The Crowded Grave bop-4

by Martin Walker

  “You’re probably aware that temporary security precautions have delayed my investigation into the shooting and wounding that took place at your farm,” Duroc told Maurice. “In the meantime, the magistrate has asked me to investigate reports of breaches of the hygiene regulations at your farm. You will now accompany us while Inspector Varin here from the INRA office in Bordeaux makes his report.”

  Damn Duroc, Bruno thought, and damn Annette too. They had planned this carefully. The inspector from the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique had either gotten up very early to reach St. Denis or had been called in late yesterday. They were determined to get Maurice for something, and once Duroc had him in the gendarmerie they could put pressure on him over the shooting.

  Bruno felt Annette staring fixedly at him. Any hint of that understanding he thought they had reached was gone. Beside him, Maurice looked ashen. Bruno’s heart sank as he thought of that gift of foie that Maurice had left at his house the previous evening. He must have killed the ducks sometime that afternoon, but he only had a license to rear them. Although few farmers observed the rule, animals for human consumption were supposed to be killed in a licensed abattoir.

  “Aren’t they supposed to give some kind of notice of an inspection?” Bruno asked Pouillon in a whisper. The lawyer shook his head. Bruno had another worrying thought. The insurance company would pay Maurice’s legal fees if he was accused on the firearms charge, but not for illegal killing of his own ducks. Maurice had no money for lawyers.

  “The inspector and the magistrate and Monsieur Soulier will come with me,” Duroc said, pausing to escort Annette to the gendarmerie van. “The rest of you may follow, as you wish.”

  Bruno called out to Pouillon, who was about to climb into his car, to ask if they could drive together. They needed to talk without Duroc or Annette being able to overhear. This latest gambit by Annette and Duroc, Pouillon warned as they followed the gendarmerie van, was something for which he had not prepared. He had read the relevant parts of the Code Criminel on firearms, and he believed they could mount a very strong defense. But the hygiene regulations were different, complex and constantly being updated. The most dangerous provision of the law for Maurice would be the clause prohibiting unlicensed slaughter, even for personal consumption.

  “You know what always worried me most when I was magistrate, Bruno?” Pouillon went on. “It was the fear of doing something so stupid that the public felt justified in taking the law into their own hands. You know the kind of thing, blocking roads with their tractors, sending flocks of sheep into official buildings and dumping strategically placed heaps of manure. Nothing really violent, of course, that might justify the state in taking strong action.”

  “You mean the kind of spontaneous public demonstration that makes the law look like an ass and the authorities look worse?” Bruno said, as he began to understand. “Like enforcing an unpopular law that is widely ignored.”

  “Exactly,” Pouillon replied. “Particularly if there’s some humor attached to the protests, and an elected public official or two among the protesters. Perhaps a mayor wearing his tricolor to show that the politics of this are going to be much more complicated than people first thought. Naturally, the power of such public opposition is magnified if the media happen to be present. And what always scared me the most was the thought of demonstrations led by women.”

  Pouillon glanced across at Bruno, a twinkle in his eye. Bruno was grinning as he reached for his cell phone.

  “Any public official found using his phone to foment such events could be in big trouble,” Pouillon said, taking his hand off the wheel and putting it over Bruno’s phone. “But I happen to have my young granddaughter’s cell phone in the car. She forgot it the other day.”

  He pointed, and Bruno opened the glove compartment and took out a small pink phone with a cartoon figure of a smiling kitten on the screen when he turned it on. He opened the address book of his own phone to get the right numbers and began dialing. His first call was to his friend Stephane, his second was to the head of the syndicat, the farmers’ equivalent of a trade union, and his third to the St. Denis cooperative where the farmers bought their supplies. He asked each one to make more calls and round up more people. He then called the mayor, followed by Philippe Delaron, the local photographer and reporter. By the time they turned into Maurice’s farmyard, he was on his last call to Nicco, his counterpart as municipal policeman of nearby Ste. Alvere.

