Bruno, Chief of Police

by Martin Walker

  “Don’t worry, Franc. This is about the Dutchmen and their visitor, nothing to do with you or taxes. Can you get the paperwork together with the names and addresses and all the information you have on them and I’ll be down in twenty minutes to make copies.”

  “Can you tell me what this is about, Bruno? It’s not involved with the murder of that Arab, is it?”

  “It’s just a hunch, Franc, but we’re investigating the way some drugs have been getting into the area, that’s all. Twenty minutes.”

  With Franc’s paperwork in hand, Bruno thought he had better tie up another loose end and drove on through the town to Lespinasse’s garage on the main road to Bergerac. It was a Total filling station, with gas slightly more expensive than at the supermarket but well placed for the tourist trade, and it was where Jacqueline had filled her tank. Lespinasse’s sister ran the pumps, while he, his son and a cousin tinkered happily with engines and gearboxes and bodywork in the vast hangar of their garage. It was a big local family; another cousin ran the town’s tabac.

  As always, he found Lespinasse under a car, chewing on a matchstick and singing to himself. He called out and the plump, jovial man wheeled himself out on the small board on which he lay and rolled off to greet Bruno, presenting his forearm to be shaken rather than cover Bruno’s palm with oil.

  “We saw your picture in the newspaper,” said Lespinasse. “Saw you on TV, too. You’re a celebrity. Everybody says you did a great job with those bastards.”

  “Thanks. I’m here on police business, Jean-Louis, about a credit card of one of your customers. I need to look at your fuel sales records for May tenth.”

  “The tenth? That would have been Kati’s day off, so the boy would have been running the pumps.” He looked back into the garage and whistled, and young Edouard came out, waving cheerfully. He was the image of his father but for a full set of teeth. The boy was eighteen now but he had known Bruno ever since he’d first learned to play rugby, so he came and kissed Bruno on both cheeks.

  “You still write down the registration numbers on the credit-card slips?” Bruno asked.

  “Always, except for the locals that we know,” said Edouard.

  Bruno gave him the number of Jacqueline’s car, and Edouard leafed through the file to the right day.

  “Here we are,” he said. “Thirty-two euros and sixty centimes at eleven-forty in the morning. Carte Bleu. I remember her, she was a real looker. Blond. When she came back she was with a bunch of guys, though.”

  “She came back?”

  “Yes, after lunch, in one of those big camper vans with a bunch of Hollanders. I filled them up. Here it is, eighty euros exactly at two-forty in the afternoon, paid with a Visa card and here’s the registration number.” Bruno checked his own list. It was one of the numbers from the campground.

  “And there were a couple of them on motorbikes at the same time and I filled them, too,” Edouard went on. “They must have paid cash. I remember asking myself what a girl like that was doing with a bunch of tough-looking guys. I saw her in the back of the van with them when the guy who paid opened the back door to get his wallet. I don’t think we saw them again, and I’d have remembered if we’d seen her.”

  “If you hadn’t given up playing tennis you might have met her at the tournament last year. She came and played at the club.”

  “Well, it was either tennis or rugby, but maybe I made the wrong choice,” said Edouard.

  21

  Bruno left the garage feeling he was making progress and went directly to see Isabelle in her temporary office above the tourist board. At her desk he laid down three thin files and said, “New evidence.”

  Isabelle, in dark trousers and a white shirt of masculine cut, was sitting pensively with a pencil in her hand and wearing earphones. She looked startled to see him at first, and then pleased. She took off the earphones and switched off a small machine, then rose and kissed him in greeting.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was listening to the tape of the last round of interrogation. J-J e-mailed it to me. You said there was new evidence?”

  “I’ve identified the missing photo,” he said. “It’s of a team called les Oraniens, who won the Maghreb League trophy in Marseilles in 1940. They were coached by a professional player named Giulio Villanova. By this evening we should have a full list of who was on that team, thanks to a sports historian who wrote a thesis on it. Here are my notes and his phone number.” He pushed out one of the files he had brought.

