A handful more numbers were identified as local friends from Ste. Alvère, Nicco winking as he explained that at least one of the unregistered cell phones was owned by a friend who was having an affair. Nervous that his wife might be keeping an eye on the bills for his usual cell phone, he kept a separate phone for his mistress. He must have confused the phones when he called Hercule.
“And this one is Didier, who manages the truffle market,” Nicco added, putting a fat thumb beside one of the numbers on J-J’s list. “He lost his old phone recently and got a new one but probably never got around to registering the number. And these two are renifleurs from the market who don’t want the tax man looking into their phone records.”
“That leaves me with just three unidentified numbers,” said J-J. “That’ll make life easier as we try to track them down. There’s one more bit of business where you might be able to help, at least those of you from Ste. Alvère. Anybody see Hercule receiving any unusual visitors in the last week or so, or any strangers in town?”
“He had the son of an old army friend to stay for a weekend, maybe ten days ago,” said Roland. “An Italian-sounding name or maybe Corsican. It began with an S. He was a middle-aged guy, a fancy dresser. Sanni or Salani or something like that.”
“Savani?” asked J-J.
“That’s it. Savani. I’d seen him before. It wasn’t the first time he stayed at Hercule’s place.”
“The man who sponsored Vinh’s citizenship papers,” said Bruno, exchanging glances with J-J.
“I think it would have been the son of Capitaine Antoine Savani,” the baron interjected. “He ran the Deuxième Bureau in Saigon back when Hercule was stationed in Vietnam. He’d have been Hercule’s boss. I met the son, Pierre or Paul, a couple of times at Hercule’s place.”
“Hercule had a lot of Vietnamese visitors as well, from being stationed there in the fifties,” Nicco said. “He had quite a social life, old Hercule. Anyway, let’s drink to him, a great friend and a good hunter.”
After the toast, Bruno turned to the soup, and the baron lifted the lid from the pot of venison hanging over the fire and began to stir, breathing in the rich smell of the wine sauce.
“Ah, that’s good,” he said. “You added some black pudding?”
Bruno nodded from his place by the soup. “But now comes something else,” he said, and took from his pocket the truffle he had found in the woods, holding it up for all to see.
“Putain, but they’d give you a million centimes for that one up in Paris,” said Nicco. “It’s a real black diamond, black as night.”
“Gigi found it this evening, just before we came here. And since it’s Hercule’s dinner, that makes it Hercule’s truffle, and we’ll enjoy it for him.”
Bruno passed it around, and each man took a slow, reverent sniff. Then Bruno began to shave the black diamond into the soup, its scent expanding with the warmth of the pot and filling the room.
Hubert opened another bottle of champagne and refilled the glasses. The mayor washed two big lettuces that he had brought from his greenhouse, and Sergeant Jules began to make his special vinaigrette. Roland chopped garlic and parsley for the pommes sarladaises, and one son spooned duck fat into two giant frying pans, while the other dried off blanched potatoes. Bruno grated nutmeg into his simmering soup, tasted it and added salt before stirring in the pot of thick cream brought by Stéphane. Jo donned a thick glove to take the long spit from the fire and eased a pigeon onto each of the warming plates. From the stove he took the reduction of red wine and stock that he had made and poured it into a saucepan of cabbage and bacon he had prepared. Bruno never ceased to be amazed at how these cooking tasks were done almost automatically, the legacy of dozens of hunters’ dinners such as this and feasts for family and neighbors after the annual slaughter of a pig.
At last all was ready, and they headed into the baron’s adjoining dining room, where more logs were crackling in the stone fireplace. Reflections of the flickering lights of the candles on the long table of chestnut, darkened with age and decades of polishing, danced on the array of carafes, each with its cork beside it to identify the wine within. Bruno brought in his soup, and the baron took his place at the head of the table. The foot of the table was left empty, reserved for their absent friend. In his place stood a framed photograph of Hercule taken the previous year, standing beside a deer he had shot. The baron gestured J-J to sit at his left and Bruno at his right, and the others arranged themselves along each side.
