An Uncertain Place

XLV

THE SHRILL SOUND OF A CRICKET WAS HEARD IN THE ROOM. Adamsberg identified it as coming from his ordinary mobile – the one tapped by woodpeckers – and picked it up, checking his two watches. Somewhere between 2.45 and 4.15 a.m. Rubbing the sleep out his eyes, he looked at the phone which said he had two new messages. They were both from the same number, three minutes apart. The first one said por, the second qos. Adamsberg immediately called Froissy. Froissy never minded being woken at night. Adamsberg imagined she took the chance to have a little snack.

‘I’ve got two messages I can’t understand,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think they mean anything good. How long do you need to identify a caller from a mobile?’

‘For an unknown number? About a quarter of an hour. Ten minutes with luck, but you have to add half an hour for me to get to the office, because I don’t have my equipment at home. What’s the number?’

Adamsberg read out the number, feeling on edge, sensing there must be some urgency. Forty minutes was a long time.

‘Oh, I can tell you that one right away,’ said Froissy. ‘Because I just identified it this afternoon. It’s Armel Louvois.’

‘Holy shit.’

‘I was just starting to list all his calls. He doesn’t make many. There had been none for the last nine days because he must have switched the phone off when he disappeared. So why has he switched it back on? Why is he coming out of hiding? He’s sent you a message, you say?’

‘He sent me two incomprehensible texts.’

‘Texti,’ said Froissy automatically, adopting Danglard’s pedantic term for them.

‘Can you pinpoint where he is for me?’

‘If he hasn’t switched it off again.’

‘Can you do that from home?’

‘I can try, but it won’t be that easy.’

‘Please try as fast as you can.’

She had hung up. It was pointless to tell Froissy to hurry, she always did things as fast as a fly.

He pulled on his clothes, and picked up the holster and both mobiles. He realised as he was going downstairs that his T-shirt was on back to front. The label was scratching his neck. He’d fix it later. Froissy called back as he was pulling on a jacket.

‘He’s at the villa in Garches,’ she announced. ‘Another phone is transmitting from the same address. I’m trying to identify it.’

‘Keep trying.’

‘I’ll have to go to the office. Take me about an hour.’

Adamsberg alerted two teams and calculated the time. It would take thirty minutes at least before the first team could meet up at headquarters, then there was the distance out to Garches. If he went at once, he could be there in about twenty minutes. He hesitated, and all his instincts told him to wait. A trap. What the fuck was Zerk doing in the old man’s house? With another mobile? Or was he with Paole? And if so what was Zerk calling him for? A trap. Certain death. Adamsberg got into the car and leaned his arms on the steering wheel. They didn’t get him in the vault, they were having another go here, it was pretty obvious. To stay put was by far the wisest option. He read the messages again: por; qos. He switched on the ignition, then stopped. Yes, it was clear as daylight, it was obviously and logically a trap. His fingers gripping the key, he tried to think why, nevertheless, some other instinct was telling him he should get to Garches right away, an instinct with no reason to it, which had taken over his mind. He switched on the headlights and drove off.

Halfway there, after the Saint-Cloud tunnel, he pulled over on to the hard shoulder. Por, qos. He had just thought – if you could call it thinking – of Froissy’s ridiculous use of the term ‘texti’. That got him back to por again. And now he was almost sure that he had often seen por on his mobile. When he sent a text message and typed SMS, he often ended up with something like these words. Yes. When he tried doing SMS he ended up first with pop then por pos qos sos and finally sms.

SMS . SOS .

An SOS that Zerk wasn’t managing to tap in properly. He’d tried again, perhaps handling a phone without being able to see it, and got it wrong again. Adamsberg put his siren and lights on the roof and set off once more. If Zerk was setting a trap, he would surely have sent a comprehensible message. If he had failed to text SOS, it meant he couldn’t see the screen. Perhaps he was in the dark. Or perhaps the phone was in his pocket and he was typing while trying not to be seen. Not a trap, a call for help. Zerk was with Paole, and it was half an hour since he had sent the messages.

‘Danglard?’ Adamsberg said, calling while driving. ‘I’ve got an SOS from Zerk, done blind. The murderer must have taken him back to the crime scene where he’s going to suicide him. Finish things off.’

