Bruno explained to Jacqueline and the mayor and then called Annette.
“I know about it,” she said as soon as she answered. “Ardouin just called me. So much for our happy dinner party.”
“Does Yves know?”
“Yes. He’s sitting beside me, shattered. He’s agreed to go to the station, and I’ll go with him. All we know is there is supposed to be new evidence. Will I see you there?”
“Yes, J-J invited me to the station. They can’t keep you on the case, not now that you’re sharing a house, so obviously I can’t talk about the new evidence. Find him a good lawyer. I’ll stay in touch.”
Bruno hung up and called first Pamela and then Gilles to explain and felt relieved when Gilles offered to take Pamela and Fabiola to dinner. Driving to Sarlat, he welcomed the time to himself so he could consider just how little he really knew of Yves. He knew that Yves was a skilled actor, able to perform and entertain at a dinner table within a day of finding his lover’s dead body. He had abundant charm, and Bruno and his friends had all warmed to him. Bruno had been touched when Yves showed him the photograph of his daughter, but that could have been a theatrical ploy to secure his sympathy.
He would have to wait until he saw the details of the new evidence. And there would be questions to answer. If Yves had driven down with his disposable phone, he hadn’t used his own car. What transport had he used? Could he have driven down earlier, parked at a station and then used the trains to get back and forth? He’d still have to provide himself with an alibi in the form of autoroute toll receipts. Bruno tried to remember exactly what Yves had said about the evening he spent at his apartment in Paris. And if he had followed Fullerton down to the Périgord and killed him, then he’d have needed to clean up and change. Where had he done that? The forensics team had been sure nobody had stayed at the gîte since Dougal’s employees had cleaned it.
As he navigated the series of roundabouts that led into Sarlat, Bruno concluded that even if Yves had been lying, that didn’t mean he had to have been the killer, though it made him into a top suspect along with Paul Murcoing. Could they somehow have been in it together?
Bruno usually enjoyed being in Sarlat, a town where he half expected to walk into a film crew making yet another version of The Three Musketeers. The set designers might need to tidy up a few shop fronts and remove the chairs from a few café terraces, but otherwise they wouldn’t have to change a thing. The town had been preserved as if in aspic since the sixteenth century, a glorious jumble of medieval houses and narrow alleyways, dark tunnels and grand Renaissance town houses, all built around a monastery and an abbey that dated back to Charlemagne’s time. Sarlat was the capital of the Périgord Noir and one of the most visited towns in France; Bruno never tired of wandering its cobbled streets when he went to the movies with Pamela and Fabiola. Like Annette, they were passionate about film, and Annette’s decision to settle in Sarlat had made their own visits more frequent.
This was a more somber visit. When Bruno arrived at the town’s subprefecture, which housed the commissariat of police, Ardouin was already questioning Yves. J-J and Yveline were side by side at the desk normally used by the duty officer and going through the file of her research.
“Valentoux lied about being in his apartment that evening,” she said, flashing Bruno a triumphant smile. “I checked his landline records with France Télécom, and he got two calls that he didn’t answer. I tried the number, and it was an actress he knew. She wanted him to engage her for the festival here. He didn’t reply, so it looks as if he wasn’t home.”
Bruno nodded. “Maybe she was someone he was trying to avoid. What does he say about the disposable phone he bought?”
“He hasn’t said anything to us. He said he’d wait until he spoke to the magistrate.”
“What was the timing on those two phone calls?”
“The first was seven-twenty, the second at seven twenty-four,” she replied.
“So he could have gone out to buy a paper or some cigarettes, something so routine it could have slipped his mind.”
“It’s possible,” J-J said. “But when he was being questioned for murder, I would think he’d have remembered. And then there’s the disposable phone. Anyway, it’s up to Ardouin now. I’ve ordered some pizzas; I think it could be a long night.”
J-J pushed the file across to Bruno, who reviewed the cell-phone-tracking report. The scan had started at noon at Villejuif, just south of Paris, on the day of the murder. Then the phone had followed the Aquitaine autoroute through Orléans and Limoges. The tracking had stopped at six in the evening when the location was St. Denis.
