Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place

‘Come on,’ cried Vlad angrily, ‘just because they’ve been in there, they’re not the living dead. Help them, for God’s sake!’

‘No manners, you have,’ muttered Danica mechanically.

As she gradually saw signs of life in Adamsberg, she got her breath back. But who was the stranger, and what was he doing in the cursed tomb?

Veyrenc’s striped hair seemed to worry her even more than Adamsberg’s deathly aspect. Boško moved forward cautiously and took the commissaire ’s other arm.

‘Jack-et,’ said Adamsberg, pointing to the door.

‘OK, I’ll get it,’ said Vladislav.

‘Vlad!’ shouted Boško, as Vlad made to move. ‘No son of the village goes in there. Send the foreigner.’

It was such a peremptory order that Vlad stopped in his tracks and explained the situation to Veyrenc. Veyrenc left Adamsberg to Boško and went back down the steps.

‘He’ll never get out alive,’ predicted Danica in her direst tones.

‘Why is his hair like that, all stripy like a wild boar?’ asked Vukasin.

Veyrenc was out in two minutes, carrying the torch and what remained of the tattered jacket and shirt. He pushed the door closed with his foot.

‘We ought to lock it,’ said Vukasin.

‘Arandjel’s the only person with a key,’ said Boško.

In the following silence, Vlad translated the exchange between father and son.

‘The key’ll be no use,’ said Veyrenc. ‘I broke the lock when I picked it.’

‘I’ll come back and block it up with rocks,’ muttered Boško. ‘I don’t know how this man spent a night there without getting eaten alive by Vesna.’

‘Boško is wondering if Vesna touched you,’ Vlad explained. ‘Some people think she comes out of her coffin, but others think she’s just munching and sighing in the night to frighten the living.’

‘Maybe – she sighed,’ said Adamsberg. ‘The sighs – of the – saint and the – cries of the siren. She didn’t – wish me – harm, Vlad.’

Danica brought out some bowls and filled them with fritters.

‘If his foot doesn’t wake up, it will get gangrene and have to be cut off,’ said Boško bluntly. ‘Light the fire, Danica, and get him to warm it up. And some hot coffee with rakija . And for heaven’s sake let’s get a shirt on his back.’

They moved Adamsberg’s foot closer to the fire, and brought him coffee laced with rakija . His brush with death had put unprecedented thoughts into Adamsberg’s head, which did not in any way lessen his warm feeling for this little village lost in the mists of the Danube. On the contrary, he was ready to leave his own country, leave his beloved mountains even, leave for good, and end up here in the mists, if perhaps Veyrenc would stay too, and a few other people: Danglard, Tom, Camille, Lucio and Retancourt. The fat office cat would have to be transported to Kisilova, along with the photocopiers. And Émile too – why not? But the thought of the Zerquetscher propelled him back into the centre of Paris, Zerk in his grisly death’s head T-shirt, and all the blood in the villa at Garches. Danica was rubbing his numb foot with alcohol in which she had been steeping herbs, and he wondered quite what she was expecting to happen. He hoped that her affection ate gestures were going unnoticed.

‘Where were you, you idiot?’ came the grumbling voice of Weill into the private mobile, his normal cynicism perceptibly tinged with relief.

‘Locked in a vault with eight corpses and one living-dead vampire called Vesna.’

‘Are you injured?’

‘No, but I was trussed up in tape almost to the point of asphyxiation.’

‘Who by?’

‘Zerk.’

‘And they found you?’

‘Veyrenc found me. Veyrenc got into the vault.’

‘Veyrenc? The guy built like a barrel who’s always spouting verse?’

‘The same.’

‘I thought he’d left the squad.’

‘You’re right, he did, but it was him in the vault. Don’t ask me how, Weill. I’ve no idea.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’re still in one piece, commissaire .’

‘Not quite, one foot is still not working.’

‘OK,’ said Weill, embarrassed and unable to express any comforting emotion directly. ‘Now, I’ve been getting close to the vice-president. There was a marriage, twenty-nine years ago.’

‘And the husband’s name is?’

‘That I don’t have yet. I’ve placed an ad in the papers. One of the witnesses to the wedding, a woman, was murdered in Nantes a week ago, two bullets to the head. Her daughter replied to my ad. I’m looking for the other.’

Nantes. Adamsberg remembered he had been thinking about Nantes recently. But when? And why?’

‘Any children?’

‘Don’t know. But if there was one, she’d have given it up for adoption.’

‘You need to look for the child, Weill.’

Adamsberg closed the phone and pointed to his foot. ‘I can feel something like pins and needles in it,’ he said.

‘Praise be,’ said Danica, crossing herself.

‘We’ll be getting along,’ said Boško, who was followed at once by Vukasin. ‘Can you manage for lunch today?’

‘Yes, go and get some rest, Boško. I’m going to put him to bed too.’

‘Put a hot-water bottle on his foot.’

While Adamsberg was dropping off to sleep under his blue eiderdown, they got another room ready for the stranger with the stripy hair, whose smile Danica found entrancing. His lip went up on one side, making his face very seductive. His long eyelashes cast a shadow on his round cheeks. Nothing like the mobile and tense features of Adamsberg. The newcomer was making no particular effort to please. But he had the mark of the devil in his hair and everyone knows that the devil can take on the appearance of an enchanter.

VEYRENC ALLOWED THE COMMISSAIRE TWO HOURS’ SLEEP, then he walked into his room and drew back the curtains, bringing two chairs from the hearth, where Danica had lit a blazing fire. The temperature in the room was stifling, enough to make a corpse perspire, which was Danica’s aim.

‘How’s the hoof now? Are you going to end up a centaur or will you stay human?’

Adamsberg moved his foot and tried wiggling his toes.

‘Human,’ he said.

‘ He rose into the heavens, floating up to the sky

Yet he was but a man and the dream flew too high

Now a mortal at last, he must fall to the earth .

Alas we know not what illusions are worth .’

‘I thought you’d kicked that habit.’

‘ Many months did I try, and my hopes were in vain

And my demons of old have me captured again .’

‘Always the way. Danglard says he’s giving up white wine.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘He’s switching to red.’

There was a silence. Veyrenc knew that this light tone couldn’t last and Adamsberg sensed it. A simple handshake before tackling a difficult climb.

‘Ask your questions,’ said Veyrenc, ‘and if I don’t want any more of them, I’ll say so.’

‘All right. Why did you come down from your mountain? To join up again?’

‘One question at a time.’

‘To join up?’

‘No.’

‘So why did you come down from your mountain?’

‘Because I read the papers. An article on the massacre in Garches.’

‘Were you interested in the investigation?’

‘Yes. That’s why I followed the headway you were making on it.’

‘Why didn’t you just come back to the squad?’

‘I was more interested in keeping a watch on you than in saying hello.’

‘You always did put the knife in subtly, Veyrenc. What were you keeping a watch on?’