This Night’s Foul Work

LXVI

IN THE TRAIN ON THE WAY BACK, VEYRENC WAS TROUBLED BY ONE LAST IDEA.

‘Someone who’s a dissociator,’ he said, looking grave, ‘doesn’t know what they’ve done, right? They repress the memory.’

‘That’s the theory, according to Ariane. We’ll never know whether she was just play-acting when she refused to confess, or whether she’s a genuine dissociator. Or indeed if such a thing really exists.’

‘If it did exist,’ said Veyrenc, with a crooked smile, ‘would I have been able to kill Fernand and Big Georges and then wipe it from my memory?’

‘No, Veyrenc.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because I checked. I got your employment records and your worksheets from Tarbes and Nevers, which was where you were at the time of the murders. The day Fernand was murdered, you were accompanying someone to London. When Big Georges was killed, you were under arrest.’

‘I was?’

‘Yes, for insulting a superior officer. What was that about?’

‘What was his name?’

‘Pleyel, like the pianos.’

‘Yes,’ Veyrenc said, remembering. ‘He was someone like Devalon. We had a scandal on our hands, political corruption. Instead of doing his job, he did what the government told him, provided false documents and got the main offender out of trouble. I wrote a few harmless lines about him, and he didn’t like that.’

‘Remember them?’

‘No, not any more.’

Adamsberg got out his notebook and leafed through it.

‘“The pride of the powerful corrupts men without cease,

And makes a cringing slave of a chief of police.

The Republic turns pale and slides into despair,

While criminal tyrants profit without a care.”

Result, fifteen days confined to barracks.’

‘Where did you find that?’ asked Veyrenc, smiling.

‘It’s in the station records. Your lines saved you from killing Big Georges. You didn’t kill anyone, Veyrenc.’

The lieutenant squeezed his eyes shut and relaxed his shoulders.

‘You still haven’t given me my ten centimes,’ said Adamsberg, holding out his hand. ‘I’ve been working hard on your behalf. You gave me a lot of trouble.’

Veyrenc dropped a copper coin into Adamsberg’s hand.

‘Thank you,’ said Adamsberg, pocketing the coin. ‘And when are you going to give up Camille?’

Veyrenc turned his head away.

‘OK,’ said Adamsberg, leaning against the window and falling instantly asleep.