short. She could not find anything to say in Massart’s defence.
“With Crassus,” Johnstone continued. “On the run. They’ll slaughter sheep, women, children.”
“But for heaven’s sake, why?” she whispered.
“Because he has no hair.”
Camille looked at him in disbelief.
“And it’s made him crazy,” Johnstone concluded. “We’re going to the police.”
“Wait,” said Camille, holding him back by the sleeve.
“What? You want him to murder more Suzannes?”
“Let’s wait until tomorrow. To see if they find him. Please.”
Johnstone nodded and walked on up the street in silence.
“Augustus has had nothing to eat since Friday,” he said. “I’m going up again. Back tomorrow noon.”
Next day at noon Massart was still missing. The lunchtime news reported three sheep savaged at La Castille. The wolf was on his way north.
In Paris, Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg made a note of the news. He had got hold of a Landranger map of the Mercantour, and he pulled it out of the bottom drawer where he kept files on murky muddles and dicey stratagems. He put a red line underneath the name of La Castille on the map. Yesterday he had underlined Guillos. He gazed at the map for a good while with his elbow on the table and his cheek in his hand. Pondering.
Danglard watched him at it, slightly aghast. He could not understand why Adamsberg had become so interested in the wolf business when he was up to his neck in a complicated manslaughter case in the Latin Quarter (a claim of self-defence which was just a bit too neat to be true) and when a raving madwoman had sworn she would put a bullet in his guts. But that’s the way things were. Danglard had never grasped the peculiar logic that lay behind Adamsberg’s decisions. In his view, of course, it was no logic at all, just an unending kaleidoscope of hunches and surmises which inexplicably gave rise to undeniably first-rate results. That said, Danglard’s nerves could not stand the strain of keeping in step with Adamsberg’s thought processes. For not only were the
commissaire
’s thoughts of indeterminate substance, hovering between the solid, liquid and gaseous states, but they were forever agglutinating with other thoughts without the slightest rational link. So while Danglard with his well-honed mind sorted sheep from goats, put things in little boxes, found the missing links, and thereby solved problems with method, Adamsberg put one thing with another, or turned them upside down, or scattered what had been brought together and threw it up in the air to see where it would fall. And despite his amazingly slow pace, he would, in the end, extract truth from that chaos. Danglard therefore supposed that
Commissaire
Adamsberg, like a genius or a mental patient, was endowed with what people call “his own kind of logic”. For years he had been trying to get used to it, but he remained torn between finding Adamsberg’s mind admirable, and finding it exasperating.
Danglard was indeed a divided man. Adamsberg, on the other hand, had been cast (rather hurriedly, at a guess) from a single mould and from a single, separate and slippery substance, which meant that the real world could never get a grip on him for very long. Strange to say, he was easy to get on with. Except for people who tried to get a grip on him, of course. And there were plenty of those. There always are people who want to get a grip on you.
Commissaire
Adamsberg measured the distance between Guillos and La Castille with index finger and thumb, then pivoted on the latter to see where this nomadic bloodthirsty wolf might strike next in its search for new territory. Danglard watched him working at it for a few minutes. Despite the swirling mists and mirages of his mental landscape, Adamsberg could sometimes be disturbingly precise on technical matters.
“Something wrong with the wolves, then?” Danglard kicked off.
“With the
wolf
, Danglard. He’s all alone, but he’s as dangerous as a pack
“With Crassus,” Johnstone continued. “On the run. They’ll slaughter sheep, women, children.”
“But for heaven’s sake, why?” she whispered.
“Because he has no hair.”
Camille looked at him in disbelief.
“And it’s made him crazy,” Johnstone concluded. “We’re going to the police.”
“Wait,” said Camille, holding him back by the sleeve.
“What? You want him to murder more Suzannes?”
“Let’s wait until tomorrow. To see if they find him. Please.”
Johnstone nodded and walked on up the street in silence.
“Augustus has had nothing to eat since Friday,” he said. “I’m going up again. Back tomorrow noon.”
Next day at noon Massart was still missing. The lunchtime news reported three sheep savaged at La Castille. The wolf was on his way north.
In Paris, Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg made a note of the news. He had got hold of a Landranger map of the Mercantour, and he pulled it out of the bottom drawer where he kept files on murky muddles and dicey stratagems. He put a red line underneath the name of La Castille on the map. Yesterday he had underlined Guillos. He gazed at the map for a good while with his elbow on the table and his cheek in his hand. Pondering.
Danglard watched him at it, slightly aghast. He could not understand why Adamsberg had become so interested in the wolf business when he was up to his neck in a complicated manslaughter case in the Latin Quarter (a claim of self-defence which was just a bit too neat to be true) and when a raving madwoman had sworn she would put a bullet in his guts. But that’s the way things were. Danglard had never grasped the peculiar logic that lay behind Adamsberg’s decisions. In his view, of course, it was no logic at all, just an unending kaleidoscope of hunches and surmises which inexplicably gave rise to undeniably first-rate results. That said, Danglard’s nerves could not stand the strain of keeping in step with Adamsberg’s thought processes. For not only were the
commissaire
’s thoughts of indeterminate substance, hovering between the solid, liquid and gaseous states, but they were forever agglutinating with other thoughts without the slightest rational link. So while Danglard with his well-honed mind sorted sheep from goats, put things in little boxes, found the missing links, and thereby solved problems with method, Adamsberg put one thing with another, or turned them upside down, or scattered what had been brought together and threw it up in the air to see where it would fall. And despite his amazingly slow pace, he would, in the end, extract truth from that chaos. Danglard therefore supposed that
Commissaire
Adamsberg, like a genius or a mental patient, was endowed with what people call “his own kind of logic”. For years he had been trying to get used to it, but he remained torn between finding Adamsberg’s mind admirable, and finding it exasperating.
Danglard was indeed a divided man. Adamsberg, on the other hand, had been cast (rather hurriedly, at a guess) from a single mould and from a single, separate and slippery substance, which meant that the real world could never get a grip on him for very long. Strange to say, he was easy to get on with. Except for people who tried to get a grip on him, of course. And there were plenty of those. There always are people who want to get a grip on you.
Commissaire
Adamsberg measured the distance between Guillos and La Castille with index finger and thumb, then pivoted on the latter to see where this nomadic bloodthirsty wolf might strike next in its search for new territory. Danglard watched him working at it for a few minutes. Despite the swirling mists and mirages of his mental landscape, Adamsberg could sometimes be disturbingly precise on technical matters.
“Something wrong with the wolves, then?” Danglard kicked off.
“With the
wolf
, Danglard. He’s all alone, but he’s as dangerous as a pack
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