This Night's Foul Work by Fred Vargas Page A

gathering. Anglebert pointed to a chair.
    â€˜You’ve got time to sit down, pal, haven’t you?’
    The familiar tone meant he had been provisionally accepted in this assembly of Normans from the flatlands. A glass of white wine was pushed towards him. This evening the assembly had a new member, and there would be plentiful comment on him next day.
    â€˜Who’s been killed, then? In Brétilly?’ Adamsberg asked, after drinking the requisite number of mouthfuls.
    â€˜Killed? Massacred more like! Shot down like, well, like vermin.’
    Oswald brought another paper out of his pocket and handed it to Adamsberg, pointing to a photograph.
    â€˜What it is,’ said Robert, who had not lost the thread of the previous conversation, ‘you’d do better to be not so considerate first, and more considerate after. With women. Less trouble that way.’
    â€˜Never know where you are with ‘em,’ agreed the old man.
    â€˜Never do,’ said the punctuator.
    Adamsberg was looking at the newspaper article with a frown. A russet-coloured beast was lying in a pool of blood under the headline ‘Odious massacre at Brétilly’. He turned the paper over to see that it was a monthly magazine, the
Western France Hunting Gazette
.
    â€˜You a hunter?’ asked Oswald.
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Well, you won’t understand, then. Stag like that, eight points, you just don’t shoot ‘im like that. Diabolical.’
    â€˜Seven points,’ corrected Hilaire.
    â€˜â€™Scuse me,’ said Oswald, an edge to his voice, ‘but that one there, he’s got eight points.’
    â€˜Seven.’
    Quarrel imminent. Anglebert took control. ‘You can’t tell from the picture,’ he said. ‘Seven or eight.’
    Everyone took a drink, feeling relieved. Not that a little discord was unwelcome and indeed necessary in the evening concert. But tonight, with an intruder present, there were other priorities.
    â€˜See that?’ said Robert, pointing with his large finger at the photo. ‘That’s no hunter’s doing. That fellow, he hasn’t touched the carcass, he hasn’t taken the pieces, or the honours or anything.’
    â€˜The honours?’
    â€˜The antlers and the hoof, front right. What he’s done, he’s slit it open, just out of cussedness. A maniac. And what have the Evreux cops done about it? Nothing, that’s what. They couldn’t give a toss.’
    â€˜â€™Cos it’s not a murder for them,’ a voice said.
    â€˜Want me to tell you what I think? When someone kills an animal like that, he’s wrong in the head. Who’s to say after that he won’t go off and kill a woman? Murderers, they practise on animals, then go on …’
    â€˜True enough,’ said Adamsberg, thinking of the twelve rats in Le Havre.
    â€˜But the cops are so dumb they can’t see it when it’s staring them in the face. Stupid bastards.’
    â€˜It’s only a stag, though,’ objected the objector.
    â€˜You’re stupid too, Alphonse. If I was a cop, I’d get going after this so-and-so – and quickly, too.’
    â€˜Me too,’ murmured Adamsberg.
    â€˜Ah, you see, even this guy from the Pyrenees agrees with me. ‘Cos a massacre like that, Alphonse, you listen to me, it means there’s some maniac loose out there. And you better believe me, I know what I’m talking about – you’ll be hearing more about him before long.’
    â€˜The Pyrenean agrees with that, too,’ said Adamsberg, while the old man started to refill his glass for him.
    â€˜Ah, see that, and he isn’t even a hunter!’
    â€˜Nope,’ said Adamsberg. ‘He’s a cop.’
    Anglebert suspended his arm, holding the bottle of white wine over the glass. Adamsberg met his gaze. The challenge began. With a slight nudge, Adamsberg indicated that he would like the glass filled