The Shooting at Chateau Rock

by Martin Walker

  “Bruno, thanks for calling back. Château Rock has a buyer. It’s a private sale, so we don’t have to pay commission to the real-estate agent. And here’s the best part. It’s staying in the family, sort of. Jamie and Galina are getting married, and Galina is the buyer. How about that? I knew she was loaded, but I didn’t know she was that rich. She’s buying it en viager, so I can stay here till I die, but she owns it. Then it’s hers, or rather hers and Jamie’s. That means tonight’s dinner after the rehearsal will be a kind of celebration, so don’t miss it.”

  Bruno was so startled that he sat down. En viager: it was often used by elderly people so they could stay on in their homes with a large percentage of the cash they would get from a sale. He wasn’t sure what he thought about the deal but knew he’d have to say something. “Well, congratulations, both to you and to them, and to Meghan as well. It seems everyone gets what they want.”

  “Yeah, it means Meghan will have enough cash to buy a decent house in Britain, and it looks as if I’ll be moving into the cottage, which will suit me because I’ll still have the recording studio. Jamie and Galina are planning to set up a residential music school, once she graduates from the conservatoire, to host students from London and Paris for the summer concert season. My old booking agent in London called to say it looks as though my comeback album is going to happen. One more thing: Kirsty has told me about her plans to go into the wine trade. Since she’ll still get a university degree, I’m happy with that. Kirsty and Galina say we have to call the wine Château Rock with a picture of me in my wild days on the label.”

  “Mon Dieu, this is all happening very fast,” said Bruno.

  “That’s what Meghan said, until Jamie reminded her that she was a lot younger than him when she married me. We’ll see you tonight. The champagne is on me.”

  “Have you told Nathalie? She won’t be happy at losing her commission.”

  “I haven’t reached her yet, but I’ll make sure she gets something out of the deal. Gotta go, Bruno. We’re off to Brosseil’s office to sign the compromis de vente. See you at the rehearsal.”

  Bruno called the mayor to inform him and to ask whether Jamie and Galina ought to be warned of the possible complications of the bail agricole. Since Brosseil had drawn up the vineyard lease, he knew all about it, the mayor said, and would adjust the deal accordingly.

  Three hours later, saddling up the horses with Pamela, Fabiola and Gilles, who was just back from Paris, Bruno passed on the news. The two women agreed that while they were glad the Macrae family would stay, Jamie and Galina were far too young to get married. Gilles, who had been trying to persuade Fabiola to marry him since their affair had begun, was all in favor of the plan. He appealed to Bruno for support, but Bruno ducked the question as he usually did in such matters, suggesting it all depended on the individuals.

  “It’s not as though they have much in common,” said Pamela.

  “They have a shared passion for music,” Bruno replied.

  “Yes, but she’s Russian, and Jamie is Scottish by ancestry and French by upbringing and education.”

  “Not exactly,” said Fabiola. “When we were going through Meghan’s family medical history, she told me her grandmother lived till the age of ninety-five and she was from Ukraine. Apparently during the war she worked as a kitchen maid for a German family who was trying to settle in Poland. She went back to Germany with them, and after the war she married a Scottish soldier and moved to Glasgow. So Meghan is one-quarter Ukrainian.”

  “But Meghan goes to church here, so she must be Catholic, not Orthodox,” said Pamela.

  “The Uniate church in Ukraine considers its worshippers Catholics and the pope agrees,” said Gilles. “He even made their patriarch into a cardinal. I had to do an article on it, years ago.”

  “And although her parents are Ukrainian and Russian, Galina is a citizen of Cyprus, at least that’s what her passport says,” said Bruno.

  “What a jumble we are all becoming these days,” said Pamela, laughing.

  “It’s good for us, mixes up the gene pool,” said Fabiola.

  Bruno found himself thinking of the number of Ukrainian connections that suddenly seemed to have gathered around Château Rock. There was Meghan herself, Galina and her father and Bertie, plus Gilles’s book. Bruno smiled, thinking of Pamela saying that whenever she came across a coincidence, it was just like London buses—none arrive for ages and then three or four come at once.

