The Ghost Riders of Ordebec (Commissaire Adamsberg) (20 page)

‘Name suits him. He’s a cold fish all right.’

‘You still haven’t said where to,’ said Danglard, who was driving at random through Ordebec’s narrow streets.

‘You saw her, Danglard. Like an egg that’s been chucked on the floor and cracked.’

‘Yes, you said.’

‘We’ll go to her place first, it used to be a guest house. Turn right here.’

‘Funny that she says “Ello” instead of “Bonjour.’”

‘It’s English, though they say it with an H.’

‘I know
that
,’ said Danglard, but didn’t insist.

The Ordebec gendarmes had been expeditious and Léo’s house had been set to rights after being inspected. The floor of the dining room had been cleaned and if there was any blood, it didn’t show against the ancient dark red tiles. Adamsberg took the room he had slept in before and Danglard chose one at the far end of the building. As he unpacked his few belongings, the commandant watched Adamsberg through the window. He had sat down cross-legged in the middle of the courtyard, under an apple tree, elbows on thighs and head bent, and didn’t look as
if he intended moving. From time to time, he seemed to try and catch something at the back of his neck.

A little before 8 p.m., as the sun was sinking, Danglard went across to him, his shadow falling across the commissaire’s feet.

‘Time to go,’ he said.

‘The Blue Boar,’ said Adamsberg, looking up.

‘Not blue. The Running Boar.’

‘Can boars run?’ asked Adamsberg, putting out a hand so that Danglard could haul him to his feet.

‘They can do thirty-five kilometres an hour, I believe. Though I don’t know a lot about wild boars. Except that they can’t sweat.’

‘What do they do then?’ asked Adamsberg, rubbing his trousers but without greatly caring about the answer.

‘They wallow in mud to cool down.’

‘That’s what our killer is like. A muddy creature, weighing about two hundred kilos, but who can’t sweat. He’ll go about his work without batting an eyelid.’

XXI

Danglard had reserved a round table and sat down with a satisfied air. This first meal in Ordebec, in an old inn with low beams, marked a restful interlude in the midst of his fears. Zerk arrived on time and gave them a quick wink to indicate that all was well at the house in the woods. Adamsberg had asked Émeri again if he would join them, and this time the capitaine had agreed.

‘The Pigeon likes the idea of the pigeon,’ said Zerk to Adamsberg in a low voice. ‘I left them chatting to each other. Hellebaud likes it when the Pigeon plays yo-yo. When it hits the ground he goes and pecks it.’

‘I get the feeling Hellebaud is getting further from his state of nature. We’re waiting for the local capitaine of gendarmes, Émeri, his name is. A big military-looking guy, fair hair, impeccable uniform. You must call him “capitaine”.’

‘OK.’

‘He’s a descendant of Marshal Davout, one of Napoleon’s right-hand men, who was never defeated, and it matters a lot to him. No joking about it.’

‘Course not.’

‘Here they come. The fat man with dark hair is Brigadier Blériot.’

‘So I call him “brigadier”.’

‘Precisely.’

When the entrée was served, Zerk started to eat before the others, just as Adamsberg used to do before Danglard had impressed upon him some
of the rules of good table manners. Zerk also made a lot of noise when he ate; he’d have to have a word with him about that. He hadn’t noticed back in Paris. But in this rather formal atmosphere as the meal began, he had the impression that all anyone could hear was his son munching.

‘How’s Fleg doing?’ Adamsberg asked Blériot. ‘Léo managed to say a few words today. She’s worried about her dog.’

‘She spoke?’ asked Émeri in surprise.

‘Yes, I stayed about two hours by her bed and she said a few words. The doctor, Halibut or whatever his name is, didn’t look very happy. My methods can’t have pleased him.’

‘Turbot,’ Danglard whispered.

‘And you waited till now to tell me?’ said Émeri. ‘What did she say, for god’s sake?’

‘Very little. She just tried to say hello. And she said “Fleg” and “sugar”. That’s all. I told her the brigadier here was giving Fleg his ration of sugar.’

‘Yessir, I am,’ said Blériot, ‘though I don’t say as I like it. But that dog, he sits in front of the sugar dish, six o’clock every day. He’s got a clock inside him like an addict.’

‘Good, I wouldn’t want to have misled her. Now that she’s talking,’ Adamsberg said to Émeri, ‘I think it would be wise to put a guard outside her door.’

