Fred Vargas - This Night’s Foul Work

‘Where?’

‘In the fuse cupboard on the landing, safe from Alpha’s eyes.’

‘Why should I put any of my things out there? The fuse cupboard on the staircase doesn’t belong to me.’

He still had no serious material evidence, Adamsberg thought, and with someone like Lagarde it would take more than her showing up in Saint-Vincent-de-Paul at night to make anything stick. There remained the slender hope of a confession, of a personality crash, as Ariane would say herself.

He rubbed his eyes.

‘Why are you wearing those shoes? Isn’t it very awkward to walk in platform soles?’

‘It makes you look slim. It’s a question of style. Not that you’d know anything about style, Jean-Baptiste.’

‘I know what you told me yourself. The dissociator isolates herself from the ground her crimes are committed on. With soles like that, you’re high up above the ground, almost as if you were on stilts, aren’t you? And it makes you look taller. The guard at Montrouge and Oswald’s nephew both saw you as a tall grey shape on the nights you were prospecting for the site of the graves, and Francine said the same thing. But it didn’t make it easy to walk. You have to go a step at a time, so it looked as though you were slipping and tottering, as all three of them said.’

Tired of going round in circles like the mirror, Adamsberg sat down at his desk again, settling for speaking to the right shoulder of the in-accessible dancer.

‘Of course,’ he went on, ‘it looked like a coincidence that took me to the village of Haroncourt. Was that a twist of fate? No, you were manipulating fate. You got Camille that invitation to play in the concert. She never could understand why the orchestra from Leeds asked her to join them. That way, you drew me up there too, so I was on the spot. After that, you could guide me where you wanted to, following events, and making sure you were there to prevent any accidental obstacle arising. You asked Hermance to call me in to look at the graveyard in Opportune. Then you asked her not to put me up again, in case she said too much. A woman like you can manipulate poor Hermance like putty. Because you know that area well, it’s where you grew up and spent the time of your youth, “pass and pass again”. The former priest at Le Mesnil, Father Raymond, was your cousin twice removed. Your adoptive parents brought you up in the manor at Ecalart, only four kilometres from the relics of Saint Jerome. And the old priest used to spend so much time with you, letting you look at his old books, even letting you touch Saint Jerome’s ribs, that they whispered in the village that you were his daughter, the daughter of sin. Do you remember him?’

‘He was a family friend,’ she replied, smiling at the wall and at her childhood memories. ‘He was a bit boring, always going on about that old stuff. Still, I was fond of him.’

‘He was interested in the De reliquis recipe?’

‘I think that was all he was interested in. And in me. He had got it into his head that he was going to make up the potion. He was crazy, really, with all his fads. A very special man. For a start, he had a penile bone.’

‘What, the priest?’ asked Estalère, scandalised.

‘He got it from the curate’s cat,’ replied Ariane, with a near-laugh. ‘And then he wanted some stag’s bones.’

‘Which bones?’

‘From the heart.’

‘You said you didn’t know about that.’

‘I didn’t, but he did.’

‘And he got hold of them? He prepared the potion with you?’

‘No, no, the poor man was gored by the second stag. One of its antlers opened up his belly and he died.’

‘So you wanted to start again, after him?’

‘Begin what?’

‘The potion, the mixture?’

‘What mixture? Grenadine and beer?’

Back to square one, thought Adamsberg, drawing a figure eight on his notebook, as he had with the twig in the fire. A long silence followed.

‘Anyone who says Father Raymond was my father is talking rubbish,’ said Ariane unexpectedly. ‘Have you ever been to Florence?’

‘No, I go to the mountains if I need a break.’

‘Well, if you went there you would see two figures, all in red, covered with scales and boils, with drooping breasts and testicles.’

‘Maybe so.’

‘There’s no “maybe” about it, Jean-Baptiste. You’d see them, that’s all.’

‘What about them?’

‘They’re in a picture by Fra Angelico. You’re not going to argue with a picture, are you?’

‘No, OK.’

‘They’re my parents.’

Ariane gave a tremulous smile at the wall.

‘So stop harassing me about them, please.’

‘I didn’t say anything about them.’

‘That’s where they are, so leave them there.’

Adamsberg glanced at Danglard, who conveyed by signs that yes, Fra Angelico was a painter, and there were some figures in his paintings covered with pustules, but that nothing indicated they were Ariane’s parents, given that the artist had lived in the fifteenth century.

‘What about Opportune?’ Adamsberg began again. ‘You remember the people there – you know them all like the back of your hand. It was easy for you to appear in the graveyard to the impressionable young Gratien, who went up there every Tuesday and Friday evening at midnight. And easy to guess that Gratien would tell his mother, who’d tell Oswald. Easy enough to control Hermance. You took me where you wanted, sending me like a guided robot through this series of corpses that you were creating and I was finding and handing over to you, because I trusted your autopsies to be competent. But you couldn’t guess that the new priest would mention the De reliquis , or that Danglard would take a look at it. Even so, what would that matter? Unfortunately for you, Ariane, Veyrenc has a photographic memory and he remembered the whole recipe. He’s got this odd, unforeseeable but genuine gift. And you didn’t imagine that Pascaline would take her poor mutilated cat to the priest to get his blessing. That was an odd and unforeseeable act, but it happened. Nor could you have imagined that Retancourt would survive the dose of Novaxon. Her stamina was something odd and unforeseeable, too. And you couldn’t guess that the death of a stag would so distress that group of men. Or that Robert, who was particularly upset, would drag me off to see the corpse of the Red Giant, so that that stag’s heart remains engraved in my memory, and I’ve still got his antlers. The peculiarities of all these people – their talents, their interests, their unpredictable actions, – are not things you’ve ever concerned yourself with. You never suspected they could exist. You’ve only ever liked other people when they’re dead, haven’t you? Other people? What are they? Contemptible and insignificant beings, the whole negligible human race. But neglecting them was what brought about your downfall, Ariane.’

Adamsberg stretched out his arms and closed his eyes, realising that Ariane’s incredulity and refusal to speak were creating impenetrable barriers between them. Their conversation was running along two parallel tracks that never met.

‘Tell me about your husband,’ he said, putting his elbows on the table. ‘What’s become of him?’

‘Charles?’ said Ariane, raising her eyebrows. ‘I haven’t seen him for years. And the less I see of him, the better, actually.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Quite sure. Charles is a failure who just chases paramedics in skirts. As you know.’

‘But you didn’t marry again after he left you. No boyfriends?’

‘What the fuck has that got to do with anything?’

The first crack in Ariane’s façade. Her voice had dropped in register and she wasn’t censoring her speech. Omega was advancing along the top of the wall.