Read Online An Uncertain Place by Fred Vargas - Free Book Online

the witty Nolet was not getting on as well as all that. The ex-husband had an alibi, the inquiry was at a standstill. Adamsberg folded up the paper contentedly. In reception, the son of Pierre Vaudel was waiting for him, sitting upright, alongside his wife. He looked no more than thirty-five. Adamsberg paused. How do you tell a man his father has been chopped into pieces?
     
    The commissaire avoided getting to the point for some time, as he went through the formalities of identity and family. Pierre was an only child, and a late one. His mother had become pregnant after sixteen years of marriage, when his father had been forty-four. And Pierre Vaudel senior had been unrelentingly furious about this pregnancy, without giving his wife any reason. He was implacably opposed to having children, this child was not to be born and he wasn’t going to discuss it further. His wife had given in and gone away to have an abortion. In fact, she stayed away six months and allowed the pregnancy to go to term, and Pierre, son of Pierre, was born. His father’s anger had finally subsided after five years, but he always refused to let the child and his mother come and live with him.
    Pierre junior had only seen his father now and then as a child, and had been petrified by this man who had refused his existence with such determination. And this fear was entirely because of his having been born against his father’s wishes, since Pierre senior was apparently a perfectly reasonable man in other respects, generous according to his friends and affectionate according to his wife. Or at least he had been at one time, since a gradual withdrawal from contacts made it hard to discover his feelings. From the age of fifty-five, he would only see very few visitors, and over time detached himself from all those in his previously quite wide circle of friends. Later on, as a teenager, Pierre junior had managed to gain occasional entry, coming to play the piano on Saturday mornings, choosing pieces he thought would please his father. Then as a young man, Pierre junior had managed to get some serious attention. For the last ten years, especially since his mother’s death, the two Pierres had met fairly regularly. The son had become a lawyer and his professional knowledge had been helpful to his father when he was researching legal cases. Working together had allowed them to avoid having too much personal conversation.
    ‘What was his interest in these cases?’
    ‘Well, it was his living. He made all his money from it. He did law reports for several papers and specialist periodicals. Then he would go in search of miscarriages of justice. He was a scientist by training and he used to complain all the time about how sloppy the judicial system was. He said that the law was ambiguous and could be twisted one way and another, so the truth got lost in these endless and sickening arguments. He said you could tell at once if a verdict was right or wrong, if it clicked into place satisfactorily or not. He operated like a locksmith, working by ear. If it squeaked he looked for the truth.’
    ‘And did he find it?’
    ‘Several times, yes. He was responsible for the posthumous exoneration of the Sologne murderer, remember that? And other famous cases too where people got released: K. Jimmy Jones in the US, a banker called Trevenant, Madame Pasnier. He got Professor Glérant acquitted. His articles really counted. As time went on, many lawyers started to worry about his going into print. He was offered bribes, which he refused.’
    Pierre junior rested his chin on his hand, looking annoyed. He was not particularly handsome, with his domed forehead and pointed chin. But his eyes were rather remarkable, with a blank, dull glare, impenetrable shutters, possibly not open to pity. Leaning forward, with drooping shoulders and consulting his wife with a glance, he looked an apparently easy-going, docile man. But Adamsberg judged that there was intransigence somewhere