The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas Page B

felt that way, anger was sure to follow, welling up in lethal pulses from his stomach into his throat, until it invaded his whole head.
    Danglard, feeling seedy and with a blinding headache himself, was just arriving for work. He saw the very tall blind man standing stock-still near the door of the station, an expression of arrogant despair on his face.
    ‘Can I help you?’ Danglard asked. ‘Are you lost?’
    ‘ Are you ?’ Charles asked.
    Danglard ran his hand through his hair.
    What a mean question. Was he lost?
    ‘No,’ he said.
    ‘Wrong,’ said Charles.
    ‘Is that any of your business?’ said Danglard.
    ‘Is my standing here any of your business?’
    ‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ said Danglard. ‘Suit yourself. Stay lost if you’re lost.’
    ‘I’m looking for the police station.’
    ‘Well, you’re in luck, I work there. I’ll take you in. What do you want the police station for?’
    ‘It’s about the chalk circle man,’ Charles said. ‘I’ve come to see Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg. He’s your boss, isn’t he?’
    ‘That’s right,’ said Danglard. ‘But I don’t know if he’s here yet. He could still be wandering around somewhere. Are you coming to tell him something, or to ask him for something? Because I have to tell you that the boss doesn’t give out precise information, whether you ask him for it or not. So if you’re a journalist, you’d do better to go and join your colleagues over there. There are plenty of them about.’
    They were arriving at the entrance to the station. Charles stumbled against the step and Danglard had to catch him by the arm. Behind his glasses, in his dead eyes, Charles felt a brief spasm of rage.
    He said quickly: ‘No, I’m not a journalist.’
    Danglard frowned and rubbed a finger over his forehead, although he knew perfectly well that you couldn’t cure a hangover by rubbing your head.
    Adamsberg was there. Danglard could not have said afterwards whether he was in the office or even sitting down. He had perched there, too light for the big armchair and too dense for the white and green furnishings.
    ‘Monsieur Reyer wants a word with you,’ said Danglard.
    Adamsberg looked up. He was more struck than he had been the previous day by Charles’s face. Mathilde was right: the blind man was spectacularly good-looking. And Adamsberg admired beauty in others, although he had given up wishing for it himself. In any case, he couldn’t remember ever having wanted to be anyone else.
    ‘You stay too, Danglard,’ he said. ‘Haven’t seen you for some time.’
    Charles felt around for a chair and sat down.
    ‘Mathilde Forestier can’t come to the Saint-Georges metro station with you tonight as she had promised. That’s the message. I’m just dropping in to deliver it to you.’
    ‘How am I supposed to find him without her, this circle man, since she’s the only one who knows who he is?’ asked Adamsberg.
    ‘She thought of that,’ said Charles, with a smile. ‘She said I could do it, because she thinks the man leaves a vague smell of apples behind him. She says all I have to do is wait with my nose in the air and breathe deeply, and I’d be pretty good at sniffing out the smell of rotten apples.’
    Charles shrugged.
    ‘It wouldn’t work, of course. She can be very perverse.’
    Adamsberg looked preoccupied. He had swivelled sideways, putting his feet on top of the plastic waste bin, and was resting a piece of paper on his thigh. He seemed to want to start drawing as if he was entirely unconcerned, but Danglard thought this was far from the case. He could see that Adamsberg’s face was darker than usual: the nose seemed sharper and he was clenching and unclenching his jaw.
    ‘Yes, Danglard,’ he said rather quietly. ‘We can’t do anything if Madame Forestier isn’t there to guide the way. Odd, don’t you think?’
    Charles made as if to leave.
    ‘No, Monsieur Reyer, don’t go,’ said Adamsberg, still in a quiet voice. ‘An annoying