The table, which the baron claimed had been in the same place since the chartreuse was built three centuries earlier, was more than three feet wide and could easily have sat half a dozen more. At a sign from the baron, Hubert served the first of the wines as they all remained standing, waiting for the customary toast. Hubert poured the last of the carafe of the Château Angélus into the glass that stood beside Hercule’s place.
“To our lost friend and companion of many a memorable day, and a devoted son of France,” the baron announced.
“Hercule,” they chorused, raised the glasses to his photograph and drank and settled to their meal of truffle soup made of Hercule’s stock, pâté that he had helped to make, roast pigeon that had been one of his favorite dishes and Bruno’s venison stew from a deer that he had shot.
“This meal,” the baron said, “is our friend’s parting gift to us.”
15
The next morning, Bruno was not at his best. He seldom suffered hangovers. He always drank mineral water along with his wine, and after heavy drinking forced himself to swallow a bottle of water before bed. But the morning after the feast for Hercule he felt dreadful. He wasn’t the only one. The baron’s kitchen had been full of morose men, all waiting for the coffee to be ready and gulping down the baron’s sovereign remedy of a raw egg mixed with orange juice and harissa, the red chili paste from Morocco. Bruno took his medicine and left J-J nursing his second cup of coffee and waiting his turn in the baron’s bathroom. Driving home to shower and change and walk his dog, he stopped briefly in his office to send a fax to his contact in the military archives for the details of Hercule’s army record.
And that triggered a memory of perhaps the only other Vietnamese contact that he knew. Tran had been a colleague in the combat engineers unit with which Bruno had served in Bosnia, on what was supposed to have been a peacekeeping mission where there had been no peace to keep. He kept in touch with Tran as with other old comrades-in-arms through Christmas cards and occasional letters to announce a marriage or the birth of a new child. He had Tran’s address in Bordeaux, where he and his French wife ran a Vietnamese restaurant that Bruno kept promising to visit. He tracked down a phone number and called.
“I’ve heard of Vinh, but I don’t know him personally. And I’ve heard about the troubles people have had—we’ve had some here in Bordeaux. It’s a bad time,” Tran had said when Bruno explained his reason for phoning. “I’ll make some calls and get back to you.”
Feeling better after a brisk jog in the morning woods with Gigi, Bruno ironed the uniform shirts he had left drying the previous day and headed for L’Auberge des Verts. Bill Pons had announced what he called a Green Fair, an exhibition of energy-saving products offered by local companies. When Bruno arrived, Pamela was already there, wrapped in a heavy black cloak and wearing a Russian-style fur hat and boots and chatting to Alphonse. It was even colder up here on the ridge than it had been in the shelter of Bruno’s woods, and Bruno could see their breath steaming out in plumes in the chill air as they spoke.
Bruno stopped to observe Pamela from a distance, almost completely draped in black with only her face showing. For a moment he was reminded of an Islamic woman covered by a burka, but the flare of Pamela’s cloak and the shape of her hat made the overall impression enticingly different. Perhaps it was her proud and upright stance, perhaps the animation of her face and gestures, but he felt a distinct erotic charge as he watched. He approached them and felt himself stir as he kissed her deliciously cold c
heeks. He held her a moment, savoring her warm breath against his face, before turning to greet Alphonse.
“How was the boys’ night out?” she said, smiling. “You’re in better shape than I expected.” She had been to one of the ladies’ nights at the hunting club with him and knew how they tended to finish.
“I felt a lot better after my run with Gigi,” he said. “Another coffee and I’ll be as good as new. Is the restaurant open, or is it just the Green exhibition?”
“They have coffee and hot chocolate inside, and they’re serving plates of toast topped with my cheese and honey,” said Alphonse. “But it’s full of schoolkids at the moment. Let’s look around first. Here, I picked up a guide that Bill printed.”
