Bruno, Chief of Police

by Martin Walker

  Bruno dutifully obeyed, and as Pamela lifted the first slice of pastry he took a deep breath, savoring the rich and meaty aroma. “Magnifique” he said, peering into the pie. “Why so dark?”

  “Black stout,” said Pamela. “I would normally use Guinness, but that’s Irish, so I used an English version. And beefsteak and kidneys, some onions and a little garlic.” She piled Bruno’s plate high, then Christine served the peas and carrots. Pamela poured the wine and sat back to observe his reaction.

  He took a small cube of meat from the rich sauce and then tried a piece of kidney. Excellent. The pastry was light and crumbly and infused with the taste of the meat. The young peas in their pods were cooked to perfection and the carrots were equally right. It was wonderful food, solid and traditional, like something a French grandmother might have prepared. He sniffed the wine, enjoying the fruity bouquet, and twirled the glass in the candlelight, watching the crown where the wine fell away from the sides of the glass as it leveled. He took a sip. It was heavier than he had expected, unlike a red Gamay from the Loire, which was his only experience of red wine grown that far to the north. It had a pleasantly solid aftertaste—a good wine, reminding him slightly of a Burgundy, and with the body to balance the meat on his plate. He laid down his knife and fork, took up his glass, sipped again and then looked at the two women.

  “I take back everything I’ve said about English food. So long as you prepare it, Pamela, I’ll eat any English food you put before me. And this pie, you must tell me how to make it. It’s not a kind of dish we know in French cuisine.”

  “Yes!” exclaimed Christine, and to his surprise, the Englishwomen raised their right hands, palms forward, and slapped them together in celebration. A curious English custom, he presumed, smiling at them and addressing himself once more to his Cornwall wine.

  The salad, the ingredients again from Pamela’s garden, was excellent and fresh, although crisp lettuce mixed with roquette did not seem particularly English to Bruno. But the cheese, a fat cylinder of Stilton brought from England by Christine, was rich and splendid. Finally, Pamela served ice cream she had made with her own strawberries, and Bruno confessed himself full, and wholly converted to English food.

  “So why do you keep this a secret?” he asked. “Why do you serve such bad food most of the time in England, and why is its reputation so terrible?”

  “You explain your theory, Christine, while I get the finale,” said Pamela.

  “I think it’s that Britain was the first country to experience both the agricultural and the industrial revolutions of the eighteenth century, and they very nearly destroyed the peasantry. Small farming was replaced by sheep farming because the sheep needed less care, just as better plows and farming techniques needed less labor and more investment. So small farmers and farm laborers were pushed off the land, while the new factories needed workers. Britain became an urban, industrial country very fast, and the mass urban markets needed foods that could be easily transported and stored and quickly prepared because so many women were working in the mills and factories. Then the new farmlands of North America and Argentina were opened, and with its doctrine of free trade Britain found its own farmers beaten on price and became a massive importer of cheap foreign food. It came in the form of tinned meat and mass-produced breads. And this happened just as the old traditions of peasant cooking that were handed down through the generations were disappearing, because families dispersed into the new industrial housing.”

  “Some would say that similar forces are at work now in France,” Bruno said. He turned to Pamela, who brought to the table a small tray with a large dark bottle, a jug of water and three small glasses.

  “I agree with all that Christine says about the history,” Pamela said. “But World War II and rationing, which continued for nearly ten years after the war, made everything worse. After depending so long on cheap imported food, Britain was nearly starved by the German submarine campaign. People were limited to one egg a week, and hardly any meat or bacon or imported fruits. Even the tradition of better cooking in restaurants nearly died because there was a very low limit on how much they could charge for a meal. It took a generation to recover and to get people traveling again and enjoying foreign food, and to have the money to go to restaurants and buy cookbooks.”

