‘Have you been in computers a long time?’
‘I started when I was sixty-five.’
‘Not so easy to get the hang of it then, I suppose?’
‘Oh, I manage,’ said the old woman, in her fragile voice.
XLII
DIVISIONNAIRE BRÉZILLON HAD SUMPTUOUS QUARTERS ON THE AVENUE de Breteuil, and was never home before six or seven o’clock. Furthermore, it was known in the Chat Room that his wife had gone to spend autumn in the mists and mellow fruitfulness of England. If there was one place in France where the flics would not go looking for a fugitive, it was the avenue de Breteuil.
Using his pass-key, Adamsberg entered the apartment quietly at five-thirty that afternoon. He sat down in an opulent reception room, with bookshelves full of works on law, administration, policing and poetry. Four topics, all carefully separated from each other. There were six shelves full of poetry – much more than the parish priest had, back in his village. Adamsberg took down a volume of Victor Hugo, taking care not to get his make-up on the precious bindings. He was looking for the golden sickle in the field of stars. A field he currently supposed to be located over Detroit, but he had not yet been able to release his sickle. At the same time, he rehearsed the speech he had prepared for the divisionnaire: it was a version in which he hardly, if at all, believed himself, but it was the only one that might convince his boss. He repeated whole sentences from this speech over to himself, trying to conceal the great gulfs of doubt that lurked underneath it, and to inject into his voice a note of total sincerity.
Less than an hour later, the key turned in the lock and Adamsberg lowered the book to his knee. Brézillon gave a genuine start, and was on the point of crying out, when he saw this unknown Jean-Pierre Emile Roger Feuillet sitting peacefully in an armchair. Adamsberg put his finger on his lips and going towards Brézillon, took him gently by the arm, guiding him to a chair opposite his own. The divisionnaire was more astonished than afraid, no doubt because Jean-Pierre Emile did not look a very threatening person. And the surprise also prevented him finding his tongue for a moment or two.
‘Hush, Monsieur le divisionnaire. Please don’t make a noise. It would only get you into trouble.’
‘Adamsberg!’ said Brézillon, recognising his voice.
‘I’ve come a long way for the pleasure of this interview.’
‘Not so fast, commissaire,’ said Brézillon, once more in control of himself. ‘See that bell? If I press it, there’ll be a couple of dozen flics in here in two minutes.’
‘Please let me have the two minutes before you press it. I know you’ve been a lawyer, you should hear evidence from both sides.’
‘Two minutes with a murderer? That’s asking a lot, Adamsberg.’
‘I didn’t kill that girl.’
‘They all say that – as you and I know full well.’
‘But they don’t all have a mole in their team. Somebody got into my flat, before your men went in, using the spare key left at headquarters. Someone consulted my dossiers on the judge, and was already looking at them, even before my first trip to Canada.’
Hanging on to his shaky story, Adamsberg was speaking rapidly, knowing that Brézillon wouldn’t give him much time, and that he must take him by surprise as fast as possible. He wasn’t used to talking quickly, and stumbled over words like a runner hitting stones on the path.
‘Somebody knew I used the portage trail. Somebody knew I’d met this girl over there. Somebody killed her, using the same methods as the judge, and put my prints on her belt. And dropped the belt on the path, not in the frozen water. That makes too many coincidences, Monsieur le divisionnaire. The file’s too clear, no loose ends in it. Have you seen anything like that?’
‘Or perhaps it’s the regrettable truth, Adamsberg. Your girlfriend, your prints, your evening out drinking. Your usual route back and your obsession with the judge.’
‘It’s not an obsession, it’s a police matter.’
‘So you say. But how do I know you’re not sick, Adamsberg? Do I have to remind you about the Favre affair? Worst of all, and it could be a sign of major disturbance, you’ve wiped the night of the murder from your memory.’
‘And how did they know that?’ Adamsberg asked leaning forward. ‘Danglard was the only person who knew about that, and he didn’t tell anyone. So how did they know?’
Brézillon frowned and loosened his tie.
‘Only one other person could possibly have known I’d lost my memory,’ Adamsberg went on, using Danglard’s words. ‘And that’s the person who managed to make me lose it. It’s evidence that I wasn’t alone on that path, or in the whole affair.’
Brézillon lumbered to his feet, fetched himself a cigarette from the bookshelf and sat down again. It was a tiny sign of interest, a momentary distraction from the alarm bell.
‘My brother lost his memory too, and so did all the other men arrested after the judge’s murders. You’ve seen the files, haven’t you?’
The divisionnaire nodded, lighting his coarse untipped cigarette, much the same kind as Clémentine smoked.
‘So where’s your proof?’
‘I don’t have any.’
‘The only defence you can put up is this judge, who died about sixteen years ago.’
‘The judge, or a follower.’
‘Phantoms, Adamsberg.’
‘But phantoms are worth some consideration. Like poems,’ Adamsberg risked.
He was approaching his man from another direction. Would a poet hit the panic button without hesitating?
Brézillon leaned back in the chair, expelled a puff of smoke and pulled a face.
‘The RCMP, now,’ he said. ‘What I didn’t like, Adamsberg, was the way they did this. They hauled you back over there to help in the investigation, and I believed it. I don’t like being lied to, or having one of my men trapped like that. It’s absolutely against all the rules. Légalité deceived me with false explanations. It was a premature extradition and a legal sleight of hand.’
Brézillon’s pride and professional integrity had been offended by the superintendent’s trick. Adamsberg had not anticipated this favourable element.
‘Of course, now Légalité tells me he only discovered the evidence against you after you’d arrived.’
‘Quite untrue. He’d already put his file together.’
‘That was dishonest,’ said Brézillon with a contemptuous grimace. ‘On the other hand, you’re a refugee from Canadian justice, and I do not expect that kind of behaviour from one of my commissaires.’
‘I didn’t run from Canadian justice, because no one had said anything about an arrest at that stage. There were no charges, nobody had cautioned me, I still had my freedom of movement.’
‘I suppose that’s technically correct.’
‘I was free to have had enough, to smell a rat, and to leave.’
‘In disguise and with false papers, commissaire.’
‘Well, shall we say that was the necessary path to take. A sort of game,’ said Adamsberg, improvising.
‘And you often play games with Retancourt?’
Adamsberg paused, as the image of the close-combat incident flashed into his mind.
‘All she was doing was fulfilling her mission, which was to protect me. She was strictly obeying your orders.’
Brézillon stubbed out his cigarette end with his thumb. His father was probably a roofer and his mother a laundress, like Danglard’s parents, Adamsberg thought. Origins which he did not trouble to conceal when sitting on a velvet armchair, a sort of noble lineage one assumes proudly, and honours by the choice of cigarettes and a way of putting them out.