more his brain seemed to want to play dead. In response, he did his best to live by concentrating on little things, as if he were some stranger who cared about nothing, wiping out any thoughts and qualities, keeping his spirit a blank, his heart empty and his mind fixed entirely on short wavelengths. This state, a stretch of indifference which discouraged all those around him, was well-known to him now, but he found it hard to control. Because when he was in this uncaring mode, having rid himself of all the worries of the planet, he felt calm and on the whole happy. But as the days went by, such indifference insidiously caused internal damage so that everything became colourless. People began to become transparent to him, all identical, since they were so distant from him. And this lasted until, coming to some end point in his informal disgust with the world, he felt that he himself had no density, no importance at all, letting himself be ferried along by other people’s daily lives, being all the readier to carry out a host of little kindnesses since he had become completely detached from them. His body’s mechanisms and his automatic responses enabled him to get through the day, but he wasn’t there for anyone. At this stage, almost out of his own existence, Adamsberg felt no anxiety, had no thoughts. This disinterest for the world did not even have the panic-inducing fear of nothingness. His spiritual apathy did not bring with it the dread of ennui.
But God in heaven, it had happened very quickly this time.
He could perfectly well remember the extreme distress which only yesterday had struck him when he had imagined that Camille was dead. And now even the word ‘distress’ seemed meaningless to him. What could distress mean? That Camille was dead? But what did that matter now? Madeleine Chatelain had had her throat cut, the chalk circle man was still on the loose, Christiane was pusuing him, Danglard was depressed, and he had to deal with the whole bloody mess, but what was the point?
So he sat down in a cafe, took out his notepad and waited. He surveyed his thoughts as they proceeded through his head. They seemed to have a middle, but no beginning and no end. So how could he write them down? Disgusted but still calm, after an hour he wrote:
‘Can’t think of anything to think’.
Then from the cafe he telephoned Mathilde. Clemence Valmont answered the phone. The old woman’s grating voice brought him a sense of reality, the idea of doing something before he completely lost touch with things and passed out. Mathilde had returned home. He wanted to see her, but not at her house. He gave her an appointment for five o’clock at his office.
Unexpectedly, Mathilde arrived on time. She had surprised even herself.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘It must be the effect of “helping the police with their inquiries”.’
Then she looked at Adamsberg, who was not drawing but was sitting with his legs outstretched, one hand in his trouser pocket, the other holding a cigarette in his fingertips and seeming so disorganised and nonchalant that it was hard to know how to approach him. But Mathilde sensed that he was quite capable of doing his job, even looking like that, or perhaps especially when looking like that.
‘I get the feeling this isn’t going to be as much fun as last time,’ said Mathilde.
‘You could be right,’ said Adamsberg.
‘It’s ridiculous going to all this performance of getting me called to the station. You would have done better to come to the Flying Gurnard, and we could have had a drink and a bite to eat. Clemence has made a repulsive sort of dish, her local speciality, she says.’
‘Where’s she from?’
‘Neuilly.’
‘The Paris suburbs aren’t exactly exotic. But I’m not staging any kind of performance. I just needed to talk to you and I didn’t want to sit cosily in the Flying Gurnard or anywhere else you might have in mind.’
‘Because a policeman doesn’t eat dinner with his suspects?’
‘On the contrary, that’s just what he does do,’ said Adamsberg wearily. ‘Being on matey terms with the suspects is precisely what the books recommend. But over in your house, it’s like a railway station. Blind men, batty old women, students, philosophers, upstairs neighbours, downstairs neighours – you have to be one of the Queen’s courtiers or you’re nothing at all, isn’t that right? And I don’t like the choice of courtier or nothing. But I don’t know why I’m bothering to say all this, it’s not important.’
Mathilde laughed.
‘I get it,’ she said. ‘In future we should meet in a cafe or on a bridge over the Seine, some neutral territory where we’d be on equal terms. Like two republican French citizens. Mind if I smoke?’
‘Go ahead. That article in the 5th
‘Never heard of the damn thing till Charles recited it from memory for me at lunch time today. And as for whatever I was shouting about at the
Adamsberg pulled a face.
‘I find it hard to forget you’re a scientist,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you’re as unpredictable as you make out.’
‘So, Adamsberg, you think I cut Madeleine Chatelain’s throat? It’s true I don’t have a respectable alibi for that evening – nobody checks when I come and go. There’s no man sharing my bed at the moment, and there’s no concierge for our block: I’m as free as the wind, as free as the mice. So what is this poor woman supposed to have done to me to prompt this?’
‘Everyone has their secrets. Danglard would say that since you spend your time following thousands of people, Madeleine Chatelain could figure somewhere in your notes.’
‘It’s not impossible.’
‘He would add that in your underwater career you are known to have slit the bellies of two blue sharks. You’re capable of determination, courage and strength.’
‘Oh, come on, you’re not going to shelter behind someone else’s arguments, are you? Danglard this, Danglard that. What about you?’
‘Danglard’s a thinker. I listen to what he says. In my view, only one thing matters: the chalk circle man and his wretched outings. Nothing else. Take Charles Reyer, now – what do you know about him? It’s impossible to tell which of you first sought the other out. It looks as if it was you, but perhaps he forced your hand.’
There was a silence, then Mathilde said:
‘Do you really think I’d allow myself to be manipulated like that?’
At this difference in her tone, Adamsberg interrupted the doodling he had started. Sitting opposite, she was staring at him, smiling, grand and generous, very sure of herself, regal, as if she could demolish his office and the rest of the world with a simple mocking remark. So he spoke slowly, chancing some new ideas suggested by her expression. Resting his cheek on his hand, he said:
‘When you came to the police station the first time it wasn’t because you were looking for Charles Reyer, was it?’
Mathilde laughed.
‘Yes, I was looking for him! But I could have found him without your help, you know.’
‘Of course. It was stupid of me. But you’re a splendid liar. So what game are we playing here? Who were you really looking for? Me?’
‘Yes, you.’
‘Simple curiosity, because my appointment had been announced in the papers? You wanted to add me to your collection? No, it wasn’t that.’
‘No, of course not,’ said Mathilde.
‘ To talk about the chalk circle man, as Danglard thinks?’
‘No, not even that. If it hadn’t been for the press cuttings you had under the desk lamp, I wouldn’t have thought of that. You’re free not to believe me, of course, now that you know I’m thoroughly unreliable.’
Adamsberg shook his head. He felt he was on the wrong track.
‘It was because I got a letter,’ Mathilde continued. ‘It said: “I have just heard that Jean-Baptiste has been appointed to a job in Paris. Please go and take a look.” So I came to take a look, as was natural. There are no coincidences in this life, as you well know.’
Mathilde inhaled smoke, with a smile. She was really enjoying all this, was Mathilde. Yes, she was having a
