Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

XLIII

JEAN-PIERRE EMILE ROGER FEUILLET’S FINAL MISSION WAS TO GET HOLD of a new mobile phone. Then Adamsberg abandoned his assumed identity under Clémentine’s shower, with some relief. With a touch of regret as well. Not that he was particularly attached to this rather uptight character, but it seemed a little uncaring, he thought, to let a stream of foundation-tinted water carry away the Jean-Pierre who had given such impeccable service. So he mentally saluted his alter ego, before returning to his usual dark hair, slim figure, and brown complexion. Only the receding hairline remained, and he would have to cover that up until it had grown back.

Six weeks’ reprieve, a huge extension of his freedom allowed by Brézillon, but a very tight deadline for tracking down the devil or his own demons.

What he needed to do, according to Mordent, was dislodge the phantom from his usual haunts: sweep out the attics, close up his bolt-holes, and padlock the old trunks and creaking wardrobes he frequented. In other words, fill in the gaps in his records between the judge’s death and the Schiltigheim murder. It might not help to find out where he was now, but who knew whether the judge might from time to time return to his old haunts?

He raised the question while dining with Clémentine and Josette in front of the fire. He was not expecting Clémentine to come up with any technical suggestions, but to have her listen to him was relaxing, and perhaps by some kind of osmosis, encouraging.

‘Is it important?’ Josette asked in her quavery little voice. ‘The places he used to live. Old addresses?’

‘Sure and certain it is,’ Clémentine answered for Adamsberg. ‘Wherever that monster lived, he’s got to find out. Mushrooms now, they always grow back the same place, so that’s where you’ve got to look, stands to reason.’

‘But is it really important? For the commissaire?’ Josette insisted.

‘He’s not a commissaire any longer, m’dear,’ Clémentine pointed out. ‘That’s why he’s here, he’s just telling us about it.’

‘It’s a matter of life and death,’ Adamsberg said with a wry smile, to Josette. ‘It’s his skin or mine.’

‘Mon dieu, as serious as that?’

‘Yes, Josette. As serious as that. And I can’t just go out and about to search the country for him.’

Clémentine helped everybody to a rice and raisin pudding with a compulsory double helping for Adamsberg.

‘And you can’t send some of your men out to do it, if I have understood correctly, monsieur,’ asked Josette timidly.

‘Haven’t I told you, Josette, he’s got no men to order about now. He’s on his own,’ said Clémentine.

‘Well, I do have two unofficial agents. But I can’t put them on to it, because my movements are blocked.’

Josette seemed to consider for a moment, as she built a little house out of her pudding.

‘Now c’mon, Josette,’ said Clémentine. ‘If you’ve got an idea in that little head of yours, you just come out with it. Poor boy’s got no more than six weeks.’

‘This wouldn’t go any further?’ queried Josette.

‘Josette, he’s eating at our table. And you ask something like that!’

‘Well, the thing is,’ Josette said, still building her tottery pudding castle, ‘there are ways and means of going out and about, if you see what I mean. If Monsieur Adamsberg can’t go out himself, and if it’s a question of life and death…’

She paused.

‘You have to humour Josette,’ Clémentine explained. ‘There’s no getting round it, it was the way she was brought up. Rich people, it’s always the same with them. Look round corners. Worry about everything. Well you’re poor now, Josette, so spit it out.’

‘What I mean is,’ Josette went on, ‘you don’t always have to use your legs. That was what I meant. And you can go faster and farther this other way.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Adamsberg.

‘With a computer. If you want to find out an address for instance, you can go on to the internet.’

‘I do know about the internet, Josette,’ Adamsberg said politely. ‘But the addresses I’m looking for are not publicly available. They’re hidden, secret ones, underground if you like.’

‘Ye-es,’ said Josette hesitantly. ‘But that’s what I meant. The underground web. The secret internet.’

Adamsberg said nothing, not sure what to make of her words. Clémentine took advantage of the pause to pour him a glass of wine.

‘Stop, Clémentine. Since that ghastly night, I’m not touching a drop of anything.’

‘Come on, m’dear, you’re not going to tell me it disagrees with you. One glass with the meal is the rule here.’

Clémentine went on pouring. Josette tapped on the walls of her pudding castle to make the raisins into windows.

‘The secret internet, Josette?’ said Adamsberg gently. ‘Is that the way you get about?’

‘Oh, Josette goes wherever she likes in her secret underground,’ Clémentine declared. ‘She’s in Hamburg one day, New York the next.’

‘Are you a computer pirate?’ asked Adamsberg, in astonishment. ‘A hacker?’

‘She’s a hackeress,’ Clémentine declared proudly. ‘Josette takes from the rich and gives to the poor. Underground. Pour me a glass please, my little Adamsberg.’

