An Uncertain Place

XXXIV

ADAMSBERG WAS LISTENING TO WEILL CHATTING INTO HIS mobile, asking him about the local dishes and wines, and had he tasted the stuffed cabbage yet?

He was strolling calmly along in a landscape that now seemed familiar to him, almost as if he belonged there. He recognised a flower here and there, ruts in the path, the view across the rooftops. Finding himself at the fork in the forest road, he was on the point of taking the path to the woods, then shrank back. Drawn towards him, you’re being drawn towards him. He took a right turn instead, and found himself on the path along the river again, allowing his eyes to scan the Carpathian peaks.

‘Are you listening, commissaire?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘Because I’m doing all this for you.’

‘No, you’re doing it to get back at the forces of darkness in the hierarchy.’

‘Well, maybe,’ Weill conceded, since he disliked being caught out expressing honourable sentiments. ‘I’ll start with the third rung of our ladder, which is now leaning up against the jaws of hell.’

‘Er, yes,’ said Adamsberg, distracted by a huge flight of white butterflies, playing in the warm air round his head as if he were a flower.

‘Right. The judge in Mordent’s daughter’s case is called Damvillois. Found that out. Incompetent type, mid-career but stalled. Only he has a half-brother in high places. Damvillois can’t refuse him anything, because he counts on him to get promotion. Fourth rung is the half-brother, Gilles Damvillois, who’s a powerful examining magistrate in Gavernan, high-flyer. Might get to be state advocate. If, that is, the current holder of the post is disposed to back him. Fifth rung, current state advocate, Régis Trémard, who’s on hot bricks because he wants to chair the Appeal Court, no less. That’s if the current chair puts him top of the list.’

By now Adamsberg had taken a path he didn’t know, along the bend of the Danube, leading towards an old mill. The butterflies were still with him; either they were following him or perhaps they were a different lot.

‘Sixth rung, chair of the Appeal Court, Alain Perrenin. What he’s after is the vice-presidency of the Council of State. If the current vice-president backs him. We’re getting warm now. Seventh rung. Vice-president of the Council of State, a woman called Emma Carnot. Very warm indeed. She got where she is by using her sharp elbows, never wasted a moment of her life messing about reading philosophy, enjoying herself, or all the other things lesser mortals spend their time on. She’s a hundred per cent workaholic, and she has a phenomenal number of contacts and strings she can pull.’

By now Adamsberg had gone inside the old mill. He looked up at the ancient rafters, which were of a different pattern from the mill in his home village of Caldhez. The butterflies had abandoned him to the semi-darkness. Under his feet he could feel a carpet of bird droppings which was a crunchy but pleasant sensation.

‘And she wants to be Minister of Justice, I suppose?’ asked Adamsberg.

‘Or go even higher. There’s no limit to her ambition, she’s out for all she can get. At my request, Danglard searched Mordent’s office. He found Emma Carnot’s personal number, pathetically obvious, just stuck on the underside of the desk. Forgivable in a junior officer, but a black mark against someone on the commandant grade. I have one golden rule: if you can’t memorise a ten-digit telephone number, don’t get mixed up in anything dodgy. Second golden rule: don’t let anyone slip a bomb under your bed.’

‘Agreed,’ said Adamsberg, shuddering at the thought of Zerk, whom he had let go, just like that.

That was a real bomb under his bed. It could blow him sky-high like the toads the village boys tortured. But he was the only one who knew that. No, of course Zerk knew it and was determined to use it: I’ve come to fuck up your life.

‘So, are you pleased?’ asked Weill.

‘To find out that the key woman in the Council of State is after my guts? Not really, Weill.’

‘Adamsberg, what we have to do is find out why Emma Carnot doesn’t want the Garches murderer found at any cost. Is he some dangerous colleague? Her son? Her ex-lover? The word on the street is that these days she’s only interested in women, but some people whisper – and I’ve got a whisperer on the line from the Limoges Appeal Court – that there was a husband at one time. One time very long ago. The trail always leads to family secrets. Third golden rule: keep your private life private, and burn all your papers if you can.’

‘That’s no doubt what she’s trying to do.’

‘I’ve looked, Adamsberg. I can’t find any records of a marriage, or of any link between her and the Garches affair, or the Pressbaum one either. No marriage, well, perhaps I’m not entirely sure about that.’

Weill clicked his tongue and savoured the brief pause.

‘The page that corresponds to her maiden name at the town hall which should be the right one, because she was born in Auxerre, has been quite simply cut out of the register. The clerk says that a woman from “the ministry” asked to see the register recently, something to do with “national security”. I think our Emma Carnot is panicking. I can smell fear. A woman with jet-black hair, the clerk said. Golden rule number four: never use a wig, it’s ridiculous. So what we have is a marriage which has been removed from the public record.’

‘The killer is only twenty-nine, though.’

‘Could be the son of the marriage. She might be protecting him. Or trying to make sure her son’s crazy actions don’t get in the way of her career.’

‘But, Weill, the mother of our Zerk has a name, she’s called Gisèle Louvois.’

‘Yes, I know. But what if Carnot discreetly had a baby adopted – for a hefty consideration?’

‘All right, Weill, so we’ve arrived at the seventh rung – what do we do next?’

‘We get hold of Carnot’s DNA, we compare it to the Kleenex from the crime scene and see where that gets us. It’s easy, the waste-paper baskets at the Council of State are taken out every morning to the Place du Palais Royal. On days when there’s been a meeting, there will be water bottles, plastic cups and so on provided for the members of the council. Hers will be there and we can identify it. They’ve got a meeting this week. Disconnect your mobile now, commissaire, and only put it back on tomorrow morning at nine, without fail.’

‘OK, without fail,’ said Adamsberg, feeling suddenly greatly relieved to learn that the vice-president of the Council of State might have given birth to Zerk. Because whereas he had no recollection of ever having made love to a girl called Gisèle, he was one hundred per cent certain never to have slept with the vice-president of the Council of State.

He switched off and took the battery out of Weill’s mobile.

Tomorrow, nine o’clock. He would have to explain to the landlady of the kruchema why he was going out early. He bit his lip. He had sworn to Zerk, in good faith, that he always remembered the names and faces of any women with whom he had made love. And this was only yesterday. He concentrated, trying out all the words he had picked up: kruchema, kafa, danica, hvala. Danica, that was it. He stopped at the door of the mill, suddenly struck by a new anxiety. Now, what was the name of the soldier whose life Peter Plogojowitz had fucked up? He had remembered when he started walking by the river. But Weill’s phone call had pushed it to the back of his mind. He gripped his head in his hands, but with no result at all.

The noise came from behind, like a sack being dragged along the ground. Adamsberg turned round. He was not alone in the mill.

‘Fancy seeing you, scumbag,’ came a voice from the gloom.