‘And he has no alibi that could show he’d been in Paris yesterday evening?’ Pamela asked.
Bruno shook his head. ‘He was racking his brains trying to remember, but he’d been at home since the late afternoon. We asked if he’d had food delivered, gone out for a drink, had a phone call – anything.’
‘What about his mobile phone?’ Fabiola asked. ‘Can’t you find out from that where he was?’
‘Yes, but if he was trying to fabricate an alibi he could have left the phone at his apartment in Paris and still come down here to commit the murder. At least he gave us Fullerton’s cellphone number and we’re trying to trace its movements, but there was no sign of it in his van or in the suitcase we found in the house.’
‘Are you sure they were a gay couple?’ Pamela asked.
‘Valentoux confirmed that when he was being interrogated.’
Bruno did not mention the tension that had arisen with J-J and Yveline when Bruno had argued there was too little evidence to hold Valentoux for questioning. There had been another row when Bruno learned that Yveline had delayed sending a fax to the Procureur, the public prosecutor, until after his office had closed. Under French law, once a crime had been committed, the Procureur assigned a juge d’instruction, an investigating magistrate, to supervise the case. Delaying the formal alert to the Proc was a fairly common police tactic, giving them more time to question a suspect. Bruno’s response had been to go to his car to call Annette Meraillon, a young magistrate he trusted. When he mentioned Valentoux’s name, she perked up to say she’d seen a couple of his plays in Paris and had been impressed. She promised to follow it up.
It would infuriate J-J and Yveline, but that was their problem. Then as he’d driven to Pamela’s house he’d heard a report of the murder on Radio Périgord. Albert must have tipped them off, but it meant that any inquiry from Annette could have been triggered by the media. Bruno put it from his mind and began to pour his treasured Pécharmant red.
‘So what do you think?’ Pamela pressed him when the lamb had been served, the rowan jelly tasted and praised along with Bruno’s red wine.
‘I don’t think he did it. He seemed genuinely stunned by Fullerton’s death. Maybe I’m overcompensating because of the way J-J and the Gendarmes seemed to leap to conclusions. But I’m also wondering whether there’s a link to this spate of burglaries I mentioned.’
The coincidence had struck Bruno when Valentoux had described Fullerton’s astute method of doing business, buying French antiques for sale in England and then doing the reverse in a neat back-and-forth across the Channel, taking advantage of the snob appeal of foreign antiques in each country. It was the kind of operation that would fit sweetly with burglaries, taking stolen goods abroad for sale where they would be less likely to be traced. Although the timing of Fullerton’s travels did not work, whoever had burgled Crimson’s house had known which items were worth taking. There was serious money to be made and perhaps a wider organization involved, and that could provide a motive for murder.
Over fresh salad from the garden and Pamela’s Blue Lanark cheese, they finished the wine and Pamela looked thoughtfully at the painting of an extremely plump pig that hung on her kitchen wall.
‘I wonder if I should think about getting some special insurance. That’s quite a valuable painting and I’ve got some decent furniture.’ Pamela had been stunned to hear that Crimson’s house had been emptied; they were frequent tennis partners and she knew him well. ‘I’d never worried about burglaries around here before.’
‘You don’t even lock your door, half the time,’ said Fabiola. ‘I keep telling you about it.’
‘Nor does Bruno,’ Pamela retorted. ‘And he’s a policeman.’
‘I lock my shotgun and the shells away, but I’ve got nothing else worth stealing,’ he protested. ‘And Balzac’s there most of the time.’
‘Balzac is still too much of a puppy to deter any thief. And there’s your wine – you’d be furious if that got stolen.’
After the fresh strawberries and the coffee, Fabiola helped them wash the dishes, then said a discreet goodnight.
‘Would you like to stay the night?’ Pamela asked, taking his hand. ‘I’d hate for you to be stopped and breathalysed by this new Gendarme woman.’
‘It wouldn’t be her. There’s a new rule that Gendarmes can’t go on traffic patrol in their own commune, to stop them recognizing a friend and letting them off with a warning. And yes, I’d love to stay the night, but if you’re tired I can use your guest room.’
