Fatal Pursuit

by Martin Walker

  “I might put the house on the market,” she added.

  In the garden, Bruno asked Dr. Gelletreau if he’d signed the death certificate yet.

  “No, I was waiting for you to arrive,” the doctor said, a little stiffly. Sometime earlier he’d been embarrassed after putting down “Natural Causes” on a death certificate when Bruno had later discovered that the victim had been murdered.

  “I don’t like this,” Bruno said. “All that cash in his wallet, the disappearance of his diary and account book, those phone calls…”

  “And the three coffee cups,” said Gelletreau. “Still, I’m pretty sure it was a heart attack. You saw the way he was clutching his chest. It doesn’t look much like a murder to me. Hugon was a heart attack waiting to happen. And he certainly died yesterday.”

  “So if his wife has an alibi from her family in Sarlat…,” said Bruno, thinking aloud.

  “If that’s the case you’ve got a real mystery on your hands, unless you’ve got another one of your hunches.”

  Bruno looked back at the house, pulled out his phone and called his friend Jean-Jacques, the chief detective for the département, to explain his suspicions.

  “What does the doc say?” J-J replied.

  “Heart attack, looks natural enough.”

  “And the wife? Does she think it was a natural death?”

  “Yes. She found the body after staying with family in Sarlat for a few days, and she doesn’t seem concerned. It’s just me who thinks there’s more to this than meets the eye.”

  “Merde, there’s no sign of any struggle, the doctor and the widow aren’t worried, and you know the state of my budget and what we have to pay to get an autopsy done. If it wasn’t you saying this, Bruno…” J-J’s voice trailed off. “Who’s the doctor present? Is it Fabiola?”

  “Dr. Gelletreau seems ready to sign the death certificate, citing cardiac arrest.”

  J-J grunted. “Well, we can always ask for a second opinion. See if you can persuade Fabiola to take a look at the body when the undertaker comes for it. If she thinks it’s worth having an autopsy, I’ll go along. By the way, have you heard anything from Isabelle?”

  “Not lately,” Bruno replied cautiously. In his own paternal way, J-J was almost as devoted as Bruno to Isabelle and claimed she was the best detective he’d ever trained. He’d never abandoned hope that Isabelle might one day give up her meteoric career, first in Paris and then with Eurojust in The Hague, and return to the Périgord to be his successor as chief detective.

  “Word from Paris is that she’s had some trouble in some big operation in Luxembourg, ruffling a lot of diplomatic feathers.”

  “That’s news to me,” said Bruno, making an effort to keep his voice neutral. He knew he would never stop caring about her. “But you know Isabelle, she’ll find some way to turn it to her advantage.”

  “I thought maybe the brigadier might have said something,” J-J said. “I know he’s more in touch with you than with me, for which on the whole I’m very grateful. It always means trouble when he’s around.”

  “I haven’t heard from him for a while,” Bruno replied. The brigadier, a senior figure in the Ministry of the Interior with wide-ranging responsibilities in security matters, had been Isabelle’s boss before she transferred to Eurojust. “And diplomatic trouble sounds way above my pay grade.”

  “Probably above mine, too. Still, Isabelle always trusted your hunches, and I’ve learned there’s usually something to them,” J-J said.

  3

  “This event has been a great success,” said the mayor, leaning back in his chair with a glass of wine and staring contentedly at the crowded tables that filled the winery. “Our vintage cars made the TV news, thanks to that old Bugatti, and Fauquet’s café was packed all day. And just look at this turnout tonight! We’ll have to start doing this every year.”

  He raised his glass in thanks to his companions at the table, the same group that had devised the idea at the rugby club dinner. That means more work for me again next year, thought Bruno, clinking his glass against the mayor’s, but he was pleased that the car show had brought in a crowd. Mauricette had told him her hotel had never before been full so early in the season. She’d devised a special offer for the weekend that had attracted the tourists who liked the idea of a winery dinner without the risk of being Breathalyzed on a long drive home. And after the TV and radio publicity for the concours, a lot more people were expected the next day to watch the rally. Bruno had spent most of Friday checking on the safety barriers along the route, and once the rally was over he’d have to help the farmers pick up the hay bales they had placed at every corner.

