Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand (37 page)

‘Exactly. We’re looking for an acquittal.’

Adamsberg left Josette to her Aladdin’s lamp and went to give a hand to Clémentine who was peeling vegetables for their lunch.

‘She slips in there like an eel under a rock,’ he said, sitting down.

‘Well, that’s her work, you know,’ replied Clémentine who was unaware of the complexity involved in Josette’s hacking activities.

‘It’s like spuds,’ she went on. ‘Now mind you peel them properly for me, Adamsberg.’

‘I know how to peel potatoes, Clémentine.’

‘No, you don’t. You leave the eyes in. Got to take them out, they’re poisonous.’

Clémentine showed him, with the practised movements of a professional, how to dig the end of the peeler into the eye and dig out the little black cones.

‘They’re only poisonous when they’re raw, Clémentine.’

‘Never mind. I want those eyes out, please.’

‘OK. I’ll be careful.’

The potatoes, checked over by Clémentine, were cooked and on the table by the time Josette returned with her results.

‘Any luck?’ asked Clémentine as she served up.

‘I think so, yes,’ said Josette putting a sheet of paper on the table.

‘I don’t really like people working when they’re eating. Not that it upsets me, you understand, but my old father wouldn’t have let us do that. But seeing as you’ve only got six weeks.’

‘Colette Choisel has been in practice in Rennes for the last sixteen years,’ Josette said. ‘When she was very young, twenty-seven, she was involved in a court case. One of her patients died, an elderly woman. She’d been giving her morphine injections for pain. But the death was from a serious overdose. It could have cost her her career.’

‘I should think so!’ said Clémentine.

‘And where was that, Josette?’

‘In Tours, that was on the judge’s second circuit.’

‘Acquitted?’

‘Yes. The defence lawyer argued that she had a blameless record. And he pointed out that the patient, who was a retired vet, could have got hold of the morphine and dosed herself.’

‘The lawyer must have been one of Fulgence’s men.’

‘The jury decided it was suicide. Choisel got off without anything on her record.’

‘But in hock to the judge for life. Josette,’ said Adamsberg, putting his hand on the old lady’s arm, ‘your tunnellings are going to bring us up into the air now. Or rather, they’re taking us back under the earth.’

‘About time too,’ said Clémentine.

Adamsberg sat for a long time thinking, in the chimney corner, with his dessert plate balanced on his knees. The road ahead was not going to be easy. Danglard, despite having apparently calmed down, would tell him to take a running jump. Retancourt would listen to him more objectively. He took the scarab with red and green legs out of his pocket
and dialled her number on its shiny back. He felt a little surge of well-being and relaxation on hearing the serious voice of his maple-tree
lieutenant
.

‘Don’t worry, Retancourt, I change frequency every five minutes.’

‘Danglard told me you’d been able to buy some time.’

‘Not long,
lieutenant
, and I have to act quickly. I believe the judge survived his own death.’

‘Meaning?’

‘All I’ve got for the moment is a tip of his ear. But that ear was alive and well two years ago, twenty kilometres from Schiltigheim.’

He had a vision of that lone velvety ear, fluttering like a huge malevolent moth through the attics at the
Schloss
.

‘Anything attached to the ear?’ asked Retancourt.

‘Yes, a dodgy death certificate. The doctor who signed it was one of Fulgence’s blackmail victims. Retancourt, I think the judge went to Richelieu in the first place because that doctor was in practice there.’

‘He programmed his own death, you mean?’

‘That’s what I think. Can you pass this on to Danglard?’

‘Why don’t you call him yourself?’

‘He’d bite my head off,
lieutenant.’

Less than ten minutes later, Danglard called back. His voice was unsympathetic.

‘If I’ve got this right,
commissaire
, you’ve managed to bring your judge back to life. Simple as that, eh?’

‘I think I have, Danglard. We’re not chasing a dead man now.’

‘But we are chasing an old man of about ninety-nine years old.
Commissaire
, he’s practically a
hundred!’

‘I realise that.’

‘It’s just as improbable. Not a lot of people live to ninety-nine.’

