During the passionate summer months of their affair he would have called her the love of his life, and the intensity of the attraction and the physical passion remained. But for Isabelle, her career in Paris and now at Eurojust in The Hague took a higher priority than the love of a simple country policeman in the Périgord. If she had stayed as a detective in the Police Nationale in Périgueux, she would by now be the heir apparent to Bruno’s friend Jean-Jacques, and they might have stayed together and fulfilled Bruno’s dream of a family of his own. He had resigned himself to losing her. But during one of those occasional reunions when they had not been able to resist each other, she had become pregnant and had chosen to abort the child without telling him until the deed was done.
Biting his lip, Bruno went down the old stone steps of the mairie into the fresh air and walked to the center of the bridge to stare at the river and tell himself he was no longer in Isabelle’s thrall. He had just enjoyed a delightful lunch with an attractive woman, although there had been no time or privacy to navigate that deliciously treacherous terrain that two unattached strangers could explore as they got to know each other. And now Isabelle was coming back into his life. He let out a long sigh and headed across the bridge to the open parkland behind the medical center, waiting for her call and wishing Balzac were with him. Balzac, who had been Isabelle’s gift to him after the death of Bruno’s first dog, was just as attached to her as his master. His phone vibrated, and he braced himself before answering.
“Bonjour, Bruno, I hope you’re well,” came the familiar voice, dear but disturbing. “Are we secure?”
“The button on my phone is green. We’re secure. The brigadier said you’re running a multinational operation. What’s up?”
“Money laundering with some Arab connections and links to terrorist financial networks. The Brits, Germans and Belgians are involved, and the Americans are in the loop. There’s now a Périgord connection, so I’ll be coming down to maintain the surveillance. We’ve been monitoring two principals, and their cell phones show them moving around St. Denis.”
Bruno felt he knew what was coming. There were not many people newly arrived in St. Denis with international financial connections. Was it Sylvestre and Freddy?
“The names are Sylvestre Wémy, a French citizen, and Farid Iqbal, born in India but traveling on a Portuguese passport after buying his citizenship with a million-euro investment. Do you know anything about them?”
“I was sitting by their pool yesterday, and I was racing against them in a rally the day before that,” he replied, enjoying the gasp of surprise he heard down the phone. “Sylvestre owns property here, and Farid, who calls himself Freddy, won the rally. Apparently he also won some big race in the Middle East. Sylvestre is from a rich Alsace family and owns a showroom in Abu Dhabi selling classic cars. He had a grandmother who was born in St. Denis. How can I help?”
“You already have. We didn’t know Farid was a racing driver. The car business is how they manipulate the money. I’ll be arriving tomorrow or the day after with a surveillance team—if the brigadier and I can clear the paperwork in time. Plotting their phone locations on a map, we think they’re in a large three-sided building with a farm nearby but no real access road and no other neighbors.”
“That’s the house Sylvestre inherited from his grandmother. The nearby farm belongs to another wing of the family, and they’re at loggerheads over the inheritance. Audio surveillance won’t be easy because the farmer is trying to drive them out with hundreds of cackling geese.”
She laughed, a sound that touched his heart. “We usually use bailiffs; driving people out with geese sounds very Périgord. Do they have any other visitors?”
“Not at the moment, except for another family member who’s trying to settle the feud. Martine Oudinot is her maiden name. She’s in her thirties, married and divorced, so she might have a different name. She runs a PR company in London. I can e-mail you her cell-phone number. She was there at the house when I called on them yesterday.”
“Thanks. It’s good to be working with you again. I’ll call to say when I’m arriving. And be careful not to do anything that might alert them. So far we’re just monitoring them.” She paused, as if about to hang up, and then in a different tone of voice, she asked, “How’s Balzac?”
Bruno smiled at the question; they would always have Balzac. “He’s in great form. He runs after me when I’m riding, and he’s learning to hunt. But there’s a lot of puppy left in him—he still rolls onto his back for a tummy scratch whenever you stroke his ears.”
