This Night’s Foul Work

the wine of the year. Well, the matter of wine could easily be fixed, it was simply there to bind the mixture together, and water would do at a pinch. The third virgin was out of reach, of course, so there was no question of eternity. But since the mixture was almost complete, it might provide long life. How much? A hundred years? Two hundred? A thousand? That would keep you going in prison, without needing to worry or start over. But where was the mixture? It was the fear of never being able to drink it that was making her clench the cigarette between her teeth. Between Ariane and the hard-won treasure there were now several ranks of policemen.

And the treasure was the only proof of the murders. Ariane would never confess. The mixture, the mixture alone, with its hairs from the heads of Pascaline and Elisabeth, its remains of cat, stag and human bones, would demonstrate that Ariane had followed the dark path of the De reliquis. To get hold of it now was as essential for her as it was for the commissaire. Without the potion, he wouldn’t have much chance of making a charge stick. These are just the fantasies of a cloud shoveller, the examining magistrate would say, and Brezillon would back him up. Dr Lagarde was so famous that the threads painfully pulled together by Adamsberg would look flimsy indeed.

‘So the potion’s in your flat,’ said Adamsberg, his eyes not leaving Ariane’s taut profile. ‘Probably in some hiding place where Alpha’s ordinary habits wouldn’t find it. You want it and I want it, but I’m the one who’ll find it. I’ll take my time and I’ll pull the building apart if I have to, but I’ll find it.’

‘Whatever you say,’ said Ariane, dragging on her cigarette, then exhaling the smoke, once more looking indifferent and relaxed. ‘May I have your permission to visit the lavatory, commissaire?’

‘Veyrenc, Mordent, go with her. Stay close to her.’

Ariane went out of the room, slowly, on her platform shoes, and held tightly by her two guards. Adamsberg followed them with his eyes, puzzled by her sudden about-turn and the pleasure she had taken from her cigarette. You smiled, Ariane. I’m going to take your treasure and you smiled.

I know that smile. It was the same one as in that cafe in Le Havre, after you’d thrown my beer away. And the same one when you persuaded me to go after the nurse. The smile of the victor to the one who’s about to lose. A triumphant smile. I’m going to get hold of your fucking potion, yet you’re smiling.

Adamsberg leapt to his feet and pulled Danglard by the sleeve.

LXIV

DANGLARD RAN AFTER THE COMMISSAIRE WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING, HIS LEGS stiff with fatigue, and followed him to the door of the staff washroom where Mordent and Veyrenc were standing guard.

‘Go on, commandant,’ Adamsberg ordered. ‘Kick the door in.’

‘But… but I can’t…’ Mordent began.

‘Kick the door in, for God’s sake! Veyrenc, help me.’

The lavatory door gave in after three shoves from the shoulders of Veyrenc and the commissaire. The ibex charging in unison, Adamsberg had time to think as he grabbed Ariane’s arm and took hold of the thick brown phial she was holding. The pathologist screamed. And in that long, ferocious and nerve-rending scream, Adamsberg at last understood what the real nature of an Omega could be. He would never witness it again. Ariane collapsed into unconsciousness, and when she came to, a few minutes later in the cells, Alpha was back in place, calm and sophisticated.

‘The potion was in her handbag,’ said Adamsberg, staring at the little bottle. ‘She took some water from the basin to mix it up and she was just going to drink it.’

He raised his hand and looked carefully at the phial by the light of the lamp, examining the thick liquid inside. The men looked at the small bottle with a certain reverence, as if it were holy oil.

‘She’s very clever,’ said Adamsberg. ‘But she wasn’t able to hide that cunning little smile of her Omega, a smile of victory. And she smiled when she was sure I thought the potion was in her flat. So it had to mean the bottle was somewhere else. About her person, obviously.’

‘Why didn’t you confiscate her bag before?’ asked Mordent. ‘It was a big risk – those toilet doors are solid.’

‘I simply never thought of it before, Mordent. I’ll put this bottle in the safe. I’ll be with you in a minute, and we can all go home.’

Half an hour later, Adamsberg stood inside his front door and locked it firmly. He carefully extracted the brown phial from his jacket pocket and placed it in the centre of the table. Then he emptied the remains of a small bottle of rum into the sink, rinsed it out, found a funnel, and slowly poured half the mixture into it. Tomorrow, the brown phial would go to the lab, and there was plenty of the potion left for analysis. Nobody else had seen through the dark glass exactly how much liquid was inside it, so no one would know that he had taken a generous dose out of it.

Tomorrow, he would visit Ariane in her cell. And he would discreetly pass over the rum bottle. Then the pathologist would remain completely serene in prison, being certain she would survive long enough to complete her project. She would swallow the revolting mixture as soon as he had his back turned and would go to sleep like a devil sated.

And why, Adamsberg wondered, as he put the two small bottles back into his jacket, should he care that Ariane should remain serene in prison? When he could still hear that harsh scream in his ears, full of madness and cruelty? Because he had once been a little in love with her, had once desired her? No, it wasn’t even that.

He went to the window and looked out into the garden in the night. Lucio was taking a leak under the hazel tree. Adamsberg waited a few moments, then went out to him. Lucio was looking up at the cloudy sky and scratching the spider’s bite.

‘Can’t sleep, hombre?’ he asked. ‘Have you finished the job?’

‘Almost.’

‘Difficult nut to crack, eh?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah, what men will do,’ sighed Lucio. ‘And women.’

The old man walked off towards the hedge and came back with two cold bottles of beer, which he opened with his teeth.

‘Don’t tell Maria, will you?’ he said, handing one to Adamsberg. ‘Women get so het up. That’s because they’re perfectionists, you understand, they have to see the whole job through. Whereas a man, he’ll do a bit here, a bit there, and then botch it together, or even just leave it half-done. But a woman has to follow her idea through for days and months, without even a drop of beer.’

‘I’ve arrested a woman tonight who was just about to finish the task she’d set herself.’

‘A big one?’

‘Gigantic. She was preparing a diabolical potion that she wanted to swallow. And I thought it was probably best in the end that she should swallow it. So that her task is pretty much finished. Right?’

Lucio drained his bottle and threw it over the wall.

‘Yes, of course, hombre.’

The old man went back home and Adamsberg took a leak under the tree himself. ‘Yes, of course, hombre.’ Otherwise the bite would itch till the end of her days.

LXV

‘THIS IS WHERE WE’RE GOING TO END THE STORY, VEYRENC,’ SAID ADAMSBERG, stopping under a large walnut tree.

Two days after the arrest of Ariane Lagarde, and faced with the scandal which the news had caused, Adamsberg had felt a pressing need to go and cool his feet in the waters of the Gave. He had bought two tickets to