Read Online Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas - Free Book Online Page A

Johnstone said.
    “Bloody hell,” said Camille. “Another savaging.”
    “God almighty. This isn’t going to settle the old bag’s nerves.”
    “You mean Suzanne.”
    “I mean Suzanne.”
    “If only it had happened somewhere else.”
    “The wolf does the choosing,” said Johnstone. “Not chance.”
    “He chooses?”
    “Sure he does. He starts off sniffing around until he finds the right place. Somewhere easy to break into, somewhere far from other houses, and where the dogs are kept on the chain. So he comes back for more. And he’ll carry on coming back. If he makes a habit of it, it’ll be easier to corner him.”
    Johnstone laid his helmet and gloves on the motorbike seat.
    “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go check the gashes. See if they’re the same.”
    Johnstone shook his long fair hair like a waking animal, which he often did when he was in difficulty. Camille thrust her clenched fists deep into her trouser pockets. The path smelled of thyme and basil and, to Camille’s mind, of blood. Johnstone reckoned that it smelled most of all and as always of lanolin and rancid piss.
    They shook hands with the medium policeman, who looked worn and overwhelmed.
    “Can I see the wounds?” Johnstone asked him.
    The
gendarme
shrugged. “Nothing may be touched,” he said as if by rote. “Nothing may be touched.”
    But at the same time he waved them on in with a weary flap of his arm.
    “Careful,” the policeman said, “it’s not pretty. Really not.”
    “Sure it’s not pretty,” Johnstone said.
    “Did you come for the grapes?” he asked, seeing the empty jar in Camille’s hand.
    “Sort of,” Camille said.
    “Well, it’s not the right time for that. Not the right time at all.”
    Camille wondered why the
gendarme
said everything twice. It must take a lot of time to say everything in duplicate; you could waste half the day as easy as pie. Whereas Johnstone who scarcely articulated one third of his sentences saved a great deal of time. But it could also be argued that he was wasting his time too. Camille’s mother used to say that time wasted is time gained.
    She looked up towards the sheep-pen, but this morning neither Watchee nor Soliman was standing guard. Johnstone was already inside when she entered the low building. He turned, looking as pale as a sheet in the gloom, and held out both hands to stop her coming in any further.
    “Stay where you are, Camille,” he breathed. “It’s not a sheep, for heaven’s sake.”
    But Camille had already seen. Suzanne was lying on her back in the messed straw with her arms asplay and her dress up over her knees. Blood had gushed from a ghastly wound on her neck. Camille closed her eyes and ran out. She ran straight into the medium
gendarme
, who held her back.
    “Whatever happened?” she bawled.
    “The wolf,” the policeman said. “The wolf.”
    He took her by the arm, helped her to the van, made her sit down in the front seat.
    “I’m all cut up about it, too,” the
gendarme
said. “But I mustn’t show it. It’s against standing orders.”
    “Did Suzanne take a blind bit of notice of your standing orders, I wonder?”
    “No, of course not, dearie.”
    He took a flask from the glove-compartment and offered it to her, clumsily.
    “I don’t want any hooch,” she wept. “I want grapes. I came for grapes.”
    “Come on, don’t be a baby. Don’t be a baby.”
    “Suzanne,” Camille moaned. “My big fat Suzanne.”
    “She must have heard the animal,” the
gendarme
said. “She must have come up to see what the mayhem in the sheep-pen was about. She must have had the beast cornered, and then it jumped her. Jumped her. She was too brave by half, she was.”
    “And Watchee?” Camille growled. “What the fuck was Watchee doing?”
    “Don’t be a baby,” the
gendarme
said once more. “Watchee was out. There was one lamb missing, new-born this spring. He spent part of the night looking for it, then when he was too far away to come