“Do we have any more data for before noon and after six?” Bruno asked.
“I just picked those as the relevant times,” Yveline replied.
“Were any calls made or received on the phone?”
“There was a call to a St. Denis number and another to a disposable phone somewhere in Bergerac, but we don’t know who owns it. I’ve asked France Télécom to let us have the records of the number, but they can’t do that until Monday.”
“Do we know whom he called in St. Denis?”
“Delightful Dordogne, a rental agency. That’s all we’ve got.”
Bruno asked himself why Yves would be calling Dougal’s agency when Fullerton had been making the arrangements.
“Can we get some more tracking on the phone, before noon and after six?” he asked.
“What’s the point?”
“If Valentoux was the killer, we need to know how he faked his alibi with the autoroute tolls. The phone tracking could tell us that.”
“That makes sense,” said J-J and asked Yveline to see to it. The pizzas arrived as she was on the line to France Télécom, and Bruno took some slices in to Ardouin and Yves, who looked relieved to see him.
“Monsieur Valentoux says he bought the disposable phone when shopping for groceries with his friend Fullerton when they were together in Paris,” Ardouin said. “It seems Fullerton had wanted one because he didn’t want to pay the roaming charges on his English phone. Did you find any such phone among his possessions or in his van?”
“No. But we didn’t know we should be looking for one. We didn’t go through everything.”
“Monsieur Valentoux also insists he was home on the evening in question but might have gone out briefly to buy cigarettes at a local tabac on the avenue Mathurin Moreau, where he says they know him,” Ardouin continued. “They may be able to confirm this. Could you call them, please, and check?”
“It’s called the Café Moreau,” Yves added. “I always buy my cigarettes there.”
Bruno left the room, found the number of the café and called it. A woman answered, and he introduced himself and explained his business.
“I remember Yves bought a lottery ticket early in the week because he said he was leaving Paris the next day. He bought a couple of extra packs of cigarettes for the journey,” the woman said. “But I can’t remember whether it was Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. If he still has his ticket, it should give the date and time.”
Bruno thanked her, put the phone down and knocked on the interview room door. Ardouin told him to enter, and Bruno asked Yves if he still had his lottery ticket. He opened his wallet and handed Bruno the ticket.
“Purchased at Café Moreau in Paris on the third, that’s Tuesday evening, at seven twenty-four,” Bruno read aloud. He scribbled down the number and handed the ticket to Ardouin. “The woman in the café remembers selling it to him along with some cigarettes. And that would explain why he didn’t answer his phone.”
Ardouin nodded and closed the file before him. “So your story holds up, Monsieur Valentoux. One of those rare occasions when cigarettes may actually have done you some good.”
The whole St. Denis contingent had gathered at Pamela’s place for an impromptu meal of Fabiola’s risotto. The mayor had brought wine and two cans of his own pâté, and Pamela contributed salad from her garden and cheese. After calling to
see where they had all gone, Bruno was able to join them in time for coffee and relate the dramas of the evening.
“So you’re back looking for Paul Murcoing,” said Pamela when his tale was complete and a toast drunk to Yves’s release.
“Well, I am,” said Bruno. “He was the last person we can place at the murder scene, so we have to talk to him even if the procureur says the evidence against Murcoing is only circumstantial and there’s no obvious motive. Yveline still suspects Valentoux, and J-J wants to start looking at other antiques dealers who might have had a motive to kill Fullerton.”
“Maybe there’s an English connection, somebody living here who knew him,” Pamela suggested.
She was looking well, the pallor of a Scottish winter beginning to give way to the beginnings of a tan, her bronze hair piled loosely atop her head to display her long neck and the emerald earrings that suited her. She was wearing a pale blue blouse of heavy silk over perfectly cut jeans. Bruno smiled, enjoying the look of her, the clear skin and bold eyes, the shape of her neck and the delicate scent of her hair. She returned his gaze, a fondness in her eyes, and placed her hand on his where it rested on the table. That was unusual; Pamela seldom showed her affection in public.
