5
The Tuesday morning market of St. Denis, which in summer stretched the length of the rue de Paris from the place de la Mairie to the parade ground in front of the gendarmerie, shrank in the autumn after the tourists departed. In the quiet months of November, January and February the stalls barely filled the town square. But it always expanded again for the month before Christmas, which meant eager competition for the favored spots among the pillars in the covered market beneath the mairie. The rule was always that the first arrivals chose their sites, but the definition of what constituted an arrival was sometimes in dispute.
Usually, it required the placing of a couple of trestles to establish a presence, and Bernard the basket maker had his trestles firmly in place and stood grimly between them, his arms folded. Margot, the housekeeper at the home for retired priests in St. Belvédère, stood equally grimly, her arms also folded, her wide hips defending her small table with its beeswax candles and jars of honey that stood in front of Bernard’s trestles. Fat Jeanne, whose shape became more spherical with each passing year, was supposed to umpire such confrontations as she collected the five euros per meter of frontage that the mairie charged each stallholder. But Margot, who refused to pay any more than two euros on the grounds that her table measured only eighteen inches a side, tested even Fat Jeanne’s inexhaustible cheeriness.
“I won’t move,” Margot declared. “I was here first.”
“My trestle was already here when you arrived,” countered Bernard.
“Only one of them, and one trestle doesn’t count,” she snapped, brushing aside Fat Jeanne’s offer of an alternative spot beside Fauquet’s café.
“Margot,” said Bruno, attempting his most winning smile. “Just the woman I wanted to see. The mayor needs some help, and I told him we could count on you. It’s for the children.”
Bruno needed both hands to hold up the big placard that he had collected from the Info-Boutique. THE MAYOR’S FUND, it read, with a picture of Father Christmas and some smiling infants. TO MAKE A REAL CHRISTMAS FOR THE CHILDREN OF THE UNEMPLOYED.
Bruno leaned the placard casually against Bernard’s trestle, kissed Margot on each of her cold cheeks and handed her the collection plate. “Can you take care of the collection here under the pillars?” he asked. “And you know everyone in the market, Margot. Who do you think I should ask to take care of the collection outside?”
“Now there’s a question,” said Margot, preening. “Your friend Stéphane’s a reliable type, at least when he’s not drinking. Or perhaps Aurélie, she’ll have time on her hands, since nobody wants to buy her scrawny ducks.” She cast her eyes over the rest of the market, wondering who might be worthy to share with her the honor of the mayor’s special task.
“Give me a hand with that other trestle, Bernard,” Bruno said to the basket maker. Catching on, Bernard quickly assembled his stall, and Bruno placed Margot’s small table alongside it and then put the placard atop both of the stalls.
“So you stand here, Margot, right beside your table with the honey so everyone can see the placard and can see that you’re in charge of the collecting,” Bruno said. “I think you’re right about Aurélie for the other collection box. Why don’t you go and ask her?”
“I don’t know how you do it,” Bernard murmured as Margot strode off.
“Do you think anybody would dare not to make a donation with Margot looming over them?” Bruno replied. “She’s just what this project needs.”
“Since when was it the mayor’s fund?” asked Fat Jeanne. “The last I heard it was your idea.”
“Ever since the mayor thought it was his idea,” said Bruno, grinning. “He’ll be along in an hour or so, rattling a collection box. And I’ve got to get dressed up as Father Christmas.”
But first he had to make his usual tour of the market, shaking the hands of the men and embracing the women and hearing snippets of gossip along the way. Léopold the Senegalese, who sold leather belts and wallets and sunglasses in summer, wanted to sign up his son for Bruno’s rugby lessons. Raoul, who kept a summer stall selling wine to tourists and did odd jobs in the winter, had gotten a job at the new winery that he’d feared would put him out of business. Vinh, who sold hot fried Vietnamese nems and assorted Asian foods throughout the year, showed off his new Paris St. Germain shirt for the soccer club, whose fortunes he followed with devotion. His tiny wife offered Bruno a beignet, so hot he had to toss it from hand to hand while trying to reach for some coins.
