Have Mercy On Us All (6 page)

“The point is I’ve never seen a 4 like that down our street.” Maryse had lowered her voice to a whisper. “Nor have I ever seen graffiti on front doors up the staircase. Because graffiti are supposed to be on the street, aren’t they? For everyone to see.”

“There’s all kinds, you know. Scrub your front door and forget all about it.”

Maryse left and Adamsberg tore the sheets out of his pad, screwed them up into a ball which he then aimed at the bin. Then he went back to his leaning wall so as to think while standing about how to pump the mental filth out of people like Favre. Not easy to do. There was something twisted deep down inside the man; and he would hardly be aware of it. All Adamsberg could hope was that the rest of the squad didn’t have the same problem. Especially as there were four women in it.

As he always did when he let himself have a good think, Adamsberg quickly lost touch and fell into a kind of void close to sleep. Ten minutes later he came back to the surface with a start, then got the list of his team out of his desk drawer and began a memory session: reciting over and over the names of each one of the twenty-seven members he had to get into his head, with the exception of Danglard’s. In the margin he entered next to the name of Noël:
Ears, Toughguy
, and next to Favre’s:
Hooter, Brows, Birds
.

Then he went out to have the coffee that his encounter with Maryse had put off. The coffee-maker and snack dispenser still hadn’t been delivered to the office; there were constant squabbles over chairs and writing paper; the electricians were still putting in the computer cables, and workmen had only just started barring up the ground-floor windows. What would crimes be without iron bars? Murderers would just have to control themselves until the Brigade had got itself into shape. So he might as well carry on musing in the fresh air and rescuing damsels in distress. He could have a think about Camille, too; he’d not seen her for more than two months. Unless he was mistaken, she was due back tomorrow, or maybe the day after, as he wasn’t sure what day it was anyway.

V

ON TUESDAY MORNING
Joss handled the ground coffee with heightened care and attention. He’d not slept well. The fault surely lay with the “room to let” sign dangling before his eyes but quite out of reach.

He looked up from his bowl of coffee, his baguette and garlic sausage, and cast an angry glance around his gloomy cabin. The plaster was all cracked, there was no proper bed, and to get to the toilet you had to go out on to the landing. He could have afforded a better place on the money he was making, but half of it went back to his mother at Le Guilvenec. The long and the short of it, he told himself, is that you can’t keep warm if you know your mother’s in the cold. Joss knew that the bookworm couldn’t charge very much, because his rooms weren’t self-contained and the rental income wasn’t declared. To be fair to the man, Decambrais wasn’t one of those scavengers who take an arm and a leg for a pint-sized piece of property in Paris. In fact, Lizbeth paid no rent at all, in return for doing the shopping, making the dinner, and keeping the sole bathroom clean and tidy. Decambrais did all the other chores – hoovering the hall and stairs, washing the woodwork, laying the table for breakfast. For a man of his years, he certainly wasn’t taking it easy.

Joss dipped his bread in the coffee, took a bite and chewed it slowly as he waited for the shipping forecast to come up on the radio that he’d set to low. The bookworm’s vacancy had everything going for it. It was a stone’s throw from Gare Montparnasse, just in case. It was roomy, it had central heating, a proper bed, oak flooring and well-worn rugs. When
she’d
first got there Lizbeth hadn’t worn shoes for days on end, for the sheer pleasure of feeling warm carpet underfoot. Then there would be hot dinners every day. Joss could grill bream, open oysters and squeeze a lemon, but that was just about all he could manage in the galley; so for seven years he’d been eating mostly out of tin cans. And last of all there would be Lizbeth in the next room. No, of course he would never try anything, never put his callused old hands on a woman who was his junior by a quarter of a century. And in fact, Decambrais had also always done the right thing by Lizbeth. She had told Joss a dreadful story about her first night, when she lay down on the carpet. Well, the toff hadn’t batted an eyelid. Hats off to him, I say – that’s what you call style. If the toff could cope in that quarter, well so could Captain Joss. Say what you like, the Le Guerns may be rough customers, but they never took anything that wasn’t theirs.