‘I could tell that’s where you slept while I was away. Why didn’t you use our bed?’
‘Because it’s your bed,’ he said. He’d been exercising her horses as well as his own while she had been in Scotland, so he had usually had dinner with Fabiola and then stayed over at Pamela’s rather than drive home after a glass or two too many. It was on the tip of his tongue to say: ‘I don’t think of your bed as ours.’ But he’d caught himself, and said: ‘Your bed isn’t the same without you in it.’
‘Silly Bruno,’ she said, kissing him. ‘In my bedroom the bath is en suite, much more convenient. Why don’t we go up with a candle and take a nice hot bath together?’
6
‘Murder in Périgord’ said the headline in Sud Ouest the next morning. ‘Englishman brutally slain in gîte. Parisian man held for questioning.’
‘So you’ve got the guy already?’ asked Fauquet with a hungry gleam in his eye as he served Bruno his coffee and croissant. Owner of the café tucked into the alley behind the Mairie, he had become one of the main sources of the town’s gossip. Along with his excellent croissants and powerful coffee, it was part of his stock in trade. ‘Albert was in earlier. Said it was a really vicious killing, the guy’s head smashed to bits.’
All along the crowded counter of the café conversation stilled as customers waited to hear what new light Bruno might shed on the case. He knew them all well, local shopkeepers and office workers, people who worked at the Mairie. Whatever he said would flash around town within minutes and probably feature on the next news bulletin of Radio Périgord. And it would certainly be swiftly conveyed to Philippe Delaron, who spent much more time on his part-time role as Sud Ouest correspondent than he did running the family camera shop.
‘Nobody’s been arrested,’ Bruno said, and took a bite of croissant. He could hear himself chewing, so attentive was the silence along the bar. ‘We were just talking to the guy who found the body and called the emergency service.’
‘That’s the Parisian?’ Fauquet persisted. ‘Gai comme un phoque, Albert reckoned. He was in here just now.’
How had the French dreamed up the phrase ‘gay as a seal’ to describe a homosexual, Bruno wondered. Whatever did seals have to do with it? He concentrated on his croissant.
‘Takes one to know one,’ said Fauquet with an unconvincing laugh. ‘I always wondered about Albert.’
Bruno shook his head in mock despair. Happily married for thirty years to a woman who had borne him four children, there was nothing seal-like about Albert. Bruno finished his coffee, put a two-euro coin on the counter with some change, said ‘Bonne journée’ to the crowded café and climbed into his van for the drive to Crimson’s house. He was aware of a dryness in his mouth as he anticipated the reunion with Isabelle.
She was not alone. There was a large white unmarked van parked at the rear of the house and two men in blue overalls were taking in some electronic equipment. Isabelle was prowling the terrace. She still had a slight limp and was puffing at a cigarette as she argued with somebody over a mobile phone. As usual, she was wearing black slacks and a polo neck, flat shoes and a long black raincoat. A turquoise silk scarf worn as a belt provided a splash of colour. Her skin was bronzed from her holiday.
Part of him wanted to rush to her, take her in his arms and relive those moments when he’d felt closer to her than to any other human being. But another part of him felt – he groped for the right word – not dispassionate so mu
ch as detached, observing himself as he watched her, seeing her vulnerability as she changed her step to avoid an empty floral urn. Her profile came into view, the slim neck, the hair so short she looked boyish. Then she spun on her heel, chin out and head tilted high, imperious and hard. In that moment, he had a sense of how she would look in another twenty years, her ambition fulfilled and her heart cold, a woman at ease with power. He felt a moment of sadness that she might succeed in making a brilliant career and become one of the handful of people who ran the French state, returning each evening to a magnificent but empty apartment.
Her eyes widened in recognition as she spotted him. Did they soften? Bruno wasn’t sure. She waved the cigarette at him in cursory greeting, turned and resumed her verbal duel. Bruno sighed, shrugged and began to examine the van, its rear doors open and revealing racks of electronic equipment. Behind it was a new-looking Peugeot with a rental sticker, doubtless Isabelle’s.
