An Uncertain Place (15 page)

‘Can’t keep the dog, sir,’ said a nurse, giving him a plastic bag holding Émile’s clothes.

‘No, I know,’ said Adamsberg, disentangling Cupid from Émile’s legs. ‘Émile, listen to me. No visitors, no one at all. I’ll tell them in reception. Where’s the surgeon?’

‘In the operating block,’ said the nurse.

‘Tell him to keep the bullet from his leg.’

‘Wait,’ said Émile, as the trolley started to move. ‘If … if I snuff it. Vaudel did ask me something, an’ all. If he died.’

‘Ah, you see.’

‘Some woman. Old now, he said. But still. Wrote it in code. Didn’t trust me. Post it if he died. Made me swear.’

‘Where is it, Émile, and the address?’

‘Overalls.’

T
HE TINS OF PÂTÉ, THE BISCUITS, THE CARTON OF UNDRINKABLE
wine and the mini-brandies – these were all Adamsberg could think about as he made his way back to the car park. Any other time, in any other place, he would have found the thought deeply off-putting, but just now they constituted a clear and beautiful promise of satisfaction on which all his energy was concentrated. Sitting in the back of the car, he spread Froissy’s treasures on the seat. The pâté could be opened with ring-pulls, there was a straw attached to the wine box – she really was a practical genius,
lieutenant
Froissy, the squad’s nonpareil sound engineer. He spread some pâté on a biscuit and gobbled it up: a peculiar sweet and sour mixture. Then one for the dog and another for himself, until he had emptied both tins. He had no problem with the dog. It was clear they had been through a campaign together, and their friendship needed no commentary or past. So Adamsberg forgave Cupid for stinking like a farmyard and smelling out the car. He poured a little water for the dog in the ashtray and opened the wine. This plonk, no other word for it, entered his organism etching in acid all the contours of his digestive system. He drank it all, welcoming the burn, since mild suffering makes life taste sweeter. And since he was happy, happy to have found Émile before he bled to death in the grass with his dog whimpering at his side. Happy, almost euphoric, and he took some time to admire the mini-brandies before pocketing them.

Relaxing in the seat, as comfortable as in a hotel lounge, he called Mordent. Danglard would still be preoccupied with his uncle and he didn’t want to wake Retancourt who had gone without sleep for two days. Mordent would no doubt welcome some action to distract him from his distress, which probably explained his otherwise absurd precipitation earlier in the day. Adamsberg consulted his two watches, only one of which was luminous. About 1.15 in the morning. It had been an hour and half since he had found Émile, but that made it about two and a half hours since he had been fired on.

‘Take your time to wake up, Mordent, I can wait.’

‘Go ahead,
commissaire
, I wasn’t asleep.’

Adamsberg put his hand on Cupid’s head to stop his yelping and listened to the slight background noise coming across on the phone. A sound of the outside world, not the interior of an apartment. Traffic, a truck rumbling past. Mordent wasn’t at home. He was on a vigil in a deserted avenue at Fresnes, looking up at the prison walls.

‘I’ve got Émile Feuillant,
commandant
. He’s taken two bullets and now he’s in hospital. The attack happened shortly before eleven, twenty kilometres outside Châteaudun, out in the country. Can you get a fix on Pierre Vaudel for me, see whether he’s back home yet?’

‘He should be,
commissaire
. He was due back in Avignon at about seven this evening.’

‘But we’re not sure about that or I wouldn’t be asking you to check. Can you do that now, before he has time to do anything else? Not by phone, he could have had his calls forwarded. Get the Avignon cops to go round there.’

‘With some excuse?’

‘He’s supposed to be kept under review, with a ban on leaving the country.’

‘He wouldn’t stand to gain by Émile’s death. By the terms of the will, Émile’s share would go to his mother if he died.’

‘Mordent, I’m just asking you to check and send me the information. Give me a call when you have.’

