Free Bed of Nails by Antonin Varenne Page B

loco, he – Lambert – was the umbrella protecting him from the showers of shit. As further precaution, he jammed the crumpled wool cap advertising Berettas on Guérin’s head.
    “Where are we, Lambert? What are you doing?”
    “Nothing, boss, nothing, er, let’s go and look at the videos. We’ll go up the side stairs.”
    Guérin brandished his hard disk and looked triumphantly at his assistant. A cup-and-ball toy with a spinning top perched on it, advertising a make of guns. The blood, by now soaking the last few strands of black hair that formed a wispy crown round his head, was reaching the corner of his mouth and trickling onto his neck.
    “Right, young Lambert, let’s get to work!”
    Lambert took out the keys, unlocked the door and they went past the row of stinking dustbins. Their entrance was through the garbage area outside the office kitchens. The heavy-handed humour of Police H.Q. He put his arm on Guérin’s to steer him up the steps. The little man was losing his surge of energy and starting to collapse, out of breath.
    They reached the office safely without meeting anyone. Lambert breathed again as he closed the door. The ghostly glare from the strip-lighting drew a little cry of hope from the small room, which never saw daylight: after the first flash, it settled to its usual pale twilight.
    Guérin pulled the woolly hat off and sat down at the desk. Still chasing his ghosts, he was shaking all over and his large, wounded head bobbed dangerously.
    “Call Forensics, and tell them to send a team to the Natural History Museum. Fingerprints and anything else on the handrail of the third floor. I’ve had it cordoned off.”
    Lambert, filled with pity, watched as his boss tried, with clumsygestures, to connect the hard disk to his computer. The light made him blink hard. Soon he would be seeing the dangerous moment once more.
    “Boss, shouldn’t you clean up a bit first?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    With his chin, Lambert gestured to his bald cranium. Guérin peered at him enquiringly, then felt it with his hand and contemplated his fingers, now smeared with blood. Slowly he looked up at his tall fair deputy. Deep in Guérin’s eyes, two little men in yellow raincoats stood terrified and frantic, calling for his help to get them out of there.
    A muscle twitched on Guérin’s cheek and his gaze faltered. Lambert had the impression of hearing a windscreen splinter.
    “It was … er, Churchill, he pecked me this morning … the old parrot …”
    “Yeah, O.K., boss, but still better clean it up.”
    Guérin wiped his bloodstained hand on his raincoat.
    “I’m going to watch these videos … get me a paper towel, it’s nothing, it’s not serious, just a scratch.”
    Half his head was scored with bleeding grooves.
    Guérin is completely nuts
. As Lambert grabbed a paper roll from the coffee machine room, the sentence hammered over and over in his head.
Guérin is completely nuts
. When he opened the office door again, the room was empty. He went into the archive section, called out, then looked for the boss between the shelves. Gone. Back in the office he saw that the hard disk was still sitting there, but the cap had disappeared. He put out the light and went downstairs. Lambert searched his conscience, where he found an overwhelming desire to have a beer. Could a dog get his master certified?

6
    John walked along the Seine, protected by the night, which gradually hid his tall silhouette against the background.
    So Alan has sex with an embassy official. Then he dies during a stage act, hanging from butcher’s hooks. The embassy official turns up in the morgue, because he has to see to the repatriation of the body of his lover. The embassy keeps a close eye on this deviant staff member whose nerves are rather too fragile. That’s all. But there seem to be too many things going on here. The persistent impression that everything had been rehearsed in advance, ever since the moment the