‘What’s this?’ he asked one of the men. He was carrying what looked like a very fat laptop.
‘Ask her,’ came the surly reply, with a glance toward Isabelle.
‘They’re with me,’ she called to Bruno. ‘He’s got a secure phone line in there and we’re checking to see if it’s been compromised.’ She returned to her call.
Bruno considered this. France Télécom had told him the line had gone down at 1 p.m. two days earlier. But would there not have been some kind of automatic alert on a special secure line? Why would Isabelle lie to him, unless she had been ordered to take this opportunity to make a different kind of search, or perhaps to install some microphones? Yet if they were going to plant bugs in the house of a retired British spy chief they could have done it at any time. And presumably Crimson was experienced enough to take his own precautions.
‘Sorry, Bruno, some idiot in the liaison office at France Télécom in Paris trying to explain why they didn’t notice the line had been cut.’ Putting her phone away she kissed him on both cheeks and hugged him with fierce energy in that way she had. The embrace lasted a second too long for social nicety and her hand lifted to stroke his cheek. Over her shoulder, he saw the man with the big laptop watching with interest.
‘It’s good to see you again,’ she said, reaching into her raincoat pocket for her cigarettes. She had given up smoking when they’d been together in that magical summer before she had taken the job in the Minister’s office in Paris.
‘And grand to see you. How was Greece? And your leg?’ Isabelle had taken a bullet during an operation against a shipload of illegal immigrants the previous year. She now had a titanium implant in her thigh. The latest stint in hospital had been for plastic surgery to repair the fist-sized hole in her flesh, and the cruise around the Greek islands was her convalescence.
‘The docs say the op was a success,’ she said. ‘There’s still a scar, but it’s fading and the cruise ship was fine. I lay on my deckchair and read trashy novels. It’s left me with a strange suntan and a couple of extra kilos.’
‘You needed to put some weight on and they don’t show.’
‘How would you know?’ she asked, and then gave him a flash of that private smile of hers, the one that came from her eyes. ‘Enough chit-chat,’ she said briskly. ‘What do you make of all this?’
He explained about the previous burglaries, each using the same method to break in. He added that he’d confirmed the cleaning woman’s alibi for the time the phone wire had been cut.
‘Who’s been handling the burglaries, the Gendarmes?’
‘Yes.’ He told her they had left him to file the insurance reports and he’d be emailing photographs of some of the stolen items to the national watch list.
‘Big embarrassment in Paris,’ she said. ‘The Minister called his counterpart in London to apologize and the Brigadier did the same with his contacts. They virtually promised the Brits we’d clear it up, get all the stuff back and send the thieves to Devil’s Island. That’s where you come in. The Brigadier wants your local knowledge and has asked for you to be seconded to us to track down the burglars. I gave the Prefect his letter last night and I’ve got another one to give to your Mayor.’
As a municipal policeman, Bruno was officially employed by the Mayor and council of St Denis, part of the magnificent complexity of French judicial bureaucracy that had the Gendarmes employed by the Minister of Defence and the Police Nationale by the Ministry of the Interior. But the Ministry could always dragoon him into service when they thought his local knowledge might be useful. Bruno shrugged in reluctant acceptance of the inevitable. ‘You know we’ve also got a murder on our hands?’
‘I heard it on the car radio. Who’s the guy being questioned?’
‘A Parisian theatre director named Yves Valentoux. He found the body and J-J thinks he did it as a crime passionnel. I’m not so sure.’
‘Leave that to J-J. The burglars are your priority. Apparently Crimson has been in Washington but the Brits got in touch with him and he’s heading back.’
‘I brought some tools to seal the broken shutters, lock the place up again and secure it.’
‘We’ll take care of that. I’ll have someone here until Crimson returns.’ Somehow she had taken his arm and steered him out of earshot across the terrace towards the pool, still covered from the winter. Dead leaves covered the plastic sheeting. Beyond it was a potager and young tomato plants had already been staked. He saw the filigree green of carrot tops, young courgettes and lettuce. Crimson must have a gardener to take care of the grounds. When had the gardener last been here? He would ask Gaëlle.
