An Uncertain Place (42 page)

‘No, I mean another way, not so obvious.’

‘There isn’t one.’

‘Yes there is, Émile. And you used it. When you came in at night to pinch a bit of cash.’

‘What, me, guv?’

‘Don’t give me that – we had your prints on the drawer of the desk. I don’t care about that now. Just listen carefully. Whoever massacred your boss is about to kill someone else tonight in that house, and I need to get in there without him seeing me.’

‘Can’t help you.’

The car was just getting to Garches. Adamsberg switched off the siren.

‘Émile,’ said Adamsberg, through his teeth, ‘if you don’t tell me now, Cupid gets it.’

‘You wouldn’t!’

‘I bloody would, Émile, and stamp on him with my boot.’

‘Fucking bastard cop.’

‘Spot on. Now just fucking tell me, how do I get in?’

‘Next door, Madame Bourlant.’

‘Yes?’

‘You go through the cellar. Two houses used to belong to this bloke, wife in one, fancy woman in the other. So he goes through the cellar. Door got blocked when they were sold, but the old lady opened it again. She shouldn’t ought to have, but Vaudel, he didn’t know, he never went down the cellar. But I promised I’d never tell on her, so she let me use it. We had this arrangement, see?’

Adamsberg parked the car fifty metres from the house and closed the door quietly.

‘Why did she unblock it?’

‘Scared of fires. Emergency exit. Stupid, because her lifeline’s perfect.’

‘She live alone?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t you
dare
mess with my dog now.’

Adamsberg contacted the two teams. One was on the way, the other just setting out. No light showed in the Vaudel house, and the shutters and curtains were closed. He knocked several times next door, at Madame Bourlant’s. An identical house, but in a much worse state of repair. It wasn’t going to be easy to get a woman living alone to open the door just by saying ‘police’, which wouldn’t convince anyone. Either you didn’t believe it was the police, or you did, which was even worse.

‘Madame Bourlant, I’ve got a message for you from Émile, he’s in hospital.’

‘So why come in the middle of the night?’

‘He doesn’t want anyone to see me. It’s about the cellar door. He says someone has found out and you’re going to get into trouble.’

The door opened a few inches on a chain. A fragile-looking woman of about sixty was looking at him more closely as she put on her glasses.

‘How do I know you’re a friend of Émile’s?’

‘He says you have a fantastic lifeline.’

The door opened and the woman let him in, putting the chain back on.

‘I
am
a friend of Émile’s, but I’m also a
commissaire de police
,’ said Adamsberg.

‘No, you can’t be.’

‘Yes, I can. All I’m asking you to do is open the way through the cellar. I need to get into the Vaudel house. There are two teams of police following, and they’ll need to come the same way. You will let them through.’

‘There isn’t a way through the cellar.’

‘Look, madame, I can get it unblocked without you if I have to. Just don’t cause any trouble, or everyone in the neighbourhoood will know about the door.’

‘It isn’t a crime, is it?’

‘They’ll say you were going to rob Vaudel of all his money.’

The little old woman went to get the key, muttering about the police. Adamsberg followed her into the cellar and then into the corridor which led from it.

‘The police do a lot of daft things,’ she said, as she unlocked the door. ‘But this takes the biscuit. Accusing me of being a thief, I never heard such nonsense. And you’ve been bothering Émile, and that other young man.’

‘The police found a handkerchief belonging to the other young man.’

‘That’s stupid. People don’t drop their handkerchiefs in other people’s houses, so why would they when they’ve just murdered someone?’

‘Don’t follow me, madame,’ said Adamsberg, pushing the little old woman gently back. ‘This could be dangerous.’

‘A murderer?’

‘Yes. Get back inside your own house and wait till the police team arrives, don’t do anything else.’

She trotted off back down the corridor and Adamsberg climbed quietly up the cluttered cellar stairs into Vaudel’s house, taking care not to dislodge a bottle or a box. There was just an ordinary door to the kitchen, and the lock took him only a minute to pick. He headed straight for the room with the piano. If Paole was going to engineer Zerk’s suicide, that’s where he would do it, at the scene of his remorse.

