Seeking Whom He May Devour (31 page)

Adamsberg dropped like a stone onto his rightful seat. His arm was in a sling and his face betrayed stress. With
his
left hand he speared a sausage and then three baked potatoes and clumsily dumped them onto his plate.

“Handicap,” said Soliman. “‘An encumbrance or difficulty that weighs upon effort; disability that puts a person at a disadvantage.’”

“In the boot of my car,” said Adamsberg, “there are two cases of wine. Bring them over.”

Soliman uncorked a bottle and filled the four glasses. Seeing as it wasn’t
blanc de Saint-Victor
, anyone could serve it. Watchee tasted it suspiciously before expressing acceptance with a nod of his head.

“Tell us, young fella,” he said, turning to face Adamsberg.

“Same story,” said Adamsberg. “The man was killed by a single bite after being hit on the head. We’ve got pretty good prints of the beast’s two front feet. Like Sernot and Deguy the victim’s not a spring chicken. He’s a retired commercial traveller. Been round the world twenty times over, selling cosmetics.”

He got out his jotter to jog his memory.

“Paul Hellouin,” he said. “He was sixty-three.”

He put the jotter back in his pocket.

“This time,” he went on, “we found three hairs near the wound. They’ve gone off to the IRCG at Rosny. I’ve asked them to get a move on.”

“What’s the IRCG?” Watchee asked.

“It’s the
gendarmerie
’s central lab for forensic investigation,” Adamsberg said. “Where they can get a man a life sentence from a thread of his left sock.”

“Good,” said Watchee. “I do like to understand.”

He contemplated the bare feet inside his heavy boots.

“I have always said that socks were strictly for the birds,” he added for his own benefit. “Now I know why. Carry on, young fella.”

“The vet came to look at those three hairs. In his view they’re not dog hairs. So they must be wolf hairs.”

Adamsberg rubbed his wounded arm and poured himself a glass of wine with his left hand, spilling drips on the side.

“This time,” he said, “he did the murder on the edge of a meadow, and there wasn’t a cross of any kind in the environs. Which tells us that Massart isn’t as picky as you think when it comes to getting the job done. And he killed him a long way away from his home, presumably because of all the policeman hanging around town. That presupposes he had a means of enticing him out. Maybe a note, or a phone call.”

“What time did it happen?”

“Around two in the morning.”

“An appointment at 2 a.m.?” Soliman was sceptical.

“Why not?”

“The guy must have suspected something.”

“It all depends on the pretext that was used. Confidential information, family secrets, blackmail, there are all sorts of ways of getting someone to go out at night. I don’t think Sernot or Deguy went out just to sniff the night air, either. They were summoned, as was Hellouin.”

“Their wives said there weren’t any phone calls.”

“Not that day, no. The meetings must have been arranged earlier.”

Soliman pursed his lips.

“I know, Sol,” said Adamsberg. “You believe in chance.”

“I do, yes,” Soliman said.

“Give me one good reason why that nice old cosmetics salesman should have gone out for a constitutional at two in the morning. Do you know many people who really do go walking in the dark? People don’t like the dark. Do you know how many genuine noctambulists I’ve come across in my whole life? Just two.”

“Who were they?”

“I am one of them, and the other is a chap called Raymond, from my village in the Pyrenees.”

“So what?” said Watchee, dismissing this Raymond as if he were swatting a fly with his hand.

“So there’s no link between Hellouin and Deguy or Sernot, nor is there any reason he should have just bumped into Massart. But,” Adamsberg added thoughtfully, “there
is
something different about Hellouin.”

Watchee rolled three cigarettes in his lap. He licked the papers, stuck them down and handed one each to Soliman and Camille.

“There was at least one man who might have wanted to kill him,” Adamsberg resumed. “Which is not so common in men’s lives.”

“Does it have any connection with Massart?” Soliman asked.

“It’s an old story,” Adamsberg continued without answering the young man. “An ordinary sordid story that I find interesting. It happened twenty-five years ago in the United States.”

“Massart never set foot over there,” said Watchee.

“I find it interesting nonetheless,” said Adamsberg.

He reached into his pocket with his left hand and pulled out some pills that he downed with two gulps of wine.

“For my arm,” he said.

“Does it ache, young fella?” Watchee asked.

“It hurts.”