Armed with the map, they strolled through the gardens looking at the windmills, the arrays of solar panels and the drip-irrigation system Bill had installed to save water. Alphonse read out some figures from the guide on how much electricity the panels produced from light alone, even on a day as cloudy as this.
“I’m impressed, but all this must have cost a fortune,” Pamela said. “I couldn’t begin to afford to do this for my gîtes.”
“Bill claims that it added about fifteen percent to his building costs, and he’ll recoup that in energy savings in about five or six years,” Alphonse said. He led them around to the rear of the restaurant to an open field that was half covered in campers and trailers displaying solar panels, double and triple glazing, woodstoves, and systems to heat swimming pools.
“What Alphonse didn’t say was that you helped pay for this,” Bruno told Pamela. “We all did. There are lots of grants and subsidies available for energy saving, and Bill used them all. I reckon he paid about half of the real cost, and taxpayers forked out the rest.”
“But those grants would be available to me as well,” Pamela replied. “Or anybody else with the wit to apply for them.”
“Not for the rest of the financial year,” said Bruno. “The money has run out, and there’s already a long list of applications for next year’s money.”
They stopped at a trailer with a large tent attached, its plastic door closed but with a sign saying it was open and to come in. They pushed through into sudden heat from a blower. The tent was almost full of people enjoying the warmth and listening to a salesman talking about the merits of roof insulation.
“Forty percent of all the energy used in Europe is used in our buildings,” he was saying. “If we adopted the current Swedish standards of roof insulation across Europe we’d save half of that, which means we’d save almost as much energy as we use in transport.”
“Hear that?” whispered Alphonse. “That’s the message we have to get across to the voters.”
Pamela took some brochures, and they moved on, pausing at a strange-looking windmill. It was a central shaft that held at its top what looked like a hollow barrel, but instead of the wooden staves there were three thin spirals of metal acting as propeller blades that turned steadily and quietly in the light breeze.
“This is the future of wind power,” said Alphonse, his voice eager. “This kind of vertical windmill is quieter and more efficient than traditional propellers. It works much better in lighter winds and in stronger ones. You can attach this to chimneys and roofs in towns, and you can’t do that with the usual windmill. And it’s from your country, Pamela. I’m saving to get one for our commune.”
Alphonse greeted the salesman, whom he evidently knew, and Pamela began asking about prices and installation costs. As it looked like it would be a long conversation, Bruno excused himself, saying he’d better check in with the schoolteachers who were escorting the children.
He headed back toward the restaurant, but branched off to take a look at a large barn, newly restored, presumably where Bill and the staff lived. He could have kicked himself for forgetting about getting those nieces into school. He’d have to talk to Pons. The house had its own parking lot, and all the shutters were closed except for one set at a side window. Bruno looked in. A large sitting room was dimly lit by table lamps with heavy shades and decorated in an old-fashioned way that surprised him. He’d never have thought Bill would go for chaise longues in gilt and red plush and those overstuffed cushions. The room looked as if it had been designed as a whole, rather than filled haphazardly with furniture picked up at auctions.
There was a tap on his shoulder, and he turned to see Minxin, the chef. He looked cross. “Private here, you go now,” he said, with none of the affability he’d shown in the restaurant.
“Ah, Minxin. I’m glad to see you,” Bruno said. “I wanted to talk to you about your nieces. They have to be registered for school.”
“No school. Chinese teacher,” said Minxin, shaking his head. “You go now.”
“Children in France go to school. It’s the law,” said Bruno firmly, but recognizing he’d get nowhere with the tall chef. He nodded in a friendly fashion, and as he turned to head back to the Green Fair, he added, “I’ll have to talk to Pons about this.”
Juliette, a plump and divorced primary-school teacher who always flirted with Bruno, waved as she saw him approach. Bill Pons, bare-headed and dressed as if for skiing at a fashionable resort, was standing beside a distinctly pungent hole in the ground. It was covered in thick black plastic with pipes leading into a small hut alongside. Pons was frowning as he tried to explain to the ten-year-olds the way in which cow manure could be turned into methane that could then produce hydrogen for fuel cells. Groans of disgust and much holding of noses greeted his efforts. Bill seemed irritated and impatient at this reaction. Had Bill never been ten years old? Bruno wondered. He deliberately walked into the boys’ sight line and watched them take notice and stop their clowning. They all knew him from tennis and rugby lessons, and some saluted him cheerfully, which seemed to irritate Bill even more.