  She lifted the dark bottle off the tray. “And now I want you to try this as your digestif instead of Cognac. It’s a Scotch malt whisky, which is to ordinary whisky what a great château wine is to vin ordinaire. This one is called Lagavulin, and it comes from the island where my grandmother was born; it has a taste of peat and the sea.”

  “You sip it like Cognac?”

  “My father brought me up to sniff it first, a really long sniff, then to take the tiniest sip and roll it around your mouth until it evaporates, and then take a deep breath through your mouth so you feel the flavor all down your throat. Then you take a proper sip.”

  “It feels warm all the way down,” said Bruno, after taking his deep breath. “That’s very good,” he said, after a long sip. “The smoky taste is very unusual, but very satisfying, especially after a wonderful meal and great conversation. Thank you both.”

  He raised his glass to them, trying to decide which of the two he found the more attractive.

  “So let me sum up,” he said, “by asking whether I’ve really had English cuisine this evening?” Pamela looked puzzled. “I’ve had Scotch malt whisky and Scotch salmon, wine from Cornwall, French beef and French kidney, French salad and vegetables and strawberries, and French-style Champagne that was made in England. The only wholly English part of this meal was the cheese. And it was all wonderfully cooked by an Englishwoman who lives in the Périgord.”

  He raised his glass to them both as they smiled at him. “And now I have the challenge of deciding what I can serve that will be half as good when you come to dine with me.”

  20

  With the taste of the whisky still lingering pleasantly in his mouth, Bruno cruised to a halt at the end of Pamela’s driveway. He took out his mobile phone and checked the time. Just after ten-thirty. Not too late. He called his friend Jean-Luc. A woman’s voice answered.

  “Francine, it’s Bruno. Are they out tonight?” “Hi, Bruno. You’d better take care. Captain Duroc has the boys out just about every night these days. The bastard wants to break the record for drunk-driving arrests. Hold on, I’ll get Jean-Luc.”

  “Out drinking again, Bruno?” said his friend, his voice a little blurred with wine. “You ought to set a better example. Yes, Duroc sent some of us out again. He had me and Vorin on the Périgueux road last night, and he took the road junction that goes off to Les Eyzies—with Françoise. I think he likes her but she can’t stand him. Neither can any of us. He’s got us on alternate night shifts and we’re all getting fed up with him. I tell you what. Young Jacques is out on patrol tonight. I’ll call him and see where he’s stationed and call you back.”

  Bruno waited and let his thoughts linger on the two women with whom he’d spent the evening. Christine was conventionally pretty, a dark-eyed brunette of the kind he always liked, and her liveliness and quick intelligence made her seem somehow familiar. Aside from her accent, she could almost be French. But Pamela was different, handsome rather than pretty, and with that wide and graceful stride of hers and her upright posture and strong nose, she could only be English. There was something rather fine about her, though, he reflected. She was serene and self-confident, a woman out of the ordinary, and a very good cook. He was already thinking what he should cook for them. They had probably had more than enough Périgord cuisine, and he had, too, of late, so he could forget the tourain soup, the foie gras and the various ways with duck. But he still had some truffles stored in oil. A risotto with truffles and mushrooms would be interesting.

  His phone rang, jolting him out of his reverie. “Bruno, it’s Jean-Luc. I rang Jacques and he’s on the bridge. He said Duroc has gone out to the junction at Les Eyzies again. Apparently he found
good pickings there. Where are you? Up near the cave? Well, you could come back by the bridge and give a wave to Jacques as you pass, he knows your car. Or you could go around by the water tower and have a clear run home.”

  “Thanks, Jean-Luc. I owe you a beer.”

