The Chalk Circle Man (2 page)

Sad, really.

Yes, women were complicated. And in Danglard’s life there had been plenty of women who had found him wanting. To his considerable distress at times. But at any rate, he knew that serious-minded Florence was right about Adamsberg, and Danglard had so far allowed himself to succumb to the charm of this little man a foot shorter than himself. He was beginning to understand how the vague desire to unburden yourself to him might explain why so many murderers had told him about their crimes: absent-mindedly, almost. Just like that. In order to chat to Adamsberg.

Danglard, who had a reputation for being handy with a pencil, did caricatures of his colleagues. So he knew something about faces. He had got Castreau off to a T, for instance. But he knew in advance that he would never be able to pin Adamsberg down, because it was as if sixty faces had been mingled to make one. The nose was too big, the mouth was crooked, mobile, and no doubt sensual, the eyes were vague and elusive, the jawbone was too prominent, so it looked as if it would be easy to caricature this mixed-up face, thrown together with disregard for classical harmony. It was as if God had run out of raw materials when he had made Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg: he had had to look in the back of the drawer and put together features that should never have been combined if he’d had more choice. But after that, it looked as if God had been aware of the problem and had taken special care, a great deal of care, in fact, and in the end had created an inexplicable masterpiece out of this face. And Danglard, who could not remember ever having seen a face like it, considered that trying to make a rapid sketch of it would be a travesty, that swift pencil strokes would not bring out its originality: on the contrary, a sketch would destroy all its grace.

So at that moment, Danglard was wondering what sort of things God kept in the back of the drawer.

‘Are you listening, or have you gone to sleep?’ Adamsberg asked. ‘Because I’ve noticed that I sometimes send people to sleep, really, they do go to sleep. Perhaps I don’t speak loudly enough, or fast enough, I don’t know. Remember where we’d got to? The dog had gone over the edge. I took my tin water bottle off my belt and banged the little kid hard on the head.

‘And then I set off to find the stupid dog. It took me three hours to reach it. And by then it was dead, anyway. The point of this story, Danglard, is the evidence of cruelty in that little kid. I’d known for a long time before this happened that there was something wrong with him, and that was what it was: cruelty. But I can assure you his face was quite normal, he didn’t have wicked features at all. On the contrary, he was a nice-looking boy, but he oozed cruelty. Just don’t ask me any more, I can’t tell you any more. But eight years later, he pushed a grandfather clock over on top of an old woman and killed her. And most premeditated murders require the murderer not only to feel exasperation or humiliation, or to have some neurosis, or whatever, but also cruelty, pleasure in inflicting suffering, pleasure in the victim’s agony and pleas for mercy, pleasure in tearing the victim apart. It’s true, it doesn’t always appear obvious in a person, but you feel at least that there’s something wrong, that something else is gathering underneath, a kind of growth. And sometimes that turns out to be cruelty – do you see what I’m saying? A kind of growth.’

‘That’s against my principles,’ said Danglard, a bit stiffly. ‘I don’t claim my principles are the only ones, but I don’t believe there are people marked out for this or that, like cows with tags on their ears, or that you can pick out murderers by intuition. I know, I’m saying something boring and unexciting, but what we do is we proceed by following clues, and we arrest when we’ve got proof. Gut feelings about “growths” scare me stiff. That way you start off following hunches, and end up with arbitrary sentences and miscarriages of justice.’

‘You’re speechifying, Danglard. I didn’t say you could see it in someone’s face, I said it was something monstrous that was gathering inside someone. It’s a kind of secretion, Danglard, and sometimes I sense it oozing out. I’ve seen it on the lips of a young girl, just as clearly as I might see a cockroach run across this table. I can’t help sensing when something’s not right. It might be enjoyment of crime, but it could be other things, less serious things. Some people secrete their boredom or their unhappy love lives, Danglard, and it can be sensed, whether it’s the one or the other. But when it’s something else, you know, the crime thing, well, I think I know that too.’

Danglard looked up and his posture was less shambling than usual.