‘I trust you had a pleasant evening,’ Isabelle said. ‘I was squeezed in at the last minute into the Prefect’s dinner party. His wife took one look and put me way down the table, between the Mayor of Ribérac and the headmaster of the lycée. Once they learned I was a flic, they talked golf, which made me miss you a little.’
Her eyes sparkled with mischief, as they always did when she teased him. Mon Dieu, it was good to see her again.
‘A career woman like you, perhaps you should take up golf.’
‘It takes too long. And we have a perfectly good gym at the Ministry. My leg is almost healed and I have this plan to jog to Place Beauvau every morning, hit the gym and shower. I have my own locker so I can keep clothes there.’
That was Isabelle, always planning, always with some project. ‘You always wear the same clothes anyway. Everything black.’
‘When you first saw me I was wearing jeans and that brown leather jacket.’ She grinned back at him.
‘I liked you best when you used one of my shirts as a dressing gown,’ he said, and she slapped his wrist in mock reproof.
‘Those days are over.’ She paused, giving Bruno time to absorb this. Then she made her face serious, one of her sudden switches of mood that often left him floundering. ‘How’s your Englishwoman?’
‘She always wears the same things, too. Riding breeches mostly, and wellington boots.’ A memory came to him of Pamela in a long green evening dress, her hair piled high.
‘You smell a little horsy. I like it, very masculine.’ Her tone changed as if she were changing gear. ‘Do you have any leads on these burglars? The Brigadier really wants it cleared up.’
‘Crimson’s been retired for two or three years now. Is he still so important?’
‘Guys like that never really retire. He’s a consultant now with the Hakluyt Group, filled with ex-SIS types and charging big corporations fat fees for risk assessment. At least, that’s what they say they do, but in that world who knows? Do you know him?’
‘He’s a good friend of the tennis club and he comes to the rugby games when he’s here in winter. He’s friendly to everybody and I’ve been invited to the house a couple of times.’
‘Who were the other guests?’
‘At the garden party it was a couple of local mayors, a bank manager, Hugo from the wine cave and lots of expats, mostly retired British diplomats and a couple of writers. At dinner it was the same mix but
a smaller group. Oh, and the local deputy to the Assemblée Nationale.’
‘Any Americans?’ she asked, a little too casually. He looked at her.
‘Not that I recall. There aren’t many around here. Why do you ask?’
She shrugged. ‘Just wondering how retired he really is. Apparently he was having some pretty high-level meetings while he was in Washington.’
They were in a garden now and he saw that the lawn had been mowed, but not recently. ‘If I’m going to focus on the burglary I need to check on the gardener and see who might have known Crimson would be away.’
He explained why he thought it was one gang, and that they knew their antiques. Bruno could search criminal records but Isabelle would have access to much broader archives that would include suspected dealers who were too careful to have ever been caught. It would be useful to have that list, particularly if there were any local connections.
‘How long are you here?’ he asked.
‘At least until Crimson gets home and settled in. Maybe we could find time for dinner. And I want to see our puppy.’ Balzac had been her gift to him after his previous dog was shot by a Basque terrorist.
‘Come to dinner. You can see the puppy and tell me what your plans are if the government changes with the next election.’
He said it lightly, but Bruno did not have to spell out his meaning. The Interior Ministry was always controversial, but there had been more and more scandals in recent months, over the wire-tapping of journalists, over some alleged cover-up of campaign finance from a rich industrialist’s widow, and above all over a new department of the Ministry, the Direction Centrale des Renseignements Intérieurs. Combining the old police intelligence operation with counter-espionage and anti-terrorism, it had become a very powerful arm of the state. Critics, including the opposition parties, called it sinister and suggested its boss had become the President’s private spy. If he lost the forthcoming election, the new government was expected to launch a wholesale purge and change of personnel.
The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6) Page 6