“Do you know the story about the man who lent his arm to the lion?” asked Soliman. “The lion found it very useful and a great invention, so he didn’t want to give it back. The man didn’t know what to do to get his rightful property back.”

“That’ll do, Sol,” Watchee cut in. And to Adamsberg he said: “Tell us that old story about America, young fella.”

“Well,” Soliman went on, “one day when the man was scooping water from the pond with only one hand, a fish without gills found itself caught in his bowl. ‘Let me go,’ begged the fish . . .”

“Put a sock in it, Sol,” Watchee shouted. Turning once more to Adamsberg: “Tell us that American thing.”

“In the beginning,” Adamsberg said, “there were two French brothers, Paul and Simon Hellouin. They worked together in a small cosmetics company. Simon set up a branch office in Austin, Texas.”

“This is a crap story,” Soliman said.

“While he was over there,” Adamsberg pursued, “Simon got into a fix by having an affair with a married woman, a French lady with an American husband. Mrs Ariane Padwell, née Germant. Are you following? I often send people to sleep when I tell stories.”

“It’s because you speak too slowly,” said Watchee.

“Yes,” said Adamsberg. “The husband, that’s to say the American, John Neil Padwell, got into trouble by allowing jealousy to consume him, and then allowing himself to torture and then to kill his wife’s lover.”

“Simon Hellouin,” Watchee said, summing up.

“Yes. Padwell was charged and tried. Simon’s brother – Paul, our man – gave evidence and heaped it all on Padwell. He produced letters from his brother describing how cruelly, how brutally Padwell treated his wife. John Neil Padwell was sent down for twenty years, and served eighteen of them. If Paul had not come to the stand, he might have got off much more lightly by pleading tem-porary insanity.”

“All that’s got nothing to do with Massart,” said Soliman.

“As much as your lion has,” Adamsberg retorted. “Padwell must have come out of jail about seven years ago. If there’s anyone he wants to take it out on, it’s Paul Hellouin. After the trial Ariane gave up everything and came back to France with the brother, Paul, with whom she lived for a year or two. So it was a double whammy. He’d given evidence against him and then ran off with his wife. I got the story from Paul Hellouin’s sister.”

“But what’s the point of it all?” Camille asked. “Hellouin was killed by Massart. We’ve got the fingernails. The nail results are incontrovertible.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Adamsberg said. “And the nail business bothers me.”

“So?” said Soliman.

“I don’t know,” said Adamsberg.

“Don’t stray from Massart,” he said. “We’ve don’t give a fart for your Texas convict.”

“I’m not straying. I might even be getting closer. Maybe Massart is someone else.”

“Don’t make it more complicated, young fella,” said Watchee. “Sufficient unto the day.”

“Massart only came back to Saint-Victor a few years back,” said Adamsberg, taking his time.

“About six years ago,” Watchee confirmed.

“And nobody had seen him for twenty years.”

“He was doing the rounds of village market days. He reseated rush-bottomed chairs.”

“Is there any evidence? One day a guy turns up and says, ‘I’m Massart.’ And everyone chirps back, ‘Sure, you’re Massart, haven’t seen you around in a long while.’ And everyone reckons that the man living all alone up on Mont Vence is Massart. No-one of his family is left, he hasn’t got any friends, and his acquaintances haven’t seen him since he was barely out of his teens. What evidence is there that Massart really is Massart?”

“Fucking hell,” said Watchee. “Massart . . . is Massart, sod it. Whatever are you trying to get at?”

Adamsberg looked Watchee in the eye. “Did you recognise him, then? Could you swear it was the same person as the young man who left the area twenty years before?”

“Good grief. I’m pretty sure it was him. I remember Auguste as a young man. He wasn’t a very pretty sight. A bit slow and heavy, like. Raven-black hair. But he had attitude. A hard worker.”

“There are thousands of guys who fit that description. Could you swear it was the same man?”

Watchee scratched his thigh and pondered.

“Not on my mother’s head,” he said regretfully, after a while. “And if
I
can’t swear to it, then no-one in Saint-Victor can either.”

“That’s what I was saying,” said Adamsberg. “There’s no conclusive proof that Massart is Massart.”

“What about the real Massart?” Camille asked, knitting her eyebrows.

“Rubbed out, got rid of, replaced.”

“Why would he have been rubbed out?”