‘Yes, but you still believe you can see something by looking at people, that you can see cockroaches on their lips, and you think these impressions are revelations because they’re yours, you think other people are oozing pus, and it’s not true. The truth is boring and banal: it’s that all human beings can have hate inside them, like they all have hair on their heads, and anyone can make a false step and kill someone. I’m certain of that. All men are capable of rape and murder, and all women are capable of slashing someone’s legs with a razor, like that one in the rue Gay-Lussac the other week. It just depends what sort of life you’ve had, it depends how much you want to plunge into the swamp and take other people with you. You don’t have to be oozing pus from birth to want to suppress the whole world because you’re sick of it.’

‘I did tell you, Danglard,’ said Adamsberg, frowning, as he stopped his drawing, ‘that when I’d told you the story of the big dog you’d think I was a mean bastard.’

‘Dangerous, let’s say,’ muttered Danglard. ‘You shouldn’t think you’ve got some superior powers.’

‘There’s nothing superior about being able to see cockroaches. What I’m telling you about is something that I can’t help. In fact, it gives me enormous trouble in my life. If only I could be wrong about someone once in a while, about whether he was an upright citizen or not, or sad, or intelligent, or untruthful, or troubled, or indifferent, or dangerous, or timid – all that, do you see, if I could just be wrong one time, for a change? Can you imagine what a drag it is? I sometimes pray that people will surprise me when I start to predict how it will all end. All my life I’ve always had beginnings, and I’ve been full of hope. And then, very soon, I start to see what’s going to happen, like in some suspense film where you guess who’s going to fall in love with whom, or who’s going to have an accident. You go on watching all the same, only it’s too late – it’s just depressing.’

‘OK, let’s admit you have some special intuition,’ said Danglard. ‘You’re a policeman with flair, that’s as far as I’ll go. But even then it’s not right to use it, it’s too risky, it’s wicked. No, even after twenty years you can never know everything about another person.’

Adamberg rested his chin on his palm, smoke from his cigarette making his eyes water.

‘Well, if it’s a gift take it away from me, Danglard. Get rid of it. I’d like nothing better.’

‘People aren’t insects,’ Danglard went on.

‘No, they’re not. I like people, and I don’t give a damn about insects, don’t care what they want or what they think. Still, insects want things too, no reason they shouldn’t.’

‘True,’ said Danglard.

‘Danglard, have you ever been party to a miscarriage of justice yourself?’

‘Have you read my file?’ said Danglard, with a sideways glance at Adamsberg who was still smoking and doodling.

‘If I say no, you’ll accuse me of claiming supernatural powers. But no, I haven’t read it. What happened?’

‘It was this teenage girl. There’d been a break-in at the jeweller’s shop where she worked. I was absolutely convinced it was an inside job, done with her collusion. Everything seemed to point to it. Her prevarications, her mannerisms, all that set off my policeman’s intuition, OK? She got three years, and she committed suicide in her cell two months later, in a particularly ghastly way. But in fact she hadn’t been involved in the robbery, as we discovered not long afterwards. So now do you see why I won’t have anything to do with your blasted hunches and cockroaches on women’s lips? Finito. After that, I decided guesswork and intuition were no match for doubt and ordinary police routine.’

Danglard stood up.

‘Wait,’ said Adamsberg. ‘The stepson, Vernoux – don’t forget to bring him in.’

Adamsberg fell silent. He was embarrassed. His decision was awkward coming after this kind of discussion. He went on in a lower voice.

‘Pull him in for questioning for twenty-four hours.’

‘You’re not serious,
commissaire
,’ said Danglard.

Adamsberg bit his lower lip.

‘His girlfriend’s protecting him. I’m convinced they weren’t actually together in the restaurant on the evening of the murder, even if their two versions tally. Question them again, separately. How long between the starter and the main course? Did a guitarist come and play? Where was the wine, on the left or the right of the table? What kind of wine was it? What did the glasses look like, or the tablecloth? And so on – every little detail you can think of. They’ll end up saying different things, you’ll see. And then check out the boy’s shoes. You can ask the cleaning woman who comes in and looks after him – his mother pays her. There’ll be a pair missing, the ones he wore on the night of the murder, because round the warehouse the ground’s very muddy, what with the building site alongside it, and the mud there is clay – it sticks like glue. He’s not stupid, our young man, he’s probably chucked the shoes away. Have someone check the drains near where he lives. He could have walked back the last stretch in his socks, between the drain and his front door.’

