'You do impress me,' repeated Mathilde. 'I can't say I've dreamed of having a son like you, because he would have driven me up the wall, but you impress me. I'm starting to see why you don't give a d.a.m.n about fish.'

'You're probably the one who's right, Mathilde, because you find something to love in slimy creatures with round eyes that aren't even good to eat. But it wouldn't bother me if all the fish in the sea were dead.'

'You certainly have the gift of giving me impossible ideas for a section two of the week. You've even upset yourself look, you're sweating. Don't get so steamed up about Adamsberg. He's a nice guy, isn't he?'

'Oh yes,' said Charles. 'He's a nice guy all right. He says nice things, does Adamsberg. And I can't understand why that doesn't worry you.'

'You do impress me, Charles,' Mathilde repeated.

IX.

STRAIGHT AFTER LUNCH, ADAMSBERG DECIDED TO TRY SOMETHING.

Inspired by the little diary they had found on the dead woman, he bought a small notebook that he could slip into his back pocket. So that if he was struck by some interesting thought he could write it down. Not that he was hoping for any miracles. But he told himself that when the notebook was full, the overall effect might be relevant and perhaps provide him with some insight into himself.

He felt that he had never been living so much from day to day as at this moment. He had already noted on many occasions that the more pressing anxieties he had, hara.s.sing him with their urgency and seriousness, the more his brain seemed to want to play dead. In response, he did his best to live by concentrating on little things, as if he were some stranger who cared about nothing, wiping out any thoughts and qualities, keeping his spirit a blank, his heart empty and his mind fixed entirely on short wavelengths. This state, a stretch of indifference which discouraged all those around him, was well-known to him now, but he found it hard to control. Because when he was in this uncaring mode, having rid himself of all the worries of the planet, he felt calm and on the whole happy. But as the days went by, such indifference insidiously caused internal damage so that everything became colourless. People began to become transparent to him, all identical, since they were so distant from him. And this lasted until, coming to some end point in his informal disgust with the world, he felt that he himself had no density, no importance at all, letting himself be ferried along by other people's daily lives, being all the readier to carry out a host of little kindnesses since he had become completely detached from them. His body's mechanisms and his automatic responses enabled him to get through the day, but he wasn't there for anyone. At this stage, almost out of his own existence, Adamsberg felt no anxiety, had no thoughts. This disinterest for the world did not even have the panic-inducing fear of nothingness. His spiritual apathy did not bring with it the dread of ennui.

But G.o.d in heaven, it had happened very quickly this time.

He could perfectly well remember the extreme distress which only yesterday had struck him when he had imagined that Camille was dead. And now even the word 'distress' seemed meaningless to him. What could distress mean? That Camille was dead? But what did that matter now? Madeleine Chtelain had had her throat cut, the chalk circle man was still on the loose, Christiane was pusuing him, Danglard was depressed, and he had to deal with the whole b.l.o.o.d.y mess, but what was the point?

So he sat down in a cafe, took out his notepad and waited. He surveyed his thoughts as they proceeded through his head. They seemed to have a middle, but no beginning and no end. So how could he write them down? Disgusted but still calm, after an hour he wrote: 'Can't think of anything to think'.

Then from the cafe he telephoned Mathilde. Clemence Valmont answered the phone. The old woman's grating voice brought him a sense of reality, the idea of doing something before he completely lost touch with things and pa.s.sed out. Mathilde had returned home. He wanted to see her, but not at her house. He gave her an appointment for five o'clock at his office.

Unexpectedly, Mathilde arrived on time. She had surprised even herself.

'I don't understand,' she said. 'It must be the effect of "helping the police with their inquiries".'

Then she looked at Adamsberg, who was not drawing but was sitting with his legs outstretched, one hand in his trouser pocket, the other holding a cigarette in his fingertips and seeming so disorganised and nonchalant that it was hard to know how to approach him. But Mathilde sensed that he was quite capable of doing his job, even looking like that, or perhaps especially when looking like that.

'I get the feeling this isn't going to be as much fun as last time,' said Mathilde.

'You could be right,' said Adamsberg.

'It's ridiculous going to all this performance of getting me called to the station. You would have done better to come to the Flying Gurnard, and we could have had a drink and a bite to eat. Clemence has made a repulsive sort of dish, her local speciality, she says.'

