“Sorry to bother you at home, Gaby, but it’s about L’Auberge des Verts, where you served the closure today. Somebody said you also had to close a camping site and move some campers off. Is that right?”
“Not really a camping site, Bruno, more a trailer park. There were four campers there, the kind you can sleep in. And yes, we had to tell them to go elsewhere. In fact one of them asked me where he could fill up with diesel. I showed him the way to Lespinasse’s garage.”
“You wouldn’t have made a note of the license plates, would you?”
“Sorry, no. But if they filled up at Lespinasse’s place, he’ll have a note of their credit card. And since that break-in he’s got one of those security cameras. That would have the numbers.”
“Thanks, Gaby. By the way, were they foreign?”
“Yes, Asian, maybe Chinese. All four drivers.”
“Did they seem to know the owner, Guillaume Pons?”
“Oh yes, but the guy they were really talking with was a tall Chinese who said he was the cook. He was the one who was angry with me. At one point I thought he was coming for me with that big cleaver of his. The French owner-he said to call him Bill-he calmed the cook down once I’d explained about the water department.”
“I’m glad it ended quietly, Gaby, and thanks again.”
Bruno rang off, his mind racing. Trailers and Chinese parked in a place within two hours of Arcachon where they’d attract no suspicion, and Pons had Chinese connections and a Chinese cook. He told himself to slow down and cover all the details. He gave Nicco back his phone and used the mayor’s mobile to ring Lespinasse at home. He reached his son.
“ Salut, Edouard, it’s Bruno. That was a quite a game you played the other day.”
“Not too bad yourself, old man. What’s up?”
“Those campers that filled up at your place today, did they pay by credit card?”
“Part of the bill; they had to. Didn’t have enough cash, not for all four campers. They weren’t happy about it.”
“And the card went through all right?”
“Sure.”
“And were your security cameras working?”
“As far as I know. Want me to spool them back and get the license plates on all eight campers?”
“Eight? I thought there were four.”
“Four came first, then four more came down the back road behind the cemetery and joined them.”
“The back road? There’s nothing up there except a couple of old barns and that cave the tourists go to, but it’s closed this time of year.”
“Right. I assumed they just spent the night at a quiet place where they wouldn’t be disturbed and where they wouldn’t have to pay parking fees.”
“Did you see where they were heading?”
“They took the road to Perigueux. That would get them onto the autoroute for Bordeaux or Brive and then up to Paris.”
“Could you check the film and get me the numbers of the campers and the credit card, and I’ll call you back.”
“I can give you one registration number now-I always write it down on the credit card slip, and I’ve brought all the slips back home to enter them in the books. Hang on… Here you are.” He read the number out, and Bruno scribbled it down. The license plate ended in 59-that meant it came from Lille.
“Thanks a lot. There’s no hurry on the other plates from the security film, but if you could get them for me tomorrow, that would be great. I’ll just read the numbers back to check.”
Bruno’s next call was to J-J, to give him the numbers, but as soon as he answered J-J said, “Monsieur le Maire?”
“No, it’s Bruno.”
“You’re supposed to be under arrest. I warned Jofflin about you and told him to give you a hard time. Stealing the mayor’s phone now?”
“Stop it, J-J, I’ve got something important. Remember those campers we saw at the Chinese place in Bordeaux? I’ve just had eight more of them here in St. Denis, Chinese drivers and a Lille license plate.”
“You have the number?”
“Yes, and better still, I’ve got the credit card they used to buy diesel.”
“Let’s have it. We might be able to roll up the whole operation with this, maybe even some of the big boys of the treizieme.”
“What time are you going in?”
“That’s up to them. The air force has the ship on radar closing in on the coast. We’ve got the roads sealed from the campsite and a couple of patrol boats and choppers ready to take the ship. We’ll wait till they bring all the bodies ashore, catch them in the act.”
“Where are you now?”
“In the operations room at Merignac. The brigadier sends his regards, says he has that fancy new phone for you.”
