This Night’s Foul Work

LX

CROUCHING IN A DARK CORNER OF THE LINEN STORE, THE SHADE WAS waiting for the evening routines to be over. The night shift would soon be there, and the nurses were going round the rooms, emptying bedpans, putting out lights, and getting ready to return to their lodgings. Getting into Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Hospital had been even easier than expected. No distrust, no questions, not even from the lieutenant on duty on the first floor, who tended to drop off to sleep every now and then but who had saluted pleasantly and reported that all was well. The hypersomniac idiot, that was a piece of luck. He had gratefully accepted a cup of machine coffee, containing two sleeping pills, which meant he’d be out for the count till tomorrow morning. When people don’t suspect you, it’s all quite simple. Soon now, the incredible hulk would be unable to say anything: it was about time she was shut up for good. Retancourt’s unpredictable survival capacity had been an unexpected setback. And those damned lines from Corneille that she had stammered out. Luckily none of the imbeciles in the squad had understood, not even their resident intellectual, Danglard, never mind an airhead like Adamsberg. Retancourt, though, was dangerous, as smart as she was strong. Still, tonight there would be a double dose of Novaxon, and in her present condition she’d croak at the first intake of breath.

The Shade smiled, thinking of Adamsberg, who right now would be setting up his gimcrack little trap in the inn at Haroncourt. A pathetic little trap, which would close on him, making him look ridiculous and humiliated. In the distress that would be caused by the incredible hulk’s death, the Shade would have no trouble getting to the goddamn third virgin, who had escaped by a hair’s breadth last time. What a pathetic halfwit – and they were protecting her as if she were a precious vase. That had been the Shade’s only mistake. Who would have thought that anyone would guess there was a bone like a cross in the heart of a stag? Or that such an ignorant and vague mind as Adamsberg’s would find the link between the stags and the virgins, between Pascaline’s cat and the De reliquis. But by some monumental bad luck, that’s what he had done, and he’d identified the third virgin quicker than might have been expected. It was also bad luck that Danglard was well-read enough to want to see the book at the priest’s house and had recognised the 1663 edition. Typical that fate should throw some cops like this in the way.

But, after all, these obstacles weren’t serious: Francine’s death was only a matter of weeks away and there was still plenty of time. By the autumn the mixture would be ready and both time and the enemy would be powerless.

The ancillary staff were leaving the kitchens on the first floor, the nurses were going round saying their usual goodnights to each patient (close your eyes now, try to get a good night’s rest). The night lights in the corridor had been lit. Best to wait a good hour, so that the insomniacs had time to drop off. But by eleven o’clock the hulk would be asleep for good.