  “Have you called the Villattes?” Pouillon asked. “They live pretty close and they know everybody in this valley.

  “I’ll delay matters here a bit,” he continued, as Bruno began urgently punching more numbers into his pink phone. Pouillon parked the car, climbed out and shouted to the impatient Duroc, “Just a minute, I think I may have broken something.” He bent down to peer behind his rear wheel, and then raised his head to shout again. “And I don’t want any questions or any word to come from Maurice unless I’m standing beside him.”

  He winked at Bruno as he bent again, evidently enjoying his foray onto the other side of the law.

  But for Sophie, coming to the door of the farmhouse and drying her hands on an apron, there was only cause for fear in the scene before her. A tall gendarme was holding her husband’s arm, flanked by a woman who looked both stern and official and a man in overalls who looked like a farm inspector. Sophie’s hands flew to her mouth as Maurice tried to go to her and Duroc held him firmly back.

  “Mon Dieu,” she cried, stretching her hands out to Maurice, making Bruno wish that he’d also called Father Sentout. Perhaps the mayor would ensure the local priest turned up, as a symbol of civic unity.

  “Inspector, do your duty,” said Duroc in tones that would have graced the highest court in France rather than a muddy farmyard that echoed with the cackling of ducks who assumed this gathering meant they were about to be fed again.

  Bruno kept his eyes on Annette. Conscious of his accusing gaze she bit her lip and turned to watch the inspector, who knelt to open his black bag and pulled out a small camera and a tape recorder. The camera went in a pocket. The tape recorder was hung around his neck, and he made the usual sounds of testing to check that it was working. Then he began a muttered monotone, describing the farmyard and the date and time as he took photos.

  The inspector led the way into the paddock where the ducks clustered, shooing them away as he squeezed through the gate. Annette, Bruno and Pouillon followed him. Duroc remained, Maurice still pinioned. The inspector checked the tall barrels, heaped with dried maize, and the low huts where the ducks sheltered at night, long gutters filled with water and feed running through them. There were few droppings; the ground had evidently been swept earlier that morning. Thank heaven for that, Bruno thought. The inspector examined the funnels that Maurice used to feed the ducks and then took photographs. They were the old-fashioned type, the narrow end made of leather, and well oiled to minimize any damage to the ducks’ gullets.

  He put the camera away and picked up a duck at random, opened its protesting break to peer down its gullet, probed its stomach and lower back with skilled fingers and then did the same with three more plucked from different parts of the flock.

  He looked into the storage cupboards where Maurice kept his gardening tools and his additives for the feed. He examined all the labels, dictating them into his tape recorder. He checked the flow of the taps, probed the dunghill where Maurice raked the droppings and then waded into the wide pond to scoop up the mud from the bottom, which he sniffed before tossing it back into the water.

  Bruno stole a quick glance at his watch. The longer the inspector took the more time for his plan to take effect. For the first time that morning, he began to feel a surge of hope.

  With a courteous “ Pardon, madame,” the inspector squeezed his way past the silent Sophie into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and checked the contents. He opened the cupboard beneath the sink to look at the garbage pail. He went out to the barn, ignoring the ne
at ranks of preserves that Sophie had canned and bottled and went straight to the big freezer, pulling out each item and checking the handwritten labels. Finally he went to the old oil barrel with holes punched into its sides that Maurice used as an incinerator and sifted through the ashes.

  And then the inspector turned to the one item Bruno had willed himself not to look at: the wide stump of some long-felled tree. He photographed it from every angle, and then took close-ups of the flat top, scarred with decades of ax blows. He took a small spatula from a pocket on the side of his overalls and scraped gently at the surface. He carried the scrapings to his black bag, pulled out two small glass jars, one empty and one filled with a colorless liquid. He put the scrapings into the empty jar, added some drops from the liquid, sealed it and shook. The clear liquid turned a very pale brown.

  He turned to Maurice. “Monsieur, where is your ax, please?”

