Bruno 02 - The Dark Vineyard

by Martin Walker

  The church was almost full when Bruno slipped in through the side door. Raoul, who worked part-time as a pallbearer when he wasn’t selling his wines in the market, was taking a final smoke with the other men in black ties from the funeral parlor. The coffin stood on trestles before the altar, on a stool beside it a cushion that bore the campaign and Resistance medals Bruno had found in Cresseil’s house. The mayor and Xavier with their wives were in the front row with the baron, and behind them was a group of strangers who were the cousins. Bruno nodded at Alphonse.

  The organ was playing some doleful music that Bruno learned from the program was a choral prelude by Bach. He scanned the crowd for Pamela. After the previous evening’s embrace, she had left him with a lingering kiss and a look of promise in her eyes as she left the wake with Fabiola and Jacqueline. He felt a surge of excitement as he spotted her, her face half shrouded by the dark shawl that covered her head. Jacqueline sat beside her, her head uncovered. As he studied them, the distinction was sharp between the mature and lovely woman and the more conventionally pretty girl. Sensing his gaze, Pamela turned and caught his eye. She smiled and raised a discreet eyebrow, as if to ask how their relationship would now unfold. He nodded to her in return.

  Father Sentout, resplendent in full robes, came from the vestry to shake hands with the mayor and Cresseil’s cousins before standing at the head of the coffin and beginning the service. Bruno slipped out again to ensure that Jean-Pierre, Bachelot and Marie-Louise, each almost as old as the man they were burying, were ready with their flags. The small honor guard from the gendarmes was lined up with the school band for the short march to the war memorial.

  As he went back to the main doors of the church, they opened and J-J emerged. “Saw you leave,” he said, handing Bruno a computer printout. “Here’s that reply you wanted from Quebec.” Bruno had sent him a text message the previous evening, asking him to send a routine “Anything Known?” query on Jacqueline to the Quebec police. “It looks like she’s clean,” J-J added, “which means she’s in better shape than I am. The prefect is furious with me, and we’ve got a fancy lawyer threatening to sue me personally for the wrongful arrest of Bondino.”

  “Still no attestation of wrongful death from the pathologist?” Bruno asked. He resisted the temptation to remind J-J that he’d warned him of this.

  “No, so they can’t appoint a juge d’instruction, and I can’t hold Bondino any longer. I’ve got his fingerprints, and I think the DNA will show it was his hair under the dead man’s fingernails. But until the pathologist’s report there’s no crime as yet, so he’s free, and I’m in the merde. I’m so deep in it that I’ve had to come down here to apologize to your Captain Duroc for misusing his gendarmerie. The prefect insisted. But I’m still not sure I’m wrong.”

  “This reply from Quebec came back very fast. I wasn’t expecting an answer for a couple of days.”

  “I rang our friend the brigadier, thinking he could get it faster. I got it overnight.”

  The music swelled, and the doors opened. Led by Father Sentout and a boy in a white robe bearing a tall cross, Raoul and the other pallbearers emerged with the coffin. The flags all rose in salute and led the procession to the war memorial across the bridge. The mayor came out with Cresseil’s medals on the cushion and the gendarmes lined up behind him. The baron followed with Cresseil’s cousins. He caught Bruno’s eye, discreetly giving him a thumbs-up. He must have made a deal to buy their claim. The school band struck up “Le Chant des Partisans,” the Resistance anthem, and led the rest of the congregation behind the bobbing flags of France, of Saint-Denis and of the Cross of Lorraine, the wartime symbol of Free France.

  Rollo, the headmaster, ensured that every resident of the retirement home in the procession was accompanied by a youngster to help him or her along. The old people scanned one another’s faces as they hobbled from the church. Bruno wondered if their glances indicated relief that this was not their time while they weighed which of their number might be next.

  Bruno had placed the town’s wreath in readiness before the statue of the French soldier from the Great War with the gleaming brass eagle perched above. There was a second wreath from the Compagnons de la Résistance and a third from the Anciens Combattants. Bruno felt a sudden glow of pride that his town and his nation still took the deaths of such patriots so seriously, still honored the ancient virtues of patriotism and courage, and still insisted that the young remembered at what price their liberties had been bought. It was a fine community that could generate such mutual affection between young and old strangers as had grown between Max and Cresseil. Bruno felt a lump forming in his throat as he thought that Cresseil’s last sight on earth may have been the floating body of the young man he had come to love like a son.