The door was closed and he could see nothing. The tapestries on the walls muffled voices. Adamsberg went into the bathroom next door and climbed on top of a linen chest, from where he could reach a ventilation grill.

Paole was standing with his back to him, holding a gun equipped with a silencer. Opposite him, Zerk, tears rolling down his face, was sitting on the Louis XIII armchair. All the gothic bravado had gone. Paole had literally nailed him to the spot. A knife transfixed his left hand, nailing it to the wooden armrest. A lot of blood had already been spilt: the young man must have been pinned to the chair for some time, sweating with pain.

‘Who was it to?’ Paole was saying, waving a mobile phone in front of Zerk’s eyes.

Zerk must have tried to make his call for help again, but this time Paole had caught him at it. The older man had opened a flick knife, taken Zerk’s right hand and slashed it several times, as if he were cutting up a fish, not appearing to hear the young man’s cries of pain.

‘So don’t think you can start that again. Who to?’

‘Adamsberg,’ Zerk groaned.

‘Pathetic,’ said Paole. ‘So he doesn’t demolish his father after all. First little scratch and he calls him for help:
por
, qos. What were you trying to tell him?’

‘SOS. But I didn’t get it right. He won’t understand. Leave me alone, I won’t tell, I won’t say anything, I don’t know anything.’

‘Ha, but I need you, my boy. The police got a long way on this. So I’m going to leave you here, nailed to your chair. You decided to mutilate yourself, and you’ll be found dead at the scene of your crime – a fitting end. I’ve got a lot of things to do, and I want a bit of peace.’

‘So do I,’ gasped Zerk.

‘You!’ said Paole, pocketing the mobile. ‘What have you got left to do? Make your precious jewellery? Sing in your precious choir? Eat your supper? Who would care, you poor boy? You’re no use to anyone. Your mother’s left the country, your father doesn’t want anything to do with you. But at least you’ll accomplish something by your death. You’ll be famous.’

‘Please. I won’t tell, I’ll go far away. Adamsberg will never find out.’

Paole shrugged.

‘Naturally, he won’t find out. His pea brain’s not much bigger than yours, he’s just a windbag, like father, like son. Anyway, it’s a bit late to start calling him now. I’m afraid he’s no longer with us.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Zerk, twisting in his chair.

Paole leaned on the handle of the knife stuck into his hand and made the blade move in the wound.

‘Calm down. He’s as dead as a doornail. He’s walled up in the vault where Plogojowitz’s victims are all buried, in Kiseljevo, in Serbia. So he’s going to come riding to the rescue, is he?’

Paole then started to speak in a low voice, as if for himself alone, and the last hope ebbed from Zerk’s young face.

‘But you’re forcing me to move more quickly. Sooner or later they’ll trace your call, and they’ll identify who you are and where you are. So they’ll know where we both are. We’ve got a little less time than we bargained for, so prepare yourself, young man, and say your goodbyes.’

Paole had moved away from the armchair, but he was still too close to Zerk. By the time Adamsberg had opened the door and taken aim, he would have had four seconds’ warning to shoot at Zerk. Four seconds to distract him. Adamsberg took out his notebook, letting fall all the bits of paper that were chaotically pushed inside. The one he wanted was recognisable, a crumpled and dirty sheet on which he had copied the text from Plogojowitz’s grave. He took out his mobile and composed a text as quickly as he could: ‘
Dobre ve
č
e proklet
’ (= Good evening Cursed one). On the next line: ‘Plogojowitz’. Not very good, but the best he could manage. It would hold the man up for a minute or two, enough time to get between him and Zerk.

The phone bleeped in Paole’s pocket. He looked at the screen, frowned, and the door burst open. Adamsberg faced him, having moved in front of the young man, to cover him. Paole tilted his head, as if the sudden entry of the
commissaire
was some kind of music-hall act.

