Read Dog Will Have His Day for Free Online Page B

it’s a piece of human bone.’
    ‘Well, shit,’ said Lanquetot.
    ‘You said it, inspector.’
    ‘I said what?’
    ‘You hit on it, how the bone got there.’
    ‘How am I supposed to know that?’
    ‘Wait,’ said Kehlweiler, ‘I’m going to show you something. Can you just hold Bufo?’
    ‘With pleasure.’
    ‘Right, hold your hand out.’
    Louis brought out a bottle of water and sprinkled some on Lanquetot’s hand.
    ‘It’s for Bufo,’ he explained, ‘you can’t hold him with a dry hand. He gets too hot, he gets upset, it doesn’t work. There. Now pick up Bufo with your thumb and index finger, fairly firmly because he doesn’t know you. Not too tight though, OK? I’m fond of him. The only being in the world who lets me talk without interrupting me, and never asks for explanations. Now, just take a look.’
    ‘Tell me,’ Lanquetot interrupted him, ‘was that really Sorel you spoke to at the Ministry?’
    ‘No, not at all, my friend. Sorel is too isolated, he can’t afford to cover me too openly. It was a pal acting a part, I’d fixed it in advance.’
    ‘That was a mean trick,’ Lanquetot murmured.
    ‘Yes, it was, rather.’
    Louis flattened out the screw of paper again and carefully picked up the bone.
    ‘You see, Lanquetot, it’s been bitten, gnawed.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And all the little holes, see them?’
    ‘Yes, of course.’
    ‘So now do you understand where this came from?’
    The inspector shook his head.
    ‘From the gut of a dog, Lanquetot, from the gut of a dog! This bone has been digested, do you see? It’s the acids that make the little holes, quite unmistakable.’
    Louis put the bone away, and took his toad back.
    ‘Come on, Bufo, we’re going for a little walk, you, me and the inspector. The inspector is a new friend. You’ve seen him, right? And he didn’t hurt you, did he?’
    Louis turned to Lanquetot.
    ‘I talk like this to him because he’s a bit stupid, as I told you. You have to keep it simple with Bufo, just basic ideas: nice people, nasty people, eating, sex, sleep. He can’t cope with anything else. Sometimes I try something a bit harder, a bit of philosophy even, to improve his mind.’
    ‘One lives in hope.’
    ‘He was much more stupid when I first got him. Let’s go for a walk, Lanquetot.’

VI
     
    LOUIS LOOKED IN the car park, doorways, cafes. It was night-time by now. Right, the metro. She wouldn’t be going far, she didn’t like leaving her territory. When he finally saw her on the metro platform at the mainline station, the Gare d’Austerlitz, he felt something relax in his stomach. He looked at her from a distance. Marthe was pretending to be waiting for the last train. And how long would she be able to go on pretending?
    Dragging his stiff leg, because he had done too much walking, he hurried along the platform and let himself flop on to the seat next to her.
    ‘So, my old friend, you’re not in bed yet?’
    ‘Ah, Ludwig, you’ve turned up just in time, you wouldn’t have a spare ciggie, would you?’
    ‘What the heck are you doing here, Marthe?’
    ‘I’m out and about. I was just leaving.’
    Louis lit a cigarette for her.
    ‘Good day?’ Marthe asked.
    ‘I got up the noses of four cops, three of them weren’t to blame. I’m going to get ahead of them now, with their blessing.’
    Marthe sighed.
    ‘All right,’ said Louis, ‘I was mean, I showed off, I teased them and I humiliated them a bit. But it was fun, you see, just a bit of fun.’
    ‘You played the ancestors’ trick?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘In another life, you’ll have to work things out better. Get your fun without spreading mayhem everywhere.’
    ‘In another life, my dear old Marthe, there will be major works to be done. Rebuild the foundations, large-scale restoration. Do you believe in other lives?’
    ‘No, not at all.’
    ‘I wanted to catch Paquelin out. Had to climb over the others to get to his office.’
    OK, Louis said to himself, we’re not