‘How did you manage that?’
‘I’ll tell you some other time. It’s not important, it’s my little secret. And it’s a funny thing but you’d think he was allowing me to watch him, the chalk circle man, as if he was letting himself be tamed from a distance. If you want to see him some night, come and find me. But you must only watch him from a distance. No going up to him and bothering him. I’m not telling the famous policeman about my secret, I’m just telling the man who asked me into his office.’
‘That suits me,’ said Adamsberg.
‘But why are you looking for the chalk circle man? He hasn’t done anything wrong. Why are you so interested in him?’
Adamsberg looked at her.
‘Because one day it’ll get bigger. The thing in the middle of the circle, it’ll get bigger. Please don’t ask me how I know, I beg you, because I can’t tell you. But it’s inevitable.’
He shook his head, pushing back his hair from his eyes. ‘Yes, it will get bigger.’
Adamsberg uncrossed his legs and began aimlessly reorganising the papers on his desk.
‘I can’t forbid you to follow him,’ he added. ‘But I really don’t advise it. Be cautious, take very good care. Don’t forget.’
He was uneasy, as if his own conviction made him feel unwell. Mathilde smiled and left.
Coming out of his office a little later, Adamsberg took Danglard by the shoulder and spoke quietly to him.
‘Tomorrow morning, try to find out if there’s been a new circle in the night. And if so, give it a thorough examination. I’m counting on you. I told that woman to watch out. This thing is going to get bigger, Danglard. There have been more circles over the last month. The rhythm’s picking up. There’s something horrible underneath all this, can’t you feel it?’
Danglard thought for a moment, then answered with some hesitation.
‘A bit unhealthy that’s all. But perhaps it’s just some long-drawn-out practical joke…’
‘No, Danglard. There’s cruelty oozing out of those circles.’
III
CHARLES REYER WAS ALSO JUST LEAVING HIS OFFICE. HE WAS FED up with working for the blind, checking the printing and perforations of all those wretched books in Braille, the billions of tiny holes that communicated their meaning to the skin of his fingertips. Above all, he was fed up with the desperate attempts he made to be original, on the pretext that he ought to become exceptional in some way, to distract people from his loss of sight. That was how he had behaved towards that woman the other day, now he thought of it, the warm-hearted one who had accosted him in the Café Saint-Jacques. An intelligent woman she had been, a bit eccentric perhaps, though he didn’t really think so, but a kind-hearted and lively person, obviously. And what had he done? As usual, he’d begun showing off, trying to be original. To impress her by his conversation, to say out-of-the-way things, just so that a stranger would think, hey, this man may be blind, but he’s certainly not ordinary.
And she’d gone along with it, the woman. She’d tried to play the game, to respond as quickly as she could to his mixture of false confidences and stupid remarks. But she had been sincere. She’d told him about the shark, just like that, she’d been generous, sensitive, helpful, willing to look at his eyes and tell him what they really looked like. But he had been entirely taken up with the sensational effect he wanted to produce; he regularly stopped any heartfelt conversation by pretending to be a lucid and cynical thinker. No, Charles, he thought, you’re going the wrong way about things. All this palaver ends up with your being unable to say whether your brain’s still working or not.
And then there’s your habit of walking alongside people in the street just to frighten them, to exert some kind of silly power over them, or going up to someone at a traffic light with your white stick, and saying ‘Can I help you cross the road?’ What’s all that about? Just to embarrass other people, of course, and then to take full advantage of your untouchable status. Poor souls, they don’t dare say any thing, they just stand on the pavement, feeling bad. What you’re doing is you’re taking revenge on the rest of the world. You may be over six feet tall, but you’re just a mean little bastard really. And that woman, Queen Mathilde, she’s there, she’s real, and she even told me I was good-looking. And that made me feel pretty good, but of course I couldn’t bring myself to show it, or even say thank you for her kind word.
Feeling his way, Charles stopped at the edge of the pavement. Anyone standing alongside him would have been able to see those rolls of sacking that they put in the Paris gutters to channel the water, without realising how lucky they were to witness this sublime sight. Damn that bloody lioness. He felt like unfolding his white stick and asking ‘Shall I help you across the road?’ with a mean smile. Then he remembered Mathilde saying to him without any malice at alclass="underline" ‘You’re very trying’, and he turned his back on whoever might be there.
IV
DANGLARD HAD TRIED TO RESIST. BUT THE NEXT DAY HE FELL eagerly on the newspapers, leaving aside the political, economic and social news, all the stuff that usually interested him.
No, nothing. Nothing about the chalk circle man. Not that there was anything about these incidents to merit the daily attentions of a journalist.
But now he was hooked.
The night before, his daughter, the elder of the second set of twins, the one who was most interested in what her father told her about his work – although she also said to him, ‘Dad, stop drinking, you’re already fat enough as it is’ – had remarked: ‘Your new boss has a funny name, doesn’t he? Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, Saint John the Baptist from Adam’s Mountain, if you work it out. Looks funny when you put it together. But if you like him, I expect I’ll like him. Will you take me to see him one day?’ And Danglard loved his four twins so much that he would have wished above all to show them to Adamsberg, so that his boss could say ‘They’re angelic.’ But he wasn’t sure whether Adamsberg would be interested in his kids. ‘My kids, my kids, my kids,’ Danglard said to himself. ‘My angels.’
From his office, he called all the district police stations to find out whether any officer on the beat had noticed a circle. ‘Just asking, since everyone’s got interested in it.’ His questions provoked astonishment. He explained that it was on behalf of a psychiatrist friend, a little favour he was doing him on the side. And yes, of course, his fellow cops knew all about the little favours one did for people on the side.
And last night, it turned out, Paris had acquired two new circles. The first was in the rue du Moulin-Vert, where a policeman from the 14th arrondissement had come across it on his rounds, to his great delight. The other was in the same district, on the corner of the rue Froidevaux, and it had been reported by a woman who had complained to the police that she thought this was getting a bit much.
Danglard, feeling on edge and impatient, went upstairs to see Conti, the police photographer. Conti was all set to go, laden with straps and containers, as if on campaign. Since the photographer suffered from various health problems, Danglard imagined that all this complicated and impressive technical stuff must provide him with some kind of reassurance, although he knew perfectly well that Conti wasn’t stupid. They went first to the rue du Moulin-Vert, and there was the large circle, drawn in blue chalk, with the same elegant writing round the edge. Lying slightly off-centre was part of a watch strap. Why draw such big circles for such small objects, Danglard wondered. Until now he hadn’t thought about this discrepancy.
‘Don’t touch!’ he shouted to Conti, who had stepped into the circle to take a closer look.
‘What are you fussing about?’ said Conti. ‘This strap hasn’t been murdered. Call the pathologist while you’re at it!’