An Uncertain Place by Fred Vargas

Author:Fred Vargas [Vargas, Fred]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Random House UK
Published: 2011-04-06T12:00:00+00:00

XXV

AS HE WENT INTO THE DOCTOR’S SURGERY, ADAMSBERG Realised that he reeked of aftershave, and that Dr Josselin had also noticed it with surprise.

‘It was a sample I spilt on myself,’ he explained. ‘Nitrocitraminic acid.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘I made the name up, it sounded good.’

There had been one good moment, when Zerketch had fallen for it, when he had believed that the nitrocitraminic acid really existed, believed in the little bottle and the hundredths of a second. Just then, Adamsberg had thought he had got him, but the young man had a secret weapon far more powerful. A different trick, a different illusion, but it had worked. He, Adamsberg, the cop, had let Zerketch go, without lifting a finger to stop him. When his revolver was on the table, he could have grabbed it in a couple of steps. Or he could have had the area surrounded in five minutes. But no, the commissaire hadn’t budged. ‘COMMISSAIRE ADAMSBERG LET THE MONSTER GO FREE.’ He could see the headlines. In Austria too. It would begin something like ‘KOMMISSAR ADAMSBERG’. In big letters dripping with blood, like the ribs on the Zerquetscher’s T-shirt. Then there would be a court case, people screaming, a lynch mob, a rope from a tree. The Zerquetscher would turn up, his fangs red with blood, thrusting his fist in the air and yelling with the others, ‘The son crushes the father!’ The characters of the headline began whirling into a cloud of black and green spots.

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