J-J was already on the line to the security office at Charles de Gaulle airport and repeated the girl’s name as Bruno showed his notepad: Marie-Françoise Bourbon Merrilees. It must be her father’s surname. Gilles had given Bruno the father’s number, the girl’s mobile phone and the fact that she had both a French and an American passport. The father might have the passport numbers. Who might speak English well enough to call him?
He tried Gilles but the line was engaged. On an impulse, he rang Pamela in Scotland, briefly explained and asked her to call the father to ask him for the numbers and any other details. And if the father spoke to his daughter, he should tell her to go direct to any police station and stay there while insisting they contacted him or J-J.
‘She flew in on Air France and connected with a flight to Bordeaux that should have just landed,’ J-J said. He was already calling the security office at Bordeaux’s Mérignac airport.
‘Check if they’ve had any incoming helicopters at Mérignac,’ Bruno said, reading out the tail number of the Count’s helicopter from his notebook. His mind raced as he tried to think of any other useful information he could provide J-J. He almost hopped up and down with frustration as J-J waited, then said who he was, gave his security code and explained what he wanted.
‘They’re trying to seal off the baggage claim area but it’s an internal flight from Paris so there’s no customs check,’ J-J said as he waited for more information. ‘I can hear them calling her on the public address system.’
Bruno’s phone vibrated again. It must be Pamela, he thought, snatching it from his pouch, but it was Fabiola.
‘I’ve just had my access authorization to the Red Château faxed from the Procureur’s office,’ she said. ‘You want to join me?’
But of course, Bruno suddenly realized, with the old woman and Foucher at the Gendarmerie, Eugénie disappeared and the Count seeking his long-lost cousin in Bordeaux, the château would be wide open.
‘I’d love to,’ he replied. ‘Pick me up at the Gendarmerie whenever you want.’
J-J closed his phone. ‘They missed her. Apparently she had no checked baggage and there’s no helicopter flight plan into Mérignac. They’ll check other airports nearby and call me back. Meanwhile I’ll have to call the Chief of Police at Bordeaux and I’d better brief the Procureur. Who’s planning to pick you up?’
‘Dr Stern, Fabiola. We’re going to see the Red Countess at the château. But you also need to know about what looks like financial fraud, using the Countess’s signature to pay for bank loans when she’s supposed to be comatose.’
‘It’s the girl who’s the priority now. Let’s get going, I can phone from the car. I’ll go with Sergeant Jules and you wait for the doctor.’
‘You’d better warn Inspector Jofflin, who’s running the search at the auberge, just in case the chopper lands there,’ Bruno said.
30
Fabiola’s old car was wheezing as it tackled the long hill leading to the ridge that overlooked the Red Château. Isabelle had been briefed, which meant the Interior Ministry could now deal with the Defence Ministry. Bruno kept his eyes on the western horizon in case a helicopter came into view.
‘I’ve worked out the identity of your private patient, or patients,’ he said.
‘I thought you might,’ Fabiola replied. ‘I’m just surprised it took you so long. And even more surprised that you thought I’d be practising medicine for money.’
‘Béatrice didn’t pay you for doing check-ups on the girls at the hotel?’
‘No, she made a donation to the abused women’s shelter in Bergerac, a very generous donation. I suppose that’s going to end now.’
Bruno shrugged. He imagined that some other defence company would soon be dispensing corporate hospitality somewhere else. They might even use Béatrice, so long as she wasn’t linked directly to the death of Athénaïs.
Fabiola parked beside the Gendarmerie van. The main door to the château was already open and Sergeant Jules was standing on the steps waiting for them, a nervous maid wringing her hands at his side.
‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle, who else is here?’ Bruno asked her.
‘Bonjour, Monsieur, the groom is in the stables and the other maid is with the Countess,’ she said. ‘Everyone else has gone.’
‘When did the Count leave?’
‘Just over an hour ago. He’d been waiting for Madame’s return and asked me to tell her he couldn’t wait any longer.’
‘Did he leave a message for her?’
‘Not with me, Monsieur.’
