Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

XXII

WAKING LATE ON THE SUNDAY, ADAMSBERG DECIDED NOT TO GO and look at the boss of the Canada geese, nor to go visiting lakes. He went straight to the portage trail. The young woman wouldn’t be working on Sunday, and there was a good chance he would find her sitting on her rock. And indeed, there she was, smoking her cigarette, with an ambiguous smile on her lips, and quite ready to go back to his room with him.

Her enthusiasm offered Adamsberg some partial comfort for the pain he had felt the night before. It was difficult to get rid of her in the early evening, though. Sitting naked on the bed, Noëlla was determined to spend the night there. Out of the question, Adamsberg explained gently, persuading her to get dressed, my colleagues will be back any minute. He had to push her into her jacket, before propelling her through the door.

Once Noëlla had left, his thoughts no longer remained with her, and he called Mordent in Paris. The commandant was a night owl and telephoning at quarter past midnight, French time, would not mean waking him up. Mordent combined his taste for rigorous bureaucracy with an old-fashioned liking for the accordion and cabaret songs, and he had just returned from a musical evening which he seemed to have enjoyed.

‘To tell you the truth, Mordent,’ said Adamsberg, ‘I’m not calling to give you any news. The whole thing’s going very smoothly, the team’s fine, nothing to report.’

‘What are the Canadian colleagues like?’ Mordent asked.

‘Correct, as they say here; pleasant and competent.’

‘Do you get evenings off, or is it lights out at ten?’

‘We’re free, but you’re not missing anything. Hull-Gatineau isn’t exactly jumping with cabarets and circuses. A bit flat, as Ginette says.’

‘But the countryside’s beautiful?’

‘Yes, very. No problems in the squad back there?’

‘Nothing serious. Object of your call, commissaire?’

‘Can you get hold of a copy of the Nouvelles d’Alsace for Friday 10 October. Or any other local paper, it could be.’

‘Object of the request?’

‘The murder committed in Schiltigheim on the night of Saturday 4 October. Victim, Elisabeth Wind. Handling the investigation, Commandant Trabelmann. Chief suspect, one Bernard Vétilleux. What I’m after, Mordent, is an article or just a little news item mentioning the visit by a Parisian detective, and any mention of a serial killer. Something along those lines. Friday 10 October, not any other day.’

‘The Parisian detective was you, was it?’

‘Correct.’

‘Confidential as far as the office is concerned, or is it OK to mention it in the Chat Room?’

‘Top secret, Mordent. This business is causing me nothing but grief.’

‘Urgent?’

‘Yes, top priority. Let me know when you turn something up.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘That’s important too. Just call me either way.’

‘Hold on a moment,’ said Mordent. ‘Can you send me an email every day about your activities with the RCMP? Brézillon’s expecting a precise report at the end of the mission and I dare say you’d like me to write it up.’

‘What would I do without you, Mordent?’

The report. He had completely neglected to do that. Adamsberg forced himself to write a record of the sampling process of the previous days, while he could still remember the efforts of Jules and Linda Saint-Croix. He was only just in time, since his recent preoccupation with Fulgence, with the new father and then with Noëlla had driven the collection cards, with their samples of sweat and urine, deeper into the past. He would not be sorry tomorrow to be rid of his tough and boisterous companion, and start working with Sanscartier the Good.

Late in the evening, he heard the brakes of a car in the parking lot. Looking down from his balcony, he saw the Montreal group, Danglard in front, bending their heads against a snow shower. He would like to give Danglard a piece of his mind, as the superintendent would have said.