The Ghost Riders of Ordebec (Commissaire Adamsberg) (21 page)

‘So how did they react to the threats from the Riders?’

‘Same way they react to everything. Couldn’t give a damn, and they think Lina’s just a hysterical woman. Or a murderess.’

‘That could be true, couldn’t it?’ said Danglard, half closing his eyes.

‘You’ll see the family. Don’t be surprised: the three brothers are equally crazy. Like I told you, Adamsberg. They’ve plenty of excuse. The father abused them all brutally when they were kids. But if you want to get anything out of them, be careful how you approach Antonin.’

‘Why, is he dangerous?’

‘No, the opposite. He’ll be frightened when he sees you coming, and the whole family will protect him. He thinks his body’s partly made of clay.’

‘Ah yes, you said.’

‘Crumbly clay. Antonin thinks he’ll break into pieces if he gets a knock. Totally barmy. Apart from that, he looks normal.’

‘He’s able to work?’

‘He spends all day on his computer, never leaves the house. And don’t be surprised if you can’t understand Hippolyte, the oldest. Everyone calls him Hippo, like a hippopotamus. Actually that’s not far off the mark, he’s a big guy, strapping, not fat though. But when he wants to, he speaks backwards.’

‘What, he uses back slang?’

‘No, he says the
words
backwards, letter by letter.’

Émeri stopped to think, then, giving up, got out a pencil from his bag.

‘Suppose he wants to say: “Good morning, commissaire.” Well, it would come out like this.’ And Émeri applied himself to write out, letter by letter:
Doog gninrom, eriassimmoc.

He passed the sheet of paper across to Adamsberg, who looked at it flabbergasted. Danglard had opened his eyes again, intrigued by the possibility of a new intellectual experience.

‘You’d have to be a genius to do that,’ said Adamsberg with a frown.

‘He
is
a genius. The whole family are, in their own peculiar way. That’s why people round here respect them, but they don’t go too close. As if they were aliens. Some people think they should be put away, others say it’s dangerous to approach them. Hippolyte’s talented all right, but he’s never tried to hold down a job. He looks after the house, the kitchen garden, the orchard and the poultry. They’re self-sufficient up there.’

‘And the third brother?’

‘Martin is less impressive but don’t be fooled by appearances. He’s tall and thin, with long legs, like an insect. And he goes out in the woods and fields, picking up all kinds of creatures, and then he eats them: grasshoppers, caterpillars, ants, butterflies, whatever. It’s revolting.’

‘He eats them raw?’

‘No, he cooks them. As a main course or in a sauce. Turns your stomach. But he has people round here who like his little concoctions of insects, for therapeutic reasons.’

‘And the family eats them too?’

‘Antonin mainly. It was because of him that Martin started collecting the creatures, to help strengthen his clay. Or his “yalc” as Hippolyte calls it.’

‘And the sister? Apart from having visions of the Ghost Riders?’

‘Nothing much else to say about her, except that she understands Hippo’s backwards words. It’s not as hard as making them up, but it still takes a lot of brain work.’

‘Do they open the door to visitors?’

‘They can be very hospitable if you’re prepared to go and see them. Open, friendly, even Antonin. But people who are afraid of them say that’s all just an act to tempt you over there, and once in, you’ve had it. They don’t like me, for the reasons I told you about, and also because
I
think they’re all damaged, but if you don’t mention me, you’ll get on all right with them.’

‘So where does the super-intelligence come from? The mother or the father?’

‘Neither. You saw the mother in Paris, I think, didn’t you? Very ordinary. Quiet as a mouse, looks after the everyday chores. If you want to make her happy, take her some flowers. She likes that, because the torturer, the old brute, her husband, never gave her any. Then she’ll dry them, hanging them upside down.’

‘Why do you call him the torturer?’

Émeri stood up and pulled a face.

‘Go and see them. But first,’ he said with a smile, ‘go along the Chemin de Bonneval and pick up a bit of earth to put in your pocket. They say hereabouts that’ll protect you from Lina’s magic powers. Don’t forget that girl is the door between the living and the dead. With a handful of earth, you’ll be all right. But it’s complicated too, don’t get closer than a metre away, because they say she can smell it if you have earth from that path about you. And she doesn’t like it.’