  He took the long way home, past the water tower. If only Duroc knew! The man had a lot to learn about rural France. And other things, too, like Françoise, a plumpish blonde from Alsace with a sweet face and generous hips, who was said to have a small tattoo on her rump. The other gendarmes speculated that it might be a spider or a cross, a heart or a boyfriend’s name. Bruno’s bet was a cockerel, the symbol of France. Nobody had yet claimed the prize. Bruno hoped it would not be Duroc who succeeded, although perhaps an affair was just what Duroc needed. But the man went so carefully by the book that he would never break the strict gendarmerie rule against romantic attachments with junior ranks. Or would he? If the others suspected he was stricken with Françoise, he was getting into risky territory already. Bruno filed the thought away as his car climbed the hill to his cottage. Turning the corner, he saw faithful Gigi sitting guard at his door.

  He took the printout of the thesis with him to bed, turning first to the back for the chapter headings, and frowning slightly as he saw there was no index. This could take longer than he thought, but there was an entire chapter on Marseilles and the Maghreb League, which from its name was presumably composed of teams and players from North Africa. He lay back and began to read, or at least he tried to. The first two pages were devoted entirely to what previous scholars had written about North African life in Marseilles and about the theory of sports integration. When he had read one paragraph three times, he thought he understood it to say that integration took place when teams of different ethnic groups played one another. Why didn’t the man say so more clearly?

  He battled on. The Maghreb League had been founded in 1937, the year after Léon Blum’s Popular Front government came to power with its commitment to social welfare, paid holidays and the forty-hour week. Blum had been Jewish and a socialist, Bruno knew, and his government depended on communist votes.

  The Maghreb League was one of several sporting organizations that had been started by a group of social workers employed by Blum’s Ministry of Youth and Sport. There was also a Catholic Youth League, a Young Socialists League, a Ligue des Syndicats for the labor unions and even an Italian League because southeast France from Nice to the Italian border had been part of the Italian duchy of Savoy until 1860. Then the Emperor Louis Napoleon had taken the land as his reward for going to war against Austria in support of a unified Italy. But the Young Catholics, Young Socialists and young trade-union members did not want to play against the North Africans, Bruno read. Only the Italians agreed to play them and this was encouraged by the Ministry of Sport as a way to integrate both minorities. Bruno was happy things had changed. The French national soccer team that won the World Cup in 1998 was captained by Zinedine Zidane, a Frenchman from North Africa. Even the young sportsmen of St. Denis had grown out of this nonsense and played happily with blacks, browns and even young English boys.

  The Maghrebians were enthusiastic players but not very skillful, and invariably lost to the teams of young Italians. So, in the interests of getting better games, the Italians offered to help the North Africans with some coaching. Very decent of them, thought Bruno. And the main coach for the Italian League was a player for the Marseilles team called Giulio Villanova.

  Bruno sat up in bed. Villanova was the name of the man that Momu had remembered. This was Momu’s father’s team! Bruno read on avidly. In those days of amateur teams before soccer players could dream of commanding the fantastic salaries they earned these days, Villanova was happy to coach the Maghreb League in return for a modest wage from the sports ministry.

  Under Villanova’s coaching, the Maghreb teams became better and better, and some of them began to win matches. The best team of all was the Oraniens, who won their league championship in March 1940, just before the German invasion that led to France’s defeat in June and the end of organized sports for the young North Africans. The chapter went on to analyze the possibility that, had the war not intervened, the success of the Oraniens and the Maghreb League might have secured them the chance to play the Catholic and socialist youth and thus begin the process of assimilation.

  But Villanova, the social workers and the players over the age of eighteen had already been conscripted into the Army. The young Arabs that were left began to play among themselves informally and the Maghreb League collapsed. Bruno thumbed quickly through the rest of the thesis, looking for photos or lists of the players’ names or more references to the Oraniens or Villanova, but there was nothing. Still, he had the phone number of the author, and that was a lead to be followed up in the morning. Well fed, happy with finding the name of Hamid’s team and deeply satisfied at having evaded Duroc’s trap for motorists, Bruno turned out his lamp.

