The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

by Martin Walker

  ‘Just enough to wet our lips before we head for Sarlat,’ he said, and turned to Bruno as he opened the bottle. ‘I hope you’re not planning to go in uniform.’

  ‘I’ve got a jacket in the van. I’ll look like a boringly dressed civilian.’

  ‘Talking of wetting our lips,’ said Jacqueline, ‘I was thinking about Bruno’s friend at Paris Match. It might be a good idea to have him run a small item first, a teaser to whet Le Monde’s appetite. In my limited experience of the media, they seem all the more interested when they know a rival publication is sniffing after the same story. Would your friend be amenable to that?’

  ‘He might be, if we pitch it the right way,’ Bruno said, raising his glass to her. ‘You may have to succumb to the Paris Match treatment, a flattering photo and an interview with the glamorous historian who straddles two continents.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound too bad.’

  ‘That’s not all. You can expect quite a lot about your past, May ’68, Vietnam protests, SDS, radical feminist, Greenham Common.’

  The Mayor raised his eyebrows and Jacqueline gave him a sharp look. ‘You’ve been doing your homework.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Bruno replied. ‘It was just read out to me from an Interior Ministry file on you that’s currently sitting in the Gendarmerie.’

  18

  They were climbing into Jacqueline’s car for the journey to Sarlat when Bruno’s phone rang, and J-J’s gruff voice told him that new evidence had emerged. Yves Valentoux would be arrested that evening for questioning.

  ‘It looks bad.’ J-J went on. ‘Yveline has evidence that he wasn’t at home in Paris all evening, like he said. And she went through all his credit-card statements and then through the individual bills. He bought a disposable phone about six weeks ago which we’ve tracked moving down here from Paris on the day that Fullerton was killed. It’s as if the guy was being followed as he drove down here.’

  ‘How do we know it was Valentoux’s phone?’

  ‘It’s on his credit card. He bought it at a Leclerc when he was doing his groceries. At the same time he put twenty euros onto it prepaid, so we were able to identify the SIM card.’

  ‘What does he say?’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to him yet. I’m on my way to Sarlat to arrest him. I cleared it with the magistrate. Ardouin will join me at the police station. I thought you might want to be there.’

  Bruno explained to Jacqueline and the Mayor and then rang Annette.

  ‘I know about it,’ she said as soon as she answered. ‘Ardouin just rang me. So much for our happy dinner party.’

  ‘Does Yves know?’

  ‘Yes. He’s sitting beside me, shattered. He’s agreed to go to the station and I’ll go with him. All we know is there is supposed to be new evidence. Will I see you here?’

  ‘Yes, J-J invited me to the station. They can’t keep you on the case, not now you’re sharing a house, and obviously I can’t talk about the new evidence. But I’m sure you can find him a good lawyer. I’ll stay in touch.’

  Bruno rang off and called first Pamela and then Gilles to explain, and felt relieved when Gilles offered to take Pamela and Fabiola to dinner instead. Driving to Sarlat, he welcomed the time to himself as he drove, time to consider just how little he really knew of Yves. Bruno knew that he was a skilled actor, able to perform and entertain at a dinner table within a day of finding his lover’s body. He had abundant charm, and Bruno and his friends had all warmed to him. Bruno had been touched when Yves showed him the photograph of his daughter, but could that have been a theatrical ploy to secure his sympathy?

  He would have to wait until he saw the details of the new evidence. And there would be questions to answer. If Yves had driven down with his disposable phone, it was clear from the distance counter he hadn’t used his own car. What transport had he used? Could he have driven down earlier, parked at a station and then used the trains to get back and provide himself with an alibi from the motorway tolls? He tried to remember exactly what Yves had said about the evening he spent at his apartment in Paris. And if he had followed Fullerton down to the Périgord and killed him then he’d have needed to clean up and change. Where had he done that? The forensics guys were sure nobody had stayed at the gîte since Dougal’s people had cleaned it.

  As he navigated the series of roundabouts that led into Sarlat, Bruno concluded that the crucial point was that if Yves had not been at home in Paris when Fullerton was killed, then he’d been lying. That need not mean he was the killer but it made him into a top suspect along with Paul Murcoing. Could they have somehow been in it together?

