Текст книги "Bruno, Chief Of Police"

Автор книги: Martin Walker

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it on a plate with some cornichons and arranged the wedge of Brie on a wooden

board.

‘Let’s eat outside,’ he said, taking the tray. ‘You can make the salad while I

do the steak, but we have time to enjoy our drinks before the barbecue is

ready.’

‘There’s no sign of a woman here,’ Isabelle remarked, when they had sat down at

the green plastic table on his terrace and were watching Gigi licking his lips

in anticipation. The dog knew what it meant when the barbecue was lit.

‘Not at the moment,’

said Bruno. ‘No woman, no TV, no pictures on your walls except photos of sports

teams. No family photos, no pictures of adoring girlfriends, except that one

when you were in the army. Your house is impeccable – and impersonal – and your

books are all non-fiction. I deduce that you are a very self-controlled and

organised man.’

‘You haven’t seen the inside of my car,’ he smiled, deflecting her comment.

‘It’s a mess.’

‘That’s your public life, your work. This home is the private Bruno, and very

anonymous it is, except for the books, and even they are classics, the kind of

works you might expect to find in the house of an educated man.’

‘I’m not an educated man,’ he said. ‘I left school at sixteen.’

‘And went into the Army youth battalion,’ she said. ‘Yes, I know. And then into

the combat engineers, and you did paratroop training and were promoted. You

served in some special operations with the Legion in Africa before you went to

Bosnia and won a medal for hauling some wounded men from a burning armoured car.

They wanted to make you an officer but you refused. And then you were shot by a

sniper when you were trying to stop some Serb paramilitaries from burning a

Bosnian village, and they flew you back to France for treatment.’

‘So – you’ve read my Army file. Did you make enquiries with the Renseignements

Généraux?’ Privately, he thought how little the official files really knew. He

wondered if she had made the connection between the name of his captain in

Bosnia, Félix Mangin, who wrote that approving report and carefully avoided

explaining why Bruno had tried to save that particular Bosnian village, and the

name of Mayor Mangin in St Denis.

Félix had been with him when they first found the ramshackle old motel that the

Serbs had turned into a brothel for their troops, and had rescued the Bosnian

women who had been forced to service them. Rescued them, then moved them into

what was supposed to be a safe house in a secure Bosnian village and brought in

Médecins Sans Frontičres to treat the women and try to help them recover from

the nightmare. No, the official files never had the full story, and dry prose

never explained all the human decisions and accidents of life that made up

reality.

‘No, I did not ask for your file.

J-J

got hold of it on the day after the

arrests at Lalinde when we realised that this was going to blow up into a

political matter. It was routine, the kind of standard background check we’d do

on anybody mixed up in something as sensitive as this. He showed it to me. I was

impressed. I just hope my superiors write equally good things about me in my

performance reviews,’ she smiled. ‘The RG files cover everything: credit cards,

subscriptions, your surprisingly poor scores on the Gendarmerie pistol range

given that your army file rated you as a marksman, your healthy savings

account.’

‘I’m not rich, but I don’t have much to spend my salary on,’ he said, as if that

might explain something.

‘Except in friends and reputation,’ she said, and finished her Ricard. ‘I am not

here as a cop, Bruno, just as an amiable colleague who is far from home and with

not much to do on the rare evening I get time off. I’m not probing, but

naturally I’m curious about the woman in the photo.’

He said nothing. She picked up the wine and poured herself a glass, twirled it

and sniffed.

‘This is the wine

J-J

ordered when he took me to lunch when I first came down

here,’ she said. He nodded, still with most of his Ricard to finish.

‘And what did

J-J

tell you to brief me about?’ he asked, determined to shift the

conversation back onto safe ground.

‘He hasn’t got very far. No fingerprints and no forensics that put the boy or

the girl anywhere inside Hamid’s cottage, nor any of the other young fascists we

found at her house. They both deny knowing him or ever visiting him, and there’s

no blood on those daggers on her wall. So all we have so far is the drugs and

the politics, and while we can convict the girl on the drugs, the boy was tied

up. A lawyer can say that makes him non-complicit, and since he’s under eighteen

he counts as a juvenile.’

