Bruno 02 - The Dark Vineyard

by Martin Walker

  Nathalie had not been very precise about the nature of the emergency, saying only that there was trouble and he had better come quickly. It took Bruno less than three minutes to force his way through the usual traffic jam at the small roundabout by the bridge and into the courtyard of Hubert’s sprawling single-story barn. Despite the ivy and flowers that tumbled from various old wine barrels, it was not, Hubert admitted, the most impressive of entrances for an establishment so renowned. But then, Hubert liked to explain, he spent his money on the contents rather than the showcase. He also spent his money on his appearance, cultivating a countrified English look with tweed sports jackets and Viyella shirts, knitted ties and handmade brogues that he bought in London on his sales trips.

  Bruno saw the usual mix of cars in the courtyard, Mercedeses and BMWs, Citroëns and Renaults and Peugeots from all across France. His eye lingered on a green Range Rover with British plates. For a devoted hunter who too often found himself hauling the carcass of a deer through long stretches of rough country, it was the only vehicle that sparked a touch of envy. But he knew he’d be more comfortable with the army surplus Citroën jeep that he was saving for.

  Bruno quickly took in the scene. Nearest the entrance, with one door open and a shouting match under way all around it, was a white Porsche convertible with an extremely pretty young woman sitting in the passenger seat. Hubert himself was standing in front of the driver’s door, gripping the steering wheel to prevent a very angry man in bright yellow trousers and a pink polo shirt from climbing in and driving away. Nathalie sat grimly on the Porsche’s hood, a younger woman whom Bruno did not know, presumably some new employee, perched beside her. With the sun gleaming off the thick ringlets of her blond hair, the new girl with the large dark eyes was attractive enough for Bruno’s glance to linger. She stared back at him boldly, the kind of frank appraisal he might expect from an older and more experienced woman.

  Standing beside the new girl was Max, a handsome youth with blond streaks in his hair whose skin glowed with good health. He grinned at the sight of Bruno, who had taught the boy to play rugby. Now at a university in Bordeaux, Max had a summer job working for Hubert. He lived at his father Alphonse’s commune. As backdrop to the scene around the Porsche, a small audience of enthralled customers was gathered in the door of the cave.

  The blue light on his van still flashing, Bruno had stopped with his front bumper almost touching the Porsche, blocking its exit. He took out his notebook and recorded the license plate number. It ended in 75, which meant Paris. He strode up to the group, which now fell silent. This was no time for the habitual round of kissing and hand-shaking. It was an occasion for the anonymous majesty of the law.

  “Messieurs-dames,” he began, touching his peaked cap in salute and taking in the scene. “Chef de Police Courrèges à votre service.”

  Bruno took a good look at the strangers and their expensive car. The man in pink and yellow must have been in his late fifties. He had a magnificent head of long, curling white hair and a small paunch, and he wore a gold wedding ring. The woman in his Porsche looked to be in her twenties. She was wearing big sunglasses and shoes that cost—Bruno guessed—at least two weeks of his pay. He noted that she wore an impressive collection of diamonds on her fingers but no wedding ring. An exquisitely groomed small white poodle with a diamanté collar sat at her feet.

  “He dropped the Château Pétrus ’82 and is refusing to pay for it,” said Hubert, in a voice that somehow expressed grief as well as anger.

  “You mean, he broke it?” Bruno was awed. “A bottle of the ’82?” This was like a death in the family.

  “Two thousand two hundred euros’ worth of wine, smashed on the floor,” said Nathalie.

  “It was an accident,” said the man in pink. “The bottle was slippery, greasy. It wasn’t my fault.”

  “And you are, monsieur?” inquired Bruno.

  “Just a tourist, on a short vacation.”

  “Your papers, please.”

  “Look, I’m just passing through. I’ll be on my way once these people stop blocking my car.”

  “Your papers, monsieur. And yours, please, madame.”

  “Mademoiselle,” the well-groomed young woman corrected him, fishing in her purse for her identity card. Bruno recognized the distinctive Chanel logo.

