‘You’re not our local flic,’ she said. ‘What’s up with this guy?’
‘Routine,’ he said casually. ‘He could have been a witness to something and he was driving a van with an address at this ZI.’
‘Not any more, he isn’t,’ she said. Bruno suspected that her desire to show herself to be in the know had trumped her instinctive caution when talking to a policeman. ‘We had to let him go. When was he driving this van? Was it one of ours?’
‘No, it was another warehouse, but we’re checking everywhere to see if we can identify the guy. Do you know his name?’
‘Paul, handsome little Paul,’ she said. ‘We’ll have something in the personnel files. He was with us just under six months, driving the small vans. He wasn’t licensed for heavy goods.’
‘I only saw big trucks in the yard.’
‘Some customers don’t have much furniture. And then we’ve got a sideline business, storing antiques and stuff for the brocante dealers who come down here every year for the summer trade. That’s why we use the small vans.’
‘A nice lad, was he?’
‘A bit too nice, if you get my meaning. I rather fancied him at first, but I got the impression that women weren’t his preference.’
Bruno deliberately let his eyes linger on the cleavage. ‘More fool him,’ he said.
Smirking, the woman rose from behind the counter, turned and swayed into a rear office, her hips swivelling in the tight skirt of royal blue that matched her eye make-up. She came back bearing a slim file and a teasing expression. She put a blue-painted nail to her lips and said: ‘I’m not sure if I ought to let you see this …’
‘Well, if you really want to disturb your boss …’ he began. ‘But then we wouldn’t have our little secret, would we?’
‘You guys in uniform, you’re all the same.’ She tapped him on the chest with the file and then let him take it. There was a job application form and copies of an ID card and driving licence. Paul Murcoing, he read, age 28, and three different addresses listed for him in the six months he’d worked there, one in Belvès and two in Bergerac. The elusive connection came to Bruno at once: he’d last seen Paul in a photograph in the house of his dead grandfather, the old Résistant.
She leaned forward on the counter, her hands together so her arms could squeeze the magnificent bosom into even greater prominence.
‘I suppose now you’d like me to make you a photocopy.’
‘What I’d like you to do could get us both arrested,’ said Bruno, by now thoroughly enjoying himself. And it was certainly getting him the information he wanted. ‘But a photocopy would be very kind.’ He paused. ‘My name’s Benoît.’
‘I’m Nicolle.’ As she went into the rear office, she turned and waved her blue-tipped fingers and said: ‘Be right back.’
Bruno called J-J’s mobile and announced that he had a suspect. He gave Murcoing’s name and last known address, read out his aunt’s telephone number from his notebook and added: ‘According to one woman he worked with, there could be a gay connection.’
‘Hang on while I look him up in the records,’ said J-J.
‘Are you still questioning Valentoux?’
J-J grunted assent, and then Nicolle returned with the photocopies. ‘Still warm,’ she said, handing them to Bruno. ‘Almost hot.’
‘Très bien, Monsieur le Commissaire,’ Bruno said into the phone. ‘Right away.’
He clutched the photocopies, leaned forward to plant a kiss on Nicolle’s cheek and said: ‘Got to go, that was the boss. One last thing, did Paul have any friends here in the Zone?’
‘He might have had one, but like I said, he wasn’t interested in girls.’
As he opened the door to leave, she called: ‘Hey, Benoît.’ He stopped, turned. ‘That was fun,’ she said, and blew him a kiss.
8
At the first address Paul had listed on his personnel form, Bruno found an elderly North African woman in a headscarf with an imperfect command of French. A young man in a tracksuit with a shaven head and a large single earring turned from the blaring TV set and said: ‘We’ve only been here three weeks.’ He had never heard of Paul Murcoing and never seen the man in the photo.
At the final address in Bergerac, a curtain twitched when he rang the bell. After a minute, a young woman in a dressing gown opened the door on a chain, yawning, and asked him the time.
‘Eleven twenty.’
‘Merde, I only got off work at six. What is it?’ She clutched at the neck of her gown where it was falling away to reveal a large rose tattooed on the curve of her breast.