“Where’s Isabelle?”
“With the assault team at Arcachon. Don’t worry, they’re wearing flak vests.”
“One more thing, the place the campers stayed is called L’Auberge des Verts in St. Denis. It’s owned by Guillaume Pons, who just came back home with a sackful of money he made in China. He moved all over Asia, and he’s got a big, tough-looking Chinese, Minxin, who he calls his chef.”
“The Chinese connection?”
“Exactly. Could you tell the brigadier about this and ask him to check if anything is known about Guillaume Pons, calls himself Bill. The Brits might have something on him from Hong Kong. I remember he told us he’d been a cognac salesman in Shanghai, sold wine in Vientiane, taught French in Bangkok and then worked in a casino in Macau-”
“Hold on, I’m writing this down,” J-J interrupted. “Casino in Macau, that sounds interesting.”
“I think he was a croupier. Put all that together, and the brigadier should be able to get something from his own networks. Maybe our Corsican friend Savani knows about him.”
“Right, I’ve got all that. Hang on, the brigadier wants a word.”
Bruno waited no more than a couple of heartbeats, and the familiar gruff voice came onto the line. As always, he got straight to the point, no small talk.
“This Pons guy, how old is he?”
“Mid- to late thirties, I’d say. Looks a bit younger.”
“What about his father?”
“Boniface Pons, at least seventy, a big local businessman, involved in timber, sawmills, truffles. We’re onto him for money laundering at the local truffle market, hundreds of thousands of euros. Not much liked locally, and he’s said to have been a wife beater. He and his son hate each other. They had a public fight not long ago. Oh yes, and he’s an ex-soldier, Algeria.”
“Boniface Pons,” said the brigadier, as though thinking aloud. “So that’s what happened to him.”
“Did you know him?”
“I knew of him. Dirty work in Algeria. That’s for tomorrow, when we get tonight’s business finished. Thanks as always, Bruno.”
26
J-J’s call woke Bruno just after five in the morning. He felt as if he had not slept long, lying awake and thinking about Isabelle waiting in the sand dunes by the Arcachon campsite as a darkened ship crept close to shore.
“It’s over, we got them, but there’s some bad news,” J-J said.
“Isabelle? What happened?” He shot up in bed, his heart pounding. He closed his eyes.
“She’s been wounded. She took two on the bulletproof vest and one high on the leg. It’s a bad wound but she’ll recover. She’s in the operating room now at the hopital militaire. We had a medevac chopper on hand, thanks to the brigadier.”
“Have you seen her?” His voice sounded thick and slurred.
“I saw her loaded into the chopper. She’ll be okay, Bruno. The brigadier spoke to the chief surgeon.”
“Anyone else hurt?”
“Just the bad guys. Isabelle got one of them when they opened up with AK-47s, and the marines got three more. But it’s all under control. We’ve got the ship, the campers, the site, and we’re still counting the migrants. It was over two hundred last I heard. No kids, but some of th
em look pretty young.”
“Do you know if the bullet hit the bone? Can I see her?”
“I don’t see why not. It hit her high on the leg, close to the hip, but it didn’t get the joint. That’s all I know. And she lost a lot of blood. They were giving her transfusions as they loaded her into the chopper. She’ll still be under anesthetic for a while. Maybe better to wait till the afternoon. I think the hospital’s called Robert Piquet, or was that the old one? I’ll get you the address and see you there about three. The brigadier wants to see you first.”
“Any idea why?”
“That Guillaume Pons you were asking about, we just arrested him at the campsite. He was the only non-Asian there except for a couple dozen Iraqis and Afghanis who were paying their way. And there’s a lot about him in the brigadier’s files. He may have started as a croupier in Macau, but he rose fast. He took a bullet in the shoulder, and he’s probably going to lose an arm.”