‘God Almighty, Adamsberg, how many men do you think I’ve got here? Just Blériot, and one man who splits his time between Ordebec and Saint-Vernon. A half-timer in every sense of the word. Half cunning, half stupid, half obedient, half disobedient, half clean and half dirty. How am I supposed to manage that?’

‘We could put that CCTV in her room,’ suggested Blériot.

‘Two cameras,’ said Danglard, ‘one to film anyone coming in, the other by her bed.’

‘All right,’ agreed Émeri, ‘but the technicians will have to come from Lisieux, don’t expect anything to be up and running before tomorrow afternoon.’

‘As for protection for the other two named men,’ said Adamsberg, ‘we could get someone from Paris. For the glazier in the first place.’

‘I spoke to Glayeux,’ said Émeri, shaking his head. ‘He refuses to have any kind of guard. I know this fellow, he’d be humiliated if anyone were to imagine he was impressed by that Vendermot woman’s nonsense. He’s not the sort of man to do what he’s told.’

‘Tough guy, then?’ asked Danglard.

‘No, aggressive more like, violent, well educated, a real artist, and ruthless. He
is
very talented with his stained-glass windows, you can’t deny that. But he’s a disagreeable man, like I said, and you’ll see for yourselves. I’m not saying that because he’s homosexual, but he is a homosexual.’

‘Is that generally known in Ordebec?’

‘He doesn’t make any secret of it, the boyfriend lives here too, he works on the local paper. He’s quite different, nice chap, people like him.’

‘They live together?’ asked Danglard.

‘No, no, Glayeux lives with Mortembot, the nurseryman.’

‘What! The Riders’ next two victims live under the same roof?’

‘Have done for years, they’re cousins, they’ve been inseparable since they were boys. But Mortembot isn’t a homosexual.’

‘Was Herbier?’ asked Danglard.

‘Are you starting to think about a homophobic killer?’

‘Could be.’

‘No, Herbier wasn’t gay, definitely not. More like a heterosexual rapist if you ask me. And don’t forget it was Lina who named the “seized” men. I’ve got no reason to think she’s got anything against gays. Lina has a, well, rather an unconventional sex life herself.’

‘Fantastic tits,’ said the brigadier. ‘Good enough to eat.’

‘That’ll do, Blériot,’ said Émeri, ‘we can do without that kind of comment.’

‘Everything’s worth noting,’ said Adamsberg, who was, like his son, forgetting to be on his best behaviour and mopping up his sauce with his bread. ‘Émeri, since the people chosen by the Riders are supposed to be wicked, how does that square with the glazier and his cousin?’

‘Not only does it make perfect sense, but it’s well known all over town.’

‘What are they supposed to have done?’

‘There are two shady episodes that have never properly come to light.
I investigated, and got no results, and I was furious myself. Do you mind if we move somewhere else for coffee? There’s a little side room here, where they let me smoke.’

As he got up, the capitaine looked again at Zerk, scruffily dressed in an outsize T-shirt, and appeared to wonder what on earth Adamsberg’s son was doing there.

‘Your boy’s working with you?’ he asked, as he led them to the other room. ‘He wants to be a cop or what?’

‘No, he’s doing a photographic feature on leaf mould. For a Swedish magazine.’

‘
Leaf
mould? Bit weird, isn’t it?’

‘He’s interested in the micro-environment of decomposing leaves,’ Danglard intervened to help Adamsberg out.

‘Oh, right,’ said Émeri, choosing a very upright chair for himself, while the others sat on couches.

Zerk offered cigarettes all round, and Danglard ordered another bottle of wine. Having to share only two bottles among five people had caused him a nagging pain throughout the meal.

‘So, as I was saying, there were two violent deaths of people close to Glayeux and Mortembot,’ Émeri explained as he filled the glasses. ‘Seven years ago, Glayeux’s assistant fell from the scaffolding of the church in Louverain. They were both working there, about twenty metres up, restoring the windows of the nave. And four years ago, Mortembot’s mother died in the stockroom of the nursery. She fell off a stool, and she grabbed at a set of metal shelves full of flowerpots and troughs of earth. It all came down with her and killed her. Both deaths were pure accidents, apparently. But with something in common: a fall. Anyway, I opened inquiries into both of them.’

‘On what grounds?’ asked Danglard, who was gulping down his wine with a sense of relief.

‘Well, really because both Glayeux and Mortembot are bad hats, the pair of them. Sewer rats, if you ask me.’

‘Some rats can be OK,’ said Adamsberg. ‘Toni and Marie for instance.’

‘Who?’

