Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas Page A

the bend.”
    Camille said nothing.
    “If you were honest with yourself you’d admit it,” Johnstone said. “And you haven’t heard the worst of it yet,” he added.
    “Don’t you want to come inside?” Camille asked. “I’m cold, really freezing.”
    Johnstone looked up and then got to his feet in a start, as if he had only just noticed how much he had shocked Camille. Camille loved the old bag. He put his arms round her, rubbed her back. As for himself, he had heard so many never-ending folktales about old hags who turn into grizzly bears, which turn into ptarmigans which then became lost souls, that he had long since stopped being worried by barking mad animal superstitions. Humankind has never been entirely rational about the wild. But here, in this cramped little land of France, everyone had lost the habit of the wild. And the thing that mattered was that Camille loved the old bag.
    “Come inside,” he said, kissing her hair.
    Camille did not switch on the light, so she wouldn’t have to extract words one by one from Johnstone. The moon was beginning to rise, that would be enough for seeing by. She nestled into an old straw-backed armchair, drew her knees up to her chin and crossed her arms. Johnstone opened a jar of preserved grapes, poured a dozen into a cup and handed it to Camille. He drained off a glassful of the preserving spirit for himself.
    “We could drown our sorrows,” he suggested.
    “There’s not enough alcohol left in that jar to drown a fly.”
    Camille swallowed the grapes and put the pips back into the cup. She’d have preferred to spit them into the fireplace but Johnstone did not approve of women spitting into fireplaces, since they were supposed to rise above the brutality of males, including their spitting habits.
    “I’m sorry for what I said about Suzanne,” he said.
    “Maybe she’s read too many African folktales after all,” Camille speculated wearily.
    “Perhaps.”
    “Do they have werewolves in Africa?”
    Johnstone spread his hands, palms upwards.
    “They must do. Maybe they’re not wolves, though, but man-jackals, hyena-men.”
    “Let’s have the rest,” Camille said.
    “She knows who it is.”
    “Who the werewolf is?”
    “Yup.”
    “Tell me.”
    “Massart, the man at the slaughterhouse.”
    “Massart?” Camille almost shouted. “Why Massart, for heaven’s sake?”
    Johnstone rubbed his cheek, not knowing what to say.
    “Come on, out with it.”
    “Because Massart is smooth-skinned.”
    Camille held out her cup like a machine and Johnstone spooned in another serving of grapes in cognac.
    “What, you mean no body hair?”
    “Have you seen him?”
    “Once.”
    “He’s got no hair.”
    “I don’t get it,” Camille said, obstinately. “He’s got hair on his head like you and me. He’s got a black fringe right down to his eyes.”
    “I said body hair, Camille. He’s got no hair on his body.”
    “You mean on his arms and legs and chest?”
    “That’s right. He’s as smooth-skinned as a choirboy. Haven’t seen it close up, but apparently he doesn’t even need to shave.”
    Camille screwed up her eyes the better to picture Massart standing beside his van the other day. She recalled the pallor of his forearms and face, which struck such a contrast with the swarthy skins of everyone else. Well, maybe yes, he might also have no body hair.
    “And so what?” she said. “What’s that bloody well got to do with it?”
    “You’re not really into werewolves, are you?”
    “Hardly.”
    “You wouldn’t know one if you saw one walking down the street.”
    “No, I wouldn’t. And what
would
tell me that some poor old sod was a werewolf?”
    “That’s how. A werewolf is an unhairy man. You know why? Because his wolf-coat is on the inside of his skin.”
    “Is that some kind of a joke?”
    “Go read the old books written in your own old country. You’ll see. It’s all there in black and white. And there are loads of country-folk who know