“Is he in the same hospital as Isabelle?” Bruno was surprised that Pons had been at the scene. He’d have thought Pons either too important to the organization to risk his presence at the landing of the illegals, or too peripheral to be so deeply involved. If he hadn’t been at the scene, the only count against him was allowing the campers to stay on his premises. He wouldn’t even have been charged.
“He’s in a prison hospital,” said J-J. “He was armed and shooting back. He’ll be going down for a long time.”
“What was he armed with?” It was hard to imagine Pons with a weapon.
“A cheap handgun. A Norinco nine millimeter, Chinese military issue. You find them all over Asia, they tell me. More and more of them here in Europe.”
“What happens now?”
“The brigadier says it’s time to play peacemaker between the treizieme and the Vietnamese. Now that he’s rolled up this operation, he reckons he’s dealing from strength, and the treizieme is on the defensive, so it’s time for the truce meeting. And that credit card you gave us-it’s leading right back to the big boys. There’s a whole network of connected accounts, and we’ve frozen all of them.”
Bruno hung up and lay back on the tangled sheets, thinking of Isabelle and her wound and the fascination with which she had explored his own scar in this very bed, tracing it with her fingers. And now her perfect body would carry its own mark of violence received. Would she be as lithe, as skilled and fast at her karate, after her release from the hospital? Would she feel the dampness and the coming of winter somewhere deep in the wound, as Bruno did?
Why did it matter so much to him? Their affair was over, the weeks of magic she had brought to his life would never return. But why had he not taken his chance for a final night with her in Bordeaux, to follow her into the elevator and down the hall to her room and into the welcoming darkness where the only light would be from the whiteness of her body and the sparkle of her eyes?
He turned onto his side. He had to try to stop thinking about her. It was finished. He had to find some way to repair his relationship with Pamela. But he’d have to start by explaining that Pons had been shot and arrested. Surely she couldn’t still take Pons’s side after that, even though she’d blamed him and the mayor for the closure of the Auberge. Even if she admits that she’s been wrong about Pons, she’ll feel like a fool, which probably means she’ll resent me, Bruno thought. He’d probably lost her already. And when she learned that Pons would probably lose an arm, she might even blame Bruno. At least her political career wasn’t over, if the mayor went ahead and brought her onto the council. And now there was no chance of his losing the election.
This time it was the siren that woke him, the rising and falling whine from the roof of the mairie that always made him think of war and invasion. He sat up in bed. At this hour, it had to be a fire. He fumbled for the light switch, knocking over the book he’d been reading, and looked for the phone. It was on the chair, recharging. He was about to hit the familiar single number for the pompiers but remembered it was the mayor’s phone. He scrolled through the directory and found it under P.
“It’s Bruno. Where’s the fire?”
“I just tried to call you but there was no answer. It’s Ahmed here.”
“I’m on another number. Where is it?”
“That new restaurant out on the road to Les Eyzies, L’Auberge des Verts, and it sounds like a big one. We’ve got everything out there, and all of the engines from Les Eyzies and Le Bugue as well. Albert’s in charge and he’s been asking where you were.”
“Tell him I’m on my way.”
He washed his face and neck, brushed his teeth and dressed quickly. He swigged at a bottle of milk and remembered to pocket the phone. He fed his dog and his chickens and grabbed the remnant of an old baguette and a hunk of Stephane’s Tomme d’Audrix and raced for the Land Rover. There would be a bottle of water in the car, and knowing Albert, he’d have arranged to have coffee available at the fire.
So the Vietnamese had taken their revenge. He had no doubt that this fire was deliberate. Tran might have been oblique, but his message had been clear: the Vietnamese would have to fight back. How they had identified Bill as an enemy was beyond Bruno. Perhaps they had followed the campers from Lille and seen them seek safe harbor at Bill’s Auberge. Perhaps they were tapping phones as well. It wouldn’t surprise him. A big fire, Ahmed had said. That probably meant that more than just the main building had been hit. Christ, those Chinese girls were living there. He pressed the accelerator against the floor. An old Land Rover would take him anywhere, but it wasn’t built for speed.
