‘What? Whisky? Wine?’
‘N-no.’ The man hesitated. ‘Neither of those. Sweeter than that. Something like those little glasses of liqueur that you see old codgers knocking back over a game of cards. Just a nip at a time, doesn’t look much, but it hits the spot in the end.’
‘Calvados? Poire?’
‘Oh, now you’re asking, I’ll start making things up if you carry on like that. I didn’t have any reason to smell his breath, after all.’
‘So maybe it was some fruit liqueur…?’
‘Does that tell you anything?’
‘Yes, it does, a lot,’ said Adamsberg. ‘Would you be good enough to go round to the station sometime today, and get someone to take a statement from you? Here’s the address. And above all, don’t forget to tell my colleague about the fruity smell.’
‘I said drink, not fruit.’
‘As you like. Doesn’t matter.’
Adamsberg smiled, feeling satisfied. He thought once more of his petite chérie but now it was as if she were a bird flying past in the distance, nothing more. Relieved, he left the café. Today he would send Danglard round to Mathilde’s to try to winkle out of her the address of the restaurant where she had seen the sad man in the raincoat and with papers strewn on the table. You never know.
But he would prefer not to meet Mathilde himself today.
As for the blue circle man, he was still chalking away, not far from the rue Pierre-et-Marie-Curie. Still at it, still holding this one-sided conversation.
And he, Adamsberg, was waiting for him.
XII
DANGLARD HAD MANAGED TO EXTRACT THE ADDRESS OF THE restaurant in Pigalle from Mathilde, but it had closed down two years earlier.
Throughout the day, Danglard kept a watchful eye on Adamsberg’s changing moods. Danglard felt that the investigation was dragging. But he recognised that there was not much to be done about it. He had devoted himself to going through Madeleine Châtelain’s life with a toothcomb, without finding the least irregularity anywhere. He had also been to see Charles Reyer, to ask him to explain why he had been so curious about the article in the newsletter. Reyer was both taken aback and put out, and above all vexed that his attempt to conceal anything from Adamsberg had been so ineffective. But Reyer was rather taken with Danglard, and the deep and languid tones of this weary man, whom he imagined to be tall, disturbed him less than the too-gentle voice of Adamsberg. His answer to Danglard was simple. As a student of animal anatomy, he had had occasion to attend some of Madame Forestier’s seminars in the past. That could be checked out. At the time, he had not had any grudge against anyone, and he had appreciated Madame Forestier for what she was: intelligent and attractive, and he had never forgotten a word of the lectures she had given. Afterwards, he had wanted to wipe this whole period out of his life. But when the client in the hotel foyer had mentioned ‘the lady who goes deep-sea diving’ the memory of those days had been pleasant rather than otherwise, so he had wondered if the article was about her, and if so what she was being accused of. Reyer gathered that Danglard was prepared to accept this version of events. Danglard nevertheless asked him why he hadn’t said all that to Adamsberg the day before, and why he hadn’t told Mathilde that he had already realised who she was, on the occasion of their ‘chance’ meeting in the rue Saint-Jacques. Reyer had replied to the first question that he didn’t want Adamsberg to complicate life for him, and to the second that he didn’t want Mathilde to think of him as one of those eternal students who as they get older are still acolytes of their professor. Which he had no desire to be.
So all in all, there wasn’t much to be gleaned from that, Danglard told himself. Just the usual bundle of half-truths that waste everyone’s time. The children would be disappointed. But he felt resentment towards Adamsberg for these dreary days, punctuated only on the mornings when the circles reappeared.
He had the unjustified impression that Adamsberg was exerting a malign influence on the passage of time. The police station itself seemed to be impregnated with the particular behaviour of the commissaire. Castreau was no longer fuming over trifles, and Margellon was making fewer stupid remarks – not that the former was becoming milder or the latter more intelligent, rather that it wasn’t worth their while to react so strongly all the time. On the whole – but perhaps it was just an impression generated by his own worries – there were fewer outbursts and the usual little rows about nothing were less in evidence, being replaced by a sort of nonchalant fatalism which seemed more dangerous to him. All the officers seemed to be handling the sails of the ship routinely, without showing the least concern if the vessel was momentarily becalmed when the wind dropped. Everyday police matters took their course – three muggings in the street yesterday, for instance. Adamsberg came and went, disappeared and reappeared, without this provoking either criticism or alarm.
Jean-Baptiste went to bed early that night. He even discouraged the young woman from downstairs, as gently as he could, without offending her. And yet that morning he had felt an urgent desire to see her, to distract his thoughts and help him dream of a different body. But when evening came, his only thought was to get to sleep as fast as he could, without a bedfellow, or a book, or a thought in his head.
When the telephone rang in the small hours, he knew immediately that it had come at last, the end of marking time, the crisis, and that someone had been killed. Margellon was on the line. A man had had his throat cut on the boulevard Raspail, in the quiet section leading to the Place Denfert. Margellon was on the spot with the team from the 14th arrondissement.
‘And the circle? What’s the circle like?’ asked Adamsberg.
‘Yes, there’s a circle, commissaire. Carefully drawn, as if the guy was taking his time. And the words round the edge are the same as always: “Victor, woe’s in store, what are you out here for?” That’s all I can tell you for now. I’ll wait for you here.’
‘I’m on my way. Call Danglard. Tell him to get there fast.’
‘Is it really necessary to get everyone out?’
‘Yes. That’s what I want. And stay there yourself as well.’
He had added that so as not to offend Margellon.
Adamsberg had pulled on the first pair of trousers and shirt that came to hand, as Danglard noticed, having arrived at the scene a few minutes before him. Adamsberg’s shirt buttons were done up awry, as he realised himself. While looking down at the corpse, the commissaire therefore unfastened all the buttons, then did them up again, without seeming the least troubled by the incongruous sight he offered to the local officers standing around on the boulevard Raspail. They watched him in silence. It was three-thirty a.m. As on every occasion when it looked likely that the commissaire would be the object of critical comment, Danglard had an urge to defend him against allcomers. But in this case, there was nothing he could do.
So Adamsberg calmly finished buttoning up his shirt, while looking at a body which appeared under the arc lamps even more mutilated than that of Madeleine Châtelain. The throat had been so deeply slashed that the man’s head was almost back to front.
Danglard, who was feeling as nauseated as when he had seen Madeleine Châtelain’s body, tried not to look. His own throat was his most sensitive spot. The idea of wearing a scarf upset him as if it might strangle him. He didn’t like shaving under his chin, either. So he looked the other way, towards the dead man’s feet, one of which was pointing to the word ‘Victor’ and the other towards the word ‘woe’. The shoes were classic and well-polished. Danglard’s gaze moved up the long body, examining the cut of the grey flannel suit and the ceremonial presence of a waistcoat. An elderly doctor, he guessed.