Bruno explained and showed the photo and she gave a nod of recognition. ‘That’s Paul, alright. He doesn’t live here but he sometimes used to come to visit his sister.’ He tried not to look at the tattoo.
‘Is she in?’
The woman shook her head. ‘Yvonne moved out, a month or so ago, maybe more. She said she had a room offered near where she worked but she may have hooked up with some guy she met. She does that sometimes. I haven’t seen Paul for ages.’
‘How well do you know him?’
‘I was at school with Yvonne so I’ve known him for years. What’s le p’tit pédé done this time?’
Despite his surprise, Bruno kept his expression still. A petit pédé was a derogatory term for a young gay, and when she said ‘this time’ did she mean he’d previously had trouble with the law?
‘He’s been in trouble before?’
She looked at him levelly and began to close the door. ‘None of my business.’
‘This is pretty urgent. He could be a witness in an important case. Do you know where Yvonne works, where I could find her?’
She sighed. ‘Promise I can go back to sleep if I tell you?’ When he nodded, she said: ‘She does part-time cleaning in foreigners’ houses up around Les Eyzies, that valley with all the caves in.’
‘You mean St Denis?’
‘That’s it, some company run by an old Scottish guy who wears a kilt. She took a photo of him on her phone. He gave all the staff a bottle of scotch one day, even the part-timers. Can I go back to sleep now?’
‘Thanks,’ said Bruno. ‘Sweet dreams.’ Back in his van he looked through the list of employees Dougal had given him. There she was, Yvonne Murcoing, on the second list of the part-time staff. If he’d gone through that first, the name would have jumped at him. The address Dougal had listed for her was the one he’d just visited. He called Dougal and asked if Yvonne Murcoing was still working for him.
‘She’s off sick, but I think she’s been staying in one of the staff houses we use.’ He gave Bruno a phone number and an address. He called the number but there was no reply. He tried calling J-J but got voicemail so tried one of his deputies, a young inspector in Bergerac who would have been assigned to any search for Murcoing. There was no news. The most recent address Murcoing had given the warehouse hadn’t seen him for weeks. Bruno then called Joséphine, Murcoing’s aunt, and left a message, asking her to call him and saying he had news about the funeral. That should guarantee she called him back.
He took the back route from Bergerac through Ste Alvère to avoid the traffic on the main road along the river. He parked opposite the Gendarmerie and noticed Valentoux’s silver car in the lot, so he was still being held. He walked across to look at it; fingerprint dust was visible on the handles and mirrors. That meant the forensics should have finished with it. He put on a pair of gloves and opened the door, wondering if they had checked for discarded receipts that could buttress Yveline’s theory that he could have driven down a day early to commit the murder. He found nothing.
He was about to close the car door when a thought struck him. He opened the glove box and pulled out the instruction book. There was a section at the back where careful drivers could note down their diesel purchases and the number of kilometres driven and work out their consumption. But Valentoux had never filled in a single page. Tucked inside it was the little plastic wallet where most people kep
t their carte grise and other documents that the police checked when a car was stopped. There was a receipt from a Contrôle Technique garage, an inspection station where older cars were required to be tested every two years. Bruno checked the date, nine days ago. The form listed the number of kilometres on the clock when the test was performed. He compared that with the clock. Valentoux had driven seven hundred and twenty kilometres in the past nine days. Paris to St Denis was nearly six hundred. If he had made a second journey to kill Fullerton, he could not have done it in his own car.
From behind the desk, Sergeant Jules shook his hand and said Yveline was in the interview room with the suspect. J-J was using the old Capitaine’s office as a work room. Bruno handed over the Contrôle Technique and explained. ‘I suppose he could have hired a car and done it that way,’ he concluded.
‘Only if he knew some place that let him have a car for cash,’ said J-J wearily. ‘We’ve been through his credit cards and bank account. There’s no sign of any odd transactions.’ He took off his glasses and eyed Bruno. ‘Is it you I have to thank for that phone call we got last night from the Procureur’s office?’
