Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

XXXII

RETANCOURT SWALLOWED HER FIRST CUP OF COFFEE AND A ROLL, without saying a word. Adamsberg made no attempt to engage her in conversation, but his silence did not seem to bother her.

‘I’d like to understand something,’ said Retancourt, after finishing her first roll. ‘This murderer with the trident, we’ve never heard anything about him back in Paris. It’s a long-standing business, I suppose. And going by your expression when you saw the body, there’s some personal connection, am I right?’

‘Retancourt, you’ve been sent out here because Brézillon won’t let any of his staff go abroad alone. But you haven’t been asked to explore my private affairs. I don’t have to take you into my confidence.’

‘Forgive me,’ objected the lieutenant, ‘but I’m here to protect you, that’s what you told me. And if I don’t know anything, I’m not going to be able to provide any defence.’

‘But I don’t need any. Today, I’ll give Laliberté the information I have, and that’s it.’

‘What information?’

‘You’ll hear it the same time he does. He may accept it or not, that’s up to him. And tomorrow we’re out of here.’

‘Oh really? You think so?’

‘Why not, Retancourt?’

‘Commissaire, you’re a sensitive man. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed anything.’

Adamsberg looked at her questioningly.

‘Laliberté isn’t the same man any more,’ she continued. ‘Nor are Portelance and Philippe-Auguste. The superintendent was taken aback when you took those measurements. He was expecting something else.’

‘Yes, I noticed that.’

‘He was expecting you to crack. When you saw the wounds, and again when you saw the face of the victim, which he took good care to uncover in two stages. But it didn’t happen, and that shook him. It shook him, but it didn’t deflect him. The inspectors are in on it too. I watched them the whole time.’

‘You didn’t seem to be taking any notice, just sitting in a corner, looking bored.’

‘That was an act.’ said Retancourt, pouring out two more cups of coffee. ‘Men pay no attention to a fat, plain woman.’

‘That’s not at all what I meant, lieutenant.’

‘But it’s exactly what I mean, sir,’ she said waving away the objection. ‘They don’t bother looking at her, she’s just part of the furniture, and they actually forget she’s there. I depend on that. Add a bored expression and hunched shoulders, and you’re sure to be able to see everything without being seen. Not everyone can get away with it, and it’s served me well in the past.’

‘You channelled your energy?’ said Adamsberg with a smile.

‘Into being invisible,’ said Retancourt, quite seriously. ‘I could watch Mitch and Philippe-Auguste quite easily. During the first two acts, when they showed you the wounds, then the face, they were sending each other signals. Same thing when we got to Act Three at headquarters.’

‘When was that?’

‘When Laliberté told you the date of the crime. Your failure to react disappointed them again. I wasn’t fooled. You’re very good at looking phlegmatic, commissaire, and it seemed authentic, while at the same time it had a bit of play-acting about it. But I need to know more, if I’m going to work for you.’

‘You’re accompanying me, Retancourt. Your mission is simply that.’

‘I belong to the squad and I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. I think I know what they’re after, but I need your version. You ought to trust me, sir.’

‘But why, lieutenant? You don’t really like me, do you?’

This impromptu accusation did not upset Retancourt.

‘Not much,’ she confirmed. ‘But that really doesn’t matter. You’re my boss and I’m doing my job. Laliberté is trying to trap you; he’s sure you knew that girl.’

‘Not true.’

‘You have to trust me,’ Retancourt repeated coolly. ‘You’re relying entirely on yourself. That’s your usual way, but today it would be a bad mistake. Unless, that is, you have a cast-iron alibi for the night of the 26th after ten-thirty.’

‘That bad?’

‘I really think so.’

‘They suspect me of killing the girl? You’re imagining things, Retancourt.’

‘Just tell me, yes or no, did you know her?’

Adamsberg remained silent.

‘Come on, tell me, commissaire. The bullfighter who doesn’t know his beast is certain to get gored.’

Adamsberg looked at his lieutenant’s round, intelligent and determined face.

‘OK, lieutenant, yes, I did know her.’

‘Shhhit!’

‘She was waiting for me on the portage trail, from the very first day we were there. I won’t tell you why I ended up taking her back to my apartment on the first Sunday, it has nothing to do with the story. But that’s what I did. More’s the pity, because she turned out to be completely nuts. A few days later, she told me she was pregnant, and started to talk about blackmail.’

‘Uh-oh. Not nice,’ said Retancourt helping herself to another roll.

‘She was determined to catch the same flight as us, follow me to Paris and move in, despite anything I could say. She claimed that some old Indian at Sainte-Agathe had told her I was predestined to be her soulmate. She’d sunk her teeth into me.’

‘This kind of thing hasn’t ever happened to me, but I can imagine it’s no fun. So what did you do?’

‘I argued, I said it wasn’t on, I told her it was over. In the end I just ran away. I jumped out of the window, and ran away into the woods like a squirrel.’

Retancourt nodded, her mouth full.

‘And I never saw her again,’ Adamsberg insisted. ‘I took great pains to avoid her until we’d left the country.’

‘Was that why you were looking jumpy at the airport?’

‘She’d said she’d be there. It’s only now that I know why she didn’t make it.’

‘She’d been dead for two days.’

‘If Laliberté had known about this shortlived fling, he’d have let me have it from the start, surely. So Noëlla didn’t tell anyone, or at least didn’t tell anyone my name. The superintendent can’t be sure. He’s on a fishing expedition.’

‘He must have something else that’s allowing him to grill you: Act Three, I would guess, the night of the 26th.’

Adamsberg stared at Retancourt. The night of the 26th? He hadn’t thought about it, because he was so relieved that the murder hadn’t been committed on the Friday night, after their quarrel.

‘You know what happened that night?’

‘I don’t know anything, except that you came in with a bad bruise in the morning. But since Laliberté was holding this card until last, I presume it must mean something important.’

It was almost time for the RCMP inspectors to pick them up. Adamsberg filled his lieutenant in rapidly about his evening’s drinking and the two and a half hours’ memory loss.

‘Oh shit again,’ said Retancourt. ‘That doesn’t help, but what I don’t know is what he’s got to link a girl he’d never heard of before and a man who’d had too much to drink walking home on the portage trail. He’s got something else up his sleeve that he’s not letting on about. Laliberté operates like a stalker. He takes a certain pleasure in the chase. He may drag it out.’

‘Careful, Retancourt, he doesn’t know anything about my lost two hours. Danglard is the only person besides you who knows.’

‘But he’s sure to have looked into it since. You left L’Ecluse at ten-fifteen and you arrived back at the residence at ten to two. That’s a long time for a man with nothing on his mind.’

‘Don’t worry. Don’t forget, I know who the real murderer is.’

‘Right,’ said Retancourt. ‘Let’s hope that settles it.’

‘There’s just one snag. It’s a detail compared to what this murderer can do, but I’m afraid it won’t go down well.’

‘You’re not sure about it?’

‘Yes, I’m sure. But the man I’m thinking of has been dead for sixteen years.’