A Taste for Vengeance

by Martin Walker

  “Can I help?” Juliette asked when Bruno returned. “What are you making for us?”

  Bruno described the menu, and when Hodge asked if he could watch the foie being prepared, they all piled into the kitchen, where Bruno gave them the last serving of zucchini and then brought out his two largest pans, turned on the gas beneath them and showed his guests the slices of foie. It felt a little like the class at Pamela’s cooking school as they crowded round. Bruno asked all of them to bring their plates, and warned them this would not take long. He asked Moore to open the bottle of Monbazillac that was in the fridge. Bruno then put his hand over the pans to check that they were hot enough before placing the slices of foie in them.

  “We don’t need fat because they already contain enough,” he explained as the meat began to sizzle. “Right, I’d like you all to start singing the ‘Marseillaise,’ because that’s how I time my cooking.”

  Just before they reached Aux armes, citoyens, he turned over each of the slices with a spatula and told them to keep singing all the way to Abreuve nos sillons. Then he turned the slices again and took up the second chorus alone, though Isabelle’s high clear voice soon joined him:

  Que veut cette horde d’esclaves,

  De traîtres, de rois conjurés?

  Pour qui ces ignobles entraves,

  Ces fers dès longtemps préparés?

  With that, he turned off the gas beneath one pan, piled all the slices into it and then poured several splashes of balsamic vinegar to deglaze the pan, which was still hot, and added four generous spoonfuls of honey and stirred them into the vinegar and fat until it all had become a runny sauce. Then he told his guests to bring their plates in turn, laid a slice of the cooked and slightly charred foie onto the toast he had made earlier, and then poured on the sauce and invited them all to the table. He poured out a glass of the golden Monbazillac for each of them and raised his own glass in welcome.

  “I’ve never had this before,” Hodge soon said, reaching for more bread to wipe up the last of the sauce. “It’s delicious.”

  “I’m going to have to learn that second verse of the ‘Marseillaise,’ ” said Moore. “It’s the first time I’ve heard it and I like that line about the long-prepared handcuffs. Very suitable for a policeman.”

  “When we were kids, we sang a different version,” said Juliette. “Mangeons bonbons de la patrie—let’s eat the sweets of our homeland.”

  “We used to do that with Christmas carols,” said Moore and launched into “While shepherds washed their socks by night…”

  This was turning into a very promising evening, thought Bruno as he cleared the plates and went back to the kitchen to check on the roasting confits of duck and to finish the pommes de terre Sarladaises. He would use the duck fat from the tops of the confit jars. He took the pan that still held some of the fat from the foie, added another generous spoonful and then poured in the sliced potatoes he had parboiled, and added the chopped parsley and the slivers of garlic. He took a jug of water into the dining room and told them to help themselves to the decanters of red wine. Back in the kitchen, enjoying the gales of laughter he heard from the dining room, he served the duck and then called Isabelle to help take the plates to the table.

  “You haven’t added the potatoes,” she said.

  “I’ll do that in there,” he replied. “I have a treat that’s best done when people can watch.”

  Once they each had their duck before them, Bruno took the pan of potatoes into the dining room, a small grater in his other hand.

  “There are two ways to make this dish of Sarlat,” he explained. “The tourists are served it like this, cooked in duck fat and seasoned with garlic and parsley. But for the real thing, we add this.”

  He took the truffle he had saved, about the size of a walnut, and began to grate it over the potatoes. As the flakes reached the heat the familiar aroma began to rise and swell, and Bruno inhaled deeply. There was nothing like it. He continued grating until the truffle was entirely gone and then began to serve his guests in turn, advising them to lower their heads over their plates to enjoy the uniquely rich and earthy scent of his region’s most treasured delicacy. Then he poured himself some of the Château de Tiregand, plunged his nose into his glass and sniffed deeply once more to savor a different but equally satisfying bouquet.

  “A rare pleasure, Bruno, and let us raise our glasses to our host’s generous hospitality,” announced Moore.

  And then a silence fell, a compliment to the chef when a group of people who are relishing one another’s company suddenly concentrate entirely on appreciating their food. For a few moments the only sounds were of knives and forks on plates and sighs and murmurs of pleasure, before the conversation picked up again.

  When the salad and cheese appeared, Isabelle asked Hodge why the FBI had issued a press release on reopening the inquiry into the lost money from Baghdad.

  “Politics,” Hodge replied, in his dry, drawling way. “The Bureau is facing new hearings in Congress on our next budget, so our powers that be agreed that a judicious display of concern for recovering long-lost public funds would be helpful.”

  With that, Moore chimed in with a story of his own about the way his political masters tended to see the police less as an essential system for keeping the peace than as a useful tool in their election campaigns. Isabelle followed this with a bitter description of how the politicians would greet each new terrorist outrage with promises of stern measures and more police on the streets, without finding the funds to pay for them. Under-resourced and exhausted, the French police no longer said they were going to work. Instead, they spoke of “going into the trenches,” like soldiers of the Great War.

