Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place

‘We need to retrieve the horse shit. I want to see it.’

‘That went off yesterday to the lab.’

‘No, I don’t mean that sample, I mean the stuff they found in Émile’s van.’

‘Oh,’ said Estalère, ‘you mean Émile’s horse shit.’

‘Easy enough,’ said Voisenet, ‘it’s stacked in the priority box.’

‘Should we put someone on to the mother’s nursing home?’ Kernorkian asked.

‘Yes, we ought to, for form’s sake. But even a Neanderthal would realise it would be watched.’

‘And he is a Neanderthal,’ said Mordent, as he went on wiping his plate.

‘No,’ said Adamsberg, ‘he’s a nostalgic. And nostalgia can give you ideas.’

Adamsberg hesitated. There was one almost fail-safe way of catching Émile: by going to the farm where Cupid was kept. All he had to do was post a couple of men there and they’d pick him up, this week or next. He was the only person who knew about Cupid’s existence, or the farm’s, or its approximate location, and the name of the owners, which his memory had miraculously retained. The Gérault cousins, three-quarters dairy, one-quarter beef. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, haunted by uncertainty, wondering whether he believed Émile to be innocent, whether he was brooding over some kind of revenge against Mordent, whether for the last two hours, or perhaps since the London trip, he had gone over to the other shore, siding with the migrants who were trying to get across frontiers illegally, giving a hand to wrongdoers, and resisting the forces of order. These questions flowed through his mind like a flock of starlings, but he didn’t attempt to answer them. As the others got up, having eaten and been brought up to date, Adamsberg stood apart and motioned to Noël. If anyone knew, he would.

‘Mordent. What’s the matter with him?’

‘He’s got problems.’

‘I’m sure he has. What kind of problems?’

‘It’s not for me to say.’

‘Vital to the inquiry, Noël. You saw for yourself. Go on.’

‘If you insist. His daughter. Only daughter. Sun shines out of her. Mind you, ask me, she’s not much to look at. Anyway, she was picked up two months ago, living with half a dozen dropouts, doped up to the eyeballs, in a squat in La Vrille. Know it? One of those stinking holes on the estates where rich kids go when they start doing drugs.’

‘And?’

‘One of these six wankers is her boyfriend, a skinny so-and-so, rotten to the core. They even call him “Bones”. Twelve years older than her, plenty of form for mugging pensioners, that kind of thing, total scumbag, but good-looking, and a big player in the Colombian network. The girl had run away from home, leaving a note, and our poor old Mordent’s gnawing his balls off about it.’

‘Well, how are his balls anyway?’

‘He’s called the doctor, they say leave it for a day or two. Hope he gets them back, not a foregone conclusion with that Basher’s record. Not that he has much call for them, his wife’s having it off with the piano teacher, and she rubs his nose in it.’

‘Why didn’t he tell me when the girl left home?’

‘He’s like that, the old storyteller. He spins us any number of yarns, but he keeps shtum about real life. If you remember, we were doing all that stuff with the graves we opened. And take it any way you want, but people don’t like to tell you this kind of thing.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because they’re never sure you’d be listening. And even if you listen, they expect you’ll forget. So no point, is there? Mordent doesn’t want to get into the clouds. But you’re sitting up in them.’

‘I know what they say. But I think my feet are on the ground.’

‘Well, different ground from the rest of us, is all I can say.’

‘Perhaps, Noël. Anyway, what’s happened about the girl?’

‘Elaine, she’s called. Mordent went over to the squat when the Bicêtre cops called him in, and it was a real hell-hole, you can imagine. Teenagers there eating dog food out of tins. It was one of them panicked and called the emergency services, because somebody OD’d. Mind you, dog food isn’t as bad as all that, it’s just meat stew. Any rate, Mordent’s kid was totally out of it, high as a kite, and the cops found enough coke there to slap on a charge of dealing. But the worst thing was they found weapons – a couple of handguns and flick knives. And one of the guns was traced to a case from some months back in the north of Paris, shooting of a dealer, name of Stubby Down. And the witnesses had said there were two attackers involved, one of them a girl with long brown hair.’

‘Oh dammit.’

‘In the end, they kept three of the kids in on remand, and Elaine Mordent’s one of them.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘Fresnes jail, and she’s on methadone. She could get two to four years minimum, more if they prove she was really involved in this Stubby Down murder. Mordent says when she comes out she’ll be finished for good. Danglard’s trying to keep him going by watering him with white wine like a plant, but it just makes him worse. As soon as he can get away from work, he’s down there, in Fresnes or outside, looking at the walls. So, you can imagine.’

Noël turned round, thumbs in his belt, and jerked his chin towards the villa.

‘And with this God-awful scene in there, it’s no wonder he’s going off message. Perhaps we’d better get Danglard to come along, now we’ve cleaned it up. Voisenet’s looking for you, he’s found Émile’s horse shit, as that halfwit Estalère called it.’

Voisenet had put the sample on the garden table. He passed Adamsberg a pair of gloves. The commissaire opened the plastic sachet and sniffed the contents.

‘They labelled it “horse manure” but it could be something else.’

‘No, that’s what it is,’ said Adamsberg, holding a chunk in his hand, ‘though it doesn’t look the same as the stuff in the house. That was in pellets.’

‘Yeah, but that’s because the pellets formed in the soles of the boots. And with all the blood and stuff on the carpet, they came out.’

‘No, Voisenet, it wasn’t the same horse. At least what I’m saying is, it’s not the same horse shit, so it wasn’t the same horse.’

‘Maybe there were two horses,’ Justin hazarded.

‘What I mean is, not a horse from the same farm. Therefore not the same shoes. At least I think not.’

Adamsberg pushed back a lock of hair. It was annoying that they kept getting back to shoes. His mobile rang. Retancourt. He dropped the sample on to the table.

‘ Commissaire , nothing doing. Émile got away from me in the car park of Garches hospital, two ambulances got between us. I’m sorry. There are some motorbike cops trying to pick up the scent.’

‘Don’t blame yourself, lieutenant , he had a good start.’

‘That wasn’t all he had,’ said Retancourt. ‘He knows the area like the back of his hand, he went streaking through gardens, alleyways, as if he’d built them himself. He’s probably hiding behind some hedge. It’ll be hard to dislodge him unless he gets hungry, which he might soon. I’m stopping here, because I think he cracked one of my ribs when he took off.’

‘Where are you, Violette? Still at the hospital?’

‘Yes, the cops have gone round it searching for places he might be hiding.’

‘Get inside and see a doctor about the rib.’

‘Will do,’ said Retancourt and rang off.

Adamsberg snapped his mobile shut. Retancourt had no intention of getting herself examined.

‘Émile may have broken her rib,’ he said. ‘Painful.’

‘Could have been worse, he could have kicked her in the balls.’

‘That’ll do, Noël.’