That was a reply he kept to himself, as he recalled two images from that morning. One was of a woman staring into the camera as she sucked some stranger’s fingers. The other was of a different woman, grief-stricken as she stared at the semi-frozen head of a goat and called it Ulysses.
She should never have sold him, Alphonse’s friend told Bruno when they met at his market stall. She could have managed without the money. But the Arab Monsieur had been so polite and so embarrassed, explaining that his pregnant wife craved a dish from her Kabyle home, a broth made of ribs of goat. No, she had never seen the Arab Monsieur before; he had come to her in Sarlat market and said he had heard she might have a goat for sale.
His hair was dark and his skin sallow and he might have had a moustache. The one feature she remembered with precision was that he wore beautiful brown brogue shoes, highly polished. He had come to her farm in a large black car with a small trailer. He had paid cash, in new notes.
What day had the Arab Monsieur come to the market, Bruno had asked. On Wednesday, when she was selling her cheeses in the covered market. He had come out to the farm later that same day. The story of the woman in the boat had been in the newspaper that morning. To dream up the hoax in the cave and to arrange the purchase of a goat within hours was impressive, Bruno thought. In other circumstances he might have found it admirable.
‘Has Francette been there all this time?’ Junot’s voice brought Bruno back to the present.
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t even know she was there until you woke me up to tell me.’
‘At least she’s not far from home. Even if she stays, she can come back to visit.’
‘They have to leave home some day,’ Bruno said, and then realized that Junot had never left. He had stayed on the farm he’d inherited and probably expected that some day Francette and her children would take over the property in their turn. But even here in the Périgord where the farming tradition was strong, fewer and fewer people remained on the land. From what he recalled of Francette, she did not seem likely to take over a failing farm.
‘Is this a social call?’ Béatrice asked, walking briskly into the reception area after he presented himself to the black-suited Cécile at the reception desk. ‘I’m afraid we’re still clearing up after a busy evening.’ She looked at Junot, still dressed in the grimy poacher’s garb he’d been wearing when he turned up at Bruno’s cottage that morning.
‘No, Madame,’ Bruno said. ‘Monsieur Junot here, from St Denis, believes his young daughter, Francette, is staying in the hotel and would like to speak with her and assure himself that she’s well. I think he’s hoping to persuade her to return home, but I’ve told him that will be her decision.’
She gave Junot a cold look. ‘So this is the man who beats his wife and daughter?’ Bruno felt rather than saw Junot’s fists clench and put a firm hand on the man’s arm.
‘I think it would be a courtesy to allow Monsieur Junot to see his daughter and satisfy himself that she’s well,’ Bruno said.
‘Might it not have been a courtesy to phone in advance to arrange a convenient time?’
Bruno pulled out his own phone and showed her the log. ‘I made two calls to you this morning, Madame, as you can see. It’s not my fault if your phone is switched off.’
She dropped her eyes as if trying to look embarrassed. ‘I apologize, but it’s been a busy morning. Would you mind if I’m present when you see Francette? No? In that case, please come through to my office.’
Pausing to tell Cécile to let Francette know her presence was required, Béatrice led the way through the reception room to a small but well-appointed bar with a wood-lined alcove beyond that smelt of expensive cigars. A side door led to a large open-plan office where two black-suited young women worked at computers, and a further door gave way to Béatrice’s own room, where a modern desk and chair perched on oriental rugs. She offered them the hard-backed chairs that faced her desk, but Bruno said he’d stand.
‘Your daughter’s ID card says she’s over the age of eighteen and is therefore free to live and work where she chooses,’ Béatrice said to Junot. He said nothing but chewed his lip and looked at Bruno, who simply nodded.
Francette knocked and entered the room. She ignored the sad little gesture her father made as she walked past him and followed Béatrice’s invitation to stand with her behind the desk. She had been transformed from the slightly sluttish girl with too much eye make-up he remembered from the supermarket checkout. Her hair had been professionally styled and her make-up was discreet and flattering. She seemed to stand and walk differently and the suit of black silk that she wore flattered her slim figure. Her eyes looked a little tired, but otherwise Bruno had never seen her look better.
‘Bonjour, Francette,’ said Bruno. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m good,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to see you again, Bruno.’ She smiled and stretched out a hand across the desk for him to shake. Even her voice was different, lower in timbre and she spoke more slowly. She turned to Béatrice, who gestured her to go ahead.
‘I’ve been told that my father wishes to see me. You can see that I’m fine,’ Francette said. ‘I have a job and I have absolutely no intention of returning home to a drunken father who beats me and my mother. Not now and not ever.’ Her eyes were fixed on Bruno. ‘He ought to be in prison for what he did to us. And I hope my mother summons the courage to leave as well. Can I go now?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Junot said nervously, clasping and unclasping his hands. ‘But it’s different now. Your mother will tell you. I haven’t touched a drop in days. I’m sorry for what happened and we miss you at home.’
‘I’ll make my own arrangements to see Mother, but not you.’ There was no anger in her voice, just a chill neutrality.