But that was the sticking point. Decambrais thought Joss was a rough customer, and so would never let him have the room. No point dreaming about it, then. Or about Lizbeth, or hot dinners, or central heating.

But he was still thinking about it when he emptied out the urn an hour later. He saw the thick ivory envelope straight away and ripped it open with his thumb. Thirty francs inside. The rate was going up all on its own. He glanced at the text without bothering to read it all through. The incomprehensible witterings of that crackpot were getting really tiresome. Then he sorted the “can dos” from the “better nots” almost unconsciously. The latter pile included the following message:
Decambrais is a queer and he makes his own lace
. Same as yesterday, but the other way round. Not very original, my friend! You’ll soon be repeating yourself. Just as Joss was about to put that message in the “return to sender” pile, his hand hovered in mid-air for a little longer than it had the day before. Rent me the room or I’ll put the whole bang shoot into the newscast. Blackmail, that’s what it would be.

At 0828 Joss was on his orange-box stand ready to go. All the cast were in position, like members of the corps de ballet in a show that had now been running for more than two thousand performances: Decambrais on
his
doorstep, with his head down in his book; Lizbeth to starboard in the middle of a little group; Bertin to port behind the red-and-white-striped curtains of the Viking; Damascus to the stern, leaning against the shop window of Rolaride, not far from the tenant of Decambrais’s room number 4, almost hidden by a tree trunk; and finally all the regular fans standing round in a semicircle, each occupying as if by ancient tradition the same spot they had been in the previous day.

Joss launched the newscast.

One: Looking for a fruitcake recipe that stops the raisins from all settling at the bottom. Two: There’s no point in your closing your door to hide your filthy habits. God above will judge you and your little tart. Three: Helen, why didn’t you come? I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. Signed, Bernard. Four: Lost in the square: six bowls. Five: For sale: ZR7750 1999, 8,500 km, red, alarm, windscreen and engine cowling, 3,000 francs.

Some newcomer raised a hand in the crowd to indicate his interest in the last item. Joss had to break off to growl “Later on, at the Viking”. The arm went down in embarrassment as fast as it had shot up.

“Six,” Joss resumed.

I don’t do meat. Seven: Wanted: pizza van with wrap-around window, usable with ordinary driver’s licence, six-pizza-capacity oven. Eight: Hey, you kids with the drum set, next time I’ll call the
flics
. Nine …

Decambrais wasn’t concentrating on the regular messages since all his attention was focused on catching the Pedant’s next missive. Lizbeth had jotted down some Mediterranean herbs for sale, and it was nearly time for the shipping forecast. Decambrais twiddled the pencil in his hand into note-taking position.

… force 7 to 8 weakening gradually 5 to 6 then backing west 3 to 5 during the afternoon. Heavy; rain or showers, decreasing steadily.

Joss got to item 16 and Decambrais knew what it was from the first word:

And by and by did go down by water to dot dot dot and then down further and so landed at the lower end of the town; and it being dark there did privately
entrer en la maison de la femme de
dot dot dot and there I had
sa compagnie
, though with a great deal of difficulty;
néanmoins je avais ma volonté d’elle
. And being sated therewith, I walked home.

A stunned silence followed, which Joss quickly brought to an end by launching into more comprehensible messages and then that day’s chapter of
Everyman’s History of France
. Decambrais scowled, because the text was too long and he couldn’t get it all down. He pricked up his ears to hear the fate of
Rights of Man
, French warship, seventy-four guns, on January 14, 1797, making for home port after an unsuccessful engagement off Ireland, with 1,350 men on board.

… pursued by two English vessels,
Indefatigable
and
Amazon
. After a night exchanging fire,
Rights of Man
ran aground off the beach of Canté.

Joss packed his papers back into his pea-jacket.

“Hey, Joss!” someone yelled out. “How many were saved?”

Joss jumped down from his soapbox.

“You can’t always know the whole story,” he said somewhat pompously.

Before stashing his gear at Damascus’s place, Joss’s glance met Decambrais’s. He was about to take a step towards the old man but decided to leave off until after the noon newscast. Downing a
calva
beforehand would strengthen his arm for what lay ahead.