‘Father Germain.’

‘No, it can’t be him, Danglard. How would he have known the cat was a female? But that’s what he said. Don’t surround the house, and don’t try to get in via the door. He’ll certainly shoot him at once if he sees you. Just head for Garches, and wait for me to call you again.’

Still holding the wheel with one hand, he called Professor Lavoisier.

‘Lavoisier, I need a number for Émile at the hospital, it’s urgent.’

‘Is that Adamsberg?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do I know it’s you?’ asked Lavoisier who was entering fully into the role of conspirator.

‘Good God, doctor, I haven’t got time for this.’

‘Nothing doing,’ said Lavoisier.

Adamsberg sensed that this hold-up was serious. Lavoisier was taking his mission to heart. Adamsberg had ordered ‘no contacts whatsoever’, and he was being punctilious about following instructions.

‘Look, shall I tell you what Retancourt said when she came out of the coma in that awful case we had? Can you still remember it?’

‘Yes, of course. Go ahead.’

‘To see the last Roman, as he draws his last breath,

Myself to die happy, as the cause of this death.’

‘OK, mon vieux, I’ll transfer the call for you because the hospital will refuse you access to Émile unless I put you through.’

‘Yes, but hurry, doctor.’

A few crackles then Émile came on the line.

‘Is it about Cupid?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Cupid’s fine, Émile, but now tell me how to get inside Vaudel’s house another way, not the front door.’

‘Back door.’

‘No, I mean another way, not so obvious.’

‘There isn’t one.’

‘Yes there is, Émile. And you used it. When you came in at night to pinch a bit of cash.’

‘What, me, guv?’

‘Don’t give me that – we had your prints on the drawer of the desk. I don’t care about that now. Just listen carefully. Whoever massacred your boss is about to kill someone else tonight in that house, and I need to get in there without him seeing me.’

‘Can’t help you.’

The car was just getting to Garches. Adamsberg switched off the siren.

‘Émile,’ said Adamsberg, through his teeth, ‘if you don’t tell me now, Cupid gets it.’

‘You wouldn’t!’

‘I bloody would, Émile, and stamp on him with my boot.’

‘Fucking bastard cop.’

‘Spot on. Now just fucking tell me, how do I get in?’

‘Next door, Madame Bourlant.’

‘Yes?’

‘You go through the cellar. Two houses used to belong to this bloke, wife in one, fancy woman in the other. So he goes through the cellar. Door got blocked when they were sold, but the old lady opened it again. She shouldn’t ought to have, but Vaudel, he didn’t know, he never went down the cellar. But I promised I’d never tell on her, so she let me use it. We had this arrangement, see?’

Adamsberg parked the car fifty metres from the house and closed the door quietly.

‘Why did she unblock it?’

‘Scared of fires. Emergency exit. Stupid, because her lifeline’s perfect.’

‘She live alone?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t you dare mess with my dog now.’

Adamsberg contacted the two teams. One was on the way, the other just setting out. No light showed in the Vaudel house, and the shutters and curtains were closed. He knocked several times next door, at Madame Bourlant’s. An identical house, but in a much worse state of repair. It wasn’t going to be easy to get a woman living alone to open the door just by saying ‘police’, which wouldn’t convince anyone. Either you didn’t believe it was the police, or you did, which was even worse.

‘Madame Bourlant, I’ve got a message for you from Émile, he’s in hospital.’

‘So why come in the middle of the night?’

‘He doesn’t want anyone to see me. It’s about the cellar door. He says someone has found out and you’re going to get into trouble.’

The door opened a few inches on a chain. A fragile-looking woman of about sixty was looking at him more closely as she put on her glasses.

‘How do I know you’re a friend of Émile’s?’

‘He says you have a fantastic lifeline.’

The door opened and the woman let him in, putting the chain back on.

‘I am a friend of Émile’s, but I’m also a commissaire de police,’ said Adamsberg.

‘No, you can’t be.’

‘Yes, I can. All I’m asking you to do is open the way through the cellar. I need to get into the Vaudel house. There are two teams of police following, and they’ll need to come the same way. You will let them through.’

‘There isn’t a way through the cellar.’

‘Look, madame, I can get it unblocked without you if I have to. Just don’t cause any trouble, or everyone in the neighbourhoood will know about the door.’

