Fever (20 page)

Vanagass was a sergeant and had bandy legs like the manager of the Hotel zum Wilden Mann.

“Go with Inspector Fouché, he has authorization from the War Ministry and he's looking for Despine. You did tell me Despine had deserted, didn't you?”

“Deserted, sir. Yessir.”

“Right, then. Off you go. Dismiss! Dismiss, both of you. I've got things to do. Where would I be if I had to waste a quarter of an hour on every deserter? I'm a busy man, Inspector, tell that to the Minister of War when you next see him . . . Though perhaps you won't recognize him, our good Minister of War?” A cold shiver ran down Studer's spine. Had the colonel seen through his disguise? Ah, no, the fat colonel –
Boulet-Ducarreau, translated it would come out as “Cannonball-of-Diamonds” – was just making a joke. He went on. “France changes its ministers of war as often as I do razor blades.
Adieu
.”

Vanagass did not seem to share the Legion's general dislike of policemen. It turned out he was a kind of colleague, chief of police in Kiev under the Czars. At least that was what he told Studer as they crossed the barracks square. His extreme politeness was evidence of either an excellent upbringing or a career as a confidence trickster. Studer just didn't know what to make of the man. He seemed to know something about this Despine, but to be unwilling to come out with it. Finally, after the fourth glass of anisette – that's what they called the stuff, though actually it was undiluted absinthe – Sergeant Vanagass began to thaw a little.

Despine had struck him straight away when he arrived on Wednesday with the draft from Strasbourg, he said. Twelve years with the force gave you an eye for faces, didn't it? Despine? He'd stood out from the grey mass of his comrades like a sore thumb. Yes, like a sore thumb . . . In what way? Quite simple: he looked like a guilty conscience personified. He looked like a man who had something serious to answer for, something very serious. His bet, Vanagass went on, was on murder: the shifty look, the trembling hands, the sudden start whenever he was addressed. A bad lot. No wonder he'd deserted. The Legion didn't hand people over, at least when the crime wasn't too serious. But murder, that was a different matter. It was murder they were talking about, wasn't it? Vanagass asked casually, hoping Studer might give something away. But the sergeant was on his guard. Still, he couldn't repress a minor feeling of triumph.

“A double murder!” he said in a deep voice. And Sergeant Vanagass, former chief of police in Kiev – if that was true! – pursed his lips and emitted a quiet, long-drawn-out whistle.

“
Tchortovayamatch
!” he swore.

“Sorry?” said Studer.

“Nothing, nothing.” And Sergeant Vanagass insisted on buying a round himself, though really it was only to change the 100-franc note Studer had slipped him under the table. Then he stood up, took two steps towards the door, slapped himself demonstratively on the forehead – and turned back. He pulled his chair up close to Studer's and even put his hand over his mouth as he whispered, “I hear a lot of things, Inspector. You couldn't have found anyone who knows what's what here better than me. Have the people in Paris been talking about the disappearance of a certain Corporal Collani? Yes, Collani. Was with the Second Battalion in Géryville. Supposed to be a clairvoyant. And vanished in September. Or was abducted, rather. By a stranger. In a car.” Vanagass's speech had become disjointed. He seemed to be getting worked up about the matter. “We were given a good description of the stranger. From the owner of the hotel in Géryville and from a mulatto Collani used to visit. And the owner of the garage in Oran confirmed it, the description, that is. However, each time we were too late, unfortunately. No, that's not quite right. The car was deposited in Tunis and returned to its rightful owner in Oran. But of the stranger, or of Corporal Collani – no trace. What I was going to say was . . . Another vermouth? No? No need to stand on ceremony.
Patron
! Two Cinzanos. . . . What I was going to say was . . . Your good health, Inspector. Yes, now what I —”

“Was going to say,” Studer broke in. “Well, get on
and say it. Do you think I've all the time in the world?” Studer spoke sharply, exaggerating his annoyance.

“Yessir!” said Sergeant Vanagass, whose eyes had narrowed to little slits. “
Daite mne papirossu
. Give me a cigarette.” There was no doubt that Colonel Boulet-Ducarreau's secretary was drunk. But when Studer handed him his tobacco pouch, he quickly rolled himself a cigarette. Then he spoke, everything pouring out at once: “The description of the stranger in Géryville matches the description of Despine, go to Géryville, Inspector, yessir, your servant, sir, goodbye.”

