The Ghost Riders of Ordebec (Commissaire Adamsberg) (19 page)

‘No,’ replied Zerk simply.

‘So what can you take pictures of?’

‘The landscape? Churches?’

‘Too obvious. Do something that takes you out into the fields and woods. Because you’ll have to be our link with Mo.’

‘Flowers?’ suggested Mo.

‘Leaf mould,’ proposed Zerk.

Adamsberg put down the rucksacks by the door.

‘Why would you want to photograph leaf mould?’

‘It was you that asked me to photograph something.’

‘Yes, but why leaf mould?’

‘Because it’s interesting. Do you know what you get in leaf mould? Just in ten square centimetres? Insects, worms, larvae, gases, fungus spores, bird droppings, roots, microorganisms, seeds. So I’m doing a special feature on leaf mould for the
Svenska Dagbladet
.’

‘Svenska?’

‘It’s a Swedish magazine. Didn’t you just suggest that yourself?’

‘Yes, so I did,’ said Adamsberg and looked at his watches. ‘Right, take Mo and the bags to Lucio’s place. I’m going to park the squad car behind his back door, and when Danglard turns up, I’ll let you know I’m ready to leave.’

‘I’m glad I’m going, it’ll be fun,’ said Zerk, with the naive pleasure that often appeared when he spoke.

‘Yeah, well, be sure to tell Danglard that. He’s not at all happy about it.’

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later, Adamsberg was on the way out of Paris on the western motorway, with the commandant sitting alongside him, fanning himself with a road map. Mo was curled up in the boot with a cushion under his head.

After driving for three-quarters of an hour, the commissaire called Émeri.

‘I’m just leaving Paris,’ he said. ‘Don’t expect me to get there before about two.’

‘Glad you’re coming. That bastard in Lisieux is furious about it.’

‘I’m thinking of lodging in Léo’s guest house. That’s if you have no objection.’

‘No.’

‘Right, I’ll tell her.’

‘She won’t be able to hear you.’

‘I’ll tell her all the same.’

Adamsberg put the phone back in his pocket and stepped on the gas.

‘Do you have to drive so fast?’ asked Danglard. ‘There’s no hurry.’

‘We’re going fast because it’s hot.’

‘And why did you tell Émeri we’d only arrive at two? That’s not true.’

‘Don’t ask so many questions, commandant.’

XIX

Five kilometres from Ordebec, Adamsberg slowed down as they went through the little village of Charny-la-Vieille.

‘Right, Danglard, I’ve got a small errand to run before we get to Ordebec proper. I suggest you wait for me here, and I’ll be back to pick you up in half an hour.’

Danglard nodded. ‘So if I know nothing, my hands will be clean.’

‘You could say that.’

‘Kind of you to try and protect me. But when you made me write that false report, you got me up to the neck in this business of yours.’

‘Nobody asked you to come along and stick your nose into it.’

‘My job is to come round after you, putting up the safety barriers.’

‘I’m waiting for an answer, Danglard. I’m going to drop you off here, OK?’

‘Not OK. I’m coming with you.’

‘You won’t like it.’

‘I already don’t like Ordebec.’

‘You’re wrong, it’s very picturesque. When you arrive, you see the big church right away, up on the hill, then the little town at its feet, half-timbered houses, they should appeal to you. There are fields all around in every shade of green and they’ve installed hundreds of cows, all standing still, against the green. I haven’t seen a single cow move yet, I don’t know why.’

‘You have to keep looking at them for a long time.’

‘I suppose so.’

Adamsberg had located the places described by Madame Vendermot: the house of the neighbours, Monsieur and Madame Hébrard, the Bigard wood, the old rubbish dump. He went past the Herbier mailbox without stopping, and continued for a hundred metres before turning the car into a rutted country lane.

‘We’ll go in the back, through the little wood.’

‘Go in where?’

‘Into the house where the first murder victim used to live, the hunter. We’ll have to go in fast, without making a noise.’

Adamsberg drove on down a track which was hardly fit for vehicles, and parked under the trees. He went quickly round to open the boot.

‘OK, Mo, you’ll be cooler now. The house is thirty metres away through these trees.’

Danglard shook his head silently as he saw the young man clamber out of the boot. He had been imagining that Mo had been spirited away to the Pyrenees or even abroad, with false papers, given the lengths to which Adamsberg had been going. But it was even worse. To have transported Momo with them in the car appeared the height of folly to him.

