“You are flic, and yet you teach sports?” asked Galina.
“Yes, and rugby in winter,” Bruno replied, grinning. “If not for sports, Kirsty and Jamie might be embarked on a lifetime of crime by now.” He saw that Galina looked blank and added, “That was meant to be a joke.”
“I understand. But your joke is not very funny, I think. Jamie is a fine man, and Kirsty is also a good person, and their parents are kind. Why you think their children might have become different?”
“Do you think children always grow up like their parents?”
She seemed to consider this lighthearted question seriously. “Usually, I think. But not always. Children can learn what not to do if they do not like one of their parents and try not to grow up like that.”
“Is that what you did?” he asked from simple curiosity. She gave him a startled look, nodded and then shrugged in reply and went to join Jamie and Kirsty.
Bruno followed her and invited the three of them to use the covered court to hit around until the juniors had finished, but the juniors who had been playing singles decided to play doubles and leave one of the open courts for Bruno’s friends. They soon stopped playing and gathered around to watch when they heard the power of Galina’s strokes, even while warming up. When she made a few practice serves, Bruno knew he’d never faced a service that fast. He was going to be way out of his league.
Jamie and his sister decided to play together, so when Galina won the toss she offered the ball to Bruno. He shook his head. He wanted to watch her serve. Her first service was not nearly as fast as her practice serve, but it kicked high and spun, forcing Kirsty to scramble to return it. She looped the ball high, and Galina smashed it down the center between the two siblings. Her next serve to Jamie was very fast. He managed to return it, hard and low, to Bruno, who had an easy volley to make it thirty-love. Galina’s third serve was almost slow, but placed perfectly in the corner and spinning wide of the receiver. Kirsty just reached it, made a decent crosscourt return, and Galina slammed it down the sidelines too fast for Jamie to react. Her final serve was an ace, right down the middle and screamingly fast. A love game.
The juniors gathered around the court applauded, and Bruno was tempted to join in as he took his place on the baseline to receive Kirsty’s first serve. The only game that went to deuce was Bruno’s service, and Galina won that with two brisk volleys. They won the set by six games to love, and Bruno could claim at most three points of the thirty or so that had been played.
“You’re the finest player I’ve ever shared a court with,” he told Galina as they shook hands at the end of the set. Whereas Jamie and Kirsty looked as though they’d played a very hard set, Galina looked as cool and unruffled as she had before the game. The junior players were gathered at the doorway to the court to meet Galina. A couple had pens and pads of paper to get her autograph and ask where she usually played.
“Would you do us the honor of taking part in our club tournament in August?” Bruno asked her. “The prize is modest, but just watching you would raise the game for the whole club.”
“Why not?” she answered. “I enjoy playing like this, trees all around, a simple country club and a hard court, no crowds and no pressure. It reminds me why I loved this game when I was a child. Will you be my partner in this tournament?”
“I think you should play with someone much better than me,” he said. “Or maybe with one of our juniors. They could learn a lot. But tell me, where did you learn to play like that?”
“When I won my first junior championship, my father sent me to a tennis academy in Florida,” she said as Jamie and Kirsty crossed the court to join them. “It was very hard and I began almost to hate the game. Then a friend suggested it was not the game but the intense competition that I disliked, so now I only play when and where I want.”
“What did you think of that, Bruno?” asked Jamie, shaking hands to congratulate the winners. “Now you know what a shock I had when I first played Galina.”
“She’s extraordinary,” he replied, turning back to Galina when the two Macraes went into the changing rooms to shower. “Where did you win the junior championships?”
“Cyprus first, then Ukraine.”
“Why those two countries?” Bruno asked.
“I am now citizen of Cyprus, but was born in Kharkiv, in Ukraine, so I was also citizen there. I could qualify for the two. My father tried to insist I become tennis professional, but my mother is a musician, piano, and she understood that I wanted music to be my life. Tennis should be for play, for fun.”
