Adamsberg went out without another word, and Danglard felt annoyed at him for not having shown a little more humanity. He had previously seen the commissaire go to great lengths to be kind, to win over various strangers and even imbeciles. But today he hadn't offered the tiniest crumb of humanity to the old man in front of them.

Next day, Adamsberg asked to see Le Nermord again. Danglard was sulking. He didn't want them to hara.s.s the old man any further. And here was Adamsberg choosing the last minute to call him in, when he'd hardly said a word to him the previous days.

So Le Nermord was convoked once more. He came into the police station timidly, still looking shaken and pale. Danglard considered him.

'He's changed,' he whispered to Adamsberg.

'I wouldn't know,' Adamsberg replied.

Le Nermord sat on the edge of a chair and asked if he could smoke his pipe.

'I was thinking, last night,' he said, feeling in his pocket for matches. 'All night, in fact. And now I've decided that I don't care if everyone finds out the truth about me. I'll just have to accept that I'm the pathetic chalk circle man, as the press calls me. At first when I started doing it, I had the feeling that it was making me incredibly powerful. In fact, I suppose, I was being arrogant and grotesque. And then it all went so wrong. Those two murders. And my Delphie. How could I possibly hope to hide all that from myself? What would be the point of trying to hide it from other people, and trying to salvage my career, which I've completely destroyed, however you look at it? No. I was the circle man. If I have to live with that, so be it. Because of all this, because of my "frustration" as that man Vercors-Laury would call it, three people have died. Including my Delphie.'

He plunged his head in his hands and Danglard and Adamsberg waited in silence, without looking at each other. The elderly Le Nermord wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his raincoat, like an old tramp, as if he were abandoning the prestige he had spent years acquiring.

'So it's pointless of me to beg you not to let the press know,' he continued with an effort. 'I get the impression that it would be better if I just accept what I am and what I've done, instead of trying to hide behind my wretched professorial ident.i.ty. But since I'm a coward, I'd prefer to get away from Paris, now that everything will come out. I meet too many people in the street, you see. If you give me permission, I'd like to retreat to the countryside. Not that I like the countryside. We bought a little house there for Delphie to use. It could be my refuge from the world for now.'

Le Nermord waited for their reply, rubbing the bowl of his pipe against his cheek, an anxious and miserable expression on his face.

'You're quite free to do that,' said Adamsberg, 'so long as you keep us informed of your whereabouts. That's all we will ask.'

'Thank you. I think I could move down there in a couple of weeks. I'm going to clear everything out. Byzantium's finished for me now.'

Adamsberg let another pause go past before he asked: 'You aren't by any chance diabetic, are you?'

'What a strange question, commissaire. No, I'm not diabetic. Is that ... er ... important?'

'Well, it is quite. I'm going to trouble you again one last time, although it's about something trivial. But this trivial thing is hard to explain, and I hoped you might be able to help me. All the witnesses who saw you have spoken of a smell you left behind. A smell of rotten apples, one said, vinegar or a liqueur of some sort, others said. So I thought at first that you might be suffering from diabetes, since as you may know diabetes is a.s.sociated with a slight aroma of fermentation. However, I don't detect anything like that about you just your pipe tobacco. So I thought possibly the smell they spoke of might have come from your clothes, or from a clothes cupboard. And yesterday I looked in your wardrobes and cupboards, and sniffed at the clothes. Nothing. Just a smell of wooden furniture, dry cleaning, pipe tobacco, books, even chalk, but nothing acid or alcoholic. I was disappointed.'

'I don't really know what to say,' said Le Nermord, looking rather disorientated. 'What exactly are you asking me?'

'Well, how do you explain it?'

'I don't know! I never realised I left any smell behind me. It's rather humiliating, in fact, to learn this.'

'I have a suggestion. Perhaps it comes from outside your house, from some other cupboard where you used to leave the clothes you wore when you were being the circle man.'

'My clothes when I was "being the circle man"? But I didn't wear anything special! I wasn't demented enough to dress up for my outings! No, commissaire. Your witnesses will surely have said that I was dressed in ordinary clothes, like I am today. I wear practically the same things every day: flannel trousers, white shirt, tweed jacket, raincoat. I hardly ever dress any differently. Why on earth would I go out wearing a tweed jacket and go "somewhere else" to put on another tweed jacket, especially one that smelled odd?'

'That's exactly what I was wondering.'