Bruno showed Fabiola the way to the hospital room where J-J was skimming through a file on the nurse’s table.
‘This non-qualified nurse kept decent records, I’ll give her that,’ he said, looking up as they entered. ‘What’s a proper dose for temazepam?’
‘It depends. I’d use no more than fifteen milligrams for insomnia,’ said Fabiola. ‘How many is she on?’
‘It says she’s on thirty in these notes.’
‘That’s a lot. I’ll need to see what else she’s on.’ Fabiola cast an expert eye over the array of machines against the wall as she took the Countess’s pulse. ‘It has too many side effects for my liking and it can become addictive quite quickly. I’ve seen it used in suicides. Can you see if there are any prescription bottles around? They should have the prescribing doctor’s name on the label.’
She pulled back the sheets and took out a stethoscope to listen to the Countess’s heart and then began to palpate her limbs. Bruno heard Fabiola muttering to herself about muscular atrophy, when J-J’s phone rang.
‘Where? Which airport?’ J-J said. ‘We’re near Les Eyzies. What’s the flying time to here? ’
When he rang off he looked at Bruno. ‘It seems there’s a small private airport called Souge, a few kilometres west of the main Bordeaux airport. That’s where he landed and he took off again about thirty minutes ago. He could be here in ten or fifteen minutes.’
‘His usual heliport is at the hotel,’ Bruno said. ‘But there are police all over it. If he decides to land here, do you think he’ll do so with a Gendarmerie van in the courtyard?’
‘See if you can move it under cover. Do you think he’s likely to be armed?’ J-J pulled his Manurhin revolver from a hip holster and checked the rounds. ‘What about you and Sergeant Jules?’
‘Jules has his standard PAMAS handgun. I’m unarmed.’
J-J raised his eyebrows and shrugged. ‘The last thing we want is a hostage situation.’
‘I’ll move the van.’ On the way out to the van Bruno asked Jules to look around for an envelope or message that the Count might have left for his grandmother or for Foucher. The keys of the van were in the ignition and he drove it out of the courtyard and round to the stables, where he found a barn half full of hay that was big enough to take it. He looked around the stables but could not see the white mare Eugénie had ridden, nor any sign of a groom. In a cupboard in the tack room he found a large syringe, too big for his standard evidence bag. He used two bags and took it to show Fabiola.
Back in the hospital room J-J was taking notes as he listened on his phone, and Fabiola was poring over the logbook on the nurse’s table. He put the syringe on the desk beside her and her eyes widened. J-J beckoned him across and asked whoever was on the phone to wait.
‘I’ve got Inspector Jofflin on the line,’ J-J said, beaming satisfaction. ‘The search at the hotel has got a result. They’ve identified microscopic drops of Junot’s blood in the back of that truck you found. They’ve also found Junot’s blood spots on some shoes in the room of Richard Abouard, so we’re putting out an arrest warrant for murder. Computer enhancement on the video from the déchetterie shows that Abouard was one of the two men there. And as a nice bonus, they found over a hundred grams of coke in Abouard’s room, along with his Lebanese diplomatic passport.’
‘My bet is that Foucher was the other man at the déchetterie. We’ll need that forensic team to come here and search Fou
cher’s rooms once they’re finished at the hotel,’ said Bruno, taking out his new phone to call Isabelle.
‘Jofflin is asking why this Lebanese guy would be involved.’
‘He’s a partner in the Count’s investment company,’ Bruno said as Isabelle answered her phone. Quickly he told her of the results of the search at the hotel and the arrest warrant and the expected arrival of the Count’s helicopter. A thought struck him and he asked her to hold on. He turned to J-J. ‘Did he refuel at the little airport?’
‘I don’t know, why?’ asked J-J.
‘It’s nearly three hundred kilometres there and back. If he didn’t refuel at Bordeaux he might have no choice but to put down here.’
J-J started dialling Bordeaux airport again and Bruno returned to the conversation with Isabelle. ‘Did you hear all that?’
‘Yes, got it. The Brigadier wants to know if the evidence on Abouard for the murder is really certain.’
‘It’s forensic, blood on his shoes and a video of him dumping the plastic sheet the body was wrapped in.’
