An Uncertain Place

XXVII

‘SO IT MEANS WE HAVE TO FIND ZERK BY THEN,’ SAID Adamsberg.

‘Zerk?’

‘The Zerquetscher. Thalberg sent us his file.’

‘Yes, it’s here,’ said Danglard, lifting up his wine glass and pointing to a pink folder with a wet ring on it. ‘Sorry about the stain.’

‘If stains on files were all we had to worry about, Danglard, life would be a breeze. We could smoke fags and drink wine all day, and go fishing in your friend Stock’s loch. We could make as many wine stains as we liked on tables, we could go boating with your kids and my little Tom, and we could spend old Vaudel’s money with Émile and his dog.’

Adamsberg gave a broad smile, the kind that always reassured Danglard, however bad things seemed. Then he frowned.

‘But what on earth can they say about the Austrian murder? This person with the long arm – what can he say? Is Émile supposed to have committed that too? It won’t wash.’

‘They’ll just say that has nothing to do with it. They’ll say Émile carried out a copycat murder on the Austrian model, because he lacks imagination.’

Adamsberg reached out to take a mouthful from Danglard’s wine glass. Without Danglard and his relentless logic, he wouldn’t have seen this coming.

‘I’m going to London,’ Danglard announced. ‘The shoes will lead us to him.’

‘No, you’re not going anywhere, commandant. I’m going. And I need someone to take charge of the squad. Make your contacts with Stock by telephone or video link.’

‘No. Put Retancourt in charge.’

‘She’s too junior in rank, and I don’t have the right to promote her. We’ve got enough trouble on our hands as it is.’

‘Where will you go?’

‘You already said it: the shoes will lead us to him.’

Adamsberg showed him the postcard: a picturesque village against a background of mountains and blue skies. Then he turned it over. In Cyrillic script, in capital letters, the name KИCEЛEBO: Kisilova, the demon’s village. ‘Who was it that prowled at the edge of the wood? That’s what this word KИCEЛEBO means?’

‘Yes, Kiseljevo originally. But we already talked about that. Twenty years on, nobody will be able to remember the foot-chopper.’

‘That’s not what I’m after. I’m going to try and find the dark tunnel that links Vaudel to this village. We have to find it, Danglard, go right in and dig up the history and tear out its roots.’

‘So when are you going?’

‘In four hours from now. I couldn’t get a direct flight at this notice, so I’m flying to Venice, and getting the night train to Belgrade. I’ve reserved two places, and the embassy is trying to find me a translator.’

Danglard shook his head, looking hostile. ‘You’ll be too exposed. I’m coming with you.’

‘No, no way. It isn’t just the problem of the squad. If they really want to get me, and you come with me, you’ll go down with the ship. And if they do try to take me in, you’re the only person who could get me out of jail. It could take you ten years, so hang on in there. But meantime, keep away from me, keep right outside this. That way, I’m not going to contaminate you, or anyone else in the squad.’

‘I give in. If it’s a translator you want, Slavko’s grandson might fit the bill. Vladislav Moldovan. He works as an interpreter for research institutes. He’s a nice guy, like his grandfather. If I say it’s for Slavko, he’ll engineer some time off. When does the Venice-Belgrade train leave?’

‘Nine thirty-two this evening. I’m going home now to pick up a packet and my watches. It bothers me not to have the time.’

‘So what? – your watches are never right.’

‘That’s because I set them by Lucio – he goes out to piss in the garden every hour and a half. But it’s a bit approximate.’

‘You just need to do the opposite. Set your watches by a clock and then you’ll know the exact time Lucio pisses.’

Adamsberg looked at him in surprise.

‘But I don’t need to know when Lucio pisses. What use is that to me?’

Danglard signalled ‘drop it’, and handed him another file, a green one.

‘Here’s Radstock’s latest report. You can read it on the train. It’s augmented by the interrogation of Lord Clyde-Fox and some doubtful information about the Cuban friend, so-called. They’ve done some more precise analysis. All the shoes are French, except my uncle’s.’

‘Or maybe some cousin of your uncle, a Kisslover, or a Kisilovian.’

‘A Kiseljevian.’

‘How are these shoes supposed to have crossed the Channel?’

‘Smuggled in, by boat I guess, how else?’

‘It seems a lot of trouble to go to.’

‘But worth it. Highgate’s a very special place. Some of the shoes, four pairs at least, are no more than twelve years old, but Radstock has had problems trying to date the others. Twelve years could correspond to the time the Zerquetscher has been in action, assuming he started collecting around the age of seventeen. Which is a bit young to start creeping into undertakers’ parlours and cutting off feet. But chronologically, it could fit, because it would correspond to the gothic craze, heavy metal, old lace, horror movies, devil worship, sequins, zombies in evening dress and all that. It could be a sort of sympathetic impregnation.’

‘What on earth do you mean, Danglard?’

‘Goths,’ said Danglard. ‘Never heard of them?’

‘Gothic, like in the Middle Ages?’

‘No, goths as in the 1990s, and still today. You must have seen them. Young people who wear T-shirts with death’s heads and skeletons and blood.’