Le Nermord was looking miserable again and Danglard felt vexed with Adamsberg once more. In the end the commissaire wasn't so bad at torturing his suspects.

'I do want to help you,' said Le Nermord, his voice on the point of breaking, 'but that's asking too much. I don't understand this business of a smell and why it's so interesting.'

'It may not be as interesting as all that.'

'Perhaps, you know, it might have something to do with nervousness, because these circles were a very emotional thing for me. Maybe I was giving off a sort of "smell of fear"? I suppose it's possible. When I was in the metro afterwards, I'd be dripping with sweat.'

'It really doesn't matter,' said Adamsberg, scribbling on the table. 'Forget it. I get these ideas fixed in my head and they don't mean anything. I'll let you go, Monsieur Le Nermord. I hope you find some peace in the countryside. People say it's possible.'

Peace in the countryside indeed! Danglard, infuriated, gave a snort of exasperation. Everything about the commissaire was getting on his nerves this morning, his aimless meanderings, his pointless questions and his ba.n.a.l remarks. Oh, for a gla.s.s of white wine. Too early, much too early, control yourself for heaven's sake.

Le Nermord gave a tragic smile and Danglard tried to cheer him up a bit by shaking his hand warmly. But Le Nermord's hand remained limp. A lost soul, Danglard thought.

Adamsberg stood up and watched Le Nermord go down the corridor, stooping slightly and looking thinner than ever.

'Poor sod,' said Danglard. 'He's finished now.'

'I'd have preferred it if he had been diabetic,' was Adamsberg's only reply.

Adamsberg spent the rest of the morning reading Ideology and Society under Justinian. Danglard, feeling almost as exhausted as his victim after the long joust with the chalk circle man, would have liked Adamsberg to stop thinking about him and move the investigation on in some other direction. He felt so saturated with Augustin-Louis Le Nermord that the last thing in the world he wanted to do was read a line he had written. Out of every page, the cloudy blue gaze of the Byzantine scholar would have seemed to stare at him, reproaching him for his persecution.

Danglard came to find Adamsberg at one o'clock. He was still plunged in his book. Danglard remembered that the commissaire had told him that he read slowly, one word after another. He did not look up as he heard Danglard come in.

'Do you remember that fashion magazine we found in Madame Le Nermord's handbag, Danglard?'

'The one you were looking at in the van? Must still be in the lab.'

Adamsberg called the lab and asked for the magazine to be sent down if they had finished with it.

'What's bothering you now?' asked Danglard.

'I don't really know. But at least three things are on my mind. The smell of rotten apples, the good doctor Gerard Pontieux, and the fashion magazine.'

Adamsberg called Danglard back in a little later. He was holding a small piece of paper.

'Here's the train timetable,' Adamsberg said. 'There's one leaving in fifty-five minutes for Marcilly, the native heath of our Dr Pontieux.'

'What bothers you about the doctor?'

'He bothers me because he's a man.'

'Still on about that?'

'I told you before, Danglard. My mind works slowly. Do you think you could catch this train?'

'Today? Now?'

'If you would. I want to know everything about this doctor. You'll find some people there who knew him in his younger days, before he set up his practice in Paris. Ask them about him. I want to know all about him. Absolutely everything. We're missing something here.'

'But how can I ask questions if I haven't the slightest idea what you want to know?'

Adamsberg shook his head. 'Just go down there, and question anyone you can. I've every confidence in you. Don't forget to phone me.'

Adamsberg waved to Danglard and, looking absent-minded, went downstairs to find something to eat. He chewed his cold lunch as he made his way over to the National Library.

At the reception desk, his shirtsleeves and worn black canvas trousers did not create the most favourable impression. He showed his card and said he wanted to consult the complete works of Augustin-Louis Le Nermord.

Danglard arrived at Marcilly station at ten past six, just the right time for a gla.s.s of white wine at a cafe table. There were six cafes in Marcilly, and he went round all of them, meeting plenty of old people who remembered Gerard Pontieux. But what they had to say held little interest. He was getting bored with the life of the young Gerard, which had apparently been incident-free. It seemed to him that it would have been more profitable to concentrate on his medical career. You never knew: perhaps an a.s.sisted death, or a faulty diagnosis somewhere in the past. Anything could have happened. But that wasn't what Adamsberg was after. The commissaire had sent him here, where n.o.body knew what had become of Pontieux beyond the age of twenty-four.