  At a sign from Julien, who ran the town vineyard, the mayor rose to his feet and went to the dais that stood in front of the stacked wine barrels at the end of the winery. There wasn’t much space, with the drums, guitars and keyboard for that evening’s music and dancing already in place. More barrels stood against the wall, and between them were long rows of tables and chairs, all filled with people who had paid twenty euros a head for the vineyard dinner of soup, pâté, roast duck, cheese with salad and a piece of walnut tart. As much wine as they wanted was included in the price of their meal, all of it from the town vineyard. Most of the diners had also bought tickets for the raffle, five euros for six chances to win. Tapping an empty bottle with a fork, the mayor called for silence and announced that the drawing was about to take place. The first prize was a case of a dozen bottles of the local wine, the second prize was six bottles, and there were three third prizes of two bottles each.

  “Would our lovely ladies come forward, please, to draw the winning tickets?” the mayor said, and Fabiola, Annette and Florence joined him on the dais, Fabiola shaking her head in mock despair at the mayor’s old-fashioned way of introducing them. He identified each of them as they joined him on the dais: Fabiola as one of the town’s doctors, Annette as the local magistrate and star rally driver, and Florence as the science teacher at the collège.

  “We didn’t have teachers or doctors or magistrates like these when I was a boy,” the mayor said. “But because we all want to wish Annette the best of luck in tomorrow’s rally, I’ll ask her to wait a little so she can draw the ticket for the first prize. Florence, please draw three tickets for the third prizes. And Fabiola will draw the ticket for the second prize.”

  The third and second prizes went to strangers, which was as it should be, thought Bruno, hoping that a tourist would also win the first prize. Each winner had been cheered by his and her neighbors at the various tables, but then a silence fell as Annette reached into the bucket to draw out the winning ticket. She read out the number.

  “That’s me,” called out a male voice, and Bruno saw the Bugatti owner, Sylvestre, rise in his place and clasp his hands above his head in victory. Then he raised his voice to call across the tables to the mayor.

  “Have another drawing. I donate my prize back to you.” He paused and grinned around the winery. “I can’t drink, I’m driving.”

  He sat down to a round of applause. Annette drew again, and this time Bruno cheered when his friend Ingrid rose to claim the prize. The mayor made a point of saying how pleased he was that the prize went to someone from their twin town in Alsace, adding that the visiting delegation would be at the St. Denis market the next morning, offering their wines and crafts and special foodstuffs.

  “And then our local restaurants and producers will offer a food market in the main square after the end of the race, just as we do each Tuesday evening in July and August,” the mayor went on. “There’ll be roast chicken from rotisseries, hams grilled over open fires, snails, moules frites, along with salads, pizzas and apple pies, and wine from the town vineyard. So we’ll hope to see you again tomorrow. Now it’s time to dance.”

  He stepped down, and St. Denis’s own rock band took its place on the dais. Lespinasse from the garage started with a drum roll. His son Édouard was on bass, Robert the singing architect on rhythm, and Patrick
from the Maison de la Presse played lead guitar. Jean-Paul, the church organist, who was also the local piano teacher, climbed up to join them with his accordion around his neck and began with the theme from “Mon Amant de St. Jean.” A classic from the bal musette dance halls of the 1930s and recently revived on one of the best-selling CDs in France, it was a song known to all present. Bruno led Florence to the dance floor and saw Fabiola and Gilles, Thomas and Ingrid, Annette and her Englishman, come to join them, and suddenly the floor was full. A cheer went up when the mayor joined them with his friend Jacqueline just as Robert was singing the line about how the girl knew the young man was lying to her, but she liked him anyway.

  The music went on with the band’s usual mix of Édith Piaf, sixties classics, Johnny Cash and Francis Cabrel numbers until Florence and Annette said they were thirsty and hauled the two men back to their table for more wine. Annette kept her hand in Young’s as they sat, and Bruno wondered if Young knew that Annette was the daughter of an extremely rich and controversial financier.