'Where's she from?'

'Neuilly.'

'The Paris suburbs aren't exactly exotic. But I'm not staging any kind of performance. I just needed to talk to you and I didn't want to sit cosily in the Flying Gurnard or anywhere else you might have in mind.'

'Because a policeman doesn't eat dinner with his suspects?'

'On the contrary, that's just what he does do,' said Adamsberg wearily. 'Being on matey terms with the suspects is precisely what the books recommend. But over in your house, it's like a railway station. Blind men, batty old women, students, philosophers, upstairs neighbours, downstairs neighours you have to be one of the Queen's courtiers or you're nothing at all, isn't that right? And I don't like the choice of courtier or nothing. But I don't know why I'm bothering to say all this, it's not important.'

Mathilde laughed.

'I get it,' she said. 'In future we should meet in a cafe or on a bridge over the Seine, some neutral territory where we'd be on equal terms. Like two republican French citizens. Mind if I smoke?'

'Go ahead. That article in the 5th arrondiss.e.m.e.nt newsletter, Madame Forestier, did you know about it?'

'Never heard of the d.a.m.n thing till Charles recited it from memory for me at lunch time today. And as for whatever I was shouting about at the Dodin Bouffant, it's no good trying to get me to remember it. All I can tell you is that when I've had a few drinks, my stories multiply reality by about thirty. It's not impossible that I boasted that the chalk circle man came to dinner with me, and shared my bath, or my bed, or that we planned his nocturnal tricks together. Once I start showing off, nothing is too outrageous. So, you can imagine. Sometimes I act like a natural disaster, as my philosopher friend takes care to tell me.'

Adamsberg pulled a face.

'I find it hard to forget you're a scientist,' he said. 'I don't think you're as unpredictable as you make out.'

'So, Adamsberg, you think I cut Madeleine Chtelain's throat? It's true I don't have a respectable alibi for that evening n.o.body checks when I come and go. There's no man sharing my bed at the moment, and there's no concierge for our block: I'm as free as the wind, as free as the mice. So what is this poor woman supposed to have done to me to prompt this?'

'Everyone has their secrets. Danglard would say that since you spend your time following thousands of people, Madeleine Chtelain could figure somewhere in your notes.'

'It's not impossible.'

'He would add that in your underwater career you are known to have slit the bellies of two blue sharks. You're capable of determination, courage and strength.'

'Oh, come on, you're not going to shelter behind someone else's arguments, are you? Danglard this, Danglard that. What about you?'

'Danglard's a thinker. I listen to what he says. In my view, only one thing matters: the chalk circle man and his wretched outings. Nothing else. Take Charles Reyer, now what do you know about him? It's impossible to tell which of you first sought the other out. It looks as if it was you, but perhaps he forced your hand.'

There was a silence, then Mathilde said: 'Do you really think I'd allow myself to be manipulated like that?'

At this difference in her tone, Adamsberg interrupted the doodling he had started. Sitting opposite, she was staring at him, smiling, grand and generous, very sure of herself, regal, as if she could demolish his office and the rest of the world with a simple mocking remark. So he spoke slowly, chancing some new ideas suggested by her expression. Resting his cheek on his hand, he said: 'When you came to the police station the first time it wasn't because you were looking for Charles Reyer, was it?'

Mathilde laughed.

'Yes, I was looking for him! But I could have found him without your help, you know.'

'Of course. It was stupid of me. But you're a splendid liar. So what game are we playing here? Who were you really looking for? Me?'

'Yes, you.'

'Simple curiosity, because my appointment had been announced in the papers? You wanted to add me to your collection? No, it wasn't that.'

'No, of course not,' said Mathilde.

' To talk about the chalk circle man, as Danglard thinks?'

'No, not even that. If it hadn't been for the press cuttings you had under the desk lamp, I wouldn't have thought of that. You're free not to believe me, of course, now that you know I'm thoroughly unreliable.'

Adamsberg shook his head. He felt he was on the wrong track.

'It was because I got a letter,' Mathilde continued. 'It said: "I have just heard that Jean-Baptiste has been appointed to a job in Paris. Please go and take a look." So I came to take a look, as was natural. There are no coincidences in this life, as you well know.'

