This Night’s Foul Work

‘One or the other, commissaire,’ said Lavoisier, opening his bag. ‘I can’t see anything.’

‘Torches, please,’ called Adamsberg.

The group gradually approached, Mordent and Danglard in front with their flashlights.

‘Still slightly warm,’ said the doctor, after a rapid examination. ‘She must have died less than an hour ago. I can’t find a pulse.’

‘She is alive,’ said Adamsberg.

‘Just a minute, mon vieux, don’t get excited,’ said the doctor, pulling out a mirror and placing it in front of Retancourt’s mouth.

‘OK’, he said after several long seconds. ‘Get the stretcher. She’s still alive. I don’t know how, but she’s alive. In a para-lethal state, subnormal temperature – I’ve never seen anything like it before.’

‘Seen what?’ asked Adamsberg. ‘What state is she in?’

‘The metabolic functions are operating at minimum level,’ said the doctor, still pursuing his examination. ‘Her hands and feet are freezing cold, the circulation’s very slow, the intestines have emptied and the eyes are unfocused.’

The doctor rolled up the sleeves of Retancourt’s sweater and felt her arms. ‘Even her forearms are already cold.’

‘Is she in a coma?’

‘No. It’s a form of lethargy, below the normal vital thresholds. She could die at any minute with the stuff she must have been injected with.’

‘What?’ asked Adamsberg, who was holding Retancourt’s large arm in both hands.

‘Well, as far as I can tell, she’s been injected intravenously with a dose of sedatives strong enough to kill a horse.’

‘The syringe,’ whispered Voisenet.

‘She must have been hit on the head first,’ said the doctor, feeling under her hair. ‘There’s possible concussion. She’s been tied up tightly, hands and feet, the rope’s bitten into the skin. I think she was injected with the stuff here. She should have died almost immediately. But according to the dehydration rate and the excretion, she must have survived six or seven days. It’s not normal. I confess, I don’t really understand it.’

‘She isn’t a normal person, doctor.’

‘Lavoisier, like the chemist,’ said the doctor automatically. ‘Yes, I can see that, commissaire, but her size and weight alone wouldn’t explain it. I just don’t know how her organism managed to fight against the toxins, as well as hunger, thirst and cold.’

The paramedics arrived, put a stretcher on the ground and began trying to transfer Retancourt on to it.

‘Gently,’ said Lavoisier. ‘Don’t oblige her to breathe more deeply, it could be fatal. Put straps round her and move her a centimetre at a time. Let go her arm, mon vieux,’ he said to Adamsberg.

Adamsberg removed his hands from her arm and told the officers to move back into the corridor.

‘She’s channelled her energy,’ said Estalere as he watched the slow transfer of the large body on to the stretcher. ‘She must have channelled it into stopping that sedative invading her bloodstream.’

‘If you say so,’ said Mordent. ‘But we’ll never really know.’

‘Take the stretcher straight to the helicopter,’ Lavoisier ordered. ‘We’ve got to move quickly now.’

‘Where will they take her?’ asked Justin.

‘The hospital in Dourdan.’

‘Kernorkian and Voisenet, can you go to Dourdan and find a hotel for everyone to stop in tonight,’ said Adamsberg. ‘Tomorrow we’ll have to go through this shed with a fine-tooth comb. They must have left some traces in all this sticky dust.’

‘There weren’t any prints in the corridor,’ Kernorkian said. ‘Just those of the cat.’

‘They must have come from the other end. Lamarre and Justin, stay here to guard the exits until I can send some officers over from Dourdan to take over for the night.’

‘Where’s the cat?’ asked Estalere.

‘On the stretcher. Go and get it, brigadier - take care of it and help it recover.’

‘There’s a very good restaurant in Dourdan,’ said Froissy calmly, ‘La Rose des Vents. Old beams and candlelight, speciality seafood, excellent wine – they do sea bream in a pastry crust, if they can get it. Of course, it’s not cheap.’

The men all turned towards their quiet colleague, stunned that Froissy could be thinking about food while one of the team was at death’s door. Outside, the revving-up of the helicopter indicated that Retancourt’s removal was imminent. The doctor didn’t think she would regain consciousness. Adamsberg could read it in his eyes.

He looked over the exhausted faces before him, shining palely in the torchlight. The incongruous prospect of a good dinner in a high-class restaurant seemed as remote to them as it was desirable, in some other life; an ephemeral bubble in which the artifice would help to suspend the horror.

‘Right you are, Froissy,’ Adamsberg said. ‘We’ll meet up at La Rose des Vents and get some supper there. Come on, doctor, we’re going with Retancourt.’

‘Lavoisier, like the chemist,’ said the doctor.

XLIX

VEYRENC HAD NOT COME TO PARIS IN ORDER TO BECOME ABSORBED IN THE day-to-day affairs of the Serious Crime Squad. But at nine-thirty that night, having swallowed down his hospital supper hours before, he could no longer concentrate on the TV film. With an irritable gesture, he reached for the remote control and switched it off. Lifting his leg with both hands, he swivelled on the bed, grabbed his crutch and made his way slowly to the telephone in the corridor.

‘Commandant Danglard? Veyrenc de Bilhc here. What’s the latest?’

‘We’ve found her, thirty-eight kilometres outside Paris, by following the cat.’

‘The cat? What do you mean?’

‘The… cat… wanted… to… find… Retancourt. Get it?’

‘OK, OK,’ said Veyrenc, sensing that his colleague was stressed-out.

‘She’s more dead than alive. We’re on the road to Dourdan and she’s in a para-lethal state of suspension.’

‘Can you explain a bit what’s happened? I need to know.’

Why, I wonder? thought Danglard.

Veyrenc listened to Danglard’s account, which was much less coherent that it would normally be, and hung up. He pressed the wound on his thigh, exploring the degree of pain with his fingers, and imagined Adamsberg leaning over Retancourt, trying desperately to find a means of bringing his stalwart lieutenant back into the land of the living.

The one who in the past had brought you back to life

Lies now in sore distress, victim of deadly strife.

Do not surrender, lord, to the call of despair,

The gods may look kindly, if you venture to dare,

And letting fall their wrath, will forthwith grant her breath,

If with courage and strength you draw her back from death.

‘What, not asleep yet? Come on, time for bed,’ said a nurse, taking him by the arm.

L

ADAMSBERG WAS STANDING BY RETANCOURT’S BED, HIS HANDS GRIPPING the sheets, but could still not see