“Is that what you meant about not wanting to grow up like your father?”
“Yes, of course. I would never want to drive a child as he pushed me. But I understand his ambition for me, and I try to forgive him. He is just as hard on himself, which is why he is successful. He says he had to be strong to succeed in the Soviet Union and in the bad time that came after. He tells me that since I didn’t know those years, I could never understand. He is right, I think.”
“Did you grow up in Ukraine?” Bruno asked.
“No, in Moscow until I was twelve. And again I was lucky. My mother put me in a school that had a strong reputation for music. It was when he saw I could play tennis that my father took an interest in my future. Putin liked to play it, so tennis was very much in fashion with the siloviki, the people of influence in the Kremlin.”
“I have a feeling that you may be more like your father than you think,” said Bruno. “It must have taken remarkable self-discipline to become so good at both tennis and music.”
They were interrupted by the two Macraes coming out from the clubhouse, their hair still wet from the shower.
“We’d better get back, Bruno,” said Kirsty. “Aren’t you going to shower, Galina?”
“I’ll come back with you rather than make you wait for me.”
“Okay, Bruno, we’ll see you with Florence, around seven.”
Bruno was changing after his shower when his phone rang. It was Albert, the captain of the pompiers and one of the two professional firemen on what was mainly a volunteer team.
“Bad news, Bruno. It’s the baron,” Albert began. Apparently some young idiot on a motocross bike skidded into his car. The airbag exploded and slammed his head back, causing a concussion. Bruno’s old friend was on his way to Périgueux, and Fabiola was with him.
“She says he should be okay, but at his age she wants him in the hospital and put through a scanner. Don’t go up there, she said to tell you. You’d just be in the way, and she’ll call you as soon as she has any news.”
“What about the kid who hit him?”
“A broken leg. He’s in the same ambulance. It’s young Thibaudin, the one whose dad works at the holiday village. His mother’s on the way to be with him.”
“Thanks for letting me know. Where did this happen?”
“Fifty meters from the baron’s house, about an hour ago. Raymond was coming back from the supermarket, saw the crash and called us. The baron had a nosebleed, so it looked worse than it probably is.”
Bruno went and told the youngsters who were having a drink at the bar. They were all fond of the baron, who helped drive them to away matches. They might even have to start thinking about finding a replacement for him, Bruno thought.
When he arrived at the riding school, Pamela said she’d already heard the news about the baron’s crash and had invited Gilles to have supper with her and Miranda and Jack Crimson, Miranda’s father.
“Please join us,” she said. “It’s going to be onion soup, a big lasagna I made, salad and cheese and then the new cherries, straight from the tree. We’ve got a fine crop this year and they’re delicious.”
It was that cusp of the seasons for Pamela, just before her gîtes were solidly rented out from June on and after the last of her cooking courses had ended the previous week. This was
the time her gîtes had to be thoroughly cleaned and any minor repairs and repainting done, and the maréchal made his annual visit to replace horseshoes. The first foal was due to be born any time in the next few days to Jenny, an American quarter horse that had come with the stables when Pamela and Miranda had bought the place. Two more foals were expected over the summer.
“Normally I would but Florence and I are invited to Château Rock this evening to hear them rehearse their concert and I feel obliged to be there.”
Pamela raised her eyebrows. “I thought you went there for dinner on Saturday to hear them.”
“This is a different program, normally done with a small orchestra rather than a string quartet, guitar and flute.”
“And why Florence?” she asked coolly, eyebrows still raised. Bruno saw that Pamela seemed unhappy about this and wondered why. She and Florence were good friends, and Pamela knew about Florence’s love of singing.
“Because she’s the lead soprano in the choral music they’ll be performing together,” he said, patiently. “Anyway, I just dropped by to let you know about the baron, and I’ll see you in the morning to exercise the horses.”
She nodded briskly, muttered something about preparing dinner and turned on her heel, leaving Bruno to wonder what was troubling her. Maybe it was the stress of the pregnant mare. He went after her and put his head around the kitchen door.