As he walked back to the car with Danglard, Adamsberg put his hand over his trouser pocket, and wondered what spirit had inspired him, long before all this, to pick up a bit of earth from Bonneval. And why he had brought it with him.

XXII

Adamsberg was waiting outside the office of the local solicitors – Deschamps and Poulain – in one of Ordebec’s steep streets. It seemed to him that wherever you stood on the upper levels of the little town, you could see cattle standing like statues under the apple trees. Lina would be out to meet him any minute, so he wouldn’t have time to see any of them move. Perhaps it would be a better strategy to fix his eyes on just one, instead of sweeping the whole field.

He hadn’t wanted to rush things by summoning Lina Vendermot to the gendarmerie, so he had invited her ‘to the Blue Boar’, where you could have a quiet conversation under the low beams. On the phone, her voice had sounded warm, with no sign of either fear or embarrassment. By fixing his eyes on a single cow, Adamsberg was trying to eliminate his desire to view Lina’s magnificent bosom, inspired by Blériot’s spontaneous praise. He was also trying to put out of his mind the idea that if her sex life was as free as Émeri had said, it might be easy to go to bed with her. The Ordebec team, entirely composed of men, was a bit bleak, as far as he was concerned. But nobody would appreciate it if he slept with a woman at the top of the suspect list.

His second mobile indicated a text and he went into the shade to look at it. Retancourt, at last. The idea of Retancourt plunging alone into the deep chasm of the Clermont-Brasseur household had caused him some anguish the previous night, before he fell asleep in the hollow of his soft mattress. There were so many sharks in the ocean depths. Retancourt had
done some deep-sea diving at one time and she had been willing to touch the scaly skin of some of them. But human sharks were more vicious than the fishy kind. The text ran as follows:
Night of fire Saviours 1 + 2 + father gala Steel Fed. Drink taken. Sv 2 drove Merc + called cops. SV 1 left early own car. Told later. Checked both suits: OK, no smell petrol + not sent cleaners. Sv 1 had 1 suit cleaned but not worn same night. Photos attached note suits + ID photos bros. Nasty to staff.

Adamsberg looked at the photos she attached: Christian, Saviour 1, was wearing a navy suit with a fine stripe, while Christophe, Saviour 2, was wearing a navy blazer, as if he owned a yacht. Which he probably did anyway. Sharks might well own yachts so that they could rest after roaming the seas and gobbling up a few squid. Another shot showed a three-quarter view of Christian looking elegant, this time with shorter hair, and one of his brother looking podgy and graceless.

*   *   *

Maître Deschamps came out of his office before his assistant, and looked carefully right and left before crossing the narrow street and heading straight for Adamsberg: he walked hurriedly and mincingly, which fitted the way his voice had sounded on the phone that morning.

‘Commissaire Adamsberg,’ said the lawyer, shaking hands, ‘you’ve come to give us a hand, I see. That reassures me, yes, indeed. I’ve been very worried about Caroline.’

‘Caroline?’

‘Lina, if you prefer. In the office she’s Caroline.’

‘And is Lina worried?’ asked Adamsberg.

‘If she is, she’s trying not to show it. Naturally the whole story must have upset her a bit, but I don’t think she’s entirely grasped the consequences it might have for herself and her family. They could be ostracised by the townspeople, or some vengeance could be planned, or god knows what. It’s very worrying. It seems you can work miracles, since you got Léone to speak yesterday.’

‘Yes.’

‘Would it be breaking confidence to tell me what she said?’

‘Not at all. She said “Ello”, “Fleg” and “Sugar”.’

‘Does that help you?’

‘Not a bit.’

It seemed to Adamsberg that the little solicitor was relieved, perhaps because Léo hadn’t mentioned Lina.

‘Do you think she will say any more?’

‘The doctor doesn’t think she’ll survive. Is this Lina?’ asked Adamsberg, as he saw the office door open again.

‘Yes. Treat her gently, please. She’s had a hard life, one and a half wage packets isn’t much for a family of five, with the mother’s little pension. It’s the devil’s own job to keep going – sorry, not what I meant to say, don’t misinterpret it please!’ said the solicitor, before moving off quickly, as if he were running away.

Adamsberg shook hands with Lina.

‘Thank you for agreeing to see me,’ he said formally.

