“By the end of today, but it’ll be very basic.”
“Before you go, read me out the recent numbers he called on the mobile. There’s a special unit in Paris that deals with Asian crime. Our old friend the brigadier is involved. I’ll see if any of the numbers spark any interest.”
“They’re mostly mobiles, but there’s a couple for Paris,” Bruno said, reading them out. “Anything going on with Asians I should know about?”
“We had a tip from Paris. The biggest Chinese restaurant in Perigueux, owned by a guy with his own supermarket attached, just got taken over. He borrowed money from some big boys in Paris, loan shark stuff, and they screwed him on interest rates. It seems they did the same thing to a Chinese supermarket in Bordeaux a couple of months ago. The Paris cops think it’s organized crime, Chinese triads getting established in France. I’ll keep you posted.”
As they hung up, Fabiola walked in with her medical bag and asked, “Where’s this prisoner?”
“It’s Bruno you should look at,” said Jules. “He had a stun grenade go off beside him, and he was out like a light for about a minute. The Asian kid’s just groggy.”
“I’m fine,” Bruno protested. But Fabiola was already turning him toward the window and pulling back his eyelids to look into his pupils. She took a small flashlight from her bag and shone it into his eyes.
“No bleeding from your nose?” she asked, as she poked the flashlight into his ears.
“No, Doctor. Jules here dosed me with a cold sponge, just like he does on the rugby field. I’m fine, just a bit of a headache, and I’ve got work to do.”
“I want to see you at the medical center just before noon, and I’ll look again. And I want you to take the afternoon off. Otherwise I’ll put you in an ambulance to the hospital right now and insist they keep you overnight for observation.”
Bruno knew better than to argue with Fabiola in professional mode so he grumpily agreed. She told him to take two aspirin for the headache and went downstairs to the interview room with Sergeant Jules to see the Asian. Bruno called the gas station to ask about his van. It had been new when he started the job as the municipal policeman of St. Denis, but that had been ten years, one reconditioned engine and more than two hundred thousand miles ago.
“Looks like they didn’t know about the brakes,” said the garage owner when he came to the phone after a long wait. Jean-Louis Lespinasse, whose passion in life was to restore old Citroens, took great pride in keeping Bruno’s van on the road. But the brakes needed special care. Bruno found that a combination of a low gear, pumping the brake pedal and prayer usually worked.
“They only stopped when they ran into the lamppost,” Lespinasse went on. “If you ask me, the frame’s gone and it’s a write-off. I’ll get the boy to take some photos and e-mail them to you for the insurance. Meantime, what should I tell this guy whose car they took?”
“Tell him the gendarmes have an alert out for it, and I’ll be along as soon as I can and give him the number of the incident report, but he might want to inform his insurance company.”
Fabiola and Jules came up the stairs as the main door to the gendarmerie opened. A middle-aged man with a self-important air approached the main desk. His clothes looked expensive.
“I’m Poincevin,” he announced. “I’m here to see a client who’s been detained.”
“And I’m the arresting officer,” said Bruno. “One moment please.” He turned to Fabiola. “Okay?”
“He’s in better shape than you are,” she replied. “But one thing. I thought that Vietnamese friend of yours was supposed to be bringing his wife to the medical center. Neither of them turned up.”
“I’d better check on that,” said Bruno. “Thank you, Mademoiselle le Medecin.” He smiled, her formal title a private joke between them. He turned back to Poincevin, who clearly did not like to be kept waiting.
“Perhaps you did not hear me,” the lawyer said coldly. “I’m here to see my client.”
“We intend to charge the prisoner with one count of criminal damage, three counts of assault, one of them on a policeman, and attempting to evade lawful arrest,” Bruno said. “So far, we have no name, no statement and no proof of identity. If this detainee is your client, I’m hoping you can help us with that.”
“I will see my client at once,” said Poincevin, waving aside the list of charges. “And I wish to see the gendarme officier in charge of this station. I’m not in the habit of dealing with village policemen.” He made the phrase sound like “village idiot.”
