The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

by Martin Walker

  He stood up again, looked around the room and shook his head. ‘All those bookshelves, full of stuff he gathered, but Francis never managed to find one of the original banknotes before. I wonder where he got it?’

  ‘Did your brother ever mention anyone called Murcoing?’ Bruno asked. ‘Paul Murcoing, a young man. And an old Résistant called Loïc, his grandfather and one of the original Groupe Valmy members?’

  ‘No, but I’ll bet you’ll find stuff about him in those files. Take a look in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, that’s where he kept his photos. They’ll all be in alphabetic order.’

  Bruno looked under M and found a file labelled Murcoing (Valmy). Inside it were three decent portrait shots of the old man standing by a modern Neuvic road sign. There were also copies of the 1944-vintage photos of the Groupe Valmy that Bruno had seen in the dead man’s box of treasures. But there was no file for Paul Murcoing.

  Brian went back to the laptop, trying to guess passwords while Bruno searched the rest of the house. He examined the contents of the freezer section of the fridge, the cisterns for the WCs, looked under tables and on the tops of bathroom cupboards. Finally, taking a last look around the bedroom where he’d found the dirty socks, his eye fell on a framed photo on one of the bedside tables. There were Paul and Francis, arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning for the camera while sitting at some café table in the sun. They were drinking what looked like Ricard and between them two cigarettes smouldered on an ashtray marked Dubonnet.

  ‘I found the password,’ came Brian’s triumphant shout from below. ‘It was taped to the back of another drawer. He used Neuvic1944. He was obsessed with that damn train robbery.’

  Bruno turned to go downstairs to see what the laptop might reveal but his eye was caught by a second framed photo on the other bedside table. A moody portrait of Paul Murcoing half-smiling, something deliberately seductive in his eyes, was inscribed: Pour mon très cher Francis, Je t’embrasse, Paul.

  14

  The village of Paunat was one of Bruno’s favourite places, a classic ensemble of old Périgord houses tumbling down a hillside to the stream and dominated by an austere Benedictine abbey. Seated at a table for two on the terrace of the restaurant, Isabelle and Bruno kept glancing up to admire its floodlit wall as the twilight deepened. Once J-J and Bernard Ardouin had arrived at Francis’s farmhouse with the forensics team, Bruno had been able to leave and drive Brian back to his hotel. Isabelle had called to invite him to what she called a working dinner, saying she needed to get all the details before the Brigadier arrived with Crimson next day.

  ‘You can pick somewhere discreet, if you’re worried about word getting back to your Englishwoman that I’m back in town,’ she had said, in a half-mocking, half-teasing tone.

  Given the speed at which local gossip moved around St Denis, Pamela probably already knew. He’d called her earlier from the Corrèze to explain that he wouldn’t be able to exercise the horses that evening but that he’d join her at seven the next day for the morning ride. The truth was that there was no restaurant within thirty kilometres where he could guarantee discretion.

  For once, Isabelle had ditched her usual black and was wearing a starched white shirt that showed off her cruise-ship tan, over a pleated skirt that flared enticingly as she turned to wave at him after climbing out of her rented car. When he’d admired the way it looked on her, she’d told him proudly that it was a Fortuny, bought at a vintage clothing shop in Paris.

  ‘I’ll take the menu with the coquilles St Jacques and then the blanquette de veau,’ she said, looking appreciatively at the large blackboard with the day’s menu that had been placed by their table. ‘A bottle of Perrier and whatever wine you think most suitable. And then tell me all about what happened today and you can also explain why you didn’t bring our puppy along.’

  ‘Balzac still has some house-training to learn before I’d dare let him loose on a restaurant,’ he replied, while trying to choose between the veal and the partridge. Finally he ordered the same dishes that Isabelle had chosen, along with a glass each of the restaurant’s Bergerac Sec to go with the scallops and a half bottle of La Jaubertie’s Cuvée Mirabelle to go with the veal. Then he told her how the day had unfolded from the moment Brian Fullerton had mentioned his brother’s farmhouse.