‘There was one in my village.’

‘And was he in good shape?’

‘Well, no, not really,’ Adamsberg admitted.

‘Listen,’ Danglard went on patiently, ‘if you think an old guy of a hundred can attack a young woman, kill her with a trident and then drag her and her bicycle across the fields, you’re raving mad. Only in fairy stories.’

‘Well, stories are like that, I can’t help it. The judge had superhuman strength.’

‘Had
is the operative word. But nobody has superhuman strength when they’re that old. A murderer who’s a hundred years old just doesn’t exist, he wouldn’t be able to do it.’

‘The devil doesn’t give a damn how old he is. I want to request an exhumation.’

‘Jesus Christ, are you going that far?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, don’t count on me. You’re going way beyond anywhere I’m prepared to follow.’

‘I understand.’

‘I was ready to believe in a disciple, let me remind you. But not a dead man walking. Or a hundred-year-old murderer.’

‘Well, in that case, I’ll have to try making the request myself. But if it gets through to the squad, will you please attend? You, Retancourt and Mordent?’

‘Uh-oh. Not me,
commissaire.’

‘Whatever is in that grave, Danglard, I want you to see it. You’ll come.’

‘I know what’s in a coffin. I don’t need to leave my desk for that.’

‘Danglard, the new name Brézillon gave me was “Lamproie”. Does that mean anything to you?’

‘Yes, it’s a primitive type of fish, a lamprey,’ said the
capitaine
, and Adamsberg could hear him smiling. ‘Well not exactly a fish, a cyclostome. It’s long and thin like an eel.’

‘Ah,’ said Adamsberg, disappointed and slightly disgusted, as he remembered the prehistoric creature in Pink Lake. ‘Does it have any special features?’

‘The lamprey has no hinged jaws. It hangs on by suction, like a leech, if you like.’

Adamsberg wondered as he hung up, why the
divisionnaire
had given him this odd name. Perhaps it meant he lacked polish? Or maybe it was a reference to the six weeks’ grace he had managed to snatch out of him? Perhaps this creature was a sort of sucker, pulling contrary wills towards it?

Trying to convince Brézillon to order the exhumation of Judge Fulgence looked an unpromising enterprise. Adamsberg concentrated on being a lamprey and tried to pull the
divisionnaire
’s will towards him, as he telephoned. Brézillon had quickly and volubly refused to give any credence to the ear living in Alsace after the death of the judge. As for the suspect death certificate, it looked a very flimsy bit of evidence to him.

‘What day is it today?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Sunday.’

‘Tuesday 2 p.m. then,’ he announced in one of those sudden about-turns which had given Adamsberg his brief freedom.

‘Retancourt, Mordent and Danglard in attendance, please,’ Adamsberg just had time to ask.

He put his mobile away carefully, so as not to damage its antennae. Possibly Brézillon had felt under some constraint, since he had taken the responsibility of letting ‘his man’ go free, to follow through with the logic and let it take its course. Or perhaps the lamprey had managed to draw him into its orbit. But the force would work the other way, once Adamsberg had to go back, a defeated man, and sit in that chair in Brézillon’s apartment. He remembered Brézillon’s thumb and couldn’t stop himself wondering what would happen if you put a cigarette in the mouth of a lamprey. No, of course, you couldn’t, it lived under water. Another creature to join the strange assortment which was blocking up the door of Strasbourg Cathedral. Add to that the ghastly moth haunting the
Schloss
, half-ear, half-mushroom.

Well, never mind what had gone through the
divisionnaire
’s mind, he had authorised the exhumation. Adamsberg felt torn between febrile excitement and genuine fear. Not that it was the first time he had ordered
an exhumation. But opening the magistrate’s coffin suddenly seemed a blasphemous undertaking, full of menace. ‘You’re going way beyond anywhere I’m prepared to follow you,’ Danglard had said. But where? Profanation, desecration, horror. A journey underground in the company of the judge who might carry him off into the underworld. He looked at his watches. In precisely forty-six hours.

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.’