  An hour later, they were seated on spindly wooden chairs in the small twelfth-century church in the hilltop village of Audrix, already a third filled by the St. Denis choir and the musicians from Château Rock. Behind them, the rest of the nave filled with locals and relatives of the choristers. Father Sentout began with a few words on the church’s history. He said it was used as a fortified strongpoint overlooking two valleys by both the French and English during the Hundred Years’ War. Then he signaled to the choir to begin with Mozart’s “Laudate Dominum.”

  When the last notes died away, Jamie strummed the first four opening chords of the Concierto de Aranjuez and Galina came in with the flute. Then the strings came in. The acoustics were perfect, the harsh echoes of the stone walls softened by the people filling the nave. Bruno closed his eyes and let his mind drift with the captivating music.

  Then the choir sang Tchaikovsky’s “Cherubim,” and tears gathered in Galina’s eyes while the strings played the Schubert quartet with guitar that they had rehearsed. She kept her eyes on Jamie, and his were on her, as they launched into Schubert’s opus 100 with the strings, keeping it as lively as a march or perhaps as a formal dance, the flute punctuating each step. It was a good way to end the concert, Bruno thought, a cheerful yet haunting tune that the crowd could hum as they left.

  And then came the surprise. Jamie rose from his chair, propped his guitar against it and moved across to something Bruno had not noticed, an electronic keyboard on a stand, and pumped out what sounded like a trumpet playing the opening notes of the “Marseillaise.” Then the choir came in chanting, “Love, love, love,” and choir and strings all together launched into the Beatles’ song “All You Need Is Love.”

  First Father Sentout stood to roar out the words followed by most of the rest of the audience, who joined in with the choir. Bruno turned to see the people of Audrix behind him, all singing away. Then he caught sight of Nathalie, arm in arm with Philippe Delaron, joining in with the singing. Nathalie blew him a kiss and Bruno blew one back as Philippe hugged her close.

  Then Rod came from the back of the choir with his electric guitar and played the riff that George Harrison had made famous. The stones of the old church resonated with the voices, the instruments and the choir together as if after nine hundred years the church itself was rocking with the music.

  “Mon Dieu, that was magnificent,” said Bruno embracing Pamela, Fabiola and even Father Sentout. In a moment, everyone in the church seemed to be embracing everyone else, clapping and cheering as they began to leave. Suddenly another riff came from Rod’s electric guitar, instantly recognizable from his greatest hit. He repeated it a few times and the crowd fell silent.

  “Thank you all for being part of this wonderful evening, and it’s not over yet,” Rod shouted in his primitive French. “Non, c’est pas fini. Tonight we celebrate not only music but also love because my son, Jamie, the wonderful guitarist, and Galina, the beautiful young woman on the flute, have decided to get married. So you are all invited to help us celebrate on the terrace of the auberge next door, where I have booked the entire terrace for champagne and a buffet supper for us all. Bon appétit, et vive la musique, vive l’amour.”

  Chapter 23

  Bruno was still smiling at the memory of the music and the celebration as he began his patrol of the market, Balzac at his side, shortly before eight the next morning. Everyone, including some of the merchants setting up their stalls, seemed
to have been at the Audrix church, or at least they’d heard about it. The stall selling tickets for the summer concerts of the conservatoire students was already surrounded by eager buyers.

  “That was a great evening,” said Fauquet, serving Bruno his coffee and croissant and bending down to give Balzac a corner of a doughnut. “And today’s the day for this little guy, I hear.”

  “Where did you hear that?” Bruno asked, and Fauquet pointed to a corner of the café where the mayor was enjoying his own breakfast and reading Sud Ouest. He waved Bruno over, clearing away copies of Le Monde, Nouvel Obs and Figaro that awaited his attention.

