Fred Vargas: An Uncertain Place

‘Everything all right with you, Radstock?’ rejoined the man, waving a hand.

‘A joker,’ the chief inspector confided. ‘Well, if he wants to be. When his mother died, two years ago, he tried to eat a whole box of photos of her. His sister barged in to stop him, and it turned nasty. She finished up in hospital and him down at the station. The noble lord was absolutely furious because he had been prevented from eating the photos.’

‘Really, really eating them?’ asked Estalère.

‘Yes, really. But what are a few photos? I think, in Paris one time, some chap tried to eat a wardrobe, didn’t he?’

‘What did he say?’ asked Adamsberg, seeing Radstock’s frown.

‘He says there was some Frenchman once who tried to eat a wardrobe. Actually there was. He managed it over a few months, with the help of some friends.’

‘Weird, eh, Donglarde?’

‘You’re quite right, it was in the early twentieth century.’

‘Ah, that’s normal,’ said Estalère, who often chose exactly the wrong expression. ‘There was this man I heard about, he ate an aeroplane, and it took him a year. Just a year. A small plane.’

Radstock nodded gravely. Adamsberg had noticed that he liked to make solemn pronouncements. He sometimes came out with long sentences which – from their tone – were passing judgement on the whole of humanity and its probable nature, good or bad, angelic or devilish.

‘There are some things,’ Radstock began – Danglard providing a simultaneous translation – ‘that people can’t imagine themselves doing until some crazy individual has tried it. But once something’s been done for the first time, good or bad, it goes into the inheritance of the human race. It can be used, it can be copied, and people will even try to go one better. The chap who ate the wardrobe made it easier for that other chap to eat the aeroplane. And that’s how the vast dark continent of madness opens up, like a map, as people explore unknown regions. We’re going forward in the gloom, with nothing but experience to guide us, that’s what I tell my men. So Lord Clyde-Fox over there is taking his shoes off, and putting them back on, over and over again. Goodness knows why. When we do know, someone else will be able to do the same thing.’

‘Greetings, sir,’ said the chief inspector now, going closer. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘Greetings, Radstock,’ said Clyde-Fox mildly.

The two men made signs of recognition to each other, two nightbirds, familiars who had no secrets. Clyde-Fox put one stockinged foot on the pavement, holding his shoe in his hand and looking intently inside it.

‘A problem?’ Radstock repeated.

‘I should say so. Perhaps you should go and take a look – if you’ve the stomach for it.’

‘Where?’

‘At the entrance to Highgate Cemetery.’

‘It’s not a good idea to go poking around in a place like that,’ said Radstock in disapproving tones. ‘What were you doing there?’

‘Beating the bounds with a few chosen friends,’ the noble lord explained, gesturing with his thumb towards his cigar-smoking companion. ‘The boundary between fear and common sense. Well, I know the place like the back of my hand, but he wanted to take a look. Be careful, chief inspector,’ said Clyde-Fox lowering his voice. ‘My pal over there’s as tight as a tick, and he’s as fast as lightning. He’s already taken out a couple of fellers in the pub. Teaches Cuban dance. Highly strung. Not from here.’

Lord Clyde-Fox shook his shoe in the air again, put it back on and took off the other.

‘Right, sir. But your shoes – is there something inside them?’

‘No, Radstock, I’m just checking them.’

The Cuban said something in Spanish which seemed to indicate that he had had enough and that he was off. The lord gave him a casual wave of the hand.

‘In your view, officer,’ Clyde-Fox said, ‘what should there be inside a shoe?’

‘A foot,’ Estalère intervened to say.

‘Exactly so,’ said Clyde-Fox, nodding approvingly at the young Frenchman. ‘And it’s just as well to check that the feet in your shoes are your own, eh? Radstock, if you had such a thing as a torch, you might help me clear this up.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘See if there’s anything inside these.’

As Clyde-Fox held up both shoes, Radstock methodically looked inside them. Adamsberg, completely forgotten, was pacing around slowly. He was thinking about the man who had chewed up his wardrobe, month after month, splinter after splinter. He wondered which he would prefer to eat, a wardrobe or an aeroplane – or photos of his mother. Or anything else – was there some other exploit that might reveal a new section of the dark continent of madness that DCI Radstock had referred to?

‘Nothing there,’ concluded Radstock.

‘You’re quite sure?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘That’s good,’ said Clyde-Fox, putting the shoes back on. ‘Nasty business. Go on Radstock, old chap, it’s your department. Go and look. Just at the gates. A load of old shoes on the pavement. But steel yourself. About twenty of ’em, you can’t miss ’em.’

‘That sort of thing’s not my department, Your Lordship.’

‘Oh yes it is. They’re lined up carefully, all the toes pointing to the cemetery as if they wanted to walk in. I’m talking about the old main gate now.’

‘But the old cemetery has nightwatchmen. It’s closed to the public after dark, and it’s closed to their shoes too.’

‘Well, the shoes want to go in all the same, and their whole attitude is most unpleasant. Go on, go and look, do your job.’

‘I’m afraid, sir, that I have better things to do than inspect a load of old shoes.’

‘Wrong, Radstock! Wrong! Because there are feet inside them.’

There was a sudden silence, a ghastly shock wave. A small whimper came from Estalère’s throat. Danglard tensed his arms. Adamsberg stopped pacing and looked up.

‘Bloody hell,’ whispered Danglard.

‘What did he say?’ Adamsberg asked.

‘He says there are some old shoes, looking as though they want to walk into the cemetery, and he says Radstock is wrong not to go and take a look, because they’ve got feet inside them.’

‘Take no notice, Donglarde,’ Radstock interrupted. ‘He’s had too much to drink. You’ve had a drop too much, sir, you ought to go home.’

‘There. Are. Feet. Inside. Them,’ enunciated Lord Clyde-Fox, clearly and calmly, to indicate that he was walking with perfect assurance along the ridge. ‘Cut off at the ankles. And the feet are trying to get into the cemetery.’

‘As you say, sir, and they’re, er, trying to get in, are they?’

Lord Clyde-Fox was carefully combing his hair, a sign that his departure was imminent. Now that he had the problem off his chest, he seemed to have returned to normal.

‘Pretty ancient shoes,’ he added, ‘about fifteen or twenty years old, I’d say. Men’s and women’s, both.’

‘But the feet?’ asked Danglard discreetly. ‘Are the feet just bones now?’

‘Leave it, Donglarde, he’s been seeing things.’

‘No,’ said Clyde-Fox, tucking away his comb and ignoring Radstock. ‘The feet are almost intact.’

‘And they’re trying to get into the cemetery?’

‘Precisely, old man.’

DCI RADSTOCK WAS UTTERING A CONSTANT STREAM OF growls and grumbles, and gripping the wheel tightly, as he drove fast up to the old cemetery in north London. Of all things, they had had to bump into Clyde-Fox. First this nutter wanted them to check whether someone else’s foot had got into his shoes. And now they were on their way to Highgate because His Lordship had fallen off his ridge and had a vision. There wouldn’t be any shoes in front of the cemetery, any more than there were strange feet in Clyde-Fox’s own footwear.