Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

XXXIV

BACK IN HIS HOTEL ROOM, ADAMSBERG WONDERED IF HE SHOULD CALL Danglard, and warn him to pull out the papers connected with his brother’s case. But perhaps his line was bugged. And once Laliberté learned that Fulgence was dead, things would heat up, in any case. Well, so what? The superintendent didn’t know about his liaison with Noëlla, and if it hadn’t been for the anonymous letter, he wouldn’t have thought about him at all. On Tuesday, they would have to say goodbye and agree to differ, as with Trabelmann, and then each go their separate ways.

He packed quickly and closed his overnight bag. He was intending to drive through the night, snatching a couple of hours’ sleep on the way, and to arrive at Detroit at dawn, so as to be sure to catch his brother. It was such a long time since he had seen Raphaël that he could feel no emotion, so unreal did the situation seem. He was changing his T-shirt when Retancourt walked in.

‘Christ, Retancourt, you might knock.’

‘Sorry, but I was afraid you might already have gone. When do we leave?’

‘I’m going on my own. Private trip.’

‘I’ve got my orders,’ the lieutenant repeated obstinately. ‘I’m supposed to accompany you. Everywhere.’

‘Look, I appreciate your sympathy and help, Retancourt, but this is my brother, and I haven’t seen him for thirty years. Just leave me alone.’

‘Sorry, sir, but I’m coming. I’ll leave you alone with him, don’t worry.’

‘Lieutenant, will you please just leave me alone, full stop.’

‘OK, but I’ve got the car keys. You won’t get far on foot.’

Adamsberg took a step towards her.

‘You may be strong, commissaire, but you won’t get these keys off me. I suggest we stop messing about like kids. We go together, and we can take it in turns to drive.’

Adamsberg gave up. Fighting it out with Retancourt might take at least an hour of his time.

‘Very well,’ he said resignedly. ‘Since I’m stuck with you, get your things. You’ve got three minutes.’

‘All done. I’ll see you at the car.’

Adamsberg finished getting dressed and met her in the car park. His blonde bodyguard had channelled her energy into sticking to him like glue for his personal protection.

‘I’ll drive first,’ said Retancourt. ‘You’ve been arguing all afternoon with the superintendent, while I was taking a nap. I’m perfectly fresh.’

She pushed back the driving seat to accommodate her legs, and took off on the highway to Detroit. Adamsberg had to remind her of the ninety kilometre speed limit and she slowed down. In fact, Adamsberg was not reluctant to let someone else do the driving. He stretched out his legs, and put his hands on his thighs.

‘You didn’t tell them he’s dead, did you?’ said Retancourt after a few kilometres.

‘They’ll find that out soon enough tomorrow. But you’re worrying unnecessarily. Laliberté hasn’t any evidence against me. It’s just that anonymous letter that’s bugging him. I’ll finish my business with him Tuesday, and we’re out of here Wednesday.’

‘If you finish your business with them on Tuesday, we certainly won’t get away on Wednesday.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because if you set foot there on Tuesday, they’re not going to have any more friendly chats. They’re going to charge you.’

‘You certainly like to dramatise, Retancourt.’

‘I’m simply observing. There was a car outside the hotel. They’ve been following us since Gatineau. They’re following you to be precise. Philibert Lafrance and Rhéal Ladouceur.’

‘Putting a tail on someone isn’t the same as arresting him. You’re channelling your energy into exaggerating things.’

‘You know that anonymous letter that Laliberté didn’t want you to see? There were two faint black lines on it, five centimetres from the top of the page, one centimetre from the bottom.’

‘A photocopy, you mean?’

‘Yep. With the heading and bottom of the page covered up. A hasty DIY job. The paper, the typeface and layout were all just like the paper we used on the course. I had to put together the dossier in Paris if you remember. And the formula “Has taken a personal interest in it” sounded a bit official to me. The RCMP fabricated that letter.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘To provide a credible motive to get your bosses to send you back over. If Laliberté had revealed why he really wanted you, Brézillon would never have allowed him to extradite you.’

