Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place

But his stay in the vault must have dealt him a blow, sending his emotional responses into turmoil, so that leaving Kisilova tugged at his heartstrings. Kisilova, the only place where he had been able to memorise new unpronounceable words, which was something rare for him.

Danica had washed and ironed the beautiful white embroidered shirt for him to take back to Paris. Everyone had lined up in front of the kruchema to say goodbye, standing stiffly to attention and smiling. Danica, Arandjel, the woman with the cart and her children, the regulars from the hotel, Vukasin, Boško and his wife, who hadn’t let him leave her side since the day before, plus a few unknown faces. Vlad was going to stay on a few days. He had carefully combed his dark hair and tied up his ponytail. Ordinarily incapable of showing affection, Adamsberg hugged them each in turn, saying that he would be back – vratiću se – that they were all his friends – prijatelji . Danica’s sadness was diluted a little, in that she now didn’t know which one she would miss most, the dancer or the enchanter. Vlad said a final ‘plog’, and Adamsberg and Veyrenc made their way to the bus which would take them to Belgrade. Their flight would see them in Paris by mid-afternoon. Vladislav had written out a sheet of phrases they would need at the airport. As they went down the path carrying a bag of provisions from Danica which would easily last them two days, Veyrenc muttered:

‘ He must now leave this place and its sweet fragrant air .

He leaves broken-hearted, lamenting his fate .

And his son, whom he found, but already too late .’

‘You know, Mercadet says that you don’t observe all the rules for alexandrines properly – you don’t always have exactly twelve syllables for instance.’

‘He’s right.’

‘Something’s wrong, Veyrenc.’

‘Yes, I know, that second line doesn’t scan.’

‘No, I’m talking about the dog hairs. Your nephew had this dog, and it died a few weeks before the Garches murder.’

‘Tintin, a stray he’d taken in. His fourth. That’s what abandoned kids do, they rescue stray dogs. So what’s the problem about its hairs?’

‘They compared them with Tintin’s hairs from his flat, and they were the same.’

‘The same as what?’

The bus started its engine.

‘In the room where the Vaudel murder took place, the killer sat on this velvet armchair. A Louis XIII armchair.’

‘Why does it matter that it was Louis XIII?’

‘Because Mordent was keen on it, never mind what he’s been up to since. And the killer sat on it.’

‘To get his breath back, I suppose.’

‘Yes. He had some horse manure on his boots, and there were a few traces of that too.’

‘How many bits?’

‘Four.’

‘See, Armel isn’t keen on horses. Had a fall when he was little. He really isn’t a get-up-and-go sort of person at all.’

‘But does he ever go to the country?’

‘Well, he goes back to the village every couple of months to see his grandparents.’

‘There could be horses on some of the paths out there,’ said Adamsberg with a frown. ‘And he wears boots.’

‘Yes.’

‘To go out for walks?’

‘Yes.’

They both looked out of the window for a minute, saying nothing.

‘These hairs you were talking about, then.’

‘The killer left some on the chair. Velvet – they stick to that. So he could just have had them on the seat of his trousers, from the flat. If we imagine that someone planted the handkerchief, we’d also have to suppose that the dog hairs were planted too.’

‘I see,’ said Veyrenc dully.

‘It’s not that easy even to get someone’s handkerchief, but how do you get the hairs of his dog? By picking them up off the floor of his apartment one by one, while Zerk watches you?’

‘No, by going in when he’s out.’

‘We checked. There’s a door code, and an entryphone. So it suggests whoever it was must have known him well enough to know at least the code. OK. But then you have to get through the house door, then Zerk’s front door. No locks were forced. Worse, our friend Weill and the neighbour opposite both say Zerk didn’t have any visitors. He doesn’t have a girlfriend?’

‘Not since last year. You talking about Weill who used to be at headquarters?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s involved is he?’

‘He lives in the same building as your nephew. They get on quite well. Perhaps Zerk liked to hobnob with cops.’

‘No, no. It was me, through Weill, that got him the flat when he went to live in Paris. But I didn’t know they actually met socially.’

‘Well, they do. And Weill seems to be fond of him. At any rate, he’s defending him.’

‘Was it him that called you yesterday when you were still getting your foot back to life. On your other phone?’

‘Yes, he’s been involved from the start. He says he’s keeping tabs on the hierarchy. He gave me that phone and made me take out my GPS when I left,’ Adamsberg said after a moment.

‘Pity he did that.’

‘Plog,’ said Adamsberg.

‘What does “plog” mean?’

‘It’s a word Vlad uses, but it can mean different things in context. It can mean “yes”, “precisely”, “I understand”, or sometimes “rubbish”. It’s a sort of drop of truth falling.’

The lunch Danica had provided was so copious that it was spread out on a large table in the cafe at Belgrade airport, accompanied by beer and coffee. Adamsberg munched his kajmak sandwich and was reluctant to pursue his thoughts.

‘One has to say,’ Veyrenc began carefully, ‘that if we have Weill in the picture, that would solve that entryphone question. He lives in the building, he’s got keys to it, he knows Armel. And he’s intelligent and sophisticated, unquestionably bossy, the sort of person who could well acquire a hold over someone like Armel.’

‘The front door hadn’t been forced.’

‘No, but Weill’s a cop, he’ll have pass keys. Easy lock?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he ever go to see Armel?’

‘No, but we’ve only got Weill’s own word for it. On the other hand, Zerk quite often went round on Wednesday evenings when Weill held open house.’

‘So he could quite easily have got hold of a handkerchief and some dog hairs. Not the boots with dung on, though.’

‘Yes, he could. The concierge polishes the stairs, and she doesn’t like people going up and down with muddy boots. So she gets people to put any dirty shoes in a little cupboard under the stairs on the ground floor. They all have keys to it. Shit, Veyrenc, Weill was at headquarters for twenty years.’

‘Weill couldn’t care less about the police, he likes being provocative, he likes cooking, he likes art, and not just classic art either. Have you ever been to his flat?’

‘Yes, several times.’

‘So you know what it’s like, it’s splendid and over the top, unforgettable once you’ve seen it. The statue of the man with a top hat and an erection, juggling bottles? The mummified ibis? The self-portraits? Kant’s couch?’

‘Kant’s valet’s couch.’

‘All right, Lampe the valet. The chair the bishop died in. The yellow plastic cravat from New York. In a bazaar like that, knocking out the Plogojowitz clan by an old eighteenth-century Paole might look like an artistic happening. As Weill says himself, art’s a dirty business but someone has to do it.’

Adamsberg shook his head.

‘But he’s the one who’s investigating the rungs of the hierarchy that leads to Emma Carnot.’

‘The vice-president of the Council of State?’

‘The same.’

‘What on earth has she got to do with all this?’