‘And I want to be there when you question Murcoing.’
‘We have to find him first. Inspector Jofflin from Bergerac is in charge of that. Now let’s get outside. I’m bursting for a cigarette.’
‘I’ll come back to the Gendarmerie with you. I want a word with Valentoux once you let him out.’
‘In that case, give me an hour to square things with Yveline and Bernard.’
Bruno headed back to his office to deal with his emails, phone messages and the usual pile of post. There was one from the British consulate in Bordeaux to say that Fullerton’s brother would arrive by plane in Bordeaux the following day to take care of the funeral arrangements. He’d rent a car and contact Bruno on arrival in St Denis. The consulate had booked him into Les Glycines in Les Eyzies for three nights. There was an email from the adjutant of the 4th Régiment de Transmissions in Agen, confirming that a squad of troops would mount a guard of honour for Loïc Murcoing’s funeral and asking him to verify the date and time. He had just got off the phone with Father Sentout to confirm the funeral arrangements and was about to call Florence when the Mayor put his head around the door, came in, closed it behind him and leaned against it.
‘I had a phone call from Jacqueline Morgan. I gather you know about Cécile’s condition,’ he said. He looked exhausted.
‘Yes, I was terribly sorry to learn it.’ As he did whenever the Mayor entered his office, Bruno stood up. His instinct was to go over and embrace the old man who had been the nearest he’d ever known to a father. ‘I will keep the information to myself.’
‘It’s her wish.’ The Mayor put a hand to his brow, smoothed his fingertips over his temple as if trying to soothe a headache. ‘She does not want her final days filled with a stream of weeping visitors. Nor does Cécile want people to see her as she is now.’
‘I understand.’ He felt helpless, wanting to do something helpful to show his sympathy and concern but with no idea what might be best. Bruno wondered how long this trial would last, not just for his Mayor but for the sweet and loyal woman who was dying in the same self-effacing way that she had lived. How little we can really do for one another at the time when it’s most needed, he thought.
‘It must be difficult for you, returning from hospital to an empty house. Would it help if you moved into my spare room?’
‘Thank you, Bruno, but no. Jacqueline has taken on the task of seeing that I’m properly fed and I think it right to sleep in the room that Cécile and I shared for nearly four decades. It will be forty years next February, but she won’t live to see it.’
9
Like Valentoux himself, the theatre director’s silk shirt looked the worse for wear when Bruno collected him from the Gendarmerie and took him across the road to the Bar des Amateurs. When Bruno asked what he’d like to drink, Valentoux shook himself out of his daze and ordered a beer, then pulled out a pack of cigarettes, but it was empty. They sat at a table outside, the sunshine dappled by the leaves of the plane trees that lined the street.
‘What will you do now?’ Bruno asked.
‘Buy cigarettes, take a shower and see if the drama festival still wants a director who’s suspected of murder. Then I’d better head back to the gîte where Francis died. I won’t be able to sleep a wink but it’s the only place I have to stay.’
‘You can’t go there. It’s been sealed off as a crime scene.’
‘Merde. I’m in no shape to drive back to Paris. Can I take my car or have they sealed that too?’
‘You’re free. You can pick up your car whenever you want. I was going to suggest you follow me back to my place, take a shower there and change and you can have the spare room until you decide what to do.’ Bruno turned and called to the barman to bring him a pack of Marlboros and some matches.
‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ said Valentoux. ‘That’s a very kind offer – why are you doing this?’
‘I don’t smoke. They’re for you,’ Bruno said. ‘You’ve been all night and half the day in a jail cell and interrogation rooms. You’re out of cigarettes. I don’t think you killed Fullerton and nor does the chief of detectives. If any evidence to the contrary turns up, we’ll know where to find you. Will there really be a problem with your job at the drama festival?’
Valentoux shrugged, pulled out his mobile phone and said: ‘Three messages from them asking me to call urgently. This job’s supposed to last me all summer and I turned down other opportunities to do it.’
‘Phone them. If there’s a problem, I’ll speak to them.’
