The Chalk Circle Man

her tonight, if he could remember to think about her.

He arranged to meet Danglard and Conti in the rue Saint-Jacques. The tangled cassette tape lay like spilled intestines in the morning sun, in the centre of the big circle, drawn with a single line this time. Danglard, a tall weary figure, his fair hair thrown back, was watching him approach. For some reason, perhaps because of his colleague’s apparent fatigue, or his air of being a defeated thinker who was still persevering in his enquiries into destiny, or because of the way he folded and unfolded his large, dissatisfied and resigned body, Adamsberg found Danglard touching that morning. He felt the urge to tell him again that he really liked him. At certain moments, Adamsberg had the unusual gift of making short sentimental declarations which embarrassed other people by their simplicity, of a kind not habitual between adults. He quite often told a colleague he was good-looking, even when it wasn’t true, and whatever the state of indifference he was undergoing at the time.

For the moment, Danglard, in his impeccable jacket, but preoccupied by some secret worry, was leaning against a car. He was jingling coins in his trouser pocket. He’s got money worries, Adamsberg thought. Danglard had owned up to having four children, but Adamsberg already knew from office gossip that he had five, that they all lived in three rooms with this providential father’s salary as their only income. But nobody felt pity for Danglard, nor did Adamsberg. It was unthinkable to feel pity for someone like him. Because his obvious intelligence generated a special zone around him, about two metres in radius, and you took care to think before speaking when you entered the zone. Danglard was more the object of discreet watchfulness than of gestures of help. Adamsberg wondered whether the ‘philosopher friend’ mentioned by Mathilde generated a zone like that, and how broad it was. The said philosopher friend seemed to know quite a bit about Mathilde. Perhaps he had been at the evening event at the Dodin Bouffant. Finding out his name and address and going to see him and question him would be a minor police task, to be carried out without broadcasting it. Not the sort of thing that tempted Adamsberg as a rule, but this time he thought he would take it on himself.

‘There’s a witness,’ said Danglard. ‘He was already at the station when I left. He’s waiting there for me now to make his statement.’

‘What did he see?’

‘At about ten to midnight a small thin man passed him, running. It was only when he heard the radio this morning that he made the connection. He described an elderly man, slight build, thinning hair, in a hurry and carrying a bag under his arm.’

‘That’s all?’

‘He left behind him, it seemed to this witness, a slight smell of vinegar.’

‘Vinegar? Not rotten apples?’

‘No. Vinegar.’

Danglard was in a better mood now.

‘A thousand witnesses, a thousand noses,’ he added, smiling and spreading wide his long arms. ‘A thousand noses, a thousand different interpretations. A thousand interpretations probably add up to a thousand childhood memories. One person thinks of rotten apples, another vinegar, and tomorrow we might have people talking about what? Nutmeg, furniture polish, strawberries, talcum powder, dusty curtains, cough mixture, gherkins… The circle man must have a smell that reminds people of their childhood.’

‘Or the smell of a cupboard,’ said Adamsberg.

‘Why a cupboard?’

‘I don’t know. But childhood smells come from cupboards, don’t they? All sorts of smells get mixed up together, it makes a sort of universal smell.’

‘We’re getting off the point,’ said Danglard.

‘Not that much.’

Danglard realised that Adamsberg was starting to float again, to disengage, or whatever he did; at any rate the already vague connections in his logic were being relaxed, so he proposed they should go back to the station.

‘I’m not coming with you, Danglard. Take the statement from the vinegar witness without me – I feel like hearing what Mathilde Forestier’s “philosopher friend” has to say.’

‘I thought you weren’t interested in Madame Forestier’s case.’

‘No, correction, she does interest me, Danglard. I agree with you. She’s blocking our path here. But she doesn’t seriously bother me.’

In any case, thought Danglard, so few things did seriously bother his commissaire that he wasn’t going to hang about thinking of them. Wait a minute, though. Yes, the story of the stupid dog that drooled and all the rest of it, that had seriously bothered him, and still did. And there were other things of the same order, as he would one day discover, perhaps. It was true, this irritated him. And the better he got to know Adamsberg, the more mysterious his boss became, as unpredictable as a night creature whose heavy, bumbling but effective flight wears out anyone trying to catch it. But he would have liked to borrow some of Adamsberg’s vagueness and uncertainty, the times when his gaze seemed to be dying or burning by turns, making you want either to get away from him or to get closer to him. He thought that if he had Adamsberg’s gaze, he might see things start to wobble, to lose their clear reasonable contours, like trees shimmering in a summer heat haze. Then the world would seem less implacable to him, he would stop wanting to understand every tiny little detail about everything, exploring the remotest areas of the heavens. He would feel less exhausted as a result. But as it was, only white wine enabled him to take his distance, for a brief and, as he knew, artificial moment.

X

AS ADAMSBERG HAD BEEN HOPING, MATHILDE WAS NOT AT HOME. He found her elderly assistant, Clemence, leaning over a table covered with photographic slides. On a chair alongside her lay a newspaper, open at the personal ads.

Clemence was too chatty to be intimidated by him. She wore several layers of nylon overalls, one on top of the other, like onion skins. A black beret was perched on her head, and she was smoking a military-strength Gauloise. She hardly opened her mouth when she spoke, so it was hard to get a glimpse of the famous pointed teeth for which Mathilde liked to provide zoological comparisons. She wasn’t timid, she wasn’t vulnerable, she wasn’t bossy, yet her manner wasn’t exactly affable either. Clemence was such an odd individual that one couldn’t help wanting to listen to her for a while, to find out what it was, underneath all the banal trappings behind which she barricaded herself, that fuelled her energy.

‘How were the small ads today?’ Adamsberg asked.

Clemence shook her head doubtfully.

‘Not up to much, monsieur. See this one: “Male, retired, fond of quiet life, own maisonette, seeks female companion, under 55, with taste for eighteenth-century engravings.” Engravings? Not my cup of tea. Or this one: “Pensioner, ex-retail trade, seeks attractive woman, nature lover, for friendship, more if we click.” Nature lover? No, I don’t think so. They all write the same thing, never the truth. What they really should say is: “Self-centred old creep, running to seed, seeks young woman for sex.” Why don’t people say what they mean? Makes you waste a lot of time. Yesterday, now, I tried three of these, none of them any good. What it is, though, the minute they see what I look like they lose interest. So it’s pointless, really. But, my sakes, what else can I do, I ask you?’

‘You’re asking me? But why are you so keen to find a husband, Clemence?’

‘That’s a question I don’t ask, monsieur. You’re probably thinking, poor old Clemence, she’s a bit funny in the head because her fiance disappeared long ago, leaving her a note. Ah, but you’d be wrong, because I didn’t care then, when I was twenty, and I don’t care now. Tell you the truth, monsieur, I’m not so keen on men. No, it must be for a bit of excitement in life. Can’t think of anything else to do, that’s the long and short of it. Plenty of women are like that, you want my opinion. I’m not so keen on women either, tell you the truth. They all think, like me, you get married, that’s it, it’ll give you a purpose in life. And you know what, I go to church as well. But if I didn’t keep doing all this, what would I do? I’d probably be out shoplifting, pinching things, spitting at people in the street. Well, there we are, Mathilde thinks I’ve got saving graces. Better to be nice in this world, isn’t it? Less trouble.’