‘Yes, identical.’
‘Any earth in the wounds? Dirt?’ Adamsberg asked the doctor. ‘Or was it a clean, new weapon?’
‘No, there were elements of humus, leaves and tiny stones deep inside the wounds.’
‘Ah, really?’
He gave the ruler and tape measure back to Laliberté and surprised an expression of discomfiture on the superintendent’s face. As if he had been expecting something completely different from this minute examination.
‘What is it, Aurèle? Wasn’t that what you wanted me here for? To see this?’
‘Er, yeah, yeah, sure,’ said Laliberté with some hesitation. ‘But what’s with all this measuring stuff?’
‘Do you have the murder weapon?’
‘No, it’s vanished, much as you might expect. But the technicians tell me it was probably a big screwdriver.’
‘Your technicians are better at molecules than at weaponry. No screwdriver did that. It was a trident.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You try to plunge a screwdriver into somebody three times, and get both a straight line and identical depth of all three wounds. You could try for twenty years. That was done with a trident, or at least a three-pronged fork of some kind.’
‘Christ, is that what you were checking?’
‘Yes, that and something else, much deeper. As deep as the mud in Pink Lake.’
The superintendent still seemed thrown off balance, his arms hanging down against his large frame. He had had them driven here at almost provocative speed, but the measurements had disconcerted him. Adamsberg wondered what Laliberté had really been hoping for.
‘Is there a bruise on the head?’ he asked the doctor.
‘Yes, a serious blow, back of the cranium, must have knocked the victim unconscious but not enough to kill her.’
‘How did you know about the bang on the head?’ asked Laliberté.
Adamsberg folded his arms as he turned towards the superintendent.
‘You called me over because you knew I had a file on all this, right?’
‘Er, yeah,’ the superintendent replied, still hesitating.
‘Yes or no, Aurèle? You’ve brought me across the Atlantic to haul me off at two in the morning, French time, to look at a murder victim, but what do you want from me? Do you want me to tell you you’ve got a dead woman here? If you took all this trouble to get me here, you must surely have known that I’ve got something on this. That’s what they said in Paris. And yes, I do, but you don’t seem satisfied. It’s not what you were after?’
‘Don’t take it personal. I’m surprised, that’s all.’
‘You haven’t heard it all yet, there’s more that would surprise you.’
‘Pull the sheet right up,’ Laliberté ordered the doctor. Reynald carefully rolled up the sheet, just as Menard had in Strasbourg. Adamsberg stiffened as he caught sight of four small moles in a diamond shape at the base of the throat. He had just time to prevent himself from jumping, and blessed the meticulous slowness of the pathologist.
It was indeed Noëlla, lying in the mortuary drawer. Adamsberg tried to control his breathing and examined the dead woman without flinching, he hoped. Laliberté had not taken his eyes off him.
‘Can I see the bruise?’ he asked.
The doctor lifted the head to expose the back of the skull.
‘A blow from a blunt instrument,’ Reynald explained. ‘That’s all we can say. Probably made of wood.’
‘The handle of the trident,’ Adamsberg stated. ‘He always does that.’
‘Who’s this “he”?’ asked Laliberté.
‘The murderer.’
‘You know who it is?’
‘Yes, I think so. But what I don’t know is who told you about him.’
‘And this woman, do you know her?’
‘Come on, Aurèle, think I know the names of the sixty million French people in the world?’
‘If you know the murderer, you might know the victim.’
‘I’m not a clairvoyant, as you would say yourself.’
‘Never seen her?’
‘Where, in France? Paris?’
‘Anywhere.’
‘No, never,’ said Adamsberg with a shrug.
‘She was called Noëlla Corderon. Ring any bells?’
Adamsberg turned away from the body and moved closer to the superintendent.
‘Why do you keep insisting that I ought to know something about her?’
‘She’d been living in Hull for six months. You could have met her.’
‘So could you. What was she doing here? Married? Student?’
‘She’d followed a boyfriend over, but he chucked her out. She worked in a bar in Ottawa, called the Caribou. Mean anything to you?’
‘Never set foot in it. Aurèle, you’re keeping something back. I don’t know what this famous anonymous letter said, but you’re being evasive.’
‘And you’re not?’
‘No. I’ll tell you all I know about this case tomorrow. Or at least anything that might be of help to you. But I’d like to get to bed now, I’m asleep on my feet and so’s my lieutenant.’
Retancourt, sitting massively at the back of the room, was in fact in perfect shape.
‘We’ve got to have a word or two first,’ said Laliberté, with a slight smile. ‘Let’s go to my office.’
‘For crying out loud, Aurèle. It’s past three in the morning for us.’
‘It’s only nine o’clock local time. I won’t keep you long. We can let your lieutenant go if you like.’
‘No,’ said Adamsberg suddenly. ‘She stays with me.’
Laliberté had placed himself in his official chair, which was vaguely imposing, and was flanked by his two inspectors, both standing alongside. Adamsberg was familiar with this triangular scenario, intended to impress suspects. He had not had time to take in the atrocious knowledge that Noëlla had been murdered with a trident in Quebec. He was concentrating on Laliberté’s ambiguous behaviour, which might indicate that he suspected Adamsberg’s links with the girl. But nothing seemed certain. The game was a difficult one to play, and he would have to weigh every word from the superintendent. The fact that he had slept with Noëlla had nothing to do with her murder, so he must absolutely forget it for now. And prepare himself to meet every possibility, drawing on the power of his passive forces, the safest defences of his private citadel.
‘Ask your men to sit down, Aurèle. I know the system, and it’s disagreeable. Anyone would think you’ve forgotten I’m a policeman myself.’
Laliberté waved Portelance and Philippe-Auguste to the side. They both took out notebooks, preparing to make notes.
‘Is this an interrogation?’ Adamsberg asked, pointing to them. ‘Or am I just helping you with your enquiries?’
‘Don’t bite my head off, Adamsberg. They’re just taking notes for the record that’s all.’
‘Don’t bite mine off either, Aurèle. I’ve been up twenty-two hours and you know it. That letter,’ he added. ‘Let’s see the letter.’
‘I’ll read it to you,’ said Laliberté, opening a thick green file. ‘Corderon murder. See Commissaire J.-B. Adamsberg, Paris Crime Squad. Has taken a personal interest in it.’
‘Tendentious,’ Adamsberg commented. ‘Is that why you’re acting like a cop? You told them in Paris that it was a case I’d been working on. Here, you seem to think I took an interest in this woman.’
‘Don’t put words in my mouth.’
‘Well don’t take me for an idiot either. Let me see the letter.’
‘You want to check what it says?’
‘Precisely.’
There was not a word more on the sheet of paper, which seemed to have come from an ordinary printer.
‘You took fingerprints, of course.’
‘It was clean.’
‘When did you get it?’
‘When the body surfaced.’
‘Surfaced from where?’
‘From the water. It was frozen into the ice. Remember the cold spell last week? The body must have stayed put till it thawed. She was found Wednesday. We got the letter next day at midday.’