Seeking Whom He May Devour (5 page)

“Spirits,” he said.

Camille noticed how he shifted around so as to sit as far away from Suzanne as possible.

As she loosened the seized nuts on the sewer pipe Camille wondered if she could ever get Johnstone to utter a thank you, even a word of thanks. He wasn’t objectionable, really, just barely cordial. Mixing with grizzlies had left his social skills undeveloped. And that weighed on Camille, even with someone as rough-mannered as Suzanne. But she did not go in for preaching. Drop it, she told herself, as she prised a perished rubber seal off with the tip of a screwdriver. Say nothing. Don’t involve yourself, it’s not your job.

She could hear the sounds of conversation coming up from the ground-floor living room, then doors slamming. Soliman ran along the corridor then up the stairs and stood to catch his breath at the door of the toilet. Camille was still on all fours. She looked up at him.

“Tomorrow,” Soliman declared. “The hunt’s on tomorrow.”

* * *

In Paris,
Commissaire
Adamsberg paid no attention to the programme flickering like a dream on the screen in front of him. He was uneasy about the hyped-up story he had watched on the news. If that ravenous wolf did not soon slack off a bit, Adamsberg thought, then there wouldn’t be much hope for any of those unwary beasts of prey who had had the gall to drift like clouds over the Alps. This evening the reporters had taken care to get the pictures right, they’d zoomed in on the fine brown streaks on paws and spine that are characteristic of Italian wolves. The cameras were closing in on the culprits, the whole Mercantour affair could easily, very quickly, turn ugly. Tension was rising, and the size of the beast with it. He would be ten feet tall within a month. But that was nothing unusual. He had listened to dozens of crime victims describing their attacker – a real giant, sir, a monster to look at, and his hands were as wide as dinner plates. Then they’d catch the man, and the victim was often quite disappointed to see just how slight and ordinary his big bad wolf really was. Twenty-five years in the force had taught Adamsberg to be very wary of ordinary people, and to offer the hand of friendship to the oversize and to the misshapen who’d learned from early childhood how to take it easy so that people would leave them alone. Ordinary people aren’t so wise, they don’t take it easy.

Adamsberg waited drowsily for the late-night news. Not to see the savaged sheep or to hear about the exploits of the monster-wolf again. But to catch that clip of the villagers at Saint-Victor milling around in the square at
sundown
. On the right of the image there was a girl who had caught his eye, turning three-quarters away and leaning against a large plane tree. She was tall and slim, she was dressed in a grey jacket, jeans and boots, she had dark shoulder-length hair, and her hands were in her pockets. That was all you could see. No face. Not a lot to make you think of Camille, but all the same it did make him think of her. Camille was the sort of girl who wouldn’t have extracted her ankles from her cowboy boots just because it was 33°C in the shade. But there must be millions of other dark-haired, grey-jacketed girls who keep their boots on in the summer heat. And Camille had no reason to be standing in the village square at Saint-Victor. But maybe she did have a reason to be standing there, how the hell would he know, since he had not seen her in years, not a sign, nothing. He had not tried to contact her either, but that wasn’t the same thing – he was easy to find, he hadn’t budged from the station, he’d kept on grinding away at his caseload of murder, manslaughter and general mayhem. Whereas Camille had taken off as she always did without the slightest warning, leaving people lost in her wake. Sure, he’d left her, but why couldn’t she send up a signal from time to time? She couldn’t. Camille was a proud woman and answered to nobody. He’d come across her again just once, at least five years ago, on a train. They were lovers again for two hours and that was that, she just vanished, thank you and goodbye. OK, he could take it, he was fine, and who gives a damn? But all the same he would like to know if it really was her leaning against that plane tree at Saint-Victor.

The news bulletin was repeated at 11.45, sheep, farmer, sheep, then the village square. Adamsberg peered into the screen. Could be her. Could be Camille, the girl he couldn’t care less about who often crossed his mind. Could be a million other girls too. He did not notice anything else, except for a big blond type standing next to her. A broad-shouldered, strapping young fellow with longish hair and an agile and seductive air, the sort of man who can put his hand on a girl’s shoulder and expect the whole world to do his bidding. And Adamsberg was virtually certain that this one had his hand on boot-girl’s shoulder.