‘That should do. Get copies of the forensic report and the video to me as soon as you can. Good luck and let me know if there’s anything we can do from Paris.’
‘J-J already called up reinforcements from Périgueux, some of the lads from la Jaune,’ Bruno said, using the nickname for the Gendarmes Mobiles.
‘Right, wait one moment.’ Bruno heard another voice speaking in the background and then she came back on the line. ‘The Brigadier says he’s alerted a military chopper from the base at Bordeaux to follow him and keep track. I’ll let you know when they have him on radar.’ She rang off.
Bruno went to the window, opened it the better to hear, and scanned the sky. J-J closed his phone. ‘He didn’t refuel,’ he said. ‘He boarded his chopper from an airport cab and a young woman was with him.’
‘So we know he’s got her but we don’t know how much he knows about what’s happening here, unless Foucher managed to reach him,’ said Bruno.
‘Foucher’s being kept at the Gendarmerie with the others and no phones allowed,’ said J-J.
Bruno shook his head. ‘De la Gorce was there but Foucher was allowed to leave. He could easily buy another phone.’
‘Merde, so he could have briefed the Count about the failure to entrap you.’
‘Problem is, the Count might simply say he was picking up his long-lost cousin and looking after her until the funeral,’ Bruno said. ‘All we’ve got on him is circumstantial evidence and a lot of suspicion.’
‘You’ve got a bit more than that,’ said Fabiola from the nurse’s table. ‘This old woman may or may not have Alzheimer’s but she’s been very heavily sedated for months, according to these notes. But they only date back to last year and the notebook is marked as number three, so I want to find numbers one and two. They’ve had her on chlorpromazine as well as the sedatives. That’s not treatment, it’s criminal abuse. I can find nothing physically wrong with her except for a bad case of bedsores, but she’s had no exercise and I imagine she’ll now be dependent on these drugs for the rest of her life.’
‘But it’s not murder,’ said J-J. All three of them turned to the window as the first clattering beat of a helicopter could be heard.
‘They tell me he flies a Eurocopter Colibri. It has a range of seven hundred kilometres, so he wouldn’t have needed to refuel.’
‘There are no facilities to refuel here or at the auberge, so he wouldn’t have started with a full tank,’ said Bruno, and then he saw it coming up the valley from the west at about a thousand metres but losing height as he watched. He couldn’t tell at first if the machine was heading straight for the château or not. Then the angle changed and it was heading for the far side of the river.
J-J was calling Inspector Jofflin to warn him to keep out of sight as the chopper began circling lower over the auberge, apparently preparing to land. Perhaps he was just showing the place off, because after a final circle the engine note rose and it began heading across the river towards them.
‘He’s going to land here,’ Bruno said, the noise of the rotors getting louder as it passed overhead, not much more than a hundred metres above them and circled around the château. All three of them raced across the room and into the long hall to try to keep it in sight, and then J-J groaned aloud.
‘Putain,’ he said, at the sight of Sergeant Jules, holding his képi onto his head, standing in plain sight and in full uniform in the centre of the courtyard.
‘It’s my fault, I should have told him to stay out of sight,’ said Bruno, as the engine note changed again and the chopper began to rise and soar away back towards the river.
‘What’s he telling the girl?’ Fabiola asked. ‘Is he just showing her the sights or what?’
‘How much of a warning has Foucher given him, that’s the question,’ said Bruno.
He tried to put himself in the Count’s place and think through the various options. If the fuel gauge on the chopper was nearing empty, what could the Count do? The chopper was above the hotel now but it wasn’t losing height. It was rising, following the road up to the plateau with the abandoned village and ruined chapel of St Philippon.
‘I think he’s going to try the secret tunnel and come out at the cave. Foucher could meet him with a car,’ Bruno said, thinking aloud but suddenly aware that J-J and Fabiola were staring blankly at him. Quickly, he explained the route of the secret tunnel.
