A Vintage End

by D'arcy Kavanagh

  “What do you mean ‘something else’?” Sauvageot said.

  “If we accept he was here for the Arles race, why would he end up dead and in a way that someone wanted to suggest was an accident when it was not?” Burke said. “He was here for the race, got into some kind of disagreement and was killed. So what’s been happening with the vintage races that has created issues? The actions against Bosco Yablonski.”

  “You think this death is tied to those actions?” Sauvageot said.

  “If I had to bet, I’d say the victim was one of the group involved in those actions,” Burke said.

  Sauvageot asked what Burke meant by “group” and so Burke explained why he thought the various stunts had been the work of four individuals.

  “And you’re suggesting one of that group killed our cyclist by the canal?” Sauvageot said.

  “I am,” Burke said. There it was – his theory – for whatever it was worth.

  “But why kill him?” Sauvageot said.

  Burke went onto another part of his theory, saying how the anti-Yablonski actions in the Nice race had a different feel to them.

  “I think there was a difference of opinion among the people who pulled those stunts,” Burke said. “There was some intelligence or even wit with the currency one, but spreading tacks on the road was just dangerous and didn’t really target Yablonski.”

  “Maybe someone else did that,” Sauvageot said.

  “That’s possible, but I think it’s too coincidental,” Burke said. “And I think the death of this cyclist here in Arles adds strength to that.”

  Sauvageot shook his head and Burke could see the policeman wasn’t buying into the theory of competing factions within the anti-Yablonski group.

  “I think you might be stretching it too far, Monsieur Burke,” Sauvageot said. “Maybe you’re just looking to sensationalize the situation for a blog.”

  “I might be,” Burke admitted, “but consider that Yablonski has come out of the Nice vintage race looking sympathetic. The attempt to link him to some kind of hidden past involving Nazis isn’t working. That suggests those who want to punish Yablonski might be getting impatient. Maybe they feel a need to do something more dangerous. And if that’s the case, maybe someone else in the group disagreed. The result? One dead cyclist in Arles.”

  “And do you think the two other bodies might be linked as well?” Sauvageot said.

  Once more, Burke considered the deaths of the old man and the homeless person.

  “It’s possible,” he said.

  Sauvageot said nothing, clearly lost in his thoughts.

  “Are you going to expand your investigation of the three deaths?” Burke asked, hoping he could get some confirmation from Sauvageot that he could tell Lemaire about.

  “It’s possible,” Sauvageot said.

  “Do you believe the cyclist was murdered?” Burke said.

  Sauvageot stared back at Burke.

  “We’re continuing our investigation and now you have my official comment for the moment, Monsieur Burke,” he said. He stood. “However, your suggestions are interesting.”

  Then he left, leaving Burke sitting and wondering what would happen next.

  Chapter 29

  That evening, Burke sat at the dining table of his B and B with Madame Benoit. Spread out before them were the sheets containing the names of all the entrants for the vintage races that he had obtained from race headquarters earlier in the day.

  “You don’t have to help me with this, Madame,” Burke said, figuring there were at least two or three hours of work ahead.

  The old woman smiled. “I’m here because I want to be and because I think you have some ideas about what has happened in our community,” she said.

  Burke smiled at her.

  “I also believe we share one thought – that the unidentified cyclist killed the other day was involved in some of these old-time bicycle races,” she said.

  Burke nodded.

  “And I think you believe that the person who killed him, and maybe the widower and the homeless man, is also involved in these races,” Madame Benoit said.

  “I do,” Burke replied. “I think if we can narrow down the people who have entered three or four of the races, we might be closer to identifying the cyclist who died and the one who killed him.”

  “Then let’s start going through these names and see what we find,” Madame Benoit said. “We have a riddle and I’d like to see it solved.”

  And so they began.

  The work, which involved pouring over the lists for common names which were in alphabetical order, was tedious and Burke could hear the clock on Madame’s mantelpiece ticking away. Yet somehow Burke felt a sense of excitement. It was possible that somewhere on these lists were some answers, Burke thought.

  “It’s too bad you weren’t able to get a jump drive with those database lists from the race people,” Madame said, after nearly an hour of work. “We could have cross-indexed our search and found the names in no time.”

  Burke said nothing.

  “But we’ll get through this and then we’ll know more,” Madame said, her voice still enthusastic.

  In another 90 minutes, they were done. They had gone through almost 4,000 names on the lists and, using colour markers, had identified the names of entrants in two races, three races and finally in all four events.

  “I’m surprised to see so many people in more than one race,” Madame said. “To do more than one race requires travel, time and money.”

  Burke looked at the total number of entrants who were in two races: 353. The number dropped significantly for those who were in three of the races: 186. As for the total for all four, the count was 47.

  Burke was interested in the 47 and said so.