‘That sex looked pretty consensual to me,’ said Bruno.

‘Yes,’ she said briskly. ‘I suppose it was, but that was the sex, which is not

illegal, even for juveniles, and it’s not evidence of drug use. We may have to

release the boy. If it had been down to me and what I learned in Paris, I’d have

put pressure on the boy through the girl. Call it a hunch, but I feel sure they

have some involvement in the murder, even though there’s no forensic evidence.

She’s certainly going down on drugs charges and the boy is evidently obsessed

with her, keeps asking about her. We might have got an admission on the drugs

out of him and used that as a lever to get some more information. But

J-J

does

not play it that way, as you know.’

‘Justice is alive and well and living in Pčrigord,’ said Bruno drily. He glanced

behind him at the embers. Not ready yet. He finished his Ricard and Isabelle

poured him a glass of Médoc.

‘There’s one new development, from that patch of mud on the track that leads to

the cottage,’ she said. ‘We took casts of the tyre prints, and there’s one set

that could match Jacqueline’s car – except that they’re Michelins, and they

match thousands of cars on the road.’

‘Yes, and the track leads to several houses.’

‘True. And some ambitious young Juge-magistrat arrives from Paris on Monday to

take over the case, at which point we simply become the investigators following

the leads he chooses. My friends in Paris say there’s some political jockeying

over who gets the job, but so far

J-J

stays in charge of the case, probably

because there’s so little evidence. If we were close to proving anything, some

Paris brigadier would have been down to take the credit. Now I’ll make the

salad.’

He rose to join her, turning on the terrace light as he passed. In the kitchen

he took some slightly wilted lettuce from the refrigerator and pointed her to

the olive oil and the wine vinegar. He put a pot of water on to boil and began

to peel and slice some potatoes, then he flattened some cloves of garlic, took a

frying pan and splashed in some oil. When the water boiled, he tipped in the

sliced potatoes, aware that she was watching, and turned over his egg timer, a

miniature hourglass, to blanch them for three minutes.

‘When the timer goes, drain them, dry them on a bit of kitchen paper and fry

them in the oil for a few minutes with the crushed garlic. Add salt and pepper –

it’s over there – and bring it all out,’ he said. ‘Thanks. I’ll go and do the

steaks.’

The embers were just right, a fine grey ash over the fierce red. He put the

grill close to the coals, arranged the steaks, and then under his breath sang

the Marseillaise, which he knew from long practice took him exactly forty-five

seconds. He turned the steaks, dribbled some of the marinade on top of the

charred side, and sang it again. This time he turned the steaks for ten seconds,

pouring on more of the marinade, and then another ten seconds. Now he took them

off the coals and put them on the plates he’d left to warm on the bricks that

formed the side of the grill. Soon Isabelle appeared, the frying pan in one hand

and the salad in the other, and he brought the steaks to the table.

‘You waited,’ she said. ‘Another man would have come in to see that I was doing

it his way.’

Bruno shrugged, handed her her plate and said, ‘Bon appetit.’ She shared out the

potatoes and left the salad in the bowl. Good. He liked to soak up the juices

from the meat in his potatoes rather than mix them with the oil and vinegar of

the salad.

‘The potatoes are perfect,’ he said.

‘So is the steak.’

‘There’s one thing that nags at me,’ said Bruno. ‘I saw Richard’s father, and

somehow the boy knew that old Hamid had won the Croix de Guerre. Now unless you

or

J-J

told him that during the questioning, I don’t know how he would have

known about it if he hadn’t seen it on the wall or been in the cottage. Were you

in on all the interrogation sessions?’

‘No.

J-J

did that in Périgueux. But the sessions are all on tape so we can

check. I don’t think

J-J

would have tripped up like that. Is it something he

could have heard at school from one of Hamid’s relatives?’

‘Possibly, but as I told you, he didn’t get on too well with them. There was

that fight in the playground.’

‘Too long ago to mean much.’ He watched with approval as she wiped the juices

from her plate with a piece of bread and then helped herself to salad and

cheese. ‘That steak was just right.’

