The Ghost Riders of Ordebec (Commissaire Adamsberg) (37 page)

‘Three things,’ said Retancourt, who had spent only a short time enquiring after the feelings of her colleagues dealing with the Ordebec quagmire, since empathy wasn’t her thing. ‘The car belonging to Saviour 1, Christian. I found out that it’s parked in their private garage with the cars of his brother and their wives. If I’m to examine it, I’ll have to get it out of there. So I’ll have to immobilise the alarm and jump-start it. No bother, Noël can do that. But I won’t take the risk of getting it back, they’ll have to work it out themselves, it’s not our problem.’

‘We won’t be able to use the samples if we don’t go through official channels.’

‘Yeah, but we’d never get permission. So we go with plan B. Illegal collection of clues, put together the file and then charge head-on.’

‘If you say so,’ said Danglard, who rarely challenged Retancourt’s somewhat strong-arm tactics.

‘Second point,’ she said, putting her powerful index finger on the table, ‘the suit. The one he sent to the cleaners discreetly. Petrol vapour, like hair, is very hard to eliminate completely. With a bit of luck, there should be some left in the cloth. Of course, that means stealing the suit.’

‘Difficult.’

‘Not really. I know the daily routine. I know when Vincent, the butler, is on the door. I turn up with a bag, saying I’ve left behind a jacket or some other clothes on the first floor, and I follow my nose.’

Improvisation, cheek and confidence, all means that Danglard never employed.

‘What excuse did you give for leaving?’

‘My husband was trying to find me, he’d caught up with me and I had to get away, in my own interests. Vincent expressed sympathy, though he seemed surprised that I was married and even more that a husband was chasing me with such determination. But I don’t think Christian even noticed I’d gone. Third point, the sugar. The chambermaid, Leila. She’s really pissed off, she’ll certainly talk if she can remember anything. Whether the sugar or the haircut. How did Adamsberg get the idea of the changed suit?’

‘I can’t tell you exactly, Violette. It was all held together by some kind of spider’s web, incomplete and rather mixed up.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Retancourt, who had often argued against the commissaire’s nebulous mental system.

‘Here’s to the arrest of the Clermont-Brasseur brothers,’ said Danglard, filling up Retancourt’s glass, simply for an excuse to replenish his own. ‘It will be great to see, ethically correct, hygienic and satisfying, but it won’t last long. The empire will be passed on to some nephew and it’ll all start again. Don’t try to call me on my mobile. Report to Adamsberg at this restaurant called the Running Boar in the evenings. It’s in Ordebec. If he tells you to call him at the Blue Boar, don’t worry, it’s the same place, but he never gets the name right. I don’t know why he keeps thinking the boar is blue. I’ll write down the number for you.’

‘You’re off somewhere, commandant?’

‘Yes, tonight.’

‘Somewhere we can’t reach you. I mean, we won’t know where you are?’

‘Right.’

Retancourt nodded without showing surprise, which made Danglard fear that she had understood the whole business with Mo.

‘And you want to get away without anyone knowing?’

‘Yes.’

‘And how do you think you’re going to do that?’

‘Well, I’ll sneak away. On foot, taxi, not sure yet.’

‘Bad idea,’ said Retancourt, shaking her head disapprovingly.

‘Well, I can’t think of anything better.’

‘I can. We’ll go upstairs to my place for a last drink, looks quite natural.
And my brother will drive you. You know Bruno’s got a police record? Well known to all the cops round here.’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s so harmless and dumb that if ever they stop him when he’s in a car, they just give him a little sign of recognition and wave him on. He’s no good at anything much except driving. He can take you tonight wherever you want to go. Strasbourg, Lille, Toulouse, Lyon, wherever. What direction are you going in?’

‘Let’s say Toulouse?’

‘Right. You can get a train on from there to your mystery destination.’

‘Sounds perfect, Violette.’

‘Except for your clothes. Wherever you’re going, I presume you don’t want everyone to know you’re from Paris, not a good idea. Take a couple of Bruno’s outfits, they might be a bit long in the leg and tight in the waist but they’ll do. They’ll be a bit showy. You won’t like them. You’ll look a bit flash, that’s good.’

‘Vulgar, you mean?’

‘Yep, pretty much.’

‘That’ll be fine.’

