The Coldest Case

by Martin Walker

  ‘On reflection, I’m rather glad she aired the issue the way she did,’ Jack replied. ‘It focused a few minds, reminded people that they shouldn’t believe everything they might read in the files of an enemy agency. Just think what damage could be done by leaking fake KGB files saying that this British statesman or that American politician had all along been in the pay of the Russians. Lies can get halfway around the world before truth gets its boots on.’

  He ducked beneath the water and then began breast-stroking a stately circuit of the pool. Bruno’s mobile vibrated, and once again it was Isabelle.

  ‘Can you meet me with J-J at Bergerac airport tomorrow?’ she asked. ‘I’m on the morning flight from Paris, getting in just after nine.’

  ‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘It will be good to see you. Can you stay long?’

  ‘That rather depends on how things develop overnight,’ she said. ‘I can’t explain now. Maybe tomorrow. By the way, we came across an interesting coincidence. If you have a copy of that law book by the People’s Pierre, there’s an acknowledgement to his dear friend and colleague, Maître Vautan.’

  ‘Can you say what brings you down here, business or pleasure?’

  ‘Somebody has to deliver to Henri Bazaine the presidential pardon that he demanded and I volunteered. But it may become more complicated. We’ll know tomorrow. And make sure you come armed.’

  26

  It was a surprise the next morning to see Isabelle emerge first from the aircraft, wearing her uniform as a commissaire of police and carrying a briefcase emblazoned with the RF of la République Française. He had never seen her in official dress before. When they first met she had been a detective in plain clothes, working for J-J. Then she had been promoted to the staff of the Interior Minister, then to EuroJust in The Hague, the European Union’s judicial coordination unit. In all of those jobs she wore civilian clothes, as she did with her most recent promotion to run France’s coordination team with allies and EU partners on counter-terrorism. Bruno knew this had brought her a new rank, but to see her in uniform was a surprise. It must mean she was on a seriously official mission. He was glad that he’d decided to leave Balzac back at Pamela’s riding school.

  She was followed by a man in plain clothes carrying two overnight cases whom Bruno did not recognize. She introduced him as a diplomatic colleague without any further explanation, and then J-J embraced her in a bear hug, saying, ‘The uniform becomes you, Isabelle. Still, however high your reach in rank, to me you’ll always be my favourite young detective.’

  She extricated herself from J-J’s embrace, gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek and did the same for Bruno before leading the way to the waiting vehicles, saying to her companion, ‘This old rascal is like a papa to me – he taught me everything I know about police work when I was based down here. And this is my old friend Bruno, chief of police of the Vézère valley, with whom I share a very special dog.’

  ‘The catapult man,’ said Isabelle’s companion, in a French-Canadian accent. ‘I recognize him from the TV news on the forest fire.’

  ‘You see, Bruno? You’re famous,’ she said, as J-J’s driver opened the door for her.

  ‘We’ll talk later,’ Isabelle added quietly to Bruno. ‘If you could go in the second car with the mobiles. We’re heading to Henri’s vineyard.’

  The second car was a van almost filled with heavily armed gendarmes mobiles, the elite paramilitary unit who must have come in from Bordeaux. The chef d’escadron greeted Bruno with a salute and a handshake, then grinned and asked if he’d brought his catapult with him. The troops inside laughed, amiably enough, and made space for him in one of the three rows inside.

  The commander climbed into the front passenger seat, turned to face his troops and said, ‘This is Chef de Police Bruno Courrèges and if you haven’t noticed it, you men, this guy wasn’t always a cop. He’s wearing the ribbon of a Croix de Guerre and they don’t hand those out with the rations. I checked him out and he won it in Sarajevo for pulling wounded troops out of a burning armoured car when the Serbs were shelling the airport. You may also have seen him on TV yesterday, using a medieval war machine to put out a forest fire. We’re glad to have you with us, sir.’

  ‘Have you been briefed on the mission?’ Bruno asked, to cover his embarrassment as they followed J-J’s car down the N21 and then turned off to the right on the road to the main Bergerac vineyards.