‘Yes, well, the credit is all yours, and thank you for bringing dinner, and the

wine.’ He thought he ought to keep the conversation on the case, but there was

not much new to say. ‘The boy’s father says he’s absolutely sure Richard didn’t

do it.’

‘What a surprise!’ she said. ‘Don’t you have a candle, Bruno? With this electric

light, I won’t be able to see the stars, and they must be brilliant here.’

‘I know the boy too, and I think the father may be right.’ Bruno went into his

boot room and brought out a small oil lamp. He took off the glass case, lit the

wick, replaced the glass, and only then turned off the terrace light.

‘That would mean we have no suspect at all,’ she said. ‘And the press and

politicians baying at our heels.’

‘Hang on a moment,’ he said. He went into the house for a sweater, and came back

with her leather jacket and his mobile phone. ‘In case you get cold,’ he said,

giving her the jacket and thumbing in a number.

‘Momu,’ he said. ‘Sorry to bother you, but it’s Bruno. Something has come up in

the case. You remember when young Richard had that fight in the playground and

you had him home to dinner to teach him some manners and show him how French and

normal you all were? You remember that?’

Isabelle watched Bruno as he spoke on the phone. Without looking in her

direction, he knew that she was appraising him. The call ended, but he held the

phone to his ear and delayed returning to the table, trying to fathom her

intentions. He assumed that she liked him, and she was bored in St Denis just as

she was bored in Périgueux. She probably thought he might make an amusing

diversion. But she was out of her depth here in the country. Had this been

Paris, she would have known the ways to signal whether or not she was ready to

stay, but she was smart enough to understand that the social codes were

different here, the mating rituals more stately, more hesitant. She would

probably find that interesting in itself, to flirt a while with a stranger in

this strange land they called la France profonde, deepest France, and probably

eat some excellent meals along the way.

Bruno imagined her telling herself that the food alone would be worth the

detour. Well, she would have to learn that he was nobody’s temporary plaything.

She would have to wait for the end of his phone call and then go back to her

modest room in the Hôtel de la Gare, listen to the music on her iPod and muse

about a man who grew his own food, built his own house, did not have a TV set,

and wasn’t even looking at her as he turned off his phone. A man who was very

far from sure he even wanted a dalliance with a young woman as clearly clever

and ambitious as Isabelle.

‘Another dead end,’ said Bruno. ‘Momu – that’s the son of the murdered man – had

your chief suspect round to dinner when he was thirteen years old, and told him

how proud the family was that his father had won the Croix de Guerre fighting

for France. That’s how Richard knew about the medal.’ He sank down on his chair,

and seemed to collect himself. ‘Some coffee, Isabelle?’

‘No thanks. I’d never sleep, and I have to get up early to make sure the murder

book is up to date and check on those tyre tracks.

J-J

will be coming down

tomorrow to make sure everything is in order for the guy from Paris.’

He nodded. ‘By the way, there’s some demonstration being arranged for Monday at

noon, a march of solidarity organised by our Communist councillor, but the Mayor

will probably lead it. I don’t expect many people, mainly schoolchildren.’

‘I’ll tell

J-J

, make sure the RG are there with their cameras,’ she said, with a

nervous laugh, and stood, suddenly hesitant, uncertain how best to take her

departure. ‘Just for the files,’ she added. ‘But I think we both know how much

the official files can never know and explain.’

‘Thank you for giving me such an unexpected and pleasant evening, and Gigi

thanks for you for the dinner he’s making from the scraps. I’ll see you to your

car.’ He walked round the table, walked on past her to her car, and held open

the car door for her. She kissed him briefly on both cheeks, but before she

could close her door Gigi darted past Bruno’s legs and put his paws on her

thighs and licked her face. She gave a start, then laughed, and Bruno pulled his

dog away.

‘Thank you, Bruno,’ she said sincerely. ‘I enjoyed the evening. It’s lovely

here. I hope you’ll let me come again.’