‘Extradite me? What are you driving at, lieutenant? Laliberté will want to know what I was doing on the night of the 26th, yes, OK. I wonder the same thing myself. And he may well wonder what I was up to with Noëlla. I wonder about that myself too. But good grief, Retancourt, I’m not a suspect for her murder!’

‘This afternoon, you all went off to send faxes, forgetting fat old Retancourt on her chair, yes? Remember?’

‘Sorry, you could perfectly well have come along.’

‘Absolutely not. The whole point was that I was already invisible, none of them realised they’d left me there on my own. Alone, sitting next to the big green dossier. I had time to get away with it.’

‘Get away with what?’

‘Photocopying it. I’ve got the essentials in my bag.’

Adamsberg looked at his lieutenant in the dark. The car was going well over the speed limit.

‘Do you do that back home? Photocopy dossiers whenever you feel like it?’

‘When we’re back home, I’m not on a mission to protect.’

‘Slow down. It’s not the moment to get caught by those inspectors with a timebomb in your bag.’

‘You’re right,’ said Retancourt, taking her foot off the gas. ‘It’s these damned automatics, I can’t seem to go slowly.’

‘That’s not the only risk you’ve taken. The shit would really have hit the fan if one of those cops had caught you at the photocopier.’

‘The shit would have hit all right if I hadn’t made the copies. It was Sunday and there was no one else around. I could hear everything you were saying echoing down the corridor. At the least scrape of a chair, I would have been able to get back in position. I know what I’m doing.’

‘I wonder.’

‘They’ve done their homework on you. A lot of it. They know you were sleeping with the girl.’

‘How? From the friends she was staying with?’

‘No. But Noëlla had a pregnancy test in her handbag, a urine sample.’

‘And was she? Pregnant?’

‘Can’t have been. There aren’t any tests that would give a result in a few days, but men wouldn’t know that.’

‘So why did she have the test in that case? Her old boyfriend?’

‘Just to get you hooked. Find the report, it’s in my bag. Blue file, round about page 10.’

Adamsberg opened Retancourt’s capacious bag which seemed to contain an entire survival kit: pliers, rope, pitons, make-up, knife, flashlight, various plastic bags. Putting on the overhead light, he looked up page 10, analysis of Noëlla Corderon’s urine, evidence item RRT 3067. ‘Residual traces of semen,’ he read. ‘Comparison with sample STG 6712, taken from the bedding in the apartment of Adamsberg, Jean-Baptiste. DNA comparison positive. Formal identification of sexual partner.’

Underneath the text were two diagrams showing the DNA sequences in 28 strips, one taken from the test tube, one from his own sheets. Exactly the same. Adamsberg put away the file and turned off the light. Although he would not have been over-intimidated by talking about semen to his lieutenant, he was grateful to her for letting him read this stuff in silence.

‘Why didn’t Laliberté say anything about this before?’ he asked quietly.

‘He likes the chase. He’s having fun. He’s watching you get deeper in and he likes that. The more lies you feed him, the bigger his pile of false statements.’

‘Even so,’ sighed Adamsberg. ‘Even if he knows I slept with Noëlla, he surely can’t link that to her murder. It must be a coincidence.’

‘You don’t believe in coincidence, do you?’

‘No.’

‘Neither does he. Where do you think the girl was found? On your portage trail.’

Adamsberg froze.

‘Oh no, impossible, Retancourt,’ he gasped.

‘Yes. In a little pool near the bank,’ she said gently. ‘Let’s stop and have something to eat.’

‘I couldn’t eat anything,’ said Adamsberg in an exhausted voice.

‘Well, I’m going to, otherwise I can’t carry on, and it would do you good too.’

Retancourt pulled into the next lay-by, and got out some sandwiches and apples. Adamsberg chewed a few mouthfuls mechanically, staring into the distance.

‘Even so,’ he repeated. ‘What does that prove? She was always on that damned path, morning and evening. She said herself it was dangerous. I wasn’t the only person to use it.’

