The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

by Martin Walker

  From respect, Bruno was wearing the medal of the Croix de Guerre he had won in Bosnia, which he normally kept in a drawer at his home. He was in full-dress uniform, freshly pressed, and his boots and leather belt polished that morning. Philippe Delaron was taking photographs of the honour guard; eight soldiers and a junior officer from the garrison at Agen stood at ease in the churchyard. The officer looked at his watch. The Mayor looked at Bruno, who glanced across to J-J in the shadows of the shop and shrugged. It was time.

  ‘Escadron, garde à vous,’ the officer called. The troops came to attention and marched in pairs into the church, down the nave and as Bruno and the Mayor followed them, took their places at each side of the coffin. The futuristic shape of their FAMAS rifles looked oddly out of place amid the ancient stones. Murcoing lay in state before the altar, on which stood giant photographs of the young fighter he had been. The coffin was closed and on its lid rested his Resistance medal.

  The tolling bell had fallen silent and from his place before the choir, a schoolboy began to beat the slow, steady rhythm of a march on his drum. The choir began quietly and then with slowly increasing force to hum the familiar chords of the Resistance anthem, le Chant des Partisans. And then Florence’s pure soprano rang out high and clear throughout the church.

  ‘Ami, entends-tu le vol noir des corbeaux sur nos plaines?’ Friend, do you hear the dark flight of the crows across our land?

  Just a handful of words, a tune and some phrases made heavy by the weight of history. Yet as Bruno shifted his eyes from Florence to the coffin and the photographs of the young fighter behind it, he felt the tears begin to gather. He was not alone.

  He saw the eyes of the young officer glisten and Father Sentout weeping openly as Florence reached the line: ‘Ce soir l’ennemi connaîtra le prix du sang et des larmes.’ Tonight the enemy will learn the price of blood and tears.

  ‘Bring the guns from the haystacks, careful with the dynamite.’ Behind him he heard the quavering voices of the old people take up the words and then the full choir joined in with, ‘Si tu tombes, un ami sort de l’ombre à ta place.’ If you fall, a friend will come from the shadows to take your place.

  It had all happened a lifetime ago, a generation before he had been born, and Bruno wondered why it moved him so. He suspected it was less the words and the music than the images they summoned in his head: jackboots marching through the Arc de Triomphe, De Gaulle speaking from London to pledge that France would fight on, General Leclerc’s Free French troops racing into Paris as young men like Loïc Murcoing fought against tanks with a handful of weapons in their own streets and villages. He thought of Joe, recounting how as a boy he’d watched as the collaborators of St Denis had been lined up on the bridge Bruno knew so well and shot so that their bodies crumpled into the timeless flow of the river below.

  But as Father Sentout began the Mass there was something else that stirred Bruno deeply, beyond these wartime pictures flickering in his mind. It was the presence around him of the folk of St Denis, young and old, conservatives and communists, men who had worn uniform and women who had kissed them farewell and waited for their return. It was this gathering to commemorate and to remember, to pay tribute to one of the last of the old men who had gone to the hills to take up arms against the invader, knowing that death would be the price of defeat. It was fitting, Bruno believed, that the young people were here, to understand what it had meant to France to be vanquished and occupied by foreign troops who did not bother to hide their contempt for the conquered. And it was right for those youngsters to know that in a nation like France, no defeat was ever final, no fate was ever foreordained, that even amid the ruins and corpses of defeat, rebirth and recovery and renewal could always come.

  The Mass ended and the Mayor came forward to stand by the coffin, his head bowed in homage before he turned to address the crowded church.

  ‘Françaises et français,’ the mayor began. ‘Dear friends and citizens of St Denis, we are here to pay honour to a brave son of France and to the cause of freedom for which he fought. Nothing I could say here would match the courage and sacrifice of thousands of our young men and women who stood for France in our bleakest hour, when that dark flight of the crows haunted our sweet land and the panzers rolled through our villages. We thank them for what they have taught us about this France that we love. We stand in awe of their courage and we extend our sympathies to their families for their loss. And we give thanks to the Lord, in this church where our ancestors have prayed for a thousand years, that Loïc Murcoing was able to live the rest of his life in pride and dignity in this valley that he had helped to free. And we pray that our sons and daughters will never again have to bear such burdens. Vive la France, vive la République.’

