Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand (30 page)

Retancourt arrived at about nine that evening. Basile, entering into the spirit of things, had already made up her room, got some food in, and obeyed her requests. He had bought enough overnight equipment, clothes and razors for Adamsberg to last him a week.

‘Piece of cake,’ Retancourt told Adamsberg, munching her way through Basile’s pancakes and maple syrup.

It reminded Adamsberg that he had still not managed to get any maple syrup for Clémentine. A sort of mission impossible.

‘The Mounties came back at about three. I was on my bed, reading a book, but terribly worried, and convinced you’d met with an accident. A
lieutenant
, distraught about her superior officer. Poor Ginette, I almost made her cry. Sanscartier was with them.’

‘How did he seem?’ asked Adamsberg eagerly.

‘He looked devastated. I got the impression he liked you.’

‘It’s mutual,’ said Adamsberg, imagining how gut-wrenching it would be for the sergeant to find that his new friend had killed a girl with a trident.

‘Devastated, but not convinced,’ Retancourt went on.

‘In the RCMP, some of them think he’s dumb. Portelance says he’s a wool-gatherer.’

‘Ah well, he’s wrong there.’

‘And Sanscartier didn’t agree with their line?’

‘Looked like he didn’t. He was doing the minimum, as if he was trying not to get his hands dirty. Not taking part in the hunt. He smelled of almond soap.’

Adamsberg refused any more pancakes. The thought that Sanscartier the Good was using the almond soap, and had not yet given up on him, cheered him up.

‘From what I heard in the corridor, Laliberté was fit to be tied. A couple of hours later, they completely abandoned the search and went away. I left without any problem. Raphaël’s car was back in the hotel parking lot. He must have slipped the net too. Good looker, your brother.’

‘Yes.’

‘We can talk in front of Basile,’ said Retancourt, helping herself to wine. ‘For the new ID papers, you don’t want to go to Danglard. OK. But do you have a tame forger anywhere in Paris?’

‘I know a few from the old days, but no one I could trust.’

‘I only know one, but he’s safe as houses. No problems there. Only if we use him, you’ll have to promise me that he won’t get into any trouble. You’ll never ask me any questions and you won’t give my name, even if Brézillon calls you in for a grilling.’

‘Sure, of course.’

‘And he’s given it up now. He used to be in the business but he’ll only do it now if I ask him.’

‘Your brother?’ asked Adamsberg. ‘The one under the dressing gown?’

Retancourt put down her glass. ‘How did you know?’

‘You seem concerned. That was a lot of precautions you mentioned just now.’

‘You’re thinking like a
flic
again,
commissaire.’

‘Maybe. How long would it take him?’

‘Couple of days. Tomorrow, we’ll have to change our appearance and get some new ID photos. We’ll scan them to him by email. The earliest he could get passports for us would be Thursday. So if they send them express, we could have them by next Tuesday and leave at once. Basile will have to get our tickets. On separate flights, Basile.’

‘Yeah, good thinking,’ Basile said. ‘By then they’ll be looking for a couple. Makes sense to split up.’

‘We’ll reimburse you from Paris. You’re going to have to look after us till then, like the brigand’s mother in the story.’

‘Yeah, right, no way you can go out for now,’ said Basile, ‘and you can’t go paying with your credit cards. The
commissaire
’s photo is sure to be in
Le Devoir
by tomorrow – and yours too, is my guess, Violette.
You left the hotel without saying goodbye, so you’re not much better off than he is.’

‘Seven days confined to barracks then,’ Adamsberg said.

‘It’s no big deal,’ said Basile. ‘You’ve got all you need here. We can read the papers. They’ll all be talking about us, it’ll be a laugh.’

Basile didn’t seem to take anything seriously, even sheltering a potential murderer in his flat. Violette’s word appeared to be good enough for him.

‘I like to walk,’ said Adamsberg with a wry smile.

‘There’s a long corridor in the flat. You’ll just have to use it for exercise. Violette, I think we’d better turn you into a desperate housewife, OK? I’ll get you a smart suit and a necklace and we’ll dye your hair darker.’

‘OK. For the
commissaire
, I thought we should shave his head about three quarters, make him look bald.’

‘Good idea,’ said Basile. ‘It would really change the way he looks. Tweed suit, beige check I think, receding hairline, and a bit of a pot-belly.’

