The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas Read Free Book Online

Lying slightly off-centre was part of a watch strap. Why draw such big circles for such small objects, Danglard wondered. Until now he hadn’t thought about this discrepancy.
    ‘Don’t touch!’ he shouted to Conti, who had stepped into the circle to take a closer look.
    ‘What are you fussing about?’ said Conti. ‘This strap hasn’t been murdered. Call the pathologist while you’re at it!’
    The photographer shrugged and stepped back out of the circle.
    ‘Don’t ask questions,’ said Danglard. ‘He said to take pictures of it exactly as it is, so please just do that.’
    While Conti was snapping away, Danglard reflected all the same that Adamsberg had put him in a slightly ridiculous situation. If any local policeman should come past, he’d be right to say that the 5th arrondissement station was going round the bend if it had taken to photographing watch straps. And Danglard did feel that the 5th was indeed heading round the bend, himself along with the rest. What was more, he still hadn’t tied up everything on the Patrice Vernoux case, which he ought to have done first thing. His colleague Castreau was probably wondering by now where he’d got to.
    In the rue Froidevaux, at the junction with the rue Emile-Richard, the lugubrious and narrow passage running through the middle of the Montparnasse cemetery, Danglard understood why the woman had complained, and was almost relieved to discover the reason.
    Yes, it had got bigger.
    ‘See that?’ he said to Conti.
    In front of them, the blue circle surrounded the remains of a cat that had been run over. There was no blood: the cat had obviously been picked out of the gutter where it had been dead for hours. Now it just looked morbid, a bundle of dirty fur in this sinister street, with the circle and the inscription ‘Victor, woe’s in store, what are you out here for?’ It made him think of some kind of weird witches’ spell.
    ‘All finished,’ said Conti.
    Stupid, perhaps, but Danglard sensed that Conti was a bit impressed.
    ‘I’ve finished too,’ said Danglard. ‘Come on, back to base before the locals find us on their patch.’
    ‘Yeah, right,’ said Conti. ‘We’d look pretty silly.’
    Adamsberg listened to Danglard’s report impassively, allowing his cigarette to droop from his lips, screwing up his eyes to keep the smoke out of them. The only movement he made throughout was to bite off a piece of fingernail. And as Danglard was beginning to get the measure of his character, he realised that Adamsberg had assessed the discovery in the rue Froidevaux at its true value.
    But what was that, exactly? For the moment, Danglard had no idea. The way Adamsberg’s mind worked was still enigmatic and impressive to him. Sometimes, but only for a second, he thought: Keep your distance.
    But he knew the moment the report went round the station that the boss was wasting his own and his inspectors’ time on the chalk circle man, Danglard would have to defend him. And he was trying to prepare his defence.
    ‘Yesterday a mouse,’ said Danglard, as if talking to himself, practising future explanations to his colleagues. ‘And now a cat. It’s a bit nasty, yes. But there was the watch strap as well. And as Conti rightly pointed out, the watch strap wasn’t dead.’
    ‘It was dead all right,’ said Adamsberg. ‘Of course it was! Same thing tomorrow morning, Danglard. I’m going to see this psychiatrist who’s taken up the affair, Vercors-Laury. I’d be interested to hear what he thinks. But don’t tell anyone. The later anyone asks what I’m up to, the better.’
    Before leaving, Adamsberg wrote a note for Mathilde Forestier. It had taken him less than an hour to track down her Charles Reyer, after telephoning the main organisations that employed blind people in Paris: piano tuners, publishing houses, music schools. Reyer had been in the city several months, and was staying in a room near the Pantheon, at the Hôtel des Grands Hommes. Adamsberg