  “I agree our perpetrators are in that group,” Madame said. “The people after our Monsieur Yablonski would want access to all the events surrounding the races and what better way to get that access than by entering all the races. They might not have gone ahead and raced in each one, but they needed to be near the action.”

  Burke nodded.

  “I see you’re entered in all four, Paul,” Madame Benoit said.

  “I am.”

  “When we look at the other people entered in all four races, did you notice where most of them came from?”

  Burke had.

  “Provence with a handful from Italy,” he said.

  “Why do you think Italians make up the next largest group of entrants?” Madame wondered.

  “I think it could be because Italy originated the idea of vintage bicycle races and there’s a group of enthusiasts who love to participate,” Burke said. “In fact, I read there’s a group that just follows the circuit of vintage races, regardless of where they are.”

  Madame nodded as if she was storing that information for future use, although Burke couldn’t see why she would be so interested.

  “Wherever they come from, the people who enter three or four of the races must have some wealth – and are likely older,” Madame said.

  “Older?”

  “Because they must be retired to have so much time available to travel and cycle,” she said.

  Burke nodded. That made sense.

  “Let’s look at that list of 47 again and see if we can narrow it further,” Burke said.

  Madame jabbed a finger into Burke’s arm.

  “We eliminate the Italians because it’s likely they’re only enthusiasts,” she said. “Then we get rid of those from Provence because if our dead cyclist was from this area, he would have been identified by someone.”

  “That sounds like a good plan,” Burke said, once more appreciating his landlady’s quick mind.

  “We could be wrong, but let’s pretend we’re on the right track,” the old woman added.

  They went through the list of 47 entrants and saw 25 were from outside Provence and Italy. Two entrants listed Lyon as their home, a couple came from the Loire River region, three from Paris. The others c
ame from other countries; the Netherlands and Germany had three each while England, the United States and Japan had two each. The rest of the four-race entrants were from New Zealand, Belgium, Australia, Denmark, Austria and, to Burke’s surprise, Canada and his hometown of Montréal.

  “What are you thinking?” Madame asked Burke.

  Just as Burke was ready to reply, the front door to Madame’s house opened and her other two guests, a 60-ish couple from Normandy, entered.

  “We’re doing some homework on the vintage bicycle race,” Madame said when she caught their puzzled looks.

  The couple nodded, wished Madame Benoit and Burke a good evening, and then disappeared into their room.

  “So, now, Paul, what are we going to do with all these names?” Madame said.

  “I want to match them with the family names of the people killed at Oradour-sur-Glane,” he said.

  “Because you think whoever is after Yablonski might have some connection to Oradour-sur-Glane,” Madame said. “And if that’s the case, this individual, or individuals, knows what Yablonski or his family had to do with Oradour-sur-Glane or with something else related to the Second World War.”

  Burke nodded.

  Madame leaned back in her chair. She frowned in concentration, but said nothing.

  “I will help you for another hour and then I must go to bed because I need to be up early to prepare breakfast,” she said.

  “I can do this alone, Madame,” Burke said. “I don’t want to waste your time.”

  Madame Benoit jabbed Burke again in the arm with an index finger.

  “I believe, as you do, that this is important work we are doing,” she said. “I don’t know where it will lead, but there are answers that need to be found.”

  And so for the next hour, they compared their list of 25 entrants from outside Provence who had entered all four vintage races with the surnames of Oradour-sur-Glance victims. It helped that a Google search gave them the names of the victims of the massacre within seconds, but it was still painstaking work.

  And, in the end, it yielded nothing, not a single common name.

  “You’ll find something, Paul, I know it,” Madame said, slowly standing. “But it’s very late for me and I must leave you.”

  Burke thanked her for her efforts and remained at the table after she was gone.

  He knew that not finding a surname link didn’t mean there wasn’t one. After all, maybe there was a name change or maybe it was a relative of a victim with a different name. There could be a dozen reasons. He just wished he knew where to look next.

  Although he was tired, Burke had one more avenue to try.

  He went through the lists of finishers, from the first to the last. He wanted to see how many of the 25 multi-entry competitors didn’t finish the Saint-Raphaël event, but completed the Nice one. He had originally thought he wanted to know who had finished both, but then recalled that it had probably taken four people to handle the skeleton setup for the Saint-Raphaël race and, if that was indeed the case, there was a good chance they hadn’t finished it. The Nice race, though, was another matter.

  And at 2:30 a.m., he saw he had nine names from the 25 who didn’t finish the first race, completed the Nice one and were entered in both the Arles and Vaison-la-Romaine events.

  Maybe among the nine names was the answer, Burke thought.

  Chapter 30

  Breakfast, except for the coffee, was an ordeal for Burke the next morning. It was not that Madame Benoit had botched the meal – she was tremendously talented in the kitchen – but Burke was so tired from his research the night before and then laying in bed with his brain spinning that he had managed only three hours of sleep. And with all that thinking, he had no clear indication of what was going on. He also had a headache.