At 1245 Decambrais used lots of abbreviations to scribble down the following as he heard Joss bawl it out:

Twelve: Conftables shall draw up the rules to be obferved and shall have them pofted on thoroughfares and at gathering places so that
none
shall know them not dot dot dot. That no swine dogs cats homing birds or conies be suffered to be kept within any part of the city, and that dogs be killed by the dogkillers expressly appointed. That every householder do cause the street to be daily prepared before his door, and that the fweepings and filth of houfes be daily carried away by the rakers. That the layftalls be removed as far as may be out of the city and that no nightman or other be suffered to empty a vault into any garden near about the city dot dot dot

Joss was already berthed in the Viking for lunch when Decambrais made up his mind to speak to him. As he opened the door of the bar, Bertin drew a beer for him and put it on one of the mats decorated with the two yellow lions rampant of Normandy, specially made for the house. The call to lunch took the form of Bertin’s fist hitting a large brass plate hanging over the counter. Bertin banged his gong twice a day, for lunch and for dinner, and the effect of the thunder-roll was to make all the pigeons in the square flap their wings and take off at once, while the hungry, in a parallel but inverse movement, flocked into the Viking. Bertin’s gesture effectively reminded people that is was time to eat, but it was also an allusion to his own fearful ascendancy, which was supposed to be common knowledge. For Bertin’s mother’s maiden name was
Toutin
, which made the barman, by onomastic filiation, a direct descendant of Thor. There were those who considered the etymology rather dubious, and Decambrais was of their number; but nobody thought it sensible to cut Bertin’s family tree down to size and thereby lay to waste the dreams of a man who had been soldiering away at the sink for the past thirty years.

All the same Bertin’s gong and his ancestry had made the Viking famous well beyond its immediate catchment area, and the place was never less than packed.

Holding his glass of beer aloft, Decambrais cut a careful path towards the table where Joss was sitting.

“Could I possibly have a word?” he asked, still standing.

Joss didn’t answer, but carried on masticating as he raised his narrow blue eyes. Who had spilled the beans? Bertin? Or Damascus? Was
Decambrais
going to tell him to forget about the vacant room, just so he could gloat over declaring that rough customers weren’t welcome in a place with proper flooring? If Decambrais had it in mind to insult him, then Joss would let the cat right out of the bag. He gestured vaguely to the bookworm to sit down.

“Ad number 12,” said Decambrais.

“I know,” said Joss, surprised. “It was a special one.”

So the Breton had noticed. That was going to make things easier.

“It’s got brothers and sisters,” said Decambrais.

“Yep. For the last three weeks.”

“I was wondering if you had kept them.”

Joss cleaned the gravy off his plate with a piece of bread, which he popped in his mouth before folding his arms.

“And if I had?”

“I’d like to reread them. If you like,” Decambrais said to overcome the fisherman’s blank expression, “I’ll buy them off you. All the ones you’ve got and all the ones you’ll get from now on.”

“So you’re telling me you didn’t write them yourself?”

“Me?’

“Yep, and put them in the urn. I was wondering. It could be your kind of thing, writing old-fashioned sentences no-one can make head or tail of. But if you’re offering to buy them off me, you can’t have written them. That’s a logical deduction, if you ask me.”

“Name your price.”

“I haven’t got all of them. Only the last five.”

“The price?”

Joss pointed at his empty plate. “An ad that’s been read out is like a lamb chop after lunch. As there’s nothing left on it to eat, it’s not worth a sou. So I’m not selling. The Le Guerns may be rough customers, but they never stole a penny.”

Joss gave the bookworm a knowing look.

“And so?” Decambrais asked.

Joss wasn’t sure what move he should now make. Could he really land a room with his five bits of gibberish?

“I’ve heard that one of your rooms is going to be vacant,” he mumbled.

Decambrais’s face froze.

“I’ve got applicants already,” he replied, almost in a whisper. “They have priority, you know.”

“OK, fine,” Joss said. “You can keep your patter for yourself. Hervé Decambrais Esquire doesn’t want a rough customer clumping muddy boots over his fine carpets. Better to say it straight out, isn’t it? Only graduates get into your place, unless you’re called Lizbeth, isn’t that right? And I’m not likely to turn into one or the other any time soon.”