  “I’m so glad Sylvestre brought his Bugatti. It was the star of the show,” said Annette, over the sound of the music. She gave Young a fond look. “How did you persuade him to come?”

  “He didn’t need much persuading,” Young replied. “He told me he’d been planning to come down here to see some family property, and the chance of winning a Concours d’Élégance was too tempting to pass up. Even if nobody outside the Périgord has heard of the St. Denis concours, he reckons the title will raise the price of the Bugatti when he wants to sell it.”

  “If I had a car like that, I’d never let it go,” said Florence so firmly that Bruno and the others turned to look at her. “I’m not really a car person, and I can’t say I think of it as good to look at in a conventional way. It was too brutal, too arrogant, in the way it seemed to embody raw power, but it still struck me as extraordinarily beautiful.” She paused, and then tossed her head and laughed, trying to shift the mood that she had suddenly made serious. “Anyway, I’d be far too terrified even to think about driving some mechanical beast like that. But there was something very special about the way it sounded.”

  “A mere seven hundred thousand and it’s yours,” said Bruno, grinning. “I heard that was what he paid for it. I had no idea they were worth so much. How about that E-type of yours?” he asked Young. “What’s that worth?”

  “I got it years ago as a wreck for the equivalent of eight thousand euros, restored it myself, and now it’s probably worth a hundred grand,” Young replied. “I put years of work into it because that’s the only way I was able to afford it. The old Porsche that was in the parade will probably be worth about the same. If you cleaned up that Land Rover, you’d get a pretty good price. What year was it built?”

  “Nineteen fifty-four,” said Bruno. He remembered Hercule, the friend who had bequeathed it to him, saying that he’d been in the French army, fighting in Vietnam, the year his Land Rover was made. Bruno knew that 1954 was a year of special significance for his friend, the year of the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. Hercule had bought the vehicle decades later, when he’d taken his pension and settled down in the Périgord to hunt and raise truffles.

  “Fully restored, you might get fifty or sixty thousand,” said Young. “It’s a booming market, now that the Arabs and Chinese are getting into classic cars. They want them as investments. Driving the cars is just the icing on the cake. That’s how Sylvestre does so well with his auctions. He’s already got a showroom in Dubai, and he’s planning to open another one in Shanghai. I know he’s expecting to get at least a million for his Bugatti, and I presume that’s how he plans to finance his Chinese operation.”

  Florence rolled her eyes, and Bruno shook his head, stunned by the figures he was hearing.

  “Is that how you got to know Sylvestre, through these classic-car sales?” Florence asked Young.

  “In a way; I first met him at an auction in England a couple of years ago, but we’ve met since at several rallies. He’s a very good driver, and unlike me he’s got the money to pursue his hobby seriously.”

  Young explained that he’d first noticed Sylvestre bidding for a Ferrari Modena Spider. He himself had dropped out when the price reached a hundred thousand pounds, about a hundred and thirty thousand euros. The auction was held at the old Goodwood racetrack, and it had gone down in history because a 1954 Mercedes Formula 1 racing car went for just under thirty million dollars, still the record for a public auction.

  “The real money tends to be restricted to private auctions,” Young added. “A Ferrari 250 GTO is supposed to have gone for over thirty million at a private auction in Italy, though it may just be rumor. Those private events are by invitation only, and I’m not on the list for any of those. Sylvestre gets invited to them, probably because of his Dubai connections.”

  “It makes my Land Rover seem cheap,” Bruno said. “Are these classic-car sales the way Sylvestre made his money?”

  “No, you have to start with a lot of money to get into the game. His family in Alsace is into property, and I gather they’re very rich and own shopping malls and office blocks, but I don’t know the details. We’re quite friendly and usually have a drink or a meal together when we meet up or when Sylvestre comes to London, but I couldn’t claim that we’re close friends. He’s a prickly type, a bit arrogant, but he certainly knows his way around cars.”

  “Talking about our neighbor Sylvestre?” came the voice of Bruno’s friend Thomas, Ingrid on his arm.

  “We were just hearing about Sylvestre’s car sales business,” said Bruno, shifting his chair to give them room to sit down and reaching for the bottle. “Have another glass of wine.”

