‘Well, it was Maxime Leclerc. What do you say to that?’
‘That Leclerc is one of the commonest surnames in France.’
‘You’re just trying not to see it. Maxime Leclerc: the biggest, the most brilliant, the most dazzling. The judge couldn’t resign himself to some ordinary name.’
‘You can play games with names just as you can with numbers. You can make them mean anything you like. There’s no end to it.’
‘If you weren’t so wedded to your bloody rationality,’ Adamsberg insisted, trying to be provocative, ‘you’d have to admit that I’ve got some interesting things to say about this Schiltigheim business.’
The commissaire at this point stopped a benevolent attendant who was passing with a tray of glasses of champagne, unnoticed (remarkably) by the capitaine. Since Froissy had refused hers, he took two glasses and placed them in Danglard’s hands.
‘Drink these,’ he ordered. ‘Both of them, but one at a time, like you promised.’
Danglard made a slight nod of gratitude.
‘Because from my point of view, it may not be all right, but it may not be all wrong.’
‘Who says?’
‘Clémentine Courbet. Remember her? I went to see her.’
‘If you’re going to start quoting the sayings of Clémentine Courbet as your new bible, the whole squad is going to hell in a handcart.’
‘Don’t be so pessimistic, Danglard. But it’s true, one can play with names ad infinitum. Mine for instance. Adamsberg, Adam’s mountain, the First Man. That’s good, isn’t it? And on a mountain as well. I wonder. Perhaps it was because of that, that…’
‘The stuff about Strasbourg Cathedral,’ Danglard cut him off.
‘Got it in one. And what about your name, Danglard, what does it mean?’
‘It’s the name of the traitor in The Count of Monte Cristo. A real bastard.’
‘That’s interesting.’
‘Actually, there’s more to it,’ added Danglard, having downed the two glasses of champagne. ‘It was originally D’Anglard, and Anglard comes from the Germanic Angil-hard.’
‘And that means? You’ll have to translate it for me.’
‘Angil has two roots, meaning “sword” and “angel”. As for hard, it means, well, “hard”.’
‘So you’re a sort of inflexible angel with a sword. That’s a lot better than the poor old First Man waving from the top of a mountain. Even Strasbourg Cathedral would be impressed by an Avenging Angel. Anyway, its door’s blocked.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘By a dragon.’
Adamsberg glanced at his watches. Another five hours forty-four and a half minutes to go. He thought he was doing quite well, but how much longer could he carry on? He had never had to talk for seven hours running before.
Suddenly all his good work was interrupted by a set of red signals going on at the front of the cabin. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Danglard in alarm.
‘Seat-belt sign.’
‘Why are they putting on the seat-belt sign?’
‘Oh, just a bit of turbulence that’s all, it’s going to be a bit bumpy.’
Adamsberg prayed to the First Man on his mountain to see to it that the turbulence was minor. But the First Man obviously didn’t give a damn about him. Unfortunately the turbulence was particularly rough, making the plane plummet into air pockets several metres deep. Even the most blasé passengers stopped reading their books, the cabin crew were obliged to take their seats, and a young woman screamed. Danglard had closed his eyes and was hyperventilating. Hélène Froissy looked at him anxiously. On a sudden inspiration, Adamsberg turned to Retancourt who was sitting behind the capitaine.
‘Retancourt,’ he whispered, between the seats, ‘Danglard’s in a bad way. Can you do some kind of massage to send him off to sleep? Or can you think of any other way of knocking him out, or sedating him, or something?’
Retancourt nodded, which didn’t altogether surprise Adamsberg.
‘Yes, I can,’ she said, ‘as long as he doesn’t know it’s me.’
Adamsberg nodded.
‘Danglard,’ he said, taking his hand, ‘keep your eyes shut, one of the cabin staff is going to look after you.’
He signalled to Retancourt that she could start.
‘Undo his top three shirt buttons,’ she whispered, loosening her seat-belt.
Then, with her fingertips moving in a rapid pianistic dance, Retancourt set to work on Danglard’s neck, following the spinal column and moving to the temples. Observing the manoeuvre as the plane continued to lurch, Froissy and Adamsberg looked by turns at Retancourt’s hands and at Danglard’s face. The capitaine’s breathing seemed to slow down, then his features relaxed, and less than fifteen minutes later, he was asleep.
‘Did he take any sedatives?’ Retancourt asked, slowly removing her fingers from the capitaine’s neck.
‘A cartload,’ Adamsberg replied.
Retancourt looked at her watch.
‘He probably didn’t sleep a wink last night. He should sleep for at least four hours now, we can relax. By the time he wakes up we’ll be over Newfoundland. Being over land is more reassuring.’
Adamsberg and Froissy exchanged glances.
‘She is so amazing,’ whispered Froissy. ‘If she had boyfriend trouble, she’d just crush it like an insect underfoot.’
‘Love affairs are never insects, Froissy. They’re always walls, ten metres high. It’s no dishonour to find them hard to climb.’
‘Thanks for that,’ Froissy whispered.
‘You know, lieutenant, Retancourt doesn’t like me.’
Froissy did not dissent.
‘Has she ever said why?’ he asked.
‘No, she never says anything about you at all.’
A steeple of 142 metres can wobble, just because the incredible hulk Retancourt never finds it necessary to mention you, thought Adamsberg. He glanced at Danglard. Sleep was bringing the colour back to his cheeks and the turbulence was subsiding.
The plane was on its final approach when the capitaine woke up, looking surprised.
‘It was the flight attendant,’ Adamsberg explained. ‘She’s a specialist. Luckily, she’s going to be on the return flight too. We land in twenty minutes.’
Apart from two brief scares when the undercarriage came down and when the air brakes went on, Danglard, still under the effect of his soothing massage, managed to get through the ordeal of landing reasonably well. When they arrived, he was fresh and rested, whereas everyone else was looking rather dazed. Two and a half hours later, they had all been allocated rooms. Because of the time difference, the course was not scheduled to begin until two o’clock the following afternoon.
Adamsberg had been given a two-room apartment on the fifth floor, as clean and new as a show flat, with a balcony. A Gothic privilege. He leaned on it for a long moment to look down at the immense Ottawa River which flowed down below between its wild banks, and on the far side the lights of the skyscrapers of Ottawa city.
XVII
THREE CARS BELONGING TO THE RCMP PARKED IN FRONT OF THE building next day. They were easily recognised by their gleaming white doors marked with the head of a bison, looking half placid and half determined, surrounded by maple leaves and surmounted by the British Crown. Three men in uniform were waiting for the visitors. One of them, whom Adamsberg recognised by his epaulettes as the superintendent, leaned towards his neighbour.
‘Which one would you say was the commissaire?’ he asked his colleague.
‘The little guy, in the black jacket.’
Adamsberg could more or less hear what they were saying. Brézillon and Trabelmann would have been pleased: the little guy. At the same time, his attention was distracted by some small black squirrels hopping about in the street, as lively and unperturbed as sparrows.