  “Politicians tell us not to be provocative by trying to police the Islamic quarters, and then they complain when we can’t recruit informers to warn us where trouble might be brewing,” she added. “With these terrorist attacks making the president declare a state of emergency, there’s hardly a cop in France who’s had a weekend off in the last year.”

  “Which is why I feel fortunate to be a simple country policeman in the Périgord,” declared Bruno, uncomfortable at the turn in the conversation and determined to change the mood. “May you all return here often to remember that life can be sweet, that women are beautiful and that in the Périgord we never forget our friends.”

  He turned to Moore. “If you’re interested, our village rugby team has a match here tomorrow. One of the young women players has just been selected for the French national team, and we’ll be honoring her with a small reception after the match. Since you’re a rugby man, do please come along as my guest.” He turned to Hodge. “What about you? Would you like to come?”

  “Basketball was my game, mainly because our high school coach took one look at my height and said, No baseball or football for you. I’d be happy to come along except that we have the GPR team coming in tomorrow to search McBride’s place.”

  “What’s that?” asked Juliette.

  “Ground-penetrating radar, so we can look underground,” Hodge replied. “I need to be there for that.”

  “And I have to prepare a briefing for my colleague coming in from the Garda before he joins in the interrogation,” Moore said. “Otherwise, I’d love to come.”

  Bruno brought in the chocolate mousse as Yveline asked Moore whether the interrogation was getting anywhere.

  “No, for two reasons. One is that both these men have been arrested and questioned many times and they’ve both been in prison. They know the importance of saying nothing. The other reason is that all four of them, husbands and wives, come from Fianna families.”

  “What’s that?” Yveline asked.

  “Fianna is a Gaelic term for a king’s bodyguard, a chosen group of fighters who owe loyalty only to him,” Moore said. “The Fianna families are the backbone of the IRA. It’s a couple of hundred f
amilies, many of them intermarried, who have been the mainstay of the Irish independence movement or resistance for hundreds of years. The same families fought Oliver Cromwell in the seventeenth century and right through to the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Irish civil war. They’ve never gone away. The children are raised by their mothers and grandmothers and their family priests on the glorious legends and songs of the movement and hatred of us wicked Saxons. It’s a whole tribal culture to itself, it’s in their blood.”

  “You sound as though it can never end,” said Isabelle.

  “Sometimes I think you might be right,” Moore replied, shaking his head. “And the Protestants on the other side are much the same. The reason I’m convinced that Kelly and O’Rourke are guilty of killing Rentoul is that there’s a blood feud involved. They are both cousins of the two IRA men who were killed at Gibraltar.”

  “That explains a lot,” said Isabelle, finishing the wine in her glass. “And it makes a change from the jihadists we usually have to deal with.”

  “Coffee?” Bruno asked, determined as host to break into the silence that suddenly fell after Isabelle’s remark. On the way to the kitchen he placed two bottles on the table. “And who would like a digestif? A little Armagnac? Some Poire Williams? Please help yourselves while I get the coffee.”

  He was spooning coffee grounds into his cafetière when Isabelle joined him and began putting dessert dishes into the dishwasher.

  “Your house is the only place on earth where I feel remotely domesticated,” she said, going unerringly to the correct cupboard for cups and sugar and the right drawer for coffee spoons. Without even looking, she then reached behind the door for his tray. “It must be part of the strange effect St. Denis has on me, and the way Balzac settled beneath the table with his head on my feet all through dinner.”

  “He knows you’re a soft touch to slip him the occasional morsel of duck,” Bruno replied, pouring boiling water over the coffee grounds. “And he firmly believes that he’s as much your dog as mine.”

  “That’s one of the sweetest things you’ve ever said to me,” she said, putting down the tray and reaching her hands up to his cheeks before kissing him.

  He felt her tongue dart teasingly between his lips before she pulled away to take the loaded tray into the dining room. At the door she paused, looked back at him and when she spoke her voice was so quiet it was almost a whisper.

  “I do hope the others don’t stay too long. I’d like to have you to myself.”

  Chapter 20

  Bruno was woken by his cockerel’s usual greeting of the dawn. Isabelle, tucked into his arm with her head on his chest, did not stir. Bruno knew she’d be leaving later in the morning to drop off her rental car in Périgueux before catching a train to Paris and then on to Brussels for a meeting of her EU committee at nine on Monday morning. She might or might not return to Périgueux later in the week, depending on developments in the Rentoul case. So he’d probably not see her again until the French Open tennis championships, in June, just as he had not seen her since their last meeting at the Château de Commarque, when she had so surprised him by inviting herself to lunch and staying for the weekend.

  This was now becoming the pattern of their relationship; fleeting and passionate visits, followed by weeks of longing. It was the best that she could offer, and Bruno hardly knew whether to accept these crumbs of an affair or to try again to end it once and for all. But he knew himself well enough to conclude that whenever Isabelle appeared in his life, he’d be unable to resist her. Would this hold over him last forever? Surely not, if he fell in love and settled down with someone else. Strange, he thought, this mental turmoil in your head while a lover sleeps peacefully in your arms. Her breath was faint upon his chest, one graceful arm lay across his body, and he felt the long warmth of her alongside. Her presence encompassed everything Bruno had dreamed of, except permanence.

