An Uncertain Place

XI

LIEUTENANTS NOËL AND VOISENET WERE STANDING FACING each other and, with their outstretched arms blocking the door, forming a barrier in front of the man, who did not look particularly intimidating.

‘How do I know you’re policemen?’ he kept repeating. ‘How do I know you’re not burglars – especially you,’ he said, pointing at Noël, whose head was close-shaved. ‘I’ve got an appointment, five thirty, and I’m always on time.’

‘Yeah, well, your appointment can’t see you!’ said Noël with an aggressive sneer.

‘Show me your police badges. You haven’t shown me any proof.’

‘We’ve already explained,’ Voisenet said. ‘Our badges are in our jackets and our jackets are inside, but we have to keep this door shut, so that you can’t go in there. The whole site is forbidden to the public.’

‘But of course I’m going inside!’

‘Can’t be done.’

As Adamsberg approached from inside the house, he judged that the man was either singularly obtuse or else rather brave, given his average height and corpulent figure. If he really did think they were burglars, he’d have done better to stop arguing and get away fast. But he looked like someone from the professional classes, self-confident and self-possessed, with the pompous air of a man doing his duty or at any rate his job, whatever the circumstances, at least if it didn’t harm his fee. Was he an insurance agent, an art dealer, a lawyer, a banker? His manner of approaching these two policemen with their shirt-sleeved arms indicated a clear class reflex. He wasn’t somebody who could be sent packing, and certainly not by the likes of Noël and Voisenet. Negotiating with them would be beneath him, and perhaps it was that social conviction, that basic caste scorn, which made him brave beyond foolishness. He had nothing to fear from his social inferiors. Apart from his present attitude, his shrewd and old-fashioned face might be quite attractive in repose. Adamsberg laid a hand on the plebeian arms and nodded to the newcomer.

‘If this really is something to do with the police, I’m not leaving till I see your superior officer,’ the man was saying.

‘I am their superior officer, Commissaire Adamsberg.’

Astonishment, disappointment. Adamsberg had seen these all too often on people’s faces. But almost immediately afterwards there would be submission to the superior rank, in however odd a form it had appeared.

‘Enchanté, commissaire,’ said the man, holding out his hand. ‘Paul de Josselin. I’m Monsieur Vaudel’s doctor.’

Too late, thought Adamsberg, as they shook hands.

‘I’m sorry, doctor, but you can’t see Monsieur Vaudel.’

‘So I gather. But as his doctor, I surely have the right and indeed the duty to be informed about it. Is he ill, in hospital? Dead?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘And he died at home? Is that why there’s all this police presence?’

‘Correct, doctor.’

‘But when? How? I examined him a couple of weeks ago, and he was in good health.’

‘The police are obliged to keep details confidential. Normal procedure in a murder case.’

The doctor frowned, muttering ‘murder!’ to himself. Adamsberg realised that they were talking to each other across the outstretched arms, like neighbours talking across a fence. The two lieutenants had maintained their stiff attitude without anyone thinking to change it. Adamsberg tapped on Voisenet’s shoulder and lifted the barrier.

‘Let’s go round into the garden,’ he said. ‘We mustn’t contaminate the floor.’

‘I understand, I quite understand. So you can’t tell me anything about it?’

‘I can tell you as much as the neighbours have been told. It was during the night from Saturday to Sunday, and we discovered the body yesterday morning. The alarm was raised by the gardener when he got home at about five o’clock.’

‘Why did he raise the alarm? Did he hear cries?’

‘According to the gardener, Vaudel normally left his lights on all night. But when he arrived back, there were no lights showing – he said his employer had a pathological fear of the dark.’

‘I know, it goes back to his childhood.’

‘Were you his doctor or his psychiatrist?’

‘I was his GP, but also his somatopathic osteopath.’

‘I see,’ said Adamsberg, who didn’t. ‘Did he tell you much about himself?’

‘No, absolutely not, he hated the idea of psychiatry. But what I could feel in his bones told me a lot. I was actually very attached to him, medically speaking. Vaudel was an exceptional case.’

The doctor stopped speaking abruptly.

‘Yes, I see,’ said Adamsberg. ‘You won’t tell me any more if I don’t tell you any more. Our professional secrecy makes it stalemate.’

‘Precisely.’

‘You do realise I will have to ask you what you were doing between eleven on Saturday night and five on Sunday morning.’

‘No offence taken, I’m quite willing to tell you. Given that most people are asleep at that time, and since I don’t have a wife or children, what can I say? At night I’m in bed, unless I get called out to an emergency. You must know that.’

The doctor thought for a moment, pulled out his diary from his inside pocket and carefully rearranged his jacket.

‘Ah, Francisco,’ he said, ‘our concierge. He’s paraplegic, I don’t charge him for treatment – he called me at one in the morning. He’d managed to fall between his wheelchair and the bed and got his tibia at an angle. I sorted his leg out and put him to bed. Two hours later he called me again, the knee was swollen. I was rather sharp with him, and said you’ll just have to put up with it, and I called to see him again in the morning.’

