The Coldest Case

by Martin Walker

  ‘Are you sure?’ Bruno asked, the urgency almost painfully evident in his voice. ‘Would you swear to it?’

  ‘I don’t know about swearing but it’s him all right. I think he was from Alsace originally and came down here for the vendange as a student, picking the grapes all over the Bergerac to earn a bit of money. He caught the eye of old Mathieu’s pretty daughter, Mathilde, and soon a baby was on the way. Mathieu grumpily consented to the marriage and took him into the vineyard. Of course, if Mathieu had any sons, it would have been a different story. But the marriage worked out well, it must be thirty years ago or so.’

  ‘What’s the name of the vineyard?’

  ‘Le Clos Bazaine, the old family name.’

  ‘And that’s his name, too?’ Bruno asked. ‘That’s quite a coincidence.’

  ‘I think he might have taken on the name when he married to please Mathieu, God rest his soul. And now can you tell me why you’re so interested in Henri Bazaine? It certainly can’t be because of his wines.’

  ‘Sorry, but at this stage, I can’t tell you. When I can, let’s sit in this room, enjoying a decent bottle, and I’ll give you the full story from its beginning here in St Denis. In the meantime, I’m afraid I have to swear you to silence.’

  ‘There you go, wanting me to swear again,’ said Hubert, smiling. ‘After that tasting glass, let’s have a proper glass together of this wonderfully refreshing Riesling while the world outside bakes in the heat. And you can tell me how seriously we should take this sudden alarm over forest fires.’

  12

  Bruno could not explain the instinct that told him not to alert J-J to his discovery, or at least not yet. It was partly because he was far from sure that he had the right man. He’d have to see if the family name had been formally adopted and if he could find his original surname. Also he wanted to get his own sense of this possible murderer, to look into his eyes and see how much of Hubert’s story he could discreetly verify. The last and most cogent reason was that Bruno felt that he shouldn’t alert Henri that the police were on his track. Someone with the nerve to commit murder, to keep it to himself for three decades, to marry and create a new life for himself and build an apparently successful business, was not a man to be trifled with. And of course, even if he had been Tante-Do’s lover and Max’s friend, he might still be innocent of the killing.

  In the meantime, he could do his own research. Back in his office, where a bottle of Hubert’s Riesling now lay in the Mairie’s fridge alongside the crayfish, Bruno fired up his computer. He rubbed his hands together and began by searching for the vineyard’s website. It was disappointingly thin. Unusually, it did not seem to welcome visitors for tastings and there were none of the usual vineyard photos, family histories, press reviews and price lists. The place seemed deliberately to be running under the radar. The police data bank showed no criminal record for Henri Bazaine, just some minor speeding offences. He hadn’t accumulated sufficient penalty points to put his driving licence in danger.

  The website of the Conseil Interprofessional, the overall administrative body for the Bergerac appellation, was more helpful, showing that it was now a relatively large property for the region with forty hectares of vines, more than double the size it had been twenty years earlier. For somebody making wines mainly for the co-op, where prices were low, that was unusual. Most successful vineyards in the region depended on the higher prices they could command for premium wines like Monbazillac or Pécharmant, or by gaining a reputation for their better wines through winning medals and prizes.

  By contrast, there was more to be found on Henri’s father-in-law, the late Mathieu Bazaine, in a newspaper obituary. He had been a local councillor and served one term as Mayor of his commune. His family vineyard had been devastated, like so many others, by the great frost of 1956 when the temperature had been so cold for so long that the vine roots had died. Mathieu had returned from serving in the Algerian war to rebuild the vineyard, becoming active in the cooperative and producing cheap wines for the new supermarkets. He had also been on the board of the local Anciens Combattants, the veterans’ association. That was interesting, Bruno thought. He had contacts among them.

  He called the Baron, another Algerian war veteran, who laughed at the mention of Mathieu’s name.