  “His family was very lucky,” Thomas explained. “They were farmers, with land between Marckolsheim and Strasbourg, and just before war broke out in 1939 the French government bought some of the land to turn it into a military airfield. There was a court case because it was a compulsory purchase, and Sylvestre’s grandfather had sued because the government offered too little money. After the war the air force still wanted the airbase and offered a deal by which it paid rent and promised that if it ever gave up the airfield Sylvestre’s family could buy it back for the price that had originally been offered before the war. In the 1960s, when de Gaulle thought French security would depend on nuclear weapons, France began cutting back on conventional forces. Sylvestre’s family got the land back cheaply, with a runway, hangars, underground fuel bunkers, offices and barracks.

  “Strasbourg was then becoming one of the centers of the new European community and wanted a civilian airport,” Thomas went on. “Sylvestre’s father sold the airfield for many times more than he’d paid to buy it back. But he kept the rest of the land, thinking it was bound to increase in value.”

  “And it certainly did,” Ingrid chimed in. “His heirs became one of the wealthiest families in Alsace. That’s how Sylvestre can afford to spend seven hundred thousand on that Bugatti of his.”

  “That’s nothing,” said Young, taking out a smart phone from his shirt pocket. He tapped a few buttons and then held up the screen to show an extraordinary, gleaming black car with a hood that seemed to stretch out forever and the sweeping aerodynamic lines of the 1930s.

  “Mon Dieu, it’s beautiful,” said Florence.

  “This is the most expensive car of all time. What do you think it might be worth?” Young asked.

  “Three million,” Bruno suggested, plucking a figure from the air. Ingrid said five million, and Annette shook her head, saying she knew the price and their estimates would have to go a lot higher.

  “Ten million,” Florence suggested, laughing.

  “Double that and then double it again,” said Young. He suddenly looked solemn, as if this were serious business.

  “What is it?” Bruno asked.

  “It’s another Bugatti, a model known as the Atlantic. Its real name is Type 57C, built in 1936. One of these was bought by the Mullin Automotive Museum in Califor
nia for an undisclosed sum. The word is that it went for thirty-seven million. It’s certainly the most valuable car of all time.”

  “That’s insane,” said Bruno, thinking it was almost obscene. “How can any car be worth that?”

  “They made only four of them. One is owned by Ralph Lauren, there’s the one in the museum, a third was destroyed by a train at a railway crossing, and another was lost somewhere in France during the war. It was being driven from the factory in Alsace to Bordeaux for safekeeping, but it never arrived, and nobody knows what happened to it.”

  “I agree with Florence,” said Bruno, taking Young’s phone and looking at the car more closely. “It certainly is beautiful. Is that the one in the museum?”

  “No, that’s the one owned by Ralph Lauren.” He opened another photograph of the same car in silver-blue. “That’s the one bought by the museum.”

  Bruno was about to ask about the one that was lost in the war when Fabiola and Gilles descended to haul them all back to the dance floor.

  4

  Bruno reined in at the top of the ridge and checked his watch as he waited for Fabiola to catch up on her old horse. He was meeting Thomas and Ingrid at Fauquet’s café at nine for breakfast, but there was still time for a decent gallop before taking Hector back to the stables. He looked down at the familiar valley of the Vézère River, still shrouded in the early morning mist. The St. Denis bridge and the quayside where the vintage cars were parked on display were all somewhere beneath that gray cloud. Stray tendrils were rising like wisps of steam as the first, hesitant rays of the sun peeked above the ridge and began to warm the mist away. The spire of the old church and the houses that clambered up the hill seemed to float weightlessly in the sky. His horse and dog were still and silent as their eyes followed his gaze down into the valley until Balzac turned, hearing Victoria’s hooves lumbering up the slope toward them.

  “What did you think of Annette’s young man?” Fabiola asked as she drew alongside and brought her horse to a halt. Victoria gave a curt neigh of gratitude, and Hector turned to rub the side of his head against hers. Sometimes Bruno thought the horses were more socially adept than many of the people he knew.