‘What phone call?’ Bruno asked innocently.
‘Your friend Annette Meraillon, asking if it was true we were questioning a murder suspect.’
‘My friend?’ said Bruno. ‘She’s a vegetarian feminist who thinks I’m a dreadful old meat-eating dinosaur like you. Anyway, she’s too junior to be assigned a case like this.’
‘One of these days you’ll go too far,’ J-J grumbled. He tried to glower at Bruno but his heart didn’t seem to be in it.
‘How’s Valentoux bearing up under the interrogation?’ Bruno asked.
‘He seems fine, obviously has great faith in French justice. He keeps saying he didn’t do it, has a little cry when he thinks of his dead friend, and then dries his eyes and answers everything we throw at him. He’s been very cooperative, hasn’t even asked for a lawyer. I was going to release him this morning when the juge d’instruction arrived, but Yveline was keen to have another crack at him and I don’t want to start an argument with the Gendarmes. The juge is talking to him now.’
J-J turned to a young woman sitting at an adjoining desk and handed her the inspection station receipt Bruno had taken from Valentoux’s car and asked her to explain its significance to the magistrate in the interview room. Then J-J looked at his watch. ‘I wonder what your friend with the bistro is doing for his plat du jour?’
‘Ivan usually makes côtelettes de porc au céleri today.’
‘So what are we waiting for?’ said J-J. He lumbered to his feet and headed for the door at a pace that belied his bulk. A bowl of potage de légumes later, mopped up with a fresh baguette and washed down with a glass of Ivan’s house red, J-J sat back and looked at Bruno.
‘So you can put this Murcoing guy at the murder scene at the relevant time, in a van with a forged sign, and you say he’s gay, so that could be a connection with Fullerton. I ran his name through the records when you rang. He’s got two convictions for car theft, another for hunting without a licence, and he was questioned last year on suspicion of selling stolen antiques but released for lack of evidence. He looks a likely suspect but it’s all circumstantial.’
‘And his sister is in a position to know which houses would be empty and open for burglary.’
‘That’s the problem. Why would he want to rip off a gîte? There’s no furniture worth taking.’
‘Maybe he knew Fullerton and knew he had a truckload of antiques with him.’
‘It’s a bit thin,’ J-J said, surprising Ivan, who was about to serve the pork chops. ‘Not you, and not this fine-looking dish,’ J-J said hurriedly and then leaned forward to breathe in the aroma of the celery sauce. A wide smile appeared on his face as he waited for Ivan to return with the vegetables.
‘I warn you, he’s put his prices up,’ said Bruno. ‘Probably your fault for over-praising him. It’s ten euros fifty now for the set lunch.’
J-J swallowed his first mouthful, nodded in approval and sipped at his wine. ‘Soup, this fine pork chop with vegetables done to perfection, then a green salad followed by cheese and topped off with – what’s the dessert today?’
‘Tarte Tatin.’
J-J looked up to the heavens. ‘Thank you, God.’ He looked back at Bruno. ‘Followed by tarte Tatin plus a quarter-litre of this very drinkable red for ten euros fifty? I don’t know how he does it.’
‘It will be an extra euro twenty for the coffee, and then you’ll probably want a glass of Monbazillac with the tarte and then maybe a digestif and suddenly your bill is twenty euros,’ Bruno said. ‘That’s how Ivan makes his money.’
‘It’s worth every penny and we’ll economize. No digestif for you today. By the way, who’s his latest girlfriend?’
Ivan’s menu varied with his love life, which in turn was usually defined by those girls he met on holiday whom he could persuade to return with him to St Denis. There had been a Belgian girl who seduced him into producing endless moules. The Spanish lover had introduced St Denis to gazpacho and paella, which were greatly appreciated, although the sounds of crashing pans and murderous curses that came from the kitchen when she was angry with Ivan were also relished by the regulars. The new German girl had been a pleasant surprise; her Wiener Schnitzel, hammered so thin it overlapped the plate and served with a succulent potato salad, had become a local favourite that Bruno tried never to miss. Hugo from the wine shop had even started to stock an Austrian wine, Grüner Veltliner, in its honour.
