Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place

‘He made a mess of checking the alibi in Avignon.’

‘So?’

‘So that’s two professional errors in a row, and not minor ones: one suspect escapes arrest, and an alibi any fool could have dealt with can’t now be checked. Who’s legally responsible? You are. With those two mistakes, people will be able to say that in less than forty-eight hours, two days, you’ve made a complete mess of the first stage of the inquiry. With Brézillon after your guts as usual, you could be stood down for less than that. And now this latest disaster: press leak, killer on the run. If someone wanted to have you taken out of circulation, they wouldn’t have put a foot wrong.’

‘Oh, come on, Danglard. Mordent sabotaging the inquiry? Mordent wanting to land me in the shit? No way. Why would he?’

‘Because otherwise you might find the killer. And that would be embarrassing.’

‘Who for? Embarrassing for Mordent?’

‘No. For someone upstairs.’

Adamsberg looked at Danglard’s index finger pointing at the ceiling which was his way of referring to higher authority, though it could equally well mean ‘downstairs’ in the caves of Hades.

‘Somebody up there,’ Danglard said, without moving his finger, ‘doesn’t want this Garches affair to be solved, or for you to carry on investigating it.’

‘And Mordent’s on their side? That’s unthinkable.’

‘On the contrary, it’s highly thinkable, because his daughter is in the hands of the judicial system. Upstairs, a murder can be covered up easily. Mordent gives them the ammunition to get rid of you, his daughter gets off the charge. Her case comes up in two weeks, don’t forget.’

Adamsberg made a dismissive sound.

‘He’s not the type.’

‘Nobody’s not the type if their child is under threat. Easy to see you haven’t got any kids.’

‘Don’t start, Danglard.’

‘I mean a kid you really look after,’ said Danglard bitingly, going back to the major bone of contention between them. Danglard stood on one side, protecting Camille and her child from the very elusive ways of Adamsberg, and Adamsberg on the other, living as he pleased, leaving behind him, almost without noticing, a trail of calamities in other people’s lives.

‘I do look after Tom,’ said Adamsberg, clenching his fist. ‘I babysit him, I take him out, I tell him stories.’

‘Oh yeah, so where is he now?’

‘None of your business, just stop bugging me, Danglard. He’s on holiday with his mother.’

‘Yes, but where?’

Silence fell on the two men, the dirty table, the empty glasses, the crumpled newspapers and the killer’s photograph. Adamsberg was trying to remember where Camille had gone with little Tom, somewhere healthy, that was for sure. Seaside probably. Normandy, something like that. He called them on the mobile every three days, they were fine.

‘In Normandy,’ he said.

‘In Brittany,’ said Danglard. ‘In Cancale.’

If Adamsberg had been Émile at that moment, he would have punched Danglard on the jaw right away. He imagined the scene, which pleased him. He contented himself with getting up.

‘What you are thinking with respect to Mordent, commandant , is unworthy.’

‘It’s not unworthy to want to save your daughter.’

‘I said what you are thinking is unworthy. It’s what’s in your head that’s unworthy.’

‘Yes, of course it’s unworthy.’

LAMARRE BURST INTO THE DICE SHAKER.

‘Urgent, commissaire ! Vienna wants to talk to you.’

Adamsberg looked at Lamarre in puzzlement. The young brigadier was not good with words, and if he had to make a report, his lack of confidence usually meant he had to speak from notes. Had he got a name wrong?

‘Who’s Vienna?’

‘Vienna, the place. Thalberg, name like yours, with berg on the end, like the composer he said.’

‘Alban Berg, or more likely Sigismund Thalberg, 1812-1871, Austrian composer,’ murmured Danglard.

‘But he’s not a composer, he’s a police chief .’

‘A Viennese police chief,’ said Adamsberg. ‘You might have said so.’

He got up and followed the brigadier across the road.

‘And what does this man from Vienna want?’

‘Didn’t ask, it’s you he wants, sir. Tell me,’ said Lamarre, looking back, ‘why is the cafe called the Dice Shaker when there aren’t any dice players or even tables for them?’

‘Well, why aren’t there any philosophers in the Brasserie des Philosophes?’

‘That’s not an answer, just another question.’

‘Often the way, brigadier .’

Kommissar Thalberg in the Viennese police headquarters had asked for a videoconference, and Adamsberg went into the technical suite, with Froissy to help him get the equipment working. Justin, Estalère, Lamarre and Danglard all squeezed in behind him. Perhaps it was just the mention of the romantic Austrian composer, but it seemed to Adamsberg as if the man who now appeared on screen belonged to an earlier century: a refined and ethereal face, a little pale, set off by his turned-up shirt collar and the perfect blond curls.

‘Do you speak German, Commissaire Adamsberg?’ asked the gracious Viennese colleague, lighting a long cigarette.

‘No, afraid not. But Commandant Danglard will translate.’

‘That is most kind of him, thank you, but I am capable to speak your language. Happy to know you, commissaire , and also happy to share. I saw yesterday your case in Garches. It would have been cleared up quickly if the Blödmänner of the press had keeped their mouths shut. Your man escaped?’

‘What does Blödmänner mean, Danglard?’ Adamsberg whispered.

‘Jackals.’

‘Yes, he has got away,’ Adamsberg confirmed.

‘I am regretful for you, commissaire , and I hope you keep the inquiry, yes?’

‘So far, yes.’

‘So maybe I can help you and you also for me.’

‘You’ve got something on Louvois?’

‘No. I have got something on the crime. That is, I am nearly sure I too have this crime, for it is not usual, no? I send you pictures, better to see what I mean.’

The blond head disappeared and a village house came up on-screen with half-timbering and a gabled roof.

‘This is the place,’ Thalberg’s mellifluous voice continued. ‘Here is Pressbaum, near Vienna, five months and twenty days ago, and one night. A man also, Conrad Plögener, younger than your man, forty-nine only, married with three children. His wife and children had gone for the weekend to Graz, and Plögener was killed. He was a furniture dealer. Killed like this,’ he went on, as a picture appeared of a bloodstained room with no visible body. ‘I don’t know for you, but in Pressbaum the body was so cut up that nothing remained. Also crushed on a stone and scattered in many directions. Do you have similar modus operandi?’

‘Looks the same at first sight, yes.’

‘I can show you some close-ups, commissaire .’

There followed a slide show of about fifteen pictures repeating the nightmarish spectacle of Garches. Conrad Plögener had a more modest lifestyle than Pierre Vaudel, no grand piano or tapestries.

‘I was less fortunate than you, we found no trace of the Zerquetscher .’

‘Crusher,’ Danglard explained, twisting his hands against each other to mime it.

‘ Ja ,’ Thalberg said. ‘The people here started calling him der Zerquetscher , you know they always like to give a label. I found some footprints of mountain boots. I’m saying that there is a big possibility we have the same Zerquetscher as you, even if it is a great rarity that a killer does not act only in his own country.’