This Night’s Foul Work

‘All that stuff comes from him. The book too, of course,’ he said, gesturing respectfully towards the lectern. ‘Given to Father Raymond by a certain Father Otto who died during the bombing of Berlin. Are you interested?’ he asked Danglard, who was gazing hungrily at the book.

‘Yes, I admit I am. If it’s what I think it is.’

The priest smiled, recognising a connoisseur. He puffed at his pipe, making the silence last, as if to herald the arrival of a famous person.

‘It’s the De sanctis reliquis,’ he said, savouring his announcement, ‘in the unexpurgated edition of 1663. You can consult it if you like, but please use the tongs to turn the folios. It’s open at the most famous page.’

The priest gave a curious snort of laughter, and Danglard headed immediately for the lectern. Adamsberg watched him raise the lid and lean over the book, and realised that Danglard would not hear another word they said.

‘It’s one of the most famous books on relics,’ the priest explained, with a casual wave of his hand. ‘Actually, it’s worth a lot more than any bones belonging to Saint Jerome. But I’d only sell it in a case of dire necessity.’

‘So you are interested in relics, then.’

‘I do have a weakness for them. Calvin described the people who hawked relics around as “traffickers in ordure,” and he wasn’t entirely wrong. But that ordure gives a bit of spice to a holy place, helps people to concentrate. It’s hard to concentrate in a vacuum. That’s why it doesn’t bother me that in our reliquary of Saint Jerome, most of the bones came from sheep, and there’s even one from the snout of a pig. Father Raymond used to laugh at that. He would only tell the secret, with a twinkle in his eye, to certain people, the ones strong enough to stomach such a down-to earth revelation.’

‘You mean to say there’s a bone in a pig’s snout?’ asked Adamsberg.

‘Yes,’ the priest replied, smiling. ‘Just a little bone, quite elegant and symmetrical, a bit like a double heart in shape. Not a lot of people know that, which explains why there’s one among the Le Mesnil relics. It used to be thought of as a mysterious bone, and people thought it had special qualities. Like a narwhal’s tusk gave rise to the idea of the unicorn. The world of fantasy fills the gaps in people’s knowledge.’

‘And you knowingly left these animals’ bones in the reliquary?’ asked Veyrenc.

The fly went past again and the priest raised his arm, ready to pounce.

‘What difference would it make?’ he replied. ‘The human bones were unlikely to be Saint Jerome’s either. In those days, relics were bandied about like sweets. Supply expanded to meet demand. Seems that Saint Sebastian had four arms, Saint Anne three heads, Saint John six index fingers, and so on. In Le Mesnil, we’re not so presumptuous. Our sheep’s bones date from the late fifteenth century, which is already pretty good. Remains of men or animals, what does it really matter in the end?’

‘So the guy who robbed the church has just got the remains of someone’s Sunday joint?’ said Veyrenc.

‘No, because funnily enough, the thief seemed to pick and choose. He only took the human fragments, a bit of a tibia, a second cervical vertebra, and three ribs. Must have been either an expert, or else somebody local who knew all about the shameful secret of the reliquary. That’s why I’m trying to find him,’ he added, pointing to the computer screen. ‘I just wonder what he has in mind.’

‘You think he’ll try to sell them?’

The priest shook his head.

‘I’ve been scanning offers on the Internet, but I can’t find anyone selling Saint Jerome’s tibia. Obviously not for sale. But what are you looking for? They tell me you’ve been digging up Pascaline’s body. The gendarmes have already finished their inquiry about the stone that killed her. A sad accident, it seems, nothing suspicious. Pascaline never hurt a fly, and she didn’t have any money to leave.’

The priest brought down his hand on to the table. This time the fly was trapped, and immediately started buzzing more loudly.

‘Hear it?’ he said. ‘Its response to stress?’

‘Yes,’ said Veyrenc politely.

‘Is it sending a message to its friends? Or working up the energy to escape? Do insects have emotions? That is the question. Have you ever listened to a fly when it’s dying?’

The priest had put his ear to his hand, appearing to count the thousands of beats per second of the fly’s wings.

‘We didn’t dig her up,’ said Adamsberg, attempting to bring the conversation back to Pascaline. ‘But we do want to know why someone took the trouble to open her coffin three months after her death, to get at the head.’

‘Good Lord!’ gasped the priest, letting the fly disappear vertically into the air. ‘What an abomination!’

‘The same thing has happened to another woman. Elisabeth Chatel from Villebosc-sur-Risle.’

‘I knew Elisabeth as well. Villebosc is one of my parishes. But she wasn’t buried there. She was buried in Montrouge, in Paris, because of a family quarrel.’

‘That’s where her grave was opened.’

The priest pushed away his computer screen, then rubbed his left eye, to try and stop the tic in his eyelid. Adamsberg wondered whether, apart from his loss of vocation, the man was perhaps genuinely suffering from depression, and whether his odd behaviour was an indication of that. Danglard, who was wholly absorbed in consulting his treasure trove, using the tongs, was no help in trying to get their host to concentrate on the matter in hand.

‘To the best of my knowledge,’ the priest went on, lifting up his thumb and index finger, ‘profanation of the dead has only two causes, each of them extremely repugnant. Either violent hatred, in which case the body is attacked.’

‘No,’ said Adamsberg. ‘They weren’t damaged.’

The priest lowered his thumb, abandoning this theory.

‘Or else passionate love, which is, alas, very close to hate, with a morbid sexual fixation.’

‘And did Elisabeth and Pascaline inspire anyone with unbridled passion?’

The priest lowered his finger, abandoning the second theory as well.

‘Both of them were virgins, and very determined to remain so, believe me. They were both women of absolutely unassailable virtue, no need to preach it to them.’

Danglard pricked up his ears, wondering how to interpret that ‘believe me’. His eyes met those of Adamsberg, but the latter signalled to him not to say anything. The priest pressed his finger on his eyelid again.

‘Some men are particularly attracted to women of great virtue,’ said Adamsberg.

‘Well, there is a challenge there,’ the priest agreed. ‘The temptation of an unusually difficult conquest. But neither Elisabeth nor Pascaline ever complained of anyone harassing them.’

‘So what did they come and tell you so often at confession?’ the commissaire asked.

‘Secrets of the confessional,’ the priest replied, raising his hand. ‘Sorry.’

‘So they did have something to say?’ put in Veyrenc.

‘Everyone has something to say. That doesn’t mean that it’s worth passing on, still less that graves should be profaned. You stayed at Hermance’s house, didn’t you? So you heard what she has to say? She doesn’t have a life, as most people would see it, but that doesn’t stop her talking about it all day long.’

‘You know as well as I do, Father,’ said Adamsberg gently, ‘that maintaining the secrecy of the confessional is not sustainable or even legal in certain circumstances.’

‘Only in the case of murder,’ the priest objected.

‘I think that’s what we are dealing with.’

The priest relit his pipe. They could hear Danglard turning over another thick page of the book, while the fly, which seemed no calmer than before, continued to buzz loudly, hurling itself at the window. Danglard knew that the commissaire was putting on pressure to over-come the priest’s reluctance. Adamsberg was excellent at eliminating obstacles, slipping inside the resistance of other people with the treacherous power of a trickle of water. He would have made a formidable priest, midwife or purger of souls. Veyrenc got up in turn and walked round the table to look at the book which was so absorbing Danglard’s attention. The commandant let him see it, but with a bad grace, like a dog unwillingly sharing a bone: ‘On sacred relics and all the uses that may be made of them, whether for the health