Fred Vargas - The Chalk Circle Man

‘Mademoiselle, are you going far?’

‘No, just to the Raspail metro station.’

‘Raspail, oh that’s a bit far,’ the policeman said. ‘Perhaps I’ll just see you down the street. There isn’t another man on duty before Vavin.’

The girl had short bobbed hair. Her jawline was clear and attractive. No, he certainly didn’t want anyone to touch that throat. But this girl looked quite untroubled. She seemed perfectly at home in the city by night.

The girl lit a cigarette. She didn’t seem too comfortable in his company.

‘What is it? Is something happening?’ she asked.

‘Apparently it’s not safe tonight. I’ll just walk you some of the way.’

‘If you like,’ she replied. But it was clear that she would have preferred to be alone and they walked along in silence.

A few minutes later, the policeman left her at the corner and came back towards the little Port-Royal station. He started off back along the boulevard towards the rue Bertholet. Twelfth time. By talking to the young woman and walking along with her, he’d lost about ten minutes. But it seemed to him that was part of his job.

Ten minutes. But it had been enough. As he glanced down the length of the rue Bertholet, he saw a long shape on the pavement.

Oh no, he thought despairingly. My bad luck.

He broke into a run. Perhaps it was just a roll of carpet. But no, a stream of blood was trickling towards him. He touched the arm outstretched on the ground. Still warm. It must have just happened. A woman.

His radio crackled. He contacted his colleagues at the Gobelins, Vavin, Saint-Jacques, Cochin, Raspail and Denfert, asking them to pass the news on, not to leave their post and to stop anyone they saw. But if the murderer had been in a car, for instance, he would have got away. The policeman didn’t feel guilty for having left his beat to accompany the young woman. Possibly he had saved the life of the girl with the beautiful jawline.

But he hadn’t been able to save this woman. Sometimes a life could hang by a thread. There was nothing of the victim’s jawline to see. Standing there alone, and feeling revolted, the policeman directed his torch away from the corpse, alerted his superiors and waited, his hand on his pistol. It had been a long time since he had been so distressed by the night.

When the phone rang, Adamsberg looked up at Danglard but didn’t give a start.

‘Here we go,’ he said.

Picking up the telephone, he bit his lip.

‘Where? Say that again,’ he said after a minute. ‘Rue Bertholet? But the 5th should be crawling with men. There should have been four along the boulevard Port-Royal alone. What the devil’s happened?’

Adamsberg’s voice had risen in pitch. He plugged in the earpiece so that Danglard could hear what the young policeman was saying.

‘There were just the two of us on Port-Royal, sir. There was an accident at the Bonne-Nouvelle metro, two trains collided at about eleven-fifteen. No serious casualties, but we had to send some men over.’

‘But they should have taken men from the outer districts and sent more to the 5th! I gave explicit instructions that the 5th was to be closely patrolled! I ordered it!’

‘Sorry, sir, I can’t do anything about that. I didn’t get any instructions.’

It was the first time that Danglard had seen Adamsberg almost beside himself with rage. It was true that they had heard about the accident at Bonne-Nouvelle, but both of them had assumed that nobody would be called away from the 5th or the 14th. Some counter-order must have gone out, or perhaps the network Adamsberg had asked for had not been thought so indispensable by someone higher up.

‘Well, anyway,’ said Adamsberg, with a shake of his head, ‘he would have struck, sooner or later. In this street or that, he’d have managed to do it in the end. This man’s a monster. We couldn’t have prevented it – no use getting worked up. Come on, Danglard, we’d better get over there.’

Over there they found flashing lights, arc lamps, a stretcher, and the police doctor, all for the third time surrounding a body whose throat had been cut, lying inside a blue chalk circle.

‘Victor, woe’s in store…’ muttered Adamsberg.

He looked at the latest victim.

‘Slashed as viciously as the other one,’ the doctor said. ‘The killer really went for the cervical vertebrae. The weapon wasn’t sharp enough to cut through them, but that was the intention.’

‘OK, doc, put it all in writing for us,’ said Adamsberg, who could see sweat breaking out on Danglard’s face. ‘And it wasn’t long ago, you reckon?’

‘That’s right, between about five past one and one thirty-five, if the officer is correct about his beat.’

‘And your beat,’ said Adamsberg, turning to the constable, ‘was from here to the Place du Port-Royal?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What happened? You can’t have taken more than twenty minutes to go there and back.’

‘No, sir, that’s right. But this girl came past, all on her own, just as I was getting up to the station building for the eleventh time. I don’t know, call it a foreboding, I thought I’d better see her along to the next corner. It wasn’t far. I was in sight of Port-Royal all the way. I’m not trying to excuse myself, commissaire , I’m prepared to take responsibility for not sticking to the orders.’

‘Forget it,’ said Adamsberg. ‘He’d have struck anyway. Did you see anyone corresponding to the description we’ve put out?’

‘No, nobody.’

‘What about the other officers in the sector?’

‘They haven’t reported anything.’

Adamsberg sighed.

‘See this circle, commissaire ,’ said Danglard. ‘It isn’t round. That’s extraordinary, it isn’t circular. The pavement was too narrow here, so he’s drawn an oval.’

‘Yes, and that must have vexed him.’

‘So why didn’t he do it on the boulevard where he had plenty of room?’

‘Too many policemen hanging about there, Danglard, all the same. So who is this lady?’

Once more, they had to read identity papers by the light of the arc lamps, having found them in her handbag.

‘Delphine Le Nermord, née Vitruel, age fifty-four. And here’s her photo, I think,’ said Danglard, who was carefully transferring the contents of the handbag into a plastic evidence bag. ‘She looks quite pretty, bit too much make-up. The man holding her shoulder must be her husband.’

‘No,’ said Adamsberg. ‘Can’t be. He’s not wearing a wedding ring, but she is. Perhaps a lover – he looks younger, too. That might explain why she had the photo on her.’

‘Yes, I should have noticed that.’

‘It’s dark here. Come on, Danglard, we’ll get in the van.’

Adamsberg knew that Danglard couldn’t face the sight of a cut throat any longer.

They sat down opposite each other on the seats of the police van. Adamsberg started leafing through a fashion magazine from Madame Le Nermord’s bag.

‘I know that name from somewhere,’ he said, ‘Le Nermord. But I’ve got a terrible memory. Have a look in the address book to see if it’s got her husband’s first name and address.’

Danglard pulled out a dog-eared business card.

‘Augustin-Louis Le Nermord. Two addresses. One’s the Collège de France, and the other’s rue d’Aumale in the 9th.’

‘I should recognise the name, but I can’t think why.’

‘I know who he is,’ said Danglard. ‘Some time back there was talk of him for a seat in the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. He’s a specialist on Byzantium,’ he went on, after thinking for a moment. ‘An expert on the emperor Justinian.’

‘How the hell do you know all that?’ asked Adamsberg, lifting his gaze from the magazine in genuine astonishment.