‘Oh. Yes. I know exactly what you mean,’ said Adamsberg, who had a vivid and ineradicable memory of Zerk’s T-shirt. ‘So Stock has a problem with the other shoes?’

‘Yes,’ said Danglard, rubbing his chin, which was clean-shaven on one side but had stubble on the other.

‘Why did you only shave on one side of your face?’ asked Adamsberg, interrupting himself.

Danglard stiffened, then went to the window to look at his reflection.

‘The bathroom light’s gone, I can’t see much on the left. I ought to get it fixed.’

Abstract, thought Adamsberg.

Danglard was waiting.

‘Do we have any here? Bayonet bulbs, sixty watt?’

‘In the store cupboard. Look here, time’s passing,’ said Adamsberg, tapping his wrist.

‘You changed the subject yourself. There are some feet that don’t fit a twelve-year time frame. Some of them belong to women with varnished toenails, a kind of varnish from before the 1990s. The analysis seems to point to the middle 1970s.’

‘Is Stock sure about that?’

‘Pretty much, he’s asked for more tests. There’s one pair of men’s shoes in ostrich leather, something very rare, very dear, and they stopped making them when our Zerquetscher was only ten. He’d have to be very precocious. And it gets worse. Some of them are maybe twenty-five or thirty years old. I know what you’re going to say,’ Danglard said, forestalling Adamsberg by lifting up his glass. ‘In your wretched village in the Pyrenees, even little boys used to make toads explode when they were practically in their cradles. But still.’

‘No, I wasn’t going to mention the toads.’

The idea of the toads, which small boys like himself used to make explode with a horrible burst of blood and guts, by forcing them to smoke a cigarette, brought Adamsberg back to the packet he had inherited from Zerk.

‘You really have started again, haven’t you?’ said Danglard, as Adamsberg lit his third cigarette.

‘That’s because you mentioned the toads.’

‘It’s always because of something. I’m giving up white wine. It’s over. This is my last glass.’

Adamsberg was dumbstruck. That Danglard should be in love, fine. That it was reciprocated, yes, one had to hope so. But if it was making him give up white wine, that was unbelievable.

‘I’m switching to red,’ the commandant announced. ‘It’s more vulgar but it’s less acid. The white’s destroying my stomach.’

‘Good thinking,’ said Adamsberg, who was curiously reassured by the thought that, after all, nothing changes, at least with Danglard.

Things were already bad enough without that.

‘Did you buy that packet?’ Danglard asked. ‘English cigarettes. Pretty stylish.’

‘It was my burglar from this morning. He left them behind. So anyway, either Zerk was such a precocious child that he could cut people’s feet off when he was two years old. Or some older figure took him on these morbid expeditions, and then he went on with it when he grew up. He could have been acting under someone’s influence since childhood.’

‘Manipulated?’

‘Why not? One can easily imagine some father figure behind all this, guiding him, filling some lack.’

‘Possibly. He’s registered as father unknown.’

‘We need to check out his background, see who he was in touch with, who he saw. He cleared his flat, left no clues.’

‘Naturally he would. You didn’t think he’d come and see us, did you?’

‘What about his mother, have they found her?’

‘Not yet. We have an address in Pau up to four years ago, then nothing.’

‘Her family?’

‘For now we can’t find anyone in the region called Louvois, but it’s only two days ago, commissaire, and we haven’t got all that many people on the job.’

‘What about Froissy and the phone records?’

‘Nothing doing. Louvois didn’t have a landline. Weill says he had a mobile, but we can’t find one registered in his name. Either someone gave it him, or he stole it. Froissy’ll have to check out the networks around his address, but that takes time.’

Adamsberg stood up abruptly, feeling impatient.

‘Danglard, can you tell me who’s in the Avignon team?’

Among Danglard’s feats of memory – who knew why he did it? – was that he could tell you more or less who was in all the police teams throughout France, adjusting his mental card index as people moved around to different postings.

‘Calmet is running the inquiry on Pierre junior. I don’t know whether it’s because of his name, but he’s a placid fellow, doesn’t go looking for trouble. Like I said, he’s not quick off the mark. So I’d say more like four days than three. Maurel said there was a lieutenant and a brigadier, Noiselot and Drumont. Don’t know about the rest.’

‘Get me the full list, Danglard.’

‘Are you looking for anyone in particular?’

‘There’s a Vietnamese officer I worked with at Mésilly once. Dozy little place, but I loved it when we were posted there. He could blow smoke rings and levitate several centimetres – at least it looked that way to me. He could play tunes by tapping wine glasses and he could imitate any animal you like.’

Twenty minutes later, Adamsberg was looking through the list of names in Commissaire Calmet’s team.

‘I’ve reached Slavko’s grandson,’ Danglard said. ‘He’s leaving Marseille now, he’ll be at Venice Santa Lucia station by twenty-one hours, standing in front of coach 17 of the Belgrade train. He’s perfectly happy to have a trip to the village. Vladislav’s always perfectly happy.’

‘How will I know him?’

‘Very easily. He’s thin, and very hairy, he’s got long hair and it grows into the hair on his back, pitch black.’

