This Night’s Foul Work

‘The best thing would be to draw up a radius of fifty kilometres around Le Mesnil-Beauchamp.’

‘Seven thousand, eight hundred and fifty square kilometres,’ said Mercadet, making a rapid calculation. ‘And how old would our victim be?’

‘Symbolically,’ said Danglard, ‘one could guess a minimal age of twenty-five. That was the age of Saint Catherine, when adult virginity is supposed to start. And we could use a cut-off date of forty, because after that both men and women were considered old.’

‘That’s a bit too broad,’ said Adamsberg. ‘We need to move more quickly. Let’s start with the age of our existing two victims, somewhere between thirty and forty. About how many women would that give us in the area, Mercadet?’

The lieutenant was given a few moments to do his calculations in silence, surrounded by his cups of coffee, sorted in threes. It was a pity, Adamsberg reflected, that Mercadet was so given to drowsiness. He had a remarkable head for figures and lists.

‘Very roughly, I’d say about a hundred and twenty to two hundred and fifty women in the area who might possibly be virgins.’

‘That’s still too many,’ said Adamsberg chewing his lip. ‘We need to make the area smaller. Let’s target an area of, say, twenty kilometres around Le Mesnil. What does that give?’

‘Between forty and eighty women,’ Mercadet replied promptly.

‘And how are we going to identify these forty virgins?’ asked Retancourt, sharply. ‘It’s not a crime, so it won’t show up on any database.’

A virgin, thought the commissaire, glancing quickly at his large but pretty lieutenant. Retancourt kept her private life very private, hermetically sealed against any inquiries. Perhaps this detailed discussion of virgin women was exasperating her.

‘We’ll consult the local priests,’ Adamsberg said. ‘Starting with the one in Le Mesnil. Work quickly, all of you. Overtime if necessary.’

‘Commissaire,’ said Gardon, ‘I don’t think it’s as urgent as all that. Pascaline and Elisabeth were killed three and a half months ago and four months ago respectively. The third virgin is almost certainly already dead.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Adamsberg, looking up at the ceiling. ‘Because of the new wine which has to be the final liquid binding the whole mixture. It has to mix all the ingredients. So it will be the November vintage.’

‘Or October,’ said Danglard. ‘They used to do the first pressing earlier than we do today.’

‘All right,’ said Mordent, ‘So what does that mean?’

‘Well, if we follow what Danglard told us,’ Adamsberg went on, ‘you have to respect the harmonious balance for the mixture to succeed. If I was making this mixture, I’d arrange for regular intervals between taking the ingredients so that there wasn’t too long a gap. Like a sort of relay race.’

‘It’s compulsory, even,’ said Danglard, chewing his pencil. ‘In medieval times irregularity and interruptions were a sort of obsession. They brought bad luck, broke the spell. Whatever the line was, a real or an abstract one, it shouldn’t be interrupted or broken. In all things, it was essential to follow an orderly and continuous development, in a straight line without hiccups.’

‘Now,’ said Adamsberg, ‘the killing of the cat and the looting of the relics happened three months before Pascaline’s death. Then the “quick of virgins” was taken three months after their deaths. Three, like the number of pinches, the number of virgins, three months, like the length of a season. So the last “quick” will be collected either three months before the new wine, or just before it. And the virgin will be killed three months before that.’

Adamsberg interrupted himself and counted on his fingers, several times.

‘So it’s quite probable that this woman is still alive, but that her death is programmed for some time in the next three months, most likely either early April or late June. And today’s the twenty-fifth of March.’

Three months, two weeks – or even one week. In silence, everyone was considering the urgency and the impossibility of their task. Because even if they did manage to establish a list of virgin women in the circle around Le Mesnil, how could they possibly guess which one the angel of death would choose? And how on earth could they protect her?

‘All this is just speculation on a massive scale,’ said Voisenet, shaking himself as if coming round at the end of a film and abruptly tearing himself away from the fiction that had engaged him up till then. ‘Like everything else.’

‘Yes, that’s all it is,’ said Adamsberg.

A flurry of wings between heaven and earth, thought Danglard anxiously.

XXXIV

THE DISCUSSION HAD LASTED SO LONG THAT ADAMSBERG WAS RUNNING LATE and had to take his car to go to Camille’s studio. He certainly wouldn’t tell Tom the story about the nurse and the ghastly mixture. Eternal life, he thought, as he parked in the rain. Omnipotence. The recipe in the De reliquis seemed ridiculous, a real hoax. But a hoax that had haunted humans since their first steps in the cosmic wilderness which so worried Danglard. A murderous hoax, in search of which which men had elaborated religions and killed each other since time immemorial. This was essentially what the nurse had been looking for, throughout her life. To have the power of life or death over others, to be able to dispose of other people’s existences, was already to be some kind of goddess, weaving the web of their destinies. And now she was taking care of her own. Having reigned over other lives, she couldn’t allow death to catch up with her like any normal old woman. She would use her immense power of life and death for herself, gaining the power of the Immortals and reaching her true throne, from where she would continue her lethal work. She had reached the age of seventy-five and it was time, now that the cycle of youth had passed five times. This was the moment and she had always known it. Her victims had been singled out far in advance, the times and methods of killing had been worked out in minute detail. This woman was meticulous, the plan had been worked out step by step, without leaving anything to chance. She didn’t have a few months’ advance over the police, but ten or fifteen years. The third virgin had been doomed in advance. And he couldn’t see how he, Adamsberg, with his twenty-seven officers, or even with a hundred, could block the implacable advance of the Shade.

No, he would tell Tom the rest of the story of the two ibex instead.

Adamsberg climbed the seven flights of stairs and rang the bell, ten minutes late.

‘If you remember, can you give him his nose drops?’ asked Camille, giving him a small bottle.

‘Of course I’ll remember,’ said Adamsberg, putting the bottle in his pocket. ‘Off you go. Play beautifully.’

‘Yes.’

Just a basic exchange of words between friends. Adamsberg lay on the bed, with Tom lying on his stomach.

‘Remember where we’d got to? Remember the nice brown ibex, who loved birds, but didn’t want the other ginger one to come and annoy him on his bit of the mountain? Well, he did come along, just the same. He came along with his big horns flashing around. And he said: “You were nasty to me when I was a kid, and now you’re going to be sorry.” “It was just kids’ games,” the brown ibex said, “Nothing serious. Go home and stop bothering me.” But the ginger one wouldn’t listen. Because he’d come a long, long way to get his revenge on the brown one.’

Here Adamsberg stopped and the child signified by moving his foot that he wasn’t asleep.

‘So the one who’d come a long, long way said, “You poor sap, I’m going to take your territory, and I’m going to take your job.” Just then a very wise chamois, who was passing, and who had read all the books there are, said to the brown one: “Watch out, this ibex has already killed two other ibex and he’s out to get you as well.” “No, I don’t believe you,” said the brown one to the wise old chamois. “You’re just exaggerating because you’re jealous.” But he was left feeling uneasy. Because this ginger ibex was very clever and what’s more he was very good- looking. The brown one decided to fence the ginger one in with a fireguard, while he had a serious think. No sooner said than done. The fireguard was perfect. But the brown ibex had one failing: he wasn’t very good at having a serious think.’