The Shooting at Chateau Rock

by Martin Walker

  Fabiola grimaced. “That could have been a problem. What about drugs?”

  “None that I saw. Why?”

  “If there was any sign of cocaine, that could have been very dangerous in his condition, even fatal. But since he was cremated, there’ll be no forensic evidence, so we’ll never know. Maybe Gelletreau should have checked, but if there were no grounds for suspicion…” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged. “Good night, Bruno.”

  Chapter 5

  At eight the next morning Bruno met Maurice, the livestock commissioner, at Driant’s farm. Balzac was with him, on a leash in case the lure of the sheep or the prospect of new friendships with the sheepdogs proved too tempting. Bruno wanted no distractions as he explained his concerns about the welfare of the livestock.

  “And the buyer is an insurance company? They should know better,” said Maurice, shaking his head. “I suppose they can always plead that Driant should have taken care of the paperwork, but it’s two weeks since he died, so that’s not much of an excuse. And the deed of sale was two weeks old. That’s not good. And in all this time no representative of the new owners has been here to check on the livestock? That’s not just irresponsible, it’s criminal negligence.”

  Bruno nodded agreement. “The only people who have been here since Driant was found dead have been his son, who fed and watered the stock, and then yesterday I came here and met Guillaumat from across the valley who was doing the same. I filed a statement of mistreatment with Annette, the Sarlat magistrate we’ve worked with before.”

  “Right. I’ll visit Guillaumat next to take a statement from him, and then I’ll talk to Annette. It will be up to her whether I file a complaint through the commission or add mine to yours. I presume this notaire who handled the sale hasn’t had much experience with farming.”

  Bruno smiled and shook his head. “I’m told that what he does is called wealth management.”

  “He can probably expect to lose some of that wealth in fines,” said Maurice, with a contemptuous snort. “Honest farmers who have to deal with all this paperwork will be delighted to read in the paper that some financial guys are getting punished.”

  “How much can the fines be?”

  “Depends on the court, but it’s usually between fifty and a hundred euros for each animal. A hundred ewes, almost as many lambs, so at most it could be twenty thousand. By the way, I don’t like the look of some of the lambs, so I’ll take them to our vet. They need lots of water when they come off their mother’s teat.”

  “You’d better let Guillaumat know how many you’ve taken. I’ve asked him to come over every day or two to take care of the animals. I presume we can bill the new owners for that.”

  “Certainly, and I’ll bill them for my time as well. If I had my way, these bastards would go to prison. They’re not fit to deal with livestock.”

  They said goodbye, and Bruno headed to Château Rock, sad at the prospective sale but still looking forward to seeing Rod Macrae, a guitarist whose riffs and songs had been part of the soundtrack of his boyhood. When Rod stood up from the garden chair on the château terrace he was as tall and as skinny as he’d been in his days of rock music fame several decades earlier. He still dressed the same way, black jeans tucked into high-heeled boots, a Stetson hat perched on the back of his head and a denim shirt with a black leather vest that was shiny with constant wear. With lines etched deep into his face, Macrae looked his age. Bruno assumed he was wearing the hat out of vanity. Bruno knew him to be bald on top, but he’d grown out the gray hair on the sides of his head to keep his trademark ponytail. And he still kept a hand-rolled cigarette smoldering on his bottom lip, as he had in his days onstage.

  “Ça va, Bruno?” he asked in a slow, almost-lazy voice. He reached out to shake hands before bending to greet Balzac.

  “This is one hell of a fine-looking dog,” he said, scratching Balzac at that spot on his chest the hound couldn’t reach. Balzac almost purred with pleasure. “He’s purebred, isn’t he, a real pedigree hound?”

  “Yes, from the best hunting pack in France, I’m told. I was lucky to get him.”

  “I know the story; after your last dog was killed in the line of duty, somebody in the government arranged for you to get this one. You planning on breeding him? I only ask because I think it might be time for me to get a dog in this new life I’m heading for, and I can’t think of a finer companion than someone like this.”

  Bruno was surprised by the idea but saw the sense in it from Macrae’s point of view. “He’s still a bit young for breeding, and I’m supposed to contact someone from the hunting pack when it’s time,” he said. “They want to pick out the right mate for him. Maybe I should give them a call.”

  “I’d really like one, so be sure to let me know.”

  “I was sorry to hear you’re selling,” Bruno said. “You’ll be missed, all of you.”

  “We’re not all going. The kids want to keep a foothold here, so we’re fixing up the farmworker’s cottage at the far side of the vineyard. It’s on the edge of the property, so it’s easily carved out from the sale of the château. It shouldn’t cost much and we’re planning to cut that stand of timber on the other side of the hill—oak and acacia, good burning wood that should sell for more than enough.”

  “What about water and electricity?”

  “That’s not a problem. We can easily bring in power and water access from the recording studio up the slope. It’s just a matter of hooking it up, putting in a new septic tank and fixing the roof. The timber can pay for all that. The kids say they’ll clean it out and redecorate the place this summer, if they get the time. I know they’ll be practicing for that tennis tournament of yours. And I’m not sure if you know that Jamie will be giving a concert at the music festival. I’d like to record his first CD here in the studio. So we’ll go out with a bang.”

  “Is Jamie still playing classical guitar?”

  Macrae nodded. “That’s his thing, but he’s also pretty good on piano. And he’s taken up singing at the Royal College, choral stuff.”

  “What about Kirsty? What’s she going to study?”

  “She was going to read languages, adding Italian and Spanish to her French and becoming an interpreter, but it seems that computers are taking over, so there’s not so much demand. She might change to politics or law. It all seems a bit up in the air for Kirsty, but Jamie is set on a career in music.”

  “Following in the family footsteps,” Bruno said. “What about you? Will you go back to Scotland?”

  Macrae shrugged. “Maybe, it kind of depends on the deal we get for the château. Meghan wants enough out of the sale to buy a place of her own, and we want to do the same for each of the kids. I’ll keep what’s left.”

  “That’s generous of you.”

  “Not really. I get the royalties from the music. Golden-oldie stations play my stuff, and other people are still doing my old songs. The royalties add up—Britain, America, Germany, Australia, even some from France—I do okay.” He spat out the stub of the cigarette and ground it into the earth of the nearby flower bed with his boot. “But I have to admit I’ll miss this place.”

  “Is Meghan here?”

  “She had to go see about separating the cottage from the rest of the property. Brosseil called this morning to say that under French law it was more complicated than we thought. We may have to end up selling it to the kids for a nominal sum.”

  “I’m glad they’re staying,” Bruno said. “Jamie and Kirsty have all their school friends here. Half the kids in town learned to speak English from Meghan’s classes at the collège.”

  Macrae nodded and began to roll another cigarette from the tobacco pouch he kept in his vest pocket. “She’s planning on going to teacher training college in England and making a career of it.”

  He paused, licking the cigarette paper and then lighting it. “I t
hink she’s doing the right thing. She’s still a young woman, doesn’t want to be stuck with an old fart like me. Still, it’s a wrench. The only woman I ever stayed with. Hell, the only one I could have stayed with.”

  Bruno groped for something to say. He and Macrae had been friendly for years, but they had never shared anything personal or private.

  “Have you got any plans?” Bruno asked.

  “Not unless someone asks me to do a comeback tour, but I’m getting too old.”

  “Didn’t seem to stop Leonard Cohen.”

  “Yeah, well, my style is a bit different. I’ve been working on writing a few songs, just playing around with my guitar, indulging myself like old men do.”

  “That’s good. I’d be interested to hear them,” said Bruno, who remembered as a boy hearing on the radio the surging, infectious chords of Macrae’s group and his raucous voice. “I grew up with some of your records. One of the guys in my unit in the army had all your songs on a cassette.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Macrae said. “This new stuff I’m working on is different, songs and ballads more than the old heavy rock. Just me and my guitars. When Jamie was here over Christmas, he and I played some numbers together. Mainly I’m just having fun, but maybe I can make something out of them. We’ll see.”

  “I’d like to hear them, the new songs,” Bruno said.

  “Yeah? That’s nice of you.” Macrae nodded vaguely, making no commitment but looking pleased. “Let’s go see what the lady from Paris has been doing. She’s filming the place with a drone. Apparently it’s the thing now for high-end property sales,” Macrae said and began heading across in a slow, rolling stroll that reminded Bruno of the way cowboys walked in films of the Old West. Maybe it was the boots.

  A young woman dressed in casual chic shook hands with Bruno and asked him to call her Nathalie. In the shade at the side of the château, out of the direct sun, she turned on the small screen on the control panel. She had done a high shot of the whole property, then dipped the drone down to float slowly over the vineyard and the gardens before circling around the château itself. She had taken the drone around the buildings, once clockwise and once counterclockwise, and then paused it to hover over the medieval tower before focusing on some special features like balconies and the ornate doorway.

  Nathalie ended the filming by lowering the drone to each of the terraces, front and rear. She had set the scene, arranging wineglasses and a bottle on the table at the rear of the house, and plates and cutlery as if for a family lunch on the main terrace at the front. And from each table, she had taken long, panning shots of the view the outdoor diners would enjoy.

  “That should attract a lot of potential buyers,” Bruno said, impressed. It was so much better than the usual snapshot of properties for sale that he saw in the real-estate agents’ windows in St. Denis.

  “Looks good to me,” said Macrae. “Anything more you need or shall we go and enjoy this bottle on the back terrace?”

  Macrae raised the open bottle of wine. “Time for a glass?”

  “I’d rather you showed me around the inside first,” said Nathalie. She handed Bruno a business card with her photo on one side and her contact details on the other, including the permit number for her drone. “Perhaps you could let me know if there are any local restrictions on the drone,” she said to Bruno and then turned back to Macrae.

  “I’ll need to measure the rooms and take some photos, maybe think about styling some of the rooms. At this price level, clients tend to have definite ideas about the way they want their fantasy château to look. Sitting rooms need to be elegant but anonymous, dining rooms should be baronial, and kitchens should look medieval but with modern fittings, that sort of thing. Maybe we could borrow this beautiful basset hound for the day. He’s just the kind of dog that adds that touch of class, with a suggestion of hunting.”

  She turned to Macrae. “Do you have a shotgun? Or a gun room? Maybe we could have a shot of the dog in the kitchen, a shotgun leaning against the sink and a couple of game birds lying there, waiting to be plucked.”

  Bruno and Macrae exchanged baffled glances. “You can borrow Balzac if you think it will help, so long as you get him back to me at the mairie before six,” said Bruno. “We’re out of the hunting season, though we could shoot a couple of pigeons.”

  “We’ve got some rabbits I shot early this morning when I saw them eating their way through the garden,” said Macrae. “And Meghan should be back soon. I think this is something you’d better work on with her. Meanwhile, I’ll show you around indoors.”

  “And I’d better get back to work,” Bruno said, rising and telling Balzac to stay. “But you’d better tell any prospective buyers the dog won’t come with the house.”

  Macrae grinned and went into the house. He came out with a small, square envelope and handed it to Bruno. “Here’s a CD of my latest stuff. Let me know what you think.”

  Bruno drove off. He slipped the CD into the slot of the player in his van, wondering what sort of music Macrae had been making. He’d been a classic rocker, not heavy metal but steady, driving rock with a hint of country. Bruno recalled that some of the songs were almost ballads. He remembered Macrae had played bass and had done some of the vocals with that urgent, yearning voice. He’d been the songwriter, which probably explained why he’d done well out of royalties.

  There was a steady bass leading into the first song, but then a rhythm guitar came in with a drum track, sounding like country, and then that voice, familiar but aged by countless thousands of cigarettes and no doubt a great deal of wine and whiskey. It was slow, melodic, a little mournful, and while Bruno could not quite make out the drawled English words, the mood felt right. What surprised Bruno was the solo, a different guitar altogether and Macrae using a slide, the metal glove on a finger that changed the sound into something sharper and left a lingering, almost plaintive tone behind it.

  The second number was a classic ballad, a love song, and this time Bruno caught the words of the chorus—“Watching you sleep.” Again he heard the different guitars, and the melody was sweet and new. He liked it and told himself he’d play it again when he had time to note down the words or when he saw Pamela so she could translate. He hit the fast-forward button to get to the duets with Jamie, intrigued by how the old man would balance his son’s classical guitar.

  He recognized the notes of the Spanish classic Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. At home, he had a CD of Paco de Lucía playing it on guitar while backed by an orchestra, the delicacy of the guitar against the deep sound of the strings and the sharp counterpoint of the clarinet. But this was different. Bruno tried to work out how it had been done. He assumed that Jamie had played the classical guitar, but then Macrae had laid down a separate bass guitar track to play the orchestral role and then used a steel guitar with a slider instead of the clarinet. It was different, not so different as to be odd or ungainly, but instead sounding fresh and genuine.

  Was this something that Macrae could put together only in a recording studio, Bruno asked himself, or might the father and son be able to reproduce this live onstage? What a coup it would be for the Périgord if Macrae’s first comeback event were to be staged in St. Denis, an open-air concert on the riverbank.

  If Macrae wanted publicity, Bruno could certainly arrange that, through Sud Ouest and the local radio and TV stations. They would jump at the chance, and once word got around, the riverbank would be packed with people. He might even be able to stage it on a Tuesday evening, when the town held its popular marché nocturne, filling the flat land behind the medical center with benches and tables and stalls selling food. Just across the river from the stage where the free concerts were held, the diners at the night market would be able to see and hear the performance, or eat first and stroll across the bridge to the concert. Excited by the prospect, Bruno pressed the replay button to hear Macrae’s music again.


  When he reached the St. Denis collège, Bruno climbed the steps to Florence’s apartment, but there was no reply. He walked to the school’s science lab, where he found Florence running the popular computer club she had founded. A dozen pupils were at work on laptops and desktops, and Florence’s two young children leaped up from the corner, where they had been playing with a tablet, to greet him.

  They dragged him to the small chairs where they had been sitting to show him the electronic painting they’d made, a rather geometric version of a dog in brown, black and white, with long ears, sniffing at some red flowers. It was evidently meant to be Balzac. Bruno admired it and told them to save it so that when they next saw his dog they could show him his portrait. Bruno wasn’t sure that Balzac would recognize himself, but the children already seemed more at home with computers than Bruno could ever be.

  He offered Macrae’s CD to Florence, asked if she could copy it for herself and e-mail a copy to their friend Amélie in Paris, a magistrate with a splendid voice who would be singing at the riverfront concerts in July.

  “Let me know what you think, and I’d like to know what Amélie thinks too,” he said. “It’s new songs that Rod Macrae has been working on and a duet with his son. I think it’s pretty good, but I’m not sure how to copy it.”

  Florence gave him a pitying look, put the disc into the tower of a desktop, downloaded it and then pressed a few keys before explaining that she was e-mailing a copy to Amélie and another for herself.

  “It’s his copyright, so I thought I’d better password-protect it, and I’ll let Amélie know the password separately,” she said. She handed him back the disc. “If you like, I can send a copy to your phone, so you’ll also have it there, and I’m sure we can find an app that will transcribe and then translate the lyrics for you.”

  “Really? You can do that on my phone, translate the words from the music?”

  Florence gave him that pitying look again. “Maybe you should start sitting in with us here at the computer club and learn a few more of the basics.”