His attention was distracted by sounds of argument from the other side of the table, where Gilles and Jacqueline had been locked in discussion. Distracted by the events of the evening, Bruno had forgotten that Jacqueline wanted him to help promote her story in Paris Match.
“Bruno, could you explain to Jacqueline that I’m not a little clockwork toy that can be wound up and sent marching away and then turned off?” Gilles said, filling his glass with wine. “There’s a big story here, but all I’m getting is hints about nuclear strategy and warnings not to make a big sensation. You know I can’t work like that.”
“I’m just saying that I don’t want my work to be overinterpreted,” said Jacqueline crisply. “This is a serious matter.”
“I’ve known Gilles a long time, and I trust him,” Bruno replied. “Why not show him that draft you showed me earlier and then explain how you would like the story to emerge? He knows more about the way the media works than anybody else here, and I’d like to hear his views.”
Giving Bruno a dubious look, Jacqueline shrugged, took the folded typescript from her bag and passed it to Gilles. He pulled a candelabra closer, put on a pair of reading glasses and began to study it closely.
“Lousy lede,” he muttered, and Jacqueline’s lips tightened. This was not going well. Bruno helped himself to some cheese and bread. Gilles finished reading, took his glasses off and handed back the typescript.
“This is based on your book, which won’t be published in the U.S. until later this year. Is that right?” Gilles waited for Jacqueline’s nod of agreement. “But you want to get the facts out now because you’re worried that the government wants the story suppressed, and you think the French people have a right to know how they’ve been lied to for forty years about our precious force de frappe, how that nuclear arsenal isn’t really ours, it comes courtesy of the Americans, just like Britain’s. The technology for our missiles, our guidance system, our warheads, our test sites, even the triggers for the bomb itself, all come from the U.S.A. although we have been proclaiming for decades that we are independent. In return for this, our president agreed to modify French foreign policy. And you want me to run a vague little teaser piece in Paris Match to build up interest before you run this as an op-ed piece in Le Monde. Am I right so far?”
“Yes,” said Jacqueline in a clipped voice.
Gilles put his hands together, looked from Jacqueline to Bruno and back again. “And in return for running this teaser, rather than getting the credit for breaking what could be one of the stories of the year, all I get is the offer to write a nice soft feature with a full-color photo about this intriguing Franco-American historian who’s blowing the whistle on one of the biggest strategic secrets of the Fifth Republic. It doesn’t sound to me like a good deal.”
“I could let you have some of the documents to publish, but I’d also insist on approving whatever you write,” Jacqueline said stiffly, sitting back and folding her arms. The body language between her and Gilles was verging on hostile. “I have transcripts of Kissinger’s meetings, including his jokes about France having the world’s worst nuclear program. All of it is headed ‘Top Secret.’”
“Let me explain my problem,” Gilles said, leaning back and sipping at his drink. “I go to my editor who looks at me like I’m an idiot and wants to know why we don’t keep the story to ourselves and screw Le Monde. That’s what I’d be asking, in his shoes.”
“You would get an exclusive on the documents,” said Bruno, before Jacqueline could respond. From the way she was bristling, he was sure she was about to make some cutting remark about Paris Match not being taken as seriously as Le Monde, which would only make matters worse.
“The documents have been declassified,” Gilles replied. “That means we could get our U.S. correspondent to hire a history graduate student tomorrow and tell him to go to the Nixon Library first thing Monday morning and find them.”
“What might help you persuade your editor to do it our way?” Bruno asked.
“What else have you got?”
“Another story altogether. Have you ever heard of the great train robbery and the mystery of the Resistance billions?”
19
Bruno woke to the smell of coffee, a tongue licking briskly at his ears and the weight of a soft, squirming basset puppy on his chest. He opened his eyes, moved Balzac’s rump out of the way and saw Pamela, already dressed in riding clothes, standing by the bed with a tray.