Valentoux called, exchanged a few sentences, and then said: ‘There’s a policeman here wants to talk to you.’ Bruno took the phone and Valentoux whispered: ‘Festival director.’
‘Chief of Police Courrèges on the line, Monsieur le directeur. I understand you have some concerns about Monsieur Valentoux.’
‘The news reports have been troubling, but I understand Yves has now been released,’ the director said.
‘He was never arrested, simply helping us to understand what happened. He was the one who found the body of his friend. He is completely free and I know of no suspicions attached to him, whatever the media might be saying.’
‘I’ve been asked to cancel his contract.’
‘Excuse me, I thought you were the festival director,’ said Bruno, putting some frost into his voice. ‘Are you not in charge? Should I speak to somebody else?’
‘I’m the director but there’s the board chairman, the Mayor, the sponsors …’
‘And there’s a contract. If you cancel it, you’ll have a lawsuit on your hands, and I’d have to testify that I had formally informed you that Monsieur Valentoux has been released with the thanks of the police for his assistance and without any shadow on his name. We don’t want any unpleasant accusations of discrimination or homophobia.’
Bruno spoke over the protests that came down the line. ‘I suggest you give me your email and I’ll send you a message within the hour confirming what I have said and I’ll put a hard copy in the post tonight. That should suffice for your sponsors and your board.
‘No? Then I’ll send those off to you and confirm to Monsieur Valentoux that his contract stands and he is free to come and see you tomorrow, if you wish. Thank you for your time and bonne journée.’ He handed the phone back, took a long pull of the cold beer and watched Valentoux light a cigarette with shaking hands.
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘You’ve had a rough time. No need to make it worse,’ Bruno said. ‘Stay here, have another beer while I send off the email and letter and I’ll pick you up back here in thirty minutes. OK?’
As he walked back up the main street toward his office in the Mairie, Bruno tried calling the house where Yvonne, Murcoing’s sister, was staying and where she was supposed to be resting on sick leave. Again there was no reply. He called Annette to thank her for her intervention and explained that Valentoux had been released and that he’d be at the drama festival as planned.
‘They’ve assigned Bernard Ardouin to the case, so you’re in good hands,’ Annette said. ‘I told him that Valentoux had enough of a reputation in cultural circles to get the Paris newspapers interested. I also told him to make sure to talk to you about the case.’
‘You’ll destroy your reputation,’ he said, smiling as he spoke. He liked Annette, a keenly competitive rally driver who had once scared the life out of him by putting him in the passenger seat for a hair-raising drive around a forest track.
‘What reputation? Anyway, if Valentoux is out and in the clear, I’d love to meet him.’
‘In that case, come and have dinner at my place tonight. He’ll be there. Are you still vegetarian?’
‘In principle, but as you know it’s almost impossible to live in Sarlat and not to eat a little duck.’
‘Duck it shall be,’ he said. ‘We’ll see you about seven thirty. I have to exercise the horses first.’
He rang off and climbed the old stone steps of the Mairie to his office, where he sent off
his email and letter to the drama festival director and called Dougal at Delightful Dordogne to ask who else lived in the staff house with Murcoing’s sister. He was given three names and mobile-phone numbers. Two of the girls he knew from his tennis lessons when they’d been schoolgirls. He called the one he’d liked most, Monique.
‘I’m trying to find Yvonne Murcoing,’ he said, after the usual pleasantries. ‘She’s supposed to be at the house but there’s no reply.’
‘We haven’t seen her for a couple of days,’ Monique replied. ‘She left a note on the kitchen table saying there’d been a death in the family and she’d been called away. I’ve got her mobile number if that helps.’
It was the same number that Bruno had been trying without success. ‘Have you met her brother?’ he asked.
‘Paul? Yes, he drops by from time to time, usually just to pick her up. They seem to be pretty close. She has a photo of him by her bed. We had a couple of takeaway pizzas here together, watched a DVD he brought. I went to bed after a bit. The film was too arty for me, something Swedish in black and white, lots of moody silences.’
‘Did you see him recently?’
