‘It’s an odd name, Fulgence. It comes from the Latin fulgur, thunderbolt, or lightning strike. I suppose it suited him down to the ground.’
‘I think that’s what our old priest used to say. In our house we were non-believers, but I spent a lot of time in the priest’s house. First of all because there was sheep’s cheese and honey to eat there, which is very good to eat combined. And then he had masses of leatherbound books. Most of them were religious, of course, with big illuminated pictures, red and gold. I just loved those pictures. I copied dozens of them. There wasn’t much else to copy in our village.’
‘Was everyone old in your village?’
‘That’s what it seems like when you’re little.’
‘But why, when they gave him a cigarette, did the toad start puffing at it, puff, puff, till it burst?’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, I don’t know, Danglard,’ said Adamsberg raising his arms in the air.
The instinctive movement brought a spasm of pain. He quickly lowered his left arm and put his hand on the dressing.
‘Time for another painkiller,’ said Danglard, looking at his watch. ‘I’ll fetch it.’
Adamsberg nodded, wiping sweat from his forehead. That bastard Favre.
Danglard disappeared into the kitchen with his glass, made a lot of noise with cupboards and taps, and came back with some water and two tablets for Adamsberg. Adamsberg swallowed them, noting out of the corner of his eye that the level of gin in the glass had magically risen.
‘Where were we?’
‘You were talking about the old priest’s illuminated books.’
‘Yes. There were other books there too, poetry, picture books. I would copy and draw things from them and read a bit here and there. I was still doing it at eighteen. One evening I was sitting at his big kitchen table with its greasy surface, reading and scribbling, when it happened. That’s why I still remember, word for word, a bit out of a poem. It’s like a bullet embedded in my skull that I can’t get out. I’d put the book back and gone out for a walk on the mountainside at about ten o’clock. I climbed up to the Conche de Sauzec.’
‘Eh?’
‘Sorry, a little hill overlooking our village. I was sitting there on a rock, repeating to myself these lines I’d just read and that I was sure I would have forgotten by the next day.’
‘And they were?’
‘What god, what harvester of eternal summertime,
Had, as he strolled away, carelessly thrown down
That golden sickle in the field of the stars?’
‘It’s by Victor Hugo.’
‘Ah. And who asks the question?’
‘Ruth, the woman who bares her breast.’
‘Ruth? I always thought I asked the same question myself.’
‘No, it was Ruth. Hugo wasn’t to know you would come along. It’s the end of a long poem, Boaz asleep, it’s famous. But tell me something. Did it work for frogs too? Puff, puff, bang? Or was it just toads?’
Adamsberg threw him a look of despair.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Danglard, gulping another mouthful of gin.
‘I was reciting this to myself anyway, because I liked the sound of it. I had just done my first year as a probationer at the police station at Tarbes. I was back in the village on leave. It was late August, the nights were beginning to get cool, and I started off home. I was washing my face at the sink as quietly as I could – there were nine of us in a couple of rooms – when Raphaël came rushing in like a madman, with blood on his hands.’
‘Raphaël?’
‘My younger brother. He was sixteen.’
Danglard put the glass down, open-mouthed.
‘Your brother? I thought you only had sisters. Five of them.’
‘I did have a brother, Danglard, almost like a twin, we were so close. It must be almost thirty years ago now that I lost him.’
Stunned, Danglard maintained a respectful silence.
‘He was seeing a girl from the village, in the evenings, up by the water-tower. It wasn’t just a teenage fling, they really loved each other. Lise, the girl, wanted to get married as soon as they were of age. But that was a nightmare for my mother, and as for Lise’s family, they were furious. They really didn’t want their little girl to get involved with the likes of our Raphaël. We were the lowest of the low. And her father was the mayor. So you see.’
Adamsberg stopped for a moment before he could carry on.
‘Raphaël grabbed my arm and said: “She’s dead, Jean-Baptiste, she’s dead, she’s been killed.” I put my hand over his mouth, washed the blood off him and pulled him outside. He was crying. I asked him over and over, “What happened, Raphaël, tell me for God’s sake.” He just kept saying: “I don’t know, I don’t know.” Finally he said, “I found myself on my knees, up there by the water-tower, with blood all over me, and this big screwdriver in my hand, and she was dead, Jean-Baptiste, dead, with three stab wounds in her stomach.” I begged him not to shout, or cry, I didn’t want the family to hear. I asked him if the screwdriver belonged to him. “I don’t know, it was just in my hand.” “But what were you doing before that, Raphaël?” “I can’t remember, Jean-Baptiste, I swear to God. But I know I’d gone out and got drunk with my pals.” “Why?” “Because she was pregnant. I was beside myself, but I’d never have touched a hair of her head.” “But then what happened, Raphaël? Between drinking with your pals and the water-tower.” “I went through the wood to meet her as usual. And because I was frightened, or because I was drunk, I was running and I hit my head on the sign.” “What do you mean?” “The sign to Emeriac, it must have been across the path. Next thing, I found myself by the water-tower. Three red wounds, Jean-Baptiste, and I was holding this screwdriver.” “And you can’t remember what happened in between?” “No, not a thing. Maybe the blow on my head made me go out of my mind, or maybe I am out of my mind, or maybe I’m a monster. I can’t remember… I can’t remember hitting her.”
So I asked him what he had done with the screwdriver. He’d left it up there, by her body. I looked at the sky and I thought, we’re in luck, it’s going to rain. Then I told Raphaël to wash himself properly, to get into bed, and if anyone asked him later, to say that we’d been playing cards in our little backyard since quarter-past ten, when he left his friends – have you got that, Raphaël? We were playing écarté, you won five games and I won four.’
‘Providing a false alibi,’ remarked Danglard.
‘Absolutely, and you’re the only person who knows about it. I went running up there and Lise was lying just as he had described, with those stab wounds in her stomach. I found the weapon, sticky with blood up to the hilt, and the handle covered with bloody fingerprints. I pressed it on to my shirt to get its measurements, then I put it under my coat. It was raining a bit by then, enough to muddy the footprints near the body. I went and threw the weapon into a pool in the Torque.’
‘The what?’
‘The Torque, the river that runs nearby and forms big pools, we call them launes. Anyway I threw it in where the water’s quite deep, and chucked a lot of stones on top of it. It wasn’t going to surface for some time.’
‘False alibi, plus concealing material evidence.’
‘Exactly, and I’ve never regretted it. I’ve never, ever, had the slightest remorse. I loved my brother better than myself. Do you think I was going to let him go down?’
‘That’s for you to say.’
‘But something else I can say, is that I’d seen Judge Fulgence out that night. Because while I’d been up on the mountain earlier, on the Conche de Sauzec, I could see down into the valley, and I’d seen him going past. It was him all right. I remembered that later, while I was holding my brother’s hand to get him off to sleep.’
‘Could you really see that well?’