  “Philippe told me last night he’d be running a piece about last night’s concert in the paper tomorrow,” the mayor said. He looked down at Balzac, who was gazing hopefully at Bruno’s croissant. “Do you think he has any idea about his fate? It is today that you take him to the breeder?”

  “Yes, I’ll set off after the market closes. But no, I imagine it will all come as a big surprise for him. But he’s old enough and he couldn’t be in better shape. It’s not as though it hasn’t happened to millions of dogs before.”

  “It’s always different when it’s the first time for your own dog. Tell me about this new citizen of the region we’re getting, Galina. I know she’s a talented musician and very lovely, but how did she get a Cyprus passport?”

  “Her very rich father bought citizenship for his family, presumably so she could live and work in Europe and perhaps as a precaution against things going sour in Russia. She also has Ukrainian citizenship through her mother, but she was brought up in Moscow.”

  “Where did his money originally come from?”

  “Russia—mines and auto dealerships are what I heard, and an old friendship with Putin.”

  “That worries me,” said the mayor.

  “Me too, and I told you about the fisc taking an interest. And the brigadier, but the only instructions I’ve had from him are to keep up the pressure on Constant and Sarrail.”

  “That sounds promising, and my best wishes for Balzac’s big day and let’s hope it’s the first of many.”

  “Big day?” asked Yveline, the local gendarme commander who had just come into the café.

  “This afternoon Balzac will be initiated into one of the great mysteries of life,” said the mayor. “He’s off to a breeding kennel for his first mating.”

  “Oh, the dear little fellow,” Yveline said, smiling broadly. “Put me down for one of his daughters and I don’t care what she costs.”

  “Join the queue,” said the mayor.

  Back at home after the market closed at noon, Bruno changed into jeans and a polo shirt and packed a cooler with a homemade pâté of foie gras and a bottle of Monbazillac from Clos l’Envège, of the vintage when he had been on the jury that named it best of the year. He added a Tomme d’Audrix cheese made by his friend Stéphane, a bag of cherries plucked in his garden and a dozen eggs from his chickens. In a separate cardboard box he placed a large paper bag full of his homemade dog biscuits, a bottle of Château de Tiregand from the Grand Millésime year of 2011 and a glass jar containing confit de canard, sealed in its own fat, which he’d made the previous winter.

  He left food and water for his geese and chickens and checked that his shotguns were securely locked away. He put his own official handgun into the small safe he’d been required to install in the trunk of his vehicle and removed from the roof the blue light that identified his car as that of a police officer on duty. He tossed his own overnight bag into the back, helped Balzac onto the passenger seat and set off. Installing the CD Rod Macrae had given him into the player he had added to the old Land Rover, Bruno began to enjoy the drive through a Périgord that was surging with the full thrust of spring, when roses seemed to flower from tight buds overnight and the green of new leaves was so bright it almost dazzled the eye. The air was fresh and clear, and when he drove up onto the plateau, he felt he could see forever, east to the dead volcanoes of the Massif Central and north to the great forests of the Limousin.

  He had time to make a pleasant trip of it, going through Montignac and Terrasson. He took the old road to Brive, avoiding the autoroute and wondering how his brief reunion with Isabelle would go. He knew that however much passion and delight there might be, he would make this return drive feeling a deep sadness at what might have been, what should have been, between them. But Isabelle was married to her career, and she claimed he was wed to St. Denis. As long as neither one of them could resist the chance of catching these brief times together, Bruno knew he could never fully give his heart to another woman. He suspected it was the same for her. Could they someday summon the determination to make a final break, to give each of them the chance to find another love? Would the sound of her voice on the phone ever cease to excite him, or seeing one of her laconic postcards in his mail?

  It would be so much simpler if I were a basset, thought Bruno, glancing at Balzac, who was sitting up, alert to watch the passing world as they entered the suburbs of Brive, probably the largest city Balzac had ever seen. They had twenty minutes before Isabelle’s train arrived. Bruno parked by the station and took Balzac for a stroll up the avenue Jean Jaurès and across to the park opposite the post office, where Balzac lifted his leg. Then they went to pay their respects at the Monument aux Morts. The first city in France to liberate itself by its own efforts in 1944, it had been a key Resistance center. Indeed, the Resistance had started here, on June 17, 1940, the day before de Gaulle’s speech from London, when Edmond Michelet had delivered a call to resist to every mailbox in the city. Now, groups of old men were playing pétanque around the monument.