‘In the evening there wasn’t anyone else much. Maybe the odd homosexual who wasn’t interested in Noëlla Corderon. The cops know a lot. They know that you were on that trail for a long time, from half past ten till half past one.’

‘Well, I didn’t see anything, Retancourt. I was drunk, as I told you. I must have been going up and down. When I fell, I lost my torch. Your torch, I should say.’

Retancourt took out a bottle of wine.

‘Don’t know what this is like,’ she said. ‘But have a little.’

‘I’m never going to drink again.’

‘Just a few mouthfuls. Please.’

Adamsberg obeyed, feeling shattered. Retancourt took back the bottle and corked it carefully.

‘They questioned the barman at L’Ecluse: apparently you said to him: “Any nearer and I’ll spear ye”.’

‘I was talking about my grandmother. She was a tough old bird who said it to the Germans.’

‘Tough old bird or not, they didn’t like the sound of that at all.’

‘Is that all, Retancourt?’

‘No. They also know you can’t remember anything about that night.’

There was a long silence. Adamsberg leaned back in his seat, looking at the roof, in a state of shock.

‘The only person,’ he said, ‘the only person I told that to was Danglard.’

‘Well, anyway, they know.’

‘I was always on the path, every day,’ he went on in the same dull voice. ‘But where’s any motive, or evidence?’

‘Well, there is a motive, isn’t there? The pregnancy test, blackmail.’

‘Unthinkable, Retancourt. A conspiracy, a devilish conspiracy.’

‘By the judge?’

‘Why not?’

‘He’s dead, commissaire.’

‘I don’t care. And they haven’t got any evidence.’

‘Well, yes. The girl was wearing a belt, bought that very day, a leather belt.’

‘So he said. What about it?’

‘They found it lying in leaves near the pool.’

‘And?’

‘I’m sorry, commissaire, but it’s got your fingerprints on it. They compared them with prints from your apartment.’

Adamsberg could no longer move. He was stupefied, powerless under the waves that were crashing one after another over his head.

‘I’ve never seen any belt. I couldn’t have touched it. I hadn’t seen her since the Friday night.’

‘I know,’ murmured Retancourt. ‘But the only suspect you can come up with is an old man who’s dead. Your only alibi is loss of memory. They’ll say you were obsessed with the judge, that your brother had already killed someone, that you were out of control. Placed in the same circumstances as your brother, drunk, in the woods, faced with a girl who said she was pregnant, you did the same as Raphaël.’

‘The trap’s closed on me,’ said Adamsberg, shutting his eyes.

‘I’m sorry to give you all this straight, but you needed to know. They’re going to charge you on Tuesday. The warrant’s all ready.’

Retancourt threw her apple core out of the window and drove off again. She didn’t suggest that Adamsberg take the wheel and he did not offer.

‘Retancourt, I did not do this.’

‘It won’t be any good telling Laliberté that. He won’t give a damn, deny it all you like.’

‘Retancourt, Noëlla was killed with a trident. Where on earth would I have got hold of one? Did it appear on the path, by magic?’

Suddenly, he stopped and slumped back in the seat.

‘What were you going to say, commissaire?’

‘Oh, my God, the logging site.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Half way along. There’s a site with a pick-up, and plenty of tools for guys who come and take out dead trees and plant new ones. I’d seen it, I’d been past it. I could have gone past, seen Noëlla, seen the weapon and used it. Yes, they could say that. Because there was earth in the wounds. Because it wasn’t the same trident as the judge’s.’

‘Yes, they could say that,’ Retancourt agreed, her voice serious. ‘What you told them about the judge doesn’t help you. On the contrary. They think it’s a crazy story, improbable and obsessive. They’ll use that to charge you. They have the surface motive, you’ve provided them with the deeper motive.’

‘An obsessive man, who’s had too much to drink, who’s lost his memory, and who’s being driven nuts by that girl. Me, reliving my brother’s life. Reliving the judge’s career. Crazy, off balance. I’m finished, Retancourt. Fulgence has got me. He’s got inside my skin.’