Adamsberg picked up the bag containing Émile’s clothes, and extracted the bloodstained overalls. From the right-hand back pocket, he pulled out a sheet of paper, still in one piece, folded into eight and stuffed down to the bottom. The writing was angular and well formed, that of Vaudel senior. An address in Cologne, Kirchstrasse 34, to a Frau Abster. Then:
Bewahre unser Reich, widerstehe, auf dass es unantastbar bleibe
. Then an incomprehensible word in capitals: K
И
C
Л
OBA. Vaudel had a German lady love. They had a special word, like teenagers. Adamsberg put the paper into his own pocket, disappointed, then lay back on the seat and went to sleep immediately, hardly registering that Cupid had settled on his stomach with his head on Adamsberg’s hand.

S
OMEONE WAS KNOCKING ON THE CAR WINDOW
. A
MAN IN A
white coat was shouting and making signs to him from outside. Sleepily, Adamsberg propped himself up on his elbow and felt a stiffness in his knees.

‘You got a problem?’ the man was saying. He looked on edge. ‘This your car?’

In daylight, as Adamsberg realised at a glance, the car did indeed look as if it had a big problem. Himself for a start, his hands still speckled with dried blood, his clothes mud-spattered and rumpled. And then there was the dog, with its bedraggled fur and muddy muzzle. The front passenger seat was stained, Émile’s clothes were in a blood-drenched bundle, and scattered all around were tins, biscuit packets, an empty ashtray, a knife, and on the car floor the crushed wine carton and his service revolver. It looked like a pigsty belonging to a malefactor on the run. A second paramedic joined the first: he was very tall, very dark and very aggressive.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘we had to do something. My colleague’s calling the police.’

Adamsberg put out his hand towards the car door to lower the window, glancing at his watches. Good grief, almost 9 a.m., and nothing had wakened him, not even the call from Mordent.

‘You stay in the car,’ said the larger man, leaning on the door. Adamsberg pulled out his badge and pressed it to the window, waiting for the two paramedics to hesitate. Then he lowered the window and handed it to them.

‘I
am
the police,’ he said. ‘
Commissaire
Adamsberg. I brought a man in last night, with bullet wounds – about one fifteen in the morning, it was. Name of Émile Feuillant – you can check it out.’

The shorter man punched in a three-digit number and moved away to make the call.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘I’ve had confirmation. You can get out.’

Adamsberg flexed his knees and shoulders, standing in the car park, and quickly brushed his jacket.

‘Seems like it was quite a night,’ said the tall one, suddenly curious. ‘You look a bit of a mess. We weren’t to know.’

‘My apologies, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.’

‘There are showers inside, and you can get something to eat if you want. But that’s it,’ he said, eyeing Adamsberg’s clothes, and perhaps his general condition, ‘we can’t help with anything else.’

‘Thanks, I’ll take the offer.’

‘But the dog has to stay outside.’

‘I can’t take him inside to clean him up?’

‘Afraid not.’

‘OK. I’ll just park the car in the shade and I’ll follow you.’

By contrast with the air outside, the car smelt to high heaven. Adamsberg refilled the ashtray with water, got out some biscuits and explained to Cupid that he would be back soon. He took his gun and holster with him. The car was one of Justin’s favourites, and he was very fussy, so it would have to be cleaned to within an inch of its life before he put it back in the car pool.

‘It’s not your fault, but you really stink,’ he said to the dog. ‘But then everything in here stinks, including me. So don’t fret.’

In the shower, it occurred to Adamsberg that it would be best not to clean Cupid. He smelt of dog, but he also smelt of the farmyard and therefore of manure. Perhaps he had some on his paws or his fur. He put his dirty clothes back on, having brushed them as best he could, and made his way to the paramedics’ room. There was some coffee in a Thermos, bread and jam.

‘We checked how he’s doing,’ said the tall man, André, according to his name badge. ‘He must be pretty tough, because he’d lost a lot of blood. He’s got a perforated stomach, and a tear in the iliac psoas muscle, but the bullet just grazed the bone without breaking it. He’s doing pretty well now, apparently out of danger. Did someone try to kill him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah,’ said the paramedic, with a kind of satisfaction.