  Bruno usually enjoyed being in Sarlat, a town where he half-expected to walk into a film crew making yet another version of The Three Musketeers. The set designers might need to tidy up a few shop fronts and remove the chairs from a few café terraces, but otherwise they wouldn’t have to change a thing. The town had been preserved as if in aspic since the sixteenth century, a glorious jumble of medieval houses and narrow alleyways, dark tunnels and grand Renaissance town houses, all built around a monastery and an abbey that dated back to Charlemagne’s time. Now the capital of the Périgord Noir and one of the most visited towns in France, Bruno never tired of wandering its cobbled streets on those evenings when he made the journey to its cinemas with Pamela and Fabiola. Like Annette, they were passionate about film and Annette’s decision to settle in the centre of the old town had made their own visits more frequent.

  This was a more sombre visit, and when Bruno arrived at the town’s sous-Préfecture, which housed the Commissariat of Police, Ardouin was already questioning Yves. J-J and Yveline were side by side at the desk normally used by the duty officer and going through the file of her researches.

  ‘Valentoux lied about being in his apartment that evening,’ she said, flashing him a triumphant smile. ‘I checked his land-line records with France Télécom and he got two calls that he didn’t answer. I rang the number and it was an actress he knew. She wanted him to engage her for the festival here. And he didn’t reply, so it looks as if he wasn’t home.’

  Bruno nodded. ‘Sounds like good work on your part. What does he say about the disposable phone he bought?’

  ‘He hasn’t said anything to us. He said he’d wait until he spoke to the magistrate.’

  ‘What was the timing on those two phone calls?’

  ‘The first was seven twenty, the second at seven twenty-four,’ she replied.

  ‘So he could have slipped out to buy a paper or some cigarettes, something so routine it could have slipped his mind.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ J-J said. ‘But when he’s being questioned for murder, I think he’d have remembered. And then there’s the disposable phone. Anyway, it’s up to Ardouin now. I’ve ordered some pizzas, I think it could be a long night.’

  J-J pushed the file across to Bruno and he scanned through the coordinates for the cellphone tracking. The scan had started at noon on the day of the murder and the first location was Villejuif, just south of Paris, and then the phone had followed the Aquitaine autoroute through Orléans and Limoges. The tracking had stopped at six in the evening when the location was St Denis.

  ‘Do we have any more data for before noon and after six?’ Bruno asked. ‘And were any calls made or received on the phone?’

  ‘I just picked those as the relevant times,’ Yveline replied. ‘There were a couple of calls, one to a St Denis number and the other to a disposable phone somewhere in Bergerac, but we don’t know who owns it. I’ve asked France Télécom to let us have the records of the number, so at least we should learn something, but they can’t do that until Monday.’

  ‘Do we know whom he rang in St Denis?’

  ‘Delightful Dordogne, a rental agency. That’s all we’ve got.’

  Bruno asked himself why would Yves be calling Dougal’s agency when Fullerton had been making the arrangements.

  ‘Can we get some more tracking on the phone, before noon and after six?’ he asked
.

  ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘If Valentoux was the killer, we need to know how he faked his alibi with the autoroute tolls. The phone tracking could tell us that.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ said J-J and asked Yveline to see to it. The pizzas arrived as she was on the line to France Télécom and Bruno took some slices in to Ardouin and Yves, who looked relieved to see him.

  ‘Monsieur Valentoux says he bought the disposable phone when shopping for groceries with his friend Fullerton when they were together in Paris,’ Ardouin said. ‘It seems Fullerton had wanted one because he didn’t want to pay the roaming charges on his English one. Did you find any such phone among his possessions or in his van?’

  ‘No, sir. But we didn’t know we should be looking for one specially.’

  ‘Monsieur Valentoux also insists he was home on the evening in question but might have gone out briefly to buy cigarettes at a local tabac on the Avenue Moreau, where he says they know him,’ Ardouin continued. ‘They may be able to confirm this. Could you call them, please, and check?’

  ‘It’s called the Café Moreau,’ Yves added. ‘I always buy my cigarettes there.’