For a quarter of an hour, Retancourt drove in silence. Adamsberg’s state of collapse needed, she thought, the respite of silence. Probably days of it, driving all the way to Greenland, but she didn’t have time for that.

‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked after a while.

‘My mother.’

‘I understand. But it’s not the moment.’

‘You think about your mother when you’ve come to the end of the road. And I’ve come to the end of the road.’

‘No, you haven’t. You can still make a break for it.’

‘If I make a break for it, I’ve really had it. Proof of guilt.’

‘Well, you’ve certainly had it if you turn up at the Mounties’ headquarters on Tuesday morning. You’ll sit rotting here until the trial, and there won’t be any way of getting out to try and investigate what happened. You’ll be stuck in a Canadian prison, then eventually they’ll transfer you to Paris. Twenty years minimum. No, in my view, the only thing for it is to cut and run.’

‘Do you realise what you’re saying? Do you realise that you’d be making yourself an accomplice in my escape?’

‘Yes, perfectly.’

Adamsberg turned to his lieutenant. ‘But what if I did kill her, Retancourt?’ he forced himself to say.

‘You’ve got to run,’ she said, evading the question.

‘Retancourt, what if I did kill her?’ repeated Adamsberg insisting.

‘Well, if you have any doubts on that score, we’ve both had it.’

He leaned over to examine her face.

‘And you haven’t any doubts?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Why not? You don’t like me, and there’s a mountain of evidence stacked up against me. But you don’t think I did it?’

‘No. You’re not the sort of man who would kill anyone.’

‘How do you know?’

Retancourt pursed her lips slightly, seeming to hesitate.

‘Well, let’s just say that it wouldn’t interest you enough.’

‘Are you sure of that?’

‘As sure as I can be. Your best course is to trust me, or yes, you’ve had it. You’re not defending yourself, you’re getting yourself deeper in it.’

Into the mud of the dead lake, thought Adamsberg.

‘I just can’t remember anything about that night,’ he repeated, mechanically. ‘I had my face and hands covered in blood.’

‘Yes, I know. The janitor told them that.’

‘Perhaps it wasn’t my own blood?’

‘You see? You’re getting yourself in deeper and deeper. You’re accepting it. The idea’s wriggling into your mind like a worm, and you’re allowing it to.’

‘Maybe the idea’s always been in my mind, since the Trident came back to life. Maybe something went off in my head when I saw the fork.’

‘You’re going down into his grave,’ Retancourt insisted. ‘You’re putting your head on the block.’

‘I realise that.’

‘Commissaire, think quickly. Who are you going to choose to trust? You or me?’

‘You,’ Adamsberg replied instinctively.

‘OK. Run for it.’

‘Can’t be done. They’re not stupid.’

‘Neither are we.’

‘But they’re already right behind us.’

‘Well, we certainly can’t run in Detroit. The arrest warrant has been issued to cover Michigan. We’re going to return to the Hotel Brébeuf on Tuesday morning as arranged.’

‘And sneak out via the basement? But when they see I haven’t turned up at the right time, they’ll look everywhere. In my room, everywhere in the building. They’ll see the car’s gone, put a watch on the airports. I’d never have time to get a flight, or even leave the hotel. They’ll eat me alive, like they did Brébeuf.’

‘But they’re not going to be chasing us, commissaire. We’re going to lead them where we want them.’

‘Where?’

‘Into my room.’

‘But your room’s as small as mine. Where are you going to hide me? On the roof? They’ll go up there.’

‘Of course.’

‘Under the bed, in the wardrobe?’

Adamsberg hunched his shoulders in a gesture of despair.

‘No, on me.’

The commissaire turned to the lieutenant.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but it’ll only take two or three minutes. There’s no other way.’

‘Retancourt, I’m not a hairpin. What are you going to turn me into?’

‘Nothing, I’m going to turn myself into something. A pylon.’