‘It isn’t a crime, is it?’

‘They’ll say you were going to rob Vaudel of all his money.’

The little old woman went to get the key, muttering about the police. Adamsberg followed her into the cellar and then into the corridor which led from it.

‘The police do a lot of daft things,’ she said, as she unlocked the door. ‘But this takes the biscuit. Accusing me of being a thief, I never heard such nonsense. And you’ve been bothering Émile, and that other young man.’

‘The police found a handkerchief belonging to the other young man.’

‘That’s stupid. People don’t drop their handkerchiefs in other people’s houses, so why would they when they’ve just murdered someone?’

‘Don’t follow me, madame,’ said Adamsberg, pushing the little old woman gently back. ‘This could be dangerous.’

‘A murderer?’

‘Yes. Get back inside your own house and wait till the police team arrives, don’t do anything else.’

She trotted off back down the corridor and Adamsberg climbed quietly up the cluttered cellar stairs into Vaudel’s house, taking care not to dislodge a bottle or a box. There was just an ordinary door to the kitchen, and the lock took him only a minute to pick. He headed straight for the room with the piano. If Paole was going to engineer Zerk’s suicide, that’s where he would do it, at the scene of his remorse.

The door was closed and he could see nothing. The tapestries on the walls muffled voices. Adamsberg went into the bathroom next door and climbed on top of a linen chest, from where he could reach a ventilation grill.

Paole was standing with his back to him, holding a gun equipped with a silencer. Opposite him, Zerk, tears rolling down his face, was sitting on the Louis XIII armchair. All the gothic bravado had gone. Paole had literally nailed him to the spot. A knife transfixed his left hand, nailing it to the wooden armrest. A lot of blood had already been spilt: the young man must have been pinned to the chair for some time, sweating with pain.

‘Who was it to?’ Paole was saying, waving a mobile phone in front of Zerk’s eyes.

Zerk must have tried to make his call for help again, but this time Paole had caught him at it. The older man had opened a flick knife, taken Zerk’s right hand and slashed it several times, as if he were cutting up a fish, not appearing to hear the young man’s cries of pain.

‘So don’t think you can start that again. Who to?’

‘Adamsberg,’ Zerk groaned.

‘Pathetic,’ said Paole. ‘So he doesn’t demolish his father after all. First little scratch and he calls him for help: por, qos. What were you trying to tell him?’

‘SOS. But I didn’t get it right. He won’t understand. Leave me alone, I won’t tell, I won’t say anything, I don’t know anything.’

‘Ha, but I need you, my boy. The police got a long way on this. So I’m going to leave you here, nailed to your chair. You decided to mutilate yourself, and you’ll be found dead at the scene of your crime – a fitting end. I’ve got a lot of things to do, and I want a bit of peace.’

‘So do I,’ gasped Zerk.

‘You!’ said Paole, pocketing the mobile. ‘What have you got left to do? Make your precious jewellery? Sing in your precious choir? Eat your supper? Who would care, you poor boy? You’re no use to anyone. Your mother’s left the country, your father doesn’t want anything to do with you. But at least you’ll accomplish something by your death. You’ll be famous.’

‘Please. I won’t tell, I’ll go far away. Adamsberg will never find out.’

Paole shrugged.

‘Naturally, he won’t find out. His pea brain’s not much bigger than yours, he’s just a windbag, like father, like son. Anyway, it’s a bit late to start calling him now. I’m afraid he’s no longer with us.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Zerk, twisting in his chair.

Paole leaned on the handle of the knife stuck into his hand and made the blade move in the wound.

‘Calm down. He’s as dead as a doornail. He’s walled up in the vault where Plogojowitz’s victims are all buried, in Kiseljevo, in Serbia. So he’s going to come riding to the rescue, is he?’

Paole then started to speak in a low voice, as if for himself alone, and the last hope ebbed from Zerk’s young face.

‘But you’re forcing me to move more quickly. Sooner or later they’ll trace your call, and they’ll identify who you are and where you are. So they’ll know where we both are. We’ve got a little less time than we bargained for, so prepare yourself, young man, and say your goodbyes.’

