Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

XXVI

VOISENET HAD GONE RUSHING OFF TO PINK LAKE WITH FROISSY AND Retancourt. Another two colleagues had made tracks to the bars of Montreal, dragging the scrupulous Justin with them, and Danglard was catching up on his sleep. Adamsberg meanwhile spent the weekend creeping around surreptitiously. Nature had always been his friend – with the exception of the sinister Pink Lake – and it was better to trust to it than to stay in his room, where Noëlla might turn up at any minute. He slipped out of doors at daybreak, before anyone else was stirring, and drove to Meech Lake.

There he spent long hours, walking across wooden bridges or along the lakeside, plunging his arms up to the elbows in the snow. He thought it wise not to return to Hull overnight, so he slept at an inn in Maniwaki, praying that the dreaded prophetic Shawi would not appear in his bedroom bringing his fervent disciple with him. On the Sunday, he tired himself out hiking all day through the woods, picking up birch bark and redder-than-red maple leaves, and wondering where he would find refuge that night.

Poetry perhaps. Maybe he should go and eat in the poets’ pub? The Quatrain didn’t seem to attract the young, and Noëlla would probably not think of looking for him there. He left the car some distance from the residence again, and went downtown via the big boulevard, not by the wretched trail.

Feeling worn out, and on edge, as well as short of ideas, he swallowed a plateful of French fries, while half listening to the poems being read. Suddenly, Danglard appeared at his side.

‘Good weekend?’ the capitaine asked, trying to be conciliatory.

‘What about you, Danglard? Did you get some sleep?’ said Adamsberg snappily. ‘Treachery can keep you awake sometimes, if your conscience is bothering you.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Treachery. I’m not speaking Algonquin, as Laliberté might say. Months and months of secrecy and silence, not to mention driving six hundred kilometres or more in the last few days, and all because the capitaine likes Vivaldi.’

‘Ah!’ murmured Danglard, laying his hands on the table.

‘As you say, ah! Applauding the concert, fetching and carrying, driving the lady home, opening the door. A proper little knight in shining armour.’

‘Well, after all…’

‘You mean before all, Danglard. You’ve taken his side. The Other One. The one with two labradors and new shoelaces. Against me, Danglard, against me.’

‘You’ve lost me, I’m sorry,’ said Danglard, getting to his feet.

‘Just a minute,’ said Adamsberg, pulling him back by the sleeve. ‘I’m talking about the choice you’ve made. The child, the handshake for the new father, and do come in, welcome to the happy home. That’s it, isn’t it, capitaine.’

Danglard rubbed his fingers across his mouth. Then he leaned towards Adamsberg.

‘In my book, commissaire, as our colleagues here might say, you’re a stupid bastard.’

Adamsberg sat at the table, in shock, letting Danglard walk away. The unexpected insult was echoing round and round his head. Customers trying to listen to the poetry made it clear to him that he and his friend had already disturbed them enough. He left the cafe, looking for the seediest bar he could find downtown, a men-only sort of bar, where crazy Noëlla would not find him. It was a vain hope, since in the clean and tidy streets there were no rundown old bars, whereas in Paris they grew like weeds in the cracks of the pavements. He ended up in a little place called L’Ecluse. Danglard’s words must have hit a nerve, since he could feel a serious headache coming on, something that happened only about once every ten years.

‘Commissaire, in my book you’re a stupid bastard.’

Nor had he forgotten the words of Trabelmann, Brézillon, Favre, or the imagined new father. Not to mention the scary conversation with Noëlla. Insults, betrayals and threats.

And since the headache was getting worse, the only thing for it was to treat an exception with an exceptional cure, and get well and truly wasted. Adamsberg did not drink much, as a rule, and could hardly remember the last time he had been seriously drunk: it was as a young man, at some village festival, with everything that went with it. But on the whole, from what he had heard, people thought it worked. Drown your sorrows, they said. OK, that’s exactly what he needed.