  ‘Standing by and providing a security escort, as required by the commissaire. That’s all. Anything more you can tell me?’

  Bruno shook his head. ‘I know no more than you do. Beyond having powers to arrest someone, I’m not sure what I’m doing here.’

  ‘Welcome to the mushroom club,’ called out a gendarme from the back.

  ‘Mushroom club?’ asked Bruno. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit,’ came the answering roar of half a dozen voices, speaking as one.

  Bruno nodded, laughing. ‘I see the job hasn’t changed much.’

  He wondered why Isabelle had called in the mobiles, usually only employed in hostage rescue or situations requiring a heavily armed response. If she was simply delivering to Henri his presidential pardon, Bruno saw no reason for their presence. He felt as frustrated as she evidently was that the Elysée was letting Henri off the hook in return for the scrapbook or dossier or whatever it was that he was using to buy his pardon. Bruno had wondered whether Henri might not simply be handed over to the German authorities to let them prosecute him for the murder of Max, a German citizen. But the proof of that was purely circumstantial, that Henri was there at the right time and place and with a motive. Certainty of conviction required more than that.

  J-J’s car stopped before they reached the Bazaine vineyard and the mobiles’ van pulled in behind it. J-J stepped out and beckoned to Bruno to join him. He was shown into the back seat, squeezing in beside Isabelle and the diplomat.

  ‘The mobiles have been briefed to come into the vineyard exactly five minutes after we go inside,’ she said. ‘It’s just insurance, in case. But we don’t want Henri seeing them before that and I think you deserve to be in at the kill, as it were.’

  ‘In case of what?’ Bruno asked.

  ‘We’ll see.’

  They pulled into the vineyard. The door of the house opened as they climbed out of the car and Henri appeared on the threshold. He appeared to be alone.

  ‘Bonjour, Monsieur Bazaine,’ she began. ‘We spoke yesterday evening and I have here the official document from the Elysée.’

  ‘Please come inside,’ he said, looking curiously at Bruno and J-J and the diplomat, as if uncertain what they were doing at this presentation. ‘Why are these policemen here?’

  ‘It’s a courtesy since they have been involved in the case for which you are being granted immunity.’

  Henri shrugged, gestured to them to enter but made no move to shake their hands as they passed him at the door. They were all steered into a large, rather old-fashioned and dark sitting room, in which the paintings on the wall were a motley brown colour with occasional lighter patches, as if generations of wood fires had darkened them and they’d never been cleaned. Some seemed to be gloomy landscapes, but Bruno thought he could make out a cow and a stream on the one closest to him. The windows were few and low and the furniture heavy, leather and deliberately formal. There were no flowers, no books or magazines on view, no television and no sign of anything electronic except for two lonely wall lamps. Above all, to Bruno’s surprise, there were no other people present. Henri’s wife and children were not to be part of this encounter.

  ‘Thank you for receiving us, Monsieur Bazaine,’ Isabelle said. ‘As I told you by phone late yesterday, I have the honour to present to you the formal document of presidential pardon for any crimes or misdemeanours you may have committed on French soil.’

  She placed her briefcase on a smal
l side table, opened it and removed a scroll from which hung a ribbon of red, white and blue, which had been affixed with a seal of red wax. She handed the scroll to Henri. He unrolled it and read carefully through the text.

  ‘That appears to be satisfactory,’ he said. He pulled out a smartphone and punched in a number that had already been programmed into the device. ‘Maître Vautan? This is Henri Bazaine. I have the document from the Elysée. Would you care to read out the version you drafted so we can be sure the texts agree?’

  Henri listened on the phone and Bruno could make out the tinny sound of a voice reading aloud.

  ‘That is identical to the phrasing on the document that has just been delivered to me,’ said Henri. ‘Please go ahead and surrender to the Elysée the item I entrusted to you.’

  He closed the phone and turned to Isabelle with a triumphant smile, as if savouring this moment. ‘That appears to conclude our business, madame.’

  She nodded at him coldly, and said, ‘It appears, monsieur, that your presidential pardon is allowing you to get away with the murder of Max Morilland, the man you grew up with at the orphanage near Dresden.’