‘How soon can he be moved? I’ll need to transfer him.’

‘Our hospital’s not good enough, is that it?’

‘On the contrary,’ said Adamsberg, drinking up his coffee. ‘But whoever wanted to kill him may come looking for him.’

‘Got you,’ said André.

‘And he’s to have no visitors. No flowers, no presents. Nothing must get into his room.’

‘Got you, I’ll see to it. Abdominal surgery’s my set of wards. It’ll probably be a day or two before the doctor will let him be moved. Ask for Professor Lavoisier.’

‘Lavoisier like Lavoisier the scientist?’

‘You know him?’

‘If it’s the same one who was at Dourdan three months ago, yes, he got one of my
lieutenants
out of a coma.’

‘Ah, well, he’s just been appointed head of surgery here. You can’t see him today, he did four operations last night, so he’s sleeping.’

‘Tell him my name – or better still mention Violette Retancourt – can you remember that? And ask him to keep an eye on Émile, and to find somewhere to hide him.’

‘Got you,’ said André. ‘We’ll guard this Émile for you. But if you ask me he looks like a real troublemaker.’

‘You’re right, he is,’ said Adamsberg with a farewell handshake.

In the car park, he switched on his mobile. Battery dead. He went back inside, found a payphone and called the squad.
Brigadier
Gardon was on the desk. None too bright, but very keen, wearing his heart on his sleeve, Gardon was not ideally suited to police work.

‘Is Mordent about? Put him on, Gardon.’

‘If I may,
commissaire
, treat him gently. His daughter banged her head against her cell wall last night until she drew blood. It’s not too serious, but the
commandant
is like a zombie this morning.’

‘What time was that?’

‘About 4 a.m., I think. Noël told me. I’ll put Mordent on.’

‘Mordent, Adamsberg here. You didn’t call me back.’

‘No, really sorry, sir,’ came Mordent’s voice, hollow with depression. ‘They didn’t want to know in Avignon, they grumbled, they had too much on, couple of car crashes, guy up on the ramparts with a rifle. No spare men.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mordent, didn’t you insist? Homicide inquiry?’

‘Yes, I did, but they only got back to me at about seven this morning when they’d just been round to his house. He was there then.’

‘And his wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘Never mind,
commandant
, too bad.’

Adamsberg went back to the car, brooding, opened the windows and sat down heavily in the driving seat.

‘By 7 a.m.,’ he said to the dog, ‘you can bet your boots Vaudel had had plenty of time to get home. So we’ll never know. Big slip-up. Mordent didn’t insist, you can bet on that too. His mind’s somewhere else, it’s wandering off into the clouds, too distressed to bother. He told the Avignon people to do the check, then he washed his hands of it. I should have guessed that would happen, what with Mordent being so out of it. Even Estalère would have done better.’

When he reached headquarters two hours later, carrying the dog under his arm, nobody really greeted him. An air of suppressed excitement was propelling his colleagues in all directions through the offices like irregular robots. There was a smell of early-morning sweat. They were brushing against each other with curt words and seemed to be avoiding the
commissaire
.

‘Has something happened?’ he asked Gardon, who did not seem to be affected.

As a rule, disturbances reached this
brigadier
only a few hours after everyone else and in a milder form, like the wind from Brittany blowing itself out before it reached Paris.

‘It’s the newspaper article,’ he said, ‘and the lab results too, I think.’

‘OK, Gardon. The beige car, number 9, can you send it off for cleaning? Ask for special treatment: there’s blood, mud, awful mess.’

‘
That
’ll be a problem.’

‘No, it’ll be all right. The seats have plastic covers.’

‘I meant the dog. Did you find this dog somewhere?’

‘Yes, and it’s got farmyard muck all over its feet.’

‘There’ll be trouble with the cat. I don’t think we can manage that.’