The Shooting at Chateau Rock

by Martin Walker

  Isabelle paused. “Our sources on this are not just Polish. The most reliable sources are Dutch. They’ve taken a close interest in Ukraine since the pro-Russian separatists shot down that Malaysia Airlines flight from Amsterdam in July 2014, killing three hundred civilians, two-thirds of them Dutch.”

  Bruno nodded, remembering the story. “What do the Dutch say?”

  “They tell us that Galina’s mother, Bohdana, is a Catholic from L’viv, in western Ukraine, the place the Poles used to call L’vov. Bohdana has a nephew, Galina’s cousin, who was also one of the Heavenly Hundred. The Poles tell us Bohdana divorced Galina’s father because she supported Ukraine and he was loyal to Russia. He’s the same age as Putin, grew up in Leningrad like Putin, and he and Putin were in the same judo club. Putin joined the KGB and Stichkin joined the air force as a bomber pilot and saw action in Afghanistan. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the air force shrank fast, and Stichkin went into business with his friend Putin. They’ve been close ever since. Putin got him involved in the restructuring of Aeroflot, and in nickel mines, but he made his big money in car dealerships before he branched out into life insurance.”

  “When we played tennis, Galina told me she didn’t want to grow up like her father,” said Bruno. “She rebelled against his ambition for her to be a tennis star.”

  “From all we know, Galina takes no side for or against Ukraine,” said Isabelle. “She stays in touch with both her parents, calls them regularly, and since she’s a person of interest, we listen in. That’s why I know she’s buying this château near you. She called to say she’d found the guy she wants to marry and she promised to bring him to Daddy’s yacht after the concert season.

  “The real reason we’re interested in her father is that he has a base in the West, and we think he’s helping look after the money Putin keeps outside Russia,” Isabelle went on. “Stichkin seems to be accessible and reasonably friendly to us. Since Russia is the biggest geopolitical threat Europe has, we stay in touch. If anybody can give us an inside view of what comes after Putin, it will be him.”

  Bruno slowed the car as it topped a rise and pointed to a château with pepper-pot towers.

  “Remember this? I thought we’d stop to give Balzac a walk around the ramparts.”

  “You and I came here that wonderful summer when we fell in love,” she said, and reached forward from the rear seat to put her hand on his cheek. “Hautefort.”

  A magnificent late Renaissance château that looked as if it might be more at home on the banks of the River Loire, Hautefort was for Bruno a personal shrine. He could still recall that magical sense of being newly in love as he and Isabelle had strolled in the gardens and walked together through the magnificent old rooms. They could barely keep their hands off each other.

  “Let’s stop here, off the road,” she said. “I brought a picnic.”

  Bruno took a path to a copse and parked out of sight from the road. He grabbed a picnic blanket from the trunk, while Isabelle took a baguette from her bag along with ham, cheese, apples and a bottle of Viognier. Bruno pulled out his picnic basket while Balzac sniffed his way all around the edges of the rug.

  “This is very domestic of you,” he said, smiling.

  “I wanted us to have some time to ourselves before we reached the kennel,” she said, almost shyly, her head down as she began slicing cheese.

  Bruno reached across and put his hand under her chin and lifted it a little so he could look into her eyes.

  “And you want to spend that time eating?” he asked, and edged close enough to kiss her.

  “Of course not,” she said, kissing him back and tossing aside the bread and cheese. “I don’t even want to eat.”

  Chapter 24

  As the imposing roofs of Hautefort dwindled in the rearview mirror, Bruno pondered whether Balzac might feel any such moments of tenderness or cherish such memories after his own forthcoming tryst. He knew that Balzac responded to Bruno’s moods, and he felt a powerful sense of communion with his dog, that the two of them understood each other perfectly when they went hunting together. But other than sensing when Balzac was hungry or sleepy, happy and wanting to play or just gaze at the sky and the birds, Balzac’s interior life was a mystery kept private behind those deep, dark eyes.

