Have Mercy On Us All by Fred Vargas Page B

sorry for the old fellow.
    “You mustn’t let it affect you, really,” he said. “They’re the real dregs, the people who write that sort of muck. You wouldn’t dream what filth I have to read. You should let sewage slip down the pipe and out to sea.”
    Decambrais read the two messages and smiled weakly as he laid them on his lap. He seemed to be breathing more normally, Joss reckoned. What was it that had made the toff so scared?
    “There’s nothing wrong with lace-making. My father used to make nets. Same thing, really, isn’t it, except the thread is thicker.”
    “That’s true,” said Decambrais. He gave the messages back to Joss, then added: “But it’s better for it not to get around. People can be very petty.”
    “Indeed,” said Joss as he went back to sorting the evening newscast.
    “I learned how to make lace from my mother. Why didn’t you read these messages out in the usual way?”
    “Because I don’t like bloody idiots.”
    “But you don’t like me either, Joss Le Guern.”
    “True. But I don’t like bloody idiots either.”
    Decambrais got up and started to leave. But just as he was going through the low doorway to the front shop, he turned round and said:
    “The room’s yours, Le Guern.”

VI
    AS HE WAS going back through the archway into his new HQ around one o’clock, Adamsberg was intercepted by a junior he’d never seen before.
    “
Lieutenant
Maurel, sir,” the young man said. “There’s a young woman waiting for you in your office and she insists on speaking to you alone. Name of Maryse Petit. She’s been there for about twenty minutes. I took the liberty of shutting your door because Favre was wanting to give her a counselling session.”
    Adamsberg frowned. It was the woman who’d come in yesterday about the graffiti. Good Lord, he must have been too nice to her. If she was going to drop in every day for a chat from now on, things could get very tangled.
    “Have I put a foot wrong, sir?” Maurel asked.
    “No,
Lieutenant
Maurel, not a bit. All my own fault.”
    Maurel was made up of: tall, slim, dark, acne, prognathous jaw and solicitude.
Acne
plus
jutting
plus
solicitude
equals
Maurel
.
    Adamsberg went into his office with a degree of circumspection, sat down at his desk and nodded curtly.
    “Oh,
commissaire
, I’m really sorry to take up more of your time,” Maryse began.
    “One moment, please.” Adamsberg pulled a sheet of paper out of a drawer and pored over it with a pencil in his hand.
    It was a well-worn trick used by
flics
and bosses since time immemorial to pull rank and make people on the wrong side of the desk aware of their own insignificance. Adamsberg resented having to use the ploy. You think you’re a million miles from the likes of Noël and his authoritarian zipper, then all of a sudden you’re behaving a lot worse than that. Maryse had stopped her chatter and lowered her head, and her reaction told Adamsberg she was used to being put in her place, by a boss or whoever. She was quite pretty and the way she was sitting gave a good view through the top of her blouse. You think you’re a million miles from the likes of Favre, and when occasion arises, there you are puddling about in the same pigsty. Adamsberg wrote on his staff list, with time-wasting precision:
acne, prognathous, solicitude, Maurel
.
    “Yes?” Adamsberg looked up as he spoke. “Still frightened, are we? Maryse, you do remember, don’t you, that this is the murder squad? If you are really disturbed, maybe you should see a doctor instead.”
    “Oh, well, perhaps.”
    “It’s all right,” Adamsberg said as he stood up. “Stop fussing over it. Graffiti never broke any bones.”
    He opened the office door wide and smiled at Maryse to indicate that it was time for her to leave.
    “Hang on a minute. I haven’t told you about the other blocks.”
    “What other blocks?”
    “Two apartment blocks at the other end of Paris, in the eighteenth arrondissement.”
    “And