At Alphonse’s stall, the usual display of the tiny round crottins of goat cheese, divided into neat columns of dry, semidry and fresh, were almost obscured by a large placard that announced GIVE THE CHILDREN A GREEN CHRISTMAS. THE GREEN PARTY ANNOUNCES A FREE CHRISTMAS PARTY FOR ALL CHILDREN OF THE UNEMPLOYED AND THOSE ON MINIMUM WAGE. L’AUBERGE DES VERTS, DECEMBER 21. ALL DONATIONS WELCOME. A small basket containing a couple of five-euro notes and some coins stood before it.
“How long have you been planning this?” Bruno asked Alphonse, shaking hands.
“Since last night when I saw Bill at the restaurant. We were talking before you arrived about the kids of guys who worked at the sawmill. At first I thought of hosting it myself up at the commune, but Bill had the facilities and he offered to do it.”
“The mayor’s organizing one too,” Bruno said, brandishing his collection box.
“The more the merrier,” Alphonse said. “Not a bad thing if the kids get two parties, or maybe we could combine them.”
“Makes sense to me. I’ll talk to the mayor, if you see what the others say. But I suspect everything will be political from now until the elections. By the way, it’s amazing how fast young Pons seems to have taken over the leadership of you Greens,” Bruno said. “You’ve been fighting the good fight for twenty years and more, so why aren’t you leading the list?”
“They all know me as that old hippie, the soixante-huitard, and I wasn’t born here, so that means lots of people won’t vote for me on principle,” Alphonse replied. “Bill was born and raised here, however long he’s been away. He’s a better speaker, more dynamic. I’ve never wanted to be mayor anyway.”
He turned away to serve a customer, and Bruno headed for the bustle of Fauquet’s café, the tables of old men taking their first petit blanc of the day at the zinc bar as they scanned the sports pages of Sud Ouest. Tante Sandrine, as everybody called Fauquet’s wife, came from behind the counter to embrace him and accept a collection box for the bar. Bruno greeted the rest of the company, and as soon as the hissing of the espresso machine died away Fauquet began to tease him about the competing parties.
“I’ve put the Green collection box over there on the pâtisserie counter and yours goes on the bar,” he said. “An interesting experiment, to see whether the cake lovers are more generous than the drinkers.”
“Depends how much you give them to drink,” Bruno replied.
He paid for his coffee and went across the alley and up the stairs to the storage room of the mairie to look for the Father Christmas costume. He found it in one of the boxes that contained the decorations for the town’s Christmas tree, which reminded him that he’d have to check when the tree would be delivered and get Michel from the public works office to test the town’s Christmas lights. The suit smelled musty and needed dry cleaning, and the beard was straggly, but it would do for today. He took off his thick blue uniform jacket but kept his trousers on, donned the tunic, beard and hat, picked up his handbell and headed out toward the men’s room to check his appearance in the mirror.
“Now I know it’s Christmas,” called Claire, the secretary, as he crossed the open-plan office. “Are you going to come down my chimney this year, Bruno?”
“Your reindeer’s got a parking ticket,” chimed in Roberte, who looked after the Sécu, the social security paperwork.
“Where’s my present?” called Josette as Bruno stomped down the stairs, deciding that he’d skip looking in the mirror rather than go back through the gauntlet of the tir
ed old jokes he heard every year.
Bruno felt odd to be wearing such festive garments in sunshine, however thin and wintry the rays and however good the cause. He’d be teased about it in endless markets to come. But he strode into the rue de Paris, ringing his handbell and thrusting his collection box at stallholders and shoppers alike.
“For the children of the sawmill,” he called out. “For the children of those who lost their jobs.”
It seemed to work. One- and two-euro coins rattled into his tin and a few five-euro notes, one of them from a young, single man who had lost a sawmill job. Bruno thanked them all and turned down Vinh’s offer of one of his hot nems as he strolled on to rattle his box at Léopold. As he paused at the stall, Bruno was jostled by two young men in a hurry who seemed to come from nowhere, and he half fell over Léopold’s stall of cheap leather belts. Turning, he saw that the two men were Asians, presumably acquaintances of Vinh.