“As I was saying,” Bill said crisply, “the methane gets turned into hydrogen …”
Bruno strolled off, leaving Bill to his explanations. Just then his mobile phone began to trill the “Marseillaise.”
It was his old acquaintance at the army archives, calling to say he’d faxed Hercule’s army records to Bruno’s office. He explained that he’d known Hercule in Algeria and sat through a course he’d run on counterinsurgency operations. So he took Hercule’s murder personally.
“I thought I’d tell you some detail you won’t find in the official records,” the man said. “He wrote a pamphlet on counterinsurgency, and I’ve still got a copy that I’ll send you. He went back to Vietnam in sixty-seven and sixty-eight when the Americans were fighting there. They had asked him to come and give some lectures on the French experience. There was a big fuss behind the scenes when de Gaulle found out. And he was very opposed to the use of torture, said it did far more harm than good. I thought you might like to know.”
“I didn’t know that. Thanks.”
“By the way, make a note of this number. It’s my mobile and I’m calling you from a café outside the Invalides. If I can be of further help, use this phone rather than the official line.”
Bruno thanked him and hung up. That was interesting, and he was looking forward to reading Hercule’s pamphlet. From his own experience in Bosnia he’d learned that every counterinsurgency campaign was above all a political war, and every military action had to be weighed with regard to its political effects and vice versa.
Suddenly he stopped short. There was something else that he remembered that struck him as directly relevant to the campaign of intimidation being waged against the Vietnamese in the markets right here. People would end up supporting whichever side gave the best protection, whichever side threatened the most, and which of the two was seen as most likely to win.
Bruno looked around at the wintry scene, at the schoolchildren darting around the campers and trailers. He heard the sound of laughter as people came out from the restaurant full of food and hot drinks. It was a peaceful, happy landscape. But there was menace lurking on Bruno’s turf, a threat of violence an
d subtle terror against hardworking and law-abiding people that Bruno knew and liked. Bizarre as it might seem to be thinking of counterinsurgency theory in the middle of the French countryside, Bruno knew it was his duty to defend the victims, to allay their fears and to bring the intimidators to justice. Another thought struck him, the irony that Hercule’s war had started in Vietnam, and these Vietnamese were now French citizens and Bruno’s neighbors. He had been to their homes, eaten their food, and their safety was his responsibility.
“Bruno!” he heard. There was urgency and alarm in the call. Jolted out of his thoughts he turned to see Juliette waving at him frantically and a small knot of children gathered around the plastic-covered manure pit. He jogged across.
“It’s young Mathieu,” Juliette cried. “He’s fallen in.”
As he approached, Bruno could see a corner of the black plastic sheeting had been loosened from its restraining pegs, and one whole side had sunk down into the reeking pit. He looked over the edge and saw a pitiful young face, the boy’s body half submerged in the great pool of cow dung.
“I can’t feel the bottom, Bruno,” the boy wailed. He was clinging to a fold of plastic, but his grip was visibly slipping.
Bruno pulled off his greatcoat and jacket. Looking quickly around, he saw no other adult in sight. Filling his lungs he used his parade-ground voice.
“Au secours. Alphonse, Bill,” he roared and turned to the aghast children, looking for the most sensible of the boys he knew.
“Laurent, run to the nearest tents and bring back the salesman and any other men in there. Tell them it’s me, and it’s urgent. Michel, you run to the restaurant and do the same. Tell people I need rope, rope and men.”
He turned back to Juliette and gave her his greatcoat.
“Here, hold the collar of the coat tight and dig your feet hard into the ground,” he told her. “Keep shouting for help.”
Black Diamond Page 15