‘Clémence Valmont,’ said Adamsberg.
‘Spot on,’ said Danglard.
‘We’re going over there,’ said Adamsberg, stubbing out the cigarette he had just lit.
Twenty minutes later, they were standing at the door of 44 rue des Patriarches. It was Saturday morning and everything seemed quiet. Nobody answered the interphone to Clémence’s flat.
‘Try Mathilde Forestier,’ said Adamsberg, for once almost tense with impatience. ‘Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg here,’ he said into the interphone. ‘Open the street door, Madame Forestier. Be quick, please.’
He ran up the stairs to the Flying Gurnard on the second floor, where Mathilde opened her door.
‘I need the key for upstairs, Madame Forestier. Clémence’s key. You’ve got a spare?’
Mathilde went, without asking questions, to fetch a bunch of keys labelled ‘Stickleback’.
‘I’ll come up with you,’ she said, her voice even huskier first thing in the morning than in the evening. ‘I’ve been worrying myself silly, Adamsberg.’
They all trooped into Clémence’s apartment. Nothing. No sign of life, no clothes in the wardrobe, no papers on the tables.
‘Oh, sod it! Bird’s flown,’ said Danglard.
Adamsberg paced round the room, more slowly than ever, looking at his feet, opening an empty cupboard here, pulling out a drawer there, then pacing round some more. ‘He’s not thinking about anything,’ thought Danglard, feeling exasperated, and especially exasperated at their failure. He would have liked Adamsberg to explode with anger, then to react quickly and dash about giving orders, to try and retrieve this mess one way or the other, but it was no use hoping he would do anything like that. On the contrary, he gave a charming smile as he accepted the coffee offered them by Mathilde, who was distraught.
Adamsberg called the office from her flat, and described Clémence Valmont as precisely as possible.
‘Issue this description to all stations, airports, gendarmeries and so on. The usual thing. And send a man over here. The apartment will have to be watched.’
He replaced the phone quietly and drank his coffee calmly as if nothing had happened.
‘You need to take it easy – you don’t look well,’ he said to Mathilde. ‘Danglard, try and explain to Madame Forestier what’s been happening, as gently as you can. I won’t do it myself, you’ll have to excuse me. I don’t explain things well.’
‘You saw in the papers that Le Nermord had been released without charge over the murders, but that he was the blue circle man?’ Danglard began.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Mathilde. ‘I saw his photo. And yes, that was the man I followed, and it was the same man who used to eat in the little restaurant in Pigalle, a few years ago! Harmless! I got tired of telling Adamsberg that. Humiliated, frustrated, anything you like, but harmless. I did tell you, commissaire!’
‘Yes, you did. But I didn’t agree,’ said Adamsberg.
‘Quite,’ said Mathilde with emphasis. ‘But where’s the poor old shrew-mouse gone now? Why are you looking for her? She came back from the countryside last night, looking much better, full of beans, so I don’t understand why she’s gone off again today.’
‘Has she ever told you about the fiancé who jilted her long ago without warning?’
‘Yes, more or less,’ said Mathilde. ‘But it didn’t affect her that much. You’re not going in for crackpot psychology now, are you?’
‘We have to,’ said Danglard. ‘Gérard Pontieux, the second murder victim, that was him. Clémence’s long-lost fiancé, from fifty years ago.’
‘You can’t be serious,’ said Mathilde.
‘I’m deadly serious, I’ve just got back from Marcilly,’ said Danglard. ‘The town they both came from. She wasn’t originally from Neuilly, Mathilde.’
Adamsberg noted that Danglard was calling Madame Forestier ‘Mathilde’.
‘The rage and madness he’d caused her had been festering for fifty years,’ Danglard went on. ‘So as she was nearing the end of a life that she considered blighted, her thoughts turned to murder. And the chalk circle man offered a unique opportunity. It was now or never. She’d always kept track of Gérard Pontieux, the target of her obsession. She knew where he lived. She left Neuilly to try and find the man who was drawing the circles, and she came to you, Mathilde. You were the only person who could lead her to him. And to his circles. First of all, she killed that poor fat middle-aged woman, who was just someone at random, to start some sort of “series”. Then she killed Pontieux. She took such pleasure in the attack that it was really vicious. And then, because she was afraid the investigation wouldn’t find the chalk circle man fast enough, and would be looking all the more closely at the murder of the doctor, she decided to attack the circle man’s own estranged wife, Delphine Le Nermord. She had to make it look similar to the attack on Pontieux, so that the police doctor wouldn’t be able to point out any differences. Except that he was a man.’
Danglard glanced over at Adamsberg, who said nothing, but motioned to him to carry on.
‘The last murder led us straight to the circle man, just as she’d foreseen. But Clémence Valmont thinks in peculiar ways – very twisted but naive at the same time. Because for the circle man to be the murderer of his own wife was going too far. Unless he was completely mad, Le Nermord would hardly have chosen to bring the police straight to his door. So eventually, yesterday, we let him go. Clémence hears that on the radio. With Le Nermord off the hook, everything looks different. Her plan bites the dust. She still has time to get away. So that’s what she does.’
Mathilde looked from one to the other in consternation. Adamsberg waited for it to sink in. He knew it would take time, and that she would not want to believe it.
‘No, that can’t be it,’ said Mathilde. ‘She’d never have had the physical strength. Remember what a skinny little thing she is?’
‘There are plenty of ways to get round that,’ said Danglard. ‘You could pretend to be ill, sitting on the pavement and wait for someone to bend down, then hit them on the head. All the victims had been knocked unconscious first, remember, Mathilde.’
‘Yes, I remember,’ said Mathilde, distractedly running her fingers through strands of her dark hair as it fell over her forehead. ‘But what about the doctor? How did she catch him?’
‘Very simple. She must have arranged to meet him in a certain place.’
‘Why would he come?’
‘Oh, he would. Someone from your past suddenly calls on your help. You forget, you drop everything and you come running.’
‘Yes, of course, you must be right,’ said Mathilde.
‘The nights of the murders. Was she home? Can you remember?’
‘Well, she used to go out just about every night, for these so-called rendezvous, like the other night. Oh damn it all, that was some act she was putting on for me. Why don’t you say anything, commissaire?’
‘I’m trying to think.’
‘ To any purpose?’
‘No. I’m getting nowhere. But I’m used to that.’
Mathilde and Danglard exchanged glances, both looking disappointed. But Danglard was no longer in a mood to criticise Adamsberg. Yes, Clémence had vanished. But all the same, it was Adamsberg who had understood that something wasn’t right and had sent Danglard off to Marcilly.
Adamsberg got up without warning, made a nonchalant pointless gesture, thanked Mathilde for the coffee and asked Danglard to have the technical team come and check Clémence Valmont’s apartment.
‘I’m going for a walk,’ he said, so as not to leave without saying anything. Any excuse so as not to hurt their feelings.
Danglard stayed for a while with Mathilde. They couldn’t stop talking about Clémence, trying to understand. The fiancé who abandons you, the cruel procession of lonely-hearts advertisements, neurotic feelings, little pointed teeth, bad impressions, ambiguities. From time to time, Danglard would get up and see how the technicians were getting on upstairs, and come back saying: ‘They’re in the bathroom now.’ Mathilde poured out some more coffee after adding hot water to the pot. Danglard felt comfortable. He would gladly have stayed there for ever with his elbows on the table with its fish swimming under the glass, lit up by Queen Mathilde’s dark-skinned face. She asked him about Adamsberg. How had he guessed all this?