Vlad picked up his napkin and slowly wiped his lips. ‘A load of old codswallop,’ he said.
‘If you like, but what does it mean?’
Vlad snorted his disapproval.
‘You’d have seen it sooner or later. Impossible not to really, once you’re here.’
‘And?’
‘Like I said. They don’t like talking about it, that’s all. It’s already not so good that that woman saw you out there. If tomorrow they ask you to leave, don’t be surprised. And if you want to carry on with the Vaudel inquiry, don’t provoke them with this stuff. Or with the war.’
‘I didn’t mention the war.’
‘See the guy behind us? See what he’s doing?’
‘Yes, I noticed. He’s drawing on the back of his hand with a felt pen.’
‘All day long. He draws circles and squares, orange, green and brown. He was in the war,’ Vlad added, lowering his voice. ‘And now he does nothing but colour in shapes on his hand without speaking a word.’
‘What about the other men?’
‘Kiseljevo was relatively spared. Because here, women and children aren’t left alone in the village. Some people hid, others stayed. Don’t talk about your trip to the woods, commissaire.’
‘But, Vlad, it has to do with this murder investigation.’
‘Plog,’ said Vlad, sticking his middle finger in the air, which gave a new meaning to the onomatopoeia. ‘Nothing to do with it.’
Danica, her blonde hair now neatly combed, brought them their desserts and put two small glasses in front of them.
‘Look out,’ Vlad advised. ‘This is rakija.’
‘What’s it mean?’
‘It’s strong spirits, made from fruit.’
‘No, I’m talking about the inscription on the gravestone.’
Vlad pushed away the sheet of paper with a smile. He knew the inscription by heart, as did anyone who knew anything about Kiseljevo.
‘Only an ignorant Frenchman wouldn’t jump with fear at the terrible name of Peter Plogojowitz. The story’s so famous in Europe that people don’t tell it any more. Ask Danglard, he’s bound to know.’
‘I did tell him about it. He seemed to know.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me. And what did he say?’
‘Irrelevant.’
‘Adrianus never lets me down.’
‘Vlad, just tell me what’s written on the stone.’
‘“You who stand before this stone,”’ Vlad recited, ‘“go your way without listening and cut no plant hereby. Here lies the damned soul Petar Blagojević, who died in 1725 aged 62. May his accursed spirit now make way for peace.”’
‘Why does he have two names?’
‘They’re the same name. Plogojowitz is the Austrian version of Blagojević. When he lived here, the whole region was under the Habsburgs.’
‘Why was he damned?’
‘Because, in 1725, the peasant Petar Blagojević died here, in his native village.’
‘Don’t start with his death, tell me what he did when he was alive.’
‘But it was only after his death that his life was cursed. Three days after his burial, Plogojowitz came to visit his wife at night and asked her for a pair of shoes so that he could travel the world.’
‘Shoes?’
‘Yes. He had left them behind. Do you want to know any more or is it irrelevant?’
‘Tell me the rest, Vlad. I vaguely remember hearing something about a dead man coming back for his shoes.’
‘In the ten weeks after that, there were nine sudden deaths in the village, all close relatives or associates of Plogojowitz. They lost their blood, and died of exhaustion. During their death throes, they claimed to have seen Plogojowitz leaning over them, even lying on top of them. The villagers panicked and thought Plogojowitz had become a vampire who was going to suck the life out of everyone. And then suddenly, all Europe was talking about him. It’s because of Plogojowitz and Kisilova, where you are sitting drinking rakija this evening, that the word vampyr first appeared outside this region.’
‘Really? As famous as that?’
‘Plog. After two months, the villagers had resolved to open his grave and annihilate him, but the Church formally forbade that. Tempers ran high, the Empire sent out some religious and civic officials to try and calm things down. The authorities had to stand by powerless when the exhumation took place. But they observed it and wrote a report. Peter’s body showed no sign of decomposition. It was intact, the skin looked like new.’
‘Like that woman in London, Elizabeth something, whose husband opened her grave after seven years to get his poems out. She looked like new as well.’
‘And she was a vampire?’
‘So I was told.’
‘Normal then. Plogojowitz’s old skin and fingernails were in the bottom of the grave. And there was blood coming out of his mouth, nostrils and eyes. The Austrian officials wrote it all down scrupulously. He had eaten his shroud and he had an erection, though later versions usually leave that bit out. The peasants were terrified, and they took a stake and plunged it into his heart.’
‘And there was a noise?’
‘Yes, a horrible scream that could be heard all over the village, and a stream of blood filled the grave. His hideous body was taken out and burnt until nothing remained. And the nine victims, well, the villagers shut their bodies up in a sealed vault, and after that they abandoned that graveyard for good.’
‘The old one to the west of the village?’
‘That’s right. They were afraid of contagion spreading underground. And the deaths stopped. Or so the story says.’
Adamsberg took a tiny sip of rakija.
‘On the edge of the wood, under the mound, that’s where his ashes are?’
‘There are two versions. Either his ashes were scattered into the Danube or they were collected and put in that grave, a long way out of the village. There’s a general belief that some bit of Plogojowitz survives, because they can hear him munching under the ground. But it means that he’s lost his toxicity, since he’s sunk to the lower status of shroud-eater.’
‘He’s become a sub-vampire?’
‘A passive vampire who doesn’t leave his tomb, but expresses his greed by eating everything around him, his shroud, his coffin, the earth. There are thousands of reports of the shroud-eaters. You can hear their teeth gnashing together under the earth. But you’d still do best not to go too near and to make sure they’re blocked inside their tombs.’
‘That’s what the logs are there for?’
‘To stop him getting out, yes.’
‘Who puts them there?’
‘Arandjel,’ said Vlad, dropping his voice, as Danica approached to refill their glasses.
‘And why are the trees all cut down around the grave?’
‘Because their roots reach down into the earth round the tomb. The wood’s contaminated, so it mustn’t be allowed to spread. And you shouldn’t pick any flowers, because Plogojowitz is in their stems. Arandjel cuts all the vegetation down once a year.’
‘He believes Plogojowitz can get out of there?’
‘Arandjel is the only person in the village who doesn’t believe it. Here about a quarter of the people believe it one hundred per cent. Another quarter shake their heads and won’t say yes or no, for fear of attracting the vampire’s anger by mocking it. The other half of the villagers pretend not to believe it, and say it’s just old wives’ tales fit to worry people in days gone by. But they’re never quite sure, which is why the men didn’t leave the village during the war. And only Arandjel truly doesn’t believe it. That’s why he’s not afraid to be an expert on all vampires, every kind: vârkolac, opyr, vurdalak, nosferatu, veštica, stafia, morije.’
‘That’s a lot of vampires.’
‘Here, Adamsberg, in a radius of about five hundred kilometres, there were thousands of different vampires. And we’re at the epicentre. Where Plogojowitz reigned, the undisputed master of the throng.’