Bruno 02 - The Dark Vineyard

by Martin Walker

  “Bonjour, Bruno. I had a call earlier from the American embassy in Paris, commercial section, following up on a letter they sent that somehow Claire seems to have misfiled. Could we receive some distinguished businessman who wants to discuss a possible investment in our region?”

  “What kind of investment?”

  “They didn’t say. But I’d be glad of anything. We need the jobs. The meeting is here in my office, tomorrow at 9 a.m. I’d like you to be there, along with Xavier.” Xavier was the maire-adjoint, as well as one of Bruno’s tennis partners, and probably would be the next mayor when Gérard Mangin eventually stepped down.

  “Did we get a name?” Bruno asked.

  “Only if Claire finds that letter.”

  “If the meeting is at nine, they’ll be staying in a hotel near here. I’ll call around, find out the name and see what I can dig up.”

  “It could be just some big political donor looking to buy a château,” the mayor speculated. Bruno knew him to be an old-school politician who had learned his skills as an aide to Jacques Chirac around the time Bruno had been born. “Still no progress on the fire?”

  “Only that we got the lab report confirming the presence of gasoline. It was arson, all right. But we’re no nearer to knowing who or why. The staff all seem to be in the clear, so J-J is working on possible competitors, and I’m supposed to make discreet inquiries among the locals, starting with the écolos and then the nearby farmers who might have been worried about contamination of their crops. But first I want to find out a bit more about the anonymous call alerting us to the fire. It came from the phone booth at Coux. It’s a long shot, but somebody may have seen or heard something.”

  6

  Back in his office, Bruno tracked down the American businessman at the Centenaire in Les Eyzies, the grandest hotel in the district, with a restaurant that boasted a Michelin rosette. Thérèse at the hotel’s reception desk had a daughter in Bruno’s tennis class. He took hasty notes as Thérèse told him everything she knew. A young man named Fernando Bondino had arrived in a big Mercedes and taken the presidential suite, at a cost of nearly a thousand euros a night. He had demanded an Internet connection the moment he checked in, then had ordered the menu dégustation and a bottle of Château Pétrus, followed by the best Armagnac. The booking had been made by the Dupuy consultancy in Paris, on the avenue Monceau. Bruno checked his notebook for the names he had scribbled down at the wine shop. The address and the phone number were the same. Monsieur Dupuy had booked a room at the hotel that night.

  Bruno fired up his computer, typed in Google.fr and looked up the name Bondino. A flood of page references came up, starting with Bondino Wines, Inc., in English and in Spanish. He understood enough to see that they ran vineyards in California, Chile, Australia and South Africa and were clearly a very large and rich company. He turned back to the main Google page and found articles in French from Figaro, Marianne and Les Echos, the business paper. The Figaro piece was an interview, which he printed out, marking the passage in which the head of the company, Francis X. Bondino, was asked if his global wine empire would ever spread to France.

  “France and Italy are the homes of great wine, and our ambition will not be satisfied until we return to the source of our craft in these great countries,” Bondino was quoted as saying. His son Fernando had added: “And frankly, the wine industry in these countries is suffering from too many small vineyards overproducing too much indifferent wine. They have not yet followed the United States and Australia into a rationalization of the industry with new techniques and modern marketing. Opportunities for reorganization are enormous.”

  Bruno read on in Marianne about a family feud that had split the business a generation earlier, with prolonged lawsuits and much bad blood, and a brother and sister disinherited. Les Echos had a story about the company’s buying new vineyards in South Africa the previous year, along with some figures that startled Bruno. Bondino had turned down an offer to sell the company for six hundred million euros; he had nearly three thousand employees worldwide—roughly the population of Saint-Denis—and had made a profit the previous year of thirty-eight million euros. Marveling at the amount of instant information that the computer brought to his desk, Bruno printed out the story from Les Echos and prepared a small dossier of his research for the mayor, while wondering what exactly a firm so large might want from his little town. He turned to his telephone and called Saint-Denis’s own expert on the wine trade, Hubert de Montignac.

