The Crowded Grave

by Martin Walker

  “Is this how you usually work?” Carlos asked, after leaving his rented car at the hotel in Campagne and squeezing his long legs into the modest space of Bruno’s police car.

  “Depends what you call work,” Bruno said. “My job is to take care of local matters that don’t need the Police Nationale or the gendarmes. It’s better when we can settle things among ourselves. That’s the way Joe taught me to operate, and it seems to work. We’ll start with him because he knows everybody.”

  Joe’s farmhouse was in a small hamlet just beyond the outskirts of St. Denis. Over the years, he had converted some of the barns and outbuildings into houses for his children and his nieces and nephews, the children of his elder brother who had died in the Algerian War. Now well into his seventies, Joe still tended the largest vegetable garden in the district and a small vineyard, while his wife ran a modest clothing store in St. Denis.

  Bruno led the way into the familiar courtyard with the long table where Joe held court at the obligatory Sunday lunch for his extended family and whichever friends he happened to meet and invite at the Saturday market. Joe’s elderly hunting dog, Coco, stirred from dreams of rabbits to sniff Bruno’s trousers and give his hand an amiable lick. Bruno tapped the small iron bell that hung from the side of the kitchen door and let himself in, smelling the woodsmoke from the fire that Joe kept burning until the first of May. White haired but spry, Joe put down his pipe and looked up from his examination of a seed catalog to greet his successor and to shake hands with Carlos.

  “There was one Basque family, but they moved off to Argentina or somewhere just after the war. I can think of only two families that still speak of being Spanish in anything but the most sentimental way,” said Joe, once Bruno had explained the reason for the visit. “And the youngest one left in the Garza family is almost as old as me.”

  “ ‘Garza’ is a Gallego name,” said Carlos. “They come from Galicia in the far northwest. Even without the age factor, they’re not likely to be involved with Basque affairs. How about the other family?”

  “The Longorias,” said Joe, pouring out three glasses of his vin de noix without asking if anyone wanted a drink. He reached into a sideboard behind him and pulled out a bowl of olives and another of nuts. “I don’t know where they came from, but they’re proud of what their family did in the civil war. Anarchists, if I remember right. When I was a kid they told stories of how they used to be miners and used sticks of dynamite instead of hand grenades.”

  “Dinamiteros, they were called, from Asturias,” said Carlos. “They were the shock troops of the Republic. But again, they’re not Basques.”

  “When they settled here they started as farm laborers and fruit pickers. Now they’re plumbers with a nice little business in central heating,” Joe said. “They call it Lebrun, because they married into the family firm, but the father and his sons still use ‘Longoria’ as their middle name. The old granddad and his brother died years ago, and the brother’s kids moved to Lorraine after the war to get jobs in the mines. Big in the Resistance, both of them, and lifelong Communists, even when they had their own business. The young ones, it’s just business. You know Lebrun, Bruno. He was on the council a few years ago, called himself a Gaullist. His little sister was the radical, the one that went into TV in Paris.”

  “Any of them still got family they visit back in Spain?” Carlos asked.

  “Not the Spaniards, not that I know of. The Portuguese, now, they’re different, always going home and saving money to build houses back home. They still call it home, some of them. But the Spaniards, at least the ones around here, were determined to make themselves French as soon as they could.”

  “Any names that you recognize?” asked Carlos, handing across the list that he and Bruno had looked at earlier.

  “This is a good one, Joe,” said Bruno, raising his glass as Joe went through the names. “What year is it?”

  “The ’99, a good hot April and May so I picked the walnuts early, first week of June. And I had that eau-de-vie from all those peaches we had the previous year, so I cut down on the sugar. I’ve still got a few bottles left.” He looked up at Carlos and handed back the list. “There’s nothing here worth bothering about.”

  “Is there anybody else you’ve heard of, maybe outside this immediate region, who still talks about Spain and politics?”