  Bruno called the author of the thesis as soon as he got to his office in the morning. The young teacher of social history at Montpellier University was delighted that his thesis turned out to have been useful to someone other than himself and his teaching career, and declared himself eager to help. Bruno explained that he was involved in a murder investigation following the death of an elderly North African named Hamid al-Bakr, who had kept on his wall a photograph of a soccer team dated 1940. The police were very interested to learn more about this, he said. The victim’s son believed that his father had played on that team and had been coached by Villanova, and since the victim had been holding the ball when the photo was taken, he was either the captain or the star of the team. Was there any more information?

  “Well, I think I have a list of team names somewhere,” said the teacher. “I wanted to check whether any of the players became famous after the war, but none of them seemed to make it into the professional teams in France. They may have done so in North Africa, but I had no funds to do my research over there.”

  “Can you find the team list for the Oraniens, the champions in 1940? And might you have any team photos?” Bruno asked. “Or anything more on Villanova—that seems the only name we have.”

  “I’ll have to check, but it won’t be until I get home this evening. My research notes are stored there and I have to teach all day. I do have some photos, but I’m not sure if they’d be relevant. I’ll check. And Villanova seems to have dropped out of sporting life during the war. He doesn’t reappear on any team lists that I came across, nor at the sports ministry when it reopened in 1945. I’ll call you back this evening, if that’s okay.”

  Bruno gave him his home and fax numbers, told him to leave a message and hung up, hopeful but cautious. He looked forward to sharing the news with Isabelle. The inquiry had made little real progress that Bruno knew of. The tire tracks had matched, but only confirmed what they already knew, that both young Gelletreau and Jacqueline had been in the clearing in the woods overlooking Hamid’s house. A second forensic sweep of the clearing had failed to produce any new evidence that could break their story. There was still Jacqueline’s lie about being in St. Denis on the day of the killing. She claimed that she had simply come to pick up Richard to take him back to her house, but that rang false. Playing truant from his lycée, Richard would have stayed at her home in Lalinde. He had firmly denied being in St. Denis at all that day. Even when confronted with Richard’s testimony, Jacqueline stuck to her story. J-J and Isabelle assumed that her visit to St. Denis probably had something to do with the drugs, making a pickup or a delivery, and that she was more frightened of the drug dealers than she was of the police.

  Bruno knew that most of the Ecstasy pills in Europe were said to come from Holland. Why hadn’t he thought of that sooner? He picked up the phone and called Franc Duhamel at the big campground on the river bend below the town.

  “Bonjour, Franc, it’s Bruno and I have a question for you. Didn’t you mention in the mayor’s office the other day that you had some Dutch
guys who stayed at your place for the motocross rally? How long did they stay?”

  “They were here the whole week. They came down late Friday night, stayed the week and went back the next Sunday. There were about thirty of them, a couple of those big camping vans, a couple of cars and the rest on motorbikes. Then we also had some of the teams that were competing, so I was nearly full that weekend. It was just what I needed.”

  “Franc, I know you have that wooden pole across the entrance and a night watchman, but do you run security during the day? Do you take note of car registration numbers and all that?”

  “Sure. The insurance requires it. Every vehicle that comes in gets recorded in the book.”

  “Even visitors, even local cars from around here?”

  “Everybody. Visitors, delivery trucks, even you.”

  “Do me a favor. Look up the visitors’ book for May tenth, and see if you have a listing for a local car with a twenty-four registration.” He gave Franc the number of Jacqueline’s car, and waited, listening to the rustling of pages.

  “Hello, Bruno? Yes, I found it. The car came in at twelve and left at three-thirty. It looks like whoever it was they came for a good lunch.”

  “Any idea who was driving the car, or whom they visited?”

  “No, just the number.”

  “Do you have the names of the Dutchmen who were staying with you?”

  “Yes. Names, addresses, car and bike registrations, and some credit cards. Mostly they paid cash, but some paid with cards.” Franc spoke hesitantly, and Bruno smiled to himself at Franc’s new dilemma, whether he would now have to declare to the tax man even the cash income he had taken from the Dutchmen.