With that he marched across to the door, arms outstretched, palms upward, like a tightrope walker carrying an invisible pole.

“So that's the Foreign Legion,” Studer muttered. Then he had lunch. In the afternoon he travelled back to Oran, where he spent the night and took the Oran–Béchar train next morning. Bouk-Toub, the station from which it is easiest to reach Géryville, is on that line. A car would have cost a fortune. It is only private detectives in novels who can afford cars. A detective sergeant from Bern had to count every centime.

The village of Bouk-Toub consisted of exactly twenty-five houses. Studer counted them while he was looking for some means of transport to take him to Géryville. A dreary place. It was not obvious why twenty-five hearths had been lit in that lunar landscape.

Studer had a deep-seated mistrust of horses, and even more of the bizarre saddle he was offered: a plank at the front, a plank at the back, short straps with stirrups as long and wide as his slippers propped up against the green-tiled stove in his apartment in Bern. Bern was a long way away, as was his café with its green billiards table . . . What would Hedy be doing just now?
Laughing? Crying? And Münch, the lawyer he played billiards with?

Finally Sergeant Studer found a mule. But then there were endless negotiations, in which neither his police identity badge nor the warrant from the Minister of War were any help, before Inspector Joseph Fouché could mount the beast. A saddle was also eventually found, plus a pair of leather gaiters that were so old he had to buy four leather straps as well, since the coverings that were intended to protect his calves were rotten.

The mule was a real wag. When it rolled its lips back, it looked as if it had just told an excellent joke and was only waiting for the others to laugh before joining in itself. Its lips were grey, with a black patch the size of a large coin, and as soft as the finest silk muslin. Studer immediately felt he could trust the animal, and to win its favour he popped three sugar lumps in its mouth. The mule grinned.

“After thirty-five miles,” said the owner, “you'll come to a farm. It's exactly halfway. You can spend the night there. Then you'll be in Géryville by the next evening.”

So the following morning Studer left the twenty-five houses of Bouk-Toub behind him. At first everything went well. The mule behaved itself, trotting along with a clatter of hooves, wheezing from time to time and shaking its head, as if to clear it of dubious thoughts. But after twenty miles Studer was saddle-sore. He bravely held on for another fifteen miles and even found the farm, which lay in a shallow depression.

That evening he soothed his chafed limbs with talcum powder and his melancholy soul with red wine. The wine was sour and gave him heartburn, but the mutton stew he was given stung his tongue just like the stew in the Chinese restaurant in Paris. The twilight was bottle green, then night came, and with it an alien
sky: its blackness was transparent and only later, much later was there a twinkle of stars. Studer lay in the kitchen on a bed of esparto grass, sheep baaed and the liquid mewling of a lamb sounded like a baby crying . . . “Greetings from young Jakobli to old Jakob” . . . Was Hedy still knitting the white romper suit? Presumably she had a cigarette before she went to sleep and she'd be asking herself what old Jakob, the Jakob who had a screw loose, was doing . . .

The trot of a mule can have a soporific effect, but when it's cold and keeps getting colder the closer you come to the high plateau, your sleepiness evaporates like dew at the hay-harvest. And your thoughts start to lurch and sway, which is unpleasant – it makes you feel dizzy. The road is a monotonous yellow ribbon with the dry esparto grass rustling along the sides; the black clouds in the sky make you think of death and mourning . . . Is it any wonder, then, that the old women in their armchairs come to mind, the old women who died? And you ride on through the alien light.

The priest . . . the clairvoyant corporal . . . the geologist . . . the secretary. The priest – the geologist. Two brothers. What was there to stop Koller, the stockbroker who had enlisted in the Foreign Legion as Despine, from being a brother to both of the others? Three Brothers: Father Matthias, Victor Alois Cleman-Koller and Jakob Koller-Despine? And two sisters, Sophie and Josepha, both of whom told fortunes with the cards . . . Just a minute! There was also a clairvoyant corporal by the name of Collani, who put on spiritualist seances. And there was a stockbroker who went in for the same nonsense as well. What was it the baker in rue Daguerre had said? The baker with the carroty hair? “He was interested in the last things.” Koller had opened an employment exchange for the departed.
They rapped tables. Steady on now, don't mock. The fact remained that this was a case with lots of brothers and sisters: the Mannesmann brothers, the Koller brothers, the Hornuss sisters. Where the hell did Collani, the clairvoyant corporal, fit in? Was he the fourth Koller brother? If that were so, then it would all work out with no loose ends.

