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  ‘Circles. Ever since I can remember. Any kind. Like, take the button on your jacket, any idea what its circumference is?’

  Adamsberg shrugged.

  ‘Can’t say I ever noticed the button at all.’

  ‘Well, I did. And I’d say, looking at that button, its circumference is 51 millimetres.’

  Adamsberg stopped walking.

  ‘And what’s the point of that?’ he asked seriously.

  Pi shook his head.

  ‘Don’t have to be a cop to work out it’s the key to the whole world. When I was little, in school, they called me ’Three-point-one-four’. Get it? Pi = 3.14. The diameter of a circle times 3.14, that tells you its circumference. Best thing in my whole life, that joke. See, it was a bit of luck really, that my name got blotted with coffee. After that I was a number, and not just any old number.’

  ‘I see,’ said Adamsberg.

  ‘You’ve no idea the things I know. Because Pi works with any kind of circle. Some Greek worked it out in the olden days. Knew a thing or two, the Greeks. See, your watch there: want to know the circumference of your watch, in case you’re interested? Or your glass of wine, see how much you’ve drunk? Or the wheel on your trolley, or your head, or the rubber stamp on your ID card, or the hole in your shoe, or the middle of a daisy, or the bottom of a bottle, or a five-franc coin? The whole world’s made up of circles. Bet you never thought of that, eh? Well, me, Pi, I know all about them, all kinds of circles. Ask me a question, if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘What about a daisy then?’

  ‘With petals or just the yellow bit in the middle?’

  ‘Just the middle.’

  ‘Twelve millimetres point 24. That’s quite a big daisy.’

  Pi paused to let the information sink in and be properly appreciated.

  ‘Well, yeah, see,’ he said with a nod. ‘My destiny, that is. And what’s the biggest circle of all, the ultimate circle?’

  ‘The distance round the Earth.’

  ‘Right, I see you’re following me. And no one can work out the distance round the Earth without going through Pi. That’s the trick. So that’s how I found the key to the world. Course, you might ask where that’s ever got me.’

  ‘If you could solve my problem like you do circles, that’d be something.’

  ‘I don’t like its diameter.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve gathered that.’

  ‘What’s this woman’s name?’

  ‘No names. Forbidden.’

  ‘Oh? Did she lose her name too?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Adamsberg with a smile. ‘She hasn’t even got the first two letters of it.’

  ‘We better give her a number then, like me. More friendly than keep saying “the woman”. We could call her 4/21, four twenty-one, like in the dice game, because she was one of the lucky ones in this world. Well, till now.’

  ‘If you like. Let’s call her “4/21”.’

  Adamsberg dropped Pi off in a small hotel three blocks from the police station. He went slowly back to his office. An emissary from the ministry had been waiting for him for half an hour, in a furious mood. Adamsberg knew him, a young guy, fast-track, aggressive, and just now shaking in his shoes.

  ‘I was questioning the witness,’ said Adamsberg, dropping his jacket in a heap on a chair.

  ‘You took your time, commissaire.’

  ‘Yes, I needed to.’

  ‘And have you learnt anything?’

  ‘The circumference of a daisy. Quite a big daisy.’

  ‘We haven’t got time to mess about, I think you’ve been made aware of that.’

  ‘The guy’s clammed up, and he has his reasons. But he knows plenty all right.’

  ‘This is urgent, commissaire, I’ve got my orders. Weren’t you ever instructed that any witness who’s “clammed up” can be made to talk in under fifteen minutes?’

  ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘So what are you waiting for?’

  ‘To forget that instruction.’

  ‘You know I could take you off the case?’

  ‘You won’t get this man to talk by beating him up.’

  The under-secretary banged the table with his fist.

  ‘Well, how then?’

  ‘He’ll only help us if we help him.’

  ‘What the hell does he want?’

  ‘He wants to make a living, sell his rotten sponges, he’s got 9,732 of them. Five francs each.’

  ‘Is that all? Well, we can just buy his fucking sponges outright.’