‘Lieutenant Mai Thien Dinh,’ said Adamsberg, stabbing a name on the list. ‘He wrote to me last December. I knew there was some talk of him going to Avignon. He often sends me a card when he’s on holiday, with mystic Eastern proverbs, like “Don’t eat your hand when there’s no bread left”.’

‘That’s stupid.’

‘Yes, well, he makes them up.’

‘And you write back?’

‘Oh, I can’t make up proverbs,’ said Adamsberg, as he tapped in Lieutenant Mai’s number.

‘Dinh? Hello, it’s Jean-Baptiste. Thanks for the card in December.’

‘This is June. But you’re always slow replying. The slow man goes less quickly than the quick man. You know we’re on the same case, this Vaudel thing?’

‘The little cartridge under the fridge?’

‘Yes, and the dope who dropped it walked across a carpet with some pencil shavings on his shoes. Don’t worry, we’ve let Vaudel go for now, and we’ll catch your pencil man sooner than that.’

‘Yes, well, Dinh, that’s just it. I’d prefer if you didn’t go too fast on this one. Just moderately fast. Or indeed moderately slowly.’

‘Why?’

‘Can’t tell you.’

‘Ah. The wise man gives nothing away to fools. Can’t be done, Jean-Baptiste. Just a minute, I’m going out of the room. Now what do you want me to do?’ said Dinh after a pause.

‘Just to slow things down.’

‘Not on the level.’

‘Not on the level at all, Dinh. Look, some bastard has just dropped me in shit creek.’

‘It happens.’

‘And I’m getting in really deep. See what I mean?’

‘With perfect clarity.’

‘Good. Because imagine that you’re right there on the riverbank. Strolling along, levitating, whatever. You see me, and you stretch out your hand.’

‘So I put my own hand in the shit for you, without knowing why?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Can you be a little more precise?’

‘These pencil shavings. When do they go to the lab?’

‘In an hour, they’re just putting together the other samples.’

‘Can you stop them going? Give them two days’ handicap.’

‘How’m I supposed to do that?’

‘How big is the sample?’

‘Size of a lipstick.’

‘Who goes with the driver to the lab?’

‘Brigadier Kerouan.’

‘Take his place.’

‘We don’t look a bit alike.’

‘Give your Breton a mission, and you escort the driver instead. As you want to take special care of this lipstick, you put it in the pocket of your tunic for greater security.’

‘Then?’

‘Then you fall ill on the way. A touch of fever, a dizzy spell, it just comes over you. You deliver everything safely except the tube, but you tell the office you’re going home. Where you stay in bed for two days, aspirins, nothing to eat, you can’t keep anything down. That’s for your visitors of course. In reality you can get up.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

‘This attack of sickness made you forget the tube in your pocket. The third day, you’re feeling better, it all comes back to you. The sample, the lab, the pocket. One of two things might have happened. Either some keeno at the station realises the tube hasn’t got to the lab, or nobody has noticed anything. Either way, you bring the tube in, you explain and offer your sincere excuses, but you were ill. That way we’ll have gained one and a half to two and a half days.’

‘Well, you’ll have gained them, Jean-Baptiste. But what’s in it for me? Wise is he who seeks his reward on earth.’

‘You get two days off. Thursday and Friday, then it’s the weekend. Plus it’s a rain check for a future good turn from me.’

‘For instance?’

‘For instance when they find some of your straight black hair at a crime scene.’

‘I see.’

‘Thanks, Dinh.’

During this conversation, Danglard had fetched his bottle directly into Adamsberg’s office.

‘More straightforward that way,’ said Adamsberg, pointing to the bottle.

‘I’ve got to finish it, because I’m going over to red.’

‘Lucio would agree with you. You have to finish it, or else don’t get started.’

‘You’re crazy asking Dinh to do that. Anyone finds out, you’ve comprehensively had it.’

‘I’ve already comprehensively had it. But they won’t find out because the man of the East does not chatter like a frivolous blackbird. As he once wrote to me.’

‘OK,’ said Danglard. ‘Say we’ve got five or six days. Where will you stay in Kiseljevo?’

‘Little hotel, does bed and breakfast.’

‘I don’t like it. Going off on your own.’

‘I’ll have your nephew-several-times-removed with me.’

‘Vladislav’s no fighter. I don’t like it,’ Danglard repeated.

‘Kiseljevo and the dark tunnel.’

‘The edge of the wood,’ said Adamsberg with a smile. ‘You’re still frightened of that. More than of the Zerquetscher.’

Danglard shrugged.

‘Who is on the loose somewhere,’ Adamsberg added in graver tones. ‘Free as a bird.’

‘Not your fault. What shall we do about Mordent? Should we turf him out of his cosy nest? Shake him down, make him spit out everything, how he’s comprehensively betrayed us?’

Adamsberg stood up, put a big elastic band round his green and pink files, lit a cigarette which he left hanging on his lower lip, screwing up his eyes against the smoke. Like his father. Like Zerk.

‘What shall we do about Mordent?’ he repeated slowly. ‘First of all, we let him get his daughter back.’