“I’ll look forward to that—and remember that some of the truffles he finds will be mine,” she replied, chuckling, and he thought he could imagine the grin on her face. “Take care.” She closed the connection.
He smiled as he closed his phone, and there was a spring in his step as he returned across the bridge to pick up his van. He had time to stop at Lespinasse’s garage before picking up Félix for his interview at the riding school. Jean-Louis’s son, Édouard, who had protected the boy from the bullies, was probably the nearest thing Félix had to a friend. That made him a potential ally to steer Félix into a better life.
The garage was, for Bruno, one of the symbols of the way St. Denis was being forced to change. Just like Delaron’s photography shop, which had been rendered obsolete by the ubiquitous camera phone and gone out of business, Lespinasse’s garage had closed its gas pumps, unable to compete with the cheaper prices at the supermarket. Even the mairie, which had long used the garage to refill its various vehicles, including Bruno’s police van, had worked out it could save nearly a thousand euros a year by using the discount pumps. And the traditional work of local mechanics had been eroded by the new generations of cars that needed less servicing and more the skills of a computer technician. So Lespinasse had reinvented his business as a place to restore old cars, and Édouard had developed a useful sideline in tuning motor-cross racing bikes and restoring old motorbikes. Spending two days a week at the technical school in Périgueux and four days a week at the garage, Édouard was becoming as good a mechanic as his father and would get formal qualifications when he completed his technical course. But Bruno still felt a pang as he pulled into the garage and saw the gaps where the pumps used to be.
“Salut, Bruno,” said Jean-Louis, emerging from beneath the hood of the Jaguar E-type that Annette’s boyfriend had been driving. He extended his forearm to be shaken, sparing Bruno his oily hand. “You did well at the rally. If you want to take up the sport, I’ve got a useful little Peugeot for you.”
“One rally with Annette was enough for me,” he replied. “What’s wrong with the E-type?”
“Nothing, but I offered to give it a tune-up just for the pleasure of working on the car. It’s a bit different from Jack Crimson’s old model. The owner is coming back to pick it up tonight at about seven. I’ll have it purring by then.”
“Is Édouard around?” Bruno asked. Jean-Louis gestured to the rear garage where the motorbikes were kept, and Bruno found Édouard and Félix working together on the old bicycle rescued from the dump. The bike had been transformed, cleaned and polished, the chrome on the handlebars sparkling and the chain tautened.
“I’m impressed,” said Bruno after greeting them. “You guys have done a good job.”
“Félix did most of it,” said Édouard. “He just needed to borrow some of my tools.”
Bruno checked his watch and looked at Félix. “If you leave now, you’ll be at the stables in half an hour or so. I’ll see you there. I need to talk with Édouard about something first.”
Félix set off, pedaling hard, and as they looked after him, Édouard said, “He told me what you did at the supermarket.”
“I remember doing something of the kind for you a few years back, when the head teacher caught you pinching his prize tulips.”
“I remember,” Édouard said, grinning. “It was Mother’s Day.”
“It turned into father’s day pretty fast when I too
k you back to your dad,” said Bruno. “I could hear your howls as I drove off.”
Édouard laughed. “Dad always had a strong arm. The spanking probably did me good. Listen, Félix is a good kid at heart, but he’s always been too scrawny to play any sports, and he never really fit in. That’s why he always got bullied.”
“I gather you helped protect him from the worst of it.”
“There was not much I could do, being in different classes. And you know how kids can be. His mother being a cleaning woman at the school made it worse. Even the girls would ask him when he’d be washing the windows, teasing him. I tried telling him to make a joke of it, but he didn’t really know how to handle it.”
“Has he got the makings of a mechanic?”
“He knows his way around an engine, and he’s helped me strip a gearbox. But he’s not what I’d call a natural, you know, like some people can just listen to an engine and know what’s wrong.”
“Like you and your dad,” said Bruno. “It must be in the blood.”