  “Bruno, my friend. I’ve put aside a fine bottle for you to show my appreciation for your tact and good sense,” Hubert began as soon as he heard Bruno’s voice. “Really, I owe you a big favor.”

  “Just doing my duty. Listen, what can you tell me about an American wine corporation called Bondino?”

  “Bondino is very big, up there close to Gallo and Mondavi among the American giants. Worldwide operations—Australia and South Africa—and there was a rumor that they’re sniffing around one of the big Bordeaux châteaux. They make their money with mass wines they call varietals.”

  “What are varietals?”

  “It’s just the name of a grape, like chardonnay or cabernet sauvignon, with each brand made from a particular grape. It’s mass production, trying to make exactly the same product year after year, whatever the weather and terrain. Why are you asking about Bondino?”

  “He’s coming in to see the mayor. That’s all we know, so I thought I’d call you. What would Bondino Wines want with us?”

  “Could be a number of things. They don’t have much of an operation in Europe, and it might not be a bad idea for them to look around here. As you know, we used to be a big wine area before the phylloxera epidemic, and then we started growing tobacco instead. Now the tobacco trade is dying, so land is pretty cheap. There’s no appellation contrôlée in this valley to drive up the price. Funny you should mention this, because that guy who dropped the bottle, Dupuy, was asking me about wine and land prices around here just after you left. I let him try a glass of that stuff the Domaine produces; it’s a bit overpriced but it’s not bad.”

  “You mean Domaine de la Vézère? But that’s just a house wine that Julien makes for his hotel and restaurant. It’s not exactly a viable operation.”

  “You’d be surprised, Bruno. Julien bought some of that neighboring land across the commune boundary. He must have eight or nine hectares by now, and that’s enough to make forty thousand bottles a year when the vines mature. The land is all on a south-facing slope on a chalk hill with good drainage, so there’s no reason it won’t produce decent wine. And his hotel and restaurant are a captive market.”

  Bruno had never had much to do with business, but he suddenly got the point. A small grower in an ordinary part of Bordeaux would be lucky to get even one euro a bottle when he sold to a négociant, but at the restaurant Julien could sell every one of his bottles for eight or nine euros.

  “When I realized what he was up to, I bought a few hectares alongside the Domaine, reckoning I’d get a good price from Julien the next time he expands,” Hubert went on.

  “You mean Philibert’s old farm, off the Limeuil road? I thought you bought that as a place to house your staff.”

  “Sure, but it was mainly an investment in the land, and I’ll be planting my own vines there in November. Don’t forget that I have some of the same advantage as Julien at his hotel. I can bottle it as vin du pays and sell it in the cave for three euros.”

  “What about Dupuy? What did he want to know?”

  “Well, he calmed down a bit with the champagne, and then I presented his girlfriend with a bottle. Not the Krug, but I thought, hell, he’d paid a lot of money. He obviously knew a lot about wine and is obviously pretty rich so I thought I might try to turn him into a regular customer. Why do you ask?”

  “Dupuy’s office in Paris made the hotel reservation for Bondino, and Dupuy is booked into his hotel tonight.”

  “Don’t tell me—the Centenaire. Nothing but the best fo
r Bondino.”

  “That’s right. But Dupuy got a single room, so where does that leave the girlfriend?”

  “He said he had to put the girl onto the Paris train at Périgueux. She wasn’t a great talker but she certainly was decorative. It looks like that little romantic interlude is over.”

  “And now it’s time for business,” said Bruno. “Let’s stay in touch on this because the mayor is going to need your knowledge of the wine trade. They probably think we’re a bunch of country bumpkins down here, and when it comes to me they’re not far off.”

  “Sure; I’ll help however I can. But let’s keep me out of it, at least in public. We need to know what they’re really up to.”

  “Just one more thing. What’s the price of land around the Domaine? Land that you might use to grow wine, I mean.”