  “Just that old comrades’ group from the civil war that used to meet in Périgueux every year, sometime around the end of March. I think it was the anniversary of the fall of Madrid. The old Lebrun brothers used to go. But I haven’t even heard about that in twenty years.” Joe paused. “It’s a long time ago.”

  “Not for some of them,” Carlos said, “the ones with long memories who think it was less to do with Franco than with Spanish domination.”

  Very long memories indeed, thought Bruno, doing the math in his head. Anybody who’d fought in the Spanish Civil War would be in his nineties by now. And modern Spain had been a democracy for as long as Bruno could remember. He sipped at his drink, wondering what made people into militant separatists in a democracy. In France maybe there were still a few hotheads left in Corsica and maybe one or two in Brittany, but mostly it was about dressing up in regional costumes, reenacting folk dances and publishing poems in languages that fewer and fewer people spoke.

  “The only person I ever heard talking about Basques around here was Anita, that schoolteacher who came from Perpignan. You remember her, Bruno, she taught at the infants’ school and then lived with Jan the blacksmith, the Danish guy. She used to talk about Basques and Bretons and Rwanda and Kosovo and I don’t know where else. She was a great one for causes.”

  “There was some talk of Breton militants having links with ETA,” said Carlos, perking up.

  “Not this one,” said Joe. “She wasn’t so much a leftie, more on the environment and human rights and getting up petitions for political prisoners all over the place. Died of breast cancer, must be four or five years ago. She was a nice woman, all the kids liked her.”

  He held up the bottle, offering another glass. Bruno shook his head, and Carlos followed his lead and rose, thanking Joe for his time. As they left, Joe poured himself another glass and went back to his seed catalog. In the courtyard, his dog opened a single, watchful eye as the visitors walked past him, and then he went back to sleep.

  After three useless visits to families who had almost forgotten their Spanish roots, Bruno dropped Carlos at his hotel and drove to the rugby stadium. Some thirty or so young men, the first and second teams and reserves, were trotting back and forth on the field, warming up. Teddy was jogging alongside Laurent from the post office, the tallest man on the St. Denis team and a line-out specialist. The baron rose from his perch alongside some cronies and joined Bruno in the dressing room to watch him slip into a tracksuit and trainers.

  “Where’s the girl?” Bruno asked.

  “She’s been asleep all afternoon. Best thing for her,” the baron replied. “Your Welshman looks useful. He borrowed a spare pair of cleats from Laurent, the only feet big enough to fit him.”

  “No word from the farmhouse?”

  “Nothing. I called just before we left, and all was quiet. Pouillon has gone home, but he’s arranged a meeting with the new magistrate in Sarlat tomorrow.”

  Bruno waved at the group of small boys from his rugby class who were practicing placekicks behind the posts, ran onto the field and caught up with Teddy and Laurent. He scrimmaged for the pleasure of it and the camaraderie of the club. In games, he was lineman and sometimes a referee. Nearly ten years older than the oldest member of the first team, he only played at this level in emergencies.

  “It’s good to be on a rugby field again,” Teddy said, panting. “I thought I’d be waiting until next season. Laurent here says there’ll be a practice game.”

  “Papi Vallon is running this session,” Laurent said as a whistle blew. “He always likes a practice game, and he said he was expecting you to turn up, Bruno, and be
the ref.”

  Papi, fifteen years older than Bruno and still as fit, broke up the two teams, sending the forwards of the first team and the backs of the second to one side of the field to play against their counterparts. They were still a man short, so Teddy was sent to play with the second team forwards. Papi handed Bruno the whistle, muttering, “Don’t stop play unless you have to,” and he jogged back to the touchline to watch.

  Usually in these practice games the first-team forwards won possession, but their running backs were then stopped by the backs of the first team. But this time the teams seemed more evenly matched. One man could not make a great difference in a team of fifteen, but Bruno noted that Teddy was adding something to the second team. It was old rugby lore that you never saw a good forward, he was always too much in the melee. But Teddy’s height made it easy to spot him in the thick of things, stiffening the resistance and then using his weight and speed to break out. And he played thoughtfully. When a player on the other team was a little slow in passing, Teddy broke away quickly from the back row, intercepted the pass and ran for the line. He waited until an opponent was committed to a tackle and then passed the ball smoothly to a teammate who went over for a score.

