Текст книги "Bruno, Chief Of Police"

Автор книги: Martin Walker

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

political suicide. In fact I’ll bet you a bottle of champagne that Tavernier

takes one look at all this and decides to take a prolonged leave of absence for

reasons of health.’

‘I don’t take bets I know I’m going to lose, Bruno. Not for that little shit.

But it’s not just Tavernier. No matter how it gets sat on, this is going to leak

out eventually, probably from that English historian woman. Is she your latest,

by the way?’

‘Mind your own business,

J-J

. But I’ll tell you what I want out of today. I want

to go with you into Tavernier’s conference room and lay out the evidence, and

then I want to drive back to St Denis with young Richard Gelletreau in the back

of the car and hand him over to his parents with no charges against him. You

have your drugs conviction with that nasty little Jacqueline, and you’ll get

bonus points for cooperation with the Dutch police when Jacqueline’s evidence

convicts them. You have the Front National thugs on narcotics charges. You and

Isabelle come out smelling of roses.’

‘That will be a nice farewell present for her,’

J-J

said. ‘You know she’s being

transferred back to Paris? The order came in last night and I haven’t had the

chance to pass on the good news. We’ll miss that girl in Périgueux.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ Bruno said automatically, feeling he had just been punched in

the stomach, but knowing that he would have to say something or

J-J

would

notice. Deep down, he told himself, this was no surprise. It was inevitable. He

made an effort to keep his voice level. ‘The Mayor predicted that she would be

assigned to the Minister’s staff.’

‘Who knows? But I wouldn’t be surprised,’

J-J

said fondly. He clearly thought a

lot of her. ‘The orders just said she was assigned back to HQ in Paris as of

September the first. But she’ll go with a feather in her cap and – what was that

old Napoleon phrase? – with a Marshal’s baton in her knapsack. She’ll probably

end up as my boss in a year or two, but Isabelle will always have a soft spot in

her heart for us rustics down here in Perigord. We’ll just have to keep her well

supplied with foie gras.’

Tavernier knew all about the promotion, and strode into the conference room with

a cheerful smile and a comradely handshake. ‘Let me be the first to congratulate

you, my dear Inspector Perrault,’ he said.

J-J

handed her the transfer order,

and for the briefest and most self-indulgent of moments Bruno watched her

reaction before he scolded himself and looked away. He had seen her eyes light

up and that was enough.

‘Now, I hear you have made a breakthrough in the case,’ Tavernier said. ‘New

evidence from Bordeaux, they tell me. Explain.’

Bruno laid out the photocopies of the pay books from Vichy and from the French

Army. Then he added the fax photo of Hussein Boudiaf with Massili Barakine and

Giulio Villanova, and the Force Mobile action report that cited Boudiaf’s role

in the raids around St Denis.

‘Our murder victim was a hired killer for the Vichy Milice, who changed his name

and his identity to hide out in the French Army,’ he said, and sat down. ‘That

is why his executioner carved the swastika onto his chest.’

Tavernier looked first at

J-J

, then at Isabelle and finally at Bruno, a

half-smile on his face as if he were expecting someone to tell him it was all a

joke and it was soon going to be time to laugh.

‘I think we may have to alert our masters that they might wish to consider some

of the wider national implications of this,’ Isabelle said coolly. ‘As far as I

know, the role of North Africans being specially deployed by the Vichy regime to

inflict brutal retaliations on the French population during the Occupation has

not become common knowledge. It is now likely to become very well known indeed.’

Tavernier looked carefully at the papers Bruno had put out before him.

‘Notice the thumb prints on the pay books,’ said Isabelle. ‘They match. And when

the forensics team searched the cottage, they naturally took all the victim’s

fingerprints. Here they are.’ She shoved another sheaf of papers across to

Tavernier. ‘It’s the same man.’

‘We await your guidance,’ said

J-J

.

‘Do you have any recommendation for me, any proposal on how you plan to

proceed?’ Tavernier asked.

‘We have a list of the known Resistance families in the region, including those

who were targets of the Force Mobile,’ said Isabelle. ‘Any of them would have a

motive to murder their old tormentor. The obvious next step would be to question

them all, about forty families altogether. That is just in the Commune of St

Denis. We may have to spread our net wider.’

