Fatal Pursuit

by Martin Walker

  They made their way to Isabelle’s temporary office in the gendarmerie just as two men in hunters’ garb came into the building wearing rucksacks.

  “Bruno, this is the team, Hanno and Friedrich. They’ve just been taking a preliminary look at the target building. And, guys, this is an old friend of mine, chef de police Bruno Courrèges, who runs this town. If you’re very good and very lucky, you might get him to cook for you some evening.”

  “Are you the one who warned us about the geese?” Hanno asked, in serviceable French with a heavy Dutch accent. “Christ, I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  “There seemed to be two tribes of them, white geese and gray ones,” said Friedrich, who was German. “They didn’t seem to mix much. Is there any difference?”

  “A lot,” said Bruno, smiling as he explained. “The white ones get roasted to eat in wintertime, usually at Christmas, and the gray ones have the best livers, so we use them for foie gras.”

  “In Germany we eat them on the eve of St. Martin’s Day, November eleventh,” said Friedrich.

  “Any excuse will do,” Bruno replied, grinning. “How do you stuff them?”

  “Pork sausage and apples.”

  “Guys,” Isabelle chided, “if we can get back to business. Did you see a small hut near the target house? Bruno thinks he can get you installed there and the geese removed. Would that help?”

  “Perfect, we should be able to get full audio there,” said Hanno. “And we may be able to get into his computer.”

  “How would you do that?” Bruno asked.

  “A pinhole camera to get the keystrokes for his password.”

  Isabelle rapped the table. “Okay, let’s get started.”

  Well before nine, Bruno and the two technicians arrived at Oudinot’s farm and declined the offer of coffee, only to learn that they had missed Martine. She had a few minutes earlier walked across to the chartreuse to thank Sylvestre for agreeing to the deal that would end the feud.

  “Good,” said Bruno. “That will provide a distraction while these men install their equipment in your hut.”

  Hanno and Friedrich, their surveillance gear in their rucksacks, followed in Bruno’s footsteps as he crept carefully through the woodland and the undergrowth toward the hut. The area was littered with geese droppings, and the ammoniac stench inside the hut was daunting, even with the door open. The two technicians wrinkled their noses and glared their dismay at Bruno. He left them to it, heading back to Oudinot’s farm where his van waited, when the phone at his waist began to vibrate. He pulled it out to look at the screen and smiled when he saw Martine was calling.

  “Bonjour, ma belle,” he said. “I’m missing you already.”

  “Bruno, stop. This is serious. It’s Sylvestre. He’s dead. I couldn’t find him anywhere although all the doors were open, and then I looked in the pool. He was facedown.”

  “Merde.” He gasped. “I’ll be right there. Don’t touch anything.”

  “I already pulled him out and tried to revive him.”

  “That’s fine. I’m at your dad’s place and I’m on the way.”

  He turned and crashed through the woods, skirting Oudinot’s fence, and along the road to turn up the dirt path as he had on his first visit. Martine, her clothes drenched, was on her knees by the pool. The sliding glass arches that covered the pool had been partially opened. As he approached, Bruno saw a male body stretched out beside Martine. Nude except for bathing shorts, its eyes were open and glassy. He could detect no sign of injury. Draped on the rim of the pool lay a dark-colored, sodden bathrobe.

  Bruno knelt down and put the back of his fingers on Sylvestre’s neck. He was cold and had no pulse. The body was white except for the chest, which seemed bruised and red.

  “You tried pumping his chest?” he asked.

  “I came looking for him, found him in the pool, climbed in to haul him out and began pumping him. I was hopeful at first because a lot of water gushed from his mouth and nose, but that was all. Then I called you and started again.”

  “He’s dead, sure enough.” He helped her to her feet and hugged her. “It must have been a shock to find him this way. I’m sorry you had to see it.”

  “I’m fine, just sorry I came too late to be of any use. He must have drowned. Maybe he was drunk.”

  “Was the bathrobe there when you arrived?”

  “No, he was wearing it or, rather, half wearing it, on one arm and shoulder. It came off when I was trying to get him out of the pool.”