Mathilde inhaled smoke, with a smile. She was really enjoying all this, was Mathilde. Yes, she was having a ball, in her d.a.m.ned section of the d.a.m.ned week.

'Tell me the rest, Madame Forestier. Who was the letter from? Who are we talking about?'

'Our beautiful traveller. Sweeter than me, more shy, less disreputable, less bohemian. My daughter Camille, my daughter. But you were right in one respect, Adamsberg. Richard III is dead.'

Afterwards, Adamsberg could not have said whether Mathilde left immediately or a little while later. Disconnected as he was at this moment, one thing had echoed round inside in his head. She was alive, Camille was alive. His pet.i.te cherie, never mind where, never mind who she was with, she was breathing, her obstinate forehead, her tender lips, her wisdom, her futility, her silhouette, they were all alive and well.

Only later, as he was walking home having posted men for the night at the Saint-Georges and Pigalle metro stations, despite a feeling that it was pointless did he realise what he had learned. Camille was Mathilde Forestier's daughter. Well, of course. Even though Mathilde was a great mystifier, there was no point bothering to check it out. Profiles like that weren't ma.s.s-produced.

There is no such thing as coincidence. His pet.i.te cherie, somewhere in the world, had read a French newspaper and learned about his posting, then had written to her mother. Perhaps she wrote to her often. Perhaps they even saw each other often. It was possible indeed that Mathilde managed to make the destinations of her scientific expeditions correspond to wherever her daughter was at the time. In fact, Adamsberg was certain of it. He would only have to find out which coasts Mathilde had been working from for the last few years to know where Camille had been. So he had been right. She had been travelling, lost and out of reach. Out of reach. He realised that. He never would manage to catch hold of her. But she had wanted to know what was happening to him. He hadn't melted from her mind like wax. But then he had never had any doubt about that. Not that he thought himself unforgettable. All the same, he felt that a little piece of him had lodged like a tiny stone, somewhere in Camille, and that she too must be carrying him round inside her like a weight, infinitesimal though it might be. It was inevitable. It had to be. However vain human love appeared to him, and however dark his feeling today, he could not admit that some magnetised fragment of that love was not still lodged somewhere in Camille's body. Just as he knew, although he rarely thought about it, that he had never allowed Camille's existence to dissolve from inside himself, though he couldn't have said why, because he had not consciously thought about it.

What bothered him, and even distracted him from the far country where his mood of indifference had taken him, was that now he would only have to ask Mathilde to find out. Just to find out. To find out, for instance, whether Camille loved someone else. But it was better not to know, and to keep on imagining the bellhop in the Cairo hotel where he had left off last time. The bellhop was good-looking, dark, with long eyelashes, and it was just for a couple of nights, since he had got rid of the c.o.c.kroaches in the bathroom. And in any case, Mathilde wouldn't tell him. They wouldn't speak about it any more. Not a word about the girl who was taking both of them on journeys from Egypt to the Paris suburbs, and that was that. But what if she really was in the Paris suburbs? She was alive, that was all that Mathilde had wanted to tell him. So she had kept the promise she had made the other night at the Saint-Georges metro station. She had removed that death from his head.

Perhaps too, since Mathilde felt herself under threat from the police and their hara.s.sing questions, she had been setting out to make herself untouchable. To let him know that if he went on hara.s.sing the mother he would distress the daughter. No, that wasn't Mathilde's style. There was no future in talking about it any more; it was a closed subject, full stop. He had to leave Camille wherever she was, and carry on the inquiries surrounding Madame Forestier without deviating from his course. That was what the investigating magistrate had said earlier that afternoon. 'No deviating from the course of the inquiry, Adamsberg.' But what course? A course a.s.sumed a plan, some future laid out ahead, and in this case Adamsberg had less of a plan than ever before. He was waiting for the chalk circle man. This man didn't seem to trouble many people. But for him, the man behind the circles was a creature who laughed at night and pulled cruel faces during the day. A man who was difficult to catch, disguised, putrid and feathery like moths of the night, and the thought of him was repulsive, giving Adamsberg the shivers. How could Mathilde possibly think the man was 'harmless' and take a ridiculous pleasure in following him around as he drew his deadly circles? That was an example, whatever he might say, of Mathilde's fantastic recklessness. And how could Danglard, the learned and deep Danglard, also be certain this man was innocent, expelling him from his thoughts, whereas in Adamsberg's mind he was crouching like a malevolent spider? But perhaps he, Adamsberg, was going desperately wrong? Too bad, if so. He had only ever been able to follow his own train of thought, wherever it took him. And whatever happened, he would keep on chasing this deadly man. And he would see him, he had to. Perhaps when he saw him he would change his mind. Perhaps. He would wait. He was sure that the chalk circle man would come to him. The day after tomorrow. The day after tomorrow, perhaps, there would be a new circle.