‘Oh, that’s your idea of a joke, is it,
commissaire
?’ said Paole, pointing to the phone. ‘You don’t say
Dobro ve
č
e
at this time of night, you say
Laku no
ć
.’

Paole’s scornful insouciance destabilised Adamsberg. He showed no interest in him at all. As if he were no more of a problem than a tuft of grass in the road. Still covering Paole with the gun, Adamsberg reached behind him and yanked out the knife.

‘Get out, Zerk! Move!’

Zerk hurtled out of the room, banging the door behind him, and they heard him run down the corridor.

‘How touching,’ said Paole. ‘And now, Adamsberg, it’s just the two of us. We’re both standing here, we’re both armed. You’ll aim for the legs, I’ll aim for the heart, and if you shoot first, I’ll still shoot you, won’t I? You haven’t a chance. My fingers are ultra-sensitive and my sangfroid is total. In such a strictly technical situation, your door to the unconscious is no use to you at all. On the contrary, it’s an obstacle. You’re still making the same mistake as in Kiseljevo. Walking around on your own. Like in the old mill. Yes, I know,’ he said, raising his large hand. ‘Your men are on their way.’

The man consulted his watch and sat down. ‘We have a few minutes, I’ll easily catch up with the young man. A few minutes to find out how you traced me. I don’t mean tonight and the idiot Armel’s message. You do know your son’s a complete imbecile, don’t you? No, I mean when you came to my surgery, two days ago, for your tinnitus. You knew then, didn’t you, because your head was resisting me all the time. How did you know?’

‘In the vault.’

‘And?’

Adamsberg was finding it hard to speak. The memory of the vault could still immobilise him, the memory of the night with Vesna. He tried to think of the moment the door had opened and Veyrenc had come in, when he had drunk Froissy’s cognac.

‘The little kitten,’ he said. ‘The one you wanted to kick to death.’

‘Yes, didn’t have time for that. But it will be done, Adamsberg. I always keep my word.’

‘“
I killed that kitten. Just one kick did it. Making me rescue her, that got up my nose
.” That’s what you said.’

‘Correct.’

‘Zerk had brought the kitten out from under a woodpile. But how would he know it was a female? A week-old kitten. Impossible. Lucio knew and I knew. And you knew, doctor, because you’d treated her. Just you.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Paole. ‘I see my mistake. But when did you realise that? At once?’

‘No, when I saw the kitten again, back home.’

‘Always slow on the uptake, Adamsberg.’

Paole stood up and a shot rang out. Stupefied, Adamsberg stared as the doctor fell to the floor. He was hit in the stomach on the left side.

‘I was aiming for his legs,’ said the anxious voice of Madame Bourlant. ‘I’m not a very good shot.’ The little old woman trotted over to the man gasping on the floor, while Adamsberg picked up the gun and telephoned for the emergency services.

‘He’s not going to die, is he?’ she asked, leaning over him.

‘No, I think the bullet is lodged in the gut.’

‘It’s only a .32,’ said Madame Bourlant as if she were describing her skirt size.

Paole’s eyes appealed to the
commissaire
.

‘The ambulance is on its way, Paole.’

‘Don’t call me
Paole
,’ the doctor ordered in a strangled voice. ‘There are no more Paoles now that the wicked ones are all wiped out. The Paoles are saved. Understand, Adamsberg? They’re free. At last.’

‘Have you killed them all? The Plogojowitzes?’

‘I didn’t kill them. Eliminating creatures is not killing. They weren’t humans. I do good in the world,
commissaire
, I’m a doctor.’

‘Then you’re not human either, Josselin.’

‘I wasn’t quite. But now I am, yes.’

‘You’ve wiped them all out?’

‘The five big ones, yes. There are two shroud-eaters still alive, women. But they can’t reconstitute.’

‘I only know about three: Pierre Vaudel-Plog, Conrad Plögener and Frau Abster-Plogerstein. And Plogodrescu’s feet, but that’s a long time ago.’

‘Someone’s ringing at the door,’ said Madame Bourlant, timidly.