But then the first one pushed Vinh’s wife aside and delivered a vicious chop to Vinh’s neck with the side of his hand. The second man, burdened down with something heavy, staggered up to Vinh’s stall and with his companion launched the contents of a large bucket into the display trays containing nems and lumpia, the samosas and prepared curries and wind-dried ducks. They tipped the last of some thick black liquid into the bubbling deep fryer, hurled the bucket into what was left of the trays and began kicking at Vinh and his wife where they lay huddled on the ground.
Overcoming his surprise and outrage, Bruno realized he was carrying his handbell and launched himself at the pair of them. In an instant, he knew that his costume was the perfect disguise. How could Father Christmas possibly be a danger? Bruno slammed one of the attackers on the side of the head with the bell, and without bothering to watch him fall he slammed the collection box, heavy with coins, into the back of the neck of the other. Just before he connected the man twisted, and Bruno hit his shoulder instead, and he turned to launch a swift sideways kick at Bruno’s groin.
The thick skirt of the Father Christmas costume saved him, and he raised the handbell to hit again. But the young Asian had managed to win enough time to step back and pull out a khaki-colored stick, about the size of a runner’s baton. Bruno recognized it from his army days, a stun grenade, all noise and stunning flare of light but not lethal. Yet it would probably serve to ignite whatever black oil now drenched the remains of Vinh’s stall.
Bruno used the only weapon he had, hurling the handbell at the Asian’s face. Then scooping two long belts from Léopold’s stall he used them as whips, aiming the flicking leather at the Asian’s eyes before darting forward to get between him and the oil that was now flooding over the prostrate figures of Vinh and his wife. But a hand was gripping his ankle and holding him back—the other Asian. Bruno stomped down hard while constantly flicking his leather belts and shouting for support. He felt rather than saw Léopold alongside him and the hold on his ankle gave way so he could move again. But the Asian now had a grip on the leather belts with one hand. At least he could not ignite the grenade.
Bruno dropped the belts and picked up a thick bolt of brightly colored African cloth from Léopold’s stall. Thrusting it before him like a battering ram, he charged at the Asian, forcing him back into the tiny alley that led to the rue Gambetta. Behind the retreating figure, Bruno saw a car, its doors open and with another Asian at the wheel, leaning out and calling for the others to join him. Bruno’s opponent ran back toward the car, clambering in and shouting in a language Bruno didn’t understand.
But Bruno knew the geography of his town. With the market stalls and the parked ranks of the vendors’ vans blocking the side streets, there was only one exit from rue Gambetta. He ran back down the rue de Paris, seeing Léopold sitting solidly on the chest of the fallen Asian and holding the man’s hair. Vinh, soaked in black oil, was helping his wife to her feet. Bruno’s van was parked in the place de la Gendarmerie, near the exit from the rue Gambetta. He knew he wouldn’t have time to start the engine. He opened the door, released the hand brake and heaved the van forward a few feet to block the exit from rue Gambetta just as the Asians’ escape car navigated the slow twists and turns between the parked vans and accelerated toward him.
Bruno dived out of the way as their car slammed into the side of his van, crumpling the front of their own car against one of the front wheels.
The two Asians came out as Bruno clambered to his feet, the driver whirling a stick on the end of a short chain as he advanced, shrieking angrily. Trying to keep one eye on the second man, Bruno backed away slowly and saw his attacker put one hand across his eyes as his partner tossed something in Bruno’s direction. Suddenly there was a huge noise and a great flare of light and he was stunned and blind and deaf. The stun grenade had gone off.
Bruno felt a sudden assault of cold water and a familiar scouring of his face before the sponge moved to the back of his neck. Sergeant Jules from the gendarmerie had learned his rudimentary medical skills on the rugby field, where an icy sponge was deemed sufficient for anything short of a broken limb. The sergeant’s lips were moving, and Bruno tried to concentrate, but his head was throbbing. At first he heard nothing. Then Jules’s voice seemed to come from very far away.
“They stole your van,” said Jules. In his hand was Bruno’s Father Christmas hat. “I’ve sent a car after them, and Capitaine Duroc is putting out an alert. We should catch them before they reach Périgueux. We’d better get you to the medical center.”
“There’s another one, a prisoner at Léopold’s stall,” Bruno said, shaking his head to clear the stars from his eyes. Gingerly, he rose to his feet, still swaying; Jules put out a protective arm. Then there was another flash as Philippe Delaron, who ran the camera shop and took pictures for Sud Ouest, snapped a bedraggled and battered Father Christmas in the supportive arms of a gendarme.
