamsberg and Veyrenc were both wearing white shirts, thanks to the unpredictable contents of the emergency packs. Adamsberg’s was too big and the cuffs were slipping down over his hands.
‘Your curate wanted to keep us out,’ said Adamsberg, twitching his sleeves. ‘So I thought Saint Jerome would get us in.’
‘The curate is protecting me from the outside world,’ replied the priest, as he gazed at an early bluebottle flying round the room. ‘He doesn’t want me to be seen. He’s ashamed, so he’s keeping me hidden. If you’d like something to drink, it’s in the sideboard. I don’t drink now. I don’t know why, it just doesn’t interest me.’
Adamsberg made a negative sign to Danglard. It was only nine o’clock in the morning. The priest looked up, surprised not to hear questions coming from them in return. He was not a Norman, and seemed able to speak quite openly. This embarrassed the three police officers. To discuss the mysteries of a priest – which they assumed to be sensitive matters – was more difficult than to interview a criminal suspect across a table. Adamsberg felt he was being obliged to walk over a delicate patch of lawn in hobnailed boots.
‘The curate’s hiding you,’ he ventured, using the Norman device of the statement-containing-a-question.
The priest lit his pipe, still following with his gaze the fly that was swooping low over his keyboard. He cupped his hand ready to catch it, brought it down on the table, missed.
‘I’m not trying to kill it,’ he explained, ‘just to catch it. I take an interest in the frequency of the vibrations of flies’ wings. They’re much more rapid and loud when they’re caught in a trap. You’ll see.’
He puffed out a large smoke ring and looked at them, his hand still cupped like a lid.
‘It was my curate who had the idea to put it about that I was suffering from depression,’ he went on, ‘to let things settle down. He practically placed me in solitary confinement, at the request of the diocesan authorities. I haven’t seen anyone for weeks, so I don’t mind talking about it, even if it is to policemen.’
Adamsberg hesitated at this puzzling remark, unselfconsciously offered by the priest. The man needed to be listened to and understood, why not? After all, priests spent their lives listening to the problems of their parishioners without ever having the right to complain themselves. The
‘Loss of vocation?’ guessed Danglard.
‘You’ve got it,’ said the priest, nodding towards Danglard as if to give him a good mark.
‘Sudden or gradual?’
‘Is there any difference? If something feels sudden, it’s only the end of a long hidden process that one may not have been aware of.’
The priest’s hand came down on the fly, which once again managed to escape between the thumb and the index finger.
‘A bit like a stag’s antlers, when they show through its hide,’ suggested Adamsberg.
‘If you like. The idea grows, like a larva inside its hiding place, and then it suddenly emerges and takes off. You don’t just mislay your vocation one day, like you lose a book. Anyway, you generally find the book again, but you never get your vocation back. That proves that the vocation had been dwindling away for a long time, without drawing attention to itself. Then one morning it’s all over, you’ve gone past the point of no return during the night without even realising it: you look out of the window, a woman goes past on a bicycle, there’s snow lying on the apple trees, and you feel a terrible sickness, life outside is calling you.’
‘Pretty much, yes.’
‘So these lost relics weren’t really worrying you, after all?’ asked Adamsberg.
‘Do you want me to start worrying about them?’
‘Well, I was thinking of doing a deal: I would have tried to get Saint Jerome back for you, and in exchange you could tell me something about Pascaline Villemot. I suppose the deal wouldn’t appeal to you now.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. My predecessor, Father Raymond, was very attached to the relics, the ones in Le Mesnil or indeed relics in general. I wasn’t up to his level of scholarship, but I remember quite a lot about it. Even if it’s just for his sake, I’d like to get Saint Jerome back.’
The priest turned to indicate the bookshelf behind him, as well as a weighty volume on a lectern, protected by a plexiglas cover. This ancient book had already irresistibly attracted Danglard’s attention.