  While the soldiers presented arms and the choir burst into the Marseillaise, Bruno joined in the words as he reflected that his Mayor had a rare gift among politicians, never to speak too long. Along with the Mayor, Jacquot, Joe, the Baron and Montsouris, Bruno took his place beside the coffin, and as the anthem came to its end he gave a quiet word of command and they lifted it onto their shoulders. The officer ordered his men to port arms, and stooping a little under the burden the coffin-bearers followed Father Sentout and the file of troops down the nave and out through the churchyard to the cemetery.

  ‘Now,’ said Bruno and the six men began to pay out the ropes and the coffin sank slowly as the first shots of the salute rang out. As the echo of the third and final volley died away, Loïc Murcoing rested on the soil for which he had fought. One by one, his relatives and neighbours came up to pick more of that soil from the heap by the grave and toss it onto the coffin lid. By the time they had all done, and each of those present had dropped a handful of earth, the coffin was no more to be seen.

  Bruno looked up to scan the wooded hill behind the cemetery, and then across beyond the church to the hedges that lined the winding road to the hamlet of St Félix. He felt certain that somewhere in that shadowy terrain Paul Murcoing was watching the interment of his grandfather. A cruel irony, thought Bruno, that Loïc Murcoing was being honoured for taking to the hills to fight the enemy, while his grandson was now hiding in those same hills to evade the justice of France.

  *

  In Paris, Le Monde was published as an evening newspaper, but it did not reach the provinces until the following morning. The Internet, however, had made it universally available as soon as the print edition was published, and Jacqueline was reading the text of her article on her smartphone, the Mayor peering over her shoulder to make out the words on the tiny screen. Around them in the council chamber of the Mairie the crowd lined up for glasses of wine and tiny sandwiches and canapés. The vin d’honneur the Mayor had arranged to follow Murcoing’s funeral was in full swing.

  ‘It’s weird,’ said Gilles, squeezing his way through to Bruno with two glasses of red wine and handing one to him. ‘My teaser piece on the nuclear stuff ran on the website yesterday and got almost zero reaction. But this morning’s article on the great train robbery has really started something. There was so much traffic that it crashed the website and everybody’s trying to follow it up. My editor’s ecstatic.’

  ‘That’s another dinner you owe me,’ said Bruno.

  ‘I know, but I’ve been working non-stop.’

  ‘That’s not what I hear. The word is that you were dining with a beautiful brunette at my favourite restaurant last night. Hand in hand, is what I heard.’

  Gilles eyed Bruno. ‘Do you know everything that goes on round here?’

  Bruno grinned at him and clinked their glasses together. ‘She’s a fine woman and you’re a lucky man. But watch yourself; if you trifle with her, you’ll have me to deal with and you’ll wish you were back in Sarajevo.’

  ‘Trifling is not what I had in mind, Bruno, not with Fabiola. I’m serious about her, in fact I’m smitten.’

  ‘She’s a serious woman and she’s also the best doctor we’ve ever had in this town, so don’t even think about
trying to lure her away. Meanwhile, tell me about the reaction to your Neuvic article.’

  ‘A couple of deputies have called for a parliamentary inquiry, the Banque de France is under pressure to hold a press conference and the Socialists have issued a statement denying that they got any of the money.’

  ‘Never believe anything until it’s been officially denied,’ Bruno said with a chuckle.

  ‘But something else has come up you ought to know about. I’ve had an email from Paul Murcoing. It came through on my phone just now as I was coming into the Mairie, and there’s a big document attached. Can we get out of this crowd and find a quiet place to read it?’

  Bruno led the way back to his office, noting with approval that Gilles managed to pick up two full glasses as he ducked and darted through the thickening crowd. He turned on his own computer and gestured for Gilles to take the chair and use the big screen to read whatever Paul had sent.