  ‘Murder?’ Henri shrugged. ‘It was a fair fight. Max was trying to make off with the scrapbook that my lawyer is now handing over to the authorities. I tried to stop him. He picked up the spade we’d used to dig the latrine. We fought over it and I won.’

  ‘So, finally you admit that you killed him,’ said J-J.

  Henri shrugged again. ‘It was him or me.’

  The room fell silent. Then Isabelle said curtly, ‘Commissaire Jalipeau, this was your case. Over to you.’

  J-J moved forward with great speed for such a large man, and swiftly put a pair of old-fashioned metal handcuffs onto one of Henri’s wrists but Henri jerked away too quickly for J-J to grab the other. Bruno moved in, grabbed Henri’s free arm and pulled it up hard behind his back, using the leverage to force him down to his knees so that J-J could fix the cuffs onto the wrist. Then J-J picked Henri’s phone from the floor where it had fallen and tossed it onto the couch.

  ‘Monsieur Bazaine, I am placing you under arrest as the object of an extradition request received from the Dominion of Canada and formally authorized last night by the French Minister of Justice,’ said Isabelle, taking another document from her briefcase. ‘You are charged with blackmail, demanding money with threats from a Canadian citizen, Monsieur Loriot, and his company, Les Vins de la Nouvelle France, to the sum of two hundred and sixty thousand euros, together with another four hundred thousand French francs when that was the prevailing currency. You will now be surrendered to the custody of the Canadian legal attaché pending your transfer to the jurisdiction of the Canadian courts.’

  ‘This is monstrous,’ Henri said. ‘Even without my presidential pardon, I’m a French citizen and cannot legally be extradited without a legal hearing. I demand to see my lawyer.’

  ‘That’s where you are mistaken,’ Isabelle said, her voice flat. ‘You’re not a French citizen. You arrived in this country on false papers and have sought to disguise your true identity ever since. You are not a French citizen and never have been. Your claim to French nationality is void and you are thus not entitled to the legal rights that pertain to that status.’

  With a roar of outrage Henri seemed to explode into action, rising to his feet and advancing as if he wanted to slam his forehead down onto Isabelle’s face. Bruno was faster. He caught Henri’s arm as he advanced, then swivelled to use the leverage to force him backward, where Henri tripped headlong over Bruno’s outstretched leg. He landed with a massive thud as his back and shoulders hit the floor, but Bruno kept a tight grip on his arm to prevent Henri’s head from slamming into the ground.

  J-J put more cuffs, plastic this time, around Henri’s ankles and with the sound of a roaring engine and the squeal of brakes, the mobiles van arrived in the courtyard. Isabelle was already at the door to let them in. Four stayed outside by their van, each facing a different direction, their weapons at the ready. Through the window Bruno saw one of them gesturing to Henri’s son, who had appeared in the door of the chai, to go back inside. Two more gendarmes came into the living room and pointed their automatic rifles at the figure on the floor.

  Isabelle turned to the Canadian legal attaché. ‘Monsieur Delaurier, the prisoner is now yours. The military aircraft is waiting for you and the prisoner in the military zone of Mérignac airport, ready for the flight to Montreal. I am instructed to offer you all facilities for the transfer of your prisoner to the aircraft. And since the presidential pardon was obtained under false pretences, I hereby confiscate it.’

  ‘What about his family?’ Bruno asked. ‘They should be informed. At least one of them is here. The son is in the chai.’

  ‘J-J, perhaps you would inform young Monsieur Bazaine that his father is being legally extradited to Canada to face serious charges,’ Isabelle said. She bent down to the floor and picked up the parchment scroll, replaced it in her briefcase, closed the locks, and turned to the mobiles.

  ‘Messieurs, please secure the prisoner inside your van for the ride to Mérignac. And Chef de Police Courrèges, please accompany the mobiles and ensure the security of the prisoner on the way to the airport. We will see you at the entrance to the military zone.’

  Once Henri had been placed inside the van and cuffed to the rings set into the floor of all such vehicles, she said quietly, ‘And Bruno, you know we like justice to be seen to be done. J-J has made sure that you’ll see some old friends at Mérignac.’

