Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place

Adamsberg stopped on the gravel path.

‘I can’t give you any names,’ the doctor said quickly, ‘and it would be useless anyway. It would fall outside your investigation.’

Adamsberg’s mobile vibrated, and he excused himself to take the call.

‘Lucio,’ he said crossly, ‘you know I’m at work.’

‘I never call you, hombre , this is the first time. But one of the kittens won’t feed, she’s wasting away. I thought perhaps you could come and stroke her head.’

‘Too bad, Lucio, I can’t do anything about it. If she won’t feed, that’s life, it’s a law of nature.’

‘But you could calm her down, get her to sleep.’

‘That still wouldn’t make her suckle, Lucio.’

‘You’re a real bastard and a son of a bitch.’

‘And above all, Lucio,’ said Adamsberg, raising his voice, ‘I’m not a magician. And I’ve had a bloody awful day.’

‘Well, so have I. Can’t even light my cigarettes. Because of my eyesight, can’t see the tip properly. And my daughter won’t help me, so what am I to do?’

Adamsberg bit his lip, and the doctor came closer.

‘Is it a baby who won’t feed?’ he asked politely.

‘No, a five-day-old kitten,’ said Adamsberg curtly.

‘If whoever you’re talking to would like, I could try something. It’s probably the MRP of the lower jaw that’s blocked. Not necessarily a law of nature but possibly a postnatal and post-traumatic dislocation. Was it a difficult birth?’

‘Lucio,’ said Adamsberg sharply into the phone, ‘is it one of the two we had to deliver?’

‘Yes, the white one with a grey tip to the tail. The only girl.’

‘Yes, doctor,’ Adamsberg confirmed. ‘Lucio had to press and I had to pull her out by the jaw. Perhaps I pulled too hard. It’s a female kitten.’

‘Where does your friend live? If he’s willing of course,’ said the other, raising his hands as if a life in the balance suddenly made him humble.

‘Paris, 13th arrondissement.’

‘I’m not far, I’m in the 7th. If you agree, we could go there together and I could treat the kitten. If there’s anything to be done, that is. Meanwhile, what your friend should do is sprinkle water all over her body, but without making her soaking wet.’

‘We’re on our way,’ said Adamsberg, feeling as if he was sending a signal for an urgent police operation. ‘Sprinkle her with water, but not too much.’

Feeling a little dazed, as if he had now left the bridge, and was being besieged by bashers, migratory flows, doctors and one-armed Spaniards, Adamsberg told his colleagues to clear things up and drove back with the doctor.

As they entered the ring road, he said, ‘This is ridiculous. We’re going to give medical assistance to a kitten, while all hell has broken loose on Vaudel.’

‘A nasty crime, was it? He was very rich, you know.’

‘Yes, I guess it will all go to the son,’ said Adamsberg, feeling his voice ring false. ‘Do you know him?’

‘Only through his father’s mind. Desire, refusal, desire, refusal, both of them, same thing.’

‘Vaudel didn’t want a son.’

‘He especially didn’t want to leave behind him vulnerable descendants who would be exposed to his enemies.’

‘What enemies?’

‘If I told you it wouldn’t help. They were the mad imaginings of the man, created over the years and lodged in the caverns of his mind. It’s medical, not police work. At the point he’d reached, you’d have to be a speleologist.’

‘Imaginary enemies, you mean?’

‘You don’t want to go there, commissaire .’

Lucio was waiting for them in the tool shed, his huge hand stroking the kitten, which was rolled up in a damp towel on his knees.

‘She’s going to die,’ he said hoarsely, his voice full of tears which Adamsberg could not understand, since it was a mystery to him how anyone could be so affected over a cat. ‘She can’t feed. Who’s this?’ Lucio asked ungraciously. ‘We don’t need an audience, hombre .’

‘This gentleman is a specialist on cats with dislocated jaws who can’t feed. Mind out, Lucio, and give him the cat.’

Lucio scratched his absent arm, and obeyed, still looking suspicious. The doctor sat down on the bench and took the cat’s head in his thick fingers – he had enormous hands for his size, not unlike Lucio’s large single hand. He felt her slowly all over, back and forth. Charlatan, Adamsberg was thinking, now feeling more upset than he should have been, as he looked at the kitten’s limp little body. Then the doctor moved to the pelvis, and put his fingers on two points, as if playing a trill on a piano, and they heard a weak mew.

‘Her name’s Charm,’ Lucio said grudgingly.

‘We can fix the jaw,’ said the doctor. ‘Don’t worry, Charm, we’ll have you right in a minute.’

The large fingers – to Adamsberg they were getting more and more enormous, like the ten arms of Shiva – came back to the jaw and held the kitten’s head in a pincer grip.

‘Now, now, Charm,’ he murmured, as he moved his thumb and finger. ‘Did you get your jaw blocked when you were born? Did the commissaire twist your head? Or were you frightened? Just a few minutes more and we’ll be on the way. There now. I’m going to press your TMJ.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Lucio warily.

‘The temporo-mandibular joint.’

The kitten relaxed, as if it was made of plasticine, and allowed itself to be put to the mother’s teat.

‘There, there,’ crooned the doctor gently. ‘The jaw joint was dislocated caudally left and cephalically right, so of course it couldn’t move, the injury was stopping the sucking movement. Seems to be fine now. Let’s just wait a little, to see if it stays that way. I also adjusted the sacro-iliac joint. All consequences of a slightly eventful birth, don’t worry. She’ll be a tough little thing, take good care of her. No harm in her, she’s got a sweet nature.’

‘Yes, doctor,’ agreed Lucio, who had become respectful, as he watched the kitten sucking away like a steam engine.

‘And she will always want her food because of the five days.’

‘Ah, like Froissy,’ said Adamsberg.

‘Another cat?’

‘No, one of my colleagues. She eats all the time, and hides stashes of food, but she’s as thin as a rake.’

‘An anxiety disorder,’ said the doctor wearily. ‘She should get it seen to. So should everyone, me included. You wouldn’t have a glass of wine or something, would you?’ he broke off suddenly. ‘If it’s not too much trouble. It’s that time of day. It may not look it, but this stuff uses up a lot of energy.’

Now he looked nothing like that professional pompous bourgeois Adamsberg had first seen across the arms of the lieutenant s. The doctor had loosened his tie and was rumpling his grey hair with his fingers, looking like a simple man who had just finished a good job of work, and hadn’t been sure whether he’d manage it an hour earlier. He’d like a drink, and the request made Lucio react at once.

‘Where’s he going?’ asked the doctor as Lucio shot off towards the hedge.

‘His daughter has banned alcohol and tobacco. So he has to hide them in the bushes. He puts the cigarettes in a double plastic container against the rain.’

‘His daughter knows he does that, I bet.’

‘Yes, she does.’

‘And he knows that she knows?’

‘Of course.’

‘The way of the world, all these hidden agendas. What happened to his arm?’

‘He lost it during the Spanish Civil War when he was nine years old.’

‘But there was something else there, a wound that hadn’t healed? A bite? I don’t know, some unfinished business.’