‘What woman are you talking about?’ asked Radstock in French, exasperated by the other two excluding him from their conversation, and in particular realising that the little commissaire with dark untidy hair had guessed at his fear.
By now the car was going past the cemetery, and Radstock suddenly wished that the scenario painted by Clyde-Fox would not turn out to be imaginary after all. Then that laid-back little Frenchman, Adamsberg, would be drawn into the nightmare of Highgate Cemetery. Let him get involved, by God, and we’d soon see if the little cop was as calm as he made out. Radstock pulled up at the kerb, but didn’t get out. He lowered the window a few inches and poked his torch out.
‘OK,’ he said, looking in the mirror at Adamsberg. ‘Let’s all share this.’
‘What’s he saying?’
‘He says he wants you to share Highgate.’
‘I didn’t ask to do anything.’
‘You’ve no choice,’ said Radstock grimly, opening the driver’s door.
‘I get it,’ said Adamsberg, silencing Danglard with a gesture.
The smell was ghastly, the scene was appalling, and even Adamsberg stiffened, standing back a little behind his English colleague. From the ancient shoes, with their cracked leather and trailing laces, projected decomposed ankles, showing dark flesh and white shinbones which had been cleanly chopped off. The only thing that didn’t match Clyde-Fox’s account was that the feet were not trying to get into the cemetery. They were just there, on the pavement, terrible and provocative, sitting inside their shoes at the historic gateway to Highgate Cemetery. They formed a carefully arranged and unspeakable pile. Radstock held a torch in his outstretched hand, face twisted in denial, lighting up the damaged ankles emerging from the shoes, and vainly trying to sweep away the smell of death in the air.
‘You see,’ said Radstock, in a resigned yet aggressive voice, turning to Adamsberg. ‘You see. That’s Highgate for you. A place of the damned, and has been for a hundred years.’
‘A hundred and seventy years in fact,’ said Danglard quietly.
‘Right,’ said Radstock, seeking to pull himself together. ‘You can go back to your hotel, I’m putting a call through to the Yard.’
He took out his mobile and smiled uneasily at his colleagues.
‘The shoes look pretty cheap,’ he said, as he punched in the call. ‘With any luck they’ll be French.’
‘And if the shoes are, so are the feet,’ Danglard completed the thought.
‘Yes, Donglarde. What Englishman would bother to buy French shoes?’
‘So if it was up to you, you’d bounce this horrific case across the Channel?’
‘You bet! Dennison? Radstock here. Send a homicide team to the old gate of Highgate Cemetery. No, no actual body, but a pile of rotten shoes, about twenty of them. With feet inside. Yes, a whole crime scene team, Dennison. OK,’ the chief inspector finished in a weary tone, ‘put him on.’
Superintendent Clems was at the Yard; it was a busy night. It sounded as if some discussion was going on, as Radstock waited, holding his phone. Danglard took advantage of it to explain to Adamsberg that only French feet would fit French shoes, and that DCI Radstock fervently wished to send them this case across the Channel, straight to Paris. Adamsberg nodded, his hands clasped behind his back, and walked slowly round the macabre deposit, looking up from time to time to the high cemetery wall, as much to give his mind some air as to imagine where these dead feet wanted to go. They knew things that he didn’t.
‘About twenty, sir,’ Radstock was repeating. ‘I’m standing right here looking at them.’
‘Radstock!’ came the sceptical voice of Superintendent Clems. ‘What the hell is all this rubbish about shoes with feet inside them?’
‘Give me patience,’ muttered Radstock to himself. ‘I’m in Highgate, sir, not Queen’s Lane. Are you going to send me some men, or are you going to leave me alone with this monstrosity?’
‘Highgate? Oh, you should have said so before, Radstock.’
‘That’s what I’ve been saying for the past twenty minutes.’
‘OK, OK,’ said Clems, suddenly conciliatory, as if the word Highgate had set off alarm bells. ‘The team’s on its way. Are we talking about men or women?’
‘Both. Adult feet. In the shoes.’
‘Who put you on to it?’
‘Lord Clyde-Fox. He stumbled across this horror, and went off to down several pints to get over it.’
‘Right,’ said Clems quickly. ‘And the shoes. Quality? Age?’
‘I’d say about twenty years old. And they’re shoddy-looking too,’ he went on sarcastically. ‘With a bit of luck we might be able to palm this off on the Frenchies -’
‘None of that nonsense, Radstock!’ Clems interrupted him. ‘We’re in the middle of an international conference and waiting for results.’
‘I know, sir, I’ve got the policemen from Paris with me now.’
Radstock laughed briefly again, and looked at Adamsberg before adopting the same linguistic device as his colleagues, speaking spectacularly fast. It was obvious to Danglard that the chief inspector, feeling humiliated now that he had asked them to accompany him, was aiming a volley of cheap shots at Adamsberg by way of revenge.
‘Did you say Adamsberg himself was with you?’ Clems cut him off.
‘Yep, that’s him, little fellow, looks half asleep most of the time.’
‘In that case, hold your tongue and keep your distance, Radstock,’ Clems ordered him. ‘The little fellow, as you call him, is a walking timebomb.’
Danglard might look passive but he was not a calm man, and few nuances in the English language escaped him, despite Radstock’s precautions. His defence of Adamsberg was unwavering, except for any criticisms he might formulate himself. He snatched the mobile from Radstock’s hand and introduced himself to the superintendent, walking away from the smell of decaying feet. It appeared to Adamsberg that gradually the man at the other end of the line was turning into a better potential fishing companion than Radstock.
‘As you say,’ said Danglard sharply.
‘Nothing personal, Commandant Danglard,’ said Clems. ‘I’m not trying to excuse Radstock, but he was there thirty years ago. It’s bad luck coming across this when he’s six months off retirement.’
‘That was all a long time ago, sir.’
‘Nothing worse than things from a long time ago, as you well know. Ancient stumps poke up through the grass and they can last centuries. A little sympathy for Radstock, please, because you don’t understand.’
‘Yes, I do. I know about the Highgate affair.’
‘I’m not talking about the murder of the hiker.’
‘Neither am I, sir. We’re talking about historical Highgate, 160,800 bodies, 51,800 tombs. We’re talking about the nocturnal hunts in the 1970s, and even about Lizzie Siddal.’
‘All right,’ said the superintendent after a pause. ‘Well, if you know about that, you should also know that Radstock was there for the last escapade, and at the time he was young and new to the job. So cut him a little slack.’
The crime scene investigation team had arrived. Radstock took charge. Without a word, Danglard switched off the phone and slipped it in his British colleague’s pocket. Then he rejoined Adamsberg, who was leaning on a black car and seemed to be supporting Estalère. The young officer was in a state of shock.
‘What are they going to do with them?’ asked Estalère in a shaky voice. ‘Find twenty people without feet and stick them back on? How would they do that?’
‘Ten people,’ Danglard pointed out. ‘Twenty feet, ten people.’
‘All right,’ admitted Estalère.
‘In fact, it appears there are just eighteen, so nine people.’
‘Yes. OK. But if the English had already found nine people whose feet had been cut off, they’d know about it, wouldn’t they?’