This Night’s Foul Work

whether she was breathing. For all the injections, pumps and cleansing processes applied by the doctors, he could sense no change in her appearance, except that the nurses had washed her thoroughly and cut her hair, which had been infested with fleas. The dogs, of course. Over the bed, a screen was giving out weak vital signals. But Adamsberg preferred not to look at it, in case the green line should suddenly go flat.

The doctor took him by the arm and pulled him away from the bed.

‘Go and see the others, get a bite to to eat, and think about something else. You can’t do any more here. She just needs rest.’

‘She’s not resting doctor, she’s dying.’

The doctor looked away.

‘It’s not looking good,’ he admitted. ‘She’s had a massive dose of Novaxon and it’s paralysed her whole organism. The nervous system has closed down, but the heart’s somehow managing to hold out. I really don’t understand how she’s surviving. Even if we manage to save her, commissaire, I can’t be certain she’ll have all her mental faculties. There’s only a minimal flow of blood to the brain. It’s in the hands of fate now – try to understand.’

‘A few days ago,’ said Adamsberg, having difficulty articulating through clenched teeth, ‘I saved a guy whose fate had dictated that he was going to die. There isn’t such a thing as fate. She’s survived this long, she’ll hold out. You’ll see, doctor, it’ll be one for your record books.’

‘Go and see the others. She could last for days in this state. I’ll call you if anything changes, I promise.’

‘You can’t take everything out, clean it and put it back in?’

‘No, we can’t.’

‘Sorry, doctor,’ said Adamsberg, letting go his arm, which he had been clutching. He went back to the bed and ran his hands over Retancourt’s cropped hair.

‘I’ll be back, Violette,’ he said softly.

That was what Retancourt always said to the cat when she went out, so that it wouldn’t worry.

The crude and explosive hilarity reigning in the restaurant sounded more like a birthday party than a team of police officers plunged in the deepest anguish. Adamsberg looked at them from the doorway, the candlelight making all their faces deceptively young and beautiful, their elbows resting on the white cloth, glasses passing from hand to hand and jokes being cracked. Yes, it was the right thing to do, as he had hoped; it was best, after all, that they should have this brief respite outside real time, and enjoy it to the full, because they knew it couldn’t last. He was afraid that his arrival might break the mood of fragile happiness behind which their worries could be seen as if through glass. He forced a smile as he joined them.

‘She’s a bit better,’ he announced as he sat down. ‘Pass me a plate.’

Even Adamsberg, whose mind was still clinging on to Retancourt’s body, benefited a little from the food, wine and laughter. He had never been very good at meals in company, still less jolly ones, since he was incapable of cracking jokes quickly or making clever repartee. Like an ibex watching a train speed by in the valley, he sat peaceably like a foreign observer, watching his colleagues exchange excited remarks. Froissy, curiously, was on top form at times like this, helped by the food and drink and a wicked sense of humour which one wouldn’t have suspected from seeing her in the office. Adamsberg let himself be carried along by the mood, while constantly keeping an eye on the screen of his mobile. Which rang at eleven-forty.

‘She’s going downhill again,’ said Dr Lavoisier. ‘We’re going to try a total blood transfusion: it’s the last hope. The problem is that she’s group A negative and, God help us, our reserves were used up yesterday for a road- crash victim.’

‘What about donors?’

‘We’ve only got one here, and we need three. The two other regulars are on holiday. It’s Easter weekend, commissaire, half the town’s away. I’m so sorry. By the time we find donors from other centres it’ll be too late.’

A sudden silence fell over the table at the sight of Adamsberg’s devastated face. He left the room at a run, followed by Estalere. The young man returned a few minutes later and collapsed into his seat.

‘Urgent blood transfusion,’ he said. ‘Group A negative, but they haven’t got the right donors on hand.’

Sweating from his run, Adamsberg came into the white-walled room where the only A-negative donor in Dourdan was finishing giving blood. It seemed to him as though Retancourt’s cheeks had turned blue.

‘I’m Group O,’ he announced to the doctor, pulling off his jacket.

‘Right, we can use you, you can be the next.’

‘I’ve drunk two glasses of wine.’

‘Never mind. The state she’s in, that’s the least of our worries.’

A quarter of an hour later, his arm numbed by the tourniquet, Adamsberg could sense his blood flowing into Retancourt’s body. Lying on his back alongside her bed, he kept his eyes fixed on her face, waiting for any sign of a return to life. Please. But try as he might to concentrate and pray to the third virgin, he couldn’t give more blood than anyone else. And the doctor had said he needed three. Three donors. Three virgins. Three.

His head was starting to spin, since he had scarcely touched his food. He accepted the vertigo without displeasure, feeling that his train of thought was slipping away from him. Still forcing himself to keep watching Retancourt, he noticed that the roots of her hair were fairer than the ends. He had never noticed before that Retancourt dyed her hair a darker blonde than the natural colour. What an odd aesthetic idea. There was a lot he didn’t know about Retancourt.

‘Are you all right?’ asked the doctor. ‘Not going to pass out?’

Adamsberg made a negative sign and returned to his vertiginous thoughts. Light blonde and dark blonde in Retancourt’s hair, the quick of the virgin. Therefore, he calculated with difficulty, the lieutenant must have dyed her hair in December or January, since the fairer roots had grown about two or three centimetres, an odd idea in wintertime, and he had not noticed. He had lost his father about then, but that had nothing to do with it. It seemed to him that Retancourt’s lips had moved, but he couldn’t see very well. Perhaps she wanted to tell him something, to talk about the quick growing on her head, coming out of her skull like the horns of the ibex. Good God, the quick. From a long way off, he heard the doctor saying something.

‘Stop now,’ said a voice, that of Dr Lariboisier, or whatever his name was. ‘We don’t want two corpses instead of one. That’s as much as we can take from him.’

At the hospital reception desk, a man was asking:

‘Violette Retancourt, where is she?’

‘Sorry, you can’t see her now.’

‘I’m a donor, Group O, universally compatible.’

‘She’s in resuscitation,’ said the woman at the desk, jumping up. ‘I’ll take you there.’

Adamsberg was talking to himself when they took off the tourniquet. Hands helped him up, and someone made him drink some sugary water, while another medic was giving him an injection in his other arm. The door opened, and a large shape wearing a leather jacket burst into the room. ‘Lieutenant Noel,’ said the large shape. ‘Group O.’

LI

IN FRONT OF THE HOSPITAL, AS A CONTRAST WITH THE BLEAK CONCRETE surroundings, the planners had put a little green space, to indicate that some flowers ought to be included somewhere. In his comings and goings, Adamsberg had spotted this concession to nature, fifteen metres square, with two benches and five flower baskets arranged around a little fountain. It was now two in the morning, and the commissaire, feeling better with his sugar balance restored, was resting and listening to the plashing of the water, a comforting sound that he knew medieval monks had valued for its soothing qualities. After Noel had finished the final transfusion, the two men had stood and looked at Retancourt’s inert body, one each side of her bed, as if they were supervising a risky scientific experiment.

‘It’s coming through now,’ said Noel.

‘Not yet,’ said the doctor.