  So were Isabelle’s, he thought as he raised her hand from his thigh and pressed it to his lips. She was sitting beside him, Balzac alone now on the rear seat, watching Bruno as he drove. There were moments, he believed, when there was something between them as intense and intimate as those looks he had seen between Jamie and Galina as they played music together. Then Isabelle seemed to close some kind of mental door, and the other, official Isabelle would take over. Perhaps he was the same, he thought, the old soldier’s distinction between being on or off parade.

  They were approaching the small and sometimes wild river known as the Auvézère, which the baron claimed offered the best fly-fishing in the region. As they reached the river at Cubas, he turned east, following Claire’s directions. After another junction and a few kilometers he saw the hand-painted sign for CHENILS MORNIER and turned up a dirt road that led to an old stone farmhouse, two stories high. The windows had blue-painted shutters, and the front door was open. The house was flanked by two large barns that formed a natural courtyard covered in gravel. It contained a wooden table and folding chairs. Half a dozen old wine barrels, sliced in half, held scarlet geraniums. A pigeon tower guarded the entrance to the courtyard, and various outbuildings were scattered behind the barns. They might once have been stables and pigsties. Tucked into the shelter of a small rise where it would catch the sun for most of the day, the farmhouse looked down to the river. A battered Renault Kangoo van was parked outside one of the outbuildings, and Bruno drew up alongside. Isabelle put Balzac on his leash and they climbed out.

  They were greeted by a chorus of familiar basset howls—in which Balzac instantly joined—followed by much deeper barks, which Bruno assumed would be the Malinois, the Belgian shepherds. To his surprise, since Balzac was usually docile on a leash, his dog began to pull Isabelle urgently toward a small outbuilding. She had to exert her strength to restrain him. Had Balzac’s leash been a traditional dog collar, he’d have choked himself in his determination to advance. But he was wearing a harness, and the leash was attached to a ring above his shoulders, so his throat was not constricted.

  “That must be Balzac, and he’s pulling so hard because he can smell that his lady love is in heat,” came a cheerful voice.

  Bruno turned to see a plump and smiling woman carrying a wicker basket filled with vegetables. She was wearing green rubber boots, grubby jeans and a checked flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up above her elbows. Her thick brown hair was cut so short it was almost a crew cut, and while she wore no cosmetics that Bruno could see, she had a generous mouth and shrewd eyes, large and dark in her weather-beaten face.

  “Welcome, Bruno—and Isabelle, good to see you again. Balzac has really grown since you came to collect him at Suippes. What a handsome young hound he’s become.” She bent down, put the basket to one side and took Balzac’s head in her hands, scratching that special place behind his ears. She looked into his mouth and ears and cast a knowledgeable eye over the rest of him before saying, “He’s turned out even better than I’d hoped.”

  “Thank you. You must have quite an impressive potager,” he said, gesturing at the overflowing basket and holding out his hand.

  “Since our dogs are going to be intimate, you might as well give me a bise,” she said, coming close and offering her cheek to be kissed, first one and then the other. She did the same to Isabelle.

  “That’s the bridal chamber, where your hound was heading. Diane de Poitiers is already inside, waiting for her new suitor. They both seem pretty eager, but first come with me while I put the vegetables into the kitchen.”

  Claire led the way into the main ho
use, through a tiled hall which opened onto a large old-fashioned kitchen with a wood-burning stove that seemed to glow with warmth. Bruno thought that in winter it must be a comforting way to heat the room and much of the house. On this afternoon in late May, it was close to stifling, even though the rear kitchen door and the windows were all open. Balzac had retreated from the heat and was now lying stretched out on the kitchen tiles.

  The stove was flat topped, with a large fait-tout pan steaming on the hot surface. Below it on one side was a baking oven and on the other a heavy iron door. She opened this door to reveal a glowing furnace into which she tossed another log.

  “I need to keep this stove going all year-round,” Claire said. “It’s how I get hot water, and with dogs whelping every few days, I can’t do without hot water.”