‘Thank you, doctor. You know Vaudel’s handyman, Émile?’

‘Émile? The noughts and crosses specialist? Fascinating case. I took him on as a patient too. He was very resistant, but Vaudel took an interest in him and told him to come and see me. In three years I’d gradually brought his violence level down.’

‘Yes, he did mention that, but he put it down to getting older.’

‘Not at all,’ said the doctor with amusement, and Adamsberg recognised the shrewd and forthcoming face he had detected under the pompous exterior. ‘Age usually increases neuroses. But as I was treating Émile, I was gradually reaching zones that were stiff, and making them more supple, although he kept shutting doors behind me. But I’ll get there in the end. His mother beat him as a child, you know, but he’ll never admit it. He idolises her.’

‘So how do you know that?’

‘This way,’ said the doctor, putting his index finger just up and to the right of the back of Adamsberg’s neck, touching the base of his skull.

He felt something like a sting, as if the doctor’s finger had a spike on it.

‘Ah, another interesting case,’ Josselin noted under his breath, ‘if you’ll allow the observation.’

‘Émile?’

‘No, you.’

‘I wasn’t beaten in my childhood, doctor.’

‘I didn’t say you were.’

Adamsberg stepped to the side, removing his head from the doctor’s curiosity.

‘Our Monsieur Vaudel – I’m not asking you to infringe professional secrecy – but did he have any enemies?’

‘Yes, plenty. And that was the root of the problem. He had enemies who were threatening and even deadly.’

Adamsberg stopped on the gravel path.

‘I can’t give you any names,’ the doctor said quickly, ‘and it would be useless anyway. It would fall outside your investigation.’

Adamsberg’s mobile vibrated, and he excused himself to take the call.

‘Lucio,’ he said crossly, ‘you know I’m at work.’

‘I never call you, hombre, this is the first time. But one of the kittens won’t feed, she’s wasting away. I thought perhaps you could come and stroke her head.’

‘Too bad, Lucio, I can’t do anything about it. If she won’t feed, that’s life, it’s a law of nature.’

‘But you could calm her down, get her to sleep.’

‘That still wouldn’t make her suckle, Lucio.’

‘You’re a real bastard and a son of a bitch.’

‘And above all, Lucio,’ said Adamsberg, raising his voice, ‘I’m not a magician. And I’ve had a bloody awful day.’

‘Well, so have I. Can’t even light my cigarettes. Because of my eyesight, can’t see the tip properly. And my daughter won’t help me, so what am I to do?’

Adamsberg bit his lip, and the doctor came closer.

‘Is it a baby who won’t feed?’ he asked politely.

‘No, a five-day-old kitten,’ said Adamsberg curtly.

‘If whoever you’re talking to would like, I could try something. It’s probably the MRP of the lower jaw that’s blocked. Not necessarily a law of nature but possibly a postnatal and post-traumatic dislocation. Was it a difficult birth?’

‘Lucio,’ said Adamsberg sharply into the phone, ‘is it one of the two we had to deliver?’

‘Yes, the white one with a grey tip to the tail. The only girl.’

‘Yes, doctor,’ Adamsberg confirmed. ‘Lucio had to press and I had to pull her out by the jaw. Perhaps I pulled too hard. It’s a female kitten.’

‘Where does your friend live? If he’s willing of course,’ said the other, raising his hands as if a life in the balance suddenly made him humble.

‘Paris, 13th arrondissement.’

‘I’m not far, I’m in the 7th. If you agree, we could go there together and I could treat the kitten. If there’s anything to be done, that is. Meanwhile, what your friend should do is sprinkle water all over her body, but without making her soaking wet.’

‘We’re on our way,’ said Adamsberg, feeling as if he was sending a signal for an urgent police operation. ‘Sprinkle her with water, but not too much.’

Feeling a little dazed, as if he had now left the bridge, and was being besieged by bashers, migratory flows, doctors and one-armed Spaniards, Adamsberg told his colleagues to clear things up and drove back with the doctor.

As they entered the ring road, he said, ‘This is ridiculous. We’re going to give medical assistance to a kitten, while all hell has broken loose on Vaudel.’

‘A nasty crime, was it? He was very rich, you know.’

‘Yes, I guess it will all go to the son,’ said Adamsberg, feeling his voice ring false. ‘Do you know him?’

‘Only through his father’s mind. Desire, refusal, desire, refusal, both of them, same thing.’

‘Vaudel didn’t want a son.’

‘He especially didn’t want to leave behind him vulnerable descendants who would be exposed to his enemies.’

‘What enemies?’

‘If I told you it wouldn’t help. They were the mad imaginings of the man, created over the years and lodged in the caverns of his mind. It’s medical, not police work. At the point he’d reached, you’d have to be a speleologist.’