“Breakfast in bed, what a treat,” he said, wriggling his way upright. She put the tray on his lap, plumped up the pillows on her side of the bed to sit beside him and took hold of Balzac before the puppy could attack the croissants. They were still hot from the bakery; she must have gone to town for them. There was also orange juice for him and a bowl of Stéphane’s thick yogurt and a banana for her. Balzac turned to lie on his back, legs pedaling the air. The pads on his paws were already starting to darken from the pink of puppyhood but his tummy was a lovely soft rose color.
Bruno scratched Balzac’s belly and looked out of Pamela’s window at the sky, bright with a few high streaks of cirrus; it promised to be a fine day. He glanced at his watch, almost nine. It was Sunday, so there was no pressure. The others had left the night before around midnight, and he and Pamela had said good night to Fabiola and taken Balzac into Hector’s stall so he could sleep beside his friend the gelding. Then they had stood awhile, Pamela leaning her back against him as they looked at the vast reach of the stars against the clear night sky. When he began to kiss her neck, she’d unpinned her hair to let it float down around his head, turned to kiss him properly and then taken his hand to lead him to her bed.
“Thank you for this,” he said, gesturing at the tray. “And thank you for last night. I feel wonderful.”
“You know, there was a moment last night when I thought Gilles might be staying the night with Fabiola,” she said. “They lingered together over coffee and exchanged what my mother would have called meaningful looks.”
“You mean like the looks I was giving you?” He took her hand and raised it to his lips.
“No, you knew exactly what would be coming next. And so did I. But they didn’t. The looks were exploratory, aware of possibilities in one another, looks full of uncertainty about how the evening might end. It was quite romantic, just watching them. Maybe she’s finally ready to have an affair, but I don’t think she’s yet made up her mind about him.”
“Gilles is a good guy, she could do a lot worse.”
“He’s a few years older than her, which might not be a bad thing,” Pamela said. “And he’s a bit plump. But she could always shape him up. I’m sure he lives on pizzas and sandwiches in Paris, and he probably drinks too much.”
“You sound like you’re planning the
wedding and thinking about names for their first child,” he said, surreptitiously giving Balzac the final bite of his croissant as Pamela stared up at the ceiling.
“I saw that, and you’d better be sure he leaves no crumbs in the bed,” she said, turning onto her side to face him and putting a hand on his bare chest. Her face bore a serious look. “Do you think Fabiola’s happy?”
“She seems to be. She’s got an interesting job, earns more money than me, has lots of friends, horses to ride, and she’s passionate about that women’s shelter in Bergerac she volunteers at.”
“Does it worry you that she earns more than you do?”
“No, because I don’t spend the money I do earn. I get my food for free from the garden or hunting or cheaply from my farming friends. My uniforms are free, so I don’t spend much on clothes. The mairie pays for my gas and my phone bills. I don’t owe a penny on my house, I have a wonderful horse, and I have some good wine in my cellar. Other than raffle tickets at the tennis club, I don’t gamble, and I just spent the night with a beautiful woman who brings me hot croissants in bed. All that makes me the richest man in St. Denis.”
“I’m happy to hear that.” She paused. “Do you think Fabiola’s attractive? She’s so sensitive about that scar.”
“I think she’s very attractive with a lovely figure, and that scar’s not prominent, and it’s the kind of feature that makes a man look twice, curious about how she got it. When she says it was a mountaineering accident, it’s like she’s handed him a rope. Once he starts talking to her about where she’s climbed and why she likes it, then he’ll realize what an interesting, intelligent woman she is, aside from being a doctor. Plus she makes a great risotto, and those fondues of hers are irresistible.”
“But that’s the thing. Intelligent women make men nervous. Maybe that’s why she’s started learning to cook.”
“You don’t make me nervous.” He kissed her hand again.
She gave him a playful slap and said, “Time to get out of bed. The horses need riding. I’ll go and see if Fabiola’s awake while you get dressed. See you in the stable.” She kissed him on the forehead and headed for the stairs. As his eyes followed her appreciatively, he was sure she was putting a deliberate extra wiggle in her hips.
The Resistance Man Page 16