  “Apologies, Mademoiselle, ah, d’Alambert. This is still your address, boulevard Maurice-Barrès in Paris?”

  She nodded. Bruno took down in his notebook the relevant information. She was twenty-four and had been born in Lille. It was quite a jump from an industrial city in northern France to boulevard Barrès, a celebrated street overlooking the Bois de Boulogne in the richest part of Paris. Her profession was listed as model.

  “Monsieur, your papers,” he repeated.

  The man pursed his lips as if to object, then shrugged and reached for his wallet, an expensive slim design of crocodile skin, and handed Bruno his identity card and his driver’s license.

  “Monsieur Hector d’Aubergny Dupuy, of avenue Foch, Paris, sixteenth arrondissement. Is that right?” The man nodded. Avenue Foch was a grand address, and but a pleasant stroll from the Bois de Boulogne and boulevard Barrès.

  “And if I were to call your home, monsieur, would someone be there who could confirm that you are who you say you are?” Bruno paused and glanced at the girl in the Porsche. “Perhaps a Madame Dupuy?”

  Dupuy colored, his face almost matching the pink of his polo shirt. “I doubt it, not at this time.”

  “And your business address, if you please.”

  Dupuy opened the wallet again and fished out a card that identified him as chef d’entreprise of a business consultancy named after himself, with an office on the rue de Monceau. Bruno pulled out his cell phone. “And there would be somebody at this number in Paris, monsieur, to vouch for you and confirm that the car is yours?”

  “Yes, my secretary. But I have the car’s registration papers and insurance and …”

  Bruno held up a hand, turned away and dialed the number of Philippe Delaron, a photographer and part-time reporter for the Sud Ouest newspaper, whom he had seen at the fire. Bruno suggested that Philippe come with his camera. Bruno then turned back to the now silent group.

  “I’m not sure any crime has been committed,” he said with a deliberately ponderous delivery, “but there’s clearly the prospect of a civil lawsuit, and I’d have to be a witness. So I have to ask you to be patient while I satisfy myself that I understand what’s happened here. To help us with that I’ve asked a local photographer who sometimes works with the police to join us.”

  Bruno noticed with satisfaction that Dupuy’s face was coloring anew. Bruno looked at the employees of the wine shop, who were still clustered around the hood of the Porsche.

  “Perhaps, madame,” Bruno said, looking at Nathalie, “you can come from the front of the car now that everything is calm and under control.” Nathalie flounced off, and the pretty young stranger beside her slid off rather less gracefully. Bruno noted that Hubert reached quickly forward to help her, only to be beaten to the task by Max. Nathalie, Hubert’s longtime mistress, had also noticed Hubert’s protective move, and her jaw tightened.

  “I don’t believe you’ve met our new stagiaire,” Hubert said to Bruno. “Mademoiselle Jacqueline Duplessis from Quebec. She’s a quick thinker, the first one out to sit on the car after the bottle broke and the customer tried to leave. She’s been studying wine in California, and she’ll be working with us this year, learning our ways. Her family in Canada makes a very interesting dessert wine.”

  Bruno shook hands with the young woman, who held his hand a moment too long, greeted him in the curious accent of French Canada and almost stroked his palm as she released it. Bruno murmured a pleasantry before turning toward the entrance, weighing how best to proceed. The first thing would be to keep this as private as possible.

  “There’s no more to see, messieurs-dames,” Bruno called to the little audience in the doorway. “P
lease go back inside and continue your shopping.” He moved forward with a smile on his face, his outstretched arms steering them inside. Then he resumed his official expression and faced the white-haired gallant from Paris.

  “Monsieur Dupuy, you agree that you handled the bottle of Château Pétrus and that it fell from your hands?”

  “Well, it slid. It was greasy.”

  “Then let’s go inside and examine the remains of the bottle. With your permission, Monsieur de Montignac?”