‘Not for a few days but I’ve been out a lot. Shall I ask the other girls?’
‘Yes, please. Do you know if Yvonne has a car?’
‘She drives one of those little Toyotas, I don’t know what they’re called. It’s that grey-silver colour and it’s not here now. I know she gets it serviced at Lespinasse’s garage. He should have the registration number.’
On the way back to the bar to pick up Valentoux, Bruno stopped at the butcher’s and bought a kilo of aiguillettes of duck. These were the long, thin strips of the finest meat that was left after the magret, the breast, had been removed. Too often ignored or left on the carcass to thicken a stock, Bruno loved them and planned to prepare them for dinner that evening. He had potatoes and the first of the strawberries under glass frames in his garden, lettuces, a lot of radishes and some early courgettes. Stéphane had dropped off some cheeses with the ham he’d been curing in salt since the ritual slaughter of the pig at the start of the year. That was all Bruno needed.
There was no sign of Valentoux at the table outside the bar, but Bruno looked inside and saw him standing at the counter, a large glass of what looked like whisky in his hand as he thumbed through the bar’s copy of Sud Ouest.
‘I see what the festival director meant,’ he said, closing the paper with its front-page headline on the murder of Fullerton. ‘It’s only just hitting me, the knowledge that I’ll never see him again.’
‘Let’s get you back,’ said Bruno, and led the way to the Gendarmerie’s parking lot so that Valentoux could follow him home. Once back at his cottage, Bruno showed his guest around, gave him a towel, showed him the shower and guest room and suggested he get some sleep after his night in the cells.
In the kitchen, Bruno filled a bowl with hot water and left it to warm. He poured a half glass of red wine into a flat-bottom dish, added salt and pepper and a crushed garlic clove and rolled the duck auguillettes in the wine. Then he took a large jar of old-fashioned mustard, thick with seeds, and put three heaped tablespoons into the emptied warm bowl. He added an equivalent amount of chestnut honey from a jar he’d been given by Hervé, one of the beekeepers who sold his wares in the St Denis market. He mixed the mustard and honey together, added the wine and the duck, and turned them until each of the aiguillettes was well coated. He covered the dish with plastic film and put it in the fridge.
Out in the garden with his basket, he dug up a couple of his potato plants, picked radishes, strawberries and courgettes along with some spring onions. He took the strawberries and the onions into his chicken coop and plucked them there, leaving the green stalks for the chickens to fuss over. Back in his kitchen, he washed the vegetables, leaving them in the sink as he checked that he had sufficient flour for the beignets. He peeled and sliced the courgettes, added salt and laid them in a colander to drain. He was just washing up when a cleanshaven Valentoux entered the kitchen wearing a silk dressing gown and carrying the bottle of champagne that had been in his plastic bag.
‘That shower was just what I needed,’ he said. ‘I’d like to give you the champagne.’
‘Put it in the fridge and we can drink it this evening. I have some friends coming for dinner, including a fan of yours who saw some of your plays in Paris. The other guests and I will arrive smelling of horses since we have to exercise them. They’re due at seven thirty and we’ll eat about eight or soon after. I’m heading out again but I’ll be back after the horses.’
‘I love riding. I had to learn for a film I was in, a costume drama about Catherine de Medici. I’d really like to take it up again, but not today. I’ll get some sleep, if that’s okay. You’re being very kind.’
‘I hope you like dogs. Better prepare yourself to meet a very affectionate and even more inquisitive young basset hound puppy. He’s called Balzac and I’m supposed to be training him. I’ll bring him back from the stables where he likes to spend his days.’
‘Balzac’s a grand name for a dog.’
Bruno dried his hands, picked up his cap and headed for his van. His first stop was Lespinasse’s garage, where the owner scooted out from beneath a Citroën traction-avant he was restoring to look up the registration number of Yvonne’s car.
‘Is there a problem?’ Lespinasse asked. A plump, jolly man who could still play a decent game of rugby, he wiped his hands clean with grease from a large open jar and then with a paper towel before turning to his files.