  “I’ve traced Jacqueline’s movements on the day in question.” He put his finger on the next file, which contained the list of Dutch names and credit-card numbers and a photocopy of the campground’s visitors’ book with Jacqueline’s registration number. It also contained the numbers of the vehicles that had left the campground while Jacqueline’s car was there.

  “We can also put Jacqueline in the company of the visiting Dutch guys for almost all of the time during which we think the murder was committed. This third file has photocopies of the credit card they used to buy diesel, and the name of an eyewitness who saw her with them, and who earlier saw her fill up her own car.”

  Isabelle poured him some of her own coffee before returning to her desk and looking through the files Bruno had brought. “So why would she not explain to us that she was simply visiting some Dutch boys at the campground?” she asked.

  “That’s what I asked myself, too. You know you thought it might be drug-related, and she was frightened of her suppliers if she talked? Well, the Dutch produce most of the Ecstasy pills. The Dutch guys at the campground came down in cars, camping vans and bikes, mainly for the motocross rally, but they stayed on. That’s not a bad cover for distributing drugs. I have a list of names here, some of them with credit-card numbers, and I thought you might want to see if any of them are known to your Dutch colleagues or to any of those Europol cooperation agencies.”

  “I’m impressed, Bruno. I’ll brief J-J and send off a report to Tavernier. We’ll need J-J’s signature to send the request to the Dutch police. I presume the Dutchmen have all left St. Denis, so they’re out of our reach?” He nodded, still standing before her desk. “You realize this could give the girl an alibi for the period when the murder was committed?”

  “Of course,” he said. “It looks as if she left her car at the campground and then went out in one of the Dutch vans. Look at the page of the visitors’ book, and the times of various vehicles coming and going while her car was there. You might want to ask the Dutch police to check whether any of those guys had connections with the extreme Right.”

  “You sure you want to remain in the Police Municipale, Bruno? We could use someone like you.”

  “Every time I see J-J he tells me how much he envies my life here.”

  “Seriously, Bruno. Why not transfer to the Police Nationale? You’re wasted here.”

  “I’m happy here, Isabelle,” he said. “I’m busy, I think I’m useful and I’m certainly not wasted. It’s a way of life that pleases me and I’ve seen enough violence and drama in my time. I like J-J, but I don’t envy him his life.”

  “You don’t want more out of life?”

  “Not now. Maybe not ever. I have enough money to live as I please. I have friends and I get satisfaction from my work. I love living here.” Bruno knew from the look on Isabelle’s face that he was not saying what she wanted to hear. “You’re able and ambitious and you want to follow your talents as far as they will take you. You like challenges. That’s your nature and I admire it,” he said.

  “But we’re different people with different priorities and our lives will take different trajectories,” said Isabelle. “That is what you’re saying. Am I right?”

  “Trajectories? Now there’s a word. Our careers will probably take different trajectories because you have that kind of drive.” He got the feeling he had suddenly been drawn into another kind of conversation altogether, where the language was strange and the meanings had shifted.

  “Drive for
what?” she said. He noticed her fingers were clenched around her pencil.

  “To get to the center of things, to fulfill your talents.”

  “You mean I want power?” She was looking almost fierce.

  “Isabelle, Isabelle. Why are we having this confrontation? You’re putting words into my mouth and I like you too much for this.” Her fingers seemed to relax on the pencil. “What I’m saying is that you’re a dynamo, Isabelle. You want to change things. I’m the kind of person who likes to keep them the same. But I’ve been through enough to know that people like you are needed, probably more than people like me. But we have our uses, too.”

  They looked at each other.

  “You promised to take me to dinner, remember?” she said.

  “Of course I remember. What would you prefer? A bistro, pizza, not very good Chinese food, more Périgord cooking? Your choice.”

  “I loved your cooking. Why don’t we do that again?”

  “You’re still free this evening?” She nodded, and smiled. “I’ll pick you up at seven. Here, or at your hotel?”

