Read Online The Ghost Riders of Ordebec (Commissaire Adamsberg) by Fred Vargas - Free Book Online Page B

an hour later set off down the Chemin de Bonneval, to which he was directed by an ancient, hand-painted wooden signpost. Contrary to what he had expected, it was a narrow bridlepath: no doubt the idea of hundreds of armed men riding along it had made him imagine a broad and imposing avenue, under a canopy of tall beech trees. This path was much more modest, made of two long rutted tracks with grass growing between them, and on either side were ditches full of brambles, elm saplings and hazel bushes. Many blackberries were already ripe, well ahead of time, because of the abnormal heat, and Adamsberg picked some as he went along the path. He walked slowly, looking carefully at the ditches, and leisurely eating the fruit in his hand. He was surrounded by flies buzzing round his face as if anxious to taste his sweat.
    Every few minutes, he stopped to pick a fresh handful of blackberries, tearing his old black shirt on the thorns. Halfway along, he stopped suddenly, remembering he hadn’t left any message for Zerk. He was so used to living alone that letting people know when he would be away took some effort. He called his son on his mobile.
    ‘Hellebaud has stood up,’ reported the young man. ‘He ate some seeds all by himself. Then he crapped on the table.’
    ‘That’s what happens if you come back to life. Put a plastic sheet on the table for now. There are some in the attic. I won’t be back till tonight, Zerk, I’m on the Chemin de Bonneval.’
    ‘Have you seen them?’
    ‘No, it’s still too light. But I’m looking for the body of the hunter. Nobody’s been here for three weeks, there are brambles everywhere, they’re fruiting early. If Violette phones, don’t tell her where I am, she wouldn’t like it.’
    ‘No, of course not,’ said Zerk, and Adamsberg told himself his son was perhaps sharper than he looked. Crumb by crumb, he was amassing information about him.
    ‘I’ve changed the light bulb in the kitchen,’ Zerk added. ‘And the one on the stairs needs changing too, shall I go ahead?’
    ‘Yes, OK, but don’t put in too strong a bulb. I don’t like it when you can see everything.’
    ‘If you meet the Ghost Riders, call me!’
    ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to, Zerk. I dare say if they go past that’ll knock out the signal. The shock of two different eras.’
    ‘Could be,’ agreed the young man and rang off.
    Adamsberg advanced another few hundred metres, probing the sides of the path. Because Herbier was dead, he was quite sure of that. It was the only point on which he agreed with Madame Vendermot, the woman who would fly away if you blew on her. At this point, Adamsberg realised he had already forgotten the name for the little seeds of the dandelion clock.
    There was a silhouette on the path and Adamsberg, narrowing his eyes, went forward more cautiously. A very long silhouette, sitting on a tree trunk, and so old and bent that he was afraid he might scare it.
    ‘ Ello ,’ said the old woman, in English, as she saw him approach.
    ‘ Hello ,’ Adamsberg replied in surprise, pronouncing the H. Following a recent visit to London, ‘hello’ was one of the few words of English he knew, along with ‘yes’ and ‘no’ .
    ‘You took your time getting here from the station,’ she said.
    ‘I was picking blackberries,’ Adamsberg explained, wondering how such a confident voice could come out of this skeletal figure. Skeletal but intense. ‘You know who I am then?’
    ‘Not exactly. Lionel saw you get off the Paris train and on to the bus. Then Bernard told me, and what with one thing and another, here you are. Seeing what’s going on at the moment, the chances are you’re a policeman from Paris. There’s a bad atmosphere in these parts. Incidentally, Michel Herbier is no great loss.’
    The old woman sniffed loudly and wiped a drop off the end of her very long nose with her hand.
    ‘And you were waiting for me?’
    ‘Not at all, young man, I’m waiting for my dog. He’s