  The undersecretary did a quick mental calculation. ‘You can have 50,000 francs by eight in the morning,’ he said, standing up. ‘And I’m doing you a favour, believe me, in view of your performance. I want that information by ten at latest.’

  ‘I don’t think you quite understand, sir,’ said Adamsberg without moving from his chair.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The man doesn’t want to be bought. He just wants to sell his sponges, all 9,732 of them. To people. To 9,732 real people.’

  ‘Are you kidding? You think I’m going to sell this guy’s sponges for him, send my officials round the streets?’

  ‘That wouldn’t work,’ said Adamsberg calmly. ‘He wants to sell his sponges himself.’

  The under-secretary leaned over towards Adamsberg.

  ‘Tell me, commissaire, do this man’s sponges by any chance worry you more than safeguarding …’

  ‘Safeguarding 4/21,’ Adamsberg finished the sentence. ‘That’s her codename here. We don’t speak the name out loud.’

  ‘Yes, of course, that’s best,’ said the under-secretary, dropping his voice suddenly.

  ‘I’ve got a kind of solution,’ said Adamsberg. ‘For the sponges and for 4/21.’

  ‘Which would work?’

  Adamsberg hesitated. ‘It might,’ he said.

  At seven-thirty next morning, the commissaire knocked at the door of Pi Toussaint’s hotel room. The sponge-seller was already up, and they went down to the hotel bar. Adamberg poured out some coffee and passed the bread basket.

  ‘You should see the shower in my room!’ said Pi. ‘Twenty-six centimetres round, the thing at the top, gives a man a right whipping! So, how is she?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know, 4/21.’

  ‘’She’s coming out of it. She’s got five cops guarding her. She’s said a few words, but she can’t remember anything.’

  ‘That’ll be shock,’ said Pi.

  ‘Yes. I’ve come up with a kind of idea in the night.’

  ‘And I’ve come up with a kind of result.’

  Pi took a bite of bread, then felt in his trouser pocket. He put a sheet of paper folded in four on the table.

  ‘Written it all down for you,’ he said. ‘What the man’s ugly mug looked like, how he moved, his clothes, make of the car. And the registration.’

  Adamberg put down his cup and looked at Pi.

  ‘You knew what the number plate was?’

  ‘Numbers, that’s my thing, told you. Always have been.’

  Adamsberg unfolded the paper and glanced over it quickly.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘I’m going to phone,’

  Adamberg returned to the table a few minutes later.

  ‘I’ve passed it on,’ he said.

  ‘Course, once they’ve got the number, it’ll be easy for you people. You should pick him up by the end of the day.’

  ‘I had this kind of idea in the night, about selling your sponges.’

  Pi pulled a face and drank some more coffee.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘so did I. I put them in the trolley, I push it round for a few years, and I try and get people to buy them at five francs each.’

  ‘A different idea.’

  ‘What’s the point? You’ve got what you wanted to know. Was it a good idea?’

  ‘A bit odd.’

  ‘Some trick a cop might dream up?’

  ‘No
, just a trick anyone might dream up. Give them something for their five francs.’

  Pi put his hands on the table.

  ‘They’ll get a sponge! Do you take me for a crook or what?’

  ‘Your sponges are pretty grotty.’

  ‘Well, what are people going to do with ’em? Squeeze them in dirty water, that’s what. No fun being a sponge.’

  ‘You give them the sponge, plus something else.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like getting to write their name on a wall in Paris.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Every time someone buys a sponge from you, you paint their name on a wall. The same wall.’

  Pi frowned.

  ‘So I have to stay there, by this wall, with the goods?’

  ‘That’s right. In six months, you’ll have a big wall covered with names, a sort of massive great manifesto by spongebuyers, a collection, practically a monument.’

  ‘You’re a weird guy. What the fuck am I supposed to do with the wall?’

  ‘It’s not for you, it’s for the people.’

  ‘But they couldn’t give a toss, could they?’

  ‘No, you’re wrong about that. You could have them queuing up at your trolley.’

  ‘What’s in it for them, tell me that?’

  ‘It’ll give them some company and a bit of existence. That’s not nothing.’

  ‘Because they don’t have any?’