‘It’s still the German,’ Bruno said. ‘But the signs aren’t good. Ivan’s been seen sitting alone at the bar and drinking after the place has closed.’ As a result, he explained, there was now keen anticipation in the town of Ivan’s next holiday plans. One faction was urging him to explore South-east Asia and bring back a Thai cook, while another was suggesting that the French Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe might bring an exotic tropical spice to the plat du jour.
‘And who’s your latest recruit, the woman in the office?’ Bruno asked.
‘That’s Josette, just completed her detective’s course, transferred from Nontron. Married to a motard.’ J-J used the slang for a motorcycle cop. ‘Any day now, I’m expecting her to announce she’s going on maternity leave. She’s the one who looked up Murcoing’s record. We’re putting an all-points bulletin out on him.’
‘So if you’re no longer taking Valentoux seriously as a suspect, why are you still holding him?’
‘I told you, Yveline wanted another go at him and then Bernard had to question him – that’s the juge d’instruction they assigned, Bernard Ardouin. He’s pretty good, a Socialist of course, but sensible. He used to play rugby for Sarlat. I told him I thought we’d wrung Valentoux dry and he seemed to agree. I don’t think there’s much point keeping him any longer. He’ll be out this afternoon.’
‘With a big sign round his neck saying Gay Murder Suspect. Can’t you put out a statement saying he’s been cleared?’
J-J shrugged and attacked his tarte Tatin as if he hadn’t eaten for days. It disappeared in four large spoonfuls. ‘Sure you won’t join me in a little Armagnac with the coffee?’ he asked. ‘By the way, you didn’t tell me Isabelle’s back in town.’
‘I saw her this morning.’ Bruno explained Isabelle’s interest in Crimson’s background.
‘I hate it when intelligence gets involved,’ J-J said. ‘Always screws things up. A little bird in the Préfecture told me the Brigadier has got you seconded to his team again.’
‘Afraid so. I’m meant to find the burglars and get Crimson’s goods back.’
J-J snorted. ‘I’m surprised at Isabelle. She knows better than that how tough burglaries are to solve. She damn well should; I trained her.’
‘There may be one possible way into this,’ Bruno said. ‘You say it’s thin, but what if there really is a connection with the murder? Fullerton’s an antique dealer, Murcoing has an arrest for stolen antiq
ues, even if nothing was proved, and that’s what the burglars have been taking.’
‘And we have to find out whatever happened to that load of antiques Fullerton had in the back of his van.’
‘So it’s all the more important that we track down Murcoing,’ Bruno went on. ‘Perhaps you could put through a request to the British police to see if anything’s known about Fullerton. We know he was an antiques dealer, but maybe he was a crooked one.’
J-J nodded, picked up his phone, called Josette and asked her to take care of it.
‘Let me make sure I have your theory right,’ said J-J. ‘Murcoing could have had some dealings with Fullerton in the past, maybe doing the burglaries, and then Fullerton ships the goods back to England. He goes to meet Fullerton at the gîte to pick up Fullerton’s latest shipment, which might even be stuff stolen in England. They transfer the stuff into Murcoing’s van and then they have a falling out, maybe over money, and Murcoing kills him.’
‘And then there’s the gay angle. We know from Valentoux that Fullerton was gay and one of Murcoing’s sister’s friends called him a petit pédé. Maybe they fell out because Fullerton had found a new lover in Valentoux.’
‘That corpse was a crime passionnel if ever I saw one,’ J-J agreed. He sipped his coffee and called for the bill. ‘So even though Isabelle and the Brigadier want you focused on the burglary, you want to be part of the murder inquiry because that’s how you think you’ll solve it all.’
He opened his wallet, put a twenty-euro note and a ten onto Ivan’s saucer, waving away the change, and tucked the receipt back with the rest of his cash. ‘Suits me,’ he said. ‘I’ll make sure you’re kept informed of everything we get: forensics, records, anything from the British police and the lads I’ve got making the rounds of the local antiques dealers.’
The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6) Page 8