Adamsberg undid the seals on the door, put Momo’s bags down and looked quickly round the house. One well-lit sitting room, a small bedroom, more or less clean, and a kitchen with a view across some fields, where six or seven cows were standing.

‘Hey, that’s pretty,’ said Mo, who had seen the countryside only once, briefly, in his life, and never the sea. ‘Trees, fields, sky. Wow!’ he said suddenly. ‘Are those cows? Over there?’ he added, pointing to the window.

‘Get back, Mo! Get away from the window. Yes, they’re cows.’

‘No shit.’

‘Never seen cows before?’

‘Not real ones.’

‘Well, you’ll have plenty of time to look at them, and maybe even see them move. But stay a few feet back from the windows. At night, don’t put any lights on, of course. If you want to smoke, sit on the floor because a burning cigarette can be seen from a long way off. You can warm up
food, because the cooker isn’t visible through the window. And you’ll be able to wash, because the water hasn’t been cut off. Zerk will be along soon, with some provisions.’

Mo looked around his new domain, without apparently feeling too overcome by the idea of being sequestered there, his eyes returning to the window from time to time.

‘I never met anyone like Zerk,’ he said. ‘Never met someone who buys coloured pencils, except my mother. But if you brought him up, commissaire, that must be why he’s like he is.’

Adamsberg judged it was not the moment to explain to Mo that he had only been aware of his son’s existence for a few weeks, and that it would be pointless to shatter his illusions by confessing that he had neglected Zerk’s mother through his unmitigated insouciance. The girl had written to him, he had not read her letter carefully, and he had ended up not knowing he had a son.

‘Yes, he’s very well brought up,’ commented Danglard, who never joked about fatherhood, an area on which he considered Adamsberg beneath contempt.

‘I’m going to put the seals back on, as I go out. Don’t use the mobile unless there’s an emergency. Even if you get bored to tears, no social calls, don’t even think about it, all your pals’ phones are being tapped.’

‘No sweat, commissaire. Plenty to look at. All those cows, man. About twelve of them. In prison, I’d have ten guys on my back all the time, and no windows. All on my own, cows and bulls to look at, s’brilliant.’

‘There aren’t any bulls out there, Mo, they don’t put them together except for mating. Just cows.’

‘Got you.’

Adamsberg checked that there was no one in the wood before saying goodbye to Mo and opening the door. He took out a wax gun and calmly replaced the seals. Danglard was looking around anxiously.

‘I don’t like this at all,’ he muttered.

‘Save it for later, Danglard.’

Once on the main road, Adamsberg called Émeri to alert him that he was arriving at Ordebec.

‘I’m going to the hospital first,’ he said.

‘She won’t recognise you, Adamsberg. Would you like to join me for dinner here tonight?’

Adamsberg looked across at Danglard, who shook his head. In his black moods, and he was undoubtedly going through one now, all the worse for having no real motive, Danglard tried to keep going by fixing himself modest daily treats, such as choosing a new suit, buying some antique book, or eating out at a fancy restaurant. As a result, every episode of depression dug an alarming hole in his finances. To deprive Danglard of the anticipated meal at the Running Boar, which he had selected with care, would be to blow out the humble candle he had lit that night.

‘I’ve promised to take my son to the Running Boar. You’d be welcome to join us, Émeri.’

‘It’s a good restaurant, but I’m sorry to hear that,’ replied Émeri rather frostily. ‘I had been hoping you would do me the honour of dining with me.’

‘Another time, Émeri.’

‘I think we must have touched a nerve there,’ remarked Adamsberg after finishing the call. He looked surprised, since he was quite unaware of the capitaine’s obsession with his Empire dining room, to which he was attached as if by an umbilical cord.

*   *   *

Adamsberg met Zerk in front of the hospital as agreed. The young man had already done some shopping and Adamsberg gave him a welcoming hug, taking advantage of it to slip into his rucksack the wax gun, the seal and the plan of how to find Herbier’s house.

‘What’s the house like?’ he asked.

‘Perfectly clean. The gendarmes have taken away all the game from the freezer.’

‘What’ll I do with the pigeon?’

‘He’s there, he’s waiting for you.’

‘No, I don’t mean
Mo
, if that’s what you thought, I meant
Hellebaud.
He’s been in the car for hours and he doesn’t like it.’