  Maurice pointed back to the barn. The inspector led the way back inside and there the ax hung on the wall above the workbench, with all the other tools. The inspector took it down and studied it. He turned to Maurice. “You cleaned it.”

  “I clean all my tools after I use them,” Maurice said, pride overcoming his nervousness.

  “And you scrubbed the stump with eau de Javel,” the inspector said, a touch of pride in his own expertise. He gave Maurice a look that Bruno interpreted as grudging respect. Bruno felt a growing confidence.

  “Thank you for summoning me here,” the inspector said to Duroc. “It’s been a long time since I had the pleasure to see such a well-kept duck farm. The ducks are healthy, their quarters clean and their diet and additives are entirely as they should be, perhaps better. Even their pond has been recently dredged. The place is a model.” He turned to Maurice. “I congratulate you, monsieur, and I shall use my photographs in training sessions to show my students how a duck farm should be run.”

  Still on the doorstep of her home, Sophie’s legs gave way and she sat down in surprise. Annette let out a short laugh before looking down at her feet. Duroc let go of Maurice’s arm, and his Adam’s apple began to bob over the edge of his collar.

  “However,” the inspector went on, “it’s clear that some animals have been killed on this stump within the last few days. I’m told that you don’t have a license to slaughter your own ducks. Perhaps you can tell me what it was you killed.”

  Duroc seized Maurice’s arm again and Annette looked up at Bruno. Pouillon stepped forward, and said, “Leave this to me, Maurice,” he said. He turned to the inspector. “My client has no statement to make at this time. He will naturally want to consult his records to see if he can be of assistance, and he is of course grateful that his exemplary stewardship of his farm has met with such extraordinary official approval.”

  “He killed ducks on that stump, so he broke the law,” Duroc said stubbornly.

  “I didn’t say ducks had been killed, and I found no evidence of recent duck carcasses,” the inspector said quietly. “ ‘Animals’ was the word I used. It could have been rabbits, or he could have been chopping up a deer. Blood is blood. I gather the gentleman has a hunting license. I cannot confirm that ducks have been illegally slaughtered here.”

  Annette walked across to the stump and looked down at the scarred wood.

  “These feathers in the stump, they look recent, surely?” she said.

  The inspector shrugged. “It’s a duck farm, mademoiselle. Feathers are to be expected.”

  Annette’s eyes were casting around, at the stump, at the ax, at Bruno. She looked fiercely toward Sophie, still squatting in the doorway of the farmhouse, and it was as if a light had suddenly been turned on in her eyes. She sniffed. Her eyes widened and she sniffed again.

  “Mon Dieu,” she said softly. “Bouillon. She’s making duck bouillon,” Annette went on and led the way into the farmhouse, stepping around Sophie whose face was now hidden in her apron.

  “Follow me, Monsieur l’Inspecteur, and I’ll show you your fresh-killed ducks.”

  She advanced on the venerable wood-fired cooking range of black iron that had been there since Maurice’s grandfather’s day, and took a dishcloth to lift the lid from the enormous faitout that simmered on its top. She looked around for some kitchen tool, spied the bread knife on the table, and plunged it into the simmering stock to spear and haul out the unmistakable carcass of a duck.

  “Voila,” she cried, her eyes blazing in triumph. “And I don’t think she’d be making stock from ducks that died of disease.”

  14

  Duroc informed Maurice and Sophie that they were both under arrest when everything seemed to happen at once. Bruno’s phone rang, the small pink phone with the kitten began to signal another incoming call with an electronic version of a cat’s meow, and the sound of a large tractor was heard approaching up the lane.

  “Bruno,” came J-J’s urgent voice as Bruno handed the pink phone to Pouillon. “We’ve just had a report from the quarry outside Les Eyzies. Their explosives store was broken into overnight and a case of dynamite has gone. I’m on my way and I’ll see you there.”

  “It’s for you,” Pouillon said, holding out the pink phone.