‘If I understand what you’re saying,’ Danglard said, ‘the poor lad, as I call him, is oozing something.’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Adamsberg quietly.

‘And what is he supposed to be oozing?’

‘Cruelty.’

‘And to you that’s obvious?’

‘Yes, Danglard.’

But the last two words were almost inaudible.

Once the inspector had left, Adamsberg pulled across his desk the pile of newspapers that had been prepared for him. He found what he was after in three of them. The phenomenon hadn’t reached the headlines yet, but it was surely only a matter of time. Clumsily, he tore out one short article and put it on the desk in front of him. He always needed to concentrate hard in order to read, and if he had to do it out loud it was even worse. Adamsberg had never shone at school, since he couldn’t really understand why they were making him turn up there at all, but he had tried to give the impression of being conscientious so as not to upset his parents, and in particular so that they would never find out that he didn’t really care for book learning.

Is this a practical joke, or the work of some half-baked philosopher? Whatever it is, the blue chalk circles are still sprouting like night-time weeds on the capital’s pavements, and they’re starting to attract the attention of Parisian intellectuals. The circles are turning up at an increasing rate. Sixty-three have been spotted since the first ones were found four months ago in the 12th
arrondissement.
This new distraction, the equivalent of an urban parlour game, has provided plenty of material for the chattering classes, of whom there is no shortage. So the circles are the talk of every café in town …

Adamsberg stopped reading and jumped to the end to read the byline. ‘That pretentious prat,’ he muttered. ‘What can you expect?’

… People will soon be jostling for the honour of finding a circle outside their door, on the way to work in the morning. Whether the circles are the work of a cynical con artist or a genuine madman, if it’s fame he’s after the creator of the circles has certainly got what he wanted. Galling, isn’t it, for people who’ve spent a lifetime trying to become famous? All you have to do to be Parisian celebrity of the year is go out at night with some blue chalk! If he’s ever tracked down, they’ll have him on a TV chat show in no time (I can see it now: ‘The cultural sensation of the fin-de-millennium’). But he’s an elusive character. Nobody’s yet caught him in the act of chalking his circles on the tarmac. He doesn’t venture out every night, and he seems to strike at random in one district of Paris after another. What’s the betting there are some night-owls out there trying to catch him, just for kicks? Well, good hunting!

A more thoughtful article had appeared in a provincial paper:

Paris haunted by harmless maniac

Everyone thinks this is good for a laugh, but perhaps ‘weird’ is a better description. For the last four months, somebody – a man, probably – has been going out at night and drawing large circles in blue chalk around whatever rubbish is lying on the pavements of Paris. The only ‘victims’ of this curious obsession are the items that this character
encloses within the circles, never more than one at a time. There are about sixty examples so far, which makes it possible to draw up a very peculiar list: twelve bottle tops, an orange-box, four paper clips, two shoes, a magazine, a leather handbag, four cigarette lighters, a handkerchief, a pigeon’s claw, a spectacle lens, five notebooks, a lamb-chop bone, a ballpoint pen, an earring, a dog turd, part of a car’s headlight, a battery, a Coca-Cola can, a piece of wire, a ball of wool, a keyring, an orange, a tube of stomach pills, a pool of vomit, a hat, the contents of a car’s ashtray, two books (
The Metaphysics of the Real
and
The Fun-to-Cook Book
), a metal label, a broken egg, an ‘I love Elvis’ badge, a pair of tweezers, a doll’s head, a twig, a vest, a roll of film, a vanilla yoghurt, a candle, and a swimming cap. This may seem a tedious kind of list, but it certainly reveals the unexpected treasures lying on the city’s pavements if one goes looking for them. Since the well-known psychiatrist René Vercors-Laury has taken an interest in this case from the start, and has been keen to find out what lies behind it, people are now talking about the ‘revisited object’. The ‘chalk circle man’ has become a subject of cocktail-party gossip, putting the poor graffiti artists in the shade – their noses must be really out of joint! Everyone is asking what kind of compulsion drives the chalk circle man. One of the most intriguing aspects of the case is that around the edge of every circle, written in beautiful copperplate, indicating therefore an educated hand, is the following inscription, which has the psychiatrists scratching their heads: ‘Victor, woe’s in store, what are you out here for?’