Chabis
! What was the word Dr Malapelle of the Institute for Forensic Medicine had used?
Fantasmagoria
. And what did Murmann at police headquarters in Bern say, together with all his colleagues from the superintendent down to the lowliest policeman on the beat? “Köbu's got a screw loose.”

And the chief of police wanted him to bring back a pair of Moroccan mountain sheepdogs – pedigree dogs, of course. The chief of police would take a different tack if he knew that Sergeant Studer had suddenly been promoted to Inspector Fouché. But it fitted in with the case. The people involved in it kept having different names from the ones you thought they had. Cleman was called Koller and Koller was called Despine – assuming he hadn't taken a saint's name and was calling himself Father Matthias. He could imagine the look on the chief's face if he arrived back with two male or two female sheepdogs. That would fit in with the case, too. Pairs of brothers and sisters, heheheh . . .

Laughing was difficult in the cold, it tore at your lips, which were already cracked anyway. As was his habit, Studer tried to stroke the soft hair of his moustache. The skin was bare.

“Aaaargh!” Studer cried and the mule stopped. It was midday, so he dismounted to have something to eat. He sat down on a stone by the side of the road and looked round as he chewed on the tough, cold mutton.

The plateau, flat, flat, flat – and then, in the far distance, mountains, white snowy mountains. They didn't remind him of Switzerland at all. At the bottom of the snowy mountains there they had hotels with central heating and warm water. Even the mountain huts were heated! Here there was nothing. Not a tree, not a house as far as the eye could see. At the end of the flat plateau was the gleam of the salt lakes, poisonous, like chemicals in glass dishes.

Pairs of brothers and sisters . . . Weren't there stars that appeared in the sky in pairs? That would make Marie a comet. No, that wasn't right. Marie wasn't a comet. Comets were the vagabonds of the starry sky, and Marie was no vagrant, no gypsy . . . He was sure she'd been married to Koller, the stockbroker who'd burnt his fingers on black gold . . .

Studer turned to the mule. “Come on then, Fridu” – he'd decided to call it Freddie, Fridu as they said at home – “come on then.” But the mule refused to budge and just went on eating, tugging occasionally at the reins, one end of which was looped round Studer's wrist. So the sergeant took a couple of sugar lumps out of his pocket. “Here.” The mule came closer, stretched out its neck, blew its warm breath over Studer's hand – that was nice – picked up the sugar lumps elegantly with its soft lips, chewed solemnly, rolled its eyes demurely, then let out a sound that literally went right through every bone in the sergeant's body. It was a mongrel sound, a cross between a donkey's bray and a horse's whinny, but the poor beast couldn't help it, it could only sing with the voice God gave it.

Studer got up. His muscles were aching and he felt homesick for his office with its smell of floor polish
and dust, the clunk of the steam in the radiators – where it was warm,
warm
.

“Come on then, Fridu,” Studer said again. “That Marie . . . Quite . . . No! Don't eat the grass, it's not good for you . . . here, I'll give you a piece of bread. You know, Marie . . . If . . . That's just it,
if
. . . then Marie'll say, ‘Thanks, Cousin Jakob', and everything'll be all right. Come on now, Fridu, there's a good chap, let's be going.”

The pipe was lit, the beret pulled down over his ears and he was back in the saddle. Strapped to the back was a rolled-up sleeping bag, contents: one pair of pyjamas, two shirts, two pairs of socks, washing kit. He might be fifty-nine, but anything the legionnaires could do . . .

A snowstorm started, but only – thank God! – when Géryville was in sight. The mule obviously knew its business. The gallop it broke into was as smooth as a ride on a roller-coaster and it came to a halt outside a building that was clearly the Géryville hotel. Studer climbed off the mule, looking like a snowy Father Christmas who had shaved off his beard by accident. He almost fell asleep over dinner. A glass of wine brought him back to semi-consciousness, but then a ringing started in his ears. The hotel owner seemed to be used to guests like that. He helped the large man up to a room on the top floor, took off his wet coat and tucked him in.