‘Why on earth did the old fool ever come back to St Denis and run the risk of

being recognised?’ Tavernier asked, almost to himself.

‘It was the only family he had,’ Bruno said. ‘He’d changed his name, abandoned

his old family back in Algeria, lost his brother in the war, lost his country

after the Algerian war and his wife had just died. His son found work here in St

Denis, and so did his grandson, and he was about to become a great-grandfather.

He was old and tired and lonely, and he took a chance.’

‘And you think he was murdered by someone who recognised him from the old days?’

‘Yes,’ said Bruno. ‘I think he was executed by someone who felt he had a right

to vengeance. At least, that’s how I would make the case for the defence if I

were his lawyer.’

‘I see,’ said Tavernier. ‘I’d better review these overnight. As you say, my dear

Isabelle, there are a lot of implications to be considered, some consultations

to be made.’ He looked up at them, a determined smile on his face. ‘You three

have obviously had a very long day. This is brilliant research, and I must

congratulate you on first-class detective work. And now perhaps you all deserve

to take some time off while we decide how best to proceed. So, no questioning of

the old Resistance heroes for the moment, and I suggest you go off and have the

best dinner Périgueux can provide. The investigation budget will pay. You’ve

earned it.’

With a final beaming smile, a murmured promise to call

J-J

when a decision had

been made, and a half-bow to Isabelle, he stood up, gathered the papers and was

about to leave the room.

‘Just one thing,’ said Bruno. ‘You have to sign the release order for Richard

Gelletreau, the teenage boy. He’s obviously no longer a suspect.’

‘Bruno is right,’ said

J-J

. ‘We have nothing on him for the drugs charges, and

we still have a lot of work to do with the Dutch police to nail those suppliers.

Young Jacqueline has given us all the testimony we need. It’s a good result.’

‘Right,’ said Tavernier. ‘A good result.’ Bruno looked across to see Isabelle

smiling at him. Tavernier took some notepaper and his seal of office from his

elegant black leather attaché case. He scrawled the release order with a

flourish, and then stamped it with the seal. ‘Take him home, Bruno.’

Bruno awoke in his own bed with Isabelle still sleeping beside him, her hair

tousled from the night and one arm flung out above the covers and resting on his

chest. Gently, he crept out and tip-toed to the kitchen to make coffee, feed

Gigi and his chickens, water the garden and start this day of June the

eighteenth. He knew that if he turned on the radio, some announcer on

France-Inter would play de Gaulle’s full speech. Somewhere he had read that

there was no copy of the original broadcast of 1940, and de Gaulle had recorded

it all over again after the Liberation … ‘La France a perdu une bataille! Mais

la France n’a pas perdu la guerre!’

While the water boiled, he walked, still naked, out to his garden, to his

compost heap at the far side of the vegetable garden and enjoyed the deep

masculine pleasure of urinating in the open air. At his feet, he saw that Gigi

had cocked a leg to follow his master’s example. Still peeing, he heard the

sound of applause and turned to see Isabelle in the doorway, clapping her hands

slowly together and looking particularly fetching in the blue uniform shirt he

had worn the previous day.

‘Magnifique, Bruno,’ she called, and blew him a kiss. ‘The same to you,’ he

called back, laughing. ‘Police Municipale – it suits you.’

‘Night after night away from the hotel,’ she said over coffee. ‘My reputation is

in tatters.’

‘You’d be amazed how fast the word goes around that you were on special duty in

Bordeaux and Périgueux,’ he assured her. ‘And besides, what does it matter?

You’re leaving for Paris.’ It was the first time he had raised this.

She stretched out her arm and put her hand on his. ‘Not until September,’ she

said quietly. ‘I have to be here for the drugs case, and with all the

bureaucracy of the Dutch liaison, that’s at least another month. That’s the rest

of June and half of July. Then I have my vacation and that’s July and half of

August. Then I have my re-assignment leave. That’s the rest of August. You’ll

probably be tired of me by then.’

He shook his head, suspecting that whatever he said would be wrong, and leaned

across and kissed her instead.