By ten o'clock, Danglard was dragging himself round Marcilly on his own, light-headed with local wine and having learnt nothing of substance. He didn't want to return empty-handed to Paris. He felt he should keep trying, although spending the night here was not an attractive option. He called the children to wish them goodnight. Then he went to the address that had been given him in the last cafe, where there was a possible room for the night. His hostess was an old lady who served him yet another gla.s.s of the local wine. Danglard felt like pouring out all his woes to this aged but lively face.

XVI.

WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE, MATHILDE HAD BEEN FRETTING ALL week. In the first place, she had not been best pleased to hear Charles coming in at half past one in the morning, and then learning next morning that another woman had been murdered. And as if to rub salt in the wound, Charles had spent the evening joking maliciously, in a thoroughly aggravating way. At the end of her tether, she had thrown him out of her apartment and told him he could come back when he was in a better mood. It worried her, there was no disguising it. As for Clemence, she had come back very late the same night in tears, and completely distraught. Mathilde had spent a fruitless hour trying to sort her out. Finally Clemence, her nerves shattered, had agreed that it would do her good to have a change of scene. The lonely-hearts ads were very bad for her. Mathilde had approved of this immediately, and sent her back up to the Stickleback to pack her case and take a few hours' rest. She was cross with herself, because next morning as she heard Clemence tiptoeing downstairs trying not to disturb her, she had thought: 'Good riddance, four days without having to put up with her.' Clemence had promised to come back the following Wednesday to finish the cla.s.sification she had started. She probably guessed that her friend the dressmaker wouldn't be too keen to keep her longer than that. She was fairly clear-eyed, old Clemence. How old was she, anyway? Mathilde wondered. Sixty, seventy, somewhere in between? Her dark red-rimmed eyes and her unattractive pointed teeth made it difficult to guess.

During the week, Charles had continued to pull his own handsome face into infuriating expressions, and Clemence had failed to return as agreed. The slides were still scattered on the table. Charles was the first to say that it was a bit worrying, but maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if the old woman had followed some man she met in the train and got herself murdered. This caused Mathilde to have a nightmare. When the funny little shrew-mouse hadn't returned by Friday evening, she had been on the verge of starting to search for her by calling the dressmaker.

At which point Clemence turned up again. 'Oh s.h.i.t!' said Charles who was sitting on the sofa in Mathilde's apartment, running his fingers over a book in Braille. But Mathilde was relieved. All the same, looking at them both invading her room, the magnificent-looking man, sprawling on the couch, and the little old woman taking off her nylon overall but keeping her beret on her head, Mathilde told herself that something wasn't right in her house.

XVII.

ADAMSBERG LOOKED UP TO SEE DANGLARD ARRIVING IN HIS OFFICE at nine in the morning, a finger pressed to his brow but in a state of high excitement. He flopped down heavily into an armchair and took a few deep breaths.

'Sorry,' he said. 'I've been running. I took the first train back from Marcilly this morning. Couldn't reach you by phone, you weren't home.'

Adamsberg spread his hands in a gesture signifying: 'Can't be helped, you don't always choose which bed you end up in.'

'The lovely old lady I lodged with,' said Danglard in between breaths, 'knew your famous doctor very well. So well, in fact, that he confided in her. I'm not surprised she's a special kind of woman. Gerard Pontieux had been engaged, she told me, to the daughter of the local pharmacist, a girl who was plain, but rich. He needed money to set up in practice. And then, at the last minute, he felt disgusted with himself. He told himself that if he started out like that, based on a lie, he wouldn't make an honest doctor. So he pulled out and jilted the girl, the day after the engagement had been announced, sending her a cowardly letter telling her that he couldn't go through with it. Well, none of that's so serious, is it? Not serious at all. Except for the girl's name.'

'Clemence Valmont,' said Adamsberg.

'Spot on,' said Danglard.

'We're going over there,' said Adamsberg, stubbing out the cigarette he had just lit.

Twenty minutes later, they were standing at the door of 44 rue des Patriarches. It was Sat.u.r.day morning and everything seemed quiet. n.o.body answered the interphone to Clemence's flat.

'Try Mathilde Forestier,' said Adamsberg, for once almost tense with impatience. 'Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg here,' he said into the interphone. 'Open the street door, Madame Forestier. Be quick, please.'

He ran up the stairs to the Flying Gurnard on the second floor, where Mathilde opened her door.

'I need the key for upstairs, Madame Forestier. Clemence's key. You've got a spare?'