  “You did well to get him out.”

  Bruno looked around. On the table were two tall glass vases, each with a burned-out candle inside. Beside them was a book, an ashtray, cigarettes and a lighter, two empty brandy glasses and an empty bottle of Drambuie, a Scottish liqueur that Bruno had drunk after one of Pamela’s dinners. He rose to look more closely. A bath towel was draped over one of the chairs. At each end of the table was what looked like a metallic umbrella, an outdoor heater with a gas bottle in its base, designed for the heat to come out at the top and be reflected back down by the metal parasol. Each of the heaters was switched to ON. He slipped on some evidence gloves and rocked the gas cylinders. Each one was empty as if it had burned all night until the gas ran out.

  The book was square, glossy and in English, with the photograph of a silver-blue Type 57 Atlantic on the cover, the one that he recalled was now in a California museum. The title was Bugatti Yesterday and Today. Beside the cigarettes on the table was a small leather pouch of the kind used for pipe tobacco. Bruno opened it and smelled marijuana. There were several stubbed-out joints in the ashtray alongside the cigarette butts. He put the ashtray, the glasses and bottle, the lighter and cigarette pack into separate evidence bags and called Fabiola to ask her to come up to certify a death. Then he called Isabelle.

  “Bad news,” he said. “One of your targets, Sylvestre, is dead.”

  “Putain,” she said. “What happened?”

  “He drowned in his pool sometime in the night. There are no visible injuries and nothing immediately suspicious. It looks like he was drunk and stoned.”

  “Maybe it was meant to look that way,” she said. “Was it you who found him?”

  “No, he was found by a neighbor, his cousin, less than half an hour ago. She got him out of the pool and tried to resuscitate him but no luck. Then she called me, and I got here maybe five minutes ago, no more.”

  “Is Freddy there?” she asked immediately.

  “No immediate sign of him, but I’m about to take a good look around. Shall I bring Hanno and Friedrich here?”

  “No, I’ll do that when I arrive. I’ll leave now.”

  “I already called a doctor.”

  “Merde,” she said. “I wish you hadn’t done that yet.”

  “No choice,” he replied. “It’s the law.”

  “See if you can find his phone or laptop anywhere and secure it, that’s the priority now. And if you do find Freddy, hold him.”

  “What about J-J? Should I call him?”

  “Not until I get there and see for myself. I’ll probably want a full autopsy and forensic check. I’ll ask the gendarmes here to send a team up to secure the grounds.”

  She sounded as if she were about to hang up, and he said quickly, “Don’t forget your own laptop—the data cards, remember.”

  “Of course, thanks for reminding me,” she said. “I remember that one of them covered part of the pool area, so it’s a pity they’re not infrared.” She hung up.

  “Sorry,” he said to Martine. “Police commissioner.”

  She looked at him skeptically. “And who are Hanno and Friedrich?”

  “Did your dad tell you about the surveillance operation?” She nodded. “They’re the ones in the hut, installing the surveillance gear, which now won’t be needed. Did you look in the lodge by the gate?”

  “Yes, the door is open there, too.”

  “Do you mind staying here while I look around?”

  “I’d r
ather come with you, and I need to get out of these wet clothes. Sylvestre isn’t going anywhere.”

  “Call your mother and ask her to bring you a towel and some fresh clothes. You can tell her what happened but that she is not to tell anyone else, okay? I’m sorry about this, but there’s a lot more involved than I’m able to say.”

  “All this for a tax inspection?” she said, raising a cynical eyebrow. “I find that hard to believe.”

  Bruno shrugged. “When I can, I’ll tell you the whole story, but it’s likely that I don’t know all of it.”

  “That was a woman’s voice on the phone,” she said. “All the police commissioners around here are men. I know that because I went to see them to talk about the plans for the rally.”

  “You’re right. But she is a police commissioner, a Frenchwoman who used to work for the Police Nationale in Périgueux, but right now she’s attached to Eurojust, and the surveillance is her operation. Now, excuse me, but I need to look around.”

