Fred Vargas: This Night’s Foul Work

Adamsberg had started the tape officially recording the interrogation of Ariane Lagarde on 6 May at one o’clock in the morning: she was being held on suspicion of premeditated homicide and attempted homicide, in the presence of officers Danglard, Mordent, Veyrenc, Estalère and Dr Roman.

‘What’s all this about, Jean-Baptiste?’ asked Ariane amiably, speaking to the wall.

‘I’m reading you the charge in its first draft,’ Adamsberg explained gently.

She knew everything and knew nothing, and her gaze, if one managed to catch it, was difficult to bear, both pleasant and arrogant, understanding and vindictive, as Alpha and Omega battled it out. An unconscious gaze, which disconcerted her questioners, referring them to their own demons and the intolerable idea that perhaps behind their own walls there lurked monsters of which they were unaware, ready to burst open the swelling crater of an unsuspected volcano inside them. As Adamsberg read out the long charge sheet of her crimes, he watched for any quiver, any sign that one of them might elicit a response from Ariane’s imperial expression. But Omega was far too cunning to reveal herself. Hidden behind her impenetrable veil, she waited, smiling in the shadows. Only the rather stiff and mechanical smile hinted at her secret existence.

‘… You are charged with the murders of Jeannine Panier, aged twenty-three, and Christiane Béladan, aged twenty-four, both mistresses of Charles André Lagarde, your husband; with encouraging and organising the escape of Claire Langevin, aged seventy-five, incarcerated at Freiburg Prison in Germany; with the murder of Otto Karlstein, aged fifty-six, warder at the same prison; with the murders of Elisabeth Châtel, aged thirty-six, secretary; of Pascaline Villemot, aged thirty-eight, shop assistant; of Diala Toundé, aged twenty-four, unemployed; of Didier Paillot, aged twenty-two, unemployed; you are further charged with the attempted murder of Violette Retancourt, aged thirty-five, police officer; with the murder of Gilles Grimal, aged forty-two, gendarme; with the attempted murder of Francine Bidault, aged thirty-five, pharmacy assistant; with the attempted murder for a second time of Violette Retancourt, in front of witnesses; with the desecration of the graves of Elisabeth Châtel and Pascaline Villemot.’

Adamsberg, dripping with sweat, put down the sheet of paper. Eight murders, three attempted murders, two exhumations.

‘Not to mention the mutilation of Narcissus, cat, aged eleven,’ he murmured, ‘or the evisceration of the Red Giant, stag, ten points, and two anonymous members of the same species. Have you heard what I’m saying, Ariane?’

‘I wonder what you are doing, that’s all.’

‘You’ve always disliked me, haven’t you? You’ve never forgiven me for invalidating your results in the Hubert Sandrin case in Le Havre.’

‘Gracious. I don’t know what’s given you that idea.’

‘When you hatched your plan, you decided to target my squad. To succeed while making me fail would be exactly what you wanted.’

‘I was assigned to your squad.’

‘Because there was a vacancy and you applied for it. You made Dr Roman ill by making him eat capsules full of pigeon shit.’

‘Pigeon shit? Really?’ asked Estalère in an undertone. Danglard shrugged to indicate he didn’t know what that meant. Ariane took a cigarette from her handbag and Veyrenc gave her a light.

‘As long as I can smoke,’ she said graciously, addressing the wall, ‘you can talk as much as you like. I was warned about you. You’re crazy. Your mother was right: everything goes in one ear and out the other.’

‘Let’s leave my mother out of it, Ariane,’ said Adamsberg evenly. ‘Danglard, Estalère and I saw you creep into Retancourt’s room at eleven tonight, with a syringe full of Novaxon. What was that for?’

Adamsberg had gone round to the wall and Ariane had immediately turned towards the desk.

‘You’ll have to ask Roman that,’ she said. ‘What he told me was that the syringe contained a powerful antidote to Novaxon, which would have helped her to recover. You and Lavoisier had said she wasn’t to have it, because it was still an experimental drug. I was just doing a good turn for Roman. I had to, because he couldn’t get to the hospital himself. I never suspected there was an affair going on between Roman and Retancourt. Or that she was drugging him, so that she would have him at her mercy. She was always round at his place, clinging on to him. I suppose he realised what she was doing, and seized the chance to get rid of her. In the state she’s in, her death would just have looked like a relapse.’

‘In the name of God, Ariane,’ cried Roman, trying to get up.

‘Let it go, mon vieux,’ said Adamsberg, returning to his seat, which had the effect of making Ariane pivot round again.

Adamsberg opened his notebook, leaned back and scribbled for a few moments. Ariane was very strong. In front of a magistrate, her version might look convincing. Who would doubt the word of the famous pathologist Ariane Lagarde, as opposed to that of the humble Dr Roman who was losing his wits?

‘You knew the nurse,’ Adamsberg began again. ‘You had often interrogated her for your research. You knew who had arrested her. It didn’t take much to send me on her track. Of course, she had to be out of prison first. So you killed the guard and got her out of jail dressed as a doctor. Then you installed yourself at the heart of the investigation, with a plausible scapegoat all ready to take the blame. All you had to do then was make up the potion, your most ambitious cocktail.’

‘You’ve never liked my cocktails, have you?’ Ariane said, indulgently.

‘No, not much. Did you copy out the recipe, Ariane? Or did you know it by heart from your childhood?’

‘Which one? Beer and crème de menthe? Coffee and grenadine?’

‘Did you know that there’s a bone in a pig’s snout?’

‘Yes,’ said Ariane, looking surprised.

‘Yes, you did know, because you left it behind in the reliquary of Saint Jerome, along with the sheep’s bones. You’d always known about the reliquary, as you had about the De reliquis . And did you know there was a bone in the penis of a cat?’

‘No, I have to confess I didn’t know that.’

‘And a bone shaped like a cross in the heart of a stag?’

‘No, I didn’t know that, either.’

Adamsberg tried another gambit and went to the door. But the pathologist just turned calmly to look at Danglard and Veyrenc, staring right through them.

‘Once you found out that Retancourt was recovering, you knew you didn’t have much time to stop her talking.’

‘A remarkable case. Apparently Dr Lavoisier doesn’t want to send her back to you. Or that’s what they say in Saint-Vincent-de-Paul.’

‘How do you know what they say?’

‘Hospital gossip, Jean-Baptiste. It’s a small world.’

Adamsberg took out his mobile. Lamarre and Maurel were searching the flat Ariane had rented in Paris.

‘We’ve found the shoes,’ said Lamarre. ‘Beige espadrilles that lace up high on the ankle, and they have a big platform sole, about ten centimetres high.’

‘Yes, she’s wearing a pair like that tonight, but black.’

‘This pair was with a long grey woollen coat, carefully folded. But there isn’t any polish on the soles.’

‘That’s normal, Lamarre. The polish is part of the trick, to direct us towards the nurse. What about the potion?’

‘Nothing so far, sir.’

‘What are they doing in my flat?’ asked Ariane, looking slightly shocked.

‘They’re searching it,’ said Adamsberg, putting the mobile back in his pocket. ‘They found your other pair of espadrilles.’