Seeking Whom He May Devour (24 page)

Adamsberg was preferable, because no flame at all is simpler to manage than a flickering one. Sadder, true, but simpler. She could have touched his shoulder just by stretching out her arm. She had spent hundreds of hours asleep with her head on his chest, in almost perfect oblivion. To the extent that she had once believed she was made for Adamsberg as if by a magic spell which there was no point trying to resist. But now she was not even troubled by his presence. She would have liked Lawrence to sleep here – with Lawrence, the emotional landscape was utterly different from the blatant passion of her old love for Adamsberg. Despite fleeting reservations and
common
-or-garden hesitations, it was a more tangible landscape altogether. And Camille had lost interest in grand vistas. She had acquired some rather thick skin.

Watchee stopped snoring He must have rolled over. Respite. In the new-found quiet she could make out Adamsberg’s regular breathing. He too had fallen easily asleep. Your life’s your own, my friend. That’s all that’s ever left of faith and grandeur when they come to an end: imperturbable respiration.

Kept awake by harsh thoughts of this kind, Camille did not fall asleep until late and so did not wake until nearly nine. She grabbed her boots before putting a foot to the ground, and went through the canvas partition.

Soliman was lying propped up on his elbows reading the dictionary.

“Where have they all gone?” Camille asked as she made her coffee. “Get out of my way, Threads,” she said as she sat down on Watchee’s bunk.

“Woof,” Soliman corrected.

“Yes, sorry, Woof. Where are they?”

“Watchee is phoning the flock. Apparently the lead sheep wasn’t in good shape last night, she’s got a swollen foot. Psychosomatic. The old man’s trying to cheer her up. A limping lead sheep puts the whole flock in a mess.”

“Has she a name?”

“She’s called George Gershwin,” said Soliman with a pained expression. “Watchee wanted to pick at random from the dictionary, but he opened at the proper names part of it. By then it was too late to correct it. What’s been
said
has been said. She’s known as George. Anyway, she’s got a swollen foot.”

“And Jean-Baptiste?”

“He got up at the crack of dawn to see the
gendarme
s here at Sautrey, then he came back for his car and went to see the police at Villard-de-Lans. He says they’ve been put in charge of the investigation. He said not to wait lunch for him.”

Adamsberg got back around three. Soliman was washing clothes in a blue plastic bowl, Camille was writing music in the driver’s cab, and Watchee was sitting on a stool, scratching the dog, humming. Sitting around like that, the three of them could have been nomads. Adamsberg felt pleased to be back. He was growing fond of the lorry and its crew.

He climbed into the back and came out with one of the canvas folding stools, so rusty you would cut your fingers opening it, and set it up in the middle of the rectangle of mowed grass alongside the lorry. Soliman was the first to join him there. He was in an even greater state of excitement than the day before. He was keen on the
flic
in every respect: he liked his patchwork face, his soothing voice, and his slow-motion movements. He had understood that morning that no person, no rule and no convention would ever be master of the
commissaire
, despite his manifestly gentle and approachable nature. And though the two of them were poles apart, that characteristic reminded him of his mother’s elemental independence. He had walked with Adamsberg back to his car and told him a lot about Suzanne.

Soliman put his bowl at Adamsberg’s feet. Watchee, sitting a few feet away, stopped his humming.

“Tell us, young fella, who did Sernot in?”

“A very large dog, or a wolf,” Adamsberg said.

Watchee hit the ground with his crook as if the thump would underscore how clear-sighted they had been.

“I saw Montvailland,” Adamsberg went on. “I filled him in about Massart and the Mercantour beast. I know that
flic
. He’s very good, but he’s rational, and that holds him back. He liked the story, but more as a poem than a case. I have to add that Montvailland only puts up with poetry if it’s got regular metre and the verses delivered in four-line stanzas. The problem we’re lumbered with is that the Massart saga doesn’t work with people who think two and two make four. Montvailland buys the idea of a wolf. They had a scare last year south of Grenoble, in the Massif des Écrins. But he does not buy the idea of a man being involved. I told him that made an awful lot of travel and a heap of victims for a lone wolf in a few days, but he thinks a foray like that is possible, for instance, if the wolf has rabies. Or if he’s just very disturbed. He’s going to ask for authorisation for a hunt and for helicopter surveillance. There’s something else.”

