A Taste for Vengeance

by Martin Walker

  “Interesting.” Crimson finished his wine, looked at his watch again and rose. “No time for coffee, I’m afraid. I need to get to the station for my train and since I don’t know how long I’ll be gone I’d rather not leave my car there. I have to ask you for a lift. I’m going to Le Buisson, then changing onto the fast train at Libourne.”

  “Of course, I’ll be glad to,” said Bruno. “On the way I can tell you about this idea I’ve had about resuming our Monday dinners, even though Pamela and Miranda are tied up with the cooking school. And that reminds me, who’s going to babysit Miranda’s children while you’re away?”

  “Not my problem,” said Crimson, picking up the glasses and bottle of scotch and stewarding Bruno inside before locking the French windows. He left the drinks and bottle on a side table before putting on a jacket and scarf. He picked up the small suitcase he’d already packed and handed it to Bruno before collecting a laptop bag and then tapping his pockets to be sure he had his phone.

  “What about the washing up?” Bruno asked, pointing to the empty plates and glasses on the table.

  “The housecleaner can take care of them.”

  “Can I reach you on your usual mobile number, the French one?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t since it’s too easily tracked. I’ll mainly be using an English SIM card that I’ll buy when I get to London. But yes, if it’s really urgent. I’ll arrange to have my French number checked once a day. And in case of any real emergency, Miranda knows how to get in touch with people who can reach me.

  “One more thing,” Crimson added. “I presume what I have said will somehow find its way back to our mutual friend, the brigadier. Don’t forget to tell him that the Semtex we found in that car in Gibraltar was supplied by none other than the unlamented Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. He may have gone and Libya may be in chaos, but in my experience people involved in this kind of business tend to remain in touch with old contacts.”

  Once Balzac was summoned from the garden and they were in the car, Crimson spoke again. “You probably won’t need to remind the brigadier since as a young officer he was involved in the operation, but you might mention the Eksund.”

  “What’s that?” Bruno asked.

  “It’s the name of a ship the French stopped at sea in 1987. It was carrying a thousand AK-47 assault rifles, fifty Soviet-made Strela ground-to-air missiles, antitank rockets and two tons of Semtex, a gift from Libya to the IRA. Along with four others, an IRA man called Gabriel Cleary was found on board and spent five years in a French prison. Since he spoke good English, it was our friend the brigadier who arrested and interrogated Cleary and gave evidence at the trial. I know that since I was the one who contacted the brigadier when Cleary was arrested again in 1996 by the Irish police, acting on information my team had collected, when they raided an underground bomb factory in the Irish Republic.”

  Chapter 10

  Once he’d dropped Crimson at the station in Le Buisson, Bruno parked at the entrance to the Pont de Vicq campsite and made some hurried notes of what he had been told. Then he called the brigadier on the special phone he’d been given during a previous operation. It was shielded and encrypted in ways he didn’t understand, and a small green light glowed when he was in contact with anyone on the brigadier’s own network. A duty officer answered and Bruno asked to speak to the brigadier on a matter concerning Jack Crimson.

  “He’s been called home and I dropped him off at the station,” Bruno said when the brigadier came on the line. He went on to explain the concern about the IRA and the Libyan connection. “He told me to remind you of the Eksund.”

  The brigadier ignored this, asking simply, “What train is he on?”

  “He’ll catch the TGV at Libourne and arrive at Montparnasse at about six this evening. Then he plans to get the Métro to Gare du Nord for the Eurostar to London.”

  “Very good, I’ll meet him off the train at Montparnasse. Thanks, Bruno, and congratulations on the promotion.”

  He hung up and Bruno then called J-J to repeat once more what he’d heard from Crimson.

  “Putain, the IRA, that’s all we need,” J-J replied. “Still, there is some good news. The procureur has appointed Bernard Ardouin as magistrate in this case. You worked with him before and he’s a good man. We could have done a lot worse.”

  That was a relief, thought Bruno. Under French law a magistrate placed in charge of the case had very wide powers, including the right to decide on criminal charges, to interview witnesses and to direct the police inquiries. Some of them saw the job as a stepping-stone to a political career and others took a messianic approach to their work, pursuing their own political or ecological agendas, or mistrusting the police with whom they were supposed to work. That was sad but understandable, Bruno thought; people given unaccustomed powers were often like that. But Ardouin was a levelheaded type who knew the law, liked his work and performed it well.

  “The bad news is that the forensics people are still arguing among themselves whether the guy hanged himself or someone did it for him,” J-J went on. “There are no signs of his being tied up so I don’t see how anyone else can have been involved in the hanging. And he botched the suicide anyway. He put the knot behind his ear rather than in front of it, which is the best way to be sure the drop breaks the neck.”

  Amazing, the things you learn in this job, thought Bruno. But J-J was still talking.

  “And they’re involved in some technical argument about the reliability of blood tests for alcohol that long after death. Did you know that a dead body produces alcohol? It seems that even after death internal fungi and microbes and yeasts can make a corpse technically drunk even if he was a teetotaler.”

