Free Dog Will Have His Day by Fred Vargas

denying it. Still, at this moment, he wasn’t in love, nor was anyone in love with him, and that way he had a quiet life at least, so it was best to take advantage of it.
    Marc went back up to the second floor with his tray. He took a pencil and a magnifying glass, because the archives were very hard to decipher. They were photocopies of course, which didn’t help. In 1245, now, they wouldn’t have given a toss about a bit of dog shit, even with a bone inside it. Yes, but then again, they might. Justice was taken very seriously in 1245. Yes, in fact, they probably would have taken notice of it, if they’d known it was a human bone, and if they had suspected it came from a murder. Of course they would. They’d have handed the matter over to the customary justice dispensed by Hugues, the lord of Saint-Amand-en-Puisaye. And what would Hugues have done about it?
    OK, all very well, but that’s not the point. There’s no dog shit mentioned in the papers about the lord’s barns, don’t get everything mixed up. It was raining outside. Perhaps Kehlweiler was still sitting on his bench, since he’d left him there just now. No, he must have changed benches, and gone to sit at observation post 102, by that grid round the tree. He really must ask his godfather some questions about the guy.
    Marc transcribed ten lines and drank a mouthful of tea. His bedroom was not very warm, the tea did him good. Soon, he might be able to turn on another radiator, when he got the job in the library. Because as well as everything else, he wouldn’t earn any money helping Kehlweiler out. Not a centime, he’d said. And Marc needed money, but not to look as if he would jump at anything. It’s true that Kehlweiler would find it hard to follow the dog owners on his own, with his stiff knee as well, but that was his problem. Marc had to keep following the lord of Saint-Amand-en-Puisaye and that’s what he would do. In three weeks, he’d made good progress, he’d identified a quarter of the feudal tenants. He’d always been quick at his work. Except when he stopped, of course. And Kehlweiler had noticed it in fact. Oh, the hell with Kehlweiler, and the hell with women, and with this tea that tastes of dust.
    True, there might be a murderer around somewhere, a murderer no one would go looking for. But there were plenty of others, and so what? If some guy had killed a woman in a fit of rage, what business was it of his?
    Dear God, the steward noting down the Saint-Amand accounts was hard-working, but his handwriting was lousy. If he’d been Hugues, he’d have changed his steward. His o’s and a’s were interchangeable. Marc picked up the magnifying glass. Kehlweiler’s business wasn’t the same as the Sophia Simeonidis case. That one he’d had to deal with because he’d been cornered, she was his neighbour, he liked her, and the murder had been a horrible premeditated one. Revolting, he didn’t want to think about it any more. Yes, but there might be a crime behind Kehlweiler’s bit of bone, and that too might be a horrible premeditated crime. Kehlweiler was thinking about it and wanted to know.
    Yes, all right, but that was Kehlweiler’s job, not his. If he’d asked Kehlweiler to give him a hand transcribing the accounts of Saint-Amand, what would he have answered? He’d have said no fear, and that would be normal.
    Finished, over, impossible to concentrate. All because of this guy, and his story of the dog, the grid, the murder, the bench. If his godfather had been around, he could have told him exactly what he thought of Louis Kehlweiler. He’d been hired for a little filing job, and it had gone haywire, he was being obliged to do something else. Although, to be fair, Kehlweiler hadn’t
obliged
him to do anything. He had suggested something, and he hadn’t got mad when Marc refused. In fact no one was stopping him carrying on with his study of the barns of Saint-Amand.
    No one except the dog. No one except the bone. No one