Adamsberg slumped deeper into his armchair. He was not a strapping young fellow. He was not young. His shoulders weren’t broad. His hair wasn’t fair. He entertained not the faintest expectation of being obeyed. That fellow was a whole heap of things that he was not. Maybe his polar opposite. OK, and then so what? Camille must have been having affairs for years with fair-haired men he had never heard of. He had been having other women of every shade for years, too, and it must be said that not one of them had Camille’s peculiar disadvantage of remaining for ever shod in those bloody leather boots of hers. The other women had all worn women’s shoes.

All right, nice knowing you, end of story. What worried Adamsberg wasn’t the young man, it was whether Camille had finally settled at Saint-Victor. He thought of Camille as forever on the move, across cities, along highways, with a rucksack full of music and monkey wrenches, a woman never halting, never seated, and therefore fundamentally unconquered. Seeing her in that
village
disturbed him. It made anything possible. For example, that she owned a house there, with a chair, a coffee mug, yes, why not a coffee mug, and a washbasin, and even so much as a bed, with a man in it, and maybe with this man she had a steady, static relationship, standing four-square like a farmhouse table, a simple, wholesome love scrubbed squeaky-clean every day. A stationary Camille, a consenting Camille, Camille at peace and welded to the fair-haired man. Which would mean two coffee mugs not one. And for that matter why not plates, cutlery, pots, lights and – in the worst case – a carpet. Two wholesome big plain squeaky-clean mugs.

Adamsberg felt himself nodding off. He got up, switched off the TV and the light, took a shower. Two mugs brimful with plain healthy squeaky-clean coffee. Ah, but if things had come to such a pass, how do you account for the boots? What were those boots doing in the story if all Camille did was to walk from bed to table and from table to piano? And from the piano back to bed. With the squeaky-clean blond?

Adamsberg turned off the water and got dry. Where there’s boots, there’s hope. He rubbed his hair with a towel and caught his own eye in the bathroom mirror. He did think of that girl from time to time. He liked thinking of her, it was as simple as that. It was the same as going out, or going on a trip, seeing something or learning something new, thinking about something else, or putting up a new set for an evening’s show. The “Rambling Lady” show. And when the curtain went down on it he would go back to his usual daydreams, leaving Camille striding
along
some road or other. This evening’s show about “The woman who’d settled in Saint-Victor with a man with fair hair” had been much less fun. He wouldn’t drop off to sleep tonight, dreaming of her being in bed with him, as he did from time to time, in gaps between affairs. Camille was his imaginary stand-by lover when reality failed to come up to snuff. But right now that blond fellow got in the way.

Adamsberg stretched out and closed his eyes. That girl in boots was not Camille, who had no business to be leaning against a plane tree in Saint-Victor. The one on the television was certainly called Melanie. As a consequence of which the conquering hero had no right to interfere with
Commissaire
Adamsberg’s inner life.

VIII

SMALL GROUPS BEGAN
to gather in the village square at first light. Johnstone had hurried back to his hills the previous evening. So as to stay in full control of the wolf-pack and to fight with it if need be, to keep all the approach routes to the wildlife refuge under watch, and to protect the wolves from the slightest incursion on their territory. In theory the hunt would not stray far from the village of Saint-Victor; the huntsmen were not supposed to venture up into the Mercantour. In theory they were banking on an animal that had not been seen since last winter or on a brand-new arrival from the other side of the Alps. So theoretically the animals in the wildlife reserve’s wolf-packs were not at risk. For now. But the expressions on people’s faces, their narrowed eyes and their silent expectancy told a different story. They said: war. Men strutted around the fountain with hunting rifles hinged over their forearms or strapped to their shoulders. They were waiting for their marching orders, since several posses were supposed to leave different villages – Saint-Martin,
Puygiron
, Thorailles, Beauval and Pierrefort – at the same time. The latest information was that the Saint-Victor party was to join up with the men of Saint-Martin.

The war was on.

Nine and half million sheep. Forty wolves.

