Have Mercy On Us All by Fred Vargas Page A

bookworm.
    “Monsieur Decambrais,” she whispered, “please, could you tell him to put on a pullover. He’s going to catch his death, you know. His lungs aren’t that good. I know he listens to what you say, no two ways.”
    “I’ve already spoken to him about that, Marie-Belle. It’s a slow business, trying to get something into his skull.”
    “I know,” said Marie-Belle, biting her lip. “But couldn’t you try just one more time?”
    “All right, at the next opportunity. Cross my heart. Is the sailorman around?”
    “He’s out the back,” said Marie-Belle, waving towards a door.
    Decambrais hunched his shoulders to get under all the bicycle wheels hanging from the ceiling and made his way through the stacks of surfboards to the workshop, itself brimful of roller skates of every size and description . One end of the workbench was occupied by Joss and his urn.
    “I’ve laid them out for you down the end of the table,” Joss said without looking up.
    Decambrais picked up the sheets and took a quick glance at them.
    “And here’s this evening’s addition,” Joss added. “Special preview, just for you. The nutter is picking up speed. I’m getting three a day now.”
    Decambrais unfolded the latest message and read the following:
    That special care be taken that no tainted fish, or unwholesome flesh or musty corn or other corrupt fruits of what fort foever be suffered to be sold about the city, or any part of the fame.
    “I don’t know what forts these are,” Joss said, still poring over his evening news messages.
    “Sorts, if I may be so bold.”
    “Look here, Decambrais, I don’t want to seem unfriendly, but would you mind your own business. The Le Guerns know how to read the alphabet, thank you. Nicolas Le Guern was town crier as far back as the Crimean War. So you’re not going to teach me the difference between forts and sorts, dammit.”
    “Look here, Le Guern, these are copied out from texts from long ago. Our nutter has copied them out and used special letters. At the time, people made the letter ‘s’ almost the same way as the ‘f,’ at least in some positions in the word. So what you read out at the lunchtime newscast today wasn’t about things being pofted or about houfes, and it wasn’t addressed to juftices either.”
    “What, you mean they were all ‘s’s?” Joss stood up straight at last, and his voice was getting louder.
    “That’s right, Le Guern, they’re ‘s’s.
Post, house, justice
. Old-style ‘s’s shaped like ‘f’s. Look at them closely and you’ll see for yourself that they’re not quite the same.”
    Joss grabbed the letter from Decambrais’s hand, and looked closely at the script.
    “All right,” he said grudgingly. “But supposing you’re right, so what?”
    “It’ll just make it easier for you to read. I wasn’t trying to get up your nose.”
    “Well, you did. Take your bloody screeds and get going. Because reading is my job, not yours. I don’t poke my nose in your funny affairs, do I now.”
    “What did you say?”
    “Look, I know a fair bit about you, what with all these poison pen messages lying around,” said Joss, pointing to the pile of “better nots”. “As my great-great-grandfather Le Guern reminded me only the other evening, people have loads of muck between the ears. You’re lucky that I filter out the worst of the shit.”
    Decambrais went quite white and cast about for a stool to sit on.
    “Good Lord,” said Joss, “there’s no need to panic.”
    “Le Guern, do you still have those … poison pen messages?”
    “Sure, I put them in with the rejects. Do they interest you?”
    Joss rummaged about in his pile of “return to senders” and picked out two messages for Decambrais.
    “After all, it’s always useful to know your enemies,” he said. “Forewarned is forearmed, that’s what I say.”
    Joss watched Decambrais as he unfolded the sheets with trembling hands. For the first time he felt a little bit