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added, for Estalère’s benefit.
    ‘I see.’
    ‘Her husband was a famous man, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a Pre-Raphaelite painter and a poet. Some manuscripts of her husband’s poems were buried with her in the coffin.’
    ‘It’s not long till we get there,’ said Estalère, looking suddenly alarmed. ‘Will we have time for this?’
    ‘Don’t worry, it won’t take long. Seven years later, the husband had the grave opened. Then there are two versions of this. The first says that Rossetti regretted his romantic gesture and wanted to get his poems back in order to publish them. According to the second version, he couldn’t bear living without his wife, and he had this rather scary friend, called Bram Stoker. Have you heard of him, Estalère?’
    ‘No, never.’
    ‘Well, he’s the creator of Count Dracula, a very powerful vampire.’
    Estalère looked alarmed once again.
    ‘It’s only a novel,’ Danglard explained, ‘but we do know that the whole subject had an unhealthy fascination for Bram Stoker. He knew all these rituals that relate the living to the undead. So anyway, he was a friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s.’
    In his effort to concentrate, Estalère was twisting another paper napkin, anxious not to miss a word.
    ‘Some champagne?’ Danglard asked. ‘We’ve got plenty of time. It’s not a nice story but it’s quite short.’
    Estalère shot a glance at Adamsberg, who seemed indifferent, and accepted. If he was making Danglard tell the story, it would be only polite to drink his champagne.
    ‘Bram Stoker was passionately interested in Highgate Cemetery,’ Danglard continued, stopping the drinks trolley again. ‘He made one of his heroines, Lucy, go wandering there, and he made the place famous. Or perhaps, some people say, he was driven to it by the Entity itself. According to the second version, it was Stoker who persuaded Rossetti to look once more at his dead wife. Well, anyway, Rossetti did break open the coffin seven years after her death. And it was then, or perhaps earlier, that the Highgate catacomb was first opened.’
    Danglard stopped speaking, as if he too were caught up in Dante Gabriel’s dark wanderings, faced with the keen gaze of Adamsberg and the bemused expression of Estalère.
    ‘Right,’ said Estalère, ‘he broke open the coffin – and he saw something?’
    ‘Yes. Well. He discovered with dread that his wife was perfectly preserved. She had kept her long auburn hair, her skin was as fresh and pink and her nails as long as if she had just died, even better than she had looked in life. That’s the truth, Estalère. As if the seven years had done her nothing but good. Not a trace of decomposition.’
    ‘Is that really possible?’ asked Estalère, gripping the plastic cup.
    ‘It’s what happened in any case. She had the “rosy glow” of the living – in fact, she was rosier than ever. It was described by witnesses, I’m not making this up.’
    ‘But the coffin was normal? Just a wooden one?’
    ‘Yes. And the miraculous conservation of Lizzie Siddal caused a big scandal in England and beyond. People immediately started connecting it with the Master – the Highgate Vampire – and saying he had taken possession of the cemetery. There were ceremonies, people saw apparitions, they chanted incantations to the Master. From that time, the catacomb was open.’
    ‘So people went in.’
    ‘They certainly did, thousands of them. Until the two girls who were followed, more recently.’
    The train braked, as they approached the Gare du Nord. Adamsberg sat up, shook out his jacket which he had rolled into a ball, and patted down his hair.
    ‘And what’s Stock’s connection to all that?’ he asked.
    ‘Radstock was part of a team of policemen sent up there when they heard about the exorcism sessions in the 1970s. He saw the preserved body of the man, and he heard the exorcist addressing the vampire. I guess he was young and impressionable at the time. And then