‘At least think it over,’ Junot said, his voice cracking. ‘Ask your mum when you see her. She’ll tell you I’ve changed.’ He paused, his mouth working as if he wanted to say something else, but no words came. He looked to Bruno for inspiration, and blurted, ‘We’ve got the potatoes in.’
Béatrice suppressed a smile and said, addressing Bruno, ‘I think there’s no more to be said.’
‘Thank you both for your time,’ Bruno said.
‘Please ensure that Monsieur Junot understands he is not welcome on these premises and if he ever returns, I shall call you and expect you to remove him,’ Béatrice said.
‘I understand,’ Bruno said, and turned to Francette. ‘It would be nice to see you at the tennis club one of these days. You were pretty good when you were in my classes.’ She gave him a quick smile that reminded Bruno of how she looked as a schoolgirl.
Junot was trying to say something more, but Bruno guided him to the door and out through the bar. Junot stumbled along beside him, seeming to have lost all will of his own. Bruno led the way to the van, told him to fix his seat belt and drove off.
‘There’s nothing more that I can do for you, Louis, and nothing more the law can do,’ he said. ‘Your daughter’s an adult and she’s made her intentions clear. If I’m called to remove you from these premises in the future, you’ll be in very serious trouble. Understood?’
Junot said nothing all the way back to St Denis. He sat hunched, with his hand to his eyes and his head downcast. When he stopped at a junction and looked left and right, Bruno could hardly miss the glistening tears on the man’s unshaven cheeks.
Both windows open to rid the van of Junot’s pungent smell after dropping him back in St Denis, Bruno drove up the long hill to his home wondering how Isabelle might be feeling. There had been no answer when he called her from the market. He rounded the corner and saw her sitting in the spot by the kitchen window that was a sun trap, Balzac sniffing round her feet and a glass of something on the table before her. She put down a book as she saw his van and waved as Balzac began galloping to investigate this new arrival. Weighed down with a chicken and vegetables, cheese and fresh bread from the last of the market, Bruno bent to kiss her while fending off Balzac
’s lunges for the bag with the chicken.
‘I’m much better,’ she said. ‘I had the last of the onion soup for breakfast and then spent the morning on my computer. You’ll have to be more imaginative with the password for your modem. Gigi and your birthday was too easy. And you’d better put the food in the fridge. I’ve booked us a table for dinner at the Vieux Logis, my treat. Well, the Ministry’s treat. If I add together all my per diem allowances, that should cover it.’
It wouldn’t, thought Bruno, making a quick calculation, but kissed her again and smiled his thanks before putting the chicken into his larder. It was cool enough in there, and he was a great believer in hanging meat for a while before eating it.
‘And I’ve done some research for you on your Count Vexin, a very enterprising man. His birth name was de la Gorce. Does that remind you of anything?’
‘It’s the married name of the sister at the Red Château.’
‘He’s her grandson. He’s also very well connected politically and smart, being an Enarque.’
The Ecole Nationale d’Administration, its students and graduates known familiarly as Enarques, had been founded by de Gaulle in 1945 to train a new French elite to run its civil service. Producing only a hundred graduates a year, the ENA had provided two Presidents of France, half a dozen prime ministers and most of the leaders of France’s big corporations. The Count, Isabelle told him, had graduated high enough in his year to join the Inspection Générale des Finances, gone from there to Germany to work in EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, and had then started his own private equity company.
‘That’s where I’d heard of him,’ she said. ‘He’s on our ministry list of significant figures, not because of the money but because he specializes in defence. He bought into small European defence and electronics companies, cut costs and rationalized them. Then he started merging them, launched them on the stock exchange and made a fortune.’
‘So how does he get involved in this provincial property development?’
‘That’s where it gets interesting,’ she said.
In 2006 the Count had started a hedge fund. He’d done very well at first, particularly in property in Paris, London and Brussels. But the timing was against him when the American mortgage market got into trouble the next year. Then had come the crash and the Count lost a lot of money. In recent months he’d returned to private equity deals in the defence industry that he knew best, and had started dabbling again in property.
‘This holiday village still seems like pretty small stuff for a guy like him,’ said Bruno.
‘Don’t forget the family, and Granny in the château,’ Isabelle replied. This valley was a place the Count knew, she explained, and an opportunity to make some money. The hotel that had turned them away the previous evening was designed to make use of his defence connections, a discreet place to wine and dine clients and celebrate.
‘I can see the logic in it,’ Isabelle continued. ‘And I was going to email you the file I put together. But on second thoughts, maybe I shouldn’t, or at least I’d better make a discreet check with my boss. If he’s in our files, and he’s also on the Defence Ministry’s approved list, the Brigadier will want to know why I’m making inquiries.’
‘How much of this is in the public domain where anybody can find it on the net?’
‘Most of it, starting with this on Google.’ She opened another tab and brought up a page of celebrity photos from Gala magazine.
‘That’s our Count and you were right. He is good-looking, and so are those two women with him. But look at the other guy, the one with his arm around him.’
Bruno whistled. ‘That’s the President’s son?’ But his eye was drawn to one of the women in the photo. It was Eugénie in a low-cut dress, not named and described as ‘a friend’.
