Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place

‘No, it didn’t, that’s the whole problem. Réal knew perfectly well what he was doing, of course, he used porous paint. He wasn’t mad.’

‘No,’ said Adamsberg sceptically.

‘Some forensic scientist said the paint must have reacted with her make-up and that led to the poisoning. But my father claimed to have proof that Réal had switched the paint after doing the horse, and that he had set out to kill her.’

‘And you didn’t agree.’

‘No,’ said Pierre, thrusting out his chin.

‘And was your father’s claim founded?’

‘Maybe, who knows? My father was abnormally fixated on this guy. He hated him for no obvious reason. He just set out to destroy him.’

‘No, you’re wrong,’ said Hélène, suddenly disagreeing. ‘You knew Réal was a megalomaniac, and he was deep in debt. He must have killed that woman.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Pierre. ‘My father went after him to get at m e. When I was eighteen, I wanted to be a painter. Réal was a few years older than me, I admired his work, I’d been to see him twice. When my father found out, he went berserk. He thought Réal was a greedy ignoramus, that’s what he called him, whose grotesque artworks were destabilising civilisation as we know it. My father was a man from the dark ages, he believed in the ancient foundations of the world, and Réal infuriated him. So with his notoriety in legal matters, the old bastard pestered the authorities, had him charged, and caused his death.’

‘ The old bastard ?’ repeated Adamsberg.

‘Yes,’ said Pierre unblinkingly. ‘If you really want to know, my father was a chateau-bottled shit.’

THE NAMES HAD BEEN NOTED OF ALL THE RESIDENTS IN THE nearby villas, and inquiries in the neighbourhood had begun, a necessary and wearisome task. Nothing they found so far contradicted what Pierre had said. No one else quite dared describe Pierre Vaudel as a chateau-bottled shit, but the witness statements all portrayed him latterly as a withdrawn, eccentric, intolerant man, entirely self-sufficient. He was clever, but to no one else’s advantage. He avoided people and by the same token didn’t bother anyone. The police went from door to door, explaining that an unpleasant murder had taken place, but without telling them that the old man had been butchered. Would he have opened the door to his attacker? Yes, if the reason had been something technical, like repairs, but not just to have a chat. Even after dark? Yes, he wouldn’t have been afraid, he was, well, sort of invulnerable. Or that was the impression he gave.

Only one man, the gardener, Émile, described him in any other terms. No, he said, Vaudel wasn’t a curmudgeon. His only suspicions were of himself and that was why he didn’t want to see people. How did the gardener know that? Because Vaudel said so himself, with a funny little smile sometimes. How had they met? In court, when Émile was up for the ninth time for GBH, about fifteen years ago. Vaudel had taken an interest in his violent career, and gradually they had become acquainted. Until in the end he had hired him to look after the garden, fetch logs for the fire, and later on to do shopping and odd jobs. Émile suited him because he didn’t try to chat. When the neighbours had found out about the gardener’s past, they had not been best pleased.

‘Can’t blame ’em. Put yourself in their place. “Basher”, that’s what they call me. So course, the people round here, they keep out of me way.’

‘They don’t want to meet you at all?’ asked Adamsberg.

The gardener was sitting on the top step of the stairs up to the house, where the June sun had warmed the stone. He was a small, wiry man, his overalls hanging loosely off him, and did not look particularly threatening. His lived-in face was worn and rather ugly, expressing neither strong will nor confidence. He kept up a series of defensive gestures, wiping his nose, which was crooked from previous violent encounters, and shading his eyes. One ear was bigger than the other, and he rubbed that too, rather like a nervous dog, and this movement alone indicated either that he was upset, or perhaps that he was bewildered. Adamsberg sat down beside him.

‘You from the cops?’ asked the man, looking intrigued at Adamsberg’s clothes.

‘Yes, and my colleague says you don’t agree with the neighbours about Monsieur Vaudel. I don’t know your name.’

‘I told them about twenty times: Émile Feuillant.’

‘Émile,’ Adamsberg repeated, trying to fix it in his mind.

‘Aren’t you going to write it down? The others, that’s what they done. Stands to reason, I suppose, or you keep telling ’em the same thing over. Course, they keep saying the same thing. Always gets me going, that. Why do cops always have to say everything twice. You tell ’em, Friday night I was down the Parrot, and the cop goes: “So where were you Friday?” Just gets you all worked up.’

‘Yes, that’s the point, it gets you worked up, so in the end the man stops talking about the Parrot, and tells the cops what they want to hear.’

‘Yeah, stands to reason. I get it.’

Stands to reason, doesn’t stand to reason, Émile seemed to divide the world up on either side of this demarcation line. By the way he was looking at him, Adamsberg had the feeling that Émile was not putting him on the side of things that stood to reason.

‘Are they all afraid of you round here?’

‘Yeah, suppose so, except for Madame Bourlant next door. See, I’ve been in a hundred and thirty-eight street fights, not counting when I was a kid. So there you are.’

‘Is that why you’re saying the opposite of the neighbours? Because they don’t like you.’

This question seemed to surprise Émile.

‘See if I care if they like me or not. Just I know more than they do about old Vaudel. Can’t blame ’em, stands to reason they’re afraid of me. I’m a man with “a violent past of the most reprehensible kind”. That’s what he used to say,’ he added, with a laugh that revealed a couple of missing teeth. ‘Mind, he was a bit out of order, cos I never killed nobody. But “violent past”, yeah, he wasn’t far wrong.’

Émile brought out a packet of tobacco and efficiently rolled himself a cigarette.

‘This violent past, how much time have you done for it?’

‘Eleven years and six months, seven different sentences. That wears you out. Well, now I’m over fifty, it’s not so bad. Just the odd fight now and then. No more. And I’ve paid the price, haven’t I? No wife, no kids. Like kids all right, but I wouldn’t want any myself. When you’re like me, quick with my fists, wouldn’t be such a good idea. Stands to reason. That was something else we had in common, Monsieur Vaudel and me. He didn’t want no kids either. Well, not that he said it like that. What he said in his plummy voice was: “No descendants, Émile.” Still, he did have a kid an’ all, without meaning to.’

‘Do you know why?’

Émile dragged on his cigarette and looked at Adamsberg in surprise.

‘Didn’t mind out, did he?’

‘But why didn’t he want “descendants”?’

‘Just didn’t. But what I’m thinking now is what’m I going to do? I’ve not got a job, or a roof over my head no more, I used to live in the shed.’

‘And Vaudel wasn’t afraid of you?’

‘Not him. He wasn’t afraid of anything, even dying. He used to say, only thing about dying, it takes too long.’

‘And you never felt like being violent towards him?’

‘Yeah, sometimes, at first. But I preferred to get him at noughts and crosses. I taught him how to play. I never thought to find someone didn’t know how to play noughts and crosses. I’d come in the evening, light the fire, pour out a couple of Guignolets. That’s something he showed me , drinking Guignolet. And we’d sit down and play noughts and crosses.’