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to use his computer, but he couldn’t enlarge the images without Danglard’s help.
    ‘What’s all this?’ muttered Danglard, sitting down at Adamsberg’s screen.
    ‘Neptune,’ said Adamsberg with a half-smile. ‘Leaving his mark on the blue of the sea.’
    ‘But what is it?’ asked Danglard again.
    ‘You always ask me questions, but you don’t like my answers.’
    ‘I prefer to know what I’m dealing with.’
    ‘These are the three wounds of Schiltigheim, the three marks left by the trident.’
    ‘Neptune again? Is this some kind of obsession?’
    ‘No, it’s a case of murder. A girl has been killed with three stab wounds from a carpenter’s awl.’
    ‘Trabelmann sent these to us? Has he been taken off the case?’
    ‘Absolutely not.’
    ‘So …?’
    ‘Well, I don’t know. I won’t know anything until I can get this picture enlarged.’
    Danglard frowned as he set about working on the images. He did not at all like that ‘Well, I don’t know’, one of Adamsberg’s most used expressions,which had many times led him off on to meandering paths, sometimes into complete quagmires. For Danglard, it presaged the quicksands of thought, and he had often feared that one day Adamsberg would be swallowed up into them without trace.
    ‘The papers say that they’ve got the killer,’ Danglard pointed out.
    ‘Yes. With the murder weapon and his prints all over it.’
    ‘So what’s bothering you?’
    ‘Call it a childhood memory.’
    This reply did not have the same calming effect on Danglard as it had had on Trabelmann. On the contrary, the capitaine felt his apprehension growing. He made the maximum enlargement of the image and sent it to print. Adamsberg was watching as the page emerged in stops and starts from the machine. He picked it up by a corner, waved it quickly in the air to dry, then switched on the desk lamp to examine it closely. Danglard watched, puzzled, as he reached for a long ruler, took measurements one way then the other, drew a line, marked the centre of each wound with a dot then drew another parallel line and took more measurements. Finally, Adamsberg put down the ruler and paced round the room, still holding the photograph. When he turned round, Danglard saw on his face an expression of pain and astonishment. And while Danglard had seen this expression many times in his life, it was the first time he had encountered it on the normally phlegmatic face of his superior officer.
    The commissaire took a new file out of the cupboard, put his newspaper cutting and photograph in it, and wrote on the outside ‘Trident no. 9’, followed by a question mark. He would have to go to Strasbourg to see the body. This would hinder the urgent steps to be taken for the Quebec trip. He decided to entrust these to Retancourt, since she was well ahead of everyone else on the project.
    ‘Come back to my place, Danglard. If you don’t see what I’m going to show you, you won’t understand.’
    * * *
    Danglard went back to his office to pick up his bulky leather briefcase, which made him look like a British schoolteacher or perhaps a priest in civvies, and followed Adamsberg across the Council Chamber. Adamsberg stopped beside Retancourt.
    ‘Can I see you at the end of the day?’ he said. ‘I’d like you to relieve me for something.’
    ‘No problem,’ said Retancourt, scarcely lifting her eyes from the filing cabinet. ‘I’m on duty till midnight.’
    ‘Fine, see you later then.’
    Adamsberg was already out of the door when he heard the silly laugh of Brigadier Favre and his nasal voice saying:
    ‘He needs her to relieve him, does he? Big night tonight, Retancourt, the deflowering of the violet! The boss is from the Pyrenees, so he likes mountains. The bigger the better.’
    ‘One minute, Danglard,’ said Adamsberg holding back his deputy.
    He returned to the Council Chamber with Danglard behind him, and went straight over to Favre’s desk. There was a sudden silence. Adamsberg caught