  Bruno dimly recalled reading something about that in the forensics textbook he’d had to study at the police academy, but the details were long forgotten.

  “I suppose that date-rape drug he took complicates matters,” Bruno said. “I forget the name.”

  “They found some in Monika’s suitcase. The idiots missed it on the first search. It looks as though she brought it with her.”

  “Could that have made him pass out?” Bruno asked. “That could be a way for someone to hang him without tying him up.”

  “Listen, Bruno. We’ve been round and round on this. Even if he had passed out, they’d have to carry him through the vineyard and into the woods, across all the undergrowth and in the dark. You’d need two, maybe three people for that and probably more than one ladder.”

  “I see your point.” As he spoke, Bruno was trying to remember how the rope had been fixed to the tree. He closed his eyes to summon the image from his memory. It had been slung over the branch and then tied to the trunk. So in theory, a strong man could have hauled the weight of McBride—he should start thinking of him as Rentoul—from the ground and then secured the rope to the trunk. But J-J was right; Bruno couldn’t see a single man getting the body through the vines and woodland at night.

  “Do we have a definite time of death?”

  “No, a window, from around ten in the evening of the day Monika arrived until two or three the next morning. The poor bastard was hanging there for at least thirty-six hours. By the way, do you have a contact number for Crimson in England if we need to talk to him?”

  “Yes, if it’s really urgent. He said he was going to a safe place and he wouldn’t want to risk being tracked by his mobile.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow morning, as usual. We’ll convene at police headquarters but Ardouin may want us to go over to the procureur’s office since it’s now his baby.” J-J ended the call.

  Bruno sat in his van, thinking, and then on impulse got out, walked through the gates of the campsite and down to the long stretch of grass on the riverbank that was known locally as the beach. Bruno had swum there often in summer. The river here was the Dordogne, on its way to be joined by the Vézère at Limeuil,
the charming hillside village that was a pleasant stroll away and only a kilometer or so by river. He had swum it once, with Isabelle half-paddling and half-drifting alongside in a canoe with his old dog, Gigi, standing in the prow. He smiled at the memory as he walked along the beach to the bridge. There was a path beneath the first arch that led to the riverside café, not yet open for the tourist season, but the river was running high after the rains and he turned back to admire the view upstream.

  He was still thinking about those arms on the ship, Eksund. Antiaircraft missiles, antitank rockets and two tons of Semtex explosives. Bruno had been a combat engineer and had taken courses in demolition, and he knew that with two tons of Semtex he could destroy half the bridges in Paris. This wasn’t the small-time, almost amateurish terrorism that had become grimly familiar in France. This was sophisticated heavy weaponry that to Bruno was more associated with a real army than a terrorist gang. He felt out of his depth.

  Could there really be an IRA murder squad here in this placid region? He found it hard to believe. There had been peace in Northern Ireland for nearly twenty years. People looking for revenge for the events three decades ago in Gibraltar must be getting on in years, or their sons and nephews had taken up the task. It didn’t ring true to him, but then terrorists had their own rules. One of those, he thought as he strolled, was that killing had to be a political statement, a demonstration of the terrorists’ ability to strike when and where they chose. So why would an IRA murder squad seek to make Rentoul’s death look like a suicide, even leaving a suicide note, when they could have made publicity out of his killing? Perhaps they did that simply to buy themselves time to get away, and their claim for Rentoul’s execution would be announced later. He’d have to see what the others thought at tomorrow’s meeting, and in the meantime, he had time to get to the collège in St. Denis.

  Whenever his other duties allowed, Bruno liked to be at the infants’ school at noon, when it closed, to stop the traffic and allow the mothers and children to cross the road safely. He always enjoyed the few minutes chatting to them as he and they waited for the storm of rushing feet and excited infant voices once the children were let out. Most of the young mothers he had known from his earliest tennis classes, and he went hunting with many of the fathers and husbands. He’d eaten and drunk in most of their homes and danced at more than a few birthdays. It was helpful to him to hear the gossip, but these moments at the school gates were also a pleasure in keeping up with old friends. And they were a way to remind himself that these mothers and children were in his charge, that their peace and security were his responsibility.

  It was the same now as the collège day ended. The students who came out, aged between twelve and sixteen, were mostly old and self-conscious enough to walk rather than race out like the younger children at the primary school. Only a few were being met by mothers in their cars, and the teenage youths looked slightly shamefaced as they climbed into the passenger seats. Almost half of the collège students boarded the school buses that took the rural kids to their scattered hamlets or villages that were too small for their own collèges. They were noisy as they jostled their way aboard, greeting friends and teammates.

  Only a small number had paired off into couples, walking close together or hand in hand. Some of them were teased by their classmates, perhaps from envy, perhaps because the rules of courtship were still unclear. The students were mostly of an age that meant the boys all vied loudly to fill the back of the bus while the girls clustered, heads bowed together as they exchanged confidences. Half the marriages in the region had probably begun in these school buses, Bruno thought. But he wondered whether that would continue now that more and more of the youngsters had earphones playing their music and some of them were glued to the screens of their mobile phones, watching videos or texting.