‘We’ll whiten the rest of his hair,’ said Retancourt. ‘Get some foundation too, I think we ought to make his complexion paler. And some lemon juice. It needs to be professional quality make-up.’

‘I gotta colleague does the cinema column, he’ll know where to get studio make-up. I’ll fetch some stuff tomorrow and develop the photos in our lab.’

‘Basile is a photographer,’ Retancourt explained. ‘For
Le Devoir.’

‘A journalist?’

‘Yup,’ said Basile with a friendly pat on his shoulder. ‘And here’s a godalmighty scoop sitting at my table. You’re in a hornets’ nest now. Scarey, eh?’

‘It’s a risk,’ said Adamsberg, smiling faintly.

Basile burst out laughing.

‘It’s OK,
commissaire
, I know when to keep my mouth shut. And I’m less dangerous than you.’

XXXIX

ADAMSBERG MUST HAVE COVERED SOMETHING LIKE TEN KILOMETRES
over the week, pacing up and down in Basile’s corridor. After being cooped up for seven days, he was almost able to take pleasure in walking freely in the Montreal airport terminal. But the place was crawling with cops, which took away his appetite for relaxation.

He glanced at himself sideways in a glass door, to check if he passed muster as a salesman aged about sixty. Retancourt had done a fantastic job, and he had let her manipulate him like a puppet. The transformation had tickled Basile. ‘Make him look depressed,’ he had advised Violette, so that was what they had done. His expression was much altered, under eyebrows which had been whitened and plucked. Retancourt had taken the trouble even to dye his eyelashes and half an hour before they left the house, she put a drop of lemon juice in the corner of each eye. His bloodshot gaze and pale complexion made him look tired and unhealthy. His nose, lips and ears remained unchangeable however, and seemed to him to betray his identity at every turn.

He felt for his new ID papers in his pocket, checking now and then to make sure they were there. Jean-Pierre Emile Roger Feuillet was the name Violette’s brother had provided for him, in an impeccably forged passport. It included stamps from Roissy and Montreal attesting to his voyage out. Professional stuff. If the brother was as capable as the sister, the Retancourts were a family of experts.

His real papers had been left with Basile, in case his bags were examined.
What a pal Basile had been. He had fetched the Canadian newspapers every day. The virulent articles about the runaway murderer and his accomplice had delighted him. And he was considerate too. So that Adamsberg should not feel too lonely, he had often walked up and down the corridor with him. He liked going on outdoor hikes himself and understood that the prisoner felt cooped up. They would chat as they walked, and after a week Adamsberg had heard all about Basile’s various girlfriends, as well as the geography of Canada from Vancouver to the Gaspé peninsula. Still, Basile had never heard about the fish in Pink Lake and promised he’d go and take a look. You should see Strasbourg Cathedral too, if ever you come to little old France, Adamsberg had told him.

He went through security, trying to empty his mind of worries, as Jean-Pierre Emile Roger Feuillet would have, if he were on his way back to France to interest his company in placing orders for maple syrup. But strangely, the faculty of emptying his mind, which normally came to him quite naturally and spontaneously, seemed very hard to achieve that day. He, who could usually daydream at any moment and miss whole chunks of other people’s conversations, who was forever shovelling clouds, now found himself breathing rapidly and processing a thousand jumbled thoughts in his head as he went through the routine baggage checks.

But the officials showed no interest in Jean-Pierre Emile Roger Feuillet and once he was in the departure lounge, Adamsberg forced himself to relax and buy a bottle of maple syrup. A very typical gesture on the part of Feuillet, taking a present for his mother. The sound of jet engines starting up and then taxi-ing to take-off produced in him a relief that Danglard would never have been able to conceive. He watched the Canadian landscape disappear beneath them, imagining that there were hundreds of Mounties down there, engaged in their fruitless search.

Now all he had to do was get through immigration at Roissy. And of course Retancourt still had to make her getaway, after an interval of two and a half hours. Adamsberg was worried for her. Her new persona as a rich suburban housewife was unsettling – and had given Basile plenty of
fun – but Adamsberg was afraid that her figure would give her away. The image of her naked body flashed in front of his eyes. Impressive, yes, but well-proportioned. Raphaël was right, Retancourt was indeed a beautiful woman, and he reproached himself for not having seen this before, preoccupied as he was with her vigour and determination. Raphaël had always been more sensitive than he.