  “Well, you know what I paid for Philibert’s place: 120,000 euros, for just over three hectares and the old farmhouse.”

  “I know what you paid officially for tax purposes,” Bruno said. “I don’t know what you paid under the table when the notaire left the room.”

  Hubert chuckled. “The usual ratio. Only the greedy go for more than a third off the real price.”

  “So you paid about a hundred and eighty, and the farmhouse alone is probably worth that. What are we saying, four or five thousand a hectare for the land?”

  “Somewhere around there. Maybe five or six, depending on what the land is used for. Straight farmland, maybe as little as two or three. With zoning permission for building, twenty or more.”

  “What would it be worth if it were proper wine land, with the appellation contrôlée?”

  “It depends. In Champagne you’re talking about 600,000 to 700,000 a hectare. But a vineyard in the Bordeaux region with any kind of decent reputation would be 60,000 a hectare and up. In the Bergerac, maybe ten. I think Julien paid about three thousand a hectare for the extra land he bought.”

  “What’s his place worth?”

  “Taken all together, the château and the winery and the big restaurant, at least three million euros, probably more. It’s a good business.”

  “Christ. I must be the poorest man in Saint-Denis,” said Bruno.

  “Well, after today, you’re richer by a lovely ’89 Cos d’Estournel from Saint-Estèphe. That’s my way of saying thanks for that business earlier today.”

  “You don’t have to do that. You’ve more than repaid me with all this information.”

  “Bruno, it’s in my interest to know what Bondino wants. As for the wine, let’s make a date for me to bring it up one night to your place. You can make me one of your truffle omelettes and we’ll enjoy it together, maybe invite a couple of friends who’ll appreciate it.”

  7

  Coux was a quiet place with a bakery, a tabac, a café and a small hotel where Bruno would occasionally join friends for Sunday lunch. It lay outside the commune of Saint-Denis, so he did not know it well. Thinking his jurisdiction was therefore somewhat limited, he left his cap in the van.

  The phone booth stood in front of the tiny mairie, a scrap of yellow police tape still fluttering from the handle where it had been sealed. Bruno peered in, took note of the number and saw that the phone was one of the modernized ones that took no coins, only phone cards. France Télécom might have a record of the card used, but J-J’s team doubtless would have checked that. Behind the phone booth there was a bicycle stand and a small parking area, large enough for perhaps two cars and a motorcycle. Bruno scanned the ground. There was a patch of oil that looked fresh. He took a tissue from the pack in his car and gently pressed a corner into the edge of the stain. The thin paper went translucent, so the oil was recent enough to be interesting. Bruno strolled down to the small hotel to take a coffee with Sylvestre, the owner, who was also the chef and bartender. He asked Sylvestre if he’d seen anything the night of the fire.

  “At three in the morning? I was fast asleep,” said Sylvestre. Sylvestre’s wife, poring over the account books at the cash register, said she had heard nothing. “But you might try the baker,” she told Bruno. “He’s usually up at about four to start the oven.”

  Bruno strolled across to the boulangerie. The baker said he slept deeply until the alarm woke him at four, but he suggested Bruno try his uncle, a retired postman, who always complained of waking early and seldom getting back to sleep. “You’ll probably find him in the café. His name’s Félix, Félix Jarreau.”

  Every café in France seemed to have a group of old cronies playing cards around a small table at the back of the room, their glasses of petit blanc beside them and a TV blaring away ignored above their heads. Bruno recognized Félix from his postman days, and like most people in the valley, Félix knew Bruno by sight. Bruno was introduced and shook hands all around, waited until he was invited to sit, declined the offer of a drink and explained his task. The bartender’s inevitable curiosity brought him across to their table with a bottle to refill the glasses. He hovered there as Félix said he had indeed heard something.

  “Just after three-thirty—and I know because I looked at the clock when I woke up—I heard a motorcycle coming down the street and then stopping by the mairie. I looked out and the bike was parked and someone was going into the phone booth. But he wore a helmet, one of those big ones with a chin piece. He came out and went off down the hill.”