  ‘Not as much as you think.’

  Pi dipped his bread in his coffee, took a bite, dipped it again.

  ‘I can’t make up my mind if it’s a fucking stupid idea, or a bit better than that.’

  ‘Nor can I.’

  Pi finished his coffee, and folded his arms.

  ‘You think I could put my name there too?’ he asked, ‘Down the bottom, on the right, like I was signing the whole caboodle, when it’s finished?’

  ‘Yes, if you want. But they have to pay for the sponges. That’s the point.’

  ‘Of course, they bloody do. You take me for a conman?’

  Pi thought some more, while Adamberg was putting on his jacket.

  ‘Yeah, but look,’ said Pi. ‘There’s a catch. I don’t have a wall.’

  ‘Ah, but I have. I got one last night from the Ministry of the Interior. I can take you to look at it.’

  ‘And what about Martin?’ asked Pi, standing up.

  ‘Who’s Martin?’

  ‘My trolley.’

  ‘Oh, right. Well, your trolley’s still under the watchful eye of the cops. He’s having an exceptional experience that will never be repeated. Don’t bother him for now.’

  At the Porte de la Chapelle in northern Paris, Adamsberg and Pi considered in silence the gable-end wall of an empty grey building.

  ‘That belongs to the State?’ asked Pi.

  ‘They weren’t going to give me the Trocadero Palace.’

  ‘No, s’pose not.’

  ‘As long as you can paint on it,’ said Adamsberg.

  ‘Yeah, a wall’s a wall, end of the day.’

  Pi went up to the building and felt the surface of the coating with the flat of his hand. ‘When do I start?’

  ‘You can have some paint and a ladder tomorrow. After that, it’s up to you.’

  ‘Do I get to choose the colours?’

  ‘You’re the boss.’

  ‘I’ll get some round paintpots then. Some diameters.’

  The two men shook hands, but Pi pulled a worried face again.

  ‘’You don’t have to do it,’ said Adamsberg. ‘It might still be a fucking stupid idea.’

  ‘No, I like it. In a month, I might have names up high as my thighs.’

  ‘What’s bothering you then?’

  ‘4/21. Does she know it was me, Pi Toussaint, who nabbed the bastard that shot her?’

  ‘She’ll be told.’

  Adamsberg walked away slowly, hands in pockets.

  ‘Hey,’ cried Pi. ‘Do you think she’ll come? Come and buy a sponge? Get her name up here?’

  Adamsberg turned round, looked up at the grey wall, and spread his arms in a gesture of ignorance.

  ‘You’ll know if she does,’ he called. ‘And when you do, come and tell me.’

  With a wave of his hand, he walked on.

  ‘You’re going to be writing history,’ he murmured to himself, ‘and I’ll be along to read it.’

  Translator’s note

  ‘Five Francs Each’ is published here for the first time in English. It was originally published in French in 2000 – a year before the appearance of The Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

  IAN RANKIN was born in Cardenden, Fife, in 1950. Before becoming a full-time novelist he worked as a grape-picker, swineherd, taxman, alcohol researcher, hi-fi journalist, college secretary and punk musician, in London and then rural France. He is best known for his Inspector Rebus novels, set mainly in Edinburgh, and adapted as a hugely successful series on ITV. In 2013, Rankin co-wrote the play Dark Road with the Royal Lyceum Theatre’s Artistic Director Mark Thomson. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife Miranda and their two sons.

  An Afternoon

  Ian Rankin

  After a hard afternoon of being spat on and having coins tossed at him, Rab, known to the younger constables as Big Rab, eased his boots from his blistered feet and massaged the damp yellow skin.

  My feet look like the jaundice, he thought to himself. He could smell the vinegary sweat rising from his soles. He would soak them tonight when he got home. They stuck to the cooling linoleum when he padded to his locker. The locker was tarnished green, slivers of metal showing through its several dents and scratches.

  ‘It was a hard one, Big Rab, wasn’t it?’ McNulty was running the cold tap over a clump of paper-towels. He rubbed them vigorously over the pock-marks on the back of his official-issue overcoat.