  The flags dipped in salute, the mayor laid his wreath, and then Bachelot, the shoemaker and veteran Gaullist, laid the wreath from the Compagnons, and his lifelong enemy, Jean-Pierre of the Communist Francs-Tireurs et Partisans, laid the wreath from the Anciens Combattants. It was the sort of compromise that made French politics work, and that was only made possible by the forbearance of Marie-Louise. A courier for the Resistance, she had been arrested by the Gestapo at the age of fourteen and sent to Buchenwald, and in Bruno’s eyes had thus suffered more for France than Jean-Pierre and Bachelot together. But Marie-Louise never made a fuss, always volunteered, and considered all the young people of Saint-Denis the grandchildren she’d never had. She stood watching impassively as the two old men straightened their backs and saluted and returned to their places. As the band struck up the “Marseillaise,” tears rolled down her cheeks.

  The national anthem ended and the pallbearers loaded the coffin into the hearse for the short drive to the cemetery. Bruno gathered up the flags, and carried them all back into the basement of the mairie. Then he went upstairs to his office and took out the printout that J-J had given him. That reminded him. He picked up the phone, checking the number on the card in his drawer, and called the brigadier in Paris.

  An aide answered. When Bruno gave his name he was surprised to hear: “You’re on the approved list. I’ll connect you now.” And then the brigadier was on the line.

  “Our friend J-J is in trouble,” Bruno began.

  “I know. The American ambassador came in to see the minister and lodged a complaint. I’m taking care of it. Don’t worry, the minister understands that it wouldn’t be wise to dissuade our police from showing a maximum of zeal. And I gather that thanks to you, this young American didn’t even spend a night in jail. There’s not a lot they can complain about. Did you get my message for you from Quebec?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m looking at it now.”

  “Good. And don’t forget, there’s a job for you here if you want one. And there’s a message from another friend of yours on the minister’s staff, Chief Inspector Perrault. I think you knew she was on assignment in Luxembourg? She says she’s looking forward to seeing you the weekend of the rugby match against Scotland. I got four tickets, for you and J-J, Perrault and me. Dinner on me afterward at the Tour d’Argent.”

  If the brigadier said J-J would be all right, Bruno was prepared to believe him. Isabelle was another matter. He still felt a frisson of excitement at the thought of seeing her again, but he feared there was little future in it. Perhaps the invitation was the brigadier’s way of tempting him to give up Saint-Denis and move to Paris to join his team. Or perhaps Isabelle and the brigadier had planned it together, not understanding the bonds that kept him in Périgord. He could never leave Gigi locked up in some tiny Paris apartment. Besides, there was now Pamela. He had no idea where their—he hunted for a word that was more than “flirtation” and less than “affair”—liaison was heading. It was exciting, just the same. Now, however, he had work to do.

  He looked again at the e-mail from Quebec. Nothing known against Jacqueline Duplessis, which meant no criminal record, and given the brigadier’s contacts probably nothing suspected against her. Bruno read on idly thro
ugh the raw facts he had already scribbled into his notebook from her passport: date of birth, address, next of kin, mother’s maiden name … and then he stopped. He looked again at the printout from Quebec: mother’s maiden name, Sophia Maria Bondino; nationality, United States of America.

  Suddenly everything that Bruno thought he knew about Jacqueline and Bondino shifted. He went back to his file of material on the history of the Bondino family and its feuds and began to read carefully, taking brief notes. He checked his watch. Jacqueline would be working at the cave for another three hours or more. He called Nathalie at the cave and asked her to check the files to find out when Jacqueline had first applied to work there. He went back to his files and the phone rang. He reached for it, expecting Nathalie’s call, but froze when he heard another, far more familiar voice.

  “I’m calling from a phone booth at a service station on the way back from Luxembourg,” Isabelle said. “I don’t want this call showing up on my records because I shouldn’t be telling you this but it might help get J-J out of trouble.”

  “Go on,” he said.