  “Did you see his face? Would you know him again?” Bruno asked. Félix shook his head. “Not in that helmet.”

  “Didn’t he take it off to make the call?”

  Félix shrugged. “I didn’t look out for long, just went back to the kitchen to make some coffee.”

  “What about the bike? Anything about it you remember?”

  “It was a modern one, the kind they use for motocross, tiny mudguards, fast-revving engine, noisy. All the youngsters drive them these days.”

  “Did you see him drive off?”

  “No; didn’t hear him either. He could have freewheeled down the hill.”

  Bruno climbed into the furnace of his van as the heat finally began to fade from the late-summer day. He opened all the windows and pondered the delicate tasks ahead. First he would have to interrogate Stéphane, and then he would have to stop at Alphonse’s commune to deliver the death notice he had received in the office. Sighing, he set out on the same winding road up the hill that he had taken on the morning of the fire. He turned off over a small bridge by a wayside shrine that commemorated two young Resistance boys “fusillés par les allemands,” one of them Stéphane’s uncle. This road led past a steep and muddy hollow that seldom saw the sun; Stéphane rented it out to the local motocross club for their trail bikes. Beyond the hollow, with its constant buzzing whine of straining engines, Bruno came to Stéphane’s pastures and the old farm, now almost overwhelmed by the new dairy and cow sheds and cheese barn.

  He had spent many a happy evening here, enjoyed long Sunday lunches, brought back game from his hunting forays with Stéphane and every February had helped the family kill and clean a pig in the annual ritual. He had taught Dominique how to rinse out the intestines in the swift brook of running water that led down to the shrine. Stéphane’s friendship would be a central part of Bruno’s life long after the ministers of the interior and agriculture had been voted out of office. He would handle this meeting with great care.

  “Salut, Bruno,” said the big farmer, greeting him at the entrance to the milking shed, a broom in his hand. Dominique was playing a running hose over the floor. She turned it off and clomped across in her big rubber boots to hug Bruno.

  “We’re just finishing,” said Stéphane. “Care for a little apéro? I always reckon I deserve a Ricard after this job.”

  “Not this time, thanks. I’m on business, looking into that fire. It looks as though it was started deliberately, so I’m checking with everybody nearby to see if they heard or saw anything at about three that morning.”

  “That’s a bit early, even for me,” said Stéphane. “I was up at about four-thirty
, as usual, and then I got the phone call from the mairie. I looked out and saw the glow. I woke Dominique and we left the cows in the barn and took the truck up to the fire. That’s where we saw you. I didn’t hear anything. What about you, Dominique? You were fast asleep when I came to your room.”

  She shook her pretty head, her cool gray eyes and clear complexion the very image of youthful innocence. “I didn’t hear anything, not even the phone.”

  “Did you know the place at all, from when you were working at the research station?”

  “Sure; I was up there once or twice a week to bring back samples and take up testing equipment. We never left expensive stuff there overnight. And every time I was there, I had to fill in the log, but that must have been burned.”

  “So you knew what they were growing up there.”

  “You mean those GMO crops? They used to scare me stiff, but not now that I know more about it. The only thing that worries me now is contamination, seeds blowing over into our fields and getting into the crops and maybe into the milk. One of the projects I worked on was seeing whether we could test milk for GMO traces. I remember worrying what might happen to my dad if our customers thought they were getting these traces of Frankenstein foods in his milk and cheese.”

  “I see what you mean,” said Bruno. “What did you do?”

  “I asked the scientists at the station and did some research and found they weren’t growing that kind of crop.”

  “We talked about it a lot,” Stéphane added. “Dominique said not to worry.”

  “Well, I’m no expert, but I can’t say I’m feeling very reassured,” said Bruno. “Still, it seems there wasn’t anything secret about what was being grown up there.”

  “All of us who worked there knew, naturally,” said Dominique. “But like I said, it wasn’t in our interest to spread the word. And it’s not as though there were any farms up there with crops at risk; the land is too poor.”