The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

by Martin Walker

  The thought nagged at him, so he called the security office at the airport where Marco, one of the shift chiefs, had been in his class at the Police Academy. Bruno asked about the inbound flights from Britain on Friday morning. There had been none. He asked Marco to check if there were any records last week of a Brian Fullerton arriving. He heard the sound of a keyboard being tapped.

  ‘Nothing on the computer,’ said Marco. ‘Want me to check other airports? It’s all on the same database now. Here he is, flew into Bordeaux Monday last week on British Airways from London Gatwick. Open return.’

  ‘Thanks, Marco. You’re sure it was Monday? Could there be any mistake?’

  ‘No, this comes from the airline boarding lists. If they’re not on the flight they’re not listed.’

  Monday last week was the day before his brother was murdered. Why was Brian flying in then? And why had he misled him? Brian had flown into Bordeaux. Edouard was in Bordeaux and his Jaguar had been caught by a speed camera returning from Périgueux to Bordeaux on the evening Brian’s brother was killed. And one thing that Brian, Edouard and Paul had in common was that they were all directors of Francis’s company. But this couldn’t be about inheritance; Francis’s will put everything in trust for Brian’s children.

  Was he sure about that? Hadn’t he asked Isabelle and J-J and even Crimson if there was some way to check Francis’s will? Suddenly he remembered Pamela telling him that unlike France, under English law you could leave your property to anyone you chose. If Francis was planning to leave his property elsewhere that could be a motive for murder.

  As he reached for the phone at his belt, he felt it vibrate.

  ‘Bruno, it’s J-J. On my way, I’ll be with you in ten minutes or so. The Brigadier just rang me. They can’t get a hostage rescue team here before tomorrow morning and he suggests we use the Mobiles. He’s not too bothered about taking Murcoing alive and we can have them here in ninety minutes. What do you say?’

  ‘If they go in guns blazing, there’s always a risk to the hostages. Is the Brigadier ready for that?’

  ‘He says he is. But that kind of operation has to be authorized by a minister and we don’t have one. That’s the problem.’

  ‘We’ll talk it through when you get here.’

  He saw headlights coming around the bend from St Denis and stepped into the middle of the road to flag down the vehicle. It was the Gendarmerie van, Françoise at the wheel and Sergeant Jules beside her, with the ambulance following close behind. He was just advising Jules where to post his men when his phone vibrated yet again. It was the Mayor.

  ‘Bruno, it’s time to call Paul Murcoing again.’

  ‘Thanks, sir. Any developments?’

  ‘Everything’s fine. Roberte is handling the phones and Jacqueline is looking after Florence’s children. I’ll call if anything happens. Isabelle rang, asking for news.’

  ‘Could you call her back and ask if she had any reply from England about Francis Fullerton’s will?’

  ‘Very well, but you’d better phone Paul.’

  From his address book Bruno tapped Crimson’s home number. It was picked up at once, as though Paul had been standing by the phone.

  ‘It’s Bruno. Your conditions have been relayed to the proper authorities but there’s a problem. If you turn on the TV or radio you’ll realize this is no trick. The interior minister has just resigned for personal reasons. Normally that’s the man who would have to make a decision about your conditions but right now the post is vacant.’

  There was a silence as if a hand had been placed over the mouthpiece at the other end. Bruno could hear faintly the sound of a female voice, high and angry, Paul’s sister. Then Paul spoke, trying to sound calm but not succeeding. ‘There must be a deputy or an acting minister.’

  ‘Yes, but without lawful authority. We’re trying to get this clarified and I’ve asked my Mayor whether this can go to the Elysée and the President can make a decision. Can I ring you back as soon as I hear anything?’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘Near the house and there’s just me, so far. A couple of Gendarmes are setting up a roadblock to keep other traffic away. We’re waiting for the Police Nationale from Périgueux.’

  ‘Call me back in an hour, and tell those people in Paris that if they don’t have a decision by then, I start putting bullets into hostages. I’ll start with feet and knees, unless I think you’re dicking me around and then I’ll get serious. One hour, Bruno.’