  He knew almost all of them by name from his tennis and rugby classes. He had watched them grow and form their friendships and launch their little feuds and establish the pecking order that would probably endure for years to come. Bruno knew that his presence at the school gates was one of the rituals that marked their day. It also, he hoped, served to remind them that the police were not some alien group but familiar figures, neighbors, part of the town’s life.

  He held up the traffic for the school buses to depart and then headed for the small row of maisonettes, subsidized lodgings for the teachers. This almost free housing was a way to entice staff to come to rural France at a time when most newly qualified young teachers wanted jobs in the big cities. He climbed the steps to the upper floor and rang the bell for Florence’s apartment. She answered the door in her apron, a wooden spoon in one hand, the other rising automatically to smooth her hair when she saw Bruno grinning at her.

  “Sorry I’m such a mess, I’m baking something for the children,” she said, leaning her head forward for Bruno’s bise. “Come in. What a nice surprise. Have some coffee or perhaps tea.”

  Florence began to ask what brought him to her door when her children erupted into the hallway from the kitchen, clutching at Bruno’s legs until he bent down and kissed each of them as they demanded he lift them both up.

  “Bonjour, Dora; bonjour, Daniel. You’re getting too big and strong for me,” he said, putting an arm around each child and then rising to his full height while sticky fingers clutched at his neck. “Oh, you’re so heavy now. Soon you’ll have to carry me.”

  He took them back into the kitchen, deposited both of them in their chairs and accepted a cup of mint tea from Florence, the bite of an apple from Dora and a narrow sliver of sausage roll from Daniel. Little known in France, this English delicacy had become a favorite after they had eaten it at Miranda’s home.

  “You can have this bit, Bruno, because Maman is making some more,” said Daniel.

  “Such lucky children to have such a clever maman,” he said, pronouncing both apple and roll to be delicious.

  Once the snack was finished and the children had spread out on the floor with their coloring books, Bruno and Florence sat at opposite sides of the small table and he said, “It’s about Paulette. Word is getting around town, I think from someone at the clinic, and I’m pretty sure I know who the father is. It’s her drama teacher at her lycée. Nearly ten years older than Paulette. His name is Bollinet and he’s married, with a baby and another child on the way.”

  “Oh no, that poor kid,” said Florence. “How do you know all this? Have you talked to her?”

  “No, I happened to see them having a row in his car when I was in Périgueux. He directed a play she was in last term.”

  “I’m not going to ask how you tracked him down, but for once I’m grateful for your snooping. What do you think we should do?”

  “I’m not sure. I think Paulette deserves to know about Bollinet’s wife being pregnant, but it’s possible that she already does. That could be what the row was about. I wanted your advice, whether I should tell her, or you should, or the two of us together. The sooner the better, I think, and it may be easier to talk to her in Périgueux this week than once she gets home to her parents’ place this weekend and the gossip spreads.”

  “Who exactly knows about this in town?”

  “The mayor overheard two women whispering about it in the mairie, both of them employees.”

  “Have you told Fabiola?”

  “Not yet, I wanted to see you first.”

  “Why? She’s the doctor.”

  “You’re much closer to Paulette than she is and you’re a single mother. You can tell her what it means.”

  Florence rolled her eyes and looked down fondly at her children. “It’s not bad when you get used to it. I love being their mother.”

  “It helps when you have a decent job and almost free accommodation,” said Bruno. “That won’t be the case for Paulette. And I remember how tough things were for you when we first met in Sainte Alvère before you got this job, having to p
ut up with part-time work that was way below your talents and with a lecherous bastard for a boss. You weren’t happy then.”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that for her. She has her parents here.” Florence paused, looking off through the window at the church spire. It seemed to trigger a thought. “But I can imagine how the atmosphere would be in that home, the silent recriminations, church every Sunday, doing penance.”

  She sat up and looked him in the eye. “All right, I’ll do it, but we’ll both go. I’ll talk to her. You should hover out of earshot but be ready to step in when I call for you or she asks for you to join us. When do you want to do this?”

  “As soon as we can. How are you fixed for time?”

  “I’m not, but I’ll make time. I’ll have to find a babysitter. I can’t ask Miranda, with the cooking school. But Jack will be looking after her children so two more won’t hurt him.”

  “Jack had to leave town, called back to England. Gilles can do it, or the baron.”

  “That’s all right, I’ll get one of my schoolgirls,” she said, smiling. “I have more faith in them. I’d better call Paulette, see if we can drive up there tonight.” She picked up the phone, scrolled through her contacts, pressed a couple of buttons and waited while Bruno listened intently.

  “Paulette? It’s Florence in St. Denis. Could you possibly make some time to see me this evening?”

  Bruno wished he could hear the other end of the call but he had to wait, controlling his impatience, until Florence spoke again.

  “I’ll tell you when I see you but it’s important.”

  Another pause. Bruno bit his lip.

  “Yes, we can be there at seven. Can we meet at that wine bar on the Avenue Woodrow Wilson that we went to before? Yes? Fine, see you then.” She ended the call and put her phone back on the shelf, high above prying infant hands.