‘You could be right,’ said Adamsberg.
‘It’s ridiculous going to all this performance of getting me called to the station. You would have done better to come to the Flying Gurnard, and we could have had a drink and a bite to eat. Clémence has made a repulsive sort of dish, her local speciality, she says.’
‘Where’s she from?’
‘Neuilly.’
‘The Paris suburbs aren’t exactly exotic. But I’m not staging any kind of performance. I just needed to talk to you and I didn’t want to sit cosily in the Flying Gurnard or anywhere else you might have in mind.’
‘Because a policeman doesn’t eat dinner with his suspects?’
‘On the contrary, that’s just what he does do,’ said Adamsberg wearily. ‘Being on matey terms with the suspects is precisely what the books recommend. But over in your house, it’s like a railway station. Blind men, batty old women, students, philosophers, upstairs neighbours, downstairs neighours – you have to be one of the Queen’s courtiers or you’re nothing at all, isn’t that right? And I don’t like the choice of courtier or nothing. But I don’t know why I’m bothering to say all this, it’s not important.’
Mathilde laughed.
‘I get it,’ she said. ‘In future we should meet in a café or on a bridge over the Seine, some neutral territory where we’d be on equal terms. Like two republican French citizens. Mind if I smoke?’
‘Go ahead. That article in the 5th arrondissement newsletter, Madame Forestier, did you know about it?’
‘Never heard of the damn thing till Charles recited it from memory for me at lunch time today. And as for whatever I was shouting about at the Dodin Bouffant, it’s no good trying to get me to remember it. All I can tell you is that when I’ve had a few drinks, my stories multiply reality by about thirty. It’s not impossible that I boasted that the chalk circle man came to dinner with me, and shared my bath, or my bed, or that we planned his nocturnal tricks together. Once I start showing off, nothing is too outrageous. So, you can imagine. Sometimes I act like a natural disaster, as my philosopher friend takes care to tell me.’
Adamsberg pulled a face.
‘I find it hard to forget you’re a scientist,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you’re as unpredictable as you make out.’
‘So, Adamsberg, you think I cut Madeleine Châtelain’s throat? It’s true I don’t have a respectable alibi for that evening – nobody checks when I come and go. There’s no man sharing my bed at the moment, and there’s no concierge for our block: I’m as free as the wind, as free as the mice. So what is this poor woman supposed to have done to me to prompt this?’
‘Everyone has their secrets. Danglard would say that since you spend your time following thousands of people, Madeleine Châtelain could figure somewhere in your notes.’
‘It’s not impossible.’
‘He would add that in your underwater career you are known to have slit the bellies of two blue sharks. You’re capable of determination, courage and strength.’
‘Oh, come on, you’re not going to shelter behind someone else’s arguments, are you? Danglard this, Danglard that. What about you?’
‘Danglard’s a thinker. I listen to what he says. In my view, only one thing matters: the chalk circle man and his wretched outings. Nothing else. Take Charles Reyer, now – what do you know about him? It’s impossible to tell which of you first sought the other out. It looks as if it was you, but perhaps he forced your hand.’
There was a silence, then Mathilde said:
‘Do you really think I’d allow myself to be manipulated like that?’
At this difference in her tone, Adamsberg interrupted the doodling he had started. Sitting opposite, she was staring at him, smiling, grand and generous, very sure of herself, regal, as if she could demolish his office and the rest of the world with a simple mocking remark. So he spoke slowly, chancing some new ideas suggested by her expression. Resting his cheek on his hand, he said:
‘When you came to the police station the first time it wasn’t because you were looking for Charles Reyer, was it?’
Mathilde laughed.
‘Yes, I was looking for him! But I could have found him without your help, you know.’
‘Of course. It was stupid of me. But you’re a splendid liar. So what game are we playing here? Who were you really looking for? Me?’
‘Yes, you.’
‘Simple curiosity, because my appointment had been announced in the papers? You wanted to add me to your collection? No, it wasn’t that.’
‘No, of course not,’ said Mathilde.
‘ To talk about the chalk circle man, as Danglard thinks?’
‘No, not even that. If it hadn’t been for the press cuttings you had under the desk lamp, I wouldn’t have thought of that. You’re free not to believe me, of course, now that you know I’m thoroughly unreliable.’
Adamsberg shook his head. He felt he was on the wrong track.
‘It was because I got a letter,’ Mathilde continued. ‘It said: “I have just heard that Jean-Baptiste has been appointed to a job in Paris. Please go and take a look.” So I came to take a look, as was natural. There are no coincidences in this life, as you well know.’
Mathilde inhaled smoke, with a smile. She was really enjoying all this, was Mathilde. Yes, she was having a ball, in her damned section of the damned week.
‘Tell me the rest, Madame Forestier. Who was the letter from? Who are we talking about?’
‘Our beautiful traveller. Sweeter than me, more shy, less disreputable, less bohemian. My daughter Camille, my daughter. But you were right in one respect, Adamsberg. Richard III is dead.’
Afterwards, Adamsberg could not have said whether Mathilde left immediately or a little while later. Disconnected as he was at this moment, one thing had echoed round inside in his head. She was alive, Camille was alive. His petite chérie, never mind where, never mind who she was with, she was breathing, her obstinate forehead, her tender lips, her wisdom, her futility, her silhouette, they were all alive and well.
Only later, as he was walking home – having posted men for the night at the Saint-Georges and Pigalle metro stations, despite a feeling that it was pointless – did he realise what he had learned. Camille was Mathilde Forestier’s daughter. Well, of course. Even though Mathilde was a great mystifier, there was no point bothering to check it out. Profiles like that weren’t mass-produced.
There is no such thing as coincidence. His petite chérie, somewhere in the world, had read a French newspaper and learned about his posting, then had written to her mother. Perhaps she wrote to her often. Perhaps they even saw each other often. It was possible indeed that Mathilde managed to make the destinations of her scientific expeditions correspond to wherever her daughter was at the time. In fact, Adamsberg was certain of it. He would only have to find out which coasts Mathilde had been working from for the last few years to know where Camille had been. So he had been right. She had been travelling, lost and out of reach. Out of reach. He realised that. He never would manage to catch hold of her. But she had wanted to know what was happening to him. He hadn’t melted from her mind like wax. But then he had never had any doubt about that. Not that he thought himself unforgettable. All the same, he felt that a little piece of him had lodged like a tiny stone, somewhere in Camille, and that she too must be carrying him round inside her like a weight, infinitesimal though it might be. It was inevitable. It had to be. However vain human love appeared to him, and however dark his feeling today, he could not admit that some magnetised fragment of that love was not still lodged somewhere in Camille’s body. Just as he knew, although he rarely thought about it, that he had never allowed Camille’s existence to dissolve from inside himself, though he couldn’t have said why, because he had not consciously thought about it.