  ‘Don’t make this worse …’ Paul had hung up. Bruno rang the Mayor to pass on the message.

  ‘I spoke to Isabelle,’ the Mayor said when Bruno had finished. ‘She had a copy of the will in her emails and she said to tell you she’s sorry she’d forgotten to pass it on. Apparently the will was changed very recently. Fullerton’s estate goes to any natural child of his own, and failing that to Yves Valentoux to be held in trust for a girl called Odile. Who on earth is she?’

  ‘I think she might be the key to all this, and that’s exactly what I needed to know. Thank you and thank Isabelle for me when you speak again. What do you think the chances are of the Elysée intervening?’

  ‘Very slim. It would mean taking responsibility for the death of Crimson and the others. The fact that there’s a vacuum at the top of the Interior Ministry is just the kind of escape clause politicians like.’

  Bruno rang off and instantly called Yves Valentoux. From the background sound, he was in a bar or restaurant.

  ‘Yves, this is really important. Lives may hang on it. How serious was Francis about asking you to marry him?’

  ‘He was planning a trip to the States for both of us to do it there, where it’s legal. I hadn’t agreed but he was always so confident about everything …’

  ‘Would it be legal for a non-American?’

  ‘He was American, or at least he’d taken out US citizenship when he lived there in the Nineties. Apparently it was quite easy before nine-eleven. He always said the Queen wouldn’t mind and he also kept his British passport.’

  ‘And you told me he wanted to give Odile a little brother or sister. What about his HIV?’

  ‘He said he’d researched it and there were ways to sanitize his sperm. I never took it that seriously but he certainly did.’

  ‘I think this plan to marry you and have a child was what got Francis killed. It would have changed the inheritance.’

  31

  J-J closed his phone with a snap. ‘They won’t make any decision in Paris and they won’t authorize using the Jaunes. I guess it’s down to you now.’ He looked with sympathy at Bernard Ardouin, the Procureur, who had joined them at Sergeant Jules’s Gendarmerie van. It was the nearest they had to a mobile operations room until the real one arrived from Périgueux with reinforcements.

  ‘You could order the Gendarme general for the Département to send in the Jaunes,’ J-J went on. ‘But he’d probably refer back to the defence ministry and we’d be back where we started. The only people you can be sure will carry out your orders are my team and Bruno here.’

  Ardouin’s own boss, the chief Procureur for the Département, was at a gala dinner and opera in Bordeaux along with the Prefect. Their phones were turned off.

  ‘I have to call Paul again in ten minutes,’ said Bruno. ‘Dammit, does nobody have the balls to make a decision?’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll find him soon,’ Ardouin said, trying to sound decisive. ‘There must be an intermission coming up.’

  Bruno had expected better from Ardouin. He turned away to hide the disgust on his face and called the Mayor.

  ‘Nobody wants to take a decision. Will you authorize me to go in? I think Paul will be prepared to speak to me.’

  ‘Bruno, whatever you decide to do will have my full support and Roberte who’s sitting here heard me say that. Just remember the oath you swore when you took office, “to defend the constitution and the laws of la République and the citizens of St Denis”. I don’t have to remind you that Florence is ind
eed a citizen and her children need her back.’

  Bruno was dialling Crimson’s number when a shot came from inside the house followed by the piercing note of a woman shrieking, once, twice, and then the sound bubbled away into silence.

  ‘I’m sorry I had to do that,’ Paul said as he answered Crimson’s phone. ‘I warned you this would happen.’

  ‘I have no news and no official response from Paris on your conditions but a superior officer is now here, Commissaire Jalipeau, head of detectives for the Département. The Procureur is with him and he wants to talk to you.’

  Bruno handed the phone to J-J and went back to Sergeant Jules, who was chewing on a sandwich. He offered another to Bruno, who shook his head.

  ‘Since nobody else will do anything, I’m going to try,’ he said. ‘I’ll need you to break a window on the upper floor and pull down the bike that’s leaning against the front door, both at the same time. Ten seconds after that, I want the bike leaning against the back door to be pulled away. There’s an alarm rigged to each one and it will distract them. And I’ll need those bolt-cutters you have for traffic accidents.’