‘I saw that you’d put the photograph away, that one of you and the blonde girl,’

she said. ‘You didn’t have to do that for me, not if she was important to you.

Particularly not if she was important.’

‘Her name was Katarina and she was important.’ He forced himself to look at her

as he spoke. ‘But that was a long time ago, a different Bruno, and it was in the

middle of a war. The rules all seemed to be different then.’

‘What happened to her?’ she asked, and then shook her head. ‘Sorry. You don’t

need to answer. It’s just curiosity.’

‘She died. The night that I was wounded, she was in a Bosnian village that got

attacked and burnt out. She was among the dead. My captain went looking for her

after the battle and told me when I got out of hospital. He knew that she meant

a lot to me.’

‘Captain Mangin, the son of the Mayor of St Denis, which is how you came to be

here. Captain Mangin who was promoted to Major while you were in hospital and

then resigned his commission.’

‘You knew all along?’

‘

J-J

recognised the name, and then we talked to him in Paris. He teaches

philosophy and is a rising star in the Green Party. He’ll probably be elected to

the European Parliament next time. He says you were the best soldier he ever

knew, and a good man, and he’s proud to be your friend. He told us about

rescuing the women from that Serb brothel but he didn’t say anything about

Katarina. At least she knew some happiness with you before she was killed.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We knew some happiness.’

Isabelle rose and came round to his side of the kitchen table. She opened the

shirt she was wearing and put his head against her breast and stroked her hands

through his hair. She murmured, ‘I know some happiness now, with you.’ She bent

to kiss him.

‘June the eighteenth, Resistance Day,’ he said later. ‘You’ll be able to see all

our main suspects gathered at the war memorial at midday. I have to go and make

the preparations, and find time to track down a cheese thief, uncover some

unemployed labourer for making some cash as a gardener, and probably rescue a

lost cat from a tree. And later I have to collect the green walnuts to make this

year’s vin de noix. All in a day’s work. And as a special treat because you are

the guest of the local Chief of Police, you are invited to lunch in the banquet

room of the Mairie after the ceremony, the same place from which you’ll see

tonight’s firework display. And then tomorrow, I can show you our famous weekly

market and you can help me protect the farmers from the new Gestapo of

Brussels.’

‘Poor old Paris will seem very flat, after all this,’ she said drily, kneeling

to stroke Gigi as she waved him goodbye.

When he reached the Mairie and parked his van, Bruno noticed Father Sentout

bustling up the street from the church into the square, and heading for the

building. They shook hands, and Bruno bowed to let the plump priest go first

and, as a courtesy, joined him in the elevator rather than taking the stairs.

‘Ah, Father, and Bruno, just the men I wanted to see,’ called out the Mayor,

waving them into his office. ‘Now, Father, you know that under the law of 1905

separating church and state, there are strict limits on the degree to which you

may participate in civic events. However, since this year we are marking the

tragic recent death of an old soldier of the Republic, as well as the usual

ceremonies, I wondered if you might give us a short prayer of reconciliation,

forgiveness of our enemies. I don’t think the Republic will fall if you do that.

A very short prayer and a blessing. No more than one minute. Forgiving our

enemies and we all sleep in the peace of the Lord. Can you do that? I’ll have to

cut you off if you go beyond a minute.’

‘My dear Mayor, I shall be delighted. One minute it is, and forgiving our

enemies.’

‘And of course we shall see you afterwards, at lunch,’ the Mayor added. ‘I think

we are having lamb again.’

‘Splendid, splendid,’ said the priest, bowing his way out, and visibly delighted

that at last the word of the Lord had penetrated the secular temple of the

Republic.

‘The case is suspended until Tavernier gets his orders from Paris,’ Bruno began

once Father Sentout had gone. ‘But I don’t think that future inquiries are going

to be energetically pursued.’

‘Good,’ said the Mayor. ‘Putting those two old devils on trial would be the last

thing this town needs.’

‘Have you spoken to them?’

The Mayor shrugged. ‘I couldn’t think what to say, and nor I imagine can you.

They are old men, and Father Sentout would tell you that they will soon face a

far more certain justice than our own.’