“He’ll do well with the horses,” said Édouard. “He always got on well with animals, and I know he likes being at that little farm the new teacher started at the collège.”
“We’ll see,” said Bruno. “I’m glad he’s got a friend in you, even though I know you’re busy with tech school. Are you enjoying it?”
Édouard nodded. “There are a couple of teachers there who really know what they’re doing. One of them was a merchant seaman, working on engines on the Corsica ferries. He’s great on diesels and technical drawing, and the electrics guy is brilliant. We do a lot on car computers because he says that’s the future.”
He paused, evidently with something else to say but choosing his words with care. “I’ll keep an eye out for Félix, but it’s not like there’s any work for him here. So far my dad is just making ends meet. Maybe if this classic-car business picks up after this weekend…”
“I understand,” said Bruno. He’d never assumed that the small garage could afford another employee. “I’d better get along and see how Félix does with the horses.”
At the riding school, Pamela told Bruno that Félix was doing well enough to be invited back to work on Saturday. They left Félix loading hay into the stable mangers with a pitchfork, and Pamela took Bruno for a stroll around the paddock where Miranda was teaching three little girls to trot on their plump ponies.
“The boy’s not frightened of the horses, they seem to know he’s comfortable around them, and he’s a willing worker. That new Andalusian that Fabiola is interested in can get a bit lively, and he did well to calm her. What do you think I should pay him? I can’t afford minimum wage.”
“Pay him in riding lessons, and maybe after a while you might want to give him some pocket money. But don’t give him too much. I’d say ten euros for a Saturday should do it.”
“You’ll have me arrested for exploiting child labor,” she said with a laugh. “The occasional ten euros won’t break me. And what if I paid him in kit? I’ve got an old pair of riding boots that should fit him, and the last owners left an assortment of riding caps and jodhpurs in the tack room.”
“I think he’d be delighted. But don’t give it all at once. Dole it out, make him know he’s got to work for his rewards.”
“Like I did with you, you mean?” she said, turning to him and smiling as she took his arm. “You were very patient with me. It’s one of the reasons I always knew you’d be good with horses.”
“You said once that I was the first man you’d been with since your marriage broke up.”
“It’s true, and I’m glad it was you, Bruno. I just hope Miranda finds someone as kind. She’s the kind of woman who really needs a man in her life, and it’s been hard on her, being left with the children.”
Bruno looked at her, startled. Surely she couldn’t be hinting that he should take the role. Pamela knew him well enough to read his thoughts.
“Mon Dieu, not you, Bruno!” she said, laughing. “Miranda would be quite wrong for you, although I can see many a man would find that plump, pink innocence rather enticing. She’d try to domesticate you and bring you carpet slippers. You’d be driven to drink within weeks.”
Bruno paused, wondering what to say in response, and finally came out with something that sounded lame, even to him. “She has a new life now, new friends, the riding school to run.”
“That’s the problem. The riding school takes all her time in the days, and the children fill the evenings and weekends. It doesn’t leave much time to be out and about and meeting new people. Maybe you could talk to her father, tell him to start throwing some more of his parties.”
“I have enough on my plate without getting involved in matchmaking,” said Bruno, although mentally he was running through the list of the unattached men in the district. There was a new vet in St. Cyprien whom he’d played rugby with and a new teacher at the lycée in Sarlat whom he’d met at one of the junior tennis matches in the summer.
They turned back to the stables, where Félix was whistling as he hosed down the yard in a pair of rubber boots that looked much too big for him. He looked up as they approached, and his face turned solemn as he addressed Pamela.
“I’ve given them all hay and water, but I thought I’d stay to help the girls unsaddle the ponies,” he said. “Is that okay?”
Pamela nodded. “That would be fine, Félix. I’m pleased to see you making yourself useful. Will we see you on Saturday morning? We start at eight to get ready for the first lessons at nine.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll be here, but could I also come back tomorrow after school?”
