Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place

‘Right,’ said Vlad. ‘So let me go back to sleep now.’

‘Look, the police,’ Danica went on, by now chewing angrily at both thumbs, ‘if they start finding out the truth, the murderer will kill them, won’t he? Eh, Vladislav?’

‘If you want my opinion, he’s getting further from the truth with every step.’

‘Why do you say that?’ asked Danica, letting go of her thumbs, by now glistening with saliva.

‘If you go on biting your nails you’ll end up eating a whole finger. Then you’ll wonder where it’s gone.’

Danica shook her mass of blonde hair impatiently and carried on chewing.

‘Why are you so sure he’s getting further from the truth?’

Vlad laughed quietly, sat up and put his hands on the landlady’s plump shoulders.

‘Because he thinks the Frenchman and the Austrian who were murdered were from the Plogojowitz family.’

‘And you think that’s funny?’ exclaimed Danica, starting up. ‘Funny?’

‘Well, anyone would think that was funny, Danica, including the cops he works with in Paris.’

‘Vladislav Moldovan, you’ve not got the sense you were born with, just like your Dedo Slavko.’

‘So you’re just like all the others, are you? Ti to verujé? You won’t go near the place of uncertainty? You won’t go and visit the tomb of poor old Peter?’

Danica put her hand over his mouth.

‘Be quiet for the Lord’s sake, Vlad. What are you trying to do? Attract him here? It’s not just that you’ve got no manners but you’re stupid and presumptuous. And you’re a lot of things old Slavko wasn’t. Selfish, lazy and a coward. If Slavko was here, he’d go looking for your friend.’

‘What, at this time of night?’

‘And you’d let a woman go off on her own, in the dark, to look, would you?’

‘Danica, it’s dark, we can’t see a thing. Wake me in three hours’ time, then it’ll be getting light.’

By six in the morning, Danica had augmented the search party with the inn’s cook, Boško, and his son, Vukasin.

‘He knows the paths round here,’ she explained. ‘He had gone for a walk.’

‘Could have fallen in the river,’ said Boško, gloomily.

‘You go to the river,’ said Danica, ‘and Vladislav and I will take the woods.’

‘What about his mobile?’ wondered Vukasin. ‘Does Vladislav have the number?’

‘I tried,’ said Vlad, who still seemed to think it was a big joke. ‘And Danica kept on trying between three and five. Either he’s out of range or his battery’s dead.’

‘Or it’s in the river,’ said Boško. ‘There’s a dangerous bit of the path by the big rock a stranger might not know about. The planking isn’t safe. But tourists don’t think.’

‘What about the place of uncertainty?’ asked Vlad. ‘No one going there then?’

‘Just keep your jokes to yourself, young man,’ said Boško.

And for once the young man did shut up.

Danica didn’t know what to think. It was 10 a.m. now, and she was serving breakfast to the three men. She had to admit they might be right. They had found not a trace of Adamsberg. No sounds or cries had been heard. But the floor of the old mill had been trodden on – that seemed clear because the carpet of bird droppings had been disturbed. Then there were traces leading through the grass to the road, where tyre marks were clearly visible on the muddy ground.

‘You’d better relax, Danica,’ said Boško gently. He was a towering figure, his bald head balanced by a bushy grey beard. ‘He’s a policeman. He’s seen a thing or two and I expect he knows what he’s doing. He must have asked for a car and gone off to Beograd to see our policajci . You can bet on it.’

‘Just like that, without saying goodbye? He didn’t even call on Arandjel.’

‘That’s how they are, the policajci ,’ Vukasin assured her.

‘Not like us,’ said Boško.

‘Plog,’ said Vlad, who was beginning to feel sorry for the good-hearted Danica.

‘Perhaps something urgent came up. He must have had to go off in a hurry.’

‘I could call Adrianus,’ Vlad suggested. ‘If Adamsberg has gone to see the Beograd cops, he’s sure to know about it.’

But no, Adrien Danglard had had no news of Adamsberg. More worrying still, Weill had been due to speak with him by phone at nine, but his mobile wasn’t answering.

‘No, his battery can’t have run down,’ Weill insisted to Danglard. ‘He didn’t have it on, it was a special phone just used between the two of us, and we’d only spoken once, yesterday.’

‘Well, he’s unreachable and unfindable,’ Danglard concluded.

‘Since when?’

‘Since he left Kisilova to go for a walk, at about five yesterday afternoon.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes. I called the police in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Banja Luka. He hasn’t been in touch with any police force in the country. And they checked the local taxis – nobody has picked up a customer in Kisilova.’

When Danglard put the phone down, he was trembling and sweat was trickling down his back. He had spoken reassuringly to Vladislav, telling him that, with Adamsberg, an unexpected disappearance was not abnormal. But that wasn’t true. Adamsberg had now been missing for seventeen hours, overnight. He hadn’t left Kisilova, or he would have let someone know. Danglard opened the drawer of his desk and took out an unopened bottle of red wine. A good Bordeaux, high pH factor, low acidity. He made a face, put the bottle back crossly, and went down the spiral staircase to the basement. There was one last bottle of white, still tucked away behind the boiler. He opened it like a beginner, breaking the cork. He sat down on the familiar tea chest which he used as a seat and swallowed a few mouthfuls. Why, by all the saints, had the commissaire left his GPS behind in Paris? The signal was unmoving, coming from his house. In the cool cellar, smelling of damp and drains, Danglard felt he was losing Adamsberg. He should have gone to Kisilova with him, he knew it, and he’d said so.

‘What are you up to?’ came Retancourt’s throaty voice.

‘Don’t put the bloody light on,’ snapped Danglard. ‘Leave me in the dark.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘No news from him now, for seventeen hours. Vanished. And if you want my opinion, dead. The Zerquetscher has got him in Kiseljevo.’

‘What’s Kiseljevo?’

‘The mouth of the tunnel.’

Danglard pointed to another tea chest as if he were inviting her to take a seat in his salon.

HIS ENTIRE BODY WAS NOW SWATHED IN A SHROUD OF COLD and numbness, but his head was still working after a fashion. Hours must have passed, six perhaps. He could still feel the back of his head when he had the strength to move it against the ground. Try to keep the brain warm, try to keep the eyes working, by opening and shutting them. These were the last muscles he could still exercise. And he could slightly move his lips under the tape which had become a little looser with saliva. But why bother? What use were still-seeing eyes attached to a corpse? His ears could still hear. But there was nothing to hear, except the wretched mosquito buzz of his tinnitus. Dinh, now, he could waggle his ears but Adamsberg had never been able to. He felt that his ears would be the last bit of him left alive. They could flap about in this tomb like an ugly butterfly, nowhere near as pretty as that cloud of butterflies that had fluttered around his head until the doorway of the old mill. They hadn’t wanted to go in – he should have stopped to think and followed their lead. One should always follow butterflies. His ears picked up a sound from the direct ion of the door. It was opening. He was coming back! Anxious to see if the job had been properly done. If not, he’d finish it off in his own way, axe, saw, stone. He was the nervous type, he would worry; Zerk’s hands were always in motion, clenching and unclenching.