‘The son by our President’s first marriage, and it’s a party for the new Airbus, the Count’s aviation connections again, and now try this …’
‘Wait,’ he said, and pointed to Eugénie. ‘Don’t you recognize the nurse at the Red Château?’
‘I know. I just wanted to see if you’d say so. OK, you pass the test.’ She grinned.
He felt himself blushing. ‘What else did you want to show me?’
‘Remember the car with Lebanese diplomatic plates? I googled the Count and Lebanon and he’s got a house there. And another investment company. And his partner in the company is – tra-la – the son of their Minister of Defence. Here they are together in the Gulf edition of OK magazine, this time at a party in Dubai.’
‘And you were supposed to be in bed with hot drinks and aspirin,’ he said.
‘I had to get up. The sheets were soaked, and so was your rugby shirt so I put them through the washing machine. I think I sweated out the fever. And I drank all your orange juice and a lot of mineral water.’
‘How do I find out about his investment company, the one in Luxembourg?’ he asked.
‘You don’t, at least you won’t find much on open-source material. And we can’t get access to the Luxembourg system unless we have evidence of crime or tax evasion, and then it will be special investigators from the Ministry of Finance. Remember he started as an inspecteur de finances. His books will be clean, or at least the ones we can get to see.’
‘Is there anything else you can find out without getting into trouble?’
‘Criminal records, tax records, the old Renseignements Généraux files, but that’s mainly political stuff and I think we know he’s connected. The juicy stuff will be in Defence Ministry files, and a red flag goes up if I go in there. Still, the Brigadier might think it useful to have a closer look at one of the golden boys of the Hôtel de Brienne.’
Bruno remembered the imposing Defence Ministry building off the Rue St Dominique in Paris, close to Napoleon’s tomb at Les Invalides. As a former soldier, he felt a certain loyalty to the place and wasn’t sure he wanted to help the Interior Ministry embarrass it.
‘I saved the best till last,’ she said. ‘I was looking for anything on those other names in this development project, the Eugénie woman and Foucher. Look at this.’
She opened another tab, this one from the New York Times in November 2007, recording that Lionel Joseph Foucher, a French citizen, had been fined $400,000, given six months’ probation and barred from further employment in a fiduciary capacity after pleading guilty to a charge of insider trading.
‘What’s that mean?’
‘It means he can’t work in Wall Street again. What’s interesting is that he was working for the New York office of the Count’s hedge fund. And now he’s a director of one of the Count’s companies in Europe. That’s loyalty for you. I’ve emailed our liaison man at the New York consulate asking him to get me the full court documents. That’s something to interest the Brigadier.’
‘I’m very grateful. I feel you deserve a reward.’
‘So do I,’ she said. ‘I was thinking you could help me bring in the sheets off the line and put them back on the bed and we could test how dry they are. I don’t think I’ll be needing your rugby shirt.’
22
They had just finished the main course of roast lamb with crispy rice and a blend of red peppers flavoured with olives when Bruno’s phone began to vibrate with the call from Gilles. Bruno savoured the last sip of the Grand Millésime of Château de Tiregand, shrugged an apology to Isabelle and left the dining room to avoid disturbing the other diners, or more important, offending the chef. It was not a good moment to leave the table. The roast lamb had been milk-fed, from the celebrated farms of the Grefeuille brothers in Aveyron, where the sheep were carefully chosen for their ancestry. The ewes were of the Lacaune breed, whose milk made the cheese of Roquefort and the rams from the Berrichon, and they produced the white lambs that were becoming essential to the reputation of the finest restaurants of France. Their AAA designation, standing for l’Agneau Allaiton d’Aveyron, was as carefully guarded as the appellation of a great vineyard.
‘What’s the news from Hollywood?’ he asked Gilles, a little more testily than he should.
‘The bad news is that they have no file on her any more, no documents at all. The good news is that her agent’s secretary is still there, and she remembers Athénaïs trying to sell two film ideas, treatments they call them. One was for the Red Countess, who she claimed was her grandmother, and the other was a horror film and love story about Louis XIV and his mistress, Madame de Montespan. Athénaïs claimed to be a direct descendant, and that Athénaïs de Bourbon was one of the several names she was entitled to use.’
‘But no films were ever made?’
‘The Red Countess had no chance. Hollywood doesn’t do commie heroines. “The Royal Mistress”, the title she gave to her script, was the project that kept her going financially. It kept getting optioned, but it never went into production because she insisted on the starring role. Apparently Athénaïs was pretty obsessed with her ancestor. She told the secretary that she was the living reincarnation of Montespan so only she could play the role.’
‘When will you publish all this?’
‘Monday at noon, with the photographs I showed you. It’s a great story – suicide of a failed actress, re-enacting the Black Mass of her famous ancestor. I’m sending you a photo to remember her by. See you tomorrow,’ Gilles said and rang off.
Bruno made a quick call to J-J to give him the name and background of the dead woman, described his deal with Paris-Match and then returned to the table to tell Isabelle that the mystery of the dead woman had been resolved.
‘It means that they lied at the Red Château,’ he said. ‘If she’s the granddaughter of the Red Countess, they must have known her from the photo I showed.’
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