  Bruno nodded acknowledgment and looked around. The big table that stood in the center of the kitchen was covered with a waxed cloth, a pile of newspapers, a half-empty bottle of wine with a cork stuck in the top and a ceramic bowl full of apples. There was enough space for him to put down the box of food and wine he’d brought. A venerable dresser dominated one wall, handsome old plates displayed on its shelves. Most of the walls were covered in photographs of dogs, many of the mothers with litters of pups nursing at their teats. To one side of the sink was the oldest refrigerator Bruno had ever seen and to the other a working surface covered in zinc with cupboards below. Above the work surface a well-maintained Manufrance shotgun hung on two pegs in the wall, the wooden stock polished and the barrels gleaming with oil.

  “I keep the ammunition securely locked away,” she said, watching her guests scan the room.

  “Good for you,” Isabelle said.

  “Shall I show you around? You might want to keep your dog on a leash, otherwise he’ll run back to pay court to Diane de Poitiers and howl outside her door.”

  “I love the name,” said Isabelle. “Do you name all your dams after royal mistresses?”

  “No, that’s just the pedigree line she’s from,” Claire explained as she led the way from her rear terrace. “Another one is called Mahalia, for the singer Mahalia Jackson, because she’s from the Stonewall Jackson line. Then there’s Ingrid, for Ingrid Bergman, because she’s bred from the Swede Sun line. Your Balzac will bring in some fresh stock to add to my Old Big Bone sires, that’s why I’m so happy to have him here.”

  They turned a corner behind one of the two barns to see a field of rough grass and shrubs surrounded by a wire fence. Bruno and Isabelle laughed in delight at the sight of an entire pack of bassets sleeping, lolling, gamboling and sniffing one another. There were white and reddish-brown ones. Others were black, white and brown like Balzac, and some were plain black and white. Although the pups were kept separate until they’d had all their vaccinations, the field contained young bassets, solemn elders and every age between. He stopped counting when he reached thirty. A dozen low doors had been cut into the wall of the barn, each one opening onto a narrow yard close to two meters wide and about five meters deep. Each yard was fenced off from its neighbor and had a latched gate that opened onto the field.

  “These are all your bassets?” he asked.

  “All except the ones with red collars. They are boarders, just here for a week or two while their owners are away.”

  “Your food bills must be quite something,” he said. “That’s why I’ve brought you a sack of my homemade dog biscuits. I thought Balzac might offer some to Carla, I mean Diane de Poitiers, as a courtship gift.”

  “Thank you, that’s kind, and thanks for all that food you brought,” she said. “The other barn is the same. That’s where I keep the Malinois, but their field is larger because they need more space. You can’t see it all from here, but there’s more than a kilometer of wire fencing here. I dug all the postholes myself.”

  “Mon Dieu,” said Bruno, deeply impressed. “How long did that take you?”

  “Two months. Fitting out the barn took even longer, but I had some help from the apprentices at the construction school in Excideuil. One of the teachers is a cousin, and he persuaded the director that it could count toward their coursework.”

  “Did you buy the place?” Isabelle asked.

  “No, I inherited it from my mother. I was an only child, and I could never have afforded it otherwise. Now I make a modest living, although I’d be in trouble without my military pension. This is what I always wanted to do.”

  Claire showed them how a corner of each stall had been roofed into a large kennel, each about one meter by two. “Dogs like the sense of being in a cave. It makes them feel secure, and that’s very important when the dams are nursing their pups.”

  “You run all this on your own?” he asked.

  “I get a day a week from two youngsters studying to be veterinary assistants. Next year I’m hoping to have four, and that will make a big difference once I have them trained.”

  “I take my hat off to you, Claire,” he said. “You’ve done a fine job here. I just hope Balzac fulfills our hopes.”

  “He looks pretty good to me,” she said, bending to fondle him. “You saw how his penis came out of its sheath when he smelled Diane de Poitiers? I think Balzac is ready, willing and able. Shall we take him to her boudoir?”