‘Of course,’ he said, with a kind of courteous neutrality that he knew she would

find very hard to read. He wondered if she felt disappointed to be leaving. ‘It

would be my pleasure,’ he added, and was surprised by the brilliant smile she

gave him in return, a smile that seemed to transform her face.

Isabelle closed the door, started the engine and reversed back down to the

track. She turned, then looked in the mirror to see him standing there and

waving farewell, Gigi at his knee. As the lights of her car disappeared he

looked up and gazed at the great sweep of the stars twinkling in the black night

above him.

CHAPTER

14

After considerable thought while he washed the dishes from supper and fed Gigi

what few scraps remained, Bruno concluded that, of all his friends, the Baron

would be the most suitable partner to play mixed doubles with the mad

Englishwoman and her friend. He caught himself; with Pamela and Christine. He

said them aloud, enjoying the soft sounds they made, thinking they were names to

be murmured in gentle intimacy. He liked both names, just as he liked the name

Isabelle, another soft sibilant, to be breathed gently into a lover’s ear. He

dragged his thoughts back to the delicate question of a partner for the mixed

doubles. The Baron was old enough to be reassuring, socially at ease, and a

character, with a touch of eccentricity unusual in a Frenchman. It was a

well-known fact, established in all French school textbooks, that the English

liked eccentrics.

Bruno rather liked them too, and sometimes wished he had a touch more

eccentricity himself. He relished the moments when he had stepped out of his

placid and careful character and taken risks and sought adventure. He turned

that word around in his mouth for a long moment: adventure – the word still

inspired him. It still triggered boyhood dreams of travel to mysterious places

and daring challenges, dreams of drama and passion of an intensity that a quiet

country policeman seldom knew. But then he had become a country policeman

because that kind of intensity had battered him so badly when he had tasted it

in Bosnia. His hand strayed to the old scar just above his hip, and he felt

again the sudden confusion of memories, of noise and flames, the world spinning

as he fell, the glare of headlamps and blood on the snow. It was a sequence he

could never get straight in his mind, the events and images all jumbled. Only

the soundtrack remained clear – a symphony of helicopter blades in low rhythm

against the counterpoint chatter of a machine gun, the slam of grenades, the

squealing clatter of tank tracks. Bruno felt a kind of self-pity begin to steal

over him and mentally shook himself for being so foolish, and so self-absorbed

that he was almost forgetting the drama on his own doorstep. A country policeman

seldom had to deal with murder, drugs and bizarre sex games all in a single

week.

Having stacked the dishes carefully in their rack to drain and set out his cup,

plate and knife for breakfast, he kneeled to caress Gigi, who was snuffling

amiably at his feet, hoping that perhaps not all the scraps from dinner had

gone. He cradled the dog’s head in his hands, scratching those soft spots behind

its ears, then bent his own head so that their foreheads met and he made an

affectionate noise deep in his throat, hearing its echo as his dog responded.

There ought to be a word for that deep and loving sound a dog could make – had

Gigi been a cat, Bruno would have said it purred – for this was not a growl, a

word that carried a hint of menace. Gigi twisted his head to lick Bruno’s face,

clambering up so that his front paws rested on his master’s shoulders, the

better to lick his ears and nuzzle into his neck. Bruno relished the contact and

the affection, and hugged his dog before patting its shoulders and getting to

his feet. Time for bed, he told Gigi, for both of us.

What I am trying to do now is distract myself from the subject that really

occupies my mind, Bruno admitted to himself as he led Gigi out to the kennel. He

took a last attentive look at the fence around his hen house, and heard an owl

hooting far off in the woods. He checked that nothing was left on the table and

splashed water on the ashes in the barbecue. He knew he was trying to avoid the

moment of introspection and self-doubt that was upon him. The fact was that he

now deeply regretted his tame acceptance of Isabelle’s departure.

Was that it, he asked himself, looking up to the great blaze of stars and the

distant moving lights of airliners. Had he merely acquiesced in Isabelle’s

decision to return to her hotel, or had he, by his own timidity, given the

impression that her company was not desired? A bolder Bruno would have taken her

decisively in his arms under the night sky, and embarked on the great adventure

of a new affair with a lithe and distinctly modern young woman of intelligence

and ambition.