  The trip took ninety minutes and was uneventful, the heavy-duty air conditioning inside the van compensating for the heat of the day outside. Bruno assumed the heavily armoured mobiles would be in danger of heat exhaustion without it. Henri lay on the floor, glaring at Bruno throughout the trip, even though Bruno, recalling that he’d been a volunteer pompier, had placed a cushion under his head to spare him the bumps.

  Although now best known as a civilian airport serving some five million passengers a year, Mérignac had also been a military airbase since 1917. Bruno was interested to see the military section, since he knew that in 1940 it was from this airfield that Charles de Gaulle flew to Britain to continue the fight for France against the Nazi occupation. As Base Aérienne 106 it is today home to Air Force Support Command, housing some three thousand civilian and military personnel, a parachute commando group and an air transport squadron. Bruno could see a French military Airbus 330 waiting on the apron as they stopped at the entrance gate to be checked by a guard and waved inside. Troops in camouflage gear with kitbags beside them waited in rows to board.

  ‘We’re able to use a routine flight taking French troops to northern Quebec for exercises with our Canadian allies,’ said Isabelle, coming to the door of the van once the mobiles had descended and formed a loose cordon. Bruno undid the cuffs that attached Henri to the floor and helped him out. Isabelle saluted a waiting air force officer who escorted them all into the administration building and then into a waiting room where Sabine, in gendarme uniform, was waiting, arm in arm with Tante-Do. The older woman looked as if she had arrived directly from a session at her own beauty parlour, her make-up immaculate and her hair perfectly coiffed.

  ‘Merde, not you again,’ snapped Henri, with a sneering glance at Tante-Do and then rolling his eyes.

  ‘Yes, me again, Henri,’ she replied, her voice brittle. The knuckles of her hand tightened as she gripped Sabine’s hand. ‘So perhaps you can admit you recognize me this time? Well, I may not be pleased to see you, but I am delighted to see justice done, however long after the event.’

  Tante-Do raised her head defiantly and stared coldly at Henri and then repeated, ‘Justice.’

  The air force officer coughed, then signed a formal receipt for Henri and gave it to Isabelle. Two military policemen at once applied a separate set of handcuffs to Henri’s wrists and a much looser set to his ankles. Each took
one of his arms and frogmarched him outside to the waiting plane. All the soldiers on the apron turned to stare as he was bundled up the aircraft steps, followed by the Canadian diplomat.

  Tante-Do burst into tears, tucked herself into Sabine’s embrace, her shoulders heaving. Her voice was muffled but Bruno heard something that sounded as if she was telling Sabine that the young gendarme was the only family she had left. Sabine patted her on the back and murmured some words of comfort. Bruno watched them, affected by the words, thinking that Sabine had lost her mother and brother within the last year and her father was drifting out of reality. Perhaps it was true and Tante-Do was Sabine’s family now. The thought struck Bruno that, thanks to Alain, he’d been reminded that he also had a family and the events of the last few days had brought them much closer than they had been before.

  ‘That’s that, J-J,’ said Isabelle, putting her hand on the shoulder of the detective who had trained her in his craft and who was now staring almost sadly at the aircraft door through which Henri Bazaine had disappeared. ‘My congratulations, my dear old friend,’ she went on. ‘You never gave up and now your cold case is finally closed. After thirty years you can at last take down that ghoulish photograph from your office door.’

  ‘I suppose so, but I think I’d miss not seeing it every day,’ said J-J. ‘Somehow it doesn’t yet feel that it’s really over.’ He stomped off to the cars outside without a backward glance, leaving Bruno and Isabelle alone. Some shouted orders from an officer at the plane steps got the troops lining up, ready to board.

  ‘And what now?’ Bruno asked her. ‘You fly back to Paris?’

  ‘No,’ she said and gave him a look he knew too well and never grew tired of. ‘I go to the ladies’ room and change out of this uniform into something more comfortable. Then I was hoping you and I might collect Balzac and take him to meet his puppies. I really want to see them. After that, I have a few days off and you know how much I miss the Périgord.’