“Because of his likeness.”

“Are you saying that Padwell usurped Massart’s identity?” asked Soliman.

“No,” Adamsberg sighed. “Padwell is now sixty-one. Massart is much younger. How old do you think he is, Watchee?”

“He’s forty-four. He was born the same night as young Lucien.”

“I’m not asking you for the real Massart’s age. I’m asking you to give a guess as to the age of the man called Massart.”

“Oh,” said Watchee, furrowing his brow. “Not more than forty-five, and not less than thirty-seven or thirty-eight. Definitely not sixty-one.”

“So we’re agreed on that,” said Adamsberg. “Massart is not John Padwell.”

“Why have you been boring on about that man for the last hour, then?” asked Soliman.

“That’s the way my mind works.”

“That’s not a mind working. That’s flying in the face of common sense.”

“That’s right. That’s the way my mind works.”

Watchee nudged Soliman with his stick. “Respect, boy,” he said. “What are you going to do next, young fella?”

“The
flics
have made up their minds to publish Massart’s photograph in an appeal for witnesses. The magistrate reckons there’s a prima facie case for doing so. Tomorrow all the newspapers will print the mug shot.”

“Great,” said Watchee, smiling.

“I’ve been onto Interpol and asked for the whole file on the Padwell case. I’m expecting it in the morning.”

“But what’s it bloody well got to do with you?” said Soliman. “Even if your Texan has murdered Hellouin, he wouldn’t have laid a finger on Sernot or Deguy. Would he? And even less on my mother, right?”

“I know,” Adamsberg said calmly. “It doesn’t fit.”

“So why are you carrying on with it?”

“I don’t know.”

Soliman cleared the plates and glasses, put the crate back inside, folded the stools, picked up the blue plastic bowl. Then he picked up Watchee with one arm under his shoulders and the other under his knees and carried him back up into the lorry. Adamsberg stroked Camille’s hair.

“Come,” he said after a moment’s silence.

“I’ll hurt your arm,” she said. “It would be better to sleep apart.”

“It would not be better.”

“But it would be all right.”

“It would be all right. But it would not be better.”

“If I hurt you?”

“No,” Adamsberg said, shaking his head. “You’ve never hurt me.”

Camille wavered, still torn between the attractions of peace and those of chaos.

“I had stopped loving you,” she said.

“Everything comes to an end,” Adamsberg said.

XXXIV

NEXT MORNING THE
same
gendarme
came to collect Adamsberg to get him to the
gendarmerie
at Belcourt for nine o’clock. He spent two hours with Sabrina Monge in the cell where she had spent the night. Danglard and
Lieutenant
Gulvain arrived on the 11.07 train, and Adamsberg handed the young woman over to them, together with a great deal of unnecessary advice. He had blind faith in Danglard’s psychological insight; and he reckoned his number two was a more qualified practitioner of compassion than he was.

At noon he got himself driven to the
gendarmerie
at Châteaurouge to stand by for the Interpol file on John Neil Padwell. Fromentin, the man in charge at Châteaurouge, was a very different type from Aimont: ruddy and squat, and not exactly eager to lend a hand to the civilian branch. He considered – quite correctly – that Adamsberg, being outside his official area of operation and without official charge of the case, had no standing to give him orders, which Adamsberg refrained from
doing
anyway. As at Belcourt and at Bourg-en-Bresse, he stuck to asking for information and offering advice.

But since
Adjudant
Fromentin was a coward, he did not dare to go head to head with the
commissaire
, whose two-edged reputation had preceded him. Moreover, he turned out to be susceptible to the fog of flattery which Adamsberg could raise when needed, so that in the end the broad-shouldered Fromentin was virtually at the
commissaire
’s beck and call. He too was standing by for the Interpol fax, even though he did not grasp what Adamsberg hoped to get out of a dead case, with no thread of connection to the savagings of the big bad wolf. As far as he knew, that’s to say according to the man’s sister, Simon Hellouin hadn’t had his throat cut by animal fangs. He had simply been taken out
à l’américaine
, that’s to say, by a good old bullet to the heart. Before shooting him, Padwell took the time to burn his balls off by way of reprisal. Fromentin winced with dread and horror. Half the population of the United States, he reckoned, had reverted to savagery, and the other half had turned into plastic dolls.