‘Oh, take him with you,’ said Adamsberg after a moment’s thought. ‘Give him to Mo to look after, it’ll keep him company, someone to talk to. He can look at the cows, but round here they don’t seem to move.’

‘Was the commandant with you when you dropped our big pigeon off?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did he take it?’

‘Not too well. He thinks I’m crazy and that it’s against the law.’

‘Does he? It seems perfectly OK to me,’ said Zerk, picking up the shopping bags.

XX

‘She looks tiny, doesn’t she?’ said Adamsberg softly to Danglard: he was appalled to see for the first time Léo’s changed face, propped up on pillows. ‘In real life she’s very tall. Much taller than me, at least if she wasn’t stooped.’

He sat on the edge of the bed and patted her cheeks with his hands.

‘Léo, I’ve come back. I’m the policeman from Paris. We had supper together. We had soup and veal, and we had a little Calva in front of the fire, with our Havana cigars.’

‘She’s not moving,’ said the doctor who had just come into the room.

‘Has anyone been to see her?’

‘The Vendermot daughter, and the capitaine. She didn’t react at all. Clinically, she ought to be showing some sign of life. But nothing’s happening. She’s not in a coma now, the internal haematoma has been fairly well absorbed. The heart’s functioning reasonably well, though it’s damaged by her cigar smoking. Technically, she ought to be able to open her eyes and say something. But no, nothing, and the worst is that her temperature is too low. It’s as if the whole mechanism has closed down. But I can’t find a spanner to fix it.’

‘Can she carry on for long like this?’

‘No, at her age, without moving or eating, she can’t last long, just a few days.’

The doctor looked disapprovingly at Adamsberg’s hands on the aged Léone’s face.

‘Don’t move her head,’ he said.

‘Léo,’ Adamsberg repeated. ‘It’s me. I’m here, I’ve come to stay. I’m going to sleep at your place, with my assistants. I hope that’s all right with you. We’ll be very careful.’

Adamsberg picked up a comb from the bedside table and started to comb Léo’s hair, one hand still stroking her cheek. Danglard sat on the only chair in the room and prepared for a long session. Adamsberg would not give up easily on the old lady. The doctor went out, shrugging his shoulders, and returned an hour and a half later, intrigued by the intensity with which this policeman was trying to get Léo to respond to him. Danglard too was watching Adamsberg, who carried on speaking quietly without interruption, and whose face had taken on that luminosity he knew well, when he was in one of his rare episodes of total concentration: it was as if the commissaire had swallowed a lamp that was diffusing its light from beneath his dark complexion.

Without turning round, Adamsberg put his arm out towards the doctor to forestall any intervention by him. Under his hand, Léone’s skin was still as cold as ever, but her lips had moved. He signalled to Danglard to come closer. Another twitch of the lips and then a sound.

‘Danglard, did you hear her say “
Ello
”? That’s what she said, wasn’t it?’

‘Could have been “L.O.’”

‘That’s her way of greeting people.
Hello
, Léo, it’s me.’

‘
Ello
,’ Léo said more distinctly.

Adamsberg took her hand in his and shook it a little.

‘
Hello
, Léo, I’m listening to you.’

‘Fleg.’

‘Fleg’s fine. Brigadier Blériot is looking after him.’

‘Fleg.’

‘Yes. He’s OK. He’s waiting for you.’

‘Sugar.’

‘Yes, the brigadier is giving him his sugar every day,’ said Adamsberg, who didn’t really know if this was true. ‘He’s being well looked after, they’re taking good care of him.’

‘
Ello
,’ she repeated.

And that was all. Her lips closed again, and Adamsberg realised she was exhausted.

‘Congratulations,’ said the doctor.

‘It’s nothing,’ said Adamsberg, without thinking. ‘Can you call me if she shows any more signs of wanting to communicate?’

‘Leave me your card. But don’t be too hopeful. It might have been a final effort.’

‘Doctor, you’re very keen to bury her before her time,’ said Adamsberg, moving towards the door. ‘There’s no hurry, is there?’

‘I’m a geriatric specialist, I know my job,’ said the doctor, clamping his mouth shut.

Adamsberg noted his name from his badge, Jacques Turbot, and left. He walked to the car without speaking and let Danglard take the wheel.

‘Where now?’ asked Danglard, starting the engine.

‘I don’t like that doctor.’

‘He’s got a lot to contend with. Can’t be much fun being called Turbot.’