The Templars' Last Secret

by Martin Walker

  “No, it was another one, about fraud in the truffle market that led to a big case on illegal immigration.”

  “Where on earth did you hear about that?”

  “In magistrates’ school. We had a visiting lecturer from Eurojust telling us about European arrest warrants and different styles of policing. She told us about the importance of our municipal police here in France and mentioned St. Denis as an example.”

  Bruno felt a lump forming in his chest. There could be only one Eurojust official who knew about St. Denis and the truffle business.

  “Would that have been Commissaire Perrault?” he asked.

  “Isabelle Perrault, that’s right. You must know her. She said she used to be based down here. She’s great, a real star.”

  He nodded, the sadness that thoughts of Isabelle summoned mixing with pride that she had chosen to cite him as an example of local policing that she admired. The summer of their love affair was still the happiest time of his life, just as the weeks after her decision to move to Paris and pursue her career had been the saddest. A star indeed but not a lucky one for Bruno.

  And with that, they reached the door to Ivan’s bistro. The clock on the mairie was striking noon, which every good French citizen knew to be the signal for lunch.

  Chapter 7

  The price of Ivan’s daily lunch menu had risen to fourteen euