The Shooting at Chateau Rock

by Martin Walker

  Her name was Miko and she came from Osaka, Japan, where she taught English and French at a high school. She had won an Eiffel scholarship to get a master’s degree in French culture at the University of Bordeaux, and she had used her spring vacation to explore the Périgord. She’d returned to Bordeaux for the summer semester, where she persuaded her professor that she had a unique opportunity to study French cuisine. Her irrefutable argument was that no serious understanding of France’s culture was possible without in-depth appreciation of its food and its cooking. It may have helped that her professor was born in Bergerac and needed little persuasion that the Périgord was the true home of French cuisine. Now back with Ivan until her course resumed in September, Miko had begun, after the urgent pleadings of Ivan’s customers, to add a daily Japanese dish to Ivan’s menu.

  Bruno had tried Japanese food while on a visit to Paris and not been greatly impressed. He had thought the miso soup to be a little bland, and he could think of many more interesting things to do with fish than eat it raw. At Miko’s suggestion, Bruno had tried her shogayaki, thinly sliced pork loin in a sweet sauce of garlic, ginger and mirin, a sugary rice wine. Having enjoyed that, he had been delighted by a salmon dish, steamed inside foil with a sauce she called ponzu. It was made of soy sauce, lemon and orange juice and mirin, along with katsuobushi, some dried bonito flakes, and kombu, strips of dried kelp.

  Devoted to the classic food of the Périgord, Bruno would never admit it in public but he was proud of his own daring in embarking on new cuisines. And he recognized that without Ivan’s romantic encounters he would probably never have ventured beyond the occasional Italian meal and Pamela’s surprisingly good English dishes like steak-and-kidney pie and her magnificent Scottish breakfast of eggs, bacon, black pudding, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms and potato scones.

  He went into the bistro and saw that Rod had saved a seat for him. Miko came forward with a pad in her hand to take his order. She had learned to present her cheeks for his greeting rather than bow. She was more than a head shorter than Bruno, slim and easygoing, and today she wore bright blue tights, a short and flaring pink skirt that matched the current color of her hair, and a white turtleneck sweater with the words HELL’S DEVILS in Gothic lettering. This, she claimed, was the height of Tokyo fashion. Bruno grinned at the sight of her.

  “Are you offering a dish today, Miko?” he asked.

  “Prawn tempura with udon noodles, and cucumber soup. You will like the soup, it has kombu stock. I will add crème fraîche for you.”

  “It’s delicious, Bruno,” said Roberte from a table by the door. She ran social services at the mairie and was lunching with Sylvie, who ran the dry cleaner.

  “I’ll have that, please,” he said, and joined Rod’s table, where Jamie and Galina immediately asked to change their orders to try Bruno’s choice. Sasha said he’d join them.

  “Make it five,” said Rod. “She only just took our order for the veal as you came in, so it should be no problem.”

  Bruno went to the kitchen hatch to change the order.

  “Japanese food in the Périgord, there’s a surprise,” said Galina.

  Bruno explained about Ivan. Jamie recalled that the last time he’d eaten here the Spanish woman had made a heavenly dessert.

  “Leche frita,” said Rod. “I remember it well. And I loved the Wiener schnitzel, hammered so thin it overflowed the plate, and that wine that was served with it, what was it, Bruno?”

  “Grüner Veltliner, and Hubert still stocks it at the cave.”

  “So now we have to send Ivan to Kiev,” said Galina, beaming at Jamie. “He should find a woman who will make borscht and gribi v smetane, mushrooms in sour cream.”

  “Can you make those?” Jamie asked.

  “They are winter foods, so if you still love me this winter I will make them.”

  “I plan to love you for much longer than that,” said Jamie.

  Galina lifted a hand to stroke his face while Jamie’s father glanced at Bruno, his eyebrows raised. Bruno gave Rod a smile of reassurance. The love affair between Jamie and Galina had been no secret, and anyone who had seen them play music together must have been struck, as Bruno had been, by the power of the attraction between them. Even Sasha did not look at all surprised.

  The cucumber soup was delicious. Then Miko brought a teapot with five small ceramic cups and poured out a fragrant green tea, and Ivan followed her with a decanter of his house white and five glasses. He put them down, shook hands around the table, welcomed Galina and Sasha as newcomers and Rod and Jamie as old friends and said the house white from the town vineyard went very well with Miko’s food.

  “Enjoy your meal,” said Ivan, and returned to his kitchen from which Miko appeared carrying four plates on one arm and a fifth on the other. On each plate were three giant prawns in a light, crispy batter, a steaming bowl of udon noodles and a smaller bowl of a light brown sauce for dipping the prawns.

  “Bon appétit,” she said, and took away the soup bowls.

  Bruno picked up one of his prawns in batter by its tail, dipped it briefly into the sauce and took a bite, followed by a forkful of noodles. The others followed suit, pronounced the food delicious and devoured the meal in appreciative silence, broken only by murmurs of pleasure and sips of wine.

  “It is so sad that you are selling Château Rock,” said Galina quietly to Rod, once she had finished. “Jamie and Kirsty are also very sad and so I think are you. Is it only your wife who wants to leave?”

  “She doesn’t want to leave so much, but she wants to make her own life back in Britain, teaching,” said Rod. “She wants a house of her own, so we’ll have to sell the château to pay for that. And to be fair, it’s a lot of work, running the château and the garden. Now that Jamie and Kirsty are grown, she wants the chance of a new life while she can, rather than being stuck here with an old man like me to look after.”

  “You can make a comeback with your new music and use that money for your wife’s new life,” Galina said. “Jamie has let me listen to it and I like it very much. I think you will have a big success.”

  “I’d still have the cost of running the château and it’s a very big place to look after on my own, even if I were younger. And Jamie and Kirsty may be back from time to time, so we’ll have the cottage for them, but they wouldn’t be living at the château.”

  “You could hire a housekeeper and a gardener, rent out part of the château or rent out the whole place, live in the cottage and use the recording studio,” Galina went on firmly. “You would be miserable away from here where you have settled, where you have friends. Where would you go, alone back to Scotland? I think you need to think again about this, Mr. Macrae. There are other solutions. You could rent it out for musicians every summer, there are so many of us who come here for the festivals. And then you could record their music while still making your own.”

  “Do you think so?” Rod asked, looking animated.

  “There are three of you who want to keep Château Rock—you, Jamie and Kirsty,” said Galina. “I never heard of one outvoting three before.”

  A silence fell. Galina stared challengingly at Rod, until Jamie and Bruno spoke at once. “I don’t think this is the place…,” Jamie began as Bruno said he had to get back to work.

  Bruno rose, put fifteen euros on the table, bowed back to Miko when she came to scoop up the money, waved at Ivan and went out to his police van. He drove home to pick up the Land Rover and tried to focus on the confrontation with Constant, but the scene with Galina kept distracting him, along with that earlier remark about belonging here and wanting to stay. Did that mean she had marriage in mind or just residence? She was only in her early twenties, and so was Jamie, which struck Bruno as young to be making great commitments.

  Once at home, he took off his uniform jacket and laid it on the rear seat of the Land Rover with his képi and checked t
hat his long-lens binoculars were in their case. Was it really only a year ago that Balzac as a puppy could still fit into that case when Bruno went riding? He slipped on a red shirt that made him look like a civilian and called Juliette.

  “I’m at Les Glycines, in civvies, and I have a spare helmet of a different color,” she said, her voice almost bubbling with excitement. “No sign of the baron yet, but there’s a guy of about thirty eating alone and reading through a stack of documents. I think it may be him.”

  “Well done, Juliette. Stay out of sight,” he said, and took the back road through St. Cirq and past the campground, where there was a place he could park out of sight but keep an eye on Les Glycines. At a few minutes before two he spotted the baron’s venerable Citroën DS cruising past the railway station and parking near the hotel. A slim figure carrying a crash helmet came out of a side entrance and disappeared. That would be Juliette.

  Chapter 21

  Bruno waited for forty long minutes wondering how to play his meeting with Constant. Keep up the pressure on him, the brigadier had ordered. Frighten them, Goirau had said. He knew he could do it, but Bruno didn’t like such tactics. On the other hand, he didn’t like Constant, Sarrail and Lara and their methods even more. They might tell themselves it was only hard-nosed business, but to Bruno it was outrageous. And abandoning livestock without food and water was unforgivable. If only it had been Fabiola who had been called to Driant, he thought. She would never have signed off on a verdict of a heart attack like Gelletreau, not without taking a thorough look at the body.

  The baron and Constant came out of the front entrance and shook hands. Then Constant strolled with him to admire the baron’s classic car before climbing into his own vehicle. Through the binoculars Bruno saw a man of about thirty with neat, short hair and a suntan. He was wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase that looked as if it had cost more than Bruno earned in a month. He was a little plump, and there was a flash of gold on his wrist as he raised his arm to wave the baron farewell. His Audi drove off sedately enough, Juliette’s motorbike behind him at a discreet distance.

  Bruno followed them through Meyrals and past St. Cyprien on the way down to the Dordogne Valley and realized that Constant was heading for Château Marmont, the retirement home. Juliette had parked at the junction, where a turnoff led through some woods to the château, when Bruno drew alongside and thanked her.

  “Are we going to arrest him?” she asked.

  “No, we’re going to make him panic, and I need you to be ready to follow him again if he leaves in a hurry after I do. So just hang on and I’ll explain it all later, I promise.”

  He drove up to the château, parked, put on his uniform jacket and képi and went to the front desk. A young woman in a black business suit rose from an antique table, just like the receptionist at an expensive hotel. “Can I help you, monsieur?”

  “I’m here to see Monsieur Constant, mademoiselle.”

  “Whom shall I say wishes to see him?” she said, about to pick up a phone.

  “You don’t,” Bruno said, putting his hand down on the phone. “It’s a surprise. Where do I find him?”

  She looked startled for a moment, then recovered. “I’m afraid, monsieur, that such an intrusion—”

  “No, mademoiselle,” Bruno said loudly as an elderly, well-dressed couple passing through the hall stared at him. “Any more delay and I’ll have a squad of armed gendarmes here who will tear the place apart in search of him. Your choice.” He took his mobile phone from his pocket.

  The young woman glanced at the couple, who had stopped and were watching, fascinated, and then said, “He has the Diderot Suite, third floor, at the end of the corridor, turn left as you leave the elevator.”

  “Thank you, mademoiselle,” Bruno said politely. “But if you call him to warn him, you’ll be arrested.”

  He went up the stairs and knocked firmly on the door. As it opened, he pushed it hard with his shoulder, sending Constant stumbling backward. Before he could regain his balance, Bruno frog-marched him to an easy chair and thrust him into it. He then took a straight-backed chair from its place by a desk, pushed its back close up against Constant’s legs and sat down, straddling the chair and locking the man in place.

  “What on earth…”

  “Where is Lara Saatchi?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “She’s supposed to work for you.”

  “No, she works for a colleague, Monsieur Sarrail.”

  “So why does she work out of your office in Périgueux?”

  “I have the extra room in my office. I let Sarrail use it as a favor.”

  “So why is she helping draw up your insurance contracts by having sex with gullible old men?”

  Constant’s mouth flapped open and closed and opened again. “I don’t understand.”

  “You can’t have forgotten Monsieur Driant, not after that heavy fine you’re facing for leaving his livestock without food or water. We don’t like cruelty to animals here in the Périgord, but that’s not your problem now, Constant,” Bruno went on, his voice hard.

  “You’re in real trouble. Lara Saatchi was the last person to see Driant alive, but I doubt she left him that way. We have her fingerprints all over his place, including on the condom they used. I imagine she provided the cocaine we found. That’s probably what killed the old guy. I suppose you knew about Driant’s heart trouble. Conspiracy to commit murder for financial gain will be the charge. Sexy young insurance agent screws an old man to death for his money with you as the pimp. The newspapers will love it. You’re going to be famous, you and Sarrail and Lara Saatchi. Sex, drugs, murder—and cruelty to animals.”

  Constant closed his eyes, and he seemed to slump as his face went white. For a moment Bruno wondered if the man was going to throw up.

  “Is that how you usually do business, Constant? Let me see your papers.”

  Stunned into silence, Constant took out a wallet and handed Bruno a carte d’identité that gave his first name as Benjamin, born in Neuilly, a wealthy Paris suburb, age thirty-three. Bruno slipped it into his pocket.

  “When did Lara Saatchi start working for you?”

  “She works for Monsieur Sarrail, but she’s worked with me since late last year when we opened the Périgueux office. She’d worked with him before, in Monaco.”

  “Tell me about Euro-Trans-Med.”

  “It’s an international insurance group, one of my clients. I’m their agent.”

  “So why is Lara Saatchi seducing old men into signing your contracts?”

  Constant’s eyes glanced at the door, the window, and then he looked down before he said, “I only know that she sometimes helps with paperwork.”

  “Where is she now? And why is her phone turned off?”

  “I have no idea why, nor where she is. I want to talk to a lawyer.”

  “You’re going to need one.” Bruno leaned forward. “May I?” He plucked Constant’s phone from his shirt pocket, and its screen came alive. He touched the phone icon and pressed the log function, which showed previous calls.

  “You can’t do that.” Constant’s protest must have sounded feeble, even to him.

  “Can’t do what? I asked your permission. You didn’t object until you realized I might find something you want to hide. So let’s go to the gendarmerie where I’ll arrest you for obstruction of justice and put you in a cell until I get a warrant. Or how about I call the gendarmes to come here and arrest you and march you out through the dining hall, the library, the lounge, and you still spend the night in a cell. Which do you prefer?”

  “This is surreal. I’m an insurance agent.”

  “You’re a liar, Constant,” said Bruno casually, skimming through the call logs. “You said you had no idea where Lara was. This shows you called her this morning and then she called you. And there’s a call to Sarrai
l, and you’ve been making a lot of calls to a Monaco number. And to a three-five-seven number. That’s Cyprus. You do get around. And who is this Stichkin with a satellite phone number? You called him twice yesterday and again today.”

  “He’s the owner of the insurance group.”

  “And where is your partner in crime, Sarrail?”

  Constant swallowed. “He’s at the Monaco office.”

  “Address?”

  Bruno scribbled down the address and then pulled out his own phone and called Juliette.

  “Are the gendarmes here yet?” he demanded, holding the phone tight against his ear so Constant couldn’t hear Juliette’s startled questions. “We’ve only got the small fry here,” Bruno went on. “So I want the European arrest warrant for Sarrail delivered to the Monaco police by the end of today.” He read out the address Constant had given him and added, “You might add Lara Saatchi’s name to the warrant. I suspect that’s where she’s hiding. And see if they know whether Stichkin’s yacht is in Monaco.”

  Bruno closed his phone, took a page from his notebook and wrote out and signed a receipt for Constant’s phone and identity card. “If we don’t round up Saatchi and Sarrail by tomorrow morning, we’ll just have to make do with you.”

  Bruno brushed aside the questions of the manager, the former junior concierge of the Hôtel de Crillon, as he strode through the entrance hall before driving down to join Juliette. He held up Constant’s phone.

  “Can you download his call log, messages and address book?” he asked. “When I opened it, there was no password.”