Camille was sitting discreetly at a café table watching these martial drills through the window. Stern-faced men signalling their shared camaraderie among yapping dogs. Watchee had not responded to the call, nor had Soliman. Whether at the instruction of Suzanne Rosselin or from a personal decision, the village’s sole regal shepherd was not joining the wolf hunt. That did not surprise Camille. Watchee was more likely to settle scores on his own. By contrast, the butcher was buzzing around one knot of men then another, seemingly incapable of staying in one place. After meat. Forever after meat. Germain, Tourneur, Frosset, Lefèbvre were all there, as well as other men Camille did not recognise.

Lucie watched the gathering from behind the bar.

“That fellow,” she said without moving her lips, “that one’s got a bloody cheek.”

“Which one?” asked Camille, as she moved next to Lucie.

Lucie waved a tea-towel towards a shape on the square.

“Massart, the slaughterhouse guy.”

“The fat one in the blue jacket?”

“No, the one behind him. Looks like he swallowed a gas cylinder.”

Camille had never seen Massart before. People said he
never
came down from his eyrie anyway. He worked in the municipal abattoir in Digne and lived on his own in a shack high up on Mont Vence, hauling up all his supplies from town. So he wasn’t often seen, and people steered clear of him. He was supposed to be a bit odd. Camille thought he was just a loner, which comes to the same thing, for villagers. But he
was
rather odd, in fact. Physically odd. Big shoulders, a barrel-chest, short, bandy legs, simian arms. He wore his cap like a bottle-top and his hair in a fringe low over his eyes. Everybody from this part of the world had swarthy skin, save for Massart, whose pasty face made him look like a priest who had never set foot outside church. He was off to one side, leaning untidily against the side of a white van, with his rifle pointing down, and large spotted dog on a leash.

“Doesn’t he ever go out?” asked Camille.

“Only to go to work at the slaughterhouse. The rest of the time he’s shut up there doing who knows what.”

“And what’s that?”

“Who knows? He hasn’t got a woman. Never has had a woman.”

Lucie wiped the window with her tea-towel as if she needed time to find her words.

“Maybe he didn’t manage to do it,” she said in a whisper. “Maybe he wasn’t capable.”

Camille said nothing.

“Some people tell a different story,” Lucie went on.

“Such as?”

“Different, that’s all,” Lucie repeated with a shrug. After a pause: “Anyway, ever since there’s been wolves, he’s never
signed
a petition against them. And there’ve been quite a few meetings and petitions, believe you me. But him, well, it’s like he was in favour of the wolves. And what with living up there like an animal, with no woman, no nothing. Kids aren’t allowed near his shack.”

“He doesn’t look like an animal,” Camille said, noticing that his T-shirt had been ironed, his jacket kept clean, and his chin shaved.

“And today,” Lucie went on without hearing Camille, “here he is with his gun and his pooch. Bloody cheek.”

“Doesn’t anyone talk to him?” Camille asked.

“No point talking to him. He doesn’t like people.”

Suddenly, at a sign from the mayor, the men stubbed out their cigarettes, piled into the cars, put the dogs in the back, started up the engines. Doors slammed, wheels spun, for a moment the whole square reeked of diesel fumes, and then it all faded away.

“But will they get near the beast?” Lucie wondered with her arms crossed on her counter.

Camille said nothing. Johnstone’s position was clear-cut, but she wasn’t so sure which side she was on. From afar, she would have defended the wolves, all and any wolves, but close up, things weren’t so simple. Shepherds did not now dare to leave their flocks during seasonal migrations, the ewes weren’t lambing properly, there were more and more savagings, more and more guard dogs, and children had stopped rambling over the peaks. But she also did not like war or extermination, and this hunt was the first step. Her thoughts went out to the wolf, to
warn
it of looming danger – run off, get going, so long, old chap. If only the wolves had not been so lazy, and had made do with the chamois in the wildlife reserve. But there you are, they went for the easier meal, and that’s what the problem was. She had better get home, close the door and concentrate on work. Today, though, she did not feel at all inclined to compose.

So it would have to be plumbing. Her salvation.

She had several jobs in her planner: the tobacconist needed a central-heating pump changing, then there was a gas water-heater that came near to exploding each time it ignited (lots of equipment in these parts was in similar condition) and right here in the café was a soil pipe that was backing up.