‘Yes, you could see the path through the trees, silhouettes stood out against it.’
‘Did he have the dogs? Was that how you recognised him?’
‘No, it was because he was wearing the summer cape. His outline was like a triangle. Most of the men in the village were stocky and much shorter than him. It was the judge for sure, Danglard, walking along the track to the water-tower.’
‘Raphaël was out that night too, and so were his pals. Who were blind drunk. And you were out yourself.’
‘Never mind. Listen to the rest, and you’ll understand. The next day, I climbed the wall of the Manor and went poking about the outbuildings. And in the barn, with a lot of spades and shovels, I found a three-pronged garden fork. A trident, Danglard.’
Adamsberg raised his right hand with three fingers up.
‘Three prongs, three holes in a row. Look at the photo of Lise’s body,’ he said, taking it out of the file. ‘Look at that straight line of puncture marks. How could my brother, who was in a state of panic and very drunk, possibly have made three stab wounds in a perfectly straight line?’
Danglard examined the picture. It was true that the wounds ran in an absolutely straight line. He understood now why Adamsberg had been using a ruler to measure the Schiltigheim pictures.
‘How did you get hold of this picture? You were just a trainee policeman, a probationer.’
‘I pinched it,’ said Adamsberg calmly. ‘The fork was a very old garden tool, Danglard, it had a handle that was polished and decorated, and the crossbar was rusty. But the prongs were clean and shiny, without a trace of soil or a mark of any kind. Cleaned, polished, smooth as could be. What does that tell you?’
‘Well, it’s suggestive, but it’s not clear proof of anything.’
‘It’s as clear as the water in the pool. As soon as I saw that fork, the evidence exploded in my face.’
‘Like the toad’s guts?’
‘If you must. An outpouring of vice and wickedness, the real insides of the Lord and Master of the Manor. But then there he was at the barn door, watching me, holding his two dogs on the leash, the terrifying dogs who had torn Jeannot to bits. And when Judge Fulgence was watching you, Danglard, even when you were eighteen years old, it put the fear of God into you. He asked me what I thought I was doing, with that contained anger in his voice that was second nature to him. I said I’d come to play a trick on him, to unscrew the bolts in his workbench. I’d done that kind of thing so often over the years that he believed me, and with a royal wave of his hand he pointed to the way out and said, “I’ll count to four, young man, to give you a start.” I ran like crazy towards the garden wall, because I knew that on the count of four he would unleash the dogs. One of them got hold of my clothes, but I was able to pull myself free and get over the wall.’
Adamsberg pulled up his trouser leg and showed a long scar on his calf.
‘Judge Fulgence’s teethmarks are still there.’
‘His dog’s, you mean.’
‘Same thing.’
Adamsberg took a sip of the gin from Danglard’s glass.
‘At the trial, they took no account of my having seen Fulgence in the woods. I was too subjective a witness. But in particular, they didn’t accept the trident as the murder weapon. And yes, the spacing of the prongs was exactly the same as the wounds. That coincidence held them up a bit, and they took expert evidence again, because they were terrified of the judge, who was starting to make threats. But their second examination relieved them. The depth of the perforations didn’t correspond. They were too deep by half a centimetre. What cretins! As if it wasn’t easy enough to have plunged the screwdriver into each of the wounds and then put it in my brother’s hand. They weren’t just fools, they were cowards. The examining magistrate in charge of the case was just a lackey in the hands of Fulgence. They preferred to believe it was the work of a kid of sixteen.’
‘And did the depth of the wounds correspond to the screwdriver?’
‘Yes. But of course I couldn’t suggest that, since the weapon had mysteriously disappeared.’
‘Yes, very mysteriously.’
‘Raphaël had everything stacked against him. She was his girlfriend, he met her there regularly every night, and she’d just announced she was pregnant. According to the magistrate, he was panicked by the news, so he killed her. But you see, Danglard, there was vital evidence missing, if they were going to convict. No weapon, because it had disappeared, and no witness to testify that Raphaël was up there at the time. And he wasn’t there, because he had been playing cards with me, since leaving his friends. I swore that under oath.’
‘And as a policeman, your word counted double?’
‘Yes, I took advantage of that. I lied from start to finish. And now if you want to go and fish the murder weapon out of the pool, go ahead.’
Adamsberg looked at his deputy through half-closed eyes and smiled a little for the first time since he had been speaking.
‘You’d be wasting your time of course,’ he said. ‘I went and pulled it out later and threw it into a dustbin in Nîmes. Because water is not to be relied on, nor is its god.’
‘So he was acquitted then, your brother?’
‘Yes. But the rumours went on, getting worse and worse. Nobody would speak to him in the village, they avoided him, out of fear. And he was haunted by this black hole in his memory, and didn’t know whether he really had done it or not. Do you see, Danglard? He honestly didn’t know whether he had murdered the girl he loved. So he dared not go near anyone. I ruined half a dozen cushions, trying to prove to him that if you stab someone three times, you simply can’t do it in a straight line. I must have given hundreds of demonstrations. But it was no good, he was completely destroyed, he kept his distance from everyone. I was away in Tarbes, I couldn’t hold his hand every day. And that’s how I lost my brother, Danglard.’
Danglard passed him the glass and Adamsberg swallowed two mouthfuls.
‘After that, I had just one idea in my head, to bring the judge to justice. He left our region, because he too was affected by rumours surrounding the case. I wanted to track him down, and get him prosecuted, so as to clear my brother’s name. Because I knew, and I was the only one who knew, that Fulgence was guilty. Guilty of the murder and guilty of destroying Raphaël too. I followed him relentlessly for fourteen years, all over the country, chasing him through press reports and archives.’
Adamsberg put his hand on the files.
‘Eight murders, eight people stabbed, with three wounds in a row. Between the years 1949 and 1983. Lise was killed in 1973. All eight murders had been solved, eight culprits easily caught, virtually weapon in hand. Seven poor sods in jail, as well as my brother, gone to perdition. Fulgence always escaped. The devil always escapes. Read the files, take them back home with you, Danglard. I’m going to the office to see Retancourt. I’ll call round at your place late tonight, OK?’
IX
ON HIS WAY HOME, DANGLARD MULLED OVER WHAT HE HAD LEARNT. A brother, a crime and a suicide. An almost-twin brother, accused of murder, driven from the world, and dead. A drama so traumatic that Adamsberg had never spoken of it. In such circumstances, what credence could be given to his accusations, based simply on having seen the silhouette of the judge on a woodland path, and having found a garden fork in his barn? In Adamsberg’s place, he too would have desperately sought a culprit to take the place of his brother. And instinctively, he too might have pointed the finger at the well-known hate-figure of the village.
‘I loved my brother better than myself.’ It seemed to Danglard that Adamsberg had somehow been holding Raphaël’s hand in his, ever since the night of the murder. He had removed himself in this way from the world of ordinary people for the last thirty years, since he could not join it without risking letting go of that hand, abandoning his brother to guilt and death. In that case, only the posthumous clearing of Raphaël’s name and his return to the world would release Adamsberg’s fingers. Or alternatively, Danglard told himself, clutching the briefcase tightly, recognising his brother’s crime. If Raphaël really had been the killer, his brother would have to face it one day. Adamsberg couldn’t spend his entire life chasing a false phantom, in the shape of a terrifying old man. If the dossiers led in that second direction, he would be obliged to hold the commissaire back, and force him to open his eyes, however brutal and painful that might be.