This Poison Will Remain by Fred Vargas

Author:Fred Vargas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-08-19T16:00:00+00:00

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Froissy appeared, with a little colour in her cheeks and followed by Veyrenc, just as Mercadet came down the stairs carrying a well-fed purring cat, which he gently replaced on the photocopier. The machine was pressed into service only for emergencies, because it was the creature’s resting place. But they left the copier switched on so that the surface would stay warm. Fleetingly, Adamsberg thought that life in his squad was very complicated. Had he been too lax? Allowing Voisenet to litter his desk with magazines about fish, allowing the cat to dictate its own territory, allowing Mercadet to take a nap on the cushions whenever he needed to, allowing Froissy to fill her cupboards with food rations as if in wartime, allowing Mordent to indulge his love of fairy tales, Danglard to wallow in his encyclopedic erudition, and Noël to persevere in his sexism and homophobia? And allowing his own mind to be open to every wind.

He ran his fingers through his hair again as he watched Froissy approach, holding a file, followed by Veyrenc.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked, in a voice that seemed to himself to sound tired.

‘Something was bothering Veyrenc.’

‘Just as well, Louis, because tonight, the wind is blowing through my ears. I feel like a damp rag.’

‘I checked out the records of the bad boys in the orphanage who have already died,’ Froissy continued. ‘Remember them? The ones who were dead long before the recluse attacks?’

‘Yes,’ said Adamsberg. ‘There were four of them.’

‘César Missoli, Denis Haubert, Colin Duval and Victor Ménard,’ Froissy listed them. ‘Veyrenc thought it wasn’t logical. If the boys who had been bitten had decided to take vengeance on the whole gang, it was unlikely they’d have allowed those ones to die in their beds.’

‘Vengeance has to be total or nothing,’ said Veyrenc.

‘And?’ said Adamsberg, looking up.

‘César Missoli was shot in the back, outside his house in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, Alpes-Maritimes. They never got to the bottom of it. Since he was connected to mafia networks in Antibes, they assumed it was gang warfare.’

‘When was this?’

‘In 1996. Two years later, Denis Haubert fell off his roof, which he was repairing. The safety catch on his extension ladder gave way. Classified as a household accident.’

Adamsberg started to pace round the room, hands behind his back. Then he lit one of Zerk’s last cigarettes, half emptied of tobacco. He was going to have to buy a few more for his son soon, so that he could steal them. He didn’t like this brand, which was too bitter for him, but you don’t look a gift cigarette in the mouth. Veyrenc was smiling, leaning back on Kernorkian’s table, arms folded.

‘Three years go by,’ Froissy was saying. ‘And it’s Victor Ménard’s turn, in 2001. He’s a garage owner, likes powerful motorbikes. At the time he had a 630cc that he liked riding at top speed. A heavy machine if you hit a slippery patch on the road.’

‘Slippery?’

‘Covered in motor oil,’ said Froissy, ‘a stretch four metres long on a bend.

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