“Now just you wait a moment…,” began Sergeant Jules, but Bruno held up a restraining hand.
“Which client, Monsieur Poincevin?”
Jules settled back, leaning against the doorframe, a smile on his face. He always enjoyed it when Bruno started calling someone “monsieur” and using that tone of icy politeness.
“What do you mean, ‘which client’?” Poincevin snapped. “The one in your cell, of course.”
“And the name of your client, monsieur, would be what?”
“The Chinese boy.”
“Ah, monsieur speaks Chinese.”
“I do not, but I have an interpreter waiting in the car outside, a member of my staff.”
“And does your interpreter know the name of your client?”
“He will once I as his lawyer am allowed to see him.”
“Monsieur, am I to understand that you think you have a client here, but you do not know his name?”
“My office was telephoned from this gendarmerie some two hours ago and informed that a young Chinese boy had been arrested and had offered them the number of my office. He is therefore my client.”
“Monsieur, you are mistaken,” Bruno said. “When that call was made, we had no idea whether he was Chinese or an Eskimo. We informed your office that a young man of Asian appearance had been arrested and was in possession of your phone number. But now you tell us he is Chinese. That represents progress. Now, if he is indeed your client, you will have his name and some means of identification. If he is not of French nationality, presumably you have his passport or some proof of his legal presence in this country. Otherwise we shall have to invoke the procedures for illegal immigration.”
Fabiola was smiling broadly as she stood by the door, watching this exchange. Jules gave her a wink, but quickly returned his face to its usual stolid expression when Poincevin began casting his eyes around the room as if daring anyone to witness his frustration.
“This is ridiculous,” he said, his long nose looking white and pinched while two red spots flared on his cheekbones.
“Chef de Police Courreges is quite correct, monsieur,” said Sergeant Jules. “I’m currently the officer on duty and as a lawyer you will understand that the regulations do not permit anyone to visit a detainee unless he or she has the proper authorization. I’ve never heard of a lawyer being unable to identify someone he claims to be a client. May I see your own identification papers, please?”
His thin lips tightening, Poincevin pulled out his wallet and handed over his identity card. Jules took it, went to a desk and formally copied down the particulars.
“ Merci, monsieur,” said Jules. “And who is it you are here to see?”
“One moment,” said Poincevin after a long pause. He pulled out a mobile phone and a notebook, juggled with them both but finally put the notebook on the counter and began to punch in some numbers. Once he had a connection, Poincevin squeezed past Fabiola and walked out the main door to speak in private. As the door closed behind him, Fabiola let a gust of laughter escape from the lips she had held tightly closed.
“Did you get them, Jules?” Bruno asked urgently. He had seen Jules discreetly scribbling the numbers down on his palm. Jules nodded and showed his hand so Bruno could see. It was a French mobile number, and Bruno punched the digits into the memory of his own phone and then called J-J, to pass them on to his contacts in Paris. Fabiola rolled her eyes and left them to it.
Poincevin
returned, slipping his phone into an elegant pouch at his waist. He was followed by a young Chinese in a black suit, white shirt and dark tie. The lawyer, back in control of himself after his mysterious phone call, kept his voice flat and his face immobile as he announced that he wished to see his client, Yiren Guo. The client was twenty-two, a Chinese citizen and student, visiting France as a tourist. He read out a passport number from a notebook. Jules wrote it all down and then solemnly led the way downstairs to the interview room.