  Martine looked at him, exasperated, then picked up her phone and began dialing. Bruno smiled apologetically and turned to head for the lodge where he had found Freddy on his last visit. Then he remembered something. He called the gendarmerie in St. Denis, and Sergeant Jules answered.

  “Something very urgent, Jules,” he said. “You know the big truck park in Le Buisson? I need you or someone to go there right away and secure the big van belonging to the guy from Alsace who had that old car at the parade. His name is Sylvestre Wémy, and there should be two cars inside, the one he showed off and a new electric car. Don’t let anybody touch it until I get there or some of J-J’s forensics people arrive.”

  “There’s only me and Yveline here,” Jules replied. “Just as Isabelle ran out the door she asked for the others to head up to Sylvestre’s place to meet her there and be prepared to stay guarding it all day, but she didn’t say why.”

  “You can tell Yveline that we found Sylvestre dead, drowned, and that Indian guy who was with him has disappeared. But I really need that truck of theirs to be secured if you have to do it yourself.”

  At the lodge where Freddy had stayed, the door was open, leading into a sparsely furnished sitting room with an armchair, a TV set and a rowing machine. He called out but heard no reply. Car magazines were scattered around the floor, and a driver’s helmet was perched on top of the TV. The kitchen contained a machine to make espresso that looked complicated and expensive. The fridge contained bottles of mineral water, milk, apple juice and some yogurts. In the freezer compartment were ice cubes and two frozen pizzas. Upstairs were two bedrooms and a bathroom, soap and toothpaste on the sink, a towel that was still wet on the floor by the shower. Freddy had not been gone long. One bedroom was empty; the other contained an unmade bed, more car magazines and a handsome antique armoire that was empty. An adapter was still in the plug in the wall beside the bed, but whatever it recharged was gone.

  Sylvestre’s house was also deserted, but the bed in the main bedroom was made, the wardrobe was full of clothes, and the bathroom contained the usual range of toiletries. On top of the bed was a shirt, a sweater and trousers and on the floor beside it a pair of underpants, socks and shoes, as if he’d undressed in a hurry, perhaps before getting his bathrobe and going out to the pool. Bruno saw a wire snaking from an electric plug in the wall and disappearing beneath the underpants. He pushed the pants aside with his foot to reveal the charger for an iPhone, but the phone had gone. He put an evidence bag on top of it.

  The bedside table was piled with books. The top one was titled Bugatti 57: The Last French Bugatti. It seemed to have more photos than text. Beneath it was a paperback that looked like a novel or a history book in English, The Grand Prix Saboteurs by Joe Saward. On the cover was a photo of a Bugatti like the one Sylvestre had brought to the vintage-car parade, with a swastika atop it. The long subtitle heralded the unknown story of the Grand Prix drivers who became wartime intelligence agents. At the bottom of the pile was a hardback, also in English, A Different Danger: Three Champions at War by Richard Armstrong.

  Down in the kitchen everything was as he’d remembered it, except that the laptop was gone, and there was a single glass and an empty bottle of Chablis on the counter. He looked in the other rooms but failed to see the laptop anywhere. In the sitting room with its armchairs of leather and chrome was a large bookcase, almost filled with books on cars and issues of classic-car magazines, auction catalogs and invitations to more Concours d’Élégance. Bruno marveled at the scale of the subculture all this represented. Between the armchairs was a glass-and-chrome coffee table with several magazines on top, all of them from the Club Bugatti of France. The one on top was dated November 1996, and a bookmark had been inserted into its pages.

  Bruno looked inside and skimmed an article by a woman named Stella Tayssedre, who had been Ettore Bugatti’s secretary in Paris and a member of Benoist and Grover-Williams’s Resistance network. She had been arrested by the Gestapo the same day as Benoist, along with her husband, and had been five months pregnant at the time. She was taken to the railway station at Compiègne along with Benoist and the others to board what she called “the train of death” to Germany. At the station, someone from the International Red Cross noticed her pregnancy and took her off the train. The Swedish consul subsequently managed to get her released, but her husband never returned.

  Bruno closed the magazine, shaking his head at the thought of those grim times, but struck also by the breadth and depth of Sylvestre’s research. Annette might have been irritated by her English boyfriend’s fixation on the lost Bugatti, but Sylvestre seemed just as obsessed.