“You run that photo and you’ll never get another story out of me,” said Jules, his voice hard. “And you’ll be breath-tested every time you step into your car.”
Leaving Delaron to take photos of the wrecked getaway car and the scraped and broken wing mirrors that marked its passage through the vendors’ vans, Jules helped Bruno limp back up the rue de Paris toward what was left of Vinh’s stall. There was no sign of Vinh or his wife, but Léopold was squatting beside his prisoner, a pocketknife pressed against the Asian’s throat. He wasn’t going anywhere. Fat Jeanne was sitting on his chest.
“This little animal will know better than to attack our market again,” said Léopold, slapping the youth almost playfully across both cheeks and grinning widely at Bruno. “And I saved your collection box,” he added, gesturing toward his stall as Bruno nodded his thanks.
“Vinh said he was going to take his wife to the medical clinic,” Jeanne said as Jules bent to handcuff the young Asian, whose eyes were squeezed tightly shut. His face was smeared in blood. Bruno searched the man’s pockets for a wallet or some identification but found nothing except three hundred euros in new twenty-euro notes, a cheap mobile phone and a slip of paper with a single telephone number typed on it. Starting with the digits 0553, it was clearly local.
“We can sort this out at the gendarmerie,” said Bruno. Jules attempted to haul the young man to his feet, but he crumpled back down again, whimpering as he tried to crawl behind Jules and away from Léopold. “We’ll need to bring in the forensics experts to look at his mobile phone. They’ll have to try and identify the source of that stun grenade, if there’s anything left of it. That means bringing in the Police Nationale from Périgueux.”
“It looks like this boy might need an ambulance,” Jeanne said, to be howled down by other stallholders who were clustering around. Melanie from the cheese stall was close enough to give the young Asian a kick in the ribs with her heavy winter boots. Bruno began pushing the crowd back, but they were in no mood to listen. Two more gendarmes arrived.
“To hell with the ambulance,” said Jules. “I’m putting this little bastard in jail. We can always cal
l a doctor to the gendarmerie.”
“You know that Vinh had trouble in Sarlat last Saturday?” said Léopold. “Same thing, some young Chinese telling him they wanted his spot. There were some hard words exchanged, a bit of pushing. But all the stallholders backed Vinh, and the others left.”
“Thanks for your help,” Bruno said to the big Senegalese, shaking his hand. “I’d have been in much worse trouble without you. And let us know how much that bolt of cloth cost.” It was lying in a pool of oil, clearly ruined. “The mairie will reimburse you.”
Léopold pulled from beneath his stall the small dolly he used to load and unload his van, and they pushed the half-conscious youth onto it, and with Sergeant Jules beside him, Léopold pushed the prisoner down the rue de Paris.
Bruno bent down to dip a finger into the dark oil and raised it to his nose to sniff and shrugged. Probably fuel oil, but he’d better check. He turned to Jeanne. “Please, can you call Michel at public works, get him to clean up this mess. Not that there’s much to be saved of Vinh’s stall. But tell him to keep some of this oil for the police lab. And ask him to hang on to the bucket they used. Thanks, Jeanne.”
He pulled out his own phone and rang the Police Nationale switchboard in Périgueux, reporting the assault, the use of explosives and the theft of his van and asking for assistance and a forensics team. The word “explosives” would get swift and top-level attention.
6
By the time Bruno reached the gendarmerie, his police van had been found, rammed into a concrete lamppost at Lespinasse’s garage on the outskirts of town. Two Asian men had abandoned it, leaped into an almost-new silver Renault that had just been filled with petrol, and driven off leaving the driver with the gas cap in his hand. The registration number had been circulated to all police, but there were many silver Renaults on the road. The young Asian had nothing to say. He sat silently in the interview room, his head bowed and his hands on his knees, refusing even to acknowledge questions or the offer of a glass of water. The telephone number he carried turned out to be that of a lawyer’s office in Périgueux, who did not seem much surprised at the call from the gendarmerie. A lawyer would be there within the hour, accompanied by a Chinese translator.
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