Watchee raised his hand for permission to speak.

“You had lunch, young fella?”

“No,” said Adamsberg. “I forgot.”

“Sol, fetch the mess. Bring some white, too.”

Soliman put a crate down next to Adamsberg and handed the bottle to Watchee. He alone was allowed to uncork Saint-Victor white, as Camille had been firmly if
politely
informed after her vigil at the Col de la Bonette.

“Imperialism,” Soliman said with his eyes on Watchee. “‘Collective or individual pursuit of expansion and domination.’”

“Watch it,” said Watchee.

He filled a glass and handed it to Adamsberg.

“Fair nose, good legs, and a broad bottom,” he said. “But be careful, it also has a tail.”

Adamsberg thanked him with a nod.

“Sernot had a head injury, as if he’d been hit with a blunt instrument before having his throat slit. Was anything like that observed with Suzanne Rosselin?”

Nobody said anything.

“We’ve no idea,” said Soliman, his voice quavering slightly. “I mean, at that time, we really believed in the wolf. Nobody had then thought of Massart. We didn’t examine her head.”

Soliman shut up abruptly.

“I understand,” said Adamsberg. “I pressed Montvailland on that point. But in his view Sernot hurt himself during the struggle with the beast. It’s a rational view. Montvailland doesn’t want to take it any further. But at least I got him to examine the body again, to look for hairs.”

“Massart has no hair,” Watchee grunted. “And the hair that comes out at night on him is not the moulting kind.”

“I meant animal hair,” Adamsberg added. “So we can find out whether it was a dog or a wolf.”

“Do they have a time for the murder?” Soliman asked.

“Around 4 a.m.”

“So he would have had time to cover the distance from La Tête du Cavalier to Sautrey that night. What was Sernot doing up and out at four in the morning? Do they have a clue?”

“That doesn’t worry Montvailland. Sernot was a climber and hill walker, he went in for huge and exhausting circuits. What’s more, he had insomnia. He sometimes woke up at three and couldn’t get back to sleep. When he was fed up staying awake, he would get up and go for a walk. Montvailland thinks he came across the beast when it was out looking for food at night.”

“That makes sense,” Camille said.

“But what made the animal attack him?” Soliman said.

“Very disturbed.”

“Where did it happen?” Camille asked.

“Where two tracks meet, at a place called Calvary Cross. There’s a big wooden cross there, on a hillock. The corpse was found lying at the foot of the cross.”

“Candles,” Soliman mumbled.

“Fanatic,” Watchee decided.

“I told Montvailland about that aspect of the case too.”

“Did you tell him about us?”

“That’s the only thing I particularly did not mention.”

“We’re nothing to be ashamed of,” said Watchee with a flash of hauteur.

Adamsberg looked up at the shepherd. “Harassment is not allowed,” he said. “The law forbids acts of harassment.”

“Bugger the law forbids,” Soliman said.

“We’re not harassing him,” Watchee said. “We’re
hunting
the man down. There’s no prohibition on that.”

“There is.”

Adamsberg held out his glass for Watchee to fill.

“Montvailland knows I’m under wraps,” he went on. “He knows my name can’t be mentioned by anyone. He thinks I picked up all the info while underground.”

“Are you in hiding, young fella?” asked Watchee.

Adamsberg nodded. “There’s a girl out to nail me, it’s a life-and-death affair. If the papers say I’m around, she’ll pop up within minutes and put a bullet in my gut. It’s all she lives for.”

“What are you going to do?” Watchee asked. “Are you going to kill her?”

“No.”

The old man frowned. “So are you going to keep on running all your life?”

“I’m putting a different idea in her mind. I’m building a branch line for her to take.”

“A branch line, now that’s crafty,” said Watchee, screwing up his eyes.

“Crafty, but cumbersome. It takes time. And there’s a part I still haven’t got.”

Adamsberg unhurriedly put the bread and the fruit into the crate, stood up, and stowed it all in the lorry.

“We’re going to Grenoble,” he announced. “I’ve an unofficial interview with the superintendent of police. I want to let him know that I’ve planted the Massart business in Montvailland’s skull. I want to try to persuade him to steer the investigation in our direction.”

