Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

XXXVIII

BASILE RAISED NO OBJECTION TO TAKING IN AN EXHAUSTED INDIVIDUAL with no luggage, since the man brought a recommendation from Violette, which was as good as an official pass.

‘Will this be OK?’ he asked, showing him into a small room.

‘Yes, fine, Thanks a million, Basile.’

‘Have something to eat before you go for a nap. Violette’s some woman, eh?’

‘An earth goddess, I’d say.’

‘And she fooled all the cops in Gatineau?’ Basile asked, highly amused.

So he knew roughly what had happened. Basile was small and pink-cheeked, his eyes magnified by red-framed spectacles.

‘Can you tell me how she did it?’

Adamsberg summed it up quickly.

‘Oh no, that’s too much!’ said Basile, fetching some sandwiches. ‘Sit down and give me the whole story, from the beginning.’

So Adamsberg told him the Retancourt epic, starting with her invisibility at HQ and ending with the imitation of a pylon. What for Adamsberg was an appalling situation amused Basile a great deal.

‘What beats me,’ Adamsberg ended, ‘is how she didn’t lose her balance. I weigh 72 kilos, you know.’

‘Well what you gotta understand is that Violette knows the score. She can channel her energy in any direction.’

‘I know that. She’s on my staff.’

Or was, he thought as he went to his room. Since even if they managed to cross the Atlantic, he wouldn’t be able to go and sit in his office any more, with his feet on his desk. He was a wanted man, a criminal on the run. Later, he thought. Later, he would slice up all the elements into slivers and put them through the test.

Retancourt arrived at about nine that evening. Basile, entering into the spirit of things, had already made up her room, got some food in, and obeyed her requests. He had bought enough overnight equipment, clothes and razors for Adamsberg to last him a week.

‘Piece of cake,’ Retancourt told Adamsberg, munching her way through Basile’s pancakes and maple syrup.

It reminded Adamsberg that he had still not managed to get any maple syrup for Clémentine. A sort of mission impossible.

‘The Mounties came back at about three. I was on my bed, reading a book, but terribly worried, and convinced you’d met with an accident. A lieutenant, distraught about her superior officer. Poor Ginette, I almost made her cry. Sanscartier was with them.’

‘How did he seem?’ asked Adamsberg eagerly.

‘He looked devastated. I got the impression he liked you.’

‘It’s mutual,’ said Adamsberg, imagining how gut-wrenching it would be for the sergeant to find that his new friend had killed a girl with a trident.

‘Devastated, but not convinced,’ Retancourt went on.

‘In the RCMP, some of them think he’s dumb. Portelance says he’s a wool-gatherer.’

‘Ah well, he’s wrong there.’

‘And Sanscartier didn’t agree with their line?’

‘Looked like he didn’t. He was doing the minimum, as if he was trying not to get his hands dirty. Not taking part in the hunt. He smelled of almond soap.’

Adamsberg refused any more pancakes. The thought that Sanscartier the Good was using the almond soap, and had not yet given up on him, cheered him up.

‘From what I heard in the corridor, Laliberté was fit to be tied. A couple of hours later, they completely abandoned the search and went away. I left without any problem. Raphaël’s car was back in the hotel parking lot. He must have slipped the net too. Good looker, your brother.’

‘Yes.’

‘We can talk in front of Basile,’ said Retancourt, helping herself to wine. ‘For the new ID papers, you don’t want to go to Danglard. OK. But do you have a tame forger anywhere in Paris?’

‘I know a few from the old days, but no one I could trust.’

‘I only know one, but he’s safe as houses. No problems there. Only if we use him, you’ll have to promise me that he won’t get into any trouble. You’ll never ask me any questions and you won’t give my name, even if Brézillon calls you in for a grilling.’

‘Sure, of course.’

‘And he’s given it up now. He used to be in the business but he’ll only do it now if I ask him.’

‘Your brother?’ asked Adamsberg. ‘The one under the dressing gown?’

Retancourt put down her glass. ‘How did you know?’

‘You seem concerned. That was a lot of precautions you mentioned just now.’

‘You’re thinking like a flic again, commissaire.’

‘Maybe. How long would it take him?’

‘Couple of days. Tomorrow, we’ll have to change our appearance and get some new ID photos. We’ll scan them to him by email. The earliest he could get passports for us would be Thursday. So if they send them express, we could have them by next Tuesday and leave at once. Basile will have to get our tickets. On separate flights, Basile.’

‘Yeah, good thinking,’ Basile said. ‘By then they’ll be looking for a couple. Makes sense to split up.’

‘We’ll reimburse you from Paris. You’re going to have to look after us till then, like the brigand’s mother in the story.’

‘Yeah, right, no way you can go out for now,’ said Basile, ‘and you can’t go paying with your credit cards. The commissaire’s photo is sure to be in Le Devoir by tomorrow – and yours too, is my guess, Violette. You left the hotel without saying goodbye, so you’re not much better off than he is.’

‘Seven days confined to barracks then,’ Adamsberg said.

‘It’s no big deal,’ said Basile. ‘You’ve got all you need here. We can read the papers. They’ll all be talking about us, it’ll be a laugh.’

Basile didn’t seem to take anything seriously, even sheltering a potential murderer in his flat. Violette’s word appeared to be good enough for him.

‘I like to walk,’ said Adamsberg with a wry smile.

‘There’s a long corridor in the flat. You’ll just have to use it for exercise. Violette, I think we’d better turn you into a desperate housewife, OK? I’ll get you a smart suit and a necklace and we’ll dye your hair darker.’

‘OK. For the commissaire, I thought we should shave his head about three quarters, make him look bald.’

‘Good idea,’ said Basile. ‘It would really change the way he looks. Tweed suit, beige check I think, receding hairline, and a bit of a pot-belly.’

‘We’ll whiten the rest of his hair,’ said Retancourt. ‘Get some foundation too, I think we ought to make his complexion paler. And some lemon juice. It needs to be professional quality make-up.’

‘I gotta colleague does the cinema column, he’ll know where to get studio make-up. I’ll fetch some stuff tomorrow and develop the photos in our lab.’

‘Basile is a photographer,’ Retancourt explained. ‘For Le Devoir.’

‘A journalist?’

‘Yup,’ said Basile with a friendly pat on his shoulder. ‘And here’s a godalmighty scoop sitting at my table. You’re in a hornets’ nest now. Scarey, eh?’

‘It’s a risk,’ said Adamsberg, smiling faintly.

Basile burst out laughing.

‘It’s OK, commissaire, I know when to keep my mouth shut. And I’m less dangerous than you.’