  “The hotel. I’d like to bathe and change.”

  “Okay. Don’t dress up.”

  • • •

  He had to rush. There were the final details to clear with the company that had the contract for the three firework displays of St. Denis—the June 18 event that launched the season, Bastille Day and the town’s own feast day at the end of August. The company had wanted sixty thousand euros for the three events, but with a little trimming of the display and a lot of negotiation he managed to reduce the cost to forty-eight thousand, just short of his fifty-thousand-euro budget. That meant more money for the sports-club fund. Then he had to call all the local businessmen to persuade them to take out their usual ads in the tournament brochure for the tennis club, and each had to grumble about the bad season and cancellations. But finally it was done. A tourist had lost a purse and he had to take a statement. He had to brief the mayor on the latest developments in the murder case, fend off two interview requests and check over the mayor’s deposition describing the riot. He just had time to get to the tennis club at four o’clock and change for his minimes class of five-year-olds.

  By now the kids could hold a racket, and were starting to put together the hand-eye coordination that allowed most of them to hit the ball most of the time. He lined them up at the far end of the court, and with the big wire basket of balls beside him at the net, he tossed a gentle bounce to each of the kids, who ran forward in turn to try to hit the ball back toward him. If they were lucky enough to send the ball his way, he would tap it back gently with his racket and the child was entitled to another hit. Two was usually all they could manage, but in every class there would be one or two kids who were naturals, who struck the ball surely. These were the ones he would keep his eye on. But for the young mothers, who stood watching in the shade of the plane trees, each child was a future champion, to be cheered on before hitting the ball and applauded after it. After a while, he signaled that it was time for them to start preparing the milk and cookies that ended each session of the minima.

  The kids went around ten times. They all counted carefully and knew that after three rounds there would be no more balls in the wire basket and they could scamper around the court to pick them all up and replace them. Sometimes he thought that that was the part they most enjoyed.

  He thought he saw one of the mothers still watching, but when he turned to look he noticed that it was Christine. He left the children running after the balls and then strolled across to the fence to greet her.

  “That was a wonderful dinner last night,” he began, wondering what had brought her here. She looked dressed for a walk, in strong shoes, loose slacks and a polo shirt.

  “That was Pamela’s cooking, not mine,” she said. “It’s strange after seeing you fight the way you did in the square, and here you are like every kid’s favorite uncle. You have a remarkable range of skills. I didn’t know that tennis lessons were part of your duties.”

  “It isn’t exactly a duty, more a tradition. I enjoy it. Besides which, it means I get to know every kid in the town long before they start getting to be teenagers and ripe for trouble, so that counts as crime prevention. Speaking of crime, I wanted to call you this evening. That thesis you found for me was very useful. It was exactly what I needed to track down the missing photo.”

  “Good, I’m pleased. Listen, I was just passing by and saw the courts and thought I’d take a look. I didn’t know you’d be here. But since you are, is there anything specific you’d like me to look up in Bordeaux before I leave for England? I’m going there for a couple of days on Thursday, to that Centre Jean Moulin I told you about, you remember? Resistance research.”

  He nodded. “Let me think about it and get back to you tomorrow. I don’t really know what I’m looking for. More information on Hamid, I suppose, and which group he was with before he joined the Army near Toulon in 1944. If I get the rest of the names of his team, maybe we could see if any of them crop up. And then there’s this Giulio Villanova.”

  “I think I know what to look for. I read the thesis. You’d better go to your children. You’re very good with them; you’d make quite a father.” She blew him a kiss and sauntered off slowly toward the road that led to the cave, now and then bending to pick a wildflower. He watched her for a moment, enjoying the swing of her hips. She turned and saw him, and waved. She had used the phrase “your children” and Bruno did not think it was accidental from a woman with no children herself. He waved back and went into the clubhouse to be greeted by the usual bedlam of a score of five-year-olds and as many mothers. The latter eyed him gleefully, giggling like a pack of schoolgirls as they rolled their eyes and asked about his new lady friend.