  ‘He was a fainéant, a real poser, always turning up at Remembrance Day parades with his medals. He spent his entire time in Algeria working in the motor pool at the big base in Oran, never on what I’d call real active service,’ the Baron said. ‘Certainly, he never saw combat. He spent most of his time wooing the very plain eldest daughter of a rich pied noir, married her and then used her dowry to rebuild his vineyard here. She must have been at least ten years older than him and obviously on the shelf. Her family must have been grateful to get her married off. He inherited a small place from his dad, just seven or eight hectares. But when Algeria became independent in ’62 all his wife’s family came to France and put more money into the business, doubling the size of the place.’

  ‘How well did you know him?’

  ‘Well enough to have lunched with him a couple of times at Anciens Combattants events. I think I even dandled his little girl, Mathilde, on my knee once, and I recall one ceremony when she came along with him dressed like she was going to her first Communion. She was no beauty, just like her mum. But she got herself a good man who did wonders for that vineyard.’

  ‘Did you meet him?’

  ‘Just at the wedding. I think I was only invited because Mathieu wanted to get close to my father, who was president of the Société des Gastronomes de France. We were both invited and my father said I should go, just to show the flag.’

  ‘Are you at home?’ When the Baron said he was, Bruno asked him to stay there and drove directly to the old chartreuse that he knew so well. He found his friend mowing his extensive lawn and showed him the composite photo of Henri that Yves had prepared.

  ‘That’s him, sure enough, a good-looking guy,’ the Baron said. ‘I think his name was Henri. I could never work out what it was he saw in little Mathilde, except maybe for the family vineyard. Still, I gather the marriage has lasted, which is more than you can say for a lot of marriages these days.’

  Bruno thanked him and then apologized, saying he had to go, explaining that he would tell the Baron about Henri when he could, but now he had to go and cook for the visit of his cousin, Alain.

  ‘Was that the one I met when he came here before, the one in the air force?’ the Baron asked. ‘I remember him, a decent guy. Bring him round for a drink if you have time.’

  Bruno nodded and said he’d try to drop by, but maybe the Baron would like to join them at the Audrix night market the following evening. He made a mental note to call some other chums about Audrix.

  ‘Good idea, I haven’t been there yet this year,’ the Baron said. ‘Let’s invite the whole gang. We can all meet for a drink here at six, and then get there by seven. I know the village Mayor so I’ll call to make sure he holds a table for us.’

  Once back home, after greeting and feeding Balzac and the chickens, he called Pamela, Jack, Gilles, Florence and the Mayor to suggest they all gather at the Baron’s house and then go up to Audrix and meet his cousin and his bride-to-be. Then he called Sabine on her personal mobile to invite her to join them, to meet his friends and experience the local tradition of the night markets. With a touch of guilt he then recalled Virginie, the young woman working on Oscar’s skull at the police lab in Périgueux. He called her mobile and invited her for the weekend, but she had already bought a ticket for an open-air concert in the Parc des Arènes, the old Roman amphitheatre. Could she come the following weekend instead? Of course, he replied.

  It was time to start preparing the meal and for such a warm evening, he’d start with the classic cold soup of vichyssoise. In the garden, he dug up a single potato plant, which gave him four fat ones, nearly half a kilo. He pulled o
ut two medium-size leeks, two small onions and snipped off a bunch of chives. Back in the kitchen he peeled the potatoes and onions and stripped off the outer leaves and tops of the leeks, keeping only the whites. He sliced and chopped them into small dice, then began to fry them in duck fat over a very gentle heat. Ten minutes would let them cook without browning as long as he kept turning them.

  He returned quickly to the garden with a wicker basket, loaded it with three fat carrots, a head of celery, eight shallots, a large lettuce, a cucumber, parsley and some cherry tomatoes and darted back to turn the vegetables. When the onions and leeks were soft, he slowly added a half-litre of his own chicken stock and a wine glass full of water, bringing the vegetables to a simmer until he was sure the potatoes were cooked through. He thought there would be enough salt in the chicken stock but he’d test it later once the dish had cooled.