Come on, Bruno, he told himself as he brushed his teeth. Don’t demean yourself

or understate your value. You built your house with your own hands. You’ve

taught yourself to be a gardener who can feed himself and his friends, and

you’ve become a countryman who understands the feel of the soil and the rhythms

of the seasons, and the old sweet ways of rural France. You’re a man of duty and

responsibility to yourself and your community. You’ve seen foreign lands, you’ve

known love and war and wounds and battle, and that was more than enough

adventure for anyone. Adventure meant risk and danger, and he’d seen his share

of both. He would not willingly seek them out again. The sudden image of the

bomb-shattered French light tank at Sarajevo airport flooded into his mind, the

torn bodies of men he had trained with, eaten with, fought beside. That had been

adventure, and praise be to le bon Dieu that it was over.

He picked up the photograph of himself with Katarina, taken in that glorious

Bosnian summer not long after they had become lovers, and before the winter came

with the snow that gave cover to the Serb raiding party and the sniper who had

shot him. He had been a man of great vigour and passion then, and able to carry

out the violent acts that were part of his duty. He put down the photograph and

pulled out the thin volume of Baudelaire she had given him, opening it to read

her inscription to him and to stare at her flowing signature. He could also hear

her voice again, reading the poems aloud to him in that curiously liquid French

that she had taught her schoolchildren before the war came. He was almost wholly

glad those days were long gone but then, as he slipped between the cool sheets

and turned out the light, he thought, you’re also a man whose bed has been empty

too long and who seems to have got out of the way of enticing attractive women

into it.

Then a more cheerful idea emerged, as it usually did when he had been unduly

hard on himself. He had recently met three attractive and unattached women.

First, Isabelle, who in the absence of an obvious suspect would be here in St

Denis for some time. Then there was Pamela the mad Englishwoman, who lived here

and whom he found interesting. And there was her friend Christine, here only

briefly but she seemed a forthright and enterprising woman, and was in some ways

the prettiest of the three. And he would be playing tennis with them both

tomorrow, with only his friend the Baron as rival for their company.

It promised to be entertaining. The Baron was an inveterate competitor. He hated

to lose, hated even more to lose to a woman, and above all could not abide

losing to the English. And from what Bruno had seen of their play, Christine and

Pamela were likely to trounce them on an unpredictable grass court. The silent

struggle between the Baron’s fury at defeat and his innate and chivalrous

courtesy would be an entertainment in itself. With a smile of affection for his

friend, and a glow of satisfaction at having steered his own thoughts from

gloomy introspection into more agreeable paths, Bruno drifted into an untroubled

sleep.

It was a lovely May morning as they drove in the Baron’s big old Citroën up the

track beside Yannick’s house, past the turnoff to Hamid’s lonely cottage, and

over the rise to the beguiling setting of Pamela’s farmhouse. The Baron slowed

his car to a halt, and gazed at the scene in solemn approval, then climbed out

to stand and take a longer look. Bruno opened his door and joined him, enjoying

the Baron’s reaction to the surroundings and pleased that it matched his own.

They looked in silence, until a drumming noise came from behind them and they

turned to see two horsewomen, their hair flowing free, cantering along the ridge

towards them and spurring into a near gallop as they saw the car and the two

men.

Unlike for Pamela’s usual trips into town, there was no riding cap or neat black

riding coat for this morning’s ride. She was wearing a white shirt open at the

neck, with a green silk scarf that flowed into her auburn hair, and some old

trousers stuffed into her riding boots. The Baron let out a low whistle of

appreciation that only Bruno could hear, and raised his hand in salute.

‘We’ll just be a moment, Bruno. And welcome to your friend,’ called Pamela as

she reined in her snorting brown mare to a quick trot. Christine rode on at

speed, lifting a hand briefly in greeting before bending back over her horse’s

neck and racing on down the slope. Pamela gazed enviously after her, but turned

back to shout, ‘We’ll take the saddles off and change and see you on the court.