“Which way?” asked Camille, getting up.

“Don’t you even know where Grenoble is?” Soliman said.

“Bugger that, Sol. Just stick to showing me the route on the map.”

“She’s the driver,” said Watchee, as he tapped Soliman on the shoulder with the tip of his crook.

Ten kilometres short of Grenoble, after the access road onto the motorway, Adamsberg’s car let the sheep wagon overtake. Camille saw it flashing its lights repeatedly in her rear-view mirror.

“We’re stopping,” Camille said. “Something’s up.”

“There’s a lay-by two kilometres ahead,” said Soliman.

“She saw the sign,” said Watchee.

Camille drew up on the hard shoulder, put on the hazard lights, and walked back to Adamsberg’s car.

“Are you breaking down?” she asked, leaning through the open window.

And all of a sudden she found that she was much too close to that face. She pulled away from the window, stepped back.

“I’ve just had the news on,” Adamsberg shouted through the open window, trying to make himself heard over the roar of motorway traffic. “Fourteen head of sheep were slaughtered last night north-east of Grenoble.”

“Where exactly?” Camille was shouting too.

Adamsberg shook his head and then got out of the car.

“Fourteen head,” he repeated. “At Tiennes, north-east of Grenoble. On Massart’s itinerary, once again. But this
time
the wolf has come down from the mountain. We’ve got him, don’t you see?”

“You mean he’s left wolf country?”

Adamsberg confirmed this with a nod.

“No
flic
can maintain any longer that we’re dealing with a wandering lone wolf. The beast is heading north, following the red pencil line, getting ever further from the wild places. A man is in charge. It has to be a man. I’m calling Montvailland.”

Adamsberg got back into the car, and Camille went to tell Soliman and Watchee.

“Tiennes,” Camille said. “Show me the map. Fourteen head of sheep.”

“Lord have mercy,” growled Watchee.

Camille put her finger on the place and handed the map to the old man.

“Are there any large sheep farms around there?” she asked.

“Wherever you find decent folk, you’ll be finding sheep farms.”

Adamsberg made his way to the lorry.

“Montvailland’s beginning to wonder,” he said. “No animal hairs were found on Sernot’s corpse.”

Watchee grunted something inaudible from the rear of the lorry. “I’ll carry on into Grenoble as planned,” Adamsberg said. “It shouldn’t be too hard to persuade the superintendent.”

“Are you going to ask to be put in charge of the case?” Camille said.

“It’s outside my bailiwick. And there’s the girl – I don’t
want
her to know where I am. Camille, you get down to Tiennes. I’ll catch up with you there.”

“Where do we rendezvous?”

“Park wherever you can, by the side of the minor road, or on the way into the village.”

“What if I can’t?”

“Well, let’s say that if you’re not there, it’ll be because you’re somewhere else.”

“OK. Let’s say that.”

“You’ll get there in time to look in at the church. Go and see if he’s left us a message.”

“Candles?”

“For instance.”

“Do you think he wants to be noticed?”

“Mainly – what I think is that he’s leading us a merry dance. We’re going to have to change the music.”

Camille clambered back into the cab. Adamsberg was quite often like that. You could not always be sure you had understood.

XXVIII

NOT FAR BEYOND
grenoble the mountains shrank to nothing and suddenly gave way to open fields. After spending half a year in the Alps, Camille felt as if walls had come tumbling down all around her, carrying off all her props and compass points. She watched the protective barrier of rock perish in the rear-view mirror; looking ahead, she felt as if she was entering a gaping, unframed world where there was no knowing what the dangers were or what people would do. She had the impression that there was no longer anything solid she could rely on. She would give Lawrence a call as soon as she got to Tiennes. That Canadian voice would remind her of the reassuring cradle of the Alps.

All that musing just because it was flat land. She glanced at Soliman and Watchee. The shepherd was staring glumly at the open vista entirely lacking in grandeur or in boundaries and this seemed to rob him of what had been his lifelong support.

“Talk about flat!” Camille said.

The road was rutted and the lorry rattled from top to bottom. You had to shout to be heard above the clatter of metal.

“It crushes you,” said Watchee in his low baritone.

“It carries on like that from here to the North Pole. Nothing you can do about it.”