  Bruno went out and called directory inquiries and then the café. A woman answered and he introduced himself and explained his business.

  ‘I remember Yves bought a lottery ticket early in the week because he said he was leaving Paris the next day. That was why he bought a couple of extra packs for the journey,’ the woman said. ‘But I can’t remember whether it was Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. If he still has his ticket, it should give the date and time. They’ll be drawing in a few minutes, that’s why we’ve got the TV on.’

  Bruno thanked her, put the phone down and knocked on the interview room door. Ardouin told him to enter and Bruno asked Yves if he still had his lottery ticket. He opened his wallet and handed Bruno the ticket.

  ‘Purchased at Café Moreau in Paris on the third, that’s Tuesday evening, at seven twenty-four,’ Bruno read aloud. He scribbled down the number and handed the ticket to Ardouin. ‘The woman in the café remembers selling it to him along with some cigarettes. And that would explain why he didn’t answer his phone.’

  Ardouin nodded and closed the file before him. ‘So your story holds up, Monsieur Valentoux. One of those rare occasions when cigarettes may actually have done you some good.’

  Bruno excused himself and went to the front desk, where the sergeant on duty had a small TV set and like millions of his compatriots was watching the weekly lottery draw with his ticket in his hand. Bruno watched the little balls bouncing in their swirling currents of air until one popped out and rolled down into the first container. When the final ball had landed, he called the Café Moreau again and told the woman that Yves had three numbers and the joker. What was that worth?

  ‘Too much for me to give him his winnings in cash,’ she replied. ‘It has to be a banker’s draft, at least five hundred. Depends how many other people have the joker.’

  Ardouin and Yves were just coming out of the interview room when Yveline put down the phone, ran a hand over her face and said: ‘France Télécom can’t give us the different times on the phone track until Monday.’

  ‘I’d like to know more about the travels of this mysterious phone, but even so, I don’t think we need detain Monsieur Valentoux any longer,’ said Ardouin. ‘We now have proof that he was in Paris around the time that Fullerton was murdered.’

  ‘It’s his lucky day,’ said Bruno. ‘He’s just won five hundred on the lottery.’

  *

  Disappointed in their hope of dinner in Sarlat, the whole St Denis contingent had gathered at Pamela’s place for an impromptu meal of Fabiola’s risotto. The Mayor had brought wine and two tins of his own pâté and Pamela had salad from the garden and cheese. After calling to see where they had all gone Bruno was able to join them in time for coffee and relate the dramas of the evening.

  ‘So you’re back looking for Paul Murcoing,’ said Pamela, when his tale was complete and a toast drunk to Yves’s release.

  ‘Well, I am,’ said Bruno. ‘He was the last person we can place at the murder scene, so we have to find him so we can talk to him. But the Proc says the evidence against Murcoing is only circumstantial and there’s no obvious motive. Yveline still has her eye on Valentoux and J-J wants to start looking at other antiques dealers who might have had a motive to kill Fullerton.’

  ‘Maybe there’s an English connection, somebody living here who knew him,’ Pamela mused.

  She was looking well, the pallor of a Scottish winter beginning to give way to the beginnings of a tan, her bronze hair piled loosely atop her head to display her long neck and the emerald earrings that suited her. She was wearing a pale blue blouse of heavy silk over perfectly cut jeans. Bruno smiled, enjoying the look of her, the clear skin and bold eyes, the shape of her neck and the delicate scent of her hair. She returned his gaze, a fondness in her eyes, and placed her hand on his where it rested on the table. That was unusual; Pamela seldom showed her affection in public.

  His attention was distracted by sounds of argument from the other side of the table, where Gilles and Jacqueline had been locked in discussion. With the events of the evening, Bruno had forgotten that Jacqueline had wanted him to help promote her story in Paris Match.

  ‘Bruno, could you explain to Jacqueline that I’m not a little clockwork toy that can be wound up and sent marching away and then turned off?’ Gilles said, filling his glass with the fresh wine. ‘There’s a big story here, but all I’m getting is hints about nuclear strategy and warnings not to make a big sensation. You know I can’t work like that.’

  ‘I’m just saying that I don’t want my work to be over-interpreted,’ said Jacqueline crisply. ‘This is a serious matter.’