  Suddenly his ears pricked up as the radio, tuned to France Bleu Périgord, began reporting ‘sensational developments in a murder inquiry that has been unsolved for three decades. The victim of the murder, which took place in the woods near St Denis, has never been identified – until now. The crucial breakthrough in the case came thanks to the Museum of Prehistory at Les Eyzies, where an exhibition of prehistoric faces that had been reconstructed from their skulls inspired local police to bring in an expert to reconstruct the face of the murder victim. Here’s the chief of detectives in Périgueux, Jean-Jacques Jalipeau.’

  ‘For the Police Nationale, a murder inquiry is never closed,’ J-J said. ‘We have new information and new tools so we are working hard now to push this to a conclusion.’

  That was it. Bruno looked up at the radio in surprise as it moved on to the next item. There must have been a leak. That was a non-answer from J-J, framed with unusual caution for a man normally so outspoken. Could the leak have come from Philippe, who regularly worked with the radio station? Bruno thought not; Philippe knew a lot more about the case than just Virginie’s work on the skull. The leak could have come from a cop who knew of Virginie’s work. But did this mean that Bruno should contact J-J at once with the news of Henri Bazaine?

  Bruno paused to think, wooden spoon still in his hand. If Henri had heard that news bulletin, might he try to flee, to disappear again as he had thirty years earlier? That was not a risk Bruno had any right to take. He put down the spoon, picked up his phone and called J-J, only to reach his message service. Bruno reported that the man in the photo had been identified as Henri Bazaine, winemaker of Le Clos Bazaine near Bergerac, by Hubert and by the Baron, both of whom J-J knew. He recommended that J-J arrange for Tante-Do, suitably escorted, to be taken to verify the identification.

  He washed and chopped the lettuce, peeled and sliced a cucumber and put them into a salad bowl with the cherry tomatoes, then crumbled and added the Roquefort cheese. He cut two slices of bread from the tourte and toasted them, ready to be cut into cubes to go into the salad once he’d added the vinaigrette. The bowl for the walnut oil and white wine vinegar for the dressing stood ready by the chopping board.

  He peeled and chopped the shallots, then cut a head of garlic from the braided rope that hung from a kitchen beam. He peeled and sliced two cloves and began peeling the carrots and celery before slicing them into a julienne of fine strips with his mandolin. He was planning écrevisses à la nage, crayfish that would seem to float atop the julienne of vegetables.

  He put a hundred grams of butter into a pan over the lowest possible heat and went to the garden for a sprig of thyme, three sprigs of tarragon and a bay leaf and tied them together as a bouquet garni. He put the shallots and garlic into the pan with the now-melted butter, half a dozen halved walnuts and two spoonfuls of tomato paste and softened them slowly for about ten minutes. He added the crayfish and sautéed them until they were bright red. Then he poured a glass of pastis, struck a match and flambéed the dish. Once the flames died down he removed the crayfish and began slowly adding a bottle of Bergerac Sec to the sauté pan. He added the bouquet garni, sea salt and piment d’espelette, the red pepper from the Basque country, and raised the heat for five minutes to reduce the liquid.

  The vichyssoise was now cool enough to go into the blender to become a smooth purée. He stirred in the two hundred grams of Stéphane’s cream and put the bowl into the freezer to chill. He went out to the rear garden, picked three plump, fresh peaches from his tree, washed them, peeled and halved them, removed the kernels and put them into the fridge on a plate, cut side down. He would leave the last stage of cooking for the arrival of his guests.

  He’d already prepared the bedroom for Alain and Rosalie, putting fresh sheets on the double bed and fresh towels in the bathroom when he’d cleaned it that morning. On impulse he went to the garden, plucked two red roses with long stems and put them into a long-necked wine decanter that he took upstairs and placed on the bedside table. He checked his watch and saw that he was in good time so he took a quick shower and changed into khaki slacks and a polo shirt. He’d need about twenty minutes for the risotto so he could serve the chilled soup first.

  He was putting new candles into his two terrace lanterns when his phone buzzed. It was J-J, to say he’d got Bruno’s message and Tante-Do and Sabine would be calling at Henri’s vineyard in the morning. Sabine had been given an unmarked police car and Yves would go with them for security. They’d pick up Tante-Do in Bordeaux at nine, and should be at the vineyard soon after ten. Tante-Do had been instructed to wear dark glasses and leave the talking to Yves and Sandrine, who would say they’d heard from Hubert’s wine shop that they should try a bottle of Henri’s Reserve red. J-J himself would first be calling at the Bergerac wine cooperative to get further confirmation of the photograph. Did Bruno want to be there?

