An Uncertain Place Read online

  Radstock was taking advantage of Danglard’s bonhomie to describe to him what it was like working in Scotland Yard, but he was also regaling him with a string of the kind of ‘spicy’ stories he thought suitable for his French guests. Danglard had listened to him throughout their lunch without any sign of boredom, while making sure to check the quality of the wine. Radstock called him ‘Donglarde’, and the two policemen were matching each other anecdote for anecdote, drink for drink, leaving Adamsberg far behind. Of all the hundred officers at the conference, Adamsberg was the only one who didn’t have even the slightest grasp of the English language. So he was following along in a marginal way, exactly as he had hoped, and few people had gathered quite who he was. At his side was the young junior officer, brigadier Estalère, with his wide-open green eyes, which made him look perpetually surprised. Adamsberg had insisted on taking him along on the mission. He maintained that Estalère would wise up one of these days, and from time to time he expended some energy trying to bring this about.

  Hands in pockets and for once smartly turned out, Adamsberg was taking full advantage of this long stroll, as Radstock paraded them round the streets to show them the oddities of London by night. Such as a woman sleeping under a canopy of umbrellas sewn together, and clutching in her arms a three-foot-high object described as a ‘teddy bear’. ‘It’s a toy bear,’ Danglard had translated. ‘Yes, I did gather that,’ said Adamsberg.

  ‘And here,’ said Radstock, pointing down a long, straight avenue, ‘we have Lord Clyde-Fox. He’s an example of what you might call an eccentric English aristocrat. Not many left. They don’t make ’em like this any more. Quite a young specimen.’

  Radstock stopped to allow them time to observe this individual, with the satisfaction of someone showing off a rather unusual phenomenon to his guests. Adamsberg and Danglard obediently observed him. Tall and thin, Lord Clyde-Fox was hopping clumsily about on the spot, first on one foot then on the other, barely avoiding falling over. Another man was smoking a cigar about ten feet away, swaying slightly and contemplating his companion’s trouble.

  ‘Er, interesting,’ said Danglard politely.

  ‘He’s quite often around here, but not every evening,’ said Radstock, as if his colleagues were benefiting from a rare sighting. ‘We get on all right. He’s very amiable, always a friendly word. He’s a sort of fixture, a familiar figure of the night. Seeing the time it is, he’s probably had an evening out and is trying to get home.’

  ‘He’s drunk?’ queried Danglard.

  ‘Not quite. He makes it a point of honour to see how far he can go, finds his limit, and then hangs on there. He says that if he walks along a ridge, balancing between one slope and another, he may suffer but he will never be bored. Everything all right, sir?’

  ‘Everything all right with you, Radstock?’ rejoined the man, waving a hand.

  ‘A joker,’ the chief inspector confided. ‘Well, if he wants to be. When his mother died, two years ago, he tried to eat a whole box of photos of her. His sister barged in to stop him, and it turned nasty. She finished up in hospital and him down at the station. The noble lord was absolutely furious because he had been prevented from eating the photos.’

  ‘Really, really eating them?’ asked Estalère.

  ‘Yes, really. But what are a few photos? I think, in Paris one time, some chap tried to eat a wardrobe, didn’t he?’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Adamsberg, seeing Radstock’s frown.

  ‘He says there was some Frenchman once who tried to eat a wardrobe. Actually there was. He managed it over a few months, with the help of some friends.’

  ‘Weird, eh, Donglarde?’

  ‘You’re quite right, it was in the early twentieth century.’

  ‘Ah, that’s normal,’ said Estalère, who often chose exactly the wrong expression. ‘There was this man I heard about, he ate an aeroplane, and it took him a year. Just a year. A small plane.’

  Radstock nodded gravely. Adamsberg had noticed that he liked to make solemn pronouncements. He sometimes came out with long sentences which – from their tone – were passing judgement on the whole of humanity and its probable nature, good or bad, angelic or devilish.