Paole had moved away from the armchair, but he was still too close to Zerk. By the time Adamsberg had opened the door and taken aim, he would have had four seconds’ warning to shoot at Zerk. Four seconds to distract him. Adamsberg took out his notebook, letting fall all the bits of paper that were chaotically pushed inside. The one he wanted was recognisable, a crumpled and dirty sheet on which he had copied the text from Plogojowitz’s grave. He took out his mobile and composed a text as quickly as he could: ‘Dobre veče proklet’ (= Good evening Cursed one). On the next line: ‘Plogojowitz’. Not very good, but the best he could manage. It would hold the man up for a minute or two, enough time to get between him and Zerk.

The phone bleeped in Paole’s pocket. He looked at the screen, frowned, and the door burst open. Adamsberg faced him, having moved in front of the young man, to cover him. Paole tilted his head, as if the sudden entry of the commissaire was some kind of music-hall act.

‘Oh, that’s your idea of a joke, is it, commissaire?’ said Paole, pointing to the phone. ‘You don’t say Dobro veče at this time of night, you say Laku noć.’

Paole’s scornful insouciance destabilised Adamsberg. He showed no interest in him at all. As if he were no more of a problem than a tuft of grass in the road. Still covering Paole with the gun, Adamsberg reached behind him and yanked out the knife.

‘Get out, Zerk! Move!’

Zerk hurtled out of the room, banging the door behind him, and they heard him run down the corridor.

‘How touching,’ said Paole. ‘And now, Adamsberg, it’s just the two of us. We’re both standing here, we’re both armed. You’ll aim for the legs, I’ll aim for the heart, and if you shoot first, I’ll still shoot you, won’t I? You haven’t a chance. My fingers are ultra-sensitive and my sangfroid is total. In such a strictly technical situation, your door to the unconscious is no use to you at all. On the contrary, it’s an obstacle. You’re still making the same mistake as in Kiseljevo. Walking around on your own. Like in the old mill. Yes, I know,’ he said, raising his large hand. ‘Your men are on their way.’

The man consulted his watch and sat down. ‘We have a few minutes, I’ll easily catch up with the young man. A few minutes to find out how you traced me. I don’t mean tonight and the idiot Armel’s message. You do know your son’s a complete imbecile, don’t you? No, I mean when you came to my surgery, two days ago, for your tinnitus. You knew then, didn’t you, because your head was resisting me all the time. How did you know?’

‘In the vault.’

‘And?’

Adamsberg was finding it hard to speak. The memory of the vault could still immobilise him, the memory of the night with Vesna. He tried to think of the moment the door had opened and Veyrenc had come in, when he had drunk Froissy’s cognac.

‘The little kitten,’ he said. ‘The one you wanted to kick to death.’

‘Yes, didn’t have time for that. But it will be done, Adamsberg. I always keep my word.’

‘“I killed that kitten. Just one kick did it. Making me rescue her, that got up my nose.” That’s what you said.’

‘Correct.’

‘Zerk had brought the kitten out from under a woodpile. But how would he know it was a female? A week-old kitten. Impossible. Lucio knew and I knew. And you knew, doctor, because you’d treated her. Just you.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Paole. ‘I see my mistake. But when did you realise that? At once?’

‘No, when I saw the kitten again, back home.’

‘Always slow on the uptake, Adamsberg.’

Paole stood up and a shot rang out. Stupefied, Adamsberg stared as the doctor fell to the floor. He was hit in the stomach on the left side.

‘I was aiming for his legs,’ said the anxious voice of Madame Bourlant. ‘I’m not a very good shot.’ The little old woman trotted over to the man gasping on the floor, while Adamsberg picked up the gun and telephoned for the emergency services.

‘He’s not going to die, is he?’ she asked, leaning over him.

‘No, I think the bullet is lodged in the gut.’

‘It’s only a.32,’ said Madame Bourlant as if she were describing her skirt size.

Paole’s eyes appealed to the commissaire.

‘The ambulance is on its way, Paole.’

‘Don’t call me Paole,’ the doctor ordered in a strangled voice. ‘There are no more Paoles now that the wicked ones are all wiped out. The Paoles are saved. Understand, Adamsberg? They’re free. At last.’

‘Have you killed them all? The Plogojowitzes?’

‘I didn’t kill them. Eliminating creatures is not killing. They weren’t humans. I do good in the world, commissaire, I’m a doctor.’

