Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

XLVII

WITH THE CANADIAN CAP PULLED DOWN OVER HIS EARS AND HIS COLLAR turned up, Adamsberg was watching from a distance the sacrilegious operations taking place under the freezing rain which had blackened the tree trunks in the cemetery at Richelieu. The police had put red and white plastic tapes round the judge’s grave, as if it were a danger zone.

Brézillon had turned up in person, surprisingly for a man who had long since risen above ordinary police work. He was standing erect near the grave, in a grey overcoat with a black velvet collar. Apart from the lamprey effect, which might have drawn him to Richelieu, Adamsberg suspected that he was secretly curious about the terrifying career of the Trident. Danglard had come, of course, but was standing some way from the grave, as if to disclaim all responsibility. Alongside Brézillon, Mordent was shifting from one foot to another under a battered umbrella. He was the one who had suggested irritating the ghost in order to join battle, but perhaps he was now regretting his rash advice. Retancourt was standing, apparently placidly, without an umbrella. She was the only person to have spotted Adamsberg lurking in the depths of the cemetery, and had made him a discreet sign of greeting. The group was silent and concentrated. Four local gendarmes had moved the gravestone. Which, Adamsberg noted, seemed not to have suffered the ravages of time but was still shining in the rain, as if the tomb, like the judge, had defied the last sixteen years.

A mound of soil was gradually rising, as the gendarmes dug into the soft damp earth. The police officers blew on their hands or shuffled their feet to keep warm. Adamsberg felt tense all over, and glanced at Retancourt, imagining himself clasping her back tightly, breathing along with her and watching through her eyes.

The shovels struck wood. Clémentine’s voice seemed to reach him in the cemetery. You have to lift up leaves, one after another, in dark places. You have to lift the lid of the coffin. And if the judge’s body was inside it, Adamsberg knew that he would be plunged into the earth alongside him.

The gendarmes had finished placing their ropes and were now hauling up the oak coffin, which came awkwardly to the surface, also looking in quite good condition. The men had started to work with screwdrivers when Brézillon appeared to ask them with a gesture to force the lid up instead. Adamsberg moved closer by degrees, from one tree to another, taking advantage of the fact that all eyes were on the scene in front of them. He followed the metal crowbars as they worked on the wooden lid. It yielded and slid on to the ground. He looked at the silent faces. Brézillon squatted down and put his hand into the coffin. He borrowed a knife from Retancourt and seemed to be cutting into a shroud, then stood up, letting fall from his gloved hand a trickle of shining white sand. Harder than cement, as sharp as glass, fluid and mobile, like Fulgence himself. Adamsberg tiptoed away.

An hour later, Retancourt knocked at the door of his hotel room. Adamsberg opened it happily, greeting his lieutenant with a pat on the shoulder. She sat on the bed, making it sag in the middle, like the bed in the Hotel Brébeuf in Gatineau. And as in the Brébeuf, she opened a thermos of coffee and put two cups on the bedside table.

‘Sand,’ he said with a smile.

‘A long bag of it, weighing 83 kilos.’

‘Put in the coffin after the death certificate had been signed, and sealed down before the undertaker arrived. What did they make of it, lieutenant?’

‘Danglard was genuinely surprised, and Mordent was greatly relieved. He hates this kind of thing. Brézillon was secretly relieved as well. Maybe rather pleased with himself – it’s hard to tell with him. What about you?’

‘Hmm. I’m free of the dead man, but now I’ve got the living one after me.’

Retancourt undid and redid her pony tail.

‘Are you in danger?’ she asked, handing him a cup.

‘Now I am, yes.’

‘I think you’re right.’

‘Sixteen years ago, I had got quite close and the judge was seriously threatened. I think that’s the reason he decided to fake his death.’ ‘He could have tried to kill you instead.’

‘No, I don’t think so. Too many people in the force knew about it, he could have come under suspicion. All he wanted was a clear road ahead, and he got it. After his so-called death, I gave up looking and Fulgence could get on with his crimes without anyone chasing him. He would have carried on if the Schiltigheim murder hadn’t alerted me by chance. I would have done better not to open the paper that Monday morning. It’s brought me to this, being a murderer on the run, hiding in safe houses.’

‘One good thing about the newspaper,’ said Retancourt, ‘was that you found Raphaël.’

‘Yes, but I haven’t cleared his name. Nor mine. All I’ve managed to do is alert the judge all over again. He knows I got back on his trail once he had left the Schloss. Vivaldi told me.’