  Careful not to wake her, he slipped from the bed. Balzac was waiting patiently outside the door, as if aware that Isabelle was still sleeping. Bruno let him out and stretched mightily, standing naked on his terrace for a few moments enjoying the cool air on his skin before going back indoors to make coffee and set two cups on a tray with plates and orange juice, yogurt and a jar of honey. Isabelle was always hungry when she awoke, and he loved this ritual of preparing breakfast when she stayed over.

  He put the remaining slices of last night’s bread beside the toaster. There was still no sound from his bedroom, so he went to the bathroom to shower and shave, brush his teeth and don the silk dressing gown Isabelle had brought him on her last visit. Then quietly he unloaded the dishwasher they had filled after the last guests had gone and washed the pots and pans he had left to soak. He slipped on some sandals and went to feed his chickens and brought back ten fresh eggs. Thinking Isabelle wouldn’t get eggs like this in Paris or Brussels, he put two of them on to boil and added salt and pepper, spoons and eggcups to the tray.

  He was about to press down the plunger on his cafetière when he heard the bedroom door open, the bathroom door close and the shower being turned on. He put the bread into the toaster and heard his basset hound scratching at the door to be let back in. There was nothing left of the previous night’s dinner, so Balzac would have to make do with his usual dog biscuits this morning, along with whatever Bruno and Isabelle chose to share. The sound of the shower stopped and the timer pinged that the eggs were ready as the toast popped up. He put butter onto each slice and carried it to the bedroom as Isabelle emerged.

  She was wearing his shirt from the previous evening, only cursorily buttoned. Her face was freshly washed and her eyes were shining. She tasted of toothpaste when she kissed him, then clambered back into bed while Balzac leaped up joyfully to greet her and nuzzle his nose into her neck. Bruno laughed watching them and pushed the dog aside to make room for himself beside her, the tray still in his hands.

  “Be good, Balzac,” she commanded, and the dog lay still as she examined the tray. “Oh my, fresh eggs and hot toast and coffee. I must have been spirited away in the night and woken up in the Ritz.”

  They drank their orange juice and sipped at their coffee as she fed tiny bits of toast to Balzac. Bruno cut the tops from their boiled eggs and they ate in happy silence, Balzac watching each spoonful as it disappeared into Isabelle’s mouth. When they had eaten enough, Bruno bribed Balzac out of the bedroom with the last morsel of his toast and half of his yogurt and turned back to see Isabelle putting the tray on the floor and brushing stray crumbs from the sheets.

  “I think I have rebuilt my strength,” she said, slipping off his shirt. “You look delicious in that carefully chosen dressing gown, Bruno, but I think I prefer you without it.” She lifted the sheet to invite him to join her.

  Two hours later, his mouth still remembering her kisses, Bruno stood at the top of the hill waving as she drove off to Périgueux. There had been time for them to enjoy a last walk through the woods with Balzac, and now his home was empty again. He sighed and went back indoors to open his laptop and check if anything new had been added to the case file. He logged on and had found nothing new when his phone rang. The screen said the caller’s number was withheld, but a familiar voice gave him a cheerful greeting.

  “Bonjour, Jack,” Bruno said, smiling to hear Crimson’s voice again. “Are you still in England?”

  “I’m calling to say I’ll fly into Bergerac later today on the same flight as Miranda’s next batch of cooking clients. I’m assured that all is now safe in the Périgord and the miscreants are in custody.”

  “Were you told this by the French?” Bruno asked, not feeling quite as confident as Crimson that all potential dangers had now passed.

  “No, by the same people who told me to come back to England in the first place, although I’m not sure they’ll be so sanguine after they’ve read this morning’s papers.”

  “Why? What are they saying?” />
  “It’s just one, a woman, Kathleen somebody, writing from St. Denis,” Crimson said. “She’s reporting that a retired head of British intelligence was ordered back from his home in France to England to take refuge from an IRA death squad. But now I can go back again. I’ve never heard of her. Do you know who she is?”

  “She’s a travel writer, doing an article on your daughter’s cooking course,” Bruno replied, his surprise giving way to anger at Kathleen’s report. “She’s staying at the riding school.”

  “Bloody hell!” Crimson exclaimed. “So she may have heard this from Miranda?”

  “I’m sure Miranda had no idea it would end up in print,” Bruno said quickly, even as he wondered whether it had been Miranda or one of her children who had spoken of Grandpa’s whereabouts. “Maybe you’d better stay in England for the moment,” he added.

  “No, I miss the grandkids and all my friends, and I’ve no intention of spending my life in hiding. I’m coming back. And I return bearing gifts, copies of a couple of interesting files you might want to share with our usual friends.”

  “They’ll be happy to get them and I’ll be glad to see you back, although I think you’re putting yourself at risk.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time, and once we let our lives be governed by security, then the terrorists have won.”

  “What time do you get in?”

  “The usual time, at three this afternoon.”

  “I can’t pick you up, I’m afraid. Paulette, our star rugby player, has won a place on the national team so we’re giving her a vin d’honneur at the club at five, after today’s game.”