  ‘What worries me is the missing guns,’ he concluded over the cheese course. ‘From the brother, it’s clear that Francis was in the habit of using them, so it’s a reasonable guess that Paul had learned to fire them. He’s on the run with his sister, fleeing in a hurry from the place they thought was a refuge, and he’s armed and dangerous. I don’t envy the traffic cops who flag him down or whoever has to go in once he’s cornered.’

  ‘They’ll use the Jaunes,’ Isabelle said, referring to the Gendarmes Mobiles, their elite unit. ‘Nobody would shed many tears if Murcoing gets killed but there’ll be trouble if his sister gets shot as well. But that’s somebody else’s problem. For today, it’s a good result. It’s obvious that Murcoing is the murderer and Crimson gets his stuff back, along with a lot of other victims. I imagine the local insurance agents will be giving you a very special dinner.’

  Bruno was about to say that it could not be nearly as special as this evening when he remembered the sharp way she had said: ‘Those days are over,’ when he’d made some quip about her wearing his shirt as a dressing gown. And now she was off to some European job in Holland. There would be no more special missions for the Brigadier that sometimes brought her down to St Denis. Perhaps this was to be their last supper, her way of saying goodbye, taking the opportunity of a day when the blow would be softened by his professional success.

  ‘But that’s not the only reason I wanted to see you this evening,’ she said. Bruno braced himself, preparing his face to display a look of wry affection tinged with sadness. It wouldn’t even have to be faked. A part of him would always be in love with her vivacity and her fire.

  ‘I thought I’d better warn you there’s a buzz around the Ministry that there’s to be some kind of pre-election surprise. People are nervous. And St Denis seems to be caught up in it,’ she said, startling him. ‘Maybe you are, too. I’m not sure exactly what this political intrigue might be, but the Brigadier told me to ask you about Americans, and when he did I noticed your army file was open on his desk. I think that was why he was so quick to seize on Crimson’s burglary.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Crimson’s an Englishman.’ One part of his brain was thinking that this had to be about Jacqueline’s book and therefore implicated his Mayor, while another was thinking that for once this was something he could not discuss with Isabelle. Her interest would be to protect the state; his would be to protect his Mayor.

  ‘English, Americans, two sides of the same coin.’ She waved his comment aside. ‘You know these old Gaullists, it’s always been an article of faith that there’s no difference between les Anglo-Saxons. And in intelligence at least, they’re probably right; the English tell the Americans everything. Just remember that as far as the Brigadier is concerned, you have no secrets. He’ll even know we’re together this evening.’

  ‘Did you tell him we were having dinner?’

  ‘No, but you remember in Bordeaux, after your phone was tapped and he gave you one of our secure ones? He can call up a screen that shows him where all of those phones are at any given time. And before you ask, yes, that means he knows when we’ve spent the night together.’

  Bruno felt himself blushing. ‘Is this rumour about an election surprise just in your Ministry?’

  She gave a wry smile. ‘You know Paris.’ She said it as if she’d been born and bred in the capital, when they both knew she’d been based there less than a year and had spent much of that time in hospitals.

  ‘Remember Gilles from Paris Match, the reporter I knew in Bosnia?’ Bruno asked. ‘He’s coming down here along with some British journalists. He said it was because of Crimson, but I wonder.’

  ‘Crimson is a g
ood news story. Burglary solved, goods recovered, brilliant police work.’

  ‘If that’s all Gilles is planning on reporting. I know he loves the region but this is election time, political season. We both know he’s a good reporter; relentless when he’s after a story.’

  She nodded thoughtfully and took a sip of wine. ‘It’s strange that we never talked politics, you and I, nor was there much of it when I was based in Périgueux. In Paris, after other people’s love lives it’s the main topic of conversation. I presume you lean to the right like most flics.’

  Bruno raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t think I lean in any direction, and I suspect the old traditions of lifelong loyalty to a single party are fading pretty fast. Take you, for example; I’d say you were progressive on social matters like abortion and gay rights, but conservative on law and order and maybe on defence.’