  The train was on time, and Isabelle, looking wonderful in black slacks and a red turtleneck, an overnight bag on her shoulder, dropped to one knee on the station platform and opened her arms wide. Even before she called out his name Balzac was thundering toward her, with little yelps of delight. Bruno stood, smiling as he watched, until it was his turn for a welcome that was very nearly as fond and lasted almost as long. He doubted if anyone in the station but him knew that this glorious young woman was running the team that coordinated antiterrorist operations for the European Union. He took her bag and, arm in arm, they went back to the Land Rover, where Isabelle insisted on sharing the rear seat with the dog.

  “We’ll go by a place you’ll remember,” he said when they got onto the road heading northeast out of town, after Isabelle had commented that she didn’t know this part of the Périgord. They drove along, chatting easily for a while, until the talk turned to work, and Bruno was reminded that, despite their intimacy, Isabelle was a cool, self-possessed career woman who was rising fast in French security.

  Isabelle explained that the previous day she’d attended a meeting in Brussels with her own group and General Lannes, who gave a briefing on the latest Russian operations in Europe.

  “You remember the Dutch caught a bunch of Russian military intelligence guys trying to hack into their computers,” she said. “This was after they used the Novichok nerve agent in England. Lannes introduced a Ukrainian counterespionage official who gave us a lot of details on Russian sanctions busting. The Ukrainians want Europe to get tougher, and so do we. And the interesting name that came up was Stichkin.”

  “But Stichkin’s operations in Cyprus, Malta and Luxembourg give him some protection,” said Bruno. “That’s three EU votes in his favor, right there.”

  “Exactly, so we’ll need something else. Remember what J-J always said? Trace it back the other way, in this case from the Ukrainian end. The experts on Ukraine are the Poles, who have a love-hate relationship with most of their neighbors, including Ukraine. But they love France, so they tell us things.”

  “Why should they love France?”

  “History,” she replied. “Did you know the Polish national anthem is the only one in the world that mentions Napoléon? That’s because he creat
ed the Duchy of Warsaw with the promise of independence after they had been carved up between Prussia, Austria and Russia. Polish legions fought for France, even at Waterloo. And like Britain, France went to war against Hitler to protect Poland.”

  “And what do the Poles tell us?”

  “To watch out for trouble from extremist Ukrainian nationalists, some of them with very discreet backing from the military and some of them Ukrainian expats who hate Russia. We have a few in France that we keep an eye on. You know at least two. One is that real-estate agent Nathalie de Villiers, born Nataliya Vershigora, whose elder brother was one of the scores shot dead in the Maidan in Kiev in February 2014. The other is Matviyiko Bondarchuk, known to his friends at London’s Royal College of Music as a Canadian called Bertie. The Brits tipped us off about him when he came for an exchange semester at the conservatoire. He had a cousin among the dead. Ukraine considers them martyrs, the ‘Heavenly Hundred.’ ”

  Bruno digested this, thinking back to Bertie’s abortive fight with Sasha. “Anything known about Meghan Macrae, wife of the old rock star?” he asked. “She has a Ukrainian grandmother?”

  “Not yet, but get me a family name, something I can give the Brits so they can check their records.”

  “Galina—Stichkin’s daughter—is she Ukrainian, Russian, Cypriot or what?”

  “Yes to all three. Stichkin is of Russian origin but born, like Galina, in Donetsk, in the eastern Ukraine. The city used to be called Stalino, after Stalin. Since the region declared itself independent of Ukraine and the war began, posters of Stalin are now back openly on the streets, along with Russian troops in plainclothes. But her father bought her a Cypriot passport, which gives her European citizenship.”