  “Wouldn’t mind having him with us next season,” Laurent said as they lined up behind the posts for the placekick.

  “You’re right, but he’s a student, just here on vacation for the archaeology. He’ll be back at university soon,” Bruno replied.

  “It’s a good practice,” said Papi. “I want to see if our pack can learn to control this Welsh guy.”

  Bruno recalled the standard drill for neutralizing a good forward. Two men to mark him, a short one going low and one of his own size going high. It could be brutal, but this was a friendly practice. The first time it worked. One of the burly forwards hit Teddy hard on the knees going one way, and Laurent piled in high from the other direction. Teddy somehow managed to keep control as he fell, curling his body around the ball so his team could keep possession. The next time Teddy watched for the double hit, sprinted hard with his knees pumping into the opponent’s face and ducked beneath Laurent’s dive to break through again for a score.

  Putain, thought Bruno, as Papi ran onto the field with a sponge for the opponent’s bloodied nose. This boy’s a natural. Teddy ran back from the posts where he had scored and helped the injured player to his feet, shaking his hand and slapping him on the shoulder as if to say they were now even.

  “Do you think he’d play for us Sunday?” Papi asked when the practice was over. “With him and Laurent together we’d murder Sarlat.”

  “I think he’d be delighted to be asked,” Bruno said as he turned to head for the showers. Sarlat was a much larger town with a fine team, currently head of the league and expected to beat St. Denis easily. He saw Papi lead Teddy aside, talking quietly into his ear until the young Welshman nodded eagerly. Sarlat was in for a surprise.

  But so was Bruno. As he came from the dressing room, back in his uniform and heading for the security meeting in Campagne, Capitaine Duroc was standing by the gate to the stadium and looking even angrier than usual.

  “Did you put Commissaire Jalipeau up to this?” he demanded.

  “Up to what?” Bruno asked, straight-faced. His relations with Duroc had been strained from the outset, since the gendarme officer had been blessed with more ambition than common sense. He was jealous of his status, impatient and unpopular with his gendarmes. Bruno had some sympathy for him. The gendarmes were being relegated increasingly to traffic duties, all except their elite units, known as les Jaunes from the yellow stripes on their epaulettes. Duroc, whose epaulettes carried white stripes as a member of the ordinary Gendarmerie Départementale, was one of les Blanches.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about—taking this shooting case for the Police Nationale.”

  “I’m not responsible for the cases the Police Nationale chooses to investigate. You know that.”

  “You and Jalipeau have always been thick as thieves. You’re not going to get away with it this time,” Duroc snapped. “The magistrate has opened a dossier, and we have a blood sample and the gun.”

  “You only have the gun because Maurice voluntarily surrendered it.” Bruno kept his voice reasonable, while freshly showered rugby players eyed them curiously as they headed for the clubhouse bar. Bruno hoped Teddy would be a long time in the shower. It would be tricky if he were arrested now. “I handed the gun in to the gendarmerie myself.”

  “I want that Dutch student you tracked down. I don’t suppose you’d know where she might be.” Duroc’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

  Bruno shrugged. “Which case are you investigating—the shooting or the pulling down of the fences at the Villatte farm?”

  “You don’t think they’re connected?” Duroc asked, his voice mocking.

  From the corner of his eye, Bruno saw Teddy emerge from the changing rooms, chatting eagerly with Laurent and the opponent whose nose he had flattened. They were heading for the bar, which meant they would walk right past Duroc. Bruno was not certain if Duroc yet knew Teddy by sight, but he didn’t want to risk it. Casually, he stepped to one side, forcing Duroc to turn to keep him in sight. Now the path to the clubhouse was out of Duroc’s view.