  ‘That sounds like you as well,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘I don’t pay that much attention to national politics. Locally, I vote for the man or woman I like.’ Bruno recalled his last trip to the voting booth for the municipal election. He’d voted for the Mayor, who was centre-right, and for the kindly retired schoolteacher who’d chaired the local Socialist party for two decades. He’d also cast his ballot for Alphonse, an old hippy who was a passionate Green, and for Montsouris, the only Communist on the council. In the last national election, he’d voted one way for the presidency and in the elections for the Assemblée Nationale he’d voted for the other side.

  ‘But you’re anti-European,’ she insisted. ‘You’re a French nationalist, a real cocorico. And I’ve heard you moan about those bureaucrats in Brussels often enough.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ he declared. ‘I love France but I’m a passionate pro-European. It’s just this particular form of Brussels-based Europe that irritates the hell out of me.’

  Bruno relished the way that other Europeans like Pamela from Britain and his German friend Horst, the archaeologist, could live and work in France or anywhere in Europe they chose. He liked the principle of a single currency and travel without passports. But he was angry that Brussels spent a fortune on agriculture while farming around St Denis was being squeezed to death.

  ‘So who are you going to vote for?’ she asked. ‘The devil we know or the devil we don’t?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. None of them really impresses me but maybe it’s time for a change. That’s the best thing about democracy, the feeling that you can throw the rascals out.’

  He signalled for the bill, but the waiter pointed to Isabelle and shrugged. She’d paid when he went to wash his hands.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’re on expenses,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, studying her and wondering whether to say what was in his mind. He decided to go ahead. ‘For a while, I thought you’d invited me to dinner to say a formal Adieu.’

  She looked at him in silence, almost sternly, took a deep breath as if about to say something important and then stopped herself. She picked up her bag from the floor beside her, rose and turned to take his arm. She flashed him a brilliant smile, gave the skin of his forearm a gentle nip and said: ‘I thought I already did.’

  ‘Several times,’ he replied. ‘That’s the problem. I never know if you mean it.’

  *

  The kitchen and living-room lights were still on and Valentoux’s car was parked in the drive when Bruno got home. He must have heard the Land Rover, because as Bruno emerged he was standing in the doorway, a bottle in his hand, to welcome Bruno home.

  ‘This is for you, to say thanks,’ he said, handing Bruno a bottle of Lagavulin and leading the way back into the living room where two glasses were waiting alongside a jug of water. ‘Annette tells me it’s your favourite scotch and I’m celebrating. I’ll be moving into her place in Sarlat tomorrow, if that suits you.’

  Bruno thanked him, put the new bottle into his drinks cupboard and brought out the bottle of Lagavulin he’d already opened. He poured out two glasses and splashed a little water into each one. He noted with approval that there were no ice cubes.

  ‘Annette told me how you drink it, no ice, just a touch of water.’

  ‘Dougal, a Scottish friend, showed me how the Scots drink it,’ Bruno replied. ‘I’m glad you’re settled and I’ve also got some reassuring news. It looks like you’re in the clear and that it was Murcoing who killed your friend.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. I’ve found out a bit more about him from one of the actors I’ve known for years, someone who’s based in Bordeaux. He sounds like an unpleasant young man, rather mercenary, who makes a habit of living off older men. Apparently he speaks good English.’

  Bruno was about to say that Fullerton would fit that pattern, but thought better of it and instead sipped his drink. Fullerton had been Yves’s lover, after all. He liked Valentoux and did not want to offend him, so how did one embark on a discussion of Fullerton’s other affair? And how far should he allow for some jealousy on Yves’s part?

  Valentoux noticed Bruno’s hesitation and smiled. ‘You’re very polite for a policeman. I knew Francis was never faithful to me and I accepted that. I fell in love with him and I was very attracted to him. He was a wonderfully handsome man, full of energy and joie de vivre. There were times I thought I’d found the love of my life; times when we both thought that. But I think I always knew or perhaps feared that he was a bit of a rogue, not someone to rely on.’