‘Is that what you meant by “transfers and distribution”?’ Adamsberg asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, briefly meeting his eyes. ‘I equalise things.’

Josette was now putting a raisin on top of the castle as a chimney.

‘Where do you put the money you take?’

‘Into an association, and it pays my wage.’

‘Where do you take it from?’

‘All over the place. Wherever the fat cats are hiding it. I go into their numbered bank accounts and take a percentage.’

‘You never get caught?’

‘I’ve only had one scare in the ten years I’ve been doing it, and that was three months ago, because I was rushing things. I’ve had to cover my tracks and I’ve nearly finished.’

‘You should never rush things,’ Clémentine opined. ‘But for him it’s special, he’s only got six weeks. Mustn’t forget that.’

Adamsberg contemplated in amazement this internet pirate, the little hacker sitting alongside him: a tiny frail old woman whose fingers trembled. With the old-fashioned name of Josette.

‘Where did you learn to do it?’

‘You can teach yourself if you’ve got the touch. Clémentine told me you were in trouble. And for Clémentine’s sake, perhaps I can help you.’

‘Josette,’ interrupted Adamsberg. ‘Would you be able to get inside a solicitor’s files for instance? His client’s business?’

‘It’s a database like any other,’ the little voice replied. ‘The files would have to be computerised of course.’

‘Could you unlock their access codes and get through their passwords? Have you got some kind of way through?’

‘Yes,’ replied Josette modestly.

‘Like a ghost,’ Adamsberg concluded.

‘Just as well,’ said Clémentine. ‘Because what the commissaire’s got on his back is a real ghost. And he’s got his claws in your neck, hasn’t he? Josette, I’ve asked you before not to play with your food. It’s not so much that I mind, but I was brought up not to do it.’

Sitting on the old chintz sofa in his tweed suit, with bare feet, Adamsberg got out his new phone to call Danglard.

‘Excuse me,’ said Josette, ‘but are you telephoning somebody you can trust? Is the line safe?’

‘It’s a new line, Josette. And I’m using a new mobile.’

‘Well, it’s true that that makes it harder for them, but if you’re going to be more than eight to ten minutes, you’d do well to change the frequency. I’ll lend you mine, it’s already fixed up. Watch the time, and change frequency: you press this button. I’ll fix yours up for you tomorrow.’

Impressed, Adamsberg accepted Josette’s hi-tech mobile.

‘Danglard, I’ve got six weeks. I managed to get on the right side of Brézillon.’

Danglard whistled his astonishment.

‘I thought he had two wrong sides.’

‘No, there was a pathway through and I used my ice-axe. I’ve got a gun, a new badge and partial and unofficial lifting of the wanted status. I can’t tell whether there are phone taps, and I can’t move about freely. If I get caught, Brézillon will go down with me, he’s taking that risk. He’s allowing me a bit of line on this short-term basis. And anyway, he puts out his fag with his thumb without burning himself. Good guy. So I can’t compromise him, I can’t just breeze in to check the files.’

‘I take it you want me to do that then?’

‘And past records. We need to check the period between the judge’s death and Schiltigheim. That is find out whether there were any murders with some kind of trident during the last sixteen years. Think you could do that?’

‘Look for the disciple, all right.’

‘Send the results by email, capitaine. Wait a minute.’

Adamsberg pressed the frequency button.

‘What’s that buzzing?’ asked Danglard.

‘I just changed frequency.’

‘Sophisticated, huh,’ said Danglard. ‘Who’s supplying your phones, the Mafia?’

‘I’ve had to change addresses and keep different company now, capitaine. I’m merging into the background.’

Late in the night, under the rather light quilts, Adamsberg gazed into the embers of the fire through the darkness, evaluating the immense possibilities opened up by having an aged electronic wizard in the house. He tried to remember the name of the solicitor who had arranged the sale of the manor in the Pyrenees. He used to know it in the old days. Fulgence’s lawyer must have been sworn to total secrecy. Someone who had committed some youthful indiscretion which Fulgence had covered up for him. And who had then fallen through the trapdoor and become a vassal of the judge for life. What the devil was his name? He could see the brass plate shining on the façade of a solid stone-built house, when he had gone to ask the solicitor the date when the Manor had been bought. He remembered a youngish man at the time, about thirty. With any luck he was still practising.

The brass plaque mingled with the glowing ashes in the grate. He thought it was a sort of unpleasant name, a bit like ‘deceiving’ or ‘disservice’. He ran through the alphabet and came up with it. Desseveaux, Maître Jérôme Desseveaux, solicitor, conveyancer, house purchases. With his balls held tight in the iron grip of Judge Fulgence.