Convinced that the notaire couldn’t care less about the sheep, Bruno wanted to press the matter. He asked for the name and address of the new owners, and the lawyer simply referred him to the insurance agent in the same building, information Bruno already had.
“Would you have the name of the young woman from the insurers who visited Monsieur Driant in April?” Bruno asked.
“No, but you might try the agent himself,” came the curt reply.
“The last time Gaston Driant saw his father a few weeks ago, the old man had said he planned to live and work on the farm as long as he could and then go to the retirement home in St. Denis where he knew people,” Bruno said. “Gaston couldn’t understand why his father had suddenly chosen this much more expensive place without even letting his son and daughter know.”
“I see,” said Sarrail. “There could be many reasons for that, not even allowing for the resentment with which Monsieur Driant spoke of his children during the assessment process. As long as he was judged to be in his right mind, it is not for the notaire to question his client’s wishes. And there’s no question about Monsieur Driant’s competence. If you’d like to speak with any of the assessors, I can give you their names and phone numbers and print out a copy of their assessment for you. Will that be all?”
“Are you in contact with the insurance agent?” Bruno asked. “He seems to share your address.”
“Monsieur Constant and I sometimes work together if a client needs insurance advice,” Sarrail replied cautiously. “Why?”
“You might want to let him know that willful neglect of livestock is a criminal offense. I’ve been up to the farm and those animals have been left without food or water. This can be a serious matter if, as in this case, the animals and farm in question are receiving subsidies from public funds.”
“I see. I will let Monsieur Constant know about this when he returns. He’s out of the office, traveling on business. Of course, it’s an issue for the insurance company, not him personally. I imagine such matters are outside his usual sphere. Do you have any suggestions I might pass on? Coming from a rural commune I imagine you know more about this than I do.”
Sarrail uncapped the fountain pen and held it poised over the notepad.
Bruno explained that the new owner should either sell the livestock—and he would find markets listed at the préfecture—or take them to a licensed abattoir to have them killed and sell the meat. Before this he would have to put together the necessary forms for each animal, and inform and get approval from the local livestock agent. His name and address would also be on file at the préfecture.
“The laws of willful negligence and mistreatment of animals also applies to the sheepdogs, ducks and chickens,” Bruno added. “But I’m not sure whether they qualify for subsidies under the new hill farm rules.”
Sarrail said nothing but began scribbling notes.
“As the notaire who handled the will, did you also take care of the sale of the farm to the insurance group?” Bruno asked. He was starting to enjoy this. “If so, you will naturally have filed details of the new owner of the livestock with the proper authorities both at our own agriculture ministry and with the European Commission. And of course you’ll have ensured the new owner had a proper license to be the owner of subsidized livestock that may be used for human consumption.”
“I see,” said Sarrail, avoiding Bruno’s question about drawing up the deeds of sale. “I’ll pass all this along to Monsieur Constant. But I’m confident that the proper formalities will have been observed by Monsieur Driant, although that might have been interrupted by his unfortunate death.”
“I hope you understand, monsieur, that any failure to meet the livestock regulations could throw the whole sale of the farm into question, quite apart from the legal liabilities for taking due care of the animals. I will naturally try to reach Monsieur Constant too, but I count on you to ensure he’s aware of these concerns and that he faces serious charges. Please ask him to contact me as soon as possible. May I wish you a very good day, Monsieur Sarrail. And by the way, welcome to the Périgord.”
Bruno rose and left, trying to suppress a grin at the thought of these city slickers learning the expensive lesson that animals have rights, too. Then he tried the door of the insurance agent in the next-door office. It was locked, and there was no response to his knock. He scribbled a brief message on his business card explaining that Monsieur Constant should contact him as soon as possible and pushed it under the door.
For the first time, he began to think that there might be hope for Gaston and his sister to inherit something after all. Back in his police van, he called his friend Maurice at the subprefecture in Sarlat, the regional livestock commissioner, whom he knew from festive evenings after rugby games, and asked whether the Driant farm sale had been registered with him. No, it had not, Bruno was told. But it certainly should have been. Bruno then told Maurice, with only a little exaggeration, that without him and old Guillaumat, Driant’s sheep might have died of thirst by now. Bruno explained the whole story and agreed to meet Maurice at the farm the following morning at eight.
Then he called another friend, Annette, a young magistrate in Sarlat, and asked if she would draw up a summons against the agent of the insurance company for mistreatment of livestock, with himself as witness of negligence.
Chapter 3
Back in his office, Bruno found a message from Brosseil asking him to call. He dialed the number and learned that Brosseil had just heard from a colleague that one of the more celebrated small châteaux in the area was up for sale, the business being handled by a fancy agency in Paris that was better known for its art sales. Bruno thanked him for the news and sat back in his office chair, staring out across the bridge over the River Vézère and along the ridge that flanked the valley to the north. The château was on the far side of that ridge, about five kilometers from St. Denis. Bruno sometimes passed it when exercising his horse.
The place was known as Château Rock. It enjoyed quite a reputation in the neighborhood that dated from the arrival of the rock-star owner, Rod Macrae, and the widespread assumption that drug-fueled orgies with groupies and exotic sports cars would become regular features of local life. Older inhabitants of the region professed to be shocked, but their younger counterparts were thrilled. This would put St. Denis on the map! Even the appearance of the heavily pregnant Madame Macrae and their sedate Volvo had not stilled the salacious expectations of the locals, nor the way teenage boys would dare one another to creep through the undergrowth to spy on the rock star’s private life. By the time Bruno arrived in St. Denis, the novelty and the fantasies had long faded. But the region was glad to have a famous inhabitant, and a faint echo of the château’s old notoriety remained.
Bruno was surprised at his ignorance of Macrae’s decision to sell. He thought he knew the family better than that. He had visited Château Rock regularly, when Rod Macrae and his wife, Meghan, held their annual birthday party for their two children, born on the same day although three years apart. Bruno knew them both, for they had each spent years in the tennis classes he ran for the local youngsters.
The children, Jamie and Kirsty, had both gone to the junior school in St. Denis and then to the town’s collège until the age of fifteen, when each of them had been sent to a boarding school in England. Jamie, the elder by three years, was now at the Royal College of Music in London, and Kirsty was hoping to go to Edinburgh University in the autumn. Bruno knew Rod quite well from the local rugby club, less for his appearance at local matches than through his almost religious attendance at the broadcasts of the Six Nations matches on the club’s big screen. Whenever Scotland was playing, he brought along a liter bottle of scotch for all to share. In Bruno’s early years in St. Denis, when the recording studio that Macrae had built on the château grounds was still busy, he had been invited to attend the postrecording party that Macrae always threw after
a new album was complete. But there had been no such party for some years, Bruno reflected, wondering if this decline had inspired Macrae’s decision to sell. On impulse, Bruno picked up the phone to call him and found Meghan on the other end.
“I just heard the news that you’re selling, but I hope you are going to be staying in the area,” he began. “We’d miss you.”
“I’m going back to Britain,” she said. “I’m not sure about Rod. He’s still thinking about what to do. But now that the kids are grown and moving out, the place is too big. We’re getting a divorce while I’m still young enough to start a new life. We’ll have a last family summer here, though.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bruno replied. “I half expected Jamie and Kirsty to turn up one day to start new families of their own.”
“They love it here, so they might, but not at Château Rock. Still, they’ll be here this summer. Jamie is giving some concerts for local music festivals. And he’ll be recording his first CD. Rod calls it his studio’s last gasp.”
“And you’re also staying on through the summer? It all sounds amicable.”
“It is amicable and we’ll stay friends. At least I hope so. I’m still fond of him, but I was a child bride, Bruno. Rod’s getting on for seventy, and I’m not quite forty yet. I have no intention of spending the rest of my life as his unpaid nurse.”
“Are you going back to Scotland?”
“Rod might do that, but I’m off to a teacher’s training college just outside London. You remember I took that degree in French and Spanish through the Open University? With one year of training I can be a full-time teacher, and I’m looking forward to that. I haven’t yet decided where to go. My sister lives in Manchester, so I might move there.”
Bruno wished her luck. He’d always been impressed by Meghan, even before she began volunteering to give English conversation classes at the local collège.
“Please give Rod my regards, and I might come up tomorrow to say hello. Are Jamie and Kirsty back yet? I’d like to see them again.”
“Kirsty arrives soon, and Jamie will be here in a few days with some of his musician friends. You’ll be very welcome whenever you want to stop by.”
When Bruno returned to the mairie, he informed the mayor of the news. His immediate reaction was to regret that no local real-estate agent had been hired.
“It’s best to keep these matters within the community,” the mayor said. “Local knowledge is always important, as you know, Bruno. I’d hate to see the fees from a sale like that going to some big firm in Paris. Do you know how much they’re asking for the château?”
“Not yet,” said Bruno. “I’ll try and find out tomorrow. But I’m also concerned about the vineyard. I’d hate for us to lose that.”
Macrae had acquired almost five hectares of ragged and ill-maintained vines with his property and at first had hopes of marketing bottles of his own Château Rock. But after some disappointing years hiring part-time winemakers, he had allowed the town vineyard to manage it on their joint behalf. Julien, who ran the vineyard, and Hubert, who ran the town’s celebrated wine store, had been delighted with the deal. They reckoned on getting at least fifteen and maybe twenty thousand bottles a year from Macrae’s vines, and he was happy with five thousand euros in cash each year and all the bottles he wanted for his own consumption.
“I recall that it’s a bail agricole,” said the mayor. “Any new owner will have to honor that or buy us out.”
St. Denis was officially an agricultural commune, which allowed for a bail agricole, giving farmers special rights. People could keep geese and chickens, pigs, goats and horses. Newcomers were sometimes surprised and even offended that they had no legal recourse against the owners of the cockerels who woke them at dawn, or the donkeys who brayed their way through mating seasons. More than once, a new arrival who proved less than neighborly in his dealings with nearby farmers would find a host of cackling geese appearing near his bedroom window during the night.