  The cave was one of Bruno’s favorite places. Directly ahead lay Hubert’s own wines, which were the source of his success. He had started by blending the wines of various local growers into his own brand of Bergerac whites, reds and rosés. Then he’d bought a small vineyard near the castle of Monbazillac to produce his version of the sweet and golden dessert wine. Later came the partnership with an English businessman who had bought a run-down château and vineyard outside Bergerac and produced a wine that won prizes at the great fairs in Dijon and Paris. To the right lay the seat of the cave’s reputation, row upon row of the finest wines of Bordeaux, year after year after year of Latours and Lafites, Cheval Blanc and Angélus, and the famous unbroken run of Château Pétrus. To the left was what was said to be one of the finest selections of malt whiskies outside Scotland and one of the best collections of vintage Armagnacs in France.

  Between these two wings was the heart of the place, six tall plastic cylinders. These gigantic vats, with their gas station–like pumps attached, dispensed wine in bulk. All comers were invited to buy their Bergerac white, red and rosé, their vin de table and their sweet white wines for one euro a liter or less, so long as they brought their own plastic containers or bottles and did their own filling. This was where Bruno bought his everyday wine. The air smelled of wine, old and new, freshly spilled and freshly opened, at least some of it breathtakingly costly. Knowing the way to the shelf of Pétrus, Bruno led his small entourage to the altar of this temple to wine, and stopped, looking down mournfully at the smashed bottle on the tiled floor. Out of respect, he removed his hat, and kneeled to see it more closely. The price, carefully written in delicate thin strokes of white paint, was 2,200 euros.

  He peered closely at the largest shard of glass. There was indeed a grease mark, more of a long, smeared thumbprint. He turned and looked at Dupuy’s glistening face.

  “Monsieur, I noticed in the pouch by the driver’s seat of your car a tube of sunscreen, a sensible precaution when driving a convertible, although it can be greasy. How recently did you apply it to your face?”

  As Dupuy shrugged, the door opened and Delaron walked in, his camera around his neck.

  “Monsieur Delaron, how about beginning with a photo of the Porsche outside, and be sure to get the license plate and of course the passenger,” Bruno began. “It may make a story for your paper: the sad death of a bottle of Pétrus ’82. …”

  “I’ll pay for the bottle,” Dupuy said suddenly. “It may have been my fault.” He handed a black credit card to Nathalie. “Let’s forget about the whole thing.”

  “You’re lucky it wasn’t the ’61,” said Nathalie. “That’s 4,100 euros. By the way, Bruno, what’s wrong with your hair?”

  “This is a very generous gesture, monsieur,” said Bruno, ignoring Nathalie but hurriedly replacing his hat on his half-cut hair. “It’s a pity there aren’t more people like you. And I’m sure that, in a spirit of reconciliation, Monsieur de Montignac would like to offer you a small glass.”

  Hubert was already behind the counter pulling a bottle from the cooler. “I was planning on tasting a new shipment of the Krug ’95, if Monsieur Dupuy would care to join me, and mademoiselle, of course.” He tapped the bottom of the bottle to prevent it from bubbling over, and removed the cork with a restrained but festive pop. Jacqueline scurried forward with glasses, and Nathalie stood sternly by the door with the credit-card bill for Dupuy to sign. Max emerged from the vast warehouse at the rear with a mop and a dustpan and began cleaning up. Bruno went outside and invited the bored-looking Mademoiselle d’Alambert to join them for a glass of champagne. She left the car with impressive speed and a flash of thigh, leaving the poodle behind.

  5

  His interrupted haircut complete, Bruno took the ancient stairs of the mairie up to his office, pondering as he often did how many feet it had taken over the centuries to wear the stone steps into such deep curves. The usual mail and paperwork awaited him, along with the endless to-do list that had grown while he was at the research station with J-J. It ranged from providing certificates of good conduct for people applying for jobs and university places to signing contracts for the musicians who would play at the civic ball on the night of the fair of Saint Louis. As secretary of the council’s sports committee, he had to sign the check for the first stage of the repainting of the rugby stadium. There was a faxed notification of death from the Préfecture de Police in Paris informing him that a resident of Saint-Denis had died in the jurisdiction of Paris, and asking that he please notify the family. The name of the deceased was unfamiliar, but the address was that of the hippie commune that had survived in the hills since the 1960s, probably because they produced the best goat cheese in the market. He would have to find time for that visit before the end of the day, but he would use the occasion to put some questions about GMOs to the commune residents. If anybody knew about the écolos, environmentalists who were militants for the Green cause, it would be Alphonse and his people.