‘Can you get the Gendarmes Mobiles to head for the Gouffre and block the entrances, including the basket from the roof if it’s been repaired? I can take the Gendarmerie van across the river and up to the cemetery, it’s got four-wheel drive. Then I’ll follow him through the tunnel so we seal both ends. You’d better call the Gouffre and tell them to evacuate the public.’
‘Look, I think he’s landing,’ said Fabiola, staring through the window.
‘That’s where the ruined chapel gives access to the tunnel,’ said Bruno.
‘You aren’t armed,’ said J-J. ‘I’ll come with you and we’ll bring Sergeant Jules.’
‘I have to stay with the patient,’ said Fabiola.
‘If any of them make it back here, you could be in trouble,’ J-J objected.
‘We can get reinforcements of our own,’ said Bruno, pulling out his phone and calling Montsouris to ask him to get to the Red Château to help protect the Countess as soon as he could, and to bring along some burly friends.
Collecting Jules on the way, Bruno and J-J jogged to the stables and took the van down the track to the ford across the river. J-J sat in the back, phoning in turn the Mobiles, the Gouffre, Inspector Jofflin and finally the Procureur. Bruno drove and tried to explain to Sergeant Jules along the way. They reached the ford, where the water looked to be both fast and high.
‘She’ll make it,’ said Jules, with a confidence that Bruno didn’t feel as he engaged four-wheel drive.
‘You want to get some speed up,’ said J-J from the back.
‘We don’t want a bow wave,’ Bruno replied, remembering a long-ago driving course in the military. He went into the water slowly, telling Jules to open his door so water could come in and its weight help hold them down onto the river bed. He kept the revs high and slipped the clutch to keep the exhaust clear, using his brake to hold the speed down as they went through the deepest part of the ford, water splashing over the door sill but not quite high enough to flood in. The four-wheel drive gripped and they lurched through and up onto the far bank. They picked up Inspector Jofflin in his standard police Renault as they accelerated past the hotel and up the winding road to the chapel.
‘Call Isabelle and make sure that military chopper hovers up here and keeps watch on both ends of the tunnel,’ Bruno said, fighting the heavy vehicle around the corners. ‘If Foucher gets hold of a car we want to be able to follow it.’
They saw the empty helicopter as they topped the rise, leaning slightly to one side on the sloping ground by the cemetery, its rotor blades drooping
. Bruno braked hard and stopped at the ruined chapel, waiting impatiently as Jofflin came out of his car with a uniformed policeman beside him, apologizing that they had found nowhere to hide the police cars when the Count’s chopper had first appeared.
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ said J-J, telling him to stay at the tunnel entrance and coordinate from that end. He gave Jofflin his own phone, saying all the numbers he’d need were in the memory. He checked that Jofflin had a firearm and then ordered the uniformed policeman to give his own PAMAS semi-automatic to Bruno and to hand over the torch from his car.
Bruno had already taken the torch from the Gendarmerie van and now he worked the action of the gun, remembering the manual de-cocking lever, the same as the military model he’d carried for years. He removed the magazine, squinted down the barrel with his thumbnail at the end to reflect some light in. The barrel was clean, the action smooth and there was a thin film of oil. He gave an approving nod of thanks to the cop from Bergerac. Then he remembered to warn Jofflin that he might have trouble getting a phone connection up here on the plateau, but if he went down the road he should pick up the signal that served the hotel.
‘Mine’s dead but the Commissaire’s phone has a single bar,’ Jofflin replied, looking down at the two mobiles. ‘I’ll manage.’
Bruno turned to J-J. ‘I don’t think you should come in. You’d be more useful—’
‘Don’t even try to stop me,’ snapped J-J. ‘You know the way so you lead. I’ll go second, then Jules.’
‘Just a moment, sir,’ Jules said. ‘If Inspector Jofflin calls the Gendarmerie at Les Eyzies, they might be able to get some armed men to the Gouffre entrance before the Mobiles can get there.’
‘Good idea,’ said J-J. ‘Do it. And make sure you’ve got paramedics on standby at both ends, here and at the Gouffre.’
Even as Jules made the suggestion, Bruno borrowed one of Jofflin’s phones to call Albert at the St Denis fire station to ask if he had a big fire engine free.
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