  “We got hold of the bank documents for Agricolae, which is what I was sent here to do. Don’t even ask how. But there’s a big payment from Bondino, 120,000 euros, a wire transfer from their American bank on July 7. It’s listed in the books as a research contract on drought-resistant vines. J-J needs to know about it, and you need to find out whether Agricolae was really the target of that fire because this means it might have been aimed at Bondino.”

  “But we solved the arson case,” Bruno said. One part of his brain was focused on the conversation and the case. But elsewhere emotions were churning at the sound of her voice.

  “I know. And J-J thinks your arsonist was murdered by Bondino. This deal between Bondino and Agricolae could be the link J-J needs to prove it. I’ve sent you a copy of the bank transfer by post so there’s no computer trace.”

  “Thanks. I’ll let him know,” Bruno said, wondering why Isabelle had called him rather than J-J. “Why not call him directly?”

  “Not wise, given the job I do and the trouble he’s in,” she said.

  “The brigadier just told me J-J’s in the clear.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. All the same, it’s safer to go through you.” She paused. “Besides, I wanted to hear your voice.”

  Bruno closed his eyes. “I like hearing yours, too. I thought I might hear from you earlier.”

  “I had a lot of work to do, and I was thinking,” she said. “And I reached a conclusion.”

  “Go on.” Bruno was concentrating intensely, trying to divine every last scrap of meaning from the tone of her voice, the pauses between her words.

  “If I see you again, it will be in Paris. That’s where my life is going to be.” The words came out in a rush.

  “It wouldn’t work in Paris,” said Bruno. “I don’t fit there.”

  “Not even for a visit?”

  And prolong the agony again? Bruno shook his head in silence.

  “We’ll see. You don’t have to spend all your life down there in the country,” she said. More silence. “I miss you.” And she hung up the phone.

  Bruno took a deep breath, knowing his pulse was racing and telling himself that he had done the right thing by not responding to Isabelle’s invitation. It was the sensible reaction, the wise decision on his part, but a part of him wanted to throw wisdom to the wind and take the next train to Paris and embrace Isabelle and all her risks.

  The phone interrupted his thoughts. It was Nathalie calling to say she had checked the files; they had received Jacqueline’s application on May 30. That was six weeks before the Bondino payment to Agricolae. But it was after she had met Bondino in the professor’s office and realized that he was heading for this part of France. So what had triggered Jacqueline’s decision to come to work in Saint-Denis? Bruno grabbed his cap and the keys to his van and ran down the stairs of the mairie, stopping only to pose a question at the Hôtel Saint-Denis and to phone J-J and ask him to meet him at Pamela’s place as soon as he could.

  40

  Pamela was doing her accounts at the kitchen table when he arrived. A stack of bills and papers sat in front of her, and her glasses were perched on the end of her nose. She looked up, startled as he knocked and opened the door, and then smiled to see him. She came forward to place her hands on his cheeks and kiss him on the lips. He responded with enthusiasm, hugged her close to him and then moved his head back.

  “Don’t misunderstand. I’d like to carry on kissing you for some time, but I’ve got pressing business,” he said. “You know those family photos and files that you saw in Jacqueline’s house? I need to look at them before she gets back, so I’ll need your key, please. It’s official—J-J’s on his way.”

  She took off her glasses. “Is this legal? Do you need a warrant or something?”

  “You’re the property owner. Did Jacqueline sign a lease?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then it’s legal. Come on, we don’t have much time.”

  Pamela took a key from a row of hooks on the wall and led the way. “Can you tell me what this is about?”

  “I just found out that her mother’s maiden name is Bondino. There was a bitter family feud over the ownership of the vineyards, really bitter. So I need to see those files and photos. And since most of them will be in English I’ll need your help.”

  Jacqueline’s closed laptop was on the table, a row of her wine books lined up behind it. In a fat briefcase below the table Bruno found the files, all unmarked but full of material about the Bondino family and its company. In the first file were photographs of people, and on the back of each one was a penciled name. Several depicted the man he knew from magazine photos as Bondino’s father, the head of the company. Some showed him as a vigorous youth. In one photo he was holding a baby girl in the crook of his arm. On the back it said simply “FXB, Maman, 1957.” That would be Francis X. Bondino, Fernando’s father. Maman presumably would be Jacqueline’s mother.