He raced through St. Denis, chewing stale bread and cheese, noting all the lights on in the gendarmerie and in the medical center. They’d have been alerted by the siren. There was probably not much need for him to be there, if he were honest. But he had standing instructions at the fire station to call him for every fire in the commune. This was his town and his responsibility. The townsfolk had to know that he’d always be there.
Once past the railway crossing and the bend over the bridge, Bruno could see the red glow up on the ridge against the cold night sky. He dropped a gear, raced into the turn onto the side road and powered up the hill to the pretentious stone pillars that Pons had erected. As he slowed to enter the big compound, he could see three separate fires raging-one in the Auberge itself and two in the outer buildings. As he watched, the glass of the solar panels cracked in a series of small explosions that sounded almost like gunfire. The roof of the restaurant crumpled and fell, and one of the windmills beside it began to topple slowly onto its side. He parked out of the way of the fire engines, went looking for Albert and found him shouting into a mobile phone.
“I don’t care if the silly bastards turned the water off because of a court order. I need it back on again now. We’re running out of water here, and I’ve got three fires.” He waved to acknowledge Bruno’s presence. “At least can you tell me where it was turned off so I can get it back on again? You don’t know? Putain de merde, how am I supposed to fight this fire?”
Albert slammed his phone into his pocket and shouted, “Fabien, get over here.” One of his men came running. “Take my van and head up to the water tower and see if it’s turned off there. If so turn it on. If not, then follow the line and check every valve. If you see a water department seal, ignore it and turn it back on. Understood?”
“Where are the children?” Bruno asked.
“What children?”
“Two young Chinese girls, nieces of the cook.”
“The main building was empty, and we got four adults out of the staff building. Nobody said anything about children. Where would they sleep? Merde, we were told that third building was empty. Let’s go. Merde en croute, Fabien has my van.”
“We’ll take my car,” said Bruno, and they raced back to the Land Rover, pulling out just as a huge new fire engine heaved through the stone gates. Albert climbed half out of the Land Rover, waving at the new arrival and shouting, “Follow me.”
Bruno raced ar
ound knots of firemen shifting hoses from their engines to their water tenders. Unless Fabien found the right valve, there would be no more water once the tenders were empty. He went past the staff house, fire now leaping from every window, and on to the farthest building, trying to remember where the manure pool had been so he could avoid it. In his mirror, he could see the fire engine following him, heaving over the bumps in the ground, its headlights half blinding him in the mirror as they rose and fell with the terrain. He pushed the mirror to one side and concentrated on the ground ahead.
“Where’s that damn ambulance?” Albert was shouting into his phone. “I want it at the farthest building. That’s where you’ll find me, with the engine from Les Eyzies that’s just arrived. And send any more new arrivals to the same place. There may be kids in there.”
Bruno recognized the far building as the one where he had peered into the window and seen the curiously old-fashioned furniture. The fire was concentrated at the front, and the west side and the roof had yet to catch. He swung the Land Rover around to the eastern side of the building and parked, leaving the engine running. There was movement at an upper window, and he pointed it out to Albert. Bruno darted across to the side of the engine from Les Eyzies and clambered up to the locker where they kept the protective gear, at least they did if it was the familiar model from St. Denis.
“Hey, what d’you think you’re doing?” came a shout as Bruno jumped down with a protective jacket and helmet in his hand. He ignored it, scrambled into the jacket, put the helmet on and grabbed a hand ax from its bracket on the door. Albert was already breaking into the rear door with his crowbar as Bruno arrived. Bruno breathed deeply, fighting down the old fear that fire provoked ever since it had first reached out to hurt him. The scar on his arm seemed to prickle in anticipation as he remembered the burning armored car on the airfield at Sarajevo and the sound of soldiers screaming inside as he fought to widen the flaming door and pull them out. Grimly, he used his ax to make another hole for more leverage for Albert, and between them they hauled the door open.
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