A bail agricole ran for nine years, with an automatic renewal for another nine years unless formal notice was given on either side eighteen months before the lease expired. An agricultural lease could be verbal and only required a notary’s intervention if it extended beyond twenty years.
“A Paris notaire might not know much about these farm leases,” the mayor said thoughtfully. “How long has the current lease been going?”
“It will be two years in November, just after that vendange when we launched the town vineyard,” Bruno replied. “And the lease is verbal. You and I were there to witness it when Macrae and Julien shook hands.”
“Even though he’s never turned up for board meetings, Macrae is on record as a director of the company,” the mayor added, stroking his chin in the way he did when thinking hard. “And he signs the company’s annual reports, which means he cannot claim to be unaware of the bail agricole.”
“I think he only became a director because of his daughter, Kirsty, who enjoyed working in the vineyard,” said Bruno, wondering where the mayor was heading. Most of Bruno’s savings were invested in the town vineyard, which made a modest profit every year, employed half a dozen locals and would soon pay off the bank loan the mayor had negotiated to buy out Julien’s failing business.
“Every school holiday Kirsty was out there in the vines, pruning in winter, trimming in springtime, picking in September,” Bruno went on. “Julien even offered her a job, but Macrae always insisted she should get a degree first. She starts at Edinburgh University this autumn, and I imagine she’ll be there during this year’s harvest.”
The mayor waved aside Bruno’s remarks.
“It will be up to us to ensure that due account of our lease is taken in the event of a sale,” he said, adopting a pious air that Bruno recognized. It meant the mayor was up to something. “We have a duty to consider the interests of the town vineyard. After all, the town has made significant investments and improvements there, clearing out dead vines, replanting new ones, taking on new staff. Until we took it over, that vineyard was a liability. And now it will doubtless enhance the value of Macrae’s property.”
Bruno nodded. “And let’s not forget that we’ve started the process of turning it into an organic vineyard,” he said, grinning as he realized the way the mayor’s mind was working.
“Right. Nothing could be more important than the new owner recognizing the ecological stewardship the town vineyard has displayed,” the mayor replied. “It’s a great responsibility. They might be well advised to come to an amicable arrangement to let us take over the vineyard altogether.”
The mayor smiled at Bruno. They understood each other perfectly. The mayor did not need to spell out all the endless little obstructions an experienced mayor, armed with an agricultural lease, could deploy to ensure that the vineyard remained firmly and probably permanently within the town’s control.
“I suppose it will depend on who buys the property,” Bruno said. “Given the history of Château Rock, it’s likely to be another foreigner. If so, we should make him or her very welcome and suggest that the mutually advantageous partnership between the new owner and the town vineyard continues for many years to come. And we have some time. The sale won’t go through until October, since the Macraes want a last family summer together at the château.”
“Good,” said the mayor. “Let’s keep this to ourselves for now, though you could let Hubert and Julien know about it in confidence. If there are any other improvements to be done in the vineyard, now is the time.”
“There’s that experimental corner where they are trying the new rootstock. You remember that warning Hubert gave us about the way climate change is affecting our Merlot.”
Local winemakers had recognized that the hotter summers were shortening the growing season for certain grape varieties, Merlot most of all. Some who kept good records reckoned that it was ripeni
ng a month earlier than thirty years ago and contained more sugar, which meant more alcohol in the wine. Some of the red wines were now being labeled as having 15 or even 16 percent alcohol, which was creeping into the territory of sherry and Madeira and other fortified wines.
Producing a balanced blend with the usual Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet Franc grapes was becoming a challenge. It was no good picking the Merlot early; the grapes would not have time to produce the phenols and tannins that give it character. One or two of the Bergerac vineyards were even planning to phase out Merlot altogether. But winemakers tended to be instinctively conservative, with many of the traditionalists reckoning that with skillful management of the leaf cover over the Merlot grapes they could slow their ripening. Giving up Merlot would be a last resort, so closely and traditionally were the wines of Bergerac and the whole of the Bordeaux region linked to this iconic grape. The wines of Pomerol, Château Petrus and some others were among the most expensive wines in the world, traditionally made entirely from Merlot grapes.
Like many other growers in the region, the town vineyard was steering a middle course, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. They continued to plant Merlot while at the same time experimenting with new varieties of grapes that were better adapted to the heat.
“I think I’ll ask Pamela if we can take the horses that way this evening,” Bruno said as he left the mayor’s office. “I’d like to see how those new grapes are coming along.”
And so later that day, his uniform on a hanger in his police van, Bruno was on horseback in his riding clothes and boots when he stepped down from the saddle. Patting his horse on the neck, he led Hector through one of the rows of new vines, pausing every few meters to lift some foliage and examine the grapes, hard as little bullets this early in the season but already warm to the touch. It seemed to Bruno, still an amateur at the winemaking business, like a promising harvest as long as the weather remained good and no thunderstorms came to pepper the grapes with hail. Those little pellets of ice could flatten and destroy an entire vineyard overnight.
The Shooting at Chateau Rock Page 3