This Night’s Foul Work

‘And that sometimes happens?’

‘Hardly ever. But dissociation is rarely perfect. There are always a few leaks. Odd words leap from one side of the wall to the other. The murderer doesn’t notice, but an analyst can surprise them. And if the jump is too abrupt, it can cause a breakdown, a personality crash. That’s what happened to Hubert Sandrin.’

‘What about the nurse?’

‘Her wall has stayed intact. She has no idea what she’s done.’

Adamsberg seemed to be thinking, rubbing his cheek with his finger.

‘That surprises me,’ he said quietly. ‘It seemed to me she knew perfectly well why I was arresting her. She came along like a lamb, without a word.’

‘Part of her did, which explains her consent. But she has no memory of her actions.’

‘Tell me something. How did the guy in Le Havre find out about his other self?’

Ariane smiled broadly, flicking her cigarette ash to the ground.

‘It was because of you and your rats. At the time, the local press made a bit of a song and dance about them.’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘Well, Hubert Number Two, the murderer – let’s call him Omega – had kept newspaper cuttings, out of sight of Hubert Number One – let’s call him Alpha.’

‘Until Alpha found the cuttings that Omega had hidden away?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Do you think Omega had wanted that to happen?’

‘No. Alpha simply moved house. The cuttings fell out of a cupboard. And it detonated the explosion.’

‘So if it hadn’t been for my rats,’ Adamsberg summed up quietly, ‘Sandrin wouldn’t have denounced himself. Without his case, you wouldn’t have started working on dissociation. Every psychiatrist and detective in France knows about your studies.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Ariane.

‘So I reckon you owe me a beer.’

‘Certainly.’

‘By the Seine.’

‘OK, if you like.’

‘And, of course, you won’t hand these guys over to the Drug Squad?’

‘It’s the bodies that will decide that, Jean-Baptiste, not you and not me.’

‘The syringe mark, Ariane, and the earth under their nails. Take a look at the earth for me. Tell me if that’s what it is.’

They got up together, as if Adamsberg’s words had been a signal for them to leave. The commissaire walked along the street as if he was strolling aimlessly, and the doctor tried to follow his slow pace, her mind already on the autopsies awaiting her. Adamsberg’s preoccupation puzzled her.

‘There’s something about those bodies that bothers you, isn’t there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not just because of the Drug Squad?’

‘No. It’s just…’ Adamsberg broke off. ‘I’m going this way. I’ll see you tomorrow, Ariane.’

‘It’s just…?’ the doctor insisted.

‘Nothing that will help your analysis.’

‘But tell me anyway.’

‘Just a shade, Ariane, a shade hovering over them, or over me.’

Ariane watched Adamsberg walk away down the avenue, a wayward silhouette, taking no notice of anyone else. She recognised his style from twenty-three years back. The gentle voice, the slow gestures. She had not paid much attention to him when he was young, so she had understood nothing. If she was starting over again, she would listen to his story about the rats. She plunged her hands in the pockets of her overall and set off towards the two bodies waiting to take their place in history. Just a shade hovering over them. Today she could understand that kind of strange remark.

VI

LIEUTENANT VEYRENC TOOK ADVANTAGE OF HIS LONG HOURS IN THE BROOM cupboard to copy out in large handwriting one of Racine’s plays for his grandmother, whose sight was going.

Nobody had ever understood the exclusive passion his grandmother had declared for this author, and no other, when she had been left a war orphan. The family knew that when there was a fire at her convent school, she had rescued a complete edition of Racine, except for the volume containing Phedre, Esther and Athalie. As if the books had been granted to her by divine intervention, the little country girl had read them over and over, for eleven years. When she’d left the convent, the mother superior had given the volumes to her as a sort of vade-mecum, and his grandmother had gone on reading them, over and over, without changing the order, or ever having the curiosity to seek out Phedre, Esther and Athalie. She would recite the speeches of this lifelong companion all the time, and the young Veyrenc had grown up hearing the twelve-syllable alexandrines, which had become as natural to his childish ears as if someone were singing around the house.

Unfortunately, he had picked up the habit as well, replying to his grandmother in the same mode – lines twelve syllables long. But since he had not had thousands of verses ingrained in his mind, night after night, he had to invent them. As long as he was living in the family home, it had hardly mattered. But once he was out in the world, this Racinian reflex had cost him dear. He had tried to suppress it by various methods, without success, then had given up the attempt and had gone on versifying unstoppably, muttering like his grandmother, a habit which had exasperated his superior officers. But it had also preserved him in some ways, since encapsulating life in twelve syllables had introduced an extraordinary distance – ‘to no other compared’ - between himself and the hurly-burly of the world. The effort of standing back had always brought him into a calmer and more reflective state and had above all stopped him making irreparable mistakes in the heat of the moment. Racine, despite the intensity of his dramas and his incendiary language, was the best antidote to haste, cooling immediately any temptation to go over the top. Veyrenc had started deliberately using verse this way, realising that his grandmother had contrived similarly to regulate and manage her life. It was a personal medicine – ‘to all others unknown’.

At the moment, his grandmother was unable to take her regular potion, so Veyrenc was copying out Britannicus in big letters for her: He had reached the point when Junie was emerging from her bedchamber,

In the simple array

Of a beauty from sleep summoned forth by the day.

Veyrenc raised his pen from the paper. By the sound of her boots, he could hear the grain of sand coming up the stairs – for the grain of sand always wore a recognisable pair of boots, criss-crossed with leather straps. The grain of sand would stop first on the fifth floor, and ring the bell of the flat belonging to her invalid neighbour, bringing her her mail and her lunch. She would then be up on the seventh within a quarter of an hour. The grain of sand, otherwise known as the resident on his landing, was Mlle Forestier, Camille, whom he had now been guarding for nineteen days. According to the little he had been told, she was to be kept under police protection for six months, shielding her from the possible vengeance of a murderous old man. Otherwise, all he knew of her was her name. And that she was bringing up a baby on her own, without any man on the horizon. He could not guess what her occupation was – he hesitated between plumber and musician. About twelve days ago, she had politely requested him to come out of the broom cupboard because she needed to solder a pipe inside it, at ceiling level. He had moved his chair out on to the landing and watched her precise and concentrated gestures, registering the metallic sound of the tools and the flame from her soldering iron. It was during this episode that he had felt