  ‘I’ve known Gilles a long time and I trust him,’ Bruno replied. ‘Why not show him that draft you showed me earlier and then explain how you would like the story to emerge? He knows more about the way the media works than anybody else here, and I’d like to hear his views.’

  Giving Bruno a dubious look, Jacqueline shrugged, took the folded typescript from her bag and passed it to Gilles. He pulled a candelabra closer, put on a pair of reading glasses and began to study it closely.

  ‘Lousy intro,’ he muttered, and Jacqueline’s lips tightened.

  This was not going well. Bruno helped himself to some cheese and bread. Gilles finished reading, took his glasses off and handed back the typescript.

  ‘This is based on your book, which won’t be published in the US until the end of this year, early next year. Is that right?’ Gilles waited for Jacqueline’s nod of agreement. ‘But you want to get the facts out now because you’re worried that the government wants it suppressed and you think the French people have a right to know how they’ve been lied to for forty years about our precious force de frappe. How that nuclear arsenal isn’t really ours, it comes courtesy of the Americans, just like the British. The technology for our missiles, our guidance system, our multi-warheads, our test sites, even the triggers for the bomb itself, all come from the USA, even though we have been proclaiming for decades that we are independent. In return for this, our President agreed to modify French foreign policy. And you want me to run a vague little teaser piece in the Match to build up interest before you run this as an op-ed piece in Le Monde. Am I right so far?’

  ‘Yes, rather histrionically phrased, but in the essentials you’re quite right,’ said Jacqueline in a clipped voice.

  Gilles put his hands together, looked from Jacqueline to Bruno and back again. ‘And in return for running this teaser, rather than getting the credit for breaking what could be one of the stories of the year, all I get is the offer to write a nice soft feature with a full-colour photo all about this intriguing Franco-American historian who’s blowing the whistle on one of the biggest strategic secrets of the Fifth Republic. It doesn’t sound to me like a good deal.’

  ‘That depends how you write the tease
r and what you put in it,’ said Bruno.

  ‘I could also let you have some of the documents to publish, but I’d also insist on approving whatever you write in this teaser, as you call it,’ Jacqueline said stiffly, sitting back and folding her arms. The body language between her and Gilles was cold, verging on hostile. ‘I have transcripts of Kissinger’s meetings, the jokes about France having the world’s worst nuclear programme, all headed with the words Top Secret.’

  ‘Let me explain my problem,’ Gilles said, leaning back and sipping at his drink. ‘I go to my editor with the teaser and tell him what comes next week. He looks at me like I’m an idiot and he wants to know why we don’t keep the story to ourselves and screw Le Monde. That’s what I’d be asking, in his shoes.’

  ‘You get the exclusive on the documents,’ said Bruno, before Jacqueline could respond. From the way she was bristling, he was sure she was about to make some cutting remark about Paris Match not being taken as seriously as Le Monde, which would only make matters worse.

  ‘The documents have been declassified,’ Gilles replied. ‘That means we could get our US correspondent to hire a history graduate student tomorrow and tell him to go to the Nixon Library first thing Monday morning and find them.’

  ‘What might help you persuade your editor to do it our way?’ Bruno asked.

  ‘What else have you got?’

  ‘Another story altogether. Have you ever heard of the great train robbery and the mystery of the Resistance billions?’

  19

  Bruno woke to the smell of coffee, a tongue licking briskly at his ears and the weight of a soft, squirming basset puppy on his chest. He opened his eyes, moved Balzac’s rump out of the way and saw Pamela, already dressed in riding clothes, standing by the bed with a tray.

  ‘Breakfast in bed, what a treat,’ he said, wriggling his way upright. She put the tray on his lap, plumped up the pillows on her side of the bed to sit beside him and took hold of Balzac before the puppy could attack the croissants. They were still hot from the bakery; she must have slipped out of bed and gone down to town for them. There was also orange juice for him and a bowl of Stéphane’s thick yoghurt and a banana for her. Balzac turned to lie on his back, legs pedalling the air. The pads on his paws were already starting to darken from the pink of puppyhood but his tummy was a lovely soft rose colour.