  “I assumed you wanted me to call you back on this number,” the mayor said. “Has Villatte arrived yet?”

  “I think I hear his tractor.”

  “He’s there to delay matters until we can round up enough people at the gendarmerie. We’ll need another half hour. What’s the situation with Maurice?” Bruno explained. “The idiot has arrested both Maurice and Sophie?” said the mayor in disbelief. “He must be mad.”

  “I have to get to the quarry outside Les Eyzies for a real crime-dynamite’s been stolen.”

  “And the gendarmes of St. Denis are all tied up over a farmer’s wife making soup,” said the mayor.

  “Here’s Villatte now,” said Bruno, as an elderly tractor heaved into view at the end of the narrow lane. As it got to the gate, the engine coughed twice, a puff of black smoke came from the vertical exhaust, and it died.

  The tractor stopped between the stone gateposts, blocking the way from the farmyard. Villatte stepped down, opened an inspection panel and peered into the engine. Bruno saw Villatte slip something from the engine into his pocket.

  Duroc pushed Maurice into the back of the gendarmerie van and motioned Sophie to follow, but she seemed incapable of movement. Annette moved across to help her, but Sophie edged away, terror in her eyes at the thought of being arrested.

  “Get that tractor out of my way,” roared Duroc. Villatte turned and waved a wrench at him and then plunged his head back into the innards of the engine. Duroc stalked across the farmyard. “Can’t you push this thing out of the gateway?”

  “Not with a couple of tons of manure in the trailer,” said Villatte, gesturing at the rear of the tractor. “That’s why I’m here, but the tractor’s a bit temperamental.”

  Bruno used his own phone to call Carlos, tell him of the theft of dynamite and ask him to drive to the end of the lane so they could go to the quarry. He closed the phone and went across to where Annette was vainly trying to persuade Sophie to get into the gendarmerie van.

  “You aren’t going anywhere as long as that tractor’s there,” he told Annette. “Let her sit down in her kitchen while you’re waiting. You could even make her some coffee. I’d do it myself but I have a real crime to get to at the far end of the commune.”

  “How convenient,” Annette said. “This is also a real crime. Food hygiene is a major issue for me.”

  “This is nothing to do with crime. It’s a petty act of vengeance, Annette. I’m surprised that you’ve let yourself be manipulated by Duroc in this way. Surprised and disappointed.”

  Bruno went across to Sophie, sat her down at the kitchen table, poured her a glass of water, told her not to worry and to pull herself together because Maurice would need her support. He strode out, ignoring Annette, spoke briefly to Pouillon to explain why he had to leave and then with a wink at Villatte he squ
eezed his way past the tractor and began walking to the end of the lane.

  “Sorry I took so long,” said Carlos, when he arrived. “Seems to be a demonstration at the gendarmerie and it held me up. Is there another way back?”

  “Yes, but it’s no faster,” Bruno said, taking off his kepi so he’d be less easy to recognize. “And I ought to take a look at the demo.”

  The traffic was reduced to single file as they came off the side road, one of Sergeant Jules’s gendarmes controlling the flow. Already they could hear the bullhorns. When it was their turn to creep forward to the bend that opened onto the place de la Gendarmerie, the whole space seemed filled with tractors and farm equipment and a pungent smell of manure hung in the air. The Chasseurs Party had brought out some of the old HUNTERS ARE THE REAL GREENS banners from the last election. Bruno saw Alphonse from the local hippie commune with two of his goats in the back of his truck, Dominique standing beside her father waiting to take the bullhorn and the mayor in his tricolor sash talking to Philippe Delaron who was taking photos for Sud Ouest.

  “What are they protesting about?” Carlos asked, grinning as Bruno explained. “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Call Isabelle,” said Bruno. “Ask her to complain to the prefect that you can’t do your job because St. Denis is blocked by a protest against the local gendarmes arresting farmers. Make sure she tells the prefect that the mayor is leading the protest. Then ask her to call that gendarme general you met yesterday and complain to him.”