  “This file is all about the Bondino company—business plans, accounts, revenue projections for this year and next year,” Pamela said, suddenly a model of brisk efficiency. “I wonder how she got hold of that? It’s all marked ‘confidential,’ though it looks pretty boring.”

  “Let me see,” said Bruno. The numbers and columns and charts meant nothing to him. He leafed back to the first page, which was headed by a short list of names. It was dated August 20, last month. How had she obtained something so recent? “What’s that say?” he asked, pointing to a phrase at the head of the list.

  “That says ‘Distribution Restricted,’ and it lists FXB and FXB Junior, and then two more sets of initials identified as those of the finance director and the sales director. I think that means they’re the only four people supposed to have this, so how did Jacqueline get it?”

  “I don’t know, but she was already in France by then so she must have obtained it here somehow, maybe from Bondino.” Bruno paused. “Can you think of some reason why he might give this confidential stuff to her?”

  “Maybe she just took it,” Pamela said. “Or maybe this was what she was after, here on the next page. It’s about Saint-Denis.”

  “What?” Bruno came to look over her shoulder. “What’s it say about Saint-Denis?”

  “It’s a report from the research station on drought-resistant vines, along with the photocopy of a bank transfer from Bondino to a company called Agricolae for 120,000 euros to finance the research here in Saint-Denis. There’s another bank transfer, 200,000 euros to a Paris company called Dupuy. The transfers are dated in July of this year.”

  “No wonder Bondino was angry about the research station crops being burned,” said Bruno.

  “How did Jacqueline get hold of all this? It’s like espionage. Do you think she told Max about Bondino and the research station?”

  “That’s a very good question. What’s in the next file?”

  It contained the details of a lawsuit
, Bondino v. Bondino, that started in 1957 in California. Pamela sifted through the legal papers—affidavits, statements and notices of discovery—and came to a clipping from the San Francisco Examiner dated March 11, 1958. The headline read “Bondino Will Upheld,” and Pamela began giving a rough translation of the story.

  “It begins: ‘The elder son of deceased Napa Valley wine magnate Silvio Bondino lost his share of the multimillion-dollar inheritance when the district court ruled that a disputed will was valid.’ Shall I go on?”

  “No, this is familiar stuff. That battle over the will was where the feud began. It replaced an old will that divided the Bondino estate evenly between the two brothers, but then this new will turned up,” said Bruno, riffling through more photographs, some so old they were in shades of brown rather than black and white. Others had crinkled edges like ancient postcards. He held up an aged sepia print. “Here’s the founder of the family fortunes, Silvio himself, as a young man. He arrived in California from Italy back in the late nineteenth century.”

  “Quite a handsome man.”

  “A tough one, too. He kept the family business going all through Prohibition, when alcohol was banned, and then again through the Depression. He had two sons. The younger one now runs one of the world’s biggest wine firms, after inheriting it from his father, and the older one was left nothing in the will that he claimed was a forgery.”

  “Here’s another clipping—‘Disinherited Bondino Son Dies in Car Crash; Foul Play Not Suspected.’ Somebody didn’t agree with that verdict,” said Pamela. “The clipping is attached to a bill from a lawyer and another from a private detective for inquiries into the car crash. The lawyer’s bill is for thirty-two hundred dollars, but I imagine that was worth quite a sum back in 1958. And here’s the detective’s report. The last page says, ‘We regret to inform you that our inquiries have proved inconclusive.’”

  “The dead man’s widow brought a lawsuit claiming her husband had been murdered. It got nowhere and she ran out of money,” Bruno said. “I was reading up about this earlier. But look at this photo—it’s the same baby girl, in nineteen fifty-seven, but this time with a woman, and on the back it says, Maman et Grand-mère. And if you look at this family photo of everybody including old Silvio, from Christmas 1956, the woman listed as Grand-mère is being embraced by Grand-père. But look at Grand-père’s face and compare it with this photo. It’s the same man, so Jacqueline’s grand-père was the elder brother, the one who should have inherited but for the disputed will. You can confirm that from that photo of him in your news clipping. ‘Grand-mère’ was his widow, the woman who brought the failed lawsuit. See if you can find any names for Grand-mère and Maman.”