‘No, it’s her brother I’m looking for and I thought she might be able to help me track him down. You know their grandpa died?’
‘Old Murcoing? Yes, I knew him from when he had me up at the farm trying to fix his old tractor. It was a Porsche so he said it should run for ever. I bet you didn’t know Porsche used to make tractors. Here’s her registration number, a Toyota Yaris.’
Bruno wrote it down, told Lespinasse that there would be a military funeral for the old man and stopped at the Gendarmerie just along the street to get Sergeant Jules to put Yvonne’s car on the watch list.
‘The magistrate was looking for you,’ said Jules. ‘I gave him your number but he had to get back to Sarlat. Nothing urgent and he said he’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘How’s the new boss?’ Bruno asked.
‘Anybody would be an improvement on Capitaine Duroc, but she’s only just got here. Too soon to tell but she’s very polite, still got the officers’ school polish on her.’
‘You’ll soon rub that off, Jules,’ Bruno said. ‘Anything else?’
‘Philippe Delaron was asking about that Englishman that was burgled. He said he’d looked him up on Google and he thought there might be a story in it. Apparently the Englishman’s a milord or something quite important. Delaron was a bit cagey about it. You know what he’s like when he’s after a story.’
Bruno made a mental note to make his own check on Google and headed for the house where Monique lived, to see if Yvonne Murcoing might by chance have returned, but the place was empty. It had been a long shot but not far off his route to Pamela’s house and his spirits lifted and his mood mellowed as he drove up the familiar lane to the house where his puppy and his horse and Pamela all awaited. It would be, he told himself, an oasis of affection and calm after a long and frustrating day.
Instead, he found a controlled chaos, a plumber’s van and a large truck in the courtyard from which came the unmistakable whiff of a problem with the septic tank. Pamela, in overalls and rubber boots, was sluicing out her kitchen.
‘Don’t come near me. I stink,’ she called, blowing him a kiss. ‘Antonio says he’s almost done.’
Bruno nodded at Marcel, standing by the truck that was known locally as the honey wagon. Marcel had a steady business installing and emptying septic tanks all over the region, but somehow managed to shed the aroma of his trade in the evenings when he’d spend his time between Ivan’s bistro and the Ba
r des Amateurs. All that could be discerned in the atmosphere around him in the evening was the pungent smell of the cheap cigars he smoked constantly. And who, Bruno thought, could blame him, as the throaty sound of the truck’s pump signalled that the tank had nearly been emptied.
A new gust of fumes drove Bruno to the stables, to be greeted by Balzac trying to scramble up his legs while Hector gave a welcoming whinny. Bess and Victoria, Pamela’s two mares, gazed at him incuriously and then went back to staring at the wooden planks of their stalls. He changed into his riding clothes, despite Balzac’s best attentions, gave Hector his customary apple and saddled all the horses. He hadn’t seen Fabiola’s car but he assumed she’d join them. She knew it was his turn to cook this evening.
‘It’s safe to come out now,’ said Pamela, dressed for riding and her still-damp hair pinned back. She could change faster than any woman he’d ever known. She reached for her riding hat and kissed him. ‘We had a plumbing disaster this afternoon, but Antonio fixed the blocked loo and persuaded Marcel to come and pump everything out.’
‘And somebody was just enthusing to me about the delights of life in the country. You’ll meet him at dinner, that drama festival guy I was telling you about last night.’
‘It’s alright for him to wax lyrical. He lives in Paris where they have sewers, and on days like this I wish I did too. Fabiola rang to say she’s on her way. She was held up by a broken bone she had to set at one of the camp grounds. We spent half the morning moving her stuff across.’
‘Across to where?’
‘Didn’t I tell you? She’s moving into the spare room in my house for the summer so I can rent out her gîte. Lucky you, you’ll be sharing the bathroom with two women. With the rental I’ll be able to install a second bathroom upstairs, at the end of the landing.’
‘Do I get to scrub Fabiola’s back, too?’ he grinned and hugged her from behind.
‘Absolutely not. Don’t even think about it.’
10
The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6) Page 9