This Night’s Foul Work

of the body or the salubrity of the mind, and the useful medicines which may be derived from them to lengthen life: edition purged of past errors.’

‘What’s so special about the book?’ Veyrenc asked in a low voice.

‘The De reliquis,’ Danglard whispered, ‘has been famous since the mid-fourteenth century. The Church condemned it, which made it very popular at once. Many women were burnt at the stake for consulting it. This is the 1663 edition, which is a collector’s item.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it re-established the original text, including a diabolical potion banned by the Church. Read it for yourself, Veyrenc.’

Danglard watched as the lieutenant struggled in front of the page that was open in front of him. The text was in French, but an antiquated and very obscure version.

‘Complicated, huh?’ said Danglard, with a thin smile of satisfaction.

‘I can’t understand it, and you’re not about to explain it to me, I suppose.’

Danglard shrugged.

‘There are some other things I ought to explain to you first.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Well, you’d do better to leave the squad, Veyrenc,’ Danglard whispered. ‘Nobody catches Adamsberg, any more than they can catch the wind. And if you’re trying to have a go at him, you’ll have to reckon with me first.’

‘I’m sure I would, commandant. But I’m not trying to do anything.’

‘Kids are kids. You’re past the age of bothering about their fights and so is he. Stay with us and get on with the job, or else push off.’

Veyrenc closed his eyes quickly and went back to his seat on the bench. The conversation with the priest had progressed, but Adamsberg looked disappointed.

‘Nothing else at all?’ he was saying.

‘No, nothing, except that pathological dislike of homosexuality in Pascaline’s case.’

‘So you reckon they they didn’t sleep together or anything?’

‘They didn’t sleep with anyone, man or woman.’

‘Did either one ever talk to you about stags?’

‘No, never. Why on earth would they?’

‘It’s just Oswald. He gets everything mixed up.’

‘Oswald, and this isn’t a secret of the confessional, is a bit special. He’s not as daft as his sister, but he talks off the top of his head, if you see what I mean.’

‘What about Hermance? Did she come and see you?’

The fly, being either provocative or careless, was once more approaching the warm computer top, distracting the priest.

‘She often did, long ago, when the villagers used to say she brought bad luck. Then she lost her wits and she’s never really got them back.’

Like your vocation, thought Adamsberg, wondering whether one morning, if he himself looked out and saw the snow on the branches and a woman on a bicycle, he would leave the squad and never return.

‘So she doesn’t come any more.’

‘Yes, of course she does,’ said the priest, watching the fly again as it moved over his keyboard. ‘But that reminds me of something. Just a little thing. It was about six or seven months ago. Pascaline used to have several cats. One of them was killed and left bleeding on her porch.’

‘Who did that?’

‘Nobody ever owned up. Probably kids, like in every village. I’d forgotten all about it, but it upset her a lot. And she wasn’t just upset, she was frightened.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Frightened that someone would suspect her of being a lesbian. Like I said, she had a thing about it.’

‘I don’t see the connection,’ said Veyrenc.

‘Yes, there was one,’ said the priest, sounding a trifle irritated. ‘It was a tomcat, but they’d cut off its male parts.’

‘A bit violent for kids messing about,’ observed Danglard, pulling a face.

‘Did Elisabeth have cats too?’

‘Just the one. But nothing ever happened to it, nothing like that.’

The three men sat in silence on the way back to Haroncourt. Adamsberg was driving at a snail’s pace, as if the car needed to go at the same slow speed as his thought processes.

‘What do you think of him, capitaine?’ Adamsberg asked at last.

‘A bit on edge, a bit weird, but that’s understandable if he’s going to take a big step like that. Still, it was worth the trip.’

‘Because of the book? Is it an inventory of relics?’

‘No, it’s the best-known treatise on how to use them. ‘On sacred relics and the uses that may be made of them.’ The priest’s copy is in very good condition. I couldn’t possibly afford it – it’d cost four years of my pay.’

‘Relics were used for something?’

‘For everything. For stomach upsets and earache, fever, piles, weakness, the vapours.’

‘Ah, we should offer some to Dr Roman, then,’ said Adamsberg with a smile. ‘So why is this edition so valuable?’

‘I already told Veyrenc. Because it contains the most famous potion, one the Church outlawed for centuries. It’s a bit disconcerting, in fact, to find it in the possession of a priest. And he’s left it open at exactly that page, oddly enough. A sort of provocation, I suppose.’

‘My guess is he’s the best-placed person to have taken Saint Jerome’s bones himself. But what was this medicine supposed to do, Danglard? Give him back his vocation? Remove all devilish temptations?’

‘No – it’s a potion for acquiring eternal life.’

‘On earth or in heaven?’

‘On earth, for centuries and centuries.’

‘Go on then, capitaine. Tell me what it contains.’

‘How do you expect me to remember that?’ Danglard grumbled.

‘Actually, I remember it,’ said Veyrenc, discreetly.

‘OK, lieutenant, I’m listening,’ said Adamsberg, still smiling. ‘Maybe it’ll tell us what the priest had in mind.’

‘All right,’ said Veyrenc, hesitantly, not yet able to guess whether Adamsberg was serious or just joking. ‘Sovereign remedy for the lengthening of life, through the quality possessed by sacred relics to weaken the miasmas of death, preserved from the truest processes and purged of former errors.’

‘Is that it?’

‘No, that’s just the heading.’

‘It’s after that that it gets more complicated,’ said Danglard, stupefied and offended.

‘Five times cometh the age of youth, till the day thou must invert it, pass and pass again, out of reach of the thread of life. Sacred relics thou wilt crush, taking three pinches, mixed well with the male principle which must not bend, and with the quick of virgins, on the dexter side, sorted by three into equal quantities, and grind these with the living cross from the heart of the eternal branches, adjacent in equal quantity, kept in the same place by the valency of the saint, in the wine of the year, and thus wilt thou lay its head on the ground.’

‘Did you know about this before, Veyrenc?’

‘No, I just read it today.’

‘Do you understand it?’

‘No.’

‘Neither do I.’