‘Two rats who are sweethearts. Never mind,’ said Adamsberg with a shake of his head.

‘Well, these two are certainly not OK, Adamsberg. They’d sell their souls for money and success, and I’m pretty sure that’s what they did.’

‘Sold out to Lord Hellequin?’ suggested Danglard.

‘Why not, commandant? I’m not the only one round here who thinks that. A farmhouse up the way, Le Buisson, burnt to the ground and neither of them gave a cent to help the family. That’s the way they are. They think the people in Ordebec are dumb yokels, unworthy of interest.’

‘So what were your grounds for opening the first investigation?’

‘Glayeux had a motive for getting rid of his assistant. Tétard, this other craftsman, he was much younger, but getting very good at the job, excellent in fact. The authorities in charge of church repairs round here were tending to give him work, preferring to deal with him rather than with Glayeux. Obviously he was going to take over sooner or later. A month before he fell, the town of Coutances – you know the cathedral there?’

‘Yes,’ supplied Danglard.

‘Well, Coutances had chosen Tétard to restore the stained glass in the transept. Big commission. And if the youngster made a good job of it, his career would be launched. Glayeux would be humiliated, and his business would go downhill. But Tétard had a fatal fall. So the Coutances people called in Glayeux instead.’

‘Naturally,’ muttered Adamsberg. ‘So the scaffolding was checked?’

‘It was faulty, the planks weren’t well fitted to the metal tubes, there was some play in the connections. Glayeux and Tétard were working on different windows, so they weren’t standing on the same section. Glayeux could perfectly well have loosened some joints, or shifted a plank overnight, because he had the church key, so he could have destabilised part of the scaffolding. Easy.’

‘But impossible to prove.’

‘Exactly,’ said Émeri bitterly. ‘We couldn’t even get Glayeux for incompetent workmanship, because Tétard was officially in charge of erecting the scaffolding, with a cousin. And same thing in Mortembot’s case, no proof. He wasn’t in the stockroom when his mother had her fall, he was
taking some deliveries in the shop. But it isn’t that impossible to make a stool fall over from a distance. All you’d have to do is tie a string to one of its feet and pull. When he heard the noise, Mortembot rushed in with one of his assistants. No string anywhere.’

Émeri looked meaningfully at Adamsberg, seeming to challenge him to come up with an answer.

‘He didn’t knot it,’ said Adamsberg. ‘He just looped some string round the leg of the stool. And then afterwards all he had to do was pull one end to reel in the rest, a few seconds if it slipped through easily.’

‘Precisely. And no traces left.’

‘Not everyone can leave a trail of breadcrumbs.’

Émeri helped himself to more coffee, realising that Adamsberg said a number of things to which there was no point responding. He had believed in this Paris cop’s reputation at first; but without judging too much in advance, it seemed as if Adamsberg didn’t exactly work by normal methods. Or perhaps he wasn’t all that normal himself. At any rate he seemed a calm sort of person, who, as Émeri had hoped, wasn’t challenging him all the time over the investigation.

‘So Mortembot didn’t get on with his mother?’

‘Well, as far as I know, it wasn’t that bad. In fact, he was rather under her thumb. But the thing was, she didn’t like him living with his cousin, because Glayeux’s gay, like I said, and she was ashamed of that. So she nagged her son about it, she insisted he come and live with her, or she’d disinherit him. He agreed, just to have a bit of peace, but in fact he dragged his feet. The scenes had begun again. Money, the house, his freedom, that’s what he wanted. He must have thought she was past it, and I dare say Glayeux encouraged him. She was the kind of woman who’d live to a hundred and still be minding the shop. She was a maniac about the business, but she wasn’t wrong. Since her death, people say the quality of the plants has gone down. Mortembot sells fuchsias that die in their first winter. And they’re not easy to kill. He makes a mess of his grafting is what they say.’

‘Oh, really,’ said Adamsberg, who had never grafted a plant in his life. ‘In both cases, I was on their backs for a while, had them under
twenty-four-hour observation, and all that. Glayeux viewed the whole business with contempt and waited for it to die down. Mortembot didn’t even have the decency to appear to mourn for his mother. He got to be the sole owner of the nursery and its branches, it’s quite a big business. He’s more phlegmatic, a casual guy, doesn’t react to provocation or threats. I had to give up, but in my view, both of them are cynical killers, out of pure self-interest. And if Lord Hellequin existed, yes, you bet, they’re exactly the kind of man he’d choose to carry off.’