  He explained about his cousin’s visit. He’d arranged tickets for Alain and Rosalie to visit the Lascaux cave at ten the next morning which meant they would be leaving about nine. They could have lunch in Montignac then he’d urge them to take a canoe trip in the afternoon from the fortress of Castelnaud down the Dordogne river to the next fortress of Beynac that loomed above the river from its clifftop. Bruno said he could be at the Bergerac vineyard by ten to meet Tante-Do and Sabine. Being in the military, Alain and Rosalie would understand if he pleaded urgent and unexpected police duty.

  ‘Right. I’ll tell Yves to expect to see you at the vineyard. You’ll be in civilian clothes, of course, but carrying your police badge, just in case. It’s up to you but I don’t think you need to go armed. Yves will be wearing a concealed weapon in a holster and I’ll be nearby. I don’t expect to be long at the co-op and I’ll have a couple of my men with me. I’m not planning an arrest at this stage, just starting with a few questions. I’ve checked his ID with his local mairie, which says he was born in ’69 in Belleville, in the old Red Belt of Paris. By the way, he lied to Tante-Do about being a student – Strasbourg university never heard of him. Still, let’s not forget this could be a case of mistaken identity. He might not be our guy.’

  ‘This is how we find out. By the way, I heard you just now on the radio. Was there a leak?’

  ‘We’re looking into that but I think the press office may have thought it would help stir up public interest. Thanks for getting Hubert and the Baron to confirm the photo. See you tomorrow.’

  Bruno sat in his garden, thinking about the confrontation that would be coming in the morning at the vineyard and whether Tante-Do, Hubert and the Baron could all be wrong about Henri. It was just possible. He got up, remembering to pick some parsley, and was heading back to the kitchen when Balzac gave his customary bark of warning a moment before Bruno heard the sound of Alain’s car coming up the lane.

  Rosalie was even more attractive in person than in the photo on Alain’s phone. She greeted Bruno with a broad smile that came from her eyes as well as her lips. He got the immediate impression that she was one of those fortunate people who’d been born with a positive attitude to life that they never lost. A
lmost as tall as Bruno, she was wearing flat ballet shoes and a short-sleeved summer dress in broad vertical stripes of white and light blue. She shook Bruno’s hand and then gave him a smacking kiss on each cheek as Alain stood by, beaming proudly. Then she bent down to greet an enthusiastic Balzac, finding just the right spot to make him kick a rear leg in delight. Bruno warmed to her at once.

  He took Rosalie’s overnight case from Alain and led the way upstairs to show them their room, said there was plenty of time if they wanted to freshen up after the journey, adding that drinks would be served outside when they were ready. He took three champagne flutes to the small table on the terrace and went back for the brut and the cassis.

  When they came downstairs, Alain presented him with a bottle of champagne and Rosalie gave Bruno a small, wrapped parcel, saying, ‘Alain tells me you were always a great reader and that as a boy you loved Sherlock Holmes, as did I. Here’s a modern writer’s attempt to do a Sherlock, but it’s about his brother, Mycroft. I read it when it was first translated and I thought you might enjoy it as much as I did, unless you get enough detection in your day job.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ he said, hugging her in thanks and catching a hint of roses from her newly applied scent. ‘Thank you for the champagne and the book. I’ll look forward to both. Meanwhile, here’s some Bergerac champagne. Of course we’re not allowed to call it that, even though it’s made by the method invented by Dom Perignon long before he went north to teach the people of Champagne how to do it. Would you like it with cassis or without?’

  Alain chose it with and Rosalie asked to try it without. She stood a moment to sweep her eyes across the vegetable garden, the avenue of truffle trees, the chicken run and the roses that climbed up the front of the house.

  ‘It’s lovely here, a charming spot,’ she said. ‘Did those roses by our bed come from the climbers beside the door?’