  ‘Alright, do you want me to come with you?’

  ‘I’m not sure you’d squeeze through the gap I’m planning to use, old friend, but thanks for offering. Who’s the best of your team?’

  ‘Françoise, no question. She’s also the best shot. By the way, Yveline’s back, holding the fort like you asked, and calling every few minutes to ask if anything’s happened. She had one bit of news. Somebody left a cardboard box on the steps of the Gendarmerie with an old silver coffee pot inside. It must have happened just after I left. She says it looks like the American one that was stolen and what do you want her to do?’

  ‘Tell her to call the owner and see if she can identify it,’ Bruno replied. ‘But first, let’s talk to Françoise.’

  Jules beckoned Françoise to join them and asked if she was ready to volunteer to go in with Bruno.

  ‘About time somebody did something,’ she said. ‘If he’s shot Florence …’

  Bruno explained his plan. He went to the back of his Land Rover, pulled out his spare roll of fishing line and measured out two lengths of twenty metres each. He gave one to Françoise and sent her to creep to the front door and tie the line to the bike while he did the same at the rear.

  They rejoined Sergeant Jules, who had collected a handful of fist-sized stones and positioned himself by the landing window that looked onto the garage. Each of them gave the sergeant an end of fishing line.

  ‘Pull on that and the bike topples and the alarm goes off,’ said Bruno. ‘When you hear the click of the bolt-cutters, count to twenty and then pull the back-door bike.’

  Jules repeated the instructions.

  ‘Then count to ten and break that bloody window and start shouting. Stay tucked up against the wall so they can’t see you or shoot you but keep on throwing stones until that glass breaks.’

  ‘Count to ten, window.’

  ‘Then count to ten again and pull the front-door bike. I’ll go first and try to get up the stairs to the landing to get the high ground and Françoise stays at the top of the cellar stairs.’

  ‘What’s this?’ J-J demanded, joining them. ‘What are you up to, Bruno?’

  ‘Since you lot won’t do anything, the Mayor has told me to do something.’

  ‘You’re not doing anything.’

  ‘You’re not my boss.’

  ‘No, you damn fool, I’m your friend. What have you got in mind?’

  Bruno explained his plan. J-J nodded. ‘I suppose it might help if I were to call him and say we’d just heard from Paris when I hear your bolt-cutters.’

  ‘It would help a lot. If I can open the front door on the way up, I’ll try it.’

  Bolt-cutters in hand, with Françoise carrying an aerosol can of lubricant, they crept around the rear of the house to the edge of the terrace and the access for the fuel oil. Françoise sprayed the lubricant onto the hinges and then held the padlock so Bruno could get a purchase. With a powerful heave of his shoulders he closed the long handles of the cutters and heard a loud snap. Françoise pulled out the broken padlock and then Bruno took a deep breath, seized the edges of the two metal plates and in a swift move pulled them up and open. Better a short, sharp sound than a long-drawn-out squeak of protesting rust.

  He let himself into the hole, counting under his breath, lowered himself on his arms until his feet touched the floor and the count was ten. He whispered to Françoise to follow, helped her down and then took out his gun. He released the safety catch. Fifteen.

  He opened the door to find the cellar in darkness. He groped his way to the stairs and began climbing at the count of eighteen. He had just reached the top of the stairs when he heard glass break and then a noisy clatter. He opened the door, the light suddenly very bright, and heard a woman’s voice shout ‘Back door.’ Footsteps ran down the stairs from the upper floor. This was a count of ten and he had reached three, now four.

  To get to the back door she’d have to come past him, and he used a technique that somebody had once used on him in a rugby game and it had put him out of action and left him unable to speak. He’d never hit a woman but this would be better than shooting her. As Yvonne jumped down the last stairs and turned to face the back door Bruno put his entire weight into a punch that started at his knees and ended in the centre of her stomach, just below the rib cage. There was a great whoosh of air being expelled from her lungs and she bent over double and then fell as if she’d been poleaxed. The automatic pistol fell from her hand.