Lina wasn’t a classical beauty, far from it. Round-shouldered and slightly buck-toothed, she was running a little to fat, and her heavy bust was out of proportion to her slim legs. But the brigadier was right, her breasts were indeed good enough to eat, like the rest of her: lovely smooth skin, round arms, a radiant face, a little broad perhaps, high cheekbones with a rosy glow, very Norman, and a dusting of freckles like specks of gold.

‘I’ve never heard of the Blue Boar,’ Lina was now saying.

‘Opposite the flower market, just round the corner. Delicious food and not dear.’

‘Opposite the flower market, that’s the
Running
Boar.’

‘Oh, yes, you’re right. Running.’

‘Not Blue.’

‘No, not Blue.’

As he accompanied her through the narrow streets, Adamsberg realised that his desire to eat her was stronger than the wish to go to bed with her. This woman literally excited his appetite, suddenly reminding him of a kind of cake filled with honey, known as a
kouglof
, which he had once eaten as a child, when staying with his aunt in Alsace. He chose a table near the window, wondering how he was going to conduct a proper
interrogation with a warm slice of honey-coloured
kouglof
, the exact shade of Lina’s hair which curled over her shoulders. Shoulders that the commissaire couldn’t see, because Lina was wearing a long blue silk shawl, oddly for a warm summer day. Adamsberg hadn’t prepared his opening question, preferring to wait till he saw her and then improvise. And now that he was sitting opposite Lina, with her blonde radiance shining at him, he found it impossible to associate her with the black spectres of the ghostly Riders, or to imagine that she was the one who saw horrors and transmitted them. But that’s what she had done. They ordered their food, then both waited in silence, nibbling at pieces of bread. Adamsberg glanced across at her. Her face was still open and attentive, but she made no attempt to help him. He was a cop, she had unleashed a storm on Ordebec, he suspected her, she knew people thought she was mad, and those were the simple facts of the situation. He swung round in his seat and looked over at the bar.

‘Looks a bit like rain,’ he said finally.

‘Yes, threatening from the west. Might rain tonight.’

‘Or this evening. So. Mademoiselle Vendermot, it all started with you.’

‘Call me Lina.’

‘It all started with you, Lina. Not the rain, but the storm raging in Ordebec. And nobody knows where this storm will end, how many victims it will cause, or if it will turn against you.’

‘
Nothing
started with me,’ said Lina, gathering her shawl round her shoulders. ‘It all started with Lord Hellequin and his horde. The Riders went past and I saw them. What am I supposed to do about it? There were four people in the procession, there’ll be four deaths.’

‘But you told people about it.’

‘Anyone who sees the Riders has to tell, you’ve got to. You don’t understand. Where are you from?’

‘From the south-west, Béarn.’

‘There you are, you really can’t understand. This is an army that gallops over the northern plains. The people who’ve been sighted with it might try to protect themselves.’

‘The ones who are “seized”, you mean?’

‘That’s right. That’s why you’ve got to tell. Not that they often manage to get away, but it does happen. Glayeux and Mortembot, now, they don’t deserve to live, but they still have a chance to escape and survive. They’ve got a right to that chance.’

‘Do you have any personal reason for disliking them?’

Lina waited for their meal to arrive before replying. She was clearly hungry or at least wanted to eat, and eyed her food with an eager expression. Logical enough, Adamsberg thought, that such an edible woman should have a healthy appetite.

‘A personal reason, no,’ she said, attacking her food. ‘But everyone knows they both have blood on their hands. People try to avoid them, and it didn’t surprise me to see them among the Riders.’

‘Like Herbier?’

‘Herbier was a disgusting human being. He was always shooting things. But he had a screw loose as well. Glayeux and Mortembot aren’t like that. They killed because it suited them. Worse than Herbier, probably.’

Adamsberg forced himself to eat more quickly than usual to keep up with the young woman. He didn’t want to find himself facing her with his plate half full.

‘But in order to see the Riders, people say you have to have a screw loose too. Or else to be lying.’

‘It’s up to you, if you think that. I see them, and I can’t help it. I see them on the path, I’m on the path, and my bedroom is three kilometres away.’

Lina was using her fork to plunge slices of potato into a creamy sauce, devoting surprising energy and concentration to the task. Her eagerness was almost upsetting.

‘Or else it could be a vision,’ Adamsberg went on. ‘A vision, personal to you, into which you put people you don’t like. Herbier, Glayeux, Mortembot.’