  ‘There are some things,’ Radstock began – Danglard providing a simultaneous translation – ‘that people can’t imagine themselves doing until some crazy individual has tried it. But once something’s been done for the first time, good or bad, it goes into the inheritance of the human race. It can be used, it can be copied, and people will even try to go one better. The chap who ate the wardrobe made it easier for that other chap to eat the aeroplane. And that’s how the vast dark continent of madness opens up, like a map, as people explore unknown regions. We’re going forward in the gloom, with nothing but experience to guide us, that’s what I tell my men. So Lord Clyde-Fox over there is taking his shoes off, and putting them back on, over and over again. Goodness knows why. When we do know, someone else will be able to do the same thing.’

  ‘Greetings, sir,’ said the chief inspector now, going closer. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘Greetings, Radstock,’ said Clyde-Fox mildly.

  The two men made signs of recognition to each other, two nightbirds, familiars who had no secrets. Clyde-Fox put one stockinged foot on the pavement, holding his shoe in his hand and looking intently inside it.

  ‘A problem?’ Radstock repeated.

  ‘I should say so. Perhaps you should go and take a look – if you’ve the stomach for it.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At the entrance to Highgate Cemetery.’

  ‘It’s not a good idea to go poking around in a place like that,’ said Radstock in disapproving tones. ‘What were you doing there?’

  ‘Beating the bounds with a few chosen friends,’ the noble lord explained, gesturing with his thumb towards his cigar-smoking companion. ‘The boundary between fear and common sense. Well, I know the place like the back of my hand, but he wanted to take a look. Be careful, chief inspector,’ said Clyde-Fox lowering his voice. ‘My pal over there’s as tight as a tick, and he’s as fast as lightning. He’s already taken out a couple of fellers in the pub. Teaches Cuban dance. Highly strung. Not from here.’

  Lord Clyde-Fox shook his shoe in the air again, put it back on and took off the other.

  ‘Right, sir. But your shoes – is there something inside them?’

  ‘No, Radstock, I’m just checking them.’

  The Cuban said something in Spanish which seemed to indicate that he had had enough and that he was off. The lord gave him a casual wave of the hand.

  ‘In your view, officer,’ Clyde-Fox said, ‘what should there be inside a shoe?’

  ‘A foot,’ Estalère intervened to say.

  ‘Exactly so,’ said Clyde-Fox, nodding approvingly at the young Frenchman. ‘And it’s just as well to check that the feet in your shoes are your own, eh? Radstock, if you had such a thing as a torch, you might help me clear this up.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘See if there’s anything inside these.’

  As Clyde-Fox held up both shoes, Radstock methodically looked inside them. Adamsberg, completely forgotten, was pacing around slowly. He was thinking about the man who had chewed up his wardrobe, month after month, splinter after splinter. He wondered which he would prefer to eat, a wardrobe or an aeroplane – or photos of his mother. Or anything else – was there some other exploit that might reveal a new section of the dark continent of madness that DCI Radstock had referred to?

  ‘Nothing there,’ concluded Radstock.

  ‘You’re quite sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Clyde-Fox, putting the shoes back on. ‘Nasty business. Go on Radstock, old chap, it’s your department. Go and look. Just at the gates. A load of old shoes on the pavement. But steel yourself. About twenty of ’em, you can’t miss ’em.’

  ‘That sort of thing’s not my department, Your Lordship.’

 
‘Oh yes it is. They’re lined up carefully, all the toes pointing to the cemetery as if they wanted to walk in. I’m talking about the old main gate now.’

  ‘But the old cemetery has nightwatchmen. It’s closed to the public after dark, and it’s closed to their shoes too.’

  ‘Well, the shoes want to go in all the same, and their whole attitude is most unpleasant. Go on, go and look, do your job.’

  ‘I’m afraid, sir, that I have better things to do than inspect a load of old shoes.’

  ‘Wrong, Radstock! Wrong! Because there are feet inside them.’

  There was a sudden silence, a ghastly shock wave. A small whimper came from Estalère’s throat. Danglard tensed his arms. Adamsberg stopped pacing and looked up.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ whispered Danglard.

  ‘What did he say?’ Adamsberg asked.

  ‘He says there are some old shoes, looking as though they want to walk into the cemetery, and he says Radstock is wrong not to go and take a look, because they’ve got feet inside them.’