  ‘They don’t get any easier,’ said Rab. He examined his own coat now; sure enough, there they were, as if dried chewing-gum had been picked off the material or a snail had paused for a rest. Rab’s face twisted. Part and parcel of the job, his own sergeant had said – what? – thirty years ago now. Part and parcel of the job.

  Yes, thirty years ago next month since he had joined the force. Over fifteen-hundred weeks ‘on the beat’, and never a day sick in all that time. Still, he was beginning to worry about those dizzy spells. But it would be a defeat to see the doctor now, after all this time. It would be the crumbling of a powerful myth.

  He looked across to McNulty. He, Rab, was the sergeant now, and McNulty was the young man with blotches of acne at the back of his neck where the razor had gone. Rab shook his coat. It jangled, and he began to smile.

  ‘Sounds good today,’ McNulty said.

  ‘Well,’ Rab replied, ‘it might not all be clean, but it’s still money. It’s as good as anybody’s.’

  ‘One of these days …’ McNulty began. Rab looked at him. There was concern on the youngster’s face.

  ‘Laddie,’ Rab said, slapping his own chest, ‘if they can’t hit this, they can’t hit anything. And the more roused they get themselves, the bigger the coins they throw.’

  McNulty managed a smile. Some of the others were coming in now, faces ruddy with exhaustion.

  ‘Another big game will be the death of me,’ someone said.

  ‘Twenty-one arrests so far.’

  ‘My money’s on thirty by half-past.’

  ‘Thirty-five,’ said a new voice.

  ‘Done. Five quid?’ They shook hands on the bet. Rab was examining his pale face in the cracked mirror on his locker. He tried to see behind his eyes, but the reflection was giving nothing away.

  It had been business as usual. Nothing very out of the way. Days like that were worse somehow; they made you drop your guard.

  The body-searches at the turnstiles had produced a few foolhardy bottles and cans, a soldering-iron, two cans of spray-paint, and a steel catapult. The terraces began to fill with that curious mix of the honest, stout-hear
ted football fans, the bored kids, and the real trouble-makers. They were out in force today. Rab was stationed in the zone behind one goalmouth, watching as the crowd swelled.

  Ninety minutes, he thought. Just let me get through another ninety minutes. Plus half-time and stoppages. The first coin whistled past his head five minutes before kick-off, landing on the touchline behind him. He studied the huddled faces through the thick mesh of the perimeter fence. They looked normal enough, shuffling their feet to keep warm. A day or two’s bristle on their chins. Manual workers mostly, same upbringing as him, attending the game as others would a church service – just part of their routine. But he knew that surfaces could be deceptive. He knew the subtleties of violence.

  When the roar goes up he knows that somewhere behind him the teams are coming out on to the pitch. By now he recognises a few of the faces in the crowd, but his eyesight is not what it was – he finds it hard to focus more than halfway up the terracing. The lunatics are visible though – they make themselves noticeable with their yelps and cries, then repay his attention with two-fingered salutes and angry scowls. Do they really hate him? He is old enough to be their father, maybe even their grandfather. Thirty years spent watching them mature into the tribe they are now.

  The whistle blows, the booming, indecipherable noise from the tannoys dies, and all eyes are suddenly moving as if choreographed. Mouths purse or open at the same time, hands come together in a supportive show, heads are tipped to the sky at a chance missed or a wayward pass. The sea of faces has become a single entity.

  Then comes the first scything foul against one of their heroes. The jaws tighten, fists raised and rigid fingers pointing, straining towards confrontation. A sudden cheer. Thank God, thinks Rab. The ref has booked the offender. It is seven minutes past three.

  The sky seems made of pale silk, the sun muffled behind it. Seagulls from the nearby dump glide like small aircraft. It has been a subdued first half so far, which has prompted the lunatics to commence an entertainment of their own. They start swaying to and fro, attempting a whiplash effect in the dense crowd. Two small boys have to be helped out through the metal gate in the fence and on to the grit running-track. One of them is recovering from a faint. He holds the sleek hair away from his forehead and takes in tiny gulps of air. His friend puts a consoling arm around him.