  “I have a security meeting about this summit that’s coming up,” Bruno said. “What do you want me to do if I see the Dutch girl, arrest her?”

  “I want to find out who got shot.”

  “So you’ve had the blood tested already? It’s human and not a fox?”

  “It’s human. Type O.”

  “Have you informed Commissaire Jalipeau of this? You’d better do so fast because I’ll be seeing him at the security meeting, and I’ll be sure to let him know.”

  “Annette, I mean the magistrate, will doubtless be informing him, now that she has opened her own dossier on the case.” Duroc colored slightly as he spoke of Annette.

  Could the upright Duroc, who had never been known to flirt or to be at ease around women, finally be falling for the charms of the new magistrate? Duroc in love would be something to see, but Bruno found it hard to imagine Annette returning his stiff-necked affections. An alarm bell went off. Annette would not open a dossier unless she thought she could bring a prosecution beyond the shooting that J-J was pursuing for the Police Nationale. That spelled trouble.

  “What dossier is that?” Bruno inquired innocently. If it was connected to the shooting, the solution he had crafted could yet unravel.

  “If the magistrate thinks it’s any of your business, she’ll doubtless inform you,” Duroc said, with a smile that indicated he knew all about it and was delighted that Bruno did not.

  “Have you been briefed about these security meetings?” Bruno asked, raising his voice over the first sounds of revelry from the clubhouse.

  “No,” said Duroc, his Adam’s apple suddenly bobbing as he swallowed, not liking to admit that Bruno was part of the inner circle and he was not. “The gendarmerie is being represented by the general from Périgueux. I’ve simply been ordered to stand by for security duties and cancel all leave for the day.”

  12

  Bruno had never seen Isabelle like this. He’d known her in passion and in moments of quiet contentment. On one occasion he’d even seen her in tears as she concluded that there was no hope for their affair. He’d seen her handle a weapon as easily as she worked a computer and had watched her fight with forensic but brutal efficiency in a political brawl. He’d seen her elegant and beautiful over a grand dinner that he could barely afford. And had seen her waking in laughter and mock outrage as his dog clambered into their bed to show his own affection for this woman who had won his master’s heart.

  And now he watched Isabelle as she coolly chaired a committee of men who were themselves accustomed to command. She drove the meeting briskly, letting each man be heard and ticking off the points on her agenda. She was pale and looked tired, and once Bruno saw a spasm of pain pass across her face as she sh
ifted position in her chair. The bullet she had taken on the beach at Arcachon in December had left her with a titanium implant in her thigh. Slim as she always had been, she was now thinner with hollows in her cheeks and shadows under her eyes.

  A cane leaned on the arm of her chair, and she had not risen to greet him when Bruno had entered the long room at the château. It had been painted a pale gray. A handsome table with curved gilt legs, at least twelve feet long, dominated the center of the room. Burgundy-colored velvet curtains were draped at the row of windows that looked out onto the terrace and the open field where the brigadier’s helicopter had landed.

  “Merci, mon Général,” Isabelle said as the chief gendarme for the département concluded his report on the number of security teams he could provide. They had already heard from J-J for the Police Nationale, from the specialist VIP escort unit, from the communications team and the ministry’s facilities group, which were in charge of preparing the château. The meeting had opened with a report from Carlos on the latest Spanish intelligence, which was much as Bruno had heard it that morning. Suddenly Isabelle looked across at him, not a trace in her voice or her eyes of what they had been to each other.

  “Chef de Police Courrèges, anything you wish to say on local concerns and developments?” Her voice was as anonymously official as it had been throughout the meeting. Her eyes were fixed on a point somewhere above Bruno’s head.

  “Very little, mademoiselle,” Bruno said. “We have recently come across an unidentified corpse, shot many years ago. There’s been a case of animal rights vandalism; some foreign students from a local archaeology dig seem to be behind it. But there’s nothing so far to suggest any connection with our summit. And at Senõr Gambara’s request interviews have been conducted of local people with Spanish connections without significant result.”