  The count was seven as he collected her gun and tucked it into the back of his waistband so there was no time to open the front door. The count was ten as he began leaping up the stairs as the first rock came in through the landing window.

  Bruno lay flat on the landing, pointing his gun down the stairs and planning to shoot Paul somewhere around his waist, to stop him but perhaps not kill him. He would have one clean shot at a moving target before Paul’s Sten began hosing the stairs with bullets.

  Then he heard the sound of a blow, a grunt and something clattering as it fell. Confused voices, shouting, protesting. Then came a burst of automatic fire from inside the study, shockingly loud.

  Then silence.

  ‘C’est fini, c’est fini,’ came a shout. ‘It’s over. I got him. Here’s the gun.’

  The study door was opened and the Sten gun, minus its magazine, was pushed out into the hall.

  ‘Can we come out now? This is Brian Fullerton. Murcoing is dead and we are all safe.’

  At that point Sergeant Jules pulled the second length of fishing line and a new clattering came as the bike toppled and the glass jug filled with teaspoons that had been resting on a chair was pulled down by the falling bike to tinkle against the door.

  ‘Françoise, secure the prisoner on the floor,’ Bruno called. ‘Then go out and get J-J and the sergeant, the doctor and a stretcher.’

  ‘She’s choking, it sounds very bad,’ Françoise said. ‘I’ve cuffed her.’ Her gun poised, she went to the front door, clambered over the bike and shouted for the others to come.

  ‘Come out one at a time with your hands up,’ Bruno called.

  Brian came first, looking defiantly around him, then Florence, her face drained and her hands and lips trembling, but she looked unhurt. There were no bullet wounds in her hands or feet. Paul had been bluffing with that shot. Finally came Crimson, looking back into the study, from which drifted whiffs of cordite.

  ‘It’s clear,’ said Crimson.

  ‘What happened in there?’ Bruno asked. ‘Keep your hands up.’

  ‘I tripped him, grabbed the Sten and shot him,’ said Brian. ‘It was him or us.’

  ‘There was a shot earlier and a woman’s scream,’ said Bruno. ‘We thought he might have shot Florence.’

  ‘He fired into the ceiling and his sister did the screams,’ said Crimson. ‘It was a bit of theatre.’

  J-J wa
s the first in the door, Fabiola on his heels, and then Sergeant Jules and the Procureur. Bruno pointed Fabiola to Yvonne, still straining for breath, rocking back and forward from her waist, her eyes wide with terror. The three hostages dropped their hands and Florence turned accusingly to Brian Fullerton.

  ‘You didn’t have to shoot him,’ she said. ‘He was helpless, spreadeagled on the floor. He’d dropped the gun.’

  ‘We’ll sort this out later,’ Bruno said, and told them all to get back as he looked into the study.

  Paul Murcoing lay in a spreading lake of blood. His handsome face was unmarked but a trail of bullet holes rose from his left hip, across his stomach and up his right chest. His eyes and mouth were open, with a look that might have been surprise.

  ‘Good result,’ said J-J, coming into the room, the others following. ‘Hostages all saved, the bad guy dead, the girl lives to go on trial. We charge her with kidnapping, resisting arrest.’

  ‘I think there might be another trial,’ said Bruno. He turned to Crimson. ‘Tell us what happened in there.’

  ‘They panicked when the first bike fell. Paul had sent his sister upstairs, he was worried about the landing window being vulnerable. Then he took a phone call and as he was speaking we heard her shouting and running downstairs and then nothing until the windows started breaking. That’s when Paul dropped the phone and ran out.’

  ‘I tripped him,’ Brian interrupted. ‘That’s when I grabbed the Sten and shot him. I thought he might have another gun.’

  ‘How convenient for you that he’s dead,’ Bruno said. ‘Paul can take the blame for all of it, the thefts and the murder of your brother.’

  ‘You didn’t have to kill him,’ Florence repeated. ‘He’d fallen, lost the gun and you had him covered. I couldn’t believe it when you opened fire.’