Free An Uncertain Place by Fred Vargas Page B

they don’t like you.’
    This question seemed to surprise Émile.
    ‘See if I care if they like me or not. Just I know more than they do about old Vaudel. Can’t blame ’em, stands to reason they’re afraid of me. I’m a man with “a violent past of the most reprehensible kind”. That’s what he used to say,’ he added, with a laugh that revealed a couple of missing teeth. ‘Mind, he was a bit out of order, cos I never killed nobody. But “violent past”, yeah, he wasn’t far wrong.’
    Émile brought out a packet of tobacco and efficiently rolled himself a cigarette.
    ‘This violent past, how much time have you done for it?’
    ‘Eleven years and six months, seven different sentences. That wears you out. Well, now I’m over fifty, it’s not so bad. Just the odd fight now and then. No more. And I’ve paid the price, haven’t I? No wife, no kids. Like kids all right, but I wouldn’t want any myself. When you’re like me, quick with my fists, wouldn’t be such a good idea. Stands to reason. That was something else we had in common, Monsieur Vaudel and me. He didn’t want no kids either. Well, not that he said it like that. What he said in his plummy voice was: “No descendants, Émile.” Still, he did have a kid an’ all, without meaning to.’
    ‘Do you know why?’
    Émile dragged on his cigarette and looked at Adamsberg in surprise.
    ‘Didn’t mind out, did he?’
    ‘But why didn’t he want “descendants”?’
    ‘Just didn’t. But what I’m thinking now is what’m I going to do? I’ve not got a job, or a roof over my head no more, I used to live in the shed.’
    ‘And Vaudel wasn’t afraid of you?’
    ‘Not him. He wasn’t afraid of anything, even dying. He used to say, only thing about dying, it takes too long.’
    ‘And you never felt like being violent towards him?’
    ‘Yeah, sometimes, at first. But I preferred to get him at noughts and crosses. I taught him how to play. I never thought to find someone didn’t know how to play noughts and crosses. I’d come in the evening, light the fire, pour out a couple of Guignolets. That’s something he showed me , drinking Guignolet. And we’d sit down and play noughts and crosses.’
    ‘And who won?’
    ‘Two times out of three it was him in the end. Because he was really crafty, and he invented this special version, very big, with long pieces of paper. Really hard, you see?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘So he wanted to go even bigger, but I didn’t.’
    ‘Did you do a lot of drinking together?’
    ‘No, just a couple of Guignolets, that was it. But what I’ll miss is the winkles we used to eat with it. He used to order them every Friday, we had a little pin each, mine had a blue top, his had an orange top, never mix them up. He said I’d be …’
    Émile rubbed his nose trying to remember a word. Adamsberg recognised this kind of search.
    ‘Yeah, that I’d be nost-al-gic when he weren’t there no more. But he was right an’ all, crafty old thing. I am nostalgic.’
    Adamsberg had the sense that Émile was proudly assuming the complex state of nostalgia and the unfamiliar word to honour it.
    ‘When you were violent in the past, was it when you were drunk?’
    ‘Nah, that’s just it. Sometimes I’d have a drink after , to get over it, like. And yeah, before you ask, I seen lots of shrinks, they made me see ’em, like it or not, ten or more. They didn’t know what I was doing it for. They poked about, asking about my parents, father, mother, nothing. I was happy enough as a kid. That’s why Monsieur Vaudel, he used to say, nothing to be done about it, Émile, it’s in your genes. Do you know what that is, genes?’
    ‘Sort of.’
    ‘No, properly?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Well, I know, it’s bad seed as comes down to you. So, you see. It wasn’t any point him and me trying to live like other people. It was down to genes.’
    ‘You think Vaudel had genes too?’
    ‘Of course,’ said Émile with an air of annoyance, as if