He installed himself at the bar between two Québécois who were already well-launched on beer, and for starters drank three whiskies in a row. The walls didn’t seem to be moving around, he felt fine, and the troubled contents of his head were now being transferred to his stomach. Leaning on the counter, he ordered a bottle of wine, having gathered from reliable informants that mixing drinks usually produced fast results. After drinking four glasses, he ordered a cognac to top it all off. Rigour, rigour and yet more rigour, no other way to succeed. Good ol’ Laliberté. What a chum, eh.

The barman was beginning to look at him anxiously. Well, you can go fuck yourself, buddy, I’m heading for sweet oblivion. Vivaldi would understand. Oh yeah.

Prudently, Adamsberg had already laid out enough dollars on the counter, in case he fell off his stool. The cognac seemed to put an interesting final touch to his radical loss of bearings, vague feelings of aggression mingled with bursts of laughter, and a sense of immense strength. Come on, I’ll fight anyone, a bear, a chum, a dead man, or a fish, anything you like. ‘Any nearer and I’ll spear ye,’ his grandmother had said, brandishing a garden fork against a German soldier, who was advancing on her with rape in mind. That was a laugh, it rhymed. It still made him laugh, that. Good ol’ grand’mère! From very far away, he heard the barman saying something.

‘Don’t take this the wrong way, pal, but you’d better call it quits for tonight, and go take the air. You’re not making sense.’

‘I’m talking to you about my grandma.’

‘Grandma, whatever, I don’t care, all I know is you’ve had way too much, and you’re gonna fall flat on your face.’

‘I’m not goin’ anywhere, I’m sitting at this nice bar, on this nice stool.’

‘Listen to you, Frenchie. You can’t even see straight, you’re so smashed. Did your girl let you down, or what? No reason to fall on your ass. C’mon, out with you, I’m not serving you any more.’

‘Yes, you are,’ said Adamsberg, holding out his glass.

‘Shut up, Frenchie. Get out or I’m calling the pigs.’

Adamsberg spluttered. The pigs, eh? What a laugh.

‘Any nearer an’ I’ll spear ye! An’ that goes for the pigs as well.’

‘Christ Almighty,’ said the barman, furiously, ‘don’t you try any funny business with me, you’re really pissing me off. I told you, eff off out of it!’

The man was built like a lumberjack from a story book, and when he came round the bar, he lifted Adamsberg up under the armpits, carried him to the door and dumped him upright on the sidewalk.

‘And don’t try driving,’ he said, handing him his jacket.

The barman was even kind enough to wedge his cap firmly on his head.

‘Gonna be cold tonight, 12 below they say,’ he explained.

‘What time is it? Can’t see my watches.’

‘Quarter after ten, way past your bedtime. Just walk home. No cars. And don’t worry, man, plenty more girls out there.’

The door of the bar slammed shut in Adamsberg’s face, and he had difficulty picking up his jacket which had fallen on the ground, and then putting it on the right way round. More girls. No thanks, just what he didn’t want.

‘Got one girl too many!’ he shouted out in the deserted street for the barman’s benefit.

His uncertain steps took him automatically towards the portage trail. He had the vague feeling Noëlla might be there waiting for him, in the shadows like a wolf. He found his flashlight and switched it on, sweeping it vaguely in front of him.

‘Don’t want any more, got enough!’ he shouted.

Guy who can beat up a bear, or the cops, he can handle one girl, can’t he?

Adamsberg embarked determinedly along the trail. Despite his staggering progress, the memory of the path was implanted in his feet, which carried him along valiantly, even if from time to time he bumped into a tree trunk. He was about half-way home already, he reckoned. You can handle it, my boy, you’ve sure got what it takes.

Not enough of it, however, to miss a low branch he should have avoided. It hit him full in the forehead, and he felt himself drop to the ground, knees first, then face, without his hands being able to break his fall.