‘Imaginary enemies, you mean?’

‘You don’t want to go there, commissaire.’

Lucio was waiting for them in the tool shed, his huge hand stroking the kitten, which was rolled up in a damp towel on his knees.

‘She’s going to die,’ he said hoarsely, his voice full of tears which Adamsberg could not understand, since it was a mystery to him how anyone could be so affected over a cat. ‘She can’t feed. Who’s this?’ Lucio asked ungraciously. ‘We don’t need an audience, hombre.’

‘This gentleman is a specialist on cats with dislocated jaws who can’t feed. Mind out, Lucio, and give him the cat.’

Lucio scratched his absent arm, and obeyed, still looking suspicious. The doctor sat down on the bench and took the cat’s head in his thick fingers – he had enormous hands for his size, not unlike Lucio’s large single hand. He felt her slowly all over, back and forth. Charlatan, Adamsberg was thinking, now feeling more upset than he should have been, as he looked at the kitten’s limp little body. Then the doctor moved to the pelvis, and put his fingers on two points, as if playing a trill on a piano, and they heard a weak mew.

‘Her name’s Charm,’ Lucio said grudgingly.

‘We can fix the jaw,’ said the doctor. ‘Don’t worry, Charm, we’ll have you right in a minute.’

The large fingers – to Adamsberg they were getting more and more enormous, like the ten arms of Shiva – came back to the jaw and held the kitten’s head in a pincer grip.

‘Now, now, Charm,’ he murmured, as he moved his thumb and finger. ‘Did you get your jaw blocked when you were born? Did the commissaire twist your head? Or were you frightened? Just a few minutes more and we’ll be on the way. There now. I’m going to press your TMJ.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Lucio warily.

‘The temporo-mandibular joint.’

The kitten relaxed, as if it was made of plasticine, and allowed itself to be put to the mother’s teat.

‘There, there,’ crooned the doctor gently. ‘The jaw joint was dislocated caudally left and cephalically right, so of course it couldn’t move, the injury was stopping the sucking movement. Seems to be fine now. Let’s just wait a little, to see if it stays that way. I also adjusted the sacro-iliac joint. All consequences of a slightly eventful birth, don’t worry. She’ll be a tough little thing, take good care of her. No harm in her, she’s got a sweet nature.’

‘Yes, doctor,’ agreed Lucio, who had become respectful, as he watched the kitten sucking away like a steam engine.

‘And she will always want her food because of the five days.’

‘Ah, like Froissy,’ said Adamsberg.

‘Another cat?’

‘No, one of my colleagues. She eats all the time, and hides stashes of food, but she’s as thin as a rake.’

‘An anxiety disorder,’ said the doctor wearily. ‘She should get it seen to. So should everyone, me included. You wouldn’t have a glass of wine or something, would you?’ he broke off suddenly. ‘If it’s not too much trouble. It’s that time of day. It may not look it, but this stuff uses up a lot of energy.’

Now he looked nothing like that professional pompous bourgeois Adamsberg had first seen across the arms of the lieutenants. The doctor had loosened his tie and was rumpling his grey hair with his fingers, looking like a simple man who had just finished a good job of work, and hadn’t been sure whether he’d manage it an hour earlier. He’d like a drink, and the request made Lucio react at once.

‘Where’s he going?’ asked the doctor as Lucio shot off towards the hedge.

‘His daughter has banned alcohol and tobacco. So he has to hide them in the bushes. He puts the cigarettes in a double plastic container against the rain.’

‘His daughter knows he does that, I bet.’

‘Yes, she does.’

‘And he knows that she knows?’

‘Of course.’

‘The way of the world, all these hidden agendas. What happened to his arm?’

‘He lost it during the Spanish Civil War when he was nine years old.’

‘But there was something else there, a wound that hadn’t healed? A bite? I don’t know, some unfinished business.’

‘Just a minor thing,’ said Adamsberg, with a slight gasp of surprise. ‘A spider bite that itched.’

‘He’ll be itching for ever,’ said the doctor fatalistically. ‘Because it’s in there,’ he said, tapping his forehead, ‘etched into the neurones. They still don’t understand that the arm’s gone. It lasts for years, and knowing why makes no difference.’

‘So what’s the point of knowing why?’

‘It reassures people, which is something.’

Lucio was on his way back with three glasses arranged between his fingers and a bottle clutched under his stump. He put it all down on the shed floor, and took a long look at the kitten, now firmly clamped on to its mother’s teat.

‘She’s not going to burst now, is she, from feeding too much?’

‘No,’ said the doctor.

Lucio nodded, filled the glasses and invited them to toast the kitten’s health.

‘The doctor knew about your arm and the itch,’ said Adamsberg.

‘Naturally,’ said Lucio. ‘Spider bite, that’ll go on itching till kingdom come.’