‘Two unhappy old men,’ said Bruno. ‘They fought on the same side and lived and

worked opposite one another for sixty years and refused to exchange a single

word because of some old political feud, and they all but poisoned their

marriages by constantly suspecting their wives of betraying them. Think of it

that way and the good Lord has already given them a lifetime of punishment.’

‘That’s very neat, Bruno. Perhaps we should tell them that. But there’s

something else – Momu and his family. What did you tell them?’

‘I saw them both, Momu and Karim, and told them that we had new evidence that

convinced us that Richard and the girl could not possibly have been reponsible

for Hamid’s murder, and that in the absence of any other evidence, the police

would now have to start work on the theory that the swastika was a distraction

carved onto the corpse to mislead us. So the next line of inquiry would have to

be Islamic extremists who saw the old man as a traitor.’

‘Did they buy that?’

‘Momu kept silent at first, but Karim said the old man had a good long life and

died proud of his family and knowing that he had a great-grandson on the way. He

seemed fatalistic about it. Then Momu said he’d been thinking a lot about the

rafle of 1961 that he told me about, and how much things had changed since then.

He said he was touched by the way everybody in the town came out to be sure that

Karim was released by the gendarmes. He never thought he’d live to see the day

that his son was a town hero. When I left, he came after me and said that as a

mathematician he always knew that there were some problems beyond human

solution, but none beyond human kindness.’

The Mayor shook his head, half-smiling, half-grimacing. ‘I was a student in

Paris at the time of the rafle and all we heard was rumour. But do you know who

was the Prefect of Police at the time, the man responsible? It was the same man

who had been Prefect of Police of Bordeaux under the Vichy regime in the war; a

man who rounded up hundreds of Jews for the Nazi death camps, and had Force

Mobile troops under his orders. Then the same man went on to be Prefect of

Police in Algeria during that dreadful, dirty war – Maurice Papon. I met him

once, when I was working for Chirac. The perfect public servant, who always

followed orders and administered them with great efficiency whatever they were.

Every regime finds such men useful. It’s our dark history, Bruno, Vichy to

Algeria, and now it all comes home to St Denis again, just as it did in 1944.’

The Mayor’s voice was calm and measured, but tears began spilling down his

cheeks as he spoke. Bruno considered: a month ago, he would have stood

impotently by, not knowing what to do or say. But now, realising how much he

loved this old man, he stepped forward to hand the Mayor his handkerchief, which

smelled faintly of Gigi, and put his arm around his shoulder. The Mayor snorted

into the handkerchief and returned the embrace.

‘I think it’s over,’ said Bruno.

‘Should we go back to Momu, do you think? Tell him the truth in private and in

confidence?’ The Mayor stepped back, his usual self-control restored.

‘Not me,’ said Bruno. ‘I’m content to let it lie, which means that Momu goes on

teaching the children how to count, Rashida will still make the best coffee in

town and Karim continues to win our rugby games.’

‘And the younger generation uses Resistance tricks with potatoes to immobilise

the cars of our town’s enemies.’ The Mayor smiled. ‘They are our people now,

three generations of them. One of the things that troubled me most was that Momu

and the whole family would feel they had to leave St Denis if all this became

public.’

‘They don’t even know that the old man was not who he claimed to be,’ said

Bruno. ‘Maybe it’s better that it stays that way.’

The Mayor donned his sash of office and Bruno polished the brim of his cap as

they walked down the stairs together to the square, where the town band had

already begun to gather for the parade and Captain Duroc had his gendarmes lined

up to escort the march to the war memorial. Bruno called Xavier, the Deputy

Mayor, and the two of them posted the Route Barrée signs by the bridge and

brought up the flags from the basement of the Mairie. Montsouris and his wife

approached and respectfully took the red flag, and Marie-Louise took the flag of

St Denis, and Bruno smiled and hugged her closely as he remembered that the

Force Mobile had destroyed her family’s farm after she was sent to Buchenwald.

He looked around, just a little nervously, but there was no sign of Bachelot and

Jean-Pierre.

A crowd was beginning to gather, and he went across to the outside tables of

Fauquet’s café where Pamela and Christine were sharing a table with Dougal, wine

glasses now empty in front of them. ‘We’re celebrating Waterloo day,’ laughed

Pamela as he kissed both women in greeting and shook Dougal warmly by the hand.

