This Night's Foul Work by Fred Vargas

get a comb through it.
    â€˜There were plenty of candidates for the job,’ Adamsberg began. ‘What were the qualities that helped you get it?’
    â€˜Pulling strings. I know
Divisionnaire
Brézillon very well. I helped his younger son out of trouble once.’
    â€˜A police matter?’
    â€˜No, a sexual matter, in the boarding school where I was teaching.’
    â€˜So you didn’t set out to be a cop?’
    â€˜No, I started off in teaching.’
    â€˜What ill wind made you change your mind?’
    The New Recruit lit a cigarette. His hands were square and compact. Quite attractive.
    â€˜A love affair,’ Adamsberg guessed.
    â€˜Yes, she was in the force, and I thought it would be a good thing to join her. But by trailing after her I lost her, and I got stuck with the police.’
    â€˜Pity.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Why did you want this job? To get to Paris?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜To join the Serious Crime Squad?’
    â€˜Yes. I made inquiries, and it suited me.’
    â€˜What did your inquiries tell you?’
    â€˜Lots of things, some of them contradictory.’
    â€˜I haven’t made any inquiries about you, though. I don’t even know your name, because in the office they’re still calling you “the New Recruit”.’
    â€˜Veyrenc, Louis Veyrenc.’
    â€˜Veyrenc,’ Adamsberg repeated thoughtfully. ‘And where did you get your ginger streaks, Veyrenc? They intrigue me.’
    â€˜Me too,
commissaire.’
    The New Recruit had turned his face away quickly, shutting his eyes. The New Recruit had suffered, Adamsberg sensed. Veyrenc blew a puff of smoke up at the ceiling, wondering how to finish his reply and failing to decide. In this arrested pose, his upper lip was raised slightly to the right as if pulled by a thread, a twist which gave him a peculiar charm. That and the dark eyes, reduced to triangles with a comma of long lashes at the corners. A dangerous gift from
Divisionnaire
Brézillon.
    â€˜I’m not obliged to answer that question,’ Veyrenc said at last.
    â€˜No.’
    Adamsberg, who had come to fetch his new colleague with no other aim than to dislodge him from Camille’s door, felt that there was something disturbing about this conversation, without being able to identify why. And yet, he thought, the reason wasn’t far away, it was within thinking range. He allowed his gaze to wander over the banisters, the walls, the steps, one by one, down and up again.
    He knew that face.
    â€˜What did you say your name was?’
    â€˜Veyrenc.’
    â€˜Veyrenc de Bilhc,’ Adamsberg corrected him. ‘Your full name’s Louis Veyrenc de Bilhc.’
    â€˜Yes, it’s in the file.’
    â€˜Where were you born?’
    â€˜Arras.’
    â€˜An accident of birth, I presume, during an absence from home. You’re not a northerner.’
    â€˜Maybe not.’
    â€˜Definitely not. You’re a Gascon, a Béarnais.’
    â€˜Yes, that’s true.’
    â€˜Of course it’s true. A Béarnais from the Gave d’Ossau valley.’
    The New Recruit closed his eyes quickly, as if making a tiny movement of retreat.
    â€˜How do you know?’
    â€˜If you have the name of a wine, you’re likely to be easy to place. The Veyrenc de Bilhc grapes grow on the slopes of the Ossau valley.’
    â€˜Is that a problem?’
    â€˜Possibly. Gascons aren’t the easiest of people to deal with. Melancholy, solitary, mild, hardworking, ironic and stubborn. It’s a nature which is quite interesting if you can put up with it. I know some people who can’t.’
    â€˜Yourself, for instance? You’ve got something against the Béarnais?’
    â€˜Obviously. Think,
lieutenant.’
    The New Recruit drew back a little, as an animal withdraws better to consider the enemy.
    â€˜The Veyrenc de Bilhc vintage is not very well known,’ he