They were, at last, in the library, with brandy and coffee and petits-fours arranged pleasingly on the small walnut table. He made sure they used the Turkish tea glasses with their bright decorated rims. Le Coadic was brooding like a heron over the map spread out on the far desk. Z prowled gratifyingly around the room, lifting items from sills and shelves, fingering books, nodding, exclaiming, teasing.
‘Your Danielsen is in a worse state than mine, mon ami. Did you take it to Trondheim?’
‘Mm. Look at the notes to Patient D. I saw her, you know. She hung on for me.’
‘Lucky man. And this is Morvan’s piece?’
‘It is. I read it through again after your first letter. Thought I shouldn’t let you get away with trampling all over the life’s work of a fellow Breton. Matter of honour.’
‘But then…?’
‘Ah, the truth, mon ami. I cannot argue with the truth.’
‘Well, we are nearly there. I am pleased with the results so far. They cannot hold out in Paris much longer. I must thank you both again, my dear colleagues, for your superb organisation.’
‘Le Coadic is plotting the rest of your itinerary now. Leave it, professor; come and drink your coffee. And you, my friend, give us some account of your first week.’
‘In your beautiful country, yes; the greenness is overwhelming. Like being trapped inside the story of the Sleeping Beauty, all the roses and thorns…’
‘Not so much in Brest, I imagine,’ said Le Coadic, drily, moving over towards the sofa.
‘No. But in Brest I was so absorbed, I hardly noticed the place. Can you believe it? My first stop. Straight off the Paris train, two perfect examples, one at the hospital, one at the dépôt de mendicité. I recognised them at once – you know that thrill? Like an electric shock. And I’d brought a selection of watercolours from Constantinople so there was no doubt at all. Look, where’s my briefcase, I’ll show you. I had photographs taken at the hospital. Look at these two hands.’
He passed two pictures round, one a delicate sketch washed with just enough colour to give it depth and form, the other monochrome, pale and ghostly. Both, though, showed a hand bent like a crab; one or two of the fingers, webbed around the roots, had lost their tips; bits of curled fingernail protruded oddly from the stumps.
Z nodded amiably at Aubry: ‘That one is Faizal, do you remember? One of the Scutari colony.’
‘The rare type B?’
‘Yes. He died a few months ago; it accelerated. But the picture is as perfect a type as you could ever hope to see, is it not? And the photograph almost replicates it. That fellow had never left Finistère.’
‘Kakouz family?’ asked Aubry.
‘I didn’t think to ask.’
‘What was his name?’ asked Le Coadic.
‘Kokard.’
Le Coadic nodded. ‘Could well be, with a name like that. Ropemakers, barrel-makers, some of them still are.’
Aubry clapped his thighs with delight. ‘Impressive, very impressive. And after Brest?’
‘After Brest,’ said Z, ‘came the great pardon at Rumengol. Le Coadic’s suggestion.’ He bowed generously. ‘And a very fine one too. Amazing events, your Breton pardons. I was several times quite distracted from my task.’
‘Saint-Jean will be even bigger,’ said Le Coadic cheerfully. ‘Did you get the ferry to Le Faou?’
‘Packed!’ The eyebrows and the hands went up together. ‘We could hardly move. Five in the morning and the light across the bay was so subtle, so dreamlike, my friends, I shall never forget it. And all the paysans dressed up and crammed in: I saw several more deformed hands, and would have examined them too but we could barely move our own arms. It can’t be safe to pack them in like that. There must be accidents, shipwrecks.’
‘There are.’ Le Coadic got up and went over to the window. A handful of white moths were trying desperately to get in. He felt a ripple of disquiet.
‘And at Rumengol?’ asked Aubry, expectantly. Z almost purred.
‘An ulcerous type.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Quite, quite sure. I told you we were nearly there. We shall have the full range by the time the week is out, every possible type and combination, at every possible stage. They will have to accept it.’
Aubry poured brandy into three coloured glasses and raised one towards the chandelier: ‘To Truth, my friends! To Truth.’
Le Coadic was recalling the pink doll cheeks and bright blue eyes of Our Lady of Rumengol, hoisted onto shoulders, carried on a wave of solemn singing. He put his coffee cup down very carefully on the windowsill and turned round. ‘Let me show you the route to Saint-Jean,’ he said.