This Night’s Foul Work

‘Mordent?’

‘They’re into the site. We’re going in. Bit of a struggle. Veyrenc’s elbowed one of them in the belly, he’s down. No, he’s up, again, still got the gun. The other’s grabbed Veyrenc.’

‘Shoot, Mordent.’

‘Too far away. Fire in the air?’

‘No – if they hear that they’ll shoot too. Get closer. Roland likes talking, he likes showing off, it’ll slow them down a bit. At twelve metres, shine a torch and fire.’

Adamsberg came off the ring road. If only he hadn’t told this damned story to Danglard. But he had done the same as everyone else. He had revealed his secret to one person. One too many.

‘What I’d really like, I’d like to get you back on the High Meadow. But I’m not that fucking stupid, Veyrenc, I’m not going to help the cops to work it out. And what about your boss, eh? Did you ask him what he was doing there? Wouldn’t you like to know, eh? You make me laugh, Veyrenc, you’ve always made me laugh.’

‘Thirteen metres,’ whispered Mordent.

‘Go for their legs.’

Adamsberg heard three shots over his car radio. He hurtled into Saint-Denis at a hundred and thirty kilometres an hour.

Roland had collapsed, hit in the back of the knee, and Pierrot had wheeled round. The gamekeeper was facing them, brandishing his gun. Roland let off a clumsy shot, hitting Veyrenc in the thigh. Maurel aimed at the gamekeeper and hit his shoulder.

‘The two men are down and held, sir. One hit in the arm, the other in the knee, Veyrenc’s taken a hit in the leg. Situation under control.’

‘Danglard, send two ambulances.’

‘They’re already on their way,’ said Danglard in a hollow voice. ‘Bichat Hospital.’

Five minutes later, Adamsberg raced on to the muddy building site. Mordent and Maurel had dragged the three wounded men on to dry ground, and laid them on sheets of corrugated iron.

‘That’s a nasty wound,’ said Adamsberg, leaning over Veyrenc. ‘Bleeding like hell. Give me your shirt, Mordent, I’ll try and tourniquet it. Maurel, you take Roland, he’s the bigger one, immobilise his knee.’

Adamsberg tore Veyrenc’s trouser leg and tied the shirt tightly round his thigh above the wound.

‘That’ll probably wake him up at least,’ said Maurel.

‘Yeah, he always faints, but he’ll come out of it, he’s like that. Veyrenc, can you hear me? Grip my hand if you can.’

Adamsberg repeated it three times, before at last feeling Veyrenc’s fingers tighten.

‘OK, Veyrenc, now open your eyes,’ Adamsberg said, tapping his cheeks. ‘Come on, open your eyes. Tell me if you can hear me.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Say something.’

Veyrenc opened his eyes wide. His gaze fell on Maurel, then on Adamsberg, uncomprehendingly, as if he was expecting his father to take him to hospital in Pau.

‘They came for me,’ he said, ‘the Caldhez gang.’

‘Yes, Roland and Pierrot.’

‘They came over the rocks by the chapel in Camales, they came to the High Meadow.’

‘We’re in Saint-Denis,’ Maurel broke in anxiously. ‘We’re in the rue des Ecrouelles.’

‘Don’t worry, Maurel,’ said Adamsberg. ‘It’s a childhood memory. Come on, Veyrenc,’ he went on, shaking him. ‘High Meadow, is it? Remember now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Four boys. What about the fifth, where is he?’

‘Up by the tree, he’s their leader.’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Pierrot, with a cackle. ‘Their leader. Ha!’

Adamsberg left Veyrenc and approached the two men, who were lying down handcuffed a few feet away.

‘Well, well, look who’s here,’ said Roland.

‘Glad to see me, are you?’

‘You bet. Always in the fucking way.’

‘Tell him the truth about the High Meadow. Tell Veyrenc what I was doing under the tree.’

‘He knows, doesn’t he?’ Roland said tauntingly. ‘Wouldn’t be here otherwise, would he?’

‘You’ve always been a little shit, Roland. And that’s God’s truth.’

Adamsberg saw the blue lights of the ambulances approach, lighting up the fence of the site. The paramedics loaded the men on to stretchers.

‘Mordent, I’m going with Veyrenc. Can you go with the others? They’ve got to be put under police guard.’

‘Commissaire, I’m minus my shirt.’

‘Take Maurel’s. Maurel, you can take my car back to headquarters.’

Before the ambulances had left, Adamsberg had time to call Helene Froissy.

‘Froissy, I’m sorry as hell to get you out of bed. But can you go and strip out all the bugging equipment, first from the office, then from my house. Then go out to Saint-Denis, rue des Ecrouelles. You’ll find Veyrenc’s car there – clean it all out.’

‘Can’t it wait a few hours?’

‘Froissy, I wouldn’t be calling you at three in the morning if it could wait a single minute. Lose the lot.’

XL

THE SURGEON WALKED INTO THE WAITING ROOM AND LOOKED AROUND TO see which one was the commissaire de police waiting for news of the three men with bullet wounds.

‘Where is he?’

‘Over there,’ said the anaesthetist, pointing to a small dark man who was fast asleep, stretched out across two chairs, with his head resting on his jacket for a pillow.

‘If you say so,’ said the surgeon, and shook Adamsberg by the shoulder.

The commissaire sat up, felt his aching back, rubbed his face, and ran his hands through his hair. Ready for the day, thought the surgeon, but then he hadn’t had time to shave either.

‘They’re OK, all three of them. The knee injury will need physiotherapy, but the kneecap wasn’t touched. The shoulder wound’s almost nothing, he can go home in a couple of days. The one with the thigh injury’s lucky, it was pretty close to an artery. He’s feverish, and he’s talking in verse.’

‘What about the bullets?’ asked Adamsberg, shaking out his jacket. ‘I hope they haven’t been mixed up?’

‘No, each one in a box, labelled with the bed number. What happened?’

‘Hold-up at a cash machine.’

‘Oh,’ said the surgeon, disappointed. ‘Money’s the root of all evil, I suppose.’

‘Where’s the knee injury?’

‘In Room 435 with the shoulder.’

‘And the thigh?’

‘Room 441. What happened to him?’

‘The one with the knee injury shot him.’

‘No, I meant his hair.’

‘Oh, that’s natural. Well, a sort of natural accident.’

‘I’d call that an intradermic keratin variation. Very rare – exceptional, really. Do you want some coffee? A bit of breakfast? You look rather pale.’

‘I’ll find a machine,’ said Adamsberg, standing up.

‘The coffee in the machine’s horse piss. Come with me, I’ll fix you up with something.’