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suddenly he draws his circle. But I know him, I started looking for him right at the beginning, and I found him, the night there was a cigarette lighter in the circle, and the night of the doll’s head. And then again, last night, in the rue Caulaincourt.’
    ‘How did you manage that?’
    ‘I’ll tell you some other time. It’s not important, it’s my little secret. And it’s a funny thing but you’d think he was allowing me to watch him, the chalk circle man, as if he was letting himself be tamed from a distance. If you want to see him some night, come and find me. But you must only watch him from a distance. No going up to him and bothering him. I’m not telling the famous policeman about my secret, I’m just telling the man who asked me into his office.’
    ‘That suits me,’ said Adamsberg.
    ‘But why are you looking for the chalk circle man? He hasn’t done anything wrong. Why are you so interested in him?’
    Adamsberg looked at her.
    ‘Because one day it’ll get bigger. The thing in the middle of the circle, it’ll get bigger. Please don’t ask me how I know, I beg you, because I can’t tell you. But it’s inevitable.’
    He shook his head, pushing back his hair from his eyes. ‘Yes, it will get bigger.’
    Adamsberg uncrossed his legs and began aimlessly reorganising the papers on his desk.
    ‘I can’t forbid you to follow him,’ he added. ‘But I really don’t advise it. Be cautious, take very good care. Don’t forget.’
    He was uneasy, as if his own conviction made him feel unwell. Mathilde smiled and left.
    Coming out of his office a little later, Adamsberg took Danglard by the shoulder and spoke quietly to him.
    ‘Tomorrow morning, try to find out if there’s been a new circle in the night. And if so, give it a thorough examination. I’m counting on you. I told that woman to watch out. This thing is going to get bigger, Danglard. There have been more circles over the last month. The rhythm’s picking up. There’s something horrible underneath all this, can’t you feel it?’
    Danglard thought for a moment, then answered with some hesitation.
    ‘A bit unhealthy that’s all. But perhaps it’s just some long-drawn-out practical joke …’
    ‘No, Danglard. There’s cruelty oozing out of those circles.’

III
    C HARLES R EYER WAS ALSO JUST LEAVING HIS OFFICE . H E WAS FED up with working for the blind, checking the printing and perforations of all those wretched books in Braille, the billions of tiny holes that communicated their meaning to the skin of his fingertips. Above all, he was fed up with the desperate attempts he made to be original, on the pretext that he ought to become exceptional in some way, to distract people from his loss of sight. That was how he had behaved towards that woman the other day, now he thought of it, the warm-hearted one who had accosted him in the Café Saint-Jacques. An intelligent woman she had been, a bit eccentric perhaps, though he didn’t really think so, but a kind-hearted and lively person, obviously. And what had he done? As usual, he’d begun showing off, trying to be original. To impress her by his conversation, to say out-of-the-way things, just so that a stranger would think, hey, this man may be blind, but he’s certainly not ordinary.
    And she’d gone along with it, the woman. She’d tried to play the game, to respond as quickly as she could to his mixture of false confidences and stupid remarks. But she had been sincere. She’d told him about the shark, just like that, she’d been generous, sensitive, helpful, willing to look at his eyes and tell him what they really looked like. But he had been entirely taken up with the sensational effect he wanted to produce; he regularly stopped any heartfelt conversation by pretending to be a lucid and cynical thinker. No, Charles, he thought, you’re going the wrong way about things. All this palaver ends up with your being unable to say whether your brain’s still working or