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    ‘Perhaps you’re going to see the psychiatrist about the chalk circle man,’ she went on. ‘Don’t look at me like that – I haven’t been snooping. It’s just that you’ve got those newspaper cuttings about him tucked under the base of your lamp, so naturally I wondered.’
    ‘Yes, you’re right,’ Adamsberg admitted, ‘it is about him. Why did you come into the station?’
    ‘I’m looking for this man I don’t know.’
    ‘Why are you looking for him, then?’
    ‘Because I don’t know him! What a question!’
    ‘Touché,’ said Adamsberg.
    ‘I was following this woman in the street, and I lost her. So I ended up in a café, and that’s how I met my beautiful blind man. There are an amazing number of people walking round on the pavements. You just can’t imagine it, you would have to follow everyone to do any good. So we chatted for a few minutes, the blind man and I, about something or other which I’ve now forgotten – I’d have to check in my notebook – but I liked him. Generally, if I like someone, I don’t worry, I’m sure to bump into them again. But in this case, no, nothing. Last month, I followed twenty-eight people and got close to nine of them. I filled two and a half notebooks. So I’ve covered a lot of ground, OK? But not a whisker of my beautiful blind man. That was disappointing. He’s called Charles Reyer, and that’s all I know about him. Tell me something: do you keep doodling all the time like that?’
    ‘Yes, all the time.’
    ‘I suppose you won’t let me see.’
    ‘No, that’s right. You don’t get to see.’
    ‘It’s funny when you turn round on your chair. Your left profile is tough and your right profile is tender. So if you want to intimidate a suspect, you turn one way, and when you want to soften him up, you turn the other way.’
    Adamsberg smiled.
    ‘What if I keep turning from side to side?’
    ‘Then they won’t know where they are. Heaven and hell.’
    Mathilde burst out laughing. Then she controlled herself.
    ‘No, stop,’ she said again. ‘I’m talking too much. I’m ashamed of myself. I’ve got a friend who’s a philosopher, who says to me, “Mathilde, you play fast and loose with language.” I said, well, in that case, tell me how to play slow and tight.’
    ‘Look, let’s see what we can do,’ said Adamsberg. ‘Do you have a work address?’
    ‘You’re not going to believe me. My name is Mathilde Forestier.’
    Adamsberg put his pencil back in his pocket.
    ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Mathilde Forestier. Famous oceanographer. Am I right?’
    ‘Yes, but don’t let that stop you doing your doodling. I know who you are too, your name’s on the door, and everyone’s heard of you. But it doesn’t stop me rabbiting on about one thing and another, at the end of a section one, what’s more.’
    ‘If I find your beautiful blind man, I’ll tell you.’
    ‘Why? Who would you be doing the favour for?’ asked Mathilde, suspiciously. ‘For me, or for the famous underwater specialist whose name is in the papers?’
    ‘Neither one nor the other. I’m doing a favour for a woman I asked into my office.’
    ‘OK, that suits me,’ said Mathilde. She remained for a moment without speaking, as if hesitating to take a decision. Adamsberg had brought out his cigarettes and a piece of paper. No, he wouldn’t forget this woman, a fragment of the earth’s beauty on the point of fading. And he was unable to guess in advance what she was going to say.
    ‘Know something?’ Mathilde asked suddenly. ‘It’s at nightfall that things start happening, under the ocean the same as in the city. They all start stirring, the creatures who are hungry or in pain. And the searchers, like you, Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, they start stirring then too.’
    ‘You think I’m searching for something?’
    ‘Absolutely, and quite a lot of things at the same time. So, anyway, the chalk circle man comes out when he’s hungry. He prowls, he watches, and