‘Go on,’ said Adamsberg, resting his cheek on his hand.
‘Watch out, you’re messing up your make-up, I told you not to touch it!’
‘Sorry. Carry on.’
‘Well, that’s all really. Someone who has a meaningless affair is not involved enough to kill.’
‘Retancourt,’ said Adamsberg forcefully.
‘Shh, Henriette,’ his lieutenant corrected him. ‘Be careful, someone might hear you.’
‘Henriette, I hope one day I will deserve the help you’ve given me. But for now, please go on believing in me about that night I can’t remember. Please believe I didn’t kill, channel all your energy into that. Be a pylon, be a mountain of belief. Then I’ll be able to as well.’
‘Well, use your own brain,’ Retancourt insisted. ‘I told you. Your inner confidence. Now is the time to count on it.’
‘I hear what you’re saying,’ said Adamsberg, holding her arm, ‘but your energy will be a lever. Just keep it there for me, for a while.’
‘I’ve no reason to change my mind.’
Adamsberg released her arm with reluctance, as if he were jumping down from a tree, and left.
XL
THE COMMISSAIRE, HAVING CHECKED IN A GLASS DOOR THAT HIS makeup was still intact, stationed himself from six that evening on the homeward route of Adrien Danglard. He spotted from a distance Danglard’s large shambling figure, but the capitaine gave no sign of recognition as he walked past Jean-Pierre Emile Roger Feuillet. Adamsberg caught him by the arm.
‘Don’t say anything, Danglard, just keep walking.’
‘Good God, who are you? What do you want?’ said Danglard trying to pull free.
‘It’s me, Adamsberg, got up like a salesman.’
‘Shit,’ Danglard gasped, staring at the face in front of him and trying to make it fit Adamsberg’s features behind the pale skin, red-rimmed eyes and balding hairline.
‘OK now, Danglard?’
‘I’ve got to talk to you,’ said the capitaine, looking around.
‘Me too. Let’s turn here and go to your place. No funny business.’
‘No, not my place,’ said Danglard in a low, firm voice. ‘Pretend you were asking me the way and leave me. I’ll see you in five minutes, in my son’s school, second street right. Tell the janitor you’ve come to see me, and I’ll be in the games room.’
Danglard pulled away his arm and the commissaire watched as he went down the street and turned a corner.
In the school, he found his deputy sitting on a child’s blue plastic chair, surrounded by a confusion of balls, books, cubes and little tables. Perched thirty centimetres above the floor, Danglard looked ridiculous. But Adamsberg had no choice but to take another chair, a red one, and sit down beside him.
‘Surprised to see I’ve got away from the Mounties?’
‘Yes, I have to say.’
‘Disappointed? Anxious?’
Danglard looked at him without a word. This pale-faced balding creature, with Adamsberg’s voice coming from his mouth, fascinated him. His youngest child was looking by turns at his father and at the funny man in a beige tweed suit.
‘I’m going to tell you another story now, Danglard, but ask your little boy to go away. It’s unsuitable for children.’
Danglard whispered to the child and sent him off across the room, still looking at Adamsberg.
‘It’s like a cops and robbers movie, Danglard. With a chase. But perhaps you’ve heard it?’
‘I’ve read the papers,’ said Danglard prudently, watchful of his boss’s fixed gaze. ‘I saw the charges that they’d brought against you, and that you’d escaped police surveillance.’
‘So you don’t know any more than the man in the street?’
‘If you like.’
‘Well, I’ll fill you in on the detail,’ said Adamsberg, pulling his chair closer.
During the entire time he was telling his tale, omitting nothing, from his first meeting with Laliberté to the stay at Basile’s flat, Adamsberg examined the expressions on the capitaine’s face. But Danglard’s face reflected nothing but concern, scrupulous attention and at times astonishment.
‘I told you she was an exceptional woman,’ he said when Adamsberg had finished.
‘I didn’t come here to talk about Retancourt. Let’s talk about Laliberté. Pretty quick off the mark, wasn’t he? All that stuff he’d been able to collect on me in such a short time. Including the fact that I had no memory at all of the two and a half hours on the trail. That amnesia was the fatal piece of evidence in his file.’
‘Obviously.’
‘But who knew about it? Nobody at the Mounties knew, nor anyone in our squad.’
‘Perhaps he was guessing? Perhaps he just assumed it?’
Adamsberg smiled.
‘No, it was down in the file as a certainty. When I said, “nor anyone in our squad,” there was of course an exception. You knew about it, Danglard.’
Danglard nodded slowly.
‘So you think I might have told him?’ he said calmly.
‘Exactly.’
‘It’s logical enough,’ Danglard agreed.
‘For once when I try to be logical, you should be glad.’
‘No, this time, you shouldn’t have tried it.’
‘I’m in hell, Danglard, I have to try everything. Including the damned logic you keep trying to teach me.’
‘Fair enough. But what does your intuition tell you? Your dreams, your imagination? What do they say about me?’
‘You’re asking me to do it my way?’
‘For once, yes.’
His deputy’s calm demeanour and steady gaze shook Adamsberg. He knew by heart Danglard’s washed-out blue eyes, which were unable to conceal any of his emotions. You could read anything in them: fear, disapproval, pleasure, distrust, as easily as fish swimming in a fountain. But he could see nothing there indicating the least hint of withdrawal. Curiosity and wonder were the only fish swimming in Danglard’s eyes at the moment. And possibly a discreet relief at seeing him again.
‘My dreams tell me you don’t know anything about it. But those are just dreams. My imagination tells me you’d never do anything like that, or not in that way.’
‘And your intuition?’
‘Tells me the judge is behind it all.’
‘Pretty stubborn, your intuition, isn’t it?’
‘Well, you asked. And you know you don’t like my answers. Sanscartier told me to keep on sailing and hang on in there. So that’s what I’m doing.’
‘Can I say something?’ asked Danglard.
Meanwhile, the little boy, tired of reading, had come back to them and was sitting on Adamsberg’s knee, having finally managed to identify him.
‘You smell sweaty,’ he said, interrupting the conversation.
‘I expect so,’ said Adamsberg. ‘I’ve been travelling a long time.’
‘Why are you in disguise?’
‘I was playing games in the plane.’
‘What sort of games?’
‘Cops and robbers.’
‘You were the robber?’ the child said.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
Adamsberg patted the boy’s hair to indicate the end of the exchange and looked up at Danglard.
‘Someone’s been searching your flat,’ Danglard said. ‘Though I can’t be sure.’