This Night’s Foul Work

XXII

COMING IN THROUGH THE RAIN, ADAMSBERG PUSHED OPEN THE DOOR of the café in Haroncourt. Anglebert had risen to greet him, standing stiffly, a posture immediately adopted by the rest of the tribe.

‘Sit down, man from the Béarn,’ said the old man, shaking his hand. ‘We kept some food warm for you.’

‘Two of you?’ asked Robert.

Adamsberg introduced Veyrenc as a colleague, an event which occasioned another round of handshakes, with a little more suspicion, and the arrival of an extra chair. All of them cast quick glances at the striking hair of the newcomer. But there was no risk here of questions about this phenomenon, however unusual. That did not prevent the men from pondering the strange apparition, and working out ways to find out more about the disciple whom the commissaire had brought along. Anglebert was examining the similarities in appearance of the two policemen, and drawing his own conclusions.

‘A cousin a few times removed,’ he said, filling up the glasses.

Adamsberg was beginning to understand the way the Norman mind worked: in a sly and crafty fashion, contriving to put a question without ever asking directly. The intonation would drop at the end of the sentence, as if for a false statement.

‘Removed?’ asked Adamsberg, since, being from the Pyrenees, he was entitled to ask questions.

‘Further off than a first cousin,’ explained Hilaire. ‘Anglebert’s my cousin four times removed. As for this one,’ he said, pointing to Veyrenc, ‘you’re about six or seven times removed.’

‘Could be,’ Adamsberg conceded.

‘Anyway, he’s from your part of the country.’

‘Not far off, true.’

‘Police is full of guys from the south-west, then,’ Alphonse asked, without seeming to ask.

‘Before him, I was the only one.’

‘Veyrenc de Bilhc’, the New Recruit said, presenting himself.

‘Veyrenc will do,’ said Robert, simplifying.

There were several nods to signify that this proposal was accepted. It still didn’t enlighten anyone about Veyrenc’s hair. That enigma would clearly take years to solve and they would have to be patient. A second plate was brought for the New Recruit, and Anglebert waited until both men had finished eating before making a sign to Robert to get down to business. Robert solemnly set out photographs of the stag on the table.

‘It’s not in the same position,’ said Adamsberg, to try and stimulate in himself an interest he did not feel.

He was not even capable of saying why he had come at all, or how Veyrenc had understood that he wanted to come.

‘Two shots hit him full on, in the chest, he collapsed on his side and the heart’s down on the right.’

‘So the killer doesn’t have a standard approach.’

‘Just wants to kill the animal, full stop.’

‘Or get at its heart,’ put in Oswald.

‘What are you going to do about it, man from the Béarn?’

‘Go and take a look.’

‘What, now?’

‘If one of you can take me there. I’ve brought some torches.’

The abruptness of this proposal took them aback.

‘Well, I suppose so,’ said the old man.

‘Oswald could go with you. He could go and see his sister.’

‘Could do,’ said Oswald.

‘You’ll have to give them a bed for the night. Or bring them back here. No hotel up in Opportune.’

‘We have to get back to Paris tonight,’ said Veyrenc.

‘Unless we stay here,’ said Adamsberg.

An hour later they were examining the scene of the murder. Once he had viewed the animal, lying in the path, Adamsberg understood at last the genuine pain felt by the men of the village. Oswald and Robert both lowered their heads in distress. It was an animal, a stag, yes, but it was also a scene of pure savagery, a massacre of beauty.

‘A cracking male,’ said Robert with an effort. ‘Still had plenty of life in him.’

‘He had his herd,’ Oswald explained. ‘Five hinds. Six fights last year. I tell you, a stag like that, he’d fight like a hero, he’d have kept his hinds another four or five years before another male could beat him. Nobody from round here would have shot this one. Used to call him the Red Giant. His fawns are sturdy little things, you could see that right off.’

‘See, he had these three red patches on the right, and two on the left. That’s why they called him the Red Giant.’

A brother, or at least a cousin a few times removed, thought Veyrenc, folding his arms. Robert knelt down by the huge carcass and stroked its hide. In this wood, in the middle of the night, under the pouring rain, with these unshaven men standing round him, Adamsberg had to make an effort to remember that somewhere else, at the same time, cars were moving through streets and television sets were working. Mathias’s prehistoric times seemed to be appearing in front of him, intact. He was no longer quite sure whether the Red Giant was an ordinary stag, or perhaps a man, or even some divine being who had been slaughtered, robbed and despoiled. The kind of stag that prehistoric men painted on the walls of a cave, in order to honour its memory.

‘We’ll bury him tomorrow,’ said Robert, rising heavily to his feet. ‘We were waiting for you, see. We wanted you to see it with your own eyes. Oswald, pass me the axe.’

Oswald felt in his big leather pouch and brought the axe out without a word. Robert felt the edge with his fingers, knelt again alongside the stag’s head, then hesitated. He turned to Adamsberg.

‘You do the honours, man from the Béarn,’ he said. ‘Cut off the antlers.’

‘Robert…’ said Oswald, uncertainly.

‘No, I’ve thought about it, Oswald, he deserves them. He was tired, he was back in Paris, but he came all this way for the Red Giant. He gets the honour, he gets the antlers.’

‘But Robert,’ Oswald insisted. ‘He’s not from round here.’

‘Well, he is now,’ said Robert, putting the axe in Adamsberg’s hands.

Adamsberg found himself holding a sharp weapon, and being pulled towards the stag’s head.

‘You cut them for me,’ he said to Robert. ‘I don’t want to make a mess of it.’

‘Can’t do that. You want ‘em, you have to cut ‘em off yourself.’

Guided by Robert, who held the beast’s head down on the ground, Adamsberg gripped the axe and struck six blows close to the skull, in the places indicated by the Norman’s finger. Robert took back the axe, lifted the antlers and put them in the commissaire‘s arms. About four kilos each, Adamsberg estimated, feeling their weight.

‘Don’t lose them now,’ said Robert. ‘They bring long life.’

‘Well,’ put in Oswald, ‘that’s not for sure, but they won’t hurt.’

‘And never separate them,’ Robert went on. ‘Hear what I’m saying? Never put one somewhere without the other.’

Adamsberg nodded in the dark, gripping the ridged antlers in his hands. It was certainly not the moment to drop them. Veyrenc shot him an ironic glance.

‘Do not stumble, my lord, ‘neath the trophies of life,’ he murmured.

‘I didn’t ask for this, Veyrenc.’

‘They were offered to you, you yourself gripped the knife,

Do not seek to escape the strange chance of this night

Which makes you the bearer of hope and new light.’

‘That’ll do, Veyrenc. Carry them yourself, or shut up.’

‘No, my lord, neither one nor the other.’