  ‘Take no notice, Donglarde,’ Radstock interrupted. ‘He’s had too much to drink. You’ve had a drop too much, sir, you ought to go home.’

  ‘There. Are. Feet. Inside. Them,’ enunciated Lord Clyde-Fox, clearly and calmly, to indicate that he was walking with perfect assurance along the ridge. ‘Cut off at the ankles. And the feet are trying to get into the cemetery.’

  ‘As you say, sir, and they’re, er, trying to get in, are they?’

  Lord Clyde-Fox was carefully combing his hair, a sign that his departure was imminent. Now that he had the problem off his chest, he seemed to have returned to normal.

  ‘Pretty ancient shoes,’ he added, ‘about fifteen or twenty years old, I’d say. Men’s and women’s, both.’

  ‘But the feet?’ asked Danglard discreetly. ‘Are the feet just bones now?’

  ‘Leave it, Donglarde, he’s been seeing things.’

  ‘No,’ said Clyde-Fox, tucking away his comb and ignoring Radstock. ‘The feet are almost intact.’

  ‘And they’re trying to get into the cemetery?’

  ‘Precisely, old man.’

  III

  DCI RADSTOCK WAS UTTERING A CONSTANT STREAM OF growls and grumbles, and gripping the wheel tightly, as he drove fast up to the old cemetery in north London. Of all things, they had had to bump into Clyde-Fox. First this nutter wanted them to check whether someone else’s foot had got into his shoes. And now they were on their way to Highgate because His Lordship had fallen off his ridge and had a vision. There wouldn’t be any shoes in front of the cemetery, any more than there were strange feet in Clyde-Fox’s own footwear.

  But Radstock certainly didn’t want to go up there alone. Not when he was a few months from retirement. He had had some difficulty persuading the amiable ‘Donglarde’ to go with him: it was as if the Frenchman was reluctant to embark on this particular expedition. But how would a Frenchman know anything about Highgate, anyway? On the other hand, he had had no trouble with Adamsberg, who was perfectly willing to agree to a detour. This French commissaire seemed to go around in a peaceful and conciliatory state of being only half awake. One wondered whether even his profession engaged his attention. Their young colleague, however, was the exact opposite: his wide eyes were glued to the window, as he goggled at the sights of London. In Radstock’s view, this Estalère fellow was a halfwit: it was a wonder they had let him come to the conference at all.

  ‘Couldn’t you have sent a couple of your men?’ asked Danglard, who was still looking vexed.

  ‘I can’t send a team off just because Clyde-Fox has started seeing things, Donglarde. After all, he’s a man who tried to eat pictures of his mother. But we do have to go and check, don’t we?’

  No, Danglard didn’t think they were obliged to do any such thing. He was happy to be in London, happy to be dressed like an Englishman, and especially happy that a woman had been paying him attention, from the first day of the conference. He had given up expecting such a miracle years ago, and having fatalistically accepted that he would never have any more dealings with women, had not made the first approach himself. She had come up to him, had smiled at him, and found excuses to meet up with him at the conference. If he was not much mistaken, that is. Danglard was wondering how such a thing could be possible, torturing himself with questions. He found himself endlessly going over the tiniest signs that could confirm or invalidate his hopes. He classified them, estimated them, manipulated them to see how reliable they were, as one tries the ice gingerly before venturing on to it. He was examining them for consistency, for possible meaning and trying to decide whether they were encouraging, yes or no. So much so that the signs were becoming more insubstantial the more he worried away at them. He needed some further clues. And at this very moment, the woman in question was no doubt in the hotel bar with the other people from the conference. Now that he had been whisked off on Radstock’s expedition, he would miss her.

  ‘Why do we need to check? Your Lord Clyde-Fox was indeed as drunk as a lord,’ said Danglard, proud of his command of English idiom.

  ‘Because it’s Highgate,’ said the chief inspector through gritted teeth.

  Danglard gave a start, feeling cross with himself. His intense speculation about the woman at the conference had prevented him reacting to the name ‘Highgate’. He looked up as if to reply, but Radstock cut him off with a wave of the hand.