“Would you like me to come back after the rehearsal and sit up with you and the mare tonight?” he asked.
Pamela was standing at the kitchen sink, her back to him. “No, thank you,” she said, her voice stiff. “It’s good of you to offer, but the mare and I will do better on our own.”
Bruno drove back to St. Denis to pick up Florence. He waited until they were in his Land Rover before telling her of the baron’s crash.
“Don’t you want to go see him in the hospital?” she asked.
“Fabiola said not to go, but I’ll try to see him tomorrow unless they send him home. Fabiola said she thought they’d let him go after giving him a scan.”
“Even a mild concussion can be serious at his age.”
“He’s a tough old bird,” Bruno said, trying not to reveal his concern.
The evening began as it had on his previous visit as he and Kirsty took over the cooking. Kirsty had prepared a green salad and defrosted one of Bruno’s gazpachos. She said she planned a simple spaghetti dish, and she’d bought two apple pies in the market. Bruno glanced at the vegetable basket and the two cans of tomatoes and told her to leave the sauce to him while she and Meghan introduced Florence.
Bruno had never made a meatless spaghetti sauce before but shrugged and got on with it, slicing onions, garlic and zucchini. He trimmed some fresh green beans and fried them in olive oil before adding salt and pepper. He threw in the tomatoes and left the sauce on a very low heat before joining the others. He sat chatting with Rod and Meghan, watching the sun go down. Rod told Bruno they would all go to the studio after dinner so he could record the rehearsal.
“If it’s good, I’ll print up some CDs they can sell at the concerts,” Rod said as Kirsty went back to the kitchen to bring in the gazpacho. “We took some photos of them all earlier today, which we can use as a cover. They want to call themselves the Château Rock Ensemble, which pleases me.”
Kirsty brought out the gazpacho, and Bruno began slicing the big tourte of bread. With the musicians in a fine, excited mood it was a much more convivial evening than the previous one. Bruno’s sauce was declared a success, even by the nonvegetarians, and the meal ended quickly with the musicians keen to get to the recording studio.
When they all got there, Bruno sat to one side with Kirsty, Meghan and Florence as Jamie’s guitar began with the gentle, fluid notes of the opening, and then Galina’s flute came in boldly. Bruno saw that the two soloists had their eyes fixed on each other in a look that conveyed a perfect understanding. He realized with a small start that he felt no envy, even though he had never known such intimacy with another, except perhaps in lovemaking.
Chapter 16
Bruno arrived at the hospital in Périgueux early the next day to visit the baron, but despite wearing his police uniform, he was told to come back after lunch. He drove to the center of the city, parked in the square beside the cathedral and exchanged his uniform jacket for a red windbreaker. He walked along the rue Taillefer and crossed the road at place Bugeaud into rue du Président Wilson. Just before a bank, he entered an office building and climbed the stairs to the third floor, where Sarrail and Constant had their offices. He pulled out his phone, set it to camera and tried the door to Constant’s office. It was locked and there was no reply to his knock.
Back on the street, Bruno noticed a beauty parlor with a small sign that promised expert eyebrow treatments. Bruno could understand what was meant by threading; however, the offer of sugaring baffled him. He recalled that Guillaumat had spoken of the eyebrows on the young woman who had visited Driant, so he went in. He was greeted by a woman of around his own age, carefully made-up with sculpted eyebrows and improbably red hair. She closed the account book she was checking and smiled to reveal perfect teeth. He pulled aside his jacket to reveal the police badge, and her smile faded, but she managed a polite, “Bonjour, monsieur.”
“Bonjour, madame. I believe you have a client, Mademoiselle Lara Saatchi.”
“Yes, Lara from the new insurance agency upstairs. Is she all right?”
“That’s what we’re trying to establish. Would you have her home address or mobile number, please?”