13
Bruno pulled in at Lespinasse’s garage just after seven and heard the deep and potent roar of a perfectly tuned engine. Young was in the driver’s seat, and Jean-Louis stood proudly alongside as Young smiled his appreciation at the work that had been done.
“Would you like to come for a spin?” Young asked Bruno.
“Very much.” He climbed inside, surprised at the size of the steering wheel and the old-fashioned knobs and switches on the dashboard. He enjoyed the deep leather seats and the wood trim. He felt very low to the road.
“The only new element is the safety belts,” said Young. “They weren’t required when this was built. Where shall we take her?”
Bruno took him up the long and winding hill road that led to Boutenègre and then through the woods to the long, straight stretch of road between St. Cirq and Les Eyzies. As soon as they reached the straightaway, Young dropped into second gear, and the acceleration hit Bruno like a punch in the back. He glanced at the speedometer, and it seemed to indicate a much-slower speed than he would have imagined, and he suddenly realized it must be marked in miles per hour. By the time he had calculated they were doing a hundred and eighty, Young was slowing for the tight bends that led to the bridge over the river and the narrow main street of Les Eyzies.
“I was glad to hear your migraine cleared up so fast,” Bruno said as the sound of the engine diminished to a throaty murmur. “I had to stand in for you at the rally, and Annette scared the wits out of me. And now it seems I’ll have to do it all over again.”
Young apologized, saying some vital business had come up.
“To do with Sylvestre?” Bruno asked, thinking of Isabelle’s call.
“In a way,” Young replied, glancing at him sideways. “How did you know?”
“Pull in here on the right,” Bruno said. “We’ll never hear each other once we’re on the road. You and Sylvestre both seem to be interested in the same car, the one whose picture you showed me from your phone.”
“Did he tell you about the Bugatti?” Young asked. “Damn him, he may have all the money, but it’s my family.”
“I don’t understand. How do you mean, your family? Did they own it? I thought you said it was lost in the war.”
“It wasn’t lost. It disappeared,” Young replied. “Anyone who finds it will make a fortune, and my family was very much involved in th
at car.”
Young explained that his great-grandmother’s brother had been William Grover-Williams, a British racing driver who lived in France, married a Frenchwoman and worked and raced for Bugatti in the 1930s. He’d been born in France in 1903, where his father had been a horse breeder. At the age of sixteen, he talked his way into a job as chauffeur of a Rolls-Royce that belonged to William Orpen, a British artist who had been commissioned to come to Paris at the end of the First World War to do portraits of the participants at the Versailles peace conference. Grover-Williams fell in love with Orpen’s mistress, a Frenchwoman named Yvonne Aupicq, and later married her. In 1928, he won the French Grand Prix and the following year, in a Bugatti 35B like the one owned by Sylvestre, Grover-Williams won the first Monaco Grand Prix. Bugatti hired him as a regular driver, along with his friend Robert Benoist, who went on to win the first twenty-four-hour race at Le Mans. Grover-Williams also acted as a salesman for Bugatti among his fashionable friends and was allowed to drive the now-missing Atlantic model around Paris.
“One of the few remaining photos of the car from the period shows Yvonne standing by the car with her dogs, Scottish terriers,” Young said.
“So driving is in your blood,” said Bruno. “Is that why you’re so passionate about cars and about this one?”
“Grover-Williams was a hero in our household. My mother was his great-niece, although she was born after the war and never met him. And he was a real hero in the Resistance with Benoist.”
During the war, Grover-Williams had volunteered to join the SOE, Britain’s Special Operations Executive, an underground organization that sought to build, arm and train Resistance fighters in occupied Europe. He and Benoist built the Chestnut network in and around Paris, using their racing connections to arrange parachute drops of arms.
“That’s where things become murky,” Young said. “The official record says Grover-Williams wasn’t parachuted in from England until early 1942, by which time the famous Bugatti had disappeared.”
Fatal Pursuit Page 12
