Fred Vargas - Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

‘Take back what you just said, Favre, apologise, and say you regret it. I’m waiting.’

‘Oh, shit,’ thought Danglard putting his hand over his eyes. He saw from his stance how tense Adamsberg was. In the last two days, he had seen more new emotions overtake his boss than in years of working together.

‘I’m waiting,’ Adamsberg repeated.

Favre leaned forward to try and recover a little of his lost dignity in front of his colleagues, who were by now stealthily moving towards the epicentre of the confrontation. Only Retancourt, the butt of Favre’s insulting words, had not budged. But she had stopped filing papers.

‘Withdraw what?’ Favre said hoarsely. ‘It was the truth, wasn’t it? You are an ace mountain climber, aren’t you?’

‘Favre, I’m waiting,’ said Adamsberg once more.

‘Oh bollocks,’ muttered Favre, starting to get to his feet.

Adamsberg grabbed Danglard’s black briefcase, took out a bottle of wine and smashed it against the metal table leg. Splinters of glass and wine flew all over the room. He took a step towards Favre, the broken bottle neck in his hand. Danglard tried to hold back the commissaire , but Favre had pulled out his service revolver and was pointing it at Adamsberg. Dumbstruck, the rest of the squad had frozen in their tracks, staring at the brigadier who had dared to level a gun at his boss. And staring too at their commissaire principal , whom they had seen angry only twice in the whole year, and then it had blown over very quickly. Everyone was searching for a quick way to defuse the confrontation, hoping that Adamsberg would recover his usual detached manner, drop the bottle and walk away with a shrug of his shoulders.

‘Drop the gun, you fucking idiot,’ said Adamsberg.

Favre threw down the revolver with an insolent look, and Adamsberg lowered the bottle. He had the unpleasant feeling of having gone over the top, the secret certainty that he had looked ridiculous, without being sure whether he or Favre had come off worst in that respect. He loosened his fingers. At that moment, the brigadier , in a furious outburst, straightened up and threw the jagged base of the wine bottle at him, cutting Adamsberg’s left forearm as cleanly as a knife.

Favre was quickly overpowered, put on a chair and held fast. Then faces turned to the commissaire , waiting for his instructions in this unprecedented situation. Adamsberg made a gesture to stop Estalère who was reaching for a telephone.

‘It’s not deep, Estalère,’ he said, his voice back to its usual calm, and holding his arm up against his body. ‘Just tell the police doctor to come over, he can handle it.’

He nodded to Mordent and gave him the top half of the broken bottle.

‘Put this in a plastic bag, Mordent. It’s evidence that I started the fight. Attempt to intimidate a subordinate. Pick up his Magnum and the base of the bottle, as evidence for a charge of aggression without intention to…’

Adamsberg ran his other hand through his hair trying to think of the right words.

‘Yes, there bloody was intention,’ shouted Favre.

‘Shut up, you dope!’ cried Noël. ‘Don’t make things worse for yourself. You’ve done enough damage.’

Adamsberg looked at Noël in surprise. Normally Noël would smile and back up the crude sallies his colleague came out with. But a gap had opened up between Noël’s tolerance and Favre’s aggression.

‘Without intention to cause grievous bodily harm,’ Adamsberg went on, making a sign to Justin to take down his words. ‘Motive for the confrontation, Brigadier Joseph Favre’s insulting remarks regarding Lieutenant Violette Retancourt and defamation of character.’ Adamsberg looked round to count the number of officers in the room.

‘Twelve eye-witnesses,’ he added.

Voisenet had made him sit down, pulled back the sleeve from his left arm and was applying first aid.

‘Confrontation proceeded as follows,’ Adamsberg continued in a tired voice. ‘Superior officer issued a reprimand, accompanied by a show of violence and intimidation, without making physical contact or injuring any part of the body of the said Joseph Favre.’

Adamsberg clenched his teeth while Voisenet pressed a cotton pad on his arm to stop the bleeding.

‘Brandishing of service weapon and sharp implement on the part of the brigadier , occasioning slight injury caused by a piece of glass. You can do the rest, write the report without my signature, and send it to the disciplinary tribunal. Don’t forget to photograph the state of the room.’

Justin got up and came over to the commissaire .

‘What shall we say about the bottle of wine,’ he whispered. ‘Do we say you took it out of Danglard’s bag?’

‘We say I picked it up off the table.’

‘Reason for the presence of a bottle of wine in the office at three-thirty in the afternoon?’

‘A little party at midday,’ suggested Adamsberg, ‘to celebrate the squad’s decision to go to Quebec.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Justin in relief. ‘Good idea.’

‘What do we do about Favre?’ asked Noël.

‘Suspension from duty and confiscation of his gun. The magistrate can decide whether he was an aggressor or whether it was a case of self-defence. We’ll deal with the rest when I get back.’

Adamsberg rose to his feet, leaning on Voisenet’s arm.

‘Be careful,’ Voisenet said to him. ‘You’ve lost an awful lot of blood.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Adamsberg. ‘I’m going to the police doctor right away.’

Leaning on Danglard’s arm, he went out leaving his officers stupefied, unable to collect their thoughts or, for the moment at least, to pass judgment on what had happened.

ADAMSBERG HAD GONE HOME WITH HIS ARM IN A SLING, AND PUMPED full of the antibiotics and painkillers that Dr Romain, the staff doctor, had made him swallow. The cut had needed six stitches.

His left arm being numb because of the local anaesthetic, he opened his bedroom cupboard clumsily with one hand, and called Danglard to help him pick up a box file from the lower shelf where it was sitting among old pairs of socks. Danglard put the box on a coffee table and the two men sat down facing each other.

‘Can you take out the papers, Danglard? Sorry, I can’t do anything with this arm.’

‘Why in heaven’s name did you break the bottle?’

‘Are you defending that scumbag?’

‘I agree, Favre’s full of shit. But when you smashed the bottle, you drove him to violence. He’s that kind of character. And as a rule, you’re not.’

‘Well, maybe when I come across that kind of character, I change my habits.’

‘Why didn’t you simply suspend him, like you did last time?’

Adamsberg made a gesture of impotence.

‘Pressure?’ suggested Danglard cautiously. ‘Neptune?’

‘Could be.’

Meanwhile Danglard had pulled eight files out of the box, all labelled with a title: ‘Trident no. 1’, ‘Trident no. 2’, and so on up to 8.

‘And talking of the bottle in your briefcase, things are going too far on that front.’

‘And that’s none of your business,’ said Danglard using the commissaire ’s own words.

Adamsberg nodded agreement.

‘Anyway,’ Danglard went on, ‘I’ve made a new resolution.’

Touching his pompom, but deeming it best not to mention that, he announced, ‘If I get back from Quebec alive, I’ll only drink one glass at a time.’

‘Of course you’ll get back, because I’ll be holding the string. So you can start on the new regime right now.’

Danglard nodded vaguely. In the commotion of the last few hours, he had forgotten that Adamsberg would be keeping the plane in the air. But just now, Danglard had more confidence in his pompom than in his superior officer. He wondered fleetingly if a sawn-off pompom was quite as powerful as the real thing, a bit like asking whether a eunuch was still potent.