‘Then you’re not human either, Josselin.’

‘I wasn’t quite. But now I am, yes.’

‘You’ve wiped them all out?’

‘The five big ones, yes. There are two shroud-eaters still alive, women. But they can’t reconstitute.’

‘I only know about three: Pierre Vaudel-Plog, Conrad Plögener and Frau Abster-Plogerstein. And Plogodrescu’s feet, but that’s a long time ago.’

‘Someone’s ringing at the door,’ said Madame Bourlant, timidly.

‘It’ll be the ambulance men – go and open it.’

‘What if it isn’t the ambulance?’

‘It will be. Go on, for heaven’s sake, woman.’

The little old woman went off, muttering again about the bad manners of the police.

‘Who is she?’ asked Josselin.

‘Next-door neighbour.’

‘How did she manage to shoot me?’

‘No idea.’

‘Loša sreća.’

‘The other two, doctor. Who are the other two people you killed?’

‘I haven’t killed any people.’

‘The two other creatures then.’

‘The grand master, Plogan, and his daughter. Terrible forces of evil. I started with them.’

‘Where?’

The paramedics came in and put down a stretcher, taking out their equipment. Adamsberg gestured to them to wait a few moments.

Madame Bourlant was listening hard to the conversation, shaking with fear.

‘Where?’

‘In Savolinna.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Finland.’

‘When? Before Pressbaum?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is Plogan their real name?’

‘Yes. Veiko and Leena Plogan. Dreadful creatures. He reigns no more.’

‘Who?’

‘I never pronounce his name.’

‘Peter Plogojowitz?’

Josselin nodded.

‘In Highgate. Finished. His line’s died out now. Go and see for yourself – the tree will die on Highgate Hill. And the tree roots around his tomb in Kiseljevo, they’ll die too.’

‘What about Pierre Vaudel’s son. Isn’t he a Plogojowitz too? Why did you let him live?’

‘He’s just an ordinary man. He wasn’t born with teeth. Cursed blood doesn’t run in all the branches.’

Adamsberg straightened up, but the doctor caught him by the sleeve.

‘Go and see, Adamsberg,’ he begged. ‘You know. You’ll understand. I need to know.’

‘See what?’

‘The tree on Highgate Hill. On the south side of the chapel, a big oak tree that was planted in the year of his birth, in 1663.’

Go and see the tree? Obey the demented wishes of a Paole? With his idea that Plogojowitz was in the tree, like the uncle in the polar bear?

‘Josselin, you’ve cut the feet off nine corpses, you’ve massacred five human beings, you locked me into that vault of hell, you’ve manipulated my son, and you were about to kill him.’

‘Yes, yes, I know. But just go and see the tree.’

Adamsberg shook his head in disgust or lassitude, stood up and gestured to the paramedics to take him away.

‘What is he talking about?’ asked Madame Bourlant. ‘Family problems?’

‘That’s exactly right. Where did you shoot from?’

‘Through the hole in the wall.’ Madame Bourlant took him into the corridor with her little steps. Behind an engraving, the thin partition wall had been pierced by a hole about three centimetres across, giving on to the piano room between two tapestries.

‘This was Émile’s lookout post. Since Monsieur Vaudel always left all the lights on, you were never sure if he’d gone to bed or not. Émile could look through the hole and see if he had left the desk. Émile, you know, used to pinch the odd banknote. Vaudel was rolling in money.’

‘How did you know all that?’

‘Oh, Émile and I got on all right. I was the only person round here who didn’t give him the cold shoulder. We had our little secrets.’

‘Like the revolver.’

‘No, that was my husband’s. Oh my goodness, I’m still shaking. Shooting a man, that’s not something you do every day. I was aiming low, but it jumped up. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t mean to shoot, I just came to see what was happening. And then, well, your police weren’t arriving, so it looked to me as if you’d had it, monsieur, so I thought I should do something.’

Adamsberg agreed. Yes. He would absolutely have had it. It was only twenty minutes since he had crept into the bathroom. A ferocious hunger suddenly made his stomach rumble.

‘If you’re looking for the young man,’ added the little old woman, trotting off to the cellar again, ‘he’s in my living room, trying to do something about his hands.’