“The number, certainly.” She turned to the computer screen at her side, pressed some keys and read out the number. “No home address, I’m afraid, only the office.”
“Thank you, we’ll start there. In case she’s not able to answer, you might have a credit card receipt,” he said, smiling. “We can get the address from that.”
She pulled a large file from a shelf beneath her desk, skimmed through and showed him a receipt for a credit card from Banque Nationale de Paris. He took note of the number and gave her his business card. “If you want to verify my credentials, please call Commissaire Prunier.”
He called Lara’s number, reached voice mail and left a message asking her to call him back urgently.
“Is there a problem with Lara?” the woman asked.
“I hope not, but we do need to check with her on an important matter,” he said, smiling. “I’ll call the credit card company for her home address.”
“They might not have it,” she said. “She uses a company credit card, from the insurance agency.”
“A generous employer,” he said. “And her eyebrows are a credit to your skills, madame. By the way, what is sugaring?”
“It’s a traditional method for removing unwanted hair with sugar, lemon juice and water. People like it because it’s natural, organic.”
“Thank you, madame. One learns something every day. Au revoir.”
He strolled back along the rue Taillefer toward the cathedral and spent a happy half hour browsing in Henri Millescamps’s antiquarian bookshop. Amid the leather-bound classics, collected sermons and nineteenth-century cookbooks he was pleased to find a memoir of a boat trip down the Vézère by two Englishmen on the eve of the Grande Guerre. He thought it would make an unusual birthday gift for Pamela, so he bought it. Satisfied with his morning, he went to the restaurant where he was meeting J-J and the man from the fisc, Goirau.
Bruno was glancing through the book when the door of the restaurant opened and J-J stood back to let Goirau precede him. Goirau was of average height and pencil-slim with close-cut gray hair. He was wearing a dark suit, blue shirt and a papillon, a bow tie, patterned in diagonal stripes of red, white and blue. When he shook hands, Bruno noted that his nails were manicured. There was something about his self-possession and his calculating glance that reminded Bruno of some of the care
er sous-officiers he had known in the army, men who were much more dangerous and more capable than they looked.
Goirau smiled with satisfaction when they were steered to what was clearly the best table in the restaurant, nestled under the medieval vault. He studied the menu with care, and like J-J and Bruno, he chose foie gras to begin, followed by the tête de veau. The important business of ordering done, Goirau got down to business.
“Gustave Sarrail is a Belgian citizen from Charleroi, but did his studies in Lille and then Paris before moving down to Menton in the nineties, just as the Russian nouveaux riches began looking to buy property on the Riviera.” He paused to taste the wine J-J had ordered, a lovely Montravel red from Château Moulin Caresse that Bruno always enjoyed.
“How agreeable to find a wine as good as this with such a charming name,” Goirau said, smiling.
It was a remark that made Bruno like the man more, but he remained wary. So far in his career, Bruno had encountered few members of the fisc, but he’d heard legendary tales of their skills, of people who played chess in their heads without looking at the board, filled in a sudoku grid after a cursory glance and mastered the CAP stock market in Paris, making fortunes from their investments.
“Sarrail enrolled in intensive Russian language classes, the first French notaire to do so, hired a pretty Russian girl as his assistant and began to make his fortune,” Goirau went on. “He didn’t come up on our screens until we realized that a great deal of this Russian money was dubious in origin and that he was one of a small group of notaires who worked closely with the private banks that were handling much of it. We suspected that he was getting it laundered through banks and investment companies the Russians had opened in Cyprus. Once the euro currency arrived, it all became much easier, and Sarrail prospered, in particular because he became closely associated with an oligarch now based in Europe called Igor Ivanovich Stichkin. He’s an ex-military man who turned businessman, and an old acquaintance of Putin. He was born in the Russian-speaking eastern part of Ukraine that Putin has since virtually reoccupied, a project which Stichkin backed with cash for the pro-Russian militia.”
The Shooting at Chateau Rock Page 13