He had to wait another two days, long enough to make one think that the circle man was obeying some kind of rule and didn't operate at weekends. Not until the Monday night did his quarry pick up the chalk again.

A patrolling officer discovered a blue chalk circle in the rue de La Croix-Nivert at six in the morning.

This time, Adamsberg accompanied Danglard and Conti.

The object on the ground was a plastic model of a swimmer, about the size of his thumb. This effigy of a baby, lost in the middle of a huge circle, produced a certain malaise. That's deliberate, thought Adamsberg. Danglard must have thought the same thing at the same moment.

'This lunatic's winding us up,' he said. 'Putting a human figure in the circle after the murder the other day ... He must have searched for ages to find this doll, or else he brought it along with him. Though that would be cheating.'

'He's no lunatic,' Adamsberg said. 'It's just that his pride is getting piqued. So he's starting to make conversation.'

'Conversation?'

'Well, communicating with us, if you like. He held out for several days after the murder, longer than I thought he would. He's changed his haunts and he's more elusive now. But he's starting to talk. He's saying: "I know there's been a murder, but I'm not scared of anything, and to prove it, here we go again." And it'll carry on. No reason he should stop talking now. He's on a slippery slope. The slope of language. Where he's no longer sufficient unto himself.'

'There's something unusual about this circle,' Danglard observed. 'It's not drawn the same way as the others. It's the same writing, that's for sure. But he's gone about it differently, wouldn't you say, Conti?'

Conti nodded.

'The other times,' said Danglard, 'he drew the circle in one go, as if he was walking round and drawing at the same time, without stopping. Last night he drew two semicircles meeting up, as if he did one side first and then the other. Has he lost the knack in five days?'

'Yes, that's true,' said Adamsberg, with a smile. 'He's getting careless. Vercors-Laury would find that interesting and he'd be right.'

Next morning, Adamsberg called the office as soon as he was up. The man had been drawing circles again in the 5th arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, in the rue Saint-Jacques, just a stone's throw from the rue Pierre-et-Marie-Curie where Madeleine Chtelain had been killed.

Carrying on the conversation, thought Adamsberg. Something along the lines of 'Nothing's going to stop me drawing my circle near the murder scene.' And if he didn't actually draw it in the rue Pierre-et-Marie-Curie itself, it was simply out of consideration, a matter of taste if you like. This man is refined.

'What's inside the circle?' he asked.

'Some tangled ca.s.sette tape.'

While listening to Margellon's report, Adamsberg was leafing through the mail from his letter box. He had in front of him a letter from Christiane, pa.s.sionate in tone, repet.i.tive in content. Leaving you. Egotistical. Don't want to see you again. Have my pride. And so on for six pages.

All right, we'll think about that tonight, he told himself, feeling sure that he was indeed egotistical, but having learned from experience that when people are really leaving you they don't bother to warn you with six-page letters. They just go without a word, like the pet.i.te cherie. And people who walk about with the handle of a revolver sticking out of their pockets never kill themselves either, as some poet whose name he couldn't remember had said, in more or less those words. So Christiane would probably be back, with plenty of demands. Complications ahead. Under the shower, Adamsberg resolved not to be too mean, and to think about her tonight, if he could remember to think about her.

He arranged to meet Danglard and Conti in the rue Saint-Jacques. The tangled ca.s.sette tape lay like spilled intestines in the morning sun, in the centre of the big circle, drawn with a single line this time. Danglard, a tall weary figure, his fair hair thrown back, was watching him approach. For some reason, perhaps because of his colleague's apparent fatigue, or his air of being a defeated thinker who was still persevering in his enquiries into destiny, or because of the way he folded and unfolded his large, dissatisfied and resigned body, Adamsberg found Danglard touching that morning. He felt the urge to tell him again that he really liked him. At certain moments, Adamsberg had the unusual gift of making short sentimental declarations which embarra.s.sed other people by their simplicity, of a kind not habitual between adults. He quite often told a colleague he was good-looking, even when it wasn't true, and whatever the state of indifference he was undergoing at the time.