  He put his hat on top of the bookcase, beside the FBI baseball cap that a friend had brought him after a vacation in New York, then squeezed between the filing cabinets and the wall to get behind his battered metal desk. He sat down, hearing the familiar squeak of his swivel chair, and looked down through the window at the busy roundabout and the bustle of the main shopping street behind it.

  Most of the people he could see were tourists, studying the houses for sale in the real estate agents’ windows. Saint-Denis now boasted four bakeries, four salons, four real estate agencies, three banks and three shops selling foie gras and other local delicacies, but there was only one grocery and one butcher’s shop. The fishmonger had long since given way to an insurance agency. Another grocery had been replaced the previous winter by a business that serviced computers and sold cell phones and DSL lines for the Internet. And a butcher had retired in the spring and now rented his premises to a real estate agent. It was no longer the Saint-Denis Bruno had first come to a decade ago, when the small towns of rural France still retained the shops and the texture he remembered from his boyhood. Now people shopped at the supermarkets on the outskirts of town, or drove to the complex of shopping malls and hypermarkets outside Périgueux, forty minutes away. Bruno sighed and turned back to his desk.

  He filled out the good conduct forms, signing and stamping each one with his seal, and signed the musicians’ contracts. He completed the paperwork for two death notices to be sent to the prefecture, and phoned Father Sentout to confirm the church for the funerals. Then something jogged his memory. He had signed another batch of good conduct forms earlier in the year. He looked at his file of copies, and there he found what he was looking for: an application for a summer job as a lab assistant at the Agricultural Research Station for Dominique Suchet, Stéphane’s daughter. He and J-J had interviewed the permanent staff, checking the backgrounds of the technicians and the farmworkers. But he hadn’t thought about the summer workers. Putain. That meant more work, but it had to be done.

  Bruno paused. Dominique had been at the scene of the fire with her father—natural enough since their farm was just down the hill. Still, it was an interesting coincidence. He looked again at Dominique’s good conduct form, which contained a recommendation from the headmaster of the town collège, the secondary school where the kids went before going on to the lycée. He picked up the phone and called Rollo, the headmaster.

  Rollo told him Dominique was a very promising girl, good at math and science. She’d done well at the lycée and was now
studying computer science at a university in Grenoble. She was a hard worker and had been captain of the school swimming team. Bruno began to scribble notes as Rollo described how during a mock election, Dominique and her partner had held meetings about global warming and melting ice caps, plastered the school with posters about it and defeated the Socialist favorites to pull off a victory for the Greens. When he asked who had been her partner, Rollo said it had been Max, Alphonse’s son.

  Bruno thanked Rollo and put down the phone. The prospect of a militant young Green at the research station, doubtless knowing about the GMO project, with a father whose farm was near the trial crops, was by far the best lead in a case where he was making no progress. But Stéphane was a friend of his. He’d have to make some inquiries of his own before talking to J-J, at least to establish whether the girl had a decent alibi for the time of the fire. He rose and was reaching for his cap when Claire put her head around his door to say the mayor needed to see him.

  “I like the new haircut, Bruno,” she added, lingering in the doorway.

  “It’s the same one I get every month,” he said, grabbing his notebook.

  “No, it’s shorter,” she said, edging closer to the door so that he had to squeeze past. “It makes you look younger.”

  “But I’m even older now than I was when it was cut,” he said, and left her nonplussed.

  His spirits rose as they always did when he entered the mayor’s office. The rich colors of old wood and paneling and faded rugs could hardly have been more different from those of his own cramped and functional office, or from the modernized reception area. The mayor kept to the old ways, preferring his fountain pen to a computer terminal, and the traditional system of manila file folders bound with green and red tape over some electronic database.