Fred Vargas - The Chalk Circle Man

‘You mean she’d planned to kill Madeleine, and she came to see Adamsberg so that she’d be in the clear?’ asked Lisa. ‘Like that woman who killed her grandfather but came to see you a month before, to tell you she had a “presentiment”? Remember?’

‘You remember that dreadful woman? Not an Egyptian princess at all, and as slimy as a reptile. She nearly got away with it. It’s the classic trick of the murderer who telephones to say they’ve found a body, only more elaborate. So, well, yes. Mathilde Forestier turning up like that does make you think. I can just imagine what she’d say: “But commissaire , I’d hardly have come and told you I knew all about the chalk circle man if I was intending to use him to cover up a murder!” It’s a dangerous game, but it’s bold, and it could be just her style. Because she is a bold woman, you’ve probably gathered that.’

‘So did she have a motive for killing poor fat Madeleine?’

‘No,’ said Arlette. ‘This lady, Madeleine, must just have been unlucky, picked by chance to start a series, so they’d pin it on the circle maniac. The real murder’ll happen later. That’s what papa is thinking.’

‘Yes, maybe that is what he’s thinking,’ Danglard conceded.

NEXT MORNING, MATHILDE CAME ACROSS CHARLES REYER AT THE foot of the stairs, fumbling with his door. In fact she wondered whether he hadn’t been waiting for her, and pretending not to find the keyhole. But he said nothing as she went past.

‘Charles,’ said Mathilde, ‘you’re putting your eye to keyholes now, are you?’

Charles straightened up, and his face looked sinister in the dark stairwell.

‘That’s you, is it, Queen Mathilde, making cruel jokes?’

‘Yes, it’s me, Charles. I’m getting my retaliation in first. You know what they say: “If you want peace, prepare for war.”‘

Charles sighed.

‘Very well, Mathilde. In that case, please help a poor blind man put the key in the lock. I’m not used to this yet.’

‘Here you are,’ said Mathilde, guiding his hand. ‘Now it’s locked. Charles, what did you think of that cop who came round last night?’

‘Nothing. I couldn’t hear what you were saying, and anyway I was distracting Clémence. What I like about Clémence is that she’s got a screw loose. Just to know there are people like that in the world does me good.’

‘Today my plan’s to follow someone else like that, a man who’s interested in the mythical rotation of sunflower stems, goodness knows why. It could take me all day and the evening as well. So if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like you to go and see the policeman for me. It’s on your way.’

‘What are you up to, Mathilde? You’ve already got what you were after, whatever that was, by getting me to come and live here. You want me to get my eyes sorted out, you get me to babysit Clémence for a whole evening, and now you’re flinging me into the arms of this policeman. Why did you come looking for me? What are you trying to do with me?’

Mathilde shrugged.

‘You’re making too much of it, Charles. We met in a cafe, that’s all. Unless it’s to do with underwater biology, my impulses generally don’t have any particular reason. And listening to you, I’m sorry I don’t have more of a reason for them. Then I wouldn’t be standing here, stuck on the stairs, having my morning spoiled by a blind man with a bad temper.’

‘I’m sorry, Mathilde. What do you want me to say to Adamsberg?’

Charles called his office to tell them he would be late. First, he wanted to run the errand for Queen Mathilde and go to the police station; he wanted to help her out, to do something to please her. And this evening he would like to be friendly, to admit that he had placed his hopes in her, and tell her, perfectly courteously, that he had carried out the errand perfectly courteously. He didn’t want to murder Mathilde, that was the last thing in the world he wanted. For now, he wanted to cling on to Mathilde, doing his best not to let go of her, not to spin round and slap her in the face. He wanted to go on listening to her talking, about anything and everything, with her husky voice and her tightrope-walking ways, always on the brink of missing her step. Perhaps he should bring her some jewellery this evening, a gold brooch? No, not a gold brooch, a cooked chicken with tarragon, she would surely prefer some chicken with tarragon. And then he could listen to the sound of her voice, and drop off to sleep with warm champagne in his pyjama pockets, if he had had pyjamas. Or pockets. Certainly not tear her eyes out, not massacre her, absolutely not, no, he would buy her a cooked chicken. With tarragon.

He should have arrived at the police station by now, but he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t one of the buildings whose location he had managed to map in his head. He would have to ask. Hesitating, he scraped the pavement ahead of him with his stick, walking slowly. He was lost in this street, obviously. Why had Mathilde sent him here? He began to feel desperately tired. And when he felt that way, anger was sure to follow, welling up in lethal pulses from his stomach into his throat, until it invaded his whole head.

Danglard, feeling seedy and with a blinding headache himself, was just arriving for work. He saw the very tall blind man standing stock-still near the door of the station, an expression of arrogant despair on his face.

‘Can I help you?’ Danglard asked. ‘Are you lost?’

‘ Are you ?’ Charles asked.

Danglard ran his hand through his hair.

What a mean question. Was he lost?

‘No,’ he said.

‘Wrong,’ said Charles.

‘Is that any of your business?’ said Danglard.

‘Is my standing here any of your business?’

‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ said Danglard. ‘Suit yourself. Stay lost if you’re lost.’

‘I’m looking for the police station.’

‘Well, you’re in luck, I work there. I’ll take you in. What do you want the police station for?’

‘It’s about the chalk circle man,’ Charles said. ‘I’ve come to see Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg. He’s your boss, isn’t he?’

‘That’s right,’ said Danglard. ‘But I don’t know if he’s here yet. He could still be wandering around somewhere. Are you coming to tell him something, or to ask him for something? Because I have to tell you that the boss doesn’t give out precise information, whether you ask him for it or not. So if you’re a journalist, you’d do better to go and join your colleagues over there. There are plenty of them about.’

They were arriving at the entrance to the station. Charles stumbled against the step and Danglard had to catch him by the arm. Behind his glasses, in his dead eyes, Charles felt a brief spasm of rage.

He said quickly: ‘No, I’m not a journalist.’

Danglard frowned and rubbed a finger over his forehead, although he knew perfectly well that you couldn’t cure a hangover by rubbing your head.

Adamsberg was there. Danglard could not have said afterwards whether he was in the office or even sitting down. He had perched there, too light for the big armchair and too dense for the white and green furnishings.

‘Monsieur Reyer wants a word with you,’ said Danglard.

Adamsberg looked up. He was more struck than he had been the previous day by Charles’s face. Mathilde was right: the blind man was spectacularly good-looking. And Adamsberg admired beauty in others, although he had given up wishing for it himself. In any case, he couldn’t remember ever having wanted to be anyone else.

‘You stay too, Danglard,’ he said. ‘Haven’t seen you for some time.’

Charles felt around for a chair and sat down.