For the moment, Danglard, in his impeccable jacket, but preoccupied by some secret worry, was leaning against a car. He was jingling coins in his trouser pocket. He's got money worries, Adamsberg thought. Danglard had owned up to having four children, but Adamsberg already knew from office gossip that he had five, that they all lived in three rooms with this providential father's salary as their only income. But n.o.body felt pity for Danglard, nor did Adamsberg. It was unthinkable to feel pity for someone like him. Because his obvious intelligence generated a special zone around him, about two metres in radius, and you took care to think before speaking when you entered the zone. Danglard was more the object of discreet watchfulness than of gestures of help. Adamsberg wondered whether the 'philosopher friend' mentioned by Mathilde generated a zone like that, and how broad it was. The said philosopher friend seemed to know quite a bit about Mathilde. Perhaps he had been at the evening event at the Dodin Bouffant. Finding out his name and address and going to see him and question him would be a minor police task, to be carried out without broadcasting it. Not the sort of thing that tempted Adamsberg as a rule, but this time he thought he would take it on himself.

'There's a witness,' said Danglard. 'He was already at the station when I left. He's waiting there for me now to make his statement.'

'What did he see?'

'At about ten to midnight a small thin man pa.s.sed him, running. It was only when he heard the radio this morning that he made the connection. He described an elderly man, slight build, thinning hair, in a hurry and carrying a bag under his arm.'

'That's all?'

'He left behind him, it seemed to this witness, a slight smell of vinegar.'

'Vinegar? Not rotten apples?'

'No. Vinegar.'

Danglard was in a better mood now.

'A thousand witnesses, a thousand noses,' he added, smiling and spreading wide his long arms. 'A thousand noses, a thousand different interpretations. A thousand interpretations probably add up to a thousand childhood memories. One person thinks of rotten apples, another vinegar, and tomorrow we might have people talking about what? Nutmeg, furniture polish, strawberries, talc.u.m powder, dusty curtains, cough mixture, gherkins ... The circle man must have a smell that reminds people of their childhood.'

'Or the smell of a cupboard,' said Adamsberg.

'Why a cupboard?'

'I don't know. But childhood smells come from cupboards, don't they? All sorts of smells get mixed up together, it makes a sort of universal smell.'

'We're getting off the point,' said Danglard.

'Not that much.'

Danglard realised that Adamsberg was starting to float again, to disengage, or whatever he did; at any rate the already vague connections in his logic were being relaxed, so he proposed they should go back to the station.

'I'm not coming with you, Danglard. Take the statement from the vinegar witness without me I feel like hearing what Mathilde Forestier's "philosopher friend" has to say.'

'I thought you weren't interested in Madame Forestier's case.'

'No, correction, she does interest me, Danglard. I agree with you. She's blocking our path here. But she doesn't seriously bother me.'

In any case, thought Danglard, so few things did seriously bother his commissaire that he wasn't going to hang about thinking of them. Wait a minute, though. Yes, the story of the stupid dog that drooled and all the rest of it, that had seriously bothered him, and still did. And there were other things of the same order, as he would one day discover, perhaps. It was true, this irritated him. And the better he got to know Adamsberg, the more mysterious his boss became, as unpredictable as a night creature whose heavy, b.u.mbling but effective flight wears out anyone trying to catch it. But he would have liked to borrow some of Adamsberg's vagueness and uncertainty, the times when his gaze seemed to be dying or burning by turns, making you want either to get away from him or to get closer to him. He thought that if he had Adamsberg's gaze, he might see things start to wobble, to lose their clear reasonable contours, like trees shimmering in a summer heat haze. Then the world would seem less implacable to him, he would stop wanting to understand every tiny little detail about everything, exploring the remotest areas of the heavens. He would feel less exhausted as a result. But as it was, only white wine enabled him to take his distance, for a brief and, as he knew, artificial moment.