  “I’ll get you some more coffee, Paul,” Madame said.

  Burke thanked his landlady who looked refreshed despite her efforts the previous evening.

  Into the dining room came the Normandy couple who, to Burke, looked like they had managed a healthy dozen hours in bed.

  “Are you riding in the bicycle race today?” the woman asked Burke. “I thought we overheard you yesterday saying you were participating.”

  “I am,” Burke said, wondering if he had the energy to handle even the shortened route.

  “It should be a fine day for it,” the woman continued. “We’re going to watch the start.”

  Her husband nodded.

  Then they chatted about the route, the number of participants and how many spectators would be by the roadside cheering on the riders.

  “I’m trying to talk Marc into staying one more night because I’d like to watch the end of the race and all the post-race activities,” the wife said.

  The husband shrugged and then surrendered.

  “All right, let’s stay one more night,” he said.

  When Madame Benoit returned into the room with a basket of warm croissants, the Normandy couple made arrangements to stay another night.

  “It will be a full house tonight,” Madame said. “I have an Austrian couple coming later this morning. In fact, I think the gentleman might be competing in your race, Paul.”

  After breakfast, Paul phoned Hélène. He missed her more than he had imagined; maybe they were still in the throes of early romance but he doubted it. This was something special and something long lasting. He was sure of it.

  His call woke her up, but she was happy to hear his voice and they chatted a few minutes about what had been happening in Arles and then what she had been busy with – the upcoming wedding and, as it turned out, an unexpectedly busy two nights thanks to an influx of tourists staying at a newly opened resort just down the road.

  “You sound tired, chéri,” Hélène said.

  Burke admitted he was, but told her he would be fine.

  “Well, don’t do anything silly in the race,” she said.

  He promised he wouldn’t. At best, he felt he’d be bringing up the rear.

  They ended the call and then Burke phoned François Lemaire.

  “Paul, I need something from you today, ideally right after the race,” Lemaire said. “And to keep me happy, you would be wise to give me both a written blog and a video one. Both, of course, need to be good.”

  Burke knew his recent productivity had been weak and so he promised to make amends after the race. He knew he’d be working on fumes, but he owed it to Lemaire.

  “And don’t give me anything I can find off the wire service,” the editor said.

  Then they ended the call.

  Burke had one more person he wanted to talk to and so he phoned Antoine Pastore, asking if his friend had seen anything on social media that dealt with the vintage races.

  “Nothing that I’d describe as interesting,” Antoine replied.

  “Then I’m sorry to have bothered you, Antoine,” Burke said.

  “You need more patience, Paul,” Antoine said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Antoine said that after their last conversation, he had been curious about the value of shares in Yablonski’s various holdings and, consequently, had done some digging.

  “And guess what? They’ve gone down, a couple by a margin that’s probably painful,” Antoine said.

  Burke asked which shares had most been affected, and Antoine said Yablonski’s travel company and resort holdings had suffered the most.

  “I don’t think he’s lost a huge amount, but likely enough to have caught his attention,” Antoine said.

  “Interesting,” Burke said.

  “I also reviewed some social media posts during the last two races,” Antoine said. “It took a while to go that far back, but I got a sense that some of the posts came from someone who knew exactly what was happening.”

  “How could you tell that?”

  “By the language used,” Antoine said. “The person doing the posts pointed the finger at Yablonski and suggested his connections to the Second World War still
warranted examination. No one else had the same message or wrote in the same tone.”

  Burke thought about the info.

  “So with those posts, it should be easy to identify the person putting them up,” he said.

  “Normally, I’d say yes, but I dug into them and I can tell you the person who posted them did an excellent job of hiding his footprints,” Antoine said. “There’s no way to identify the individual. I expect whoever is behind the posts has used a false identification. Very smart and very arrogant. This person doesn’t believe anyone will track him down.”

  “So, a dead end,” Burke said.

  “Not yet, Paul,” Antoine said. “The posts were put up at 2:30 on the afternoon of the Saint-Raphaël race and 2:40 on the day of the Nice one – almost the same time but not quite.”

  “Do you think someone scheduled those posts to be released at those times?” Burke said.

  “I don’t think so,” Antoine said. “If the posts had been scheduled ahead of time for release, they’d have probably appeared at exactly the same time for both races. Nice and simple. But they weren’t.”

  “That suggests whoever did the posts wanted to make sure they appeared at the best time possible for maximum exposure,” Burke said. “And that means someone had to be watching the races and judging how the events were going, from minute to minute.”

  “I’d say someone involved in those incidents was riding among a leading group and using a small videocam that was feeding live back to someone else using a smartphone or a tablet or a laptop,” Antoine said. “If the group was slow, the rider’s videocam would indicate that and the person using the smartphone, tablet or laptop could release the posts a few minutes later than expected. If the group was fast, the other person could just change the release to an earlier time.”

  “Would the videocam show where they were?” Burke said.