Then he turned and saw Isabelle striding jauntily towards him. For the pleasure

of it rather than the camouflage for the gossips, he kissed her formally on both

cheeks and Christine rose to kiss her too. He supposed that Isabelle would

ensure that the Englishwoman understood the need to keep the town’s secrets.

With a burst of cheery greetings, Monsieur Jackson and his family arrived, the

grandson with his bugle brightly polished, and Pamela introduced them to

Isabelle, who dutifully admired Monsieur Jackson’s British flag.

It was less than five minutes to twelve when Momu arrived with Karim and his

family. Bruno kissed Rashida, who looked ready to give birth there and then, and

hugged Karim as he handed him the flag with the Stars and Stripes, and the Mayor

came across to greet them. Bruno checked his watch. The two old men were usually

here by now. The siren was about to sound, and the Mayor looked at him, one

eyebrow eloquently raised.

And then Jean-Pierre and Bachelot emerged, walking slowly and almost painfully

up opposite pavements from the Rue de Paris into the square, and made their

separate ways to the Mairie to collect their flags. The two men were very old,

Bruno thought, but neither one would stoop to use the assistance of a walking

cane while the other walked unaided. What power of rage and vengeance had it

required, he marvelled, to endow these enfeebled ancients with the strength to

kill with all the passion and fury of youth?

He stared at them curiously as he handed them the flags, the tricolore for

Jean-Pierre and the Cross of Lorraine for Bachelot the Gaullist. The two men

looked at him suspiciously and then shared the briefest of glances.

‘After all that you’ve been through together, and I include the secret you’ve

shared for the past month, do you not think in the little time remaining to you

that you two old Resistance fighters might exchange a word?’ he asked them

quietly.

The old men stood in grim silence, each one with his hand on a flag, each with a

small tricolore in his lapel, each with his memory of a day in May sixty years

ago when the Force Mobile had come to St Denis, and a day in May more recently

when the story had come full circle and another life had been taken.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ snapped Bachelot, and turned and looked at his

old enemy, Jean-Pierre.

A look passed between them that Bruno remembered from the schoolroom, two small

boys stoutly refusing to admit that there was any connection between the broken

window and the catapults in their hand; a look composed of defiance and deceit

that masqueraded as innocence. So much contained within a single glance, Bruno

mused, so much in that initial look they had exchanged when they first saw the

old Arab at the victory parade. That had been the first direct look between the

two veterans in decades, a communication that had led to an understanding and

then to a resolve and then to the killing. Bruno wondered where they had agreed

to meet, how that first conversation had gone, how the agreement had been

reached to murder. Doubtless they would have called it an execution, a righteous

act, a moment of justice too long denied.

‘If you’ve got something to say, Bruno, then say it,’ grunted Jean-Pierre. ‘Our

consciences are clear.’ Beside him, Bachelot nodded grimly.

‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,’ Bruno quoted.

This time they did not need to look at one another. They stared back at Bruno,

their backs straight, their heads high, their pride visible.

‘Vive la France!’ said the two old men in unison, and marched off with their

flags to lead the parade as the town band struck up the Marseillaise.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank Gabrielle Merchez and Michael Mills for luring him to

the Périgord, René for making the house so comfortable, and Julia, Kate and

Fanny Walker and our basset hounds Bothwell and Benson for filling it with life.

This is a work of fiction and all the characters are invented but I am indebted

to the incomparable Pierrot for inspiration and for his cooking, to the Baron

for his wisdom and his wines, to Raymond for his stories and his bottomless

bottle of Armagnac, and to Hannes and Tine for their friendship, tennis and

memorable meals. The tennis club taught me how to roast wild boar; everybody

taught me how to make vin de noix, and those who taught me how to ensure that

nothing of a pig was wasted had better remain nameless, in view of the European

Union regulations. It would be invidious to name all my wonderful friends and

neighbours who filled our lives with warmth and welcome but the inhabitants of

the valley of the river Vézčre in the Périgord rightly call it a tiny corner of

paradise, and I am honoured to share it. Jane and Caroline Wood between them

whipped the book into shape and I am deeply grateful.