Adamsberg sipped his coffee while Retancourt looked at him seriously.

‘Excellent,’ he said.

‘Vivaldi?’

‘The coffee. But Vivaldi too. A good pal. But now, Retancourt, the Trident is probably aware that I’ve found out about his fake death. Or he soon will be. I’m in his way again, but I’ve no chance of catching him, or of saving Raphaël, who’s still out there in the field of the stars, orbiting without being able to return to earth. And so am I. Fulgence is still at the helm, in charge, still and for ever.’

‘What if he came out after us to Quebec?’

‘A man who’s a hundred years old?’

‘I said “what if?”. A man a hundred years old is at least better than a dead man. Anyway, he didn’t get you, did he?’

‘You think so? I’m still in his trap up to my neck, and I’ve only got five weeks left.’

‘It could be enough. You’re not in jail, you’ve got your freedom. He’s in charge, yes, he’s at the helm, but there’s a storm brewing.’

‘If I were him, Retancourt, I’d want to get rid of this damned policeman, once and for all.’

‘I agree. I’d prefer to know you’re wearing a bullet-proof vest.’

‘He kills with a trident though.’

‘For you it might be different.’

Adamsberg thought for a moment.

‘You mean he might shoot me without any ceremony. As if I was a sort of extra who didn’t count?’

‘Yes, that’s exactly it, an extra. Do you think this adds up to a series? Not just a succession of psychopathic murders?’

‘I’ve thought a lot about it, and I still can’t make up my mind. Psychopathic, compulsive murderers usually operate at shorter intervals than the judge’s. His crimes are separated by years of silence. And with a psychopath, it tends to speed up, the murderous impulses get closer and closer together. The Trident’s different. His murders are regular, programmed, spaced out. It’s as if it were a lifetime’s occupation, without needing to hurry.’

‘Or perhaps he’s dragging it out, if his life is governed by the sequence. Schiltigheim might have been the last act. Or the murder in Hull.’

Adamsberg’s face fell. A shaft of despair pierced him, as it did every time he thought about the crime by the Ottawa River, and his hands with blood all over them, even under his nails. He put down his cup and sat on the bed, cross-legged.

‘What’s against me,’ he said, looking at his hands, ‘is this hundred-year-old man’s presumed journey all the way to Quebec. After Schiltigheim, he had plenty of time to work out a way of catching me. He didn’t have to rush it in a few days, did he? There was no need to dash across the Atlantic.’

‘On the contrary, it could be the ideal opportunity,’ Retancourt objected. ‘The judge’s technique doesn’t work so well in town. Killing a victim, placing them somewhere, then fetching or luring some poor befuddled scapegoat to the spot, none of that would really work in Paris. He always strikes in the countryside. Canada offered him an unusual chance.’

‘I suppose that’s possible,’ said Adamsberg still looking at his hands.

‘There’s something else as well. Getting you on to new territory.’

Adamsberg looked at his lieutenant.

‘Well, let’s say removing you from your home ground. All the landmarks, routines, reflexes and structures are changed. In Paris, it would be virtually impossible to get people to believe that a commissaire of police would walk out of his office one fine day and have an attack of homicidal mania in the street.’

‘New place, unknown territory, different acts,’ Adamsberg agreed, sadly.

‘In Paris, nobody could possibly believe you capable of murder. But over there, well…The judge took his chance and it worked. You saw what they said about you in that RCMP dossier: “Unblocking of repressed drives”. It would be the ideal set-up, if he could manage to get you alone in the forest.’

‘He must have been aware of my habits, since he’d known me for several years, from when I was a boy until I was eighteen. He knew that I like to go walking alone at night. Well, it’s all possible, I suppose, but there’s nothing to prove it. He would have had to know all about our trip. But I’ve stopped believing that there was a mole in the department.’

Retancourt examined her nails as if she was consulting a notebook.

‘It’s true, I can’t work it out either,’ she admitted, with a frown. ‘I’ve talked to everyone. I’ve made myself invisible and listened in all the rooms. But nobody there seems to believe you could possibly have killed Noëlla. The atmosphere is very tense and everyone’s talking in whispers, as if they’re in a state of suspended animation. Luckily Danglard is in charge and he’s keeping people calm. I take it you don’t suspect him any more?’

‘No, on the contrary.’

‘Well, I’ll leave you now, commissaire,’ said Retancourt, putting the top back on the thermos. ‘The car leaves at six. I’ll get that vest for you.’

‘I don’t need it.’

‘I’ll get it to you all the same.’