  22

  In the low light of the hotel lobby, Isabelle looked striking and almost mannish. Her hair, still wet from her shower, was slicked back from her brow, and she was dressed entirely in black: flat black shoes, black slacks and blouse, and a black leather jacket slung over one shoulder, all set off by a bold crimson suede belt at her waist.

  “You look lovely,” he said, kissing her cheeks. She had on the merest hint of eye makeup, lipstick to match her sash, and no perfume but the fresh scent of her shampoo. He led her to his van, which he had cleaned out specially, at least the front seat. As he showed her in, Gigi put his head over from the back and licked Isabelle’s ear. Bruno set off over the bridge.

  “This isn’t the way to your place,” she said.

  “We’re going to a place you probably don’t know, but you should. Relax, it’s a pretty drive.” He had thought carefully about this dinner and toyed with the idea of taking her home, but decided on balance against it. They had been together frequently enough and clearly liked one another, so there was going to be sexual tension in their evening anyway. It would be all the more loaded if they were just a few steps away from his bedroom. Isabelle, he judged, was a woman who would decide for herself whether and when and where to take a lover, and yet it would feel odd to him and probably to her if he did not make an advance on his own turf.

  He drove up the long hill past the water tower and out onto a plateau that gave the best views along the sweeping bends of the river. At a road so small it looked like a path, he turned off. They climbed another low hill, and came to the foot of a high and almost vertical cliff, where he parked on a small patch of ancient gravel, opened her door for her and then released Gigi. He took a small picnic bag from the back and she heard the tinkling of glasses.

  “I want you to meet a friend of mine,” he said. He led her up a track, around a corner and there, nestling into the base of the cliff, was a small house. It had a door and two windows, and its roof was the great rock itself. A small stream flowed from the base of the house through a gutter to tumble down the hill with a soft sound. In front of the house was a narrow terrace, with an old metal table and three chairs, and beyond it was a small vegetable garden. A black-and-white mongrel d
og was tied to a hook screwed into the doorframe, and growled when it first saw Gigi. But Bruno’s dog knew his manners and approached slowly and humbly, his tail wagging as if asking permission, and the two dogs sniffed each other courteously.

  “They’re old friends,” Bruno said. “We go hunting together.”

  The door opened and a small elderly man poked his head into the open. “Ah, Bruno,” he said, as if they had last met a few minutes ago. “Welcome, welcome, and who is your friend?”

  “Isabelle, this is Maurice Duchêne, owner and keeper of the Sorcerer’s Cave, who was born in this cliff house and has lived here all his life. Maurice, meet Inspector Isabelle Perrault of the Police Nationale, a colleague but also a good friend.”

  “I’m honored to receive you, my dear mademoiselle,” said Duchêne. He was terribly bent with age, and as he came forward to shake her hand he had to cock his head sideways to peer up at her, but Bruno noticed that his glance was almost roguish.

  “You are a real beauty, my dear. And my magnificent Gigi, prince among hunting dogs. This is a pleasure, such a pleasure.”

  “Come, sit and have a drink with us, Maurice, and then with your permission I’d like to show Isabelle the cave. And could you bring us some of your water? Isabelle is from Paris and she will never have tasted anything like it.”

  “Gladly, gladly. Sit down and I’ll be with you in a minute.” He turned and hobbled back into the house. Isabelle sat, and Bruno took a dark wine bottle with no label and three small wineglasses from his bag, and poured. Isabelle turned to look at the view, a vast sweep of the valley with trees marking the river’s meandering course and more cliffs on its far side.

  “Here we are, here we are, the finest water of mother nature and father Périgord,” said Duchêne, coming out with a tray bearing a jug of water and three tumblers that were opaque with age. “Straight from the rock, straight into my kitchen and bathroom, always running water. It never runs dry. And Bruno has brought my favorite aperitif. He makes it himself, you know, every year on Saint Catherine’s Day. This must be last year’s vintage.”