The Chalk Circle Man

Camille looked at him. She was touched, exactly as he had imagined she would have been if he had caught up with her at the taxi.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Go away, Jean-Baptiste.’

Camille looked unsteady. Adamsberg remembered that even in normal circumstances she always gave the impression that she was about to somersault or fly into the air. Rather like her mother. As if she was balancing along a plank above a space rather than walking on the ground like everyone else. But now Camille was actually swaying to and fro.

‘Camille, you’re not going to fall over, are you? Are you?’

‘No, no.’

Camille put down the suitcase and stretched her arms over her head as if to reach for the sky.

‘Look at me, Jean-Baptiste. I’m on tiptoe, see. I’m not going to fall.’

Camille smiled and let fall her arms, breathing out.

‘I love you. But let me go now.’

She threw her case in at the open carriage door. She climbed the three steps and turned round, a slim black shape, and Adamsberg did not want there to be only seconds left for him to look at this face in which a Greek god and an Egyptian prostitute were somehow combined.

Camille shook her head.

‘You know how it is, Jean-Baptiste. I was in love with you, and it doesn’t go away if you just blow. Flies go away if you just blow on them. But I’ll tell you something: you’re nothing like a fly. God, no. But I don’t have the strength to go on loving someone like you. It’s too difficult. It breaks me up. I never know where you are, where your soul has gone off to. And my own soul flits about as well. So everyone’s upset, all the time. You know all this, for God’s sake, Jean-Baptiste.’

Camille smiled.

The doors closed, loudspeakers told people to stand back. Passengers were admonished not to throw things out of the windows. Yes, Adamsberg knew all that. Your thoughtless action may maim or kill. The train was about to leave.

One hour. Just one hour, before leaving this world.

He ran after the train, gripped the rail and hauled himself up.

‘Police!’ he said to the guard who was about to shout at him.

He walked halfway along the train.

He found her lying on a single couchette, leaning on her elbow, neither sleeping nor reading, nor crying. He went in and shut the door of the compartment.

‘As I have always thought,’ said Camille. ‘You’re a troublemaker.’

‘I just want to lie down beside you for an hour.’

‘Why for an hour?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You still say “I don’t know” to every question?’

‘I still do everything. I still love you. I still want to lie down with you.’

‘No, it’ll upset me too much afterwards.’

‘You’re right. Same here.’

They sat facing each other for a while. The ticket collector came in.

‘Police,’ said Adamsberg. ‘I’m questioning this lady. Don’t let anyone come in. What’s the first stop?’

‘Lille, two hours.’

‘Thank you,’ said Adamsberg. He smiled at the ticket collector, so as not to offend him.

Camille had stood up and was looking at the landscape as it flashed past the window.

‘It’s known as an abuse of power,’ said Adamsberg. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘An hour, you said?’

Camille leaned her forehead against the window.

‘Do you think we have any choice?’

‘None at all. Sincerely,’ said Adamsberg.

Camille leaned against him. Adamsberg held her tight, like in the dream where the bellhop came in. What was good about the train was that the bellhop wasn’t there. Nor was Mathilde, who might have pulled her away.

‘Lille’s in two hours,’ said Camille.

‘An hour for you, and an hour for me,’ said Adamsberg.

A few minutes before Lille, Adamsberg dressed in the dark. Then he helped Camille to get dressed, slowly. True enough, neither of them was feeling happy.

‘Goodbye, my love,’ he said.

He stroked her hair and kissed her.

He didn’t want to watch the train as it pulled out. He stayed on the platform, his arms folded. He realised that he had left his jacket in the compartment. He imagined that Camille had perhaps put it on, and that its sleeves fell down over her fingers, that she would look pretty like that, that she had opened the window and was watching the countryside go by in the night. But he wasn’t in the train, so he didn’t know what Camille was doing now. He wanted to walk out and find a hotel near the station. He would see his petite cherie again. For an hour. Let’s say one more hour before the end of his life.

The hotel manager said the only available room looked out on the railway. He said that didn’t matter.

‘Danglard, this is Adamsberg. Have you still got Le Nermord sitting there? He’s not asleep? Good. Tell him I won’t give him the satisfaction of dying for now. No, that wasn’t the reason I called. It’s because of the fashion magazine. Read the magazine, read all the articles by Delphine Vitruel. Then read the books by the great historian of Byzantium again. You’ll see then that she wrote his books for him. All on her own. All he did was put the documentation together. And with her vegetarian lover backing her up, Delphine was sooner or later going to kick against the pricks. As Le Nermord well knew. She would end up daring to speak out. And then everyone would know that the famous historian had never existed, and that she had been the one who did the thinking and writing for him. His wife. Everyone would know that he was useless, a pathetic domestic tyrant, a rat. That was the motive, Danglard, nothing else. Tell him killing Delphie didn’t solve anything. And I hope it kills him.’

‘You sound very hard-hearted tonight,’ said Danglard. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’m in Lille. And I’m not feeling happy, not happy at all, mon vieux. But it’ll pass. It’ll go over, I’m sure. You’ll see. Back tomorrow, Danglard.’

Camille was smoking in the corridor, her hands deep in the sleeves of Jean-Baptiste’s jacket. She didn’t want to look at the landscape. In a few moments she would be out of France. She would try to stay calm. After the frontier.

Lying on his hotel bed, Adamsberg was waiting to fall asleep, his hands clasped behind his head. He switched the lamp back on, and pulled his notebook from his back pocket. He didn’t think it really helped. But still.

With a pencil he wrote:

‘Am in bed in hotel room in Lille. Have lost my jacket.’

He stopped and thought. Yes, it was true he was in bed in Lille.

Then he added:

‘Can’t sleep. So I’m taking my time, lying on this bed, thinking about my life.’

FRED VARGAS

FRED VARGAS was born is Paris. A historian and archaeologist by profession, she is now a bestselling novelist and a two-time winner of the CWA International Dagger Award. Her novels include Have Mercy on Us All, Seeking Whom He May Devour, The Three Evangelists, Wash This Blood Clean From My Hands, and This Night’s Foul Work.

SIAN REYNOLDS is a historian, translator and former professor at the University of Stirling in Scotland.