Mathilde went, without asking questions, to fetch a bunch of keys labelled 'Stickleback'.

'I'll come up with you,' she said, her voice even huskier first thing in the morning than in the evening. 'I've been worrying myself silly, Adamsberg.'

They all trooped into Clemence's apartment. Nothing. No sign of life, no clothes in the wardrobe, no papers on the tables.

'Oh, sod it! Bird's flown,' said Danglard.

Adamsberg paced round the room, more slowly than ever, looking at his feet, opening an empty cupboard here, pulling out a drawer there, then pacing round some more. 'He's not thinking about anything,' thought Danglard, feeling exasperated, and especially exasperated at their failure. He would have liked Adamsberg to explode with anger, then to react quickly and dash about giving orders, to try and retrieve this mess one way or the other, but it was no use hoping he would do anything like that. On the contrary, he gave a charming smile as he accepted the coffee offered them by Mathilde, who was distraught.

Adamsberg called the office from her flat, and described Clemence Valmont as precisely as possible.

'Issue this description to all stations, airports, gendarmeries and so on. The usual thing. And send a man over here. The apartment will have to be watched.'

He replaced the phone quietly and drank his coffee calmly as if nothing had happened.

'You need to take it easy you don't look well,' he said to Mathilde. 'Danglard, try and explain to Madame Forestier what's been happening, as gently as you can. I won't do it myself, you'll have to excuse me. I don't explain things well.'

'You saw in the papers that Le Nermord had been released without charge over the murders, but that he was the blue circle man?' Danglard began.

'Yes, of course,' said Mathilde. 'I saw his photo. And yes, that was the man I followed, and it was the same man who used to eat in the little restaurant in Pigalle, a few years ago! Harmless! I got tired of telling Adamsberg that. Humiliated, frustrated, anything you like, but harmless. I did tell you, commissaire!'

'Yes, you did. But I didn't agree,' said Adamsberg.

'Quite,' said Mathilde with emphasis. 'But where's the poor old shrew-mouse gone now? Why are you looking for her? She came back from the countryside last night, looking much better, full of beans, so I don't understand why she's gone off again today.'

'Has she ever told you about the fiance who jilted her long ago without warning?'

'Yes, more or less,' said Mathilde. 'But it didn't affect her that much. You're not going in for crackpot psychology now, are you?'

'We have to,' said Danglard. 'Gerard Pontieux, the second murder victim, that was him. Clemence's long-lost fiance, from fifty years ago.'

'You can't be serious,' said Mathilde.

'I'm deadly serious, I've just got back from Marcilly,' said Danglard. 'The town they both came from. She wasn't originally from Neuilly, Mathilde.'

Adamsberg noted that Danglard was calling Madame Forestier 'Mathilde'.

'The rage and madness he'd caused her had been festering for fifty years,' Danglard went on. 'So as she was nearing the end of a life that she considered blighted, her thoughts turned to murder. And the chalk circle man offered a unique opportunity. It was now or never. She'd always kept track of Gerard Pontieux, the target of her obsession. She knew where he lived. She left Neuilly to try and find the man who was drawing the circles, and she came to you, Mathilde. You were the only person who could lead her to him. And to his circles. First of all, she killed that poor fat middle-aged woman, who was just someone at random, to start some sort of "series". Then she killed Pontieux. She took such pleasure in the attack that it was really vicious. And then, because she was afraid the investigation wouldn't find the chalk circle man fast enough, and would be looking all the more closely at the murder of the doctor, she decided to attack the circle man's own estranged wife, Delphine Le Nermord. She had to make it look similar to the attack on Pontieux, so that the police doctor wouldn't be able to point out any differences. Except that he was a man.'

Danglard glanced over at Adamsberg, who said nothing, but motioned to him to carry on.

'The last murder led us straight to the circle man, just as she'd foreseen. But Clemence Valmont thinks in peculiar ways very twisted but naive at the same time. Because for the circle man to be the murderer of his own wife was going too far. Unless he was completely mad, Le Nermord would hardly have chosen to bring the police straight to his door. So eventually, yesterday, we let him go. Clemence hears that on the radio. With Le Nermord off the hook, everything looks different. Her plan bites the dust. She still has time to get away. So that's what she does.'

Mathilde looked from one to the other in consternation. Adamsberg waited for it to sink in. He knew it would take time, and that she would not want to believe it.

'No, that can't be it,' said Mathilde. 'She'd never have had the physical strength. Remember what a skinny little thing she is?'