  It began with an email, sent to the electronic address listed for Gilles on the Paris Match website, congratulating him for ‘bringing this scandal from the shadows of our history into the light of day’. But he’d only scratched the surface of the story, Paul went on, and the real truth had yet to emerge. Gilles clicked on the attachment to open the document.

  ‘J’accuse,’ read the title page, a cliché in French political journalism since Emile Zola had used it on the front page of L’Aurore to condemn the miscarriage of justice in the Dreyfus case.

  ‘I accuse André Malraux of theft from the people of France … I accuse the British government of using their influence over the Resistance to manipulate French politics in their own interests … I accuse the government of the United States … I accuse De Gaulle … I accuse François Mitterrand …’ And on and on it went, some of it taken wholesale from the rants he had posted on the Resistance history websites, some of it about his grandfather. And the attack on British intelligence contained a scan of the concocted document Bruno had seen on Crimson’s iPad the previous evening.

  ‘In the old days before the Internet,’ said Gilles, ‘this sort of stuff used to be written in green ink with lots of underlinings and capital letters and usually finished up claiming they were being bugged through the fillings in their teeth. Except this British document looks new. Is this for real?’

  Bruno made a quick decision. You either trusted a man or you didn’t. ‘No, it’s a fake,’ he said. ‘It was cooked up and sent to him to smoke him out. It looks like Paul’s taking the bait.’

  ‘Putain, this story gets better and better and Paris Match is at the heart of it. Dead Resistance hero, gay grandson on the run for murder, British spymaster faking documents to help French cops capture him, all this and a conspiracy theory around the great train robbery. And he’s got his sister with him. You couldn’t make it up.’

  ‘Are you planning to use some of this?’ Bruno asked, a little nervous at the prospect of a media circus.

  ‘You bet I am. This is a manhunt story made for the Internet age – and I’m in touch with the target. I’ll send out a tweet that he’s reached me and then do something for the website, but first I have to call Paris and brief them.’

  ‘Just don’t say anything about the document being faked. And make me a couple of printouts of that rant of his while you’re sitting there. I’d better find Crimson.’

  He pulled J-J out of the party and took him onto the balcony outside the Mayor’s office to brief him and give him one of the printouts.

  ‘It was all your idea, J-J,’ Bruno explained. ‘You were the one who asked if we could set a trap for Murcoing. He didn’t show for the funeral but he’s biting at this. We need to find out where this computer is that he used to email Gilles, but I’m betting he’s still in France and that camper van with the Dutch plates was just a ruse.’

  ‘You haven’t thought this through,’ J-J replied, looking cross. ‘So he gets in touch with Crimson. What then?’

  ‘Then I go to whatever rendezvous he nominates and bring him in. I wear a tracker in my shoes so you know where I am. You can have cars and a helicopter on standby somewhere close in case we need reinforcements.’

  ‘This is a job for the Jaunes, not for you. They’re trained for this.’

  ‘It has to be one man, someone who knows him.’

  ‘You don’t know him.’

  ‘I know enough about him and his family to have a chance of talking him into giving himself up. With the Jaunes a shootout is just about guaranteed. Let’s find Crimson and see if he’s heard from Murcoing. He should be inside, fighting his way to the bar to get a drink.’

  They found the Englishman squeezed into a corner by the window that overlooked the river Vézère, trying to rescue Florence from the admiring attentions of the young officer who had led the guard of honour. J-J used his bulk to clear some space around them, introduced himself to the officer and asked him to give them some privacy. With the sensitive antennae of a lifetime in politics, the Mayor realized that something important was happening and suddenly appeared alongside Bruno just as he was explaining that Murcoing had swallowed the bait.

  ‘We won’t know if he’s contacted us until we can get to a computer and check that email address I set up,’ Florence said. ‘I’ve got my laptop in my bag.’

  The Mayor led the way to his own spacious office, which to Bruno’s knowledge had never yet been polluted by the presence of a computer. Florence sat down at his desk and fired up her machine.