  ‘No, Donglarde, you wouldn’t understand,’ he said in the sad, bitter and resigned tones of an old soldier, who can’t expect other people to share his war memories. ‘You weren’t at Highgate. I was.’

  ‘But I do understand. Both why you didn’t want to go there, and why you’re going there all the same.’

  ‘With respect, Donglarde, that would very much surprise me.’

  ‘I know what happened at Highgate Cemetery.’

  Radstock shot him a look of astonishment.

  ‘Danglard knows everything,’ Estalère explained contentedly from the back of the car.

  Sitting next to his young colleague on the back seat, Adamsberg was listening to the conversation, picking up the odd word. It was clear that Danglard knew quantities of things about this ‘Highgate’, of which he, Adamsberg, was quite ignorant. That was normal, as long as you regarded the prodigious extent of Danglard’s knowledge as normal. Commandant Danglard was very different from what might be called a ‘normal educated man’. He was a man of phenomenal erudition, controlling a complex network of infinite and encyclopedic knowledge which, in Adamsberg’s opinion, had ended up by taking over his entire being, replacing each of his organs one by one, so that you wondered how Danglard managed to move around like an ordinary mortal. Perhaps that was why he did find it hard to walk, and never strolled. On the other hand, he was sure to be able to tell you the name of the man who had eaten his wardrobe. Adamsberg looked at Danglard’s imprecise profile, at that moment subject to a kind of trembling which indicated the ongoing process of knowledge retrieval. No doubt about it, the commandant was quickly passing in review his compendious collection of facts about Highgate. At the same time he was desperately preoccupied by something else: the woman at the conference of course, on account of whom his mind was dealing with a whirlwind of questions. Adamsberg turned towards the British colleague whose name he could never remember. Something Stock. He was not thinking about a woman, nor scanning his mind for information. Stock was quite simply scared.

  ‘Danglard,’ said Adamsberg, tapping him on the shoulder, ‘Stock doesn’t want to go and see these shoes.’

  ‘I’ve already told you that he can pick up bits of French. Speak in code please.’

  Adamsberg obeyed. In order not to be understood by Radstock, Danglard had advised him to speak very fast and in an even tone, slurring his syllables, but this kind of exercise was impossible for Adamsberg, who pronounced his words as slowly as he placed his feet when pacing about.

  ‘No, he doesn’t want to go at all,’ said Danglard in this same fast
speak. ‘He has certain memories of the place and he wants nothing to do with it.’

  ‘What do you mean, “the place”?’

  ‘One of the most romantic and baroque cemeteries in the Western world, absolutely over the top, an artistic and macabre fantasy. It’s full of Gothic tombs, burial vaults, Egyptian sculptures, excommunicated people and murderers. All tangled together in one of those rambling English gardens. It’s unique, a bit too unique, a place where madness lurks.’

  ‘OK, I get it, Danglard. But what happened in this tangled garden?’

  ‘Ghastly events, and yet nothing much. But it’s the kind of “nothing much” that can traumatise anyone who witnesses it. That’s why they put watchmen on it at night. That’s why our colleague doesn’t want to go there on his own, that’s why we’re in this car, instead of having a nice quiet drink in our hotel.’

  ‘A nice quiet drink. Who with, Danglard?’

  Danglard pulled a face. The complex threads of other people’s lives did not escape the notice of Adamsberg, even if those threads were whispers, minute sensations, puffs of air. The commissaire had spotted the woman at the conference. And while Danglard had been going over every little incident obsessively, so much so as to blank them out, Adamsberg must already have formed a firm impression.

  ‘With her,’ said Adamsberg into the silence. ‘The woman who chews the arms of her red spectacles, the woman who keeps looking at you. It says “Abstract” on her badge. Is that her first name?’

  Danglard smiled. If the only woman who had ever made eyes at him in ten years was called ‘Abstract’, that would have been painfully appropriate.

  ‘No, it’s her job. She’s supposed to collect and distribute summaries of the papers. They call them “abstracts”.’

  ‘Ah, I see. So what is her name?’

  ‘I haven’t asked.’

  ‘But you need to know her name before anything else.’