  The other two houses, one in each of the wings around the courtyard, were locked and the shutters closed. He walked back to the pool, where Martine and her mother, Odette, were standing by Sylvestre’s body, Martine in dry clothes, jeans and a cotton sweater.

  “Such a young man, it’s so sad,” said Odette. “What a terrible accident and such a shame that Martine had to be the one who found him.”

  He heard the sound of a car being driven fast, too fast for the road, and it went rushing past the entrance. It braked hard, reversed and then Isabelle climbed out, walking across and leaving the car door open and the engine running.

  “Bonjour, mesdames,” she said briskly. “I understand you live next door. You may return home. Thank you for your help, and we’ll contact you as soon as we’re done here. Just one question: did either of you see or hear anything in the course of last night?”

  Martine and her mother shook their heads and left for Odette’s car, parked in the driveway. Isabelle had to move her own car to let them out. When she got back, Bruno said, “Sylvestre’s phone and laptop are both gone.”

  “What about cars?” she asked.

  “That’s Sylvestre’s rented Range Rover in the courtyard. The one Freddy was using isn’t here.”

  “Right.” She pulled out her phone, dialed, introduced herself and said she wanted an emergency watch-and-detain order to go out to all airports, airlines and traffic police. She gave Freddy’s name, two aliases that were new to Bruno and the license-plate number of his Range Rover.

  “That was the brigadier,” she said. “Now I have to try to get Europol to move as fast.” She dialed again and then said to him as she waited, “Could you bring Hanno and Friedrich here, please?” Then she turned back to her phone.

  Bruno headed for the rear of the chartreuse, called out to identify himself, and Hanno poked his head around the door.

  “Operation’s over,” Bruno said. “The target’s dead, and Isabelle is here and sent me to get you.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Hanno, rolling his eyes. “At least we’ll be out of this smell of duck shit.”

  “They’re geese,” said Bruno, and the two men started to repack their gear. Bruno pushed down the fence to let the two men come across and told them to follow him when they were ready and join him and Isabelle at the pool.

  By the time Bruno got there, Fabio
la had already arrived and was examining the body. Isabelle was still on her phone.

  “Scratches on the back of his shoulders and some of his hair is pulled out at the back,” said Fabiola.

  “Could that have happened when Martine got him out of the pool?” he asked. “He’s a lot heavier than her so she would have had a hard time.”

  “I doubt it, looks more like a struggle to me, as though somebody might have been holding his head underwater,” she said. “We’ll need to examine his fingernails, see if he scratched anybody. Could you bag his hands? And I’ll want to know how much of that alcohol he had.”

  “That might not be all he had. There’s an empty bottle of wine in the kitchen as well as that empty bottle of Drambuie out here. It’s inside one of those evidence bags,” said Bruno. “And he’d been smoking joints.”

  “Drunk and stoned, it wouldn’t have been difficult to drown him.” Fabiola turned to look at the surface of the pool. “Is that a bit of hair floating there?”

  “There was a second glass with the Drambuie bottle. He may not have been drinking alone.”

  Isabelle joined them. “Are you saying it looks like murder by drowning?”

  “I’m saying it could be, maybe even probably. There are signs of some kind of struggle. But if he was extremely drunk, he might have passed out in the pool and drowned that way.”

  “We’re going to need J-J and the forensics team,” Bruno said to Isabelle. “By the way, Sylvestre has a big van in a truck park near here, containing a vintage car and a fancy electric one. It looks like a traveling workshop inside. I’ve asked Sergeant Jules to secure it.”

  Isabelle nodded, dully. “Check on that, if you would. And see if there are any keys around here that might open it.” She looked across at him, shaking her head. “If it hadn’t been for those delays in getting the warrants—ah, there’s no point crying over spilled milk. I’ll call J-J now.”

  “I trust this means that J-J can now make public the murder inquiry into Monsieur Hugon,” Bruno said.

  “I suppose so,” said Isabelle, as though it didn’t much matter to her.