  ‘Don’t you need a plug or something?’ the Mayor asked.

  Florence gave him a maternal look and shook her head before turning back to open the emails. ‘He’s sent something. He wants a phone number to reach you,’ she told Crimson.

  ‘We’d better buy you a disposable,’ Bruno said. ‘He’s going to be expecting to hear an Englishman and someone who knows what he’s talking about.’

  ‘Can you find out where he sent the email from?’ J-J asked.

  ‘Not discreetly and we don’t want him to know we’re looking. But you should have experts with the equipment to track it.’

  ‘The first thing I have to do now is call the juge d’instruction and tell him what’s happening,’ said J-J. ‘He’s in charge of this inquiry.’

  ‘But it isn’t just an inquiry any more. It’s a manhunt,’ said Bruno. ‘And we have some time. When Crimson answers that email and gives Murcoing the phone number, we have to say that he’s just arrived in France, let’s say in Paris, coming in from London on the Eurostar train. It will take him some time to get down here so there’ll be no meeting until tomorrow. And Murcoing will need time to arrange the right place for a rendezvous.’

  Crimson let out a short, excited laugh. ‘I’m almost beginning to enjoy this.’

  26

  ‘The English are mad,’ said J-J as his aide Josette powered the big Peugeot up the road to the autoroute that led to Bordeaux. ‘Did you hear him? Saying he was enjoying himself. We won’t even be there in time for lunch.’

  Bruno had persuaded J-J to make a last appeal to the juge d’instruction on the need to interview Edouard Marty, even though the art squad had reported they could find nothing questionable in his accounts. Bruno was convinced that Edouard must know something more than the bland statement he’d given to the art squad. Yes, he was a director of the company that Francis Fullerton had founded, he had claimed, but he was a very minor shareholder and he was concerned solely with the interior design side of the company and specialized in modern and minimalist design. He had nothing to do with the antiques. And his work for Arch-Inter was simply a sideline to his own architecture practice and his teaching at the university.

  But that left out the connection from a decade ago, when Paul Murcoing and Edouard Marty had been the boys at the swimming pool. The link between Fullerton, Paul and Edouard had to be important. An old friend from his youth, with whom he remained connected in Fullerton’s crooked business, was someone to whom a man on the run could turn for help or money or transport.

&nb
sp; ‘How do you want to handle the questioning?’ Bruno asked. He knew from experience that J-J was a relentless interrogator, and while his sheer bulk could intimidate most suspects he also had a subtle sense of the psychology and timing of the art of questioning. ‘Shall we do it the usual way, you play the tough guy and I’m the understanding one, or what?’

  ‘Probably,’ grunted J-J. He was flicking through a file of spreadsheets. ‘If this goes on much longer it’s going to eat up ten per cent of my investigation budget for the year. And with the new cuts there’s no reserve fund. Christ, look at the overtime for the plain-clothes guys at the funeral, a complete waste of money.’

  This was no time to say ‘I told you so,’ thought Bruno. Instead, he reminded J-J how many burglaries had been cleared up from the haul at the Corrèze farm. And he was dubious about Edouard’s protestations of innocence over the antiques trade. The website of the showroom in California had shown a lot of antiques and Edouard’s office seemed to be the place that organized the shipping. The art squad concentrated on the high-cost items like old master paintings, Impressionists and the treasures that would win them headlines, rather than the bulk trade of moderately priced antiques and lesser paintings that had been Fullerton’s speciality.

  ‘How are things between you and Isabelle?’ J-J asked, closing his file and thrusting it into the overstuffed briefcase at his feet.

  ‘Over,’ said Bruno.

  ‘That’s what you always say, but she keeps coming back.’

  ‘Not any more. She’s moving to Holland to join Eurojust, has her interview Friday but it sounds like a formality.’

  ‘Putain, and I’ve just about persuaded the Prefect to let her take my job when I retire. I was hoping to get her down here before the election and all the backstabbing starts at her Ministry. You’ve heard the rumours about that?’