Seven hours later, the plane touched down on French soil at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport. He went through customs and passport control and for a moment felt ridiculously free. It was a mistake. The nightmare was going to continue now in another country. In front of him, the future was as empty and white as an icefield. Retancourt could at least go back to the office, arguing that she had been afraid that the Mounties would arrest her for complicity. But for him a journey to nowhere was about to begin. Accompanied only by the aching doubt about his forgotten actions. He would almost rather have been guilty and killed someone, than have to carry around the terrible vagueness about what had happened on the night of October 26.

Jean-Pierre Emile Roger Feuillet went through all the checks at Roissy, but Adamsberg could not bring himself to leave the airport until he knew whether Retancourt had arrived safely. He wandered about for a couple of hours in the terminal buildings, trying to make himself inconspicuous, and imitating Retancourt’s invisibility at RCMP headquarters. But he need not have bothered, since Jean-Pierre was obviously of no interest to anyone, just as in Montreal. He kept checking the arrivals boards, to see when the jumbo jets were arriving on long-haul flights. His own jumbo jet, he thought: Retancourt. Without whom he would now be rotting in a Canadian jail, and completely without hope. Retancourt, his escape route on a 747.

The inconspicuous Jean-Pierre therefore stationed himself without too much panic about twenty metres from the arrivals gate. Retancourt must have channelled all her energy into becoming Henriette Emma Marie Parillon. He clenched his fists, as the passengers started pouring into the
hall, but couldn’t see her anywhere. Had she been picked up at the airport? Taken back to headquarters? Grilled all night? And what if she had cracked? Mentioned Raphaël’s name? Or her brother’s? Adamsberg grew irritated at all the strangers as they walked past him looking relieved that their flight was over, clutching their bags full of maple syrup and fluffy caribous. He was angry that they were not Retancourt. A hand caught his arm and drew him further into the hall. It was Henriette Emma Marie Parillon.

‘You must be nuts!’ whispered Retancourt, while maintaining the haughty expression of Henriette.

They travelled together as far as Châtelet metro station, where Adamsberg suggested to his
lieutenant
that they profit from his last hours of freedom under the incognito of Jean-Pierre Emile, to go and have lunch in a cafe, like normal people. Retancourt hesitated, then accepted, feeling relieved that their escape had proceeded so incredibly successfully, as well as by seeing the hordes of people in the streets.

‘We’ll pretend everything’s OK,’ said Adamsberg, once he was sitting bolt upright as Jean-Pierre would, in front of his plate. ‘We’ll pretend I’m not him. That I never did anything.’

‘The episode is over,’ said Retancourt sternly which made Henriette Emma’s expression look suddenly different. ‘It’s over, and you didn’t do it. We’re in Paris, on your own territory and you’re a policeman. I can’t go on believing for both of us. We may have got away with close combat, but I can’t do close thinking. You’ll have to get your brain back.’

‘Why do you believe in me so firmly, Retancourt?’

‘We’ve already discussed that.’

‘But why?’ Adamsberg insisted. ‘Since you don’t really like me?’

Retancourt gave an impatient sigh.

‘What does it matter?’

‘It’s important to me. I need to understand. Really.’

‘I don’t know if it’s relevant now. Or later, even.’

‘Because of my trouble in Quebec?’

‘Among other things. I don’t know.’

‘Even so, Retancourt, I need to know.’

Retancourt thought a moment, twisting her empty coffee cup.

‘Look,’ Adamsberg said, ‘we may never see one another again. These are extreme circumstances. Rank doesn’t matter. I will always regret not having understood.’

‘OK, extreme circumstances. What the others in the squad all thought was so marvellous about you got up my nose. The casual way you wandered in and solved cases like a lone ranger, or a Zen archer who went straight to the target. It was certainly impressive, but I could see something else, the way you were so calmly confident of your own internal certainty. You were always right. Yes, you were an independent thinker, but you were royally indifferent to what anyone else might have to contribute.’

She stopped, hesitating.

‘Go on,’ said Adamsberg.

‘I admired your flair of course, everyone did, but not the air of detachment it seemed to give you, the way you disregarded anything your deputies said, since you only half listened to them anyway. I didn’t like your isolation, your high-handed indifference. Perhaps I’m not expressing myself well. The sand dunes are smooth and the desert feels soft, but for someone obliged to cross it, it’s arid. You can cross a desert, but you can’t live there. It isn’t very generous, it won’t support you.’