7
They took the baron’s hunting car for the rendezvous with Hercule. It was one of the few vehicles that had ever aroused Bruno to pure, burning lust. An old French army jeep, still bearing the markings of the baron’s former regiment of Chasseurs, it had all its old military fittings, including the can of fuel on the back and the circular canvas bag to carry the towing chain. Bruno had spent a considerable part of his military career in jeeps such as this, and his sense of nostalgia was almost as powerful as the four-wheel drive that could haul the vehicle over any terrain that wasn’t vertical, and even that could usually be tackled with the winch. And it was simple, quite different from the computerized mysteries of modern cars. Bruno knew that, armed with a basic tool kit, a little ingenuity and a lot of patience, he could fix just about anything that went wrong with a jeep. The speed might be modest and the cornering dangerous and there was zero protection from the weather. But for the woodland trails and the muddy, boulder-strewn streambeds and the steeper slopes of the Perigord hills it was perfect.
Not that the current journey needed the jeep’s special attributes. The tract of forest that was reserved for Hercule’s hunting club-covering a long ridge with wooded valleys on either side-was easily reached via the road from Ste. Alvere to the medieval abbey church of Paunat. A gravel road rose gradually into the woods for a kilometer and then became a dirt track for the final sweep to the shaded clearing where Hercule’s elderly Land Rover was parked.
A narrow footpath through the trees led to the small shack that was formally known as the hide. In reality, like most such structures used by the region’s hunters, it was more of a club-house, with a long table and battered benches, a cast-iron stove and barbecue stand. In a locked cupboard they kept tin plates and enamel mugs and an old shovel that did service as a frying pan on the hot embers of a fire. A stream tumbled down the hillside nearby and offered running water. Over the years they had built a little dam that provided a pool large enough for two or three tired hunters to stand and sluice off under the tiny waterfall. Below that was a washing place for utensils and for the knives used for bleeding and gutting the deer and wild boar. The dogs they brought ensured that there was little left to bury.
The rule among Bruno, the baron and Hercule was that the guests provided the casse-croute, the hunters’ morning snack. As always, they erred on the side of generosity. In the baron’s rucksack were two cans of his own duck pate, three beefsteaks and some of his crop of apples. His hip flask was filled with cognac. Bruno carried two bottles of the Lalande de Pomerol that he and the baron bought each year in a barrel, to spend a happy afternoon bottling it themselves. He also supplied half a dozen of his own eggs, hard-boiled, two baguettes of fresh bread and half a Tomme d’Audrix, a local cheese made by his friend Stephane.
Leaping from the back of the jeep as soon as it was parked, their dogs were already sniffing up the trail after Hercule as Bruno and the baron pulled out their rucksacks and guns and followed. The baron used his father’s old gun, a venerable English-made Purdey that was worth more than Bruno’s annual salary. Bruno had a secondhand St. Etienne model from Manufrance, a serviceable gun with a walnut stock that had still cost him a month’s pay. For hunting becasse, the elusive game bird that could dart almost from beneath one’s feet, they carried shells of standard small-gauge bird shot. Each man had a couple of slug rounds in case they met wild boar. They’d done the tests and safety courses required by the Federation de la Chasse to receive a hunting permit, and they carried their guns safely broken open at the breech as they followed their dogs up the trail to the hide.
“Quiet,” said the baron, stopping. “Listen to the dogs.”
A well-trained hunting dog is silent until his master authorizes the animal to give voice. Bruno’s Gigi and the baron’s General were very well trained, and yet they were whining from the trail up ahead.
Something was wrong. The baron moved on cautiously while Bruno automatically stepped out to his side. They saw their dogs backing hesitantly away, with haunches low and tails down. Bruno circled slowly, trusting the baron to take care of whatever lay ahead while Bruno peered through the trees behind them and up the slopes on both sides. He kept his gun open but gently eased two shells into the barrels. The dogs had stopped their whining, and the woods were almost silent but for the distant sound of running water. Nothing stirred except the faintest of breezes, and then Bruno caught the first scent of something on the wind. His back to the baron, he sniffed again; fresh blood.
Too well trained to turn and look, Bruno moved his eyes first and let his head follow slowly. Their rear and both flanks were clear. But still Bruno did not turn. The baron, an Algerian War veteran who had seen combat and knew its rules as well as he knew the skills of the hunt, would warn him when he was ready.