  A parallel with Isabelle came into Bruno’s mind. He’d trust her with his life but he wasn’t sure that he could rely on her, not if it came to a choice between her career and her heart. He dragged himself back to the conversation with Yves.

  ‘When you say Murcoing was mercenary, you mean he went with older men for money?’

  Valentoux shrugged. ‘Perhaps, I don’t know. But I’d imagine it was mainly for presents, expensive clothes and trips, always at the best hotels, perhaps the occasional painting. I can’t see Francis being involved with someone quite so crude as to demand cash.’

  Suddenly Valentoux took a notebook from an inside pocket and handed Bruno a small colour photograph. It showed a dark-haired little girl in a light blue dress sitting on the lap of a strikingly pretty woman. The picture had been taken in a garden, an ivy-covered wall behind them and another rather older woman stood beside them.

  ‘You may be surprised but that’s Odile, my daughter, and those are her parents, Francine and Hélène, an actress and a set designer whom I’ve known for years. They initially wanted to adopt, but when that proved difficult, they asked me to help and I was honoured to do so. Odile calls me Tonton, Uncle Yves.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Bruno, his eyes lingering on the little girl, looking for a resemblance. ‘I think she has your eyes.’

  ‘I have a whole photo album: her birth, her birthdays, going on holidays together at the beach in Normandy. Here’s one of Francis with Odile, in my apartment in Paris. He thought she was marvellous and I think he fell in love a little with Francine and Hélène, just as I had.’

  ‘She’s lovely. How old is she?’

  ‘She was four when that was taken, last summer, in my garden. Francine and Hélène are very kind, they make a lot of room for me to share in their joy. Perhaps they may have had some room for Francis as well. I know Francis hoped that might happen. That was something he wanted to talk about on this holiday we had planned. He was beguiled by his fantasy of giving Odile a little sibling.’

  ‘She’s a lovely child. You’re a lucky man,’ said Bruno, and meant it. He pushed the photo back across the table, poured two more drinks and asked: ‘Did you know that Francis had another house not far away, in the Corrèze? That’s where I was this afternoon.’

  ‘I knew he had a place somewhere in the south, but he made it sound more like Languedoc or Provence. I had no idea it was so close.’

  Bruno described his meeting with Francis’s brother, the trip to the farmhouse and the loot he had found there. He didn’t mention the guns or the shri
ne but he spoke of Francis’s interest in his grandfather’s wartime exploits and his obsession with the Neuvic train.

  ‘On the evening we met he talked to me about his grandfather, Sergeant Freddy he called him, and his work with the Resistance. I thought he might have been inventing it, a convenient chat-up line to attract a Frenchman. He sometimes talked about this mythical train with its billions of francs. I’d never heard of it and I’d thought it might be another of his fanciful stories. He had quite a few, about his wild times in Los Angeles and New York in those halcyon days before the plague came, before AIDS.’

  ‘Did you know he was HIV-positive?’

  ‘Yes, he was honest about that from the beginning, and absolutely assiduous about safe sex. That’s why I was reluctant …’ Yves checked himself. ‘Francis was interested in gay marriage. I think it was as much the hope of having a child like Odile with Francine and Hélène as any great urge to settle down with me. But I was worried about the HIV being passed on.’

  Yves passed his hand over his eyes. ‘How silly that all seems now that I’ll never see him again.’

  Seeing his wistful expression, Bruno chided himself for being too intrusive. He finished his drink and rose to his feet.

  ‘I’ll be up early again tomorrow to exercise the horses, so I may not see you before your move to Sarlat. We’ve got each other’s numbers and we’ll doubtless meet through Annette. Just toss the sheets and towels in the washing machine before you leave.’

  ‘One last thing before you go,’ said Yves. ‘I don’t know if it could help but when I first mentioned to Francis that I’d be directing in Sarlat this summer he said he knew the area. Apparently he’d been renting a place somewhere around here, he said near Les Eyzies, ten years or more ago. He’d taken the place with some friends and met a young French boy. There had been some trouble with local people, I’m not sure whether it was a fight or just the usual gay-bashing and they’d all left in a hurry.’