  “Perhaps we should call it the honeymoon suite,” Isabelle replied.

  “I hope you’re not expecting soft lights and romantic music,” Claire said, laughing.

  “Why not?” said Bruno. “Nothing but the best for Balzac. And you did promise music when we spoke on the phone. Carla Bruni, as I recall.”

  The boudoir, as Claire called the small outbuilding that she said had been a pigsty in her grandparents’ day, was the place whose tantalizing scent had already attracted Balzac. Now he strained at the leash as they headed toward it. She opened the door and Bruno was surprised to see that the light inside was indeed a soft and rather romantic red, from the infrared lamp which Claire had installed, she explained, for newborn puppies. Bridal chamber and maternity ward in one, thought Bruno.

  “Oh, she’s beautiful,” exclaimed Isabelle as she saw the female basset who had risen to greet them.

  “Don’t touch her, she might snap at you. It’s a dog she wants now, not a human,” said Claire firmly.

  Diane de Poitiers was magnificent, mainly reddish brown and white, with long strips of black fur running from her ears to her haunches. Her ears were even longer than Balzac’s, and they shared the same noble head and long muzzle, which Bruno always thought gave bassets a distinctly aristocratic look. The smell of her estrus was now powerful, and as Balzac began to whine and paw the ground, she helpfully turned her back toward him and lifted her tail.

  “Diane knows what to do,” said Claire. “She’s already had one litter. Balzac looks eager, but Bruno, you may have to use your hand to ensure that he goes where he should. Isabelle, stay back by the door, please.”

  Claire knelt at Diane’s head, speaking softly to her and stroking her head and shoulders as Bruno released Balzac from his leash. His dog, panting hard and visibly ready to do his duty, almost leaped onto Diane’s haunches and at once made what Bruno perceived was the right move and began thrusting powerfully, his head at first raised as he did when he howled on the hunt. But then he lowered his head and began nuzzling at Diane’s back in what seemed to Bruno like real affection.

  “Oh, he’s a natural,” said Claire, holding Diane close as the dam began making soft whining sounds, “you won’t need to help him at all. Just stand by.”

  Balzac raised his head and delivered a full-scale howl that must have struck terror into the heart of every fox and boar and badger for miles around and then slumped onto Diane’s back, his pounding haunches slowing to stillness.

  “Now ease him slowly back and out,” Claire said softly. “Sometimes they get stuck, but I think it will be fine.”

  Bruno did as he w
as told, and the dogs separated, Balzac looking rather baffled as he backed away and then sniffed once more at Diane’s rear where her tail had been lowered. Claire motioned Bruno to reattach the leash and take him outside.

  Balzac was shaking his head and sniffing at his own genitals and then at Bruno and Isabelle as if wondering what on earth had just happened to him. Then he turned and looked at the door to the bridal suite and threw his head back and howled and then stared at Bruno, who bent down to stroke his back and murmur comforting words.

  “Do you think it’s comfort he wants, or would he prefer a rematch?” Isabelle asked, kneeling beside Bruno to scratch Balzac’s head.

  “Probably both,” Bruno replied, caressing her back with his other hand.

  Chapter 25

  After their evening meal, and a second successful encounter for Balzac and Diane de Poitiers, Bruno was on his phone. He was scribbling something on a pad when Isabelle came out of the shower. She was wearing a dressing gown with a towel wrapped around her hair. Her face and eyes were shining and Bruno had a sudden image of Isabelle as a young girl at a fancy dress party. He muttered a quick word of thanks and closed the phone, enjoying the sight.

  “I have something for you,” he said. “Meghan’s date of birth. I remembered her telling me she got a speeding ticket last year going to Bergerac airport to pick up her kids. I called J-J and he found it in the database with her French driver’s license, which gave her place and date of birth—Glasgow, Scotland, March second, 1978. With that, your British colleagues can get her family names and data, and they should be able to get her grandmother’s name.”