‘Vladislav Moldovan,’ the young man who was about thirty introduced himself, with a grin that covered his whole face. ‘You can call me Vlad.’
‘Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg. Thank you for agreeing to accompany me.’
‘On the contrary, it’s my pleasure. Dedo only took me twice to Kiseljevo, the last time I was fourteen years old.’
‘Dedo?’
‘My grandfather. I’ll go and visit his grave and tell him stories like he used to me. Is this our compartment?’ he asked, hesitating.
‘Foreign Missions must have mixed me up with someone important.’
‘Wow,’ said Vladislav, ‘I’ve never slept like someone important before. You need that if you’re going to confront the demons of Kiseljevo. I know some people who would rather stay hidden in a hut.’
Chatty fellow, said Adamsberg to himself, thinking that this was probably a professional deformation in someone who worked as a translator and interpreter. Vladislav translated from nine languages, and for Adamsberg, who could hardly remember Stock’s full name, this kind of brain was as strange as Danglard’s encyclopedic equipment. He was only afraid the young man with the sunny disposition would engage him in endless conversation.
‘Adrien Danglard – Adrianus, my grandfather used to call him – didn’t tell me why you’re going to Kiseljevo. As a general rule, people don’t go to Kiseljevo.’
‘Because it’s a small place, or because it has demons?’
‘Do you come from a village?’
‘Yes, Caldhez, a tiny place in the Pyrenees.’
‘Are there demons in Caldhez?’
‘Two: a nasty troll in a cave, and a singing tree.’
‘Wow. And what are you looking for in Kiseljevo?’
‘The roots of a story.’
‘It’s a very good place for roots.’
‘Have you heard about the murder in Garches?’
‘The old man who was chopped to bits?’
‘That’s it. Well, we found a note in his writing with the name of Kiseljevo in Cyrillic script.’
‘What has this got to do with my dedo? Adrianus said this was for Dedo.’
Adamsberg looked out of the window, trying to come up with an instant idea, which was not his strong point. He should have thought earlier of a plausible explanation. He didn’t intend to tell the young man that some Zerk had cut off his dedo’s feet. Things like that might pierce holes in the soul of a grandson, and destroy his sunny disposition.
‘Danglard listened to a lot of Slavko’s stories. And Danglard collects information the way a squirrel collects nuts, much more than he would need for twenty winters. He thinks he recalls that this man Vaudel – that was the victim’s name – went to live at some point in Kisilova, and that it was your Slavko who told him about this. It seemed perhaps that Vaudel was getting away from some kind of enemy by going to Kisilova.’
Not a very brilliant cover story, but it was enough, since just then a bell rang to say dinner was served. They decided to eat it in their compartment like really important people. Vladislav asked what ‘solettes à la Plogoff’ meant. And the steward explained in Italian that this meant sole cooked in the Breton fashion, with a sauce of oysters specially flown in from Plogoff, a village on the Pointe du Raz, the furthest western point in Brittany. He took their order, seeming to consider that this young man in a T-shirt and ponytail, with black hair covering his arms, was not a really important person, any more than his travelling companion.
‘If you’re as hairy as I am,’ Vlad said, once the steward had disappeared, ‘people send you to ride in a cattle truck. I inherited this on my mother’s side,’ he said sadly, pulling at the hairs on his forearm before breaking into a peal of laughter as abrupt as a vase shattering.
Vladislav’s laugh was deeply infectious and he seemed capable of laughing at anything without any assistance.
After the solettes à la Plogoff and the Valpolicella and the dessert, Adamsberg stretched out on the couchette with his files. He had to read everything and start from scratch again. This was the most wearing aspect of his work for him. Notes, files, reports, formal statements, where you couldn’t get through to any real sensation.
‘How do you get on with Adrianus?’ Vladislav interrupted, as Adamsberg was painfully deciphering the German file and conscientiously reading the report on Frau Abster, domiciled in Cologne, seventy-six years old. ‘And did you know that he reveres you,’ he went on, ‘but at the same time you’re driving him to distraction?’
‘Danglard is easily driven to distraction. He can do it without anyone’s help.’
‘He says he doesn’t understand you.’
‘Like earth, air, fire and water. All I can tell you is that without Danglard, our squad would long since have been shipwrecked on some terrible reef somewhere.’
‘Like the Pointe du Raz and Plogoff. That would be cool. You’d be shipwrecked with Adrianus and you could eat solettes like on the Venice-Belgrade train to console yourselves.’
Adamsberg was making no progress with the file. He was stuck on line 5 of the information about Frau Abster, born in Cologne, daughter of Franz Abster and Erika Plogerstein. Danglard hadn’t warned him about Vladislav’s non-stop talking, which was disturbing his concentration.
‘I have to read some of this standing up,’ said Adamsberg, getting up.
‘Wow.’
‘I’ll take it out into the corridor.’
‘Go ahead, have a walk and do your reading. Does it bother you if I smoke? I’ll air the compartment afterwards.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘I may be hairy but I don’t snore. Like my mother. What about you?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Too bad,’ said Vladislav, getting out his roll-ups and all his materials.
Adamsberg slipped outside. With a bit of luck, on his return, he would find Vladislav floating on waves of cannabis, and unable to speak. He took his pink and green files and walked up and down until the lights went out a couple of hours later. Vladislav was fast asleep with a smile on his face, shirtless, his torso covered with dark hair like a cat of the night.
Adamsberg felt as if he had dropped off to sleep quickly but superficially, his hand on his stomach, the fish perhaps being hard to digest. Or else the prospect of the next five or six days. He would go off to sleep for a few minutes, then wake up again with scraps of dreams about Plogoff oysters which seemed to be going round and round in his head. Frau Abster’s description superimposed itself on the menu, getting mixed up with the solette, written with the same typeface, Frau Abster born in Plogoff to Franz Abster and Erika Plogerstein. The words were stupidly entwined and Adamsberg turned on his side trying to shake himself free of them. Or maybe they weren’t so stupid. He opened his eyes, alert to the familiar alarm signal that he sometimes felt before he realised what it was telling him.
It was the name: Frau Abster, born to Franz Abster and Erika Plogerstein, he thought, switching on his bedside lamp. There was something about her mother’s maiden name, Plogerstein, which must have got confused with the solettes à la Plogoff. But why was that significant? Sitting up, he felt in his rucksack for his files, and the name of the Austrian victim suddenly emerged to join the Plogerstein/Plogoff mixture. Conrad Plögener. Adamsberg pulled out the description of the man who had been killed in Pressbaum, and held it under the lamp. Yes, Conrad Plögener, domiciled at Pressbaum, born 9 March 1961 to Mark Plögener and Marika Schüssler.
Plogerstein and Plögener. Adamsberg put the pink file on the bed and pulled out the white file, the French one. Pierre Vaudel, born to Jules Vaudel and Marguerite Nemesson.