Adamsberg swallowed down his coffee, surprised. He hadn’t thought about Veyrenc since he had left the squad. He was not inclined to dwell on the stormy events that had set them against each other in a previous case.
‘Perhaps you’re not bothered though,’ said Mercadet.
‘Perhaps. Mainly it’s that we don’t have time for that sort of thing, lieutenant.’
‘I’ll get over there,’ said Mercadet with a nod. ‘Danglard left a message for you. Nothing to do with the Garches affair.’
Adamsberg finished page 12 as he went down the stairs. Aha, the witty Nolet was not getting on as well as all that. The ex-husband had an alibi, the inquiry was at a standstill. Adamsberg folded up the paper contentedly. In reception, the son of Pierre Vaudel was waiting for him, sitting upright, alongside his wife. He looked no more than thirty-five. Adamsberg paused. How do you tell a man his father has been chopped into pieces?
The commissaire avoided getting to the point for some time, as he went through the formalities of identity and family. Pierre was an only child, and a late one. His mother had become pregnant after sixteen years of marriage, when his father had been forty-four. And Pierre Vaudel senior had been unrelentingly furious about this pregnancy, without giving his wife any reason. He was implacably opposed to having children, this child was not to be born and he wasn’t going to discuss it further. His wife had given in and gone away to have an abortion. In fact, she stayed away six months and allowed the pregnancy to go to term, and Pierre, son of Pierre, was born. His father’s anger had finally subsided after five years, but he always refused to let the child and his mother come and live with him.
Pierre junior had only seen his father now and then as a child, and had been petrified by this man who had refused his existence with such determination. And this fear was entirely because of his having been born against his father’s wishes, since Pierre senior was apparently a perfectly reasonable man in other respects, generous according to his friends and affectionate according to his wife. Or at least he had been at one time, since a gradual withdrawal from contacts made it hard to discover his feelings. From the age of fifty-five, he would only see very few visitors, and over time detached himself from all those in his previously quite wide circle of friends. Later on, as a teenager, Pierre junior had managed to gain occasional entry, coming to play the piano on Saturday mornings, choosing pieces he thought would please his father. Then as a young man, Pierre junior had managed to get some serious attention. For the last ten years, especially since his mother’s death, the two Pierres had met fairly regularly. The son had become a lawyer and his professional knowledge had been helpful to his father when he was researching legal cases. Working together had allowed them to avoid having too much personal conversation.
‘What was his interest in these cases?’
‘Well, it was his living. He made all his money from it. He did law reports for several papers and specialist periodicals. Then he would go in search of miscarriages of justice. He was a scientist by training and he used to complain all the time about how sloppy the judicial system was. He said that the law was ambiguous and could be twisted one way and another, so the truth got lost in these endless and sickening arguments. He said you could tell at once if a verdict was right or wrong, if it clicked into place satisfactorily or not. He operated like a locksmith, working by ear. If it squeaked he looked for the truth.’
‘And did he find it?’
‘Several times, yes. He was responsible for the posthumous exoneration of the Sologne murderer, remember that? And other famous cases too where people got released: K. Jimmy Jones in the US, a banker called Trevenant, Madame Pasnier. He got Professor Glérant acquitted. His articles really counted. As time went on, many lawyers started to worry about his going into print. He was offered bribes, which he refused.’
Pierre junior rested his chin on his hand, looking annoyed. He was not particularly handsome, with his domed forehead and pointed chin. But his eyes were rather remarkable, with a blank, dull glare, impenetrable shutters, possibly not open to pity. Leaning forward, with drooping shoulders and consulting his wife with a glance, he looked an apparently easy-going, docile man. But Adamsberg judged that there was intransigence somewhere behind the fixed glass of his eyes.
‘Were there some less happy endings?’ he asked.
‘He said the truth was a two-way street. He was also responsible for getting three men found guilty. One of them hanged himself in jail after protesting his innocence.’
‘When was this?’
‘Just before my father retired, about thirteen years ago.’
‘Who was it?’
‘Jean-Christophe Réal.’
Adamsberg nodded, indicating that he recognised the name.
‘Réal hanged himself on his twenty-ninth birthday.’
‘Were there any letters after that, threatening vengeance?’
‘What’s all this about?’ asked Pierre’s wife, who, unlike her husband, had regular and unremarkable features. ‘Father’s death wasn’t from natural causes. Is that it? You’ve got doubts about it? If so, say so. Since early this morning, the police haven’t given us a single clear fact. Father’s dead, but we don’t even know if it’s him. Your colleague says we can’t see the body. Why?’
‘Because it’s difficult.’
‘Are you telling us that Father – if it is Father – died in embarrassing circumstances? In bed with a prostitute? I hardly think so. Or some upper-class woman? Is this a cover-up, to protect people in high places? Because yes, my father-in-law did know a lot of those people who think they’re untouchable, the ex-minister of justice for a start. Totally corrupt.’
‘Hélène, please,’ said Pierre, but he was allowing her to go on.
‘Let me remind you, this is Pierre’s father we’re talking about, and he has a perfect right to see anything and to know anything there is to know, before you, and certainly before people in high places. We see the body, or we don’t answer any more questions.’
‘That seems reasonable, doesn’t it?’ said Pierre, in the manner of a lawyer finding a satisfactory compromise.
‘There is no body,’ said Adamsberg, looking straight at the wife.
‘No body,’ repeated Pierre mechanically.
‘No.’
‘Well, then how do you know it’s him?’
‘Because he’s in the villa.’
‘Who’s in the villa?’
‘The body.’
Adamsberg opened the window and looked out at the lime trees. They had been in flower for a few days and their scent floated in on a breath of air.
‘The body’s in pieces,’ he said. ‘He was’ – what word to choose? chopped up? pulverised? – ‘cut into pieces and scattered round the room. The big room with the piano. There’s nothing left to identify. I don’t recommend that you see it.’
‘There’s some kind of cover-up going on,’ the wife insisted. ‘You’re hiding something. What are you doing with him?’
‘We’ve collected what’s left of him, by going over every square metre of the room and placing what we find in numbered containers. Forty-eight square metres, forty-eight containers.’
Adamsberg turned back from the lime-tree blossom and towards Hélène Vaudel. Pierre was still looking down, leaving matters to his wife.
‘People do say that it’s hard to grieve properly unless you have seen with your own eyes,’ Adamsberg went on. ‘But I’ve known cases where people have regretted it, and all things considered would prefer not to have seen. Still, the photos taken when the police arrived are available here,’ he said, passing his mobile to Hélène. ‘And we can send you to Garches in a car, if you insist. But perhaps you should have some inkling what’s there before you decide. These aren’t good quality, but they’ll give you an idea.’