Bruno heard rather than saw the baron’s dog, alerted by a hand signal from his master, start ranging out to flank the clearing and come in from the other side, exactly as he would if the baron wanted a becasse cleared from a thicket. His own Gigi had come quietly to his side, awaiting orders. Bruno went down on one knee to hold his gun steady against his thigh and signaled Gigi to skirt around the other flank. He waited until he heard the baron start to move forward again.
Then he heard his friend, speaking so softly he was almost breathing the words, “Putain. Putain de merde.” And then more loudly as the baron closed the breech of his gun, “Ah non, ah mon Dieu. Non.”
Still Bruno did not move, although every nerve was quivering, for he could hear the fear and dismay in the baron’s voice.
“Bruno,” he called, and finally Bruno turned and went through the last fringe of trees and into the clearing where the baron stood before the sight of Hercule. He seemed to be hanging in midair, his head and neck craning forward like some medieval gargoyle thrusting outward from a cathedral roof. And he had evidently been made to suffer before his death. Hercule’s dog lay dead at his feet.
“Don’t touch anything,” Bruno said, and pulled out his phone. No signal, this deep in the woods. He could not touch Hercule without stepping in the pool of blood, too fresh to have dried. Bruno looked into the hide, where Hercule’s broken gun lay on the table. A hand ax and a small pile of kindling was beside it. Hercule’s jacket hung on the back of a chair. He had probably been chopping wood for a fire when he was surprised. Bruno walked across to the jacket and tapped the pockets. Hercule’s wallet was still there and so were the keys to his Land Rover. That would have to be searched. Bruno wrapped his hand in a handkerchief, pulled out the keys and slipped them into his pocket.
There was something else in the pocket. He hooked a finger over the pocket’s edge, peered in and saw an object wrapped in newspaper, but the smell had already informed him. He pulled out two perfect examples of melanosporum, the famous black diamonds, weighing perhaps a pound between them. They could not have been fresher, so they must have been picked that morning, Hercule’s last act before starting to prepare a fire for a casse-croute with his friends. Hercule wouldn’t want them to go to the ambulance men. He pulled out the truffles, showed them to the baron and put them in his pocket.
“Stay here, keep the dogs away from the blood and I’ll go to phone,” Bruno told the baron. “Keep your eyes open and I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll whistle when I come up the trail so you’ll know it’s me.”
The baron tossed him the keys to the jeep, backed into the hide and settled down on one knee, his back against the stove.
“This is not just a mur
der,” he said.
“How do you mean?”
“This is a killing that triggers phone calls to government ministers. Hercule was a barbouze, one of the top ones. He’ll have files and secrets that could shake la Republique.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t need to, until now.” The baron gestured with his head toward the hanging corpse. “Somebody’s out for revenge.”
“From his Algerian days?” Bruno asked. “Or is it something else?”
The baron shrugged.
Had Hercule been Deuxieme Bureau, military intelligence or the SDECE foreign intelligence and counterespionage service or what? Bruno’s head spun a little at the thought of all the vague and shadowy organizations that had been charged over the past few decades with guarding France’s security by fighting her secret wars. “I know somebody in Renseignements Generaux, but that’s about it.”
“He’ll do. Call him and just say Hercule was an old barbouze. Indochina and Algeria and the OAS. He’ll know what to do.”
Bruno left, avoiding the footpath, in case forensics could find something useful on the trail, and kept a keen watch for any other signs of life. Before he reached the clearing where the jeep and Land Rover were parked, he slowed down, skirting around to approach the cars from another direction. Hercule’s vehicle was locked and showed no signs of tampering. Bruno’s phone still gave no signal. Before starting the jeep he looked carefully for any signs of different tire tracks in the clearing and on the track leading back to the road. He saw two possible tracks. He marked each one with a large stone and crossed branches, and then drove down the track toward Paunat, eyes darting to his phone for the first sign of a signal.
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