‘One last thing. When you get to Toulouse, let Bruno get away fast. Don’t get him mixed up in whatever mess you’re sorting out, he’s got enough on his plate.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of getting anyone into trouble,’ said Danglard, but he couldn’t help thinking at the same time that he had almost got Veyrenc killed.

‘And how’s the pigeon doing?’ Retancourt asked simply as she stood up.

*   *   *

Thirty-five minutes later, Danglard was leaving Paris lying on the back seat of her brother’s car, wearing a cheap suit that was too tight in the sleeves and carrying a new mobile. Bruno had said he could sleep if he wanted. Danglard closed his eyes and felt that at least until he reached Toulouse he would be protected by the powerful sovereign arm of Violette Retancourt.

XLIII

‘Like a
wooddlouse
?’ Adamsberg repeated a second time.

He had returned from the gendarmerie and the hospital only at 7 p.m. Veyrenc was waiting for him at the end of the path to the guest house and summed up the essentials of the inquiry so far. The analysis by the technicians from Lisieux had yielded little. The killer had had a very common type of camping stool, the sort used by all fishermen, and the crossbow was indeed Herbier’s and carried only his fingerprints. Estalère and Justin had returned to the squad in Paris, and Léone had recovered a little more strength but had still said nothing.

‘A woodlouse two centimetres long. On Valleray’s left shoulder, and on Lina’s.’

‘Like a sort of big insect painted on their backs?’

‘I don’t want to sound as pedantic as Danglard, but a woodlouse isn’t actually an insect, it’s a crustacean.’

‘A crustacean? Like a shrimp, you mean, a shrimp out of water?’

‘Yes, a little land shrimp. It has fourteen legs. Insects have six legs. That’s how you know that spiders, which have eight legs, aren’t insects either.’

‘Are you kidding me? Are you saying spiders are land shrimps too?’

As Veyrenc explained the paths of science to Adamsberg, he wondered why the commissaire hadn’t reacted more strongly to the news that Hippolyte and Lina might be the natural children of Valleray.

‘No, they’re arachnids.’

‘Well, it alters something,’ said Adamsberg, starting to walk slowly along the path, ‘but what?’

‘It doesn’t really alter one’s view of a woodlouse. It’s a non-edible crustacean, that’s all. One wonders what Martin might do with them.’

‘I’m talking about Valleray. If a man has a birthmark like that, and someone else does too, does that necessarily mean they’re related?’

‘Yes, absolutely. And Danglard’s description was precise. Two centimetres, port wine colour, long oval, with something like two antennae at the top.’

‘A crustacean then.’

‘Yes. And if you add that to the fact that Valleray was very resistant to anyone seeing him without his shirt, you might deduce that he knew very well the birthmark would give him away. So he knows that two of the Vendermot children must be his.’

‘But they
don’t
know, Louis. Hippo said to me, and he was bitterly sincere, that the only regret he had in life was being the son of the biggest bastard in the district, i.e. his godawful father, Vendermot.’

‘So that means the count had taken care that they shouldn’t know. He looked after them when they were small, he got Léo to educate them, he rescued young Hippo when he was under threat, but he refuses to recognise his children. Letting them live in poverty with their mother,’ said Veyrenc drily.

‘Fear of scandal, need for stable succession. That doesn’t make Valleray look good at all.’

‘But you liked him?’

‘Like isn’t strong enough. I found him sincere, determined. Generous, indeed.’

‘Whereas he’s really cunning and cowardly.’

‘Or perhaps glued to the rock of his ancestors without daring to budge. Like an anemone. No, please don’t tell me what anemones are. Molluscs, I suppose.’

‘No, cnidarians.’

‘OK,’ Adamsberg conceded, ‘a cnidarian. Just reassure me Hellebaud’s a bird, and things will be fine.’

‘Yes, he’s a bird. Or at least he was. Since he’s mistaken your shoe for his natural habitat, things have changed.’

Adamsberg took one of Veyrenc’s cigarettes and pursued his slow pacing.

‘After Valleray married Léo, when they were very young,’ he said, ‘they gave in to pressure from the Valleray clan, and he divorced her to marry a woman of higher status, who was already widowed with a child.’

‘So Denis de Valleray isn’t his son?’

‘No, Louis, and everyone knows that, he’s his mother’s son, and the count adopted him when he was three.’

‘No other children?’

‘Not officially. The gossip is that the count is sterile, but now we know that isn’t true. Imagine when Ordebec finds out that he had two children with a maidservant.’

‘Was the Vendermots’ mother employed at the chateau?’

‘No, but she worked for about fifteen years in a sort of chateau hotel not far from Ordebec. She must have been an irresistible girl if she had breasts like Lina’s. Have I already mentioned them to you?’

‘Yes, you did, and I’ve even seen them. I met her coming out of her office.’

‘And?’ said Adamsberg, glancing quickly at his lieutenant.

‘Like you, I looked.’

‘And?’

‘Well, you’re right. Mouth-watering.’

‘The count must have met the young Madame Vendermot at this chateau place. Result: two children. But he had nothing to fear from the mother. She wasn’t going to tell everyone that Hippo and Lina were his children. Because from what we know of her husband, he could have killed her, and the kids as well.’

‘She could have spoken up after his death.’

‘Question of dishonour,’ said Adamsberg, shaking his head. ‘She had her reputation to protect.’

‘So Valleray could feel safe. Except for the birthmark that could give him away. But what has this got to do with Lord Hellequin?’

‘Well, in the end, nothing. The count has two illegitimate children, OK. Nothing to do with the three murders. I’m tired of thinking, Louis, I’m going to sit under the apple tree.’

‘It might rain on you.’

‘Yes, I saw, clouds coming up in the west.’

*   *   *

Without knowing why, Adamsberg decided to spend part of the night on the Chemin de Bonneval. He walked right to the end, failing to glimpse a single blackberry in the darkness, then came back to sit on the tree trunk where Fleg had begged for sugar. He sat there for over an hour, in a passive and even receptive mood, ready for any impromptu visit by the Lord of the Riders, who did not however deign to turn up. Perhaps because he felt nothing in these lonely woods, neither unease nor apprehension, not even when a stag dashed noisily past and made him look round. Not even when a ghostly barn owl brushed past not far from him with a human-sounding screech. Hoping that the owl was indeed a bird, as he assumed. But on the other hand he had reached the conclusion that Valleray was rather contemptible, something which troubled him. Autocratic, selfish, without affection for his adoptive son. Bowing to the code of honour of the family. But why had he decided to marry Léo again when they were eighty-eight years old? Why take this provocative step? Why, on the last stretch of his journey, was he reviving the scandal, after a lifetime of submission? Possibly to try and shake off that very submission. Some worms turn at the last moment. In which case it changed everything of course.

A greater noise gave him a brief moment of hope, what sounded like a cavalcade of snorting beasts. He stood up, watchfully, ready to get out of the way of the Lord with the long hair. But it was only a herd of wild boar pressing on towards its wallow. No, Adamsberg thought as he set off back, Hellequin has no interest in me. The ancient ancestor preferred women like Lina, and who was to say he was wrong?

XLIV

‘In which case it would change everything,’ Adamsberg announced to Veyrenc over breakfast.

The commissaire had carried their coffee and bread out under the apple trees in the yard. While Adamsberg filled their bowls, Veyrenc was throwing little cider apples in front of him.

‘Think about it, Louis. My photo appeared in the
Ordebec Reporter
the day after I arrived. The killer couldn’t have mistaken Danglard for me. So it
was
him someone tried to kill on the railway, not me. But why? Because Danglard had seen these woodlice. There’s no other explanation.’

‘And who would know that he’d seen them?’

‘You know Danglard’s no good at keeping a secret. He’s been around in Ordebec, asking questions and talking to people. He might have let something drop, without meaning to. So we have a link between the murders and the woodlice. The killer doesn’t want anyone to know about the origins of the Vendermot children.’

‘Hide all your descendants, the fruit of ancient sin / They’ll return one fine day, to call the reckoning in,’
muttered Veyrenc, tossing another apple.

‘Unless the count doesn’t want them to be hidden any more. The worm began to turn a year ago, when old Valleray decided to remarry Léo. To repair what he had broken through his own feeble-mindedness. He’s obeyed other people all his life, he knows it, and he’s redeeming himself. So we might think he would do the same towards his children.’

‘How?’ asked Veyrenc, throwing his seventh apple.

‘By writing them into his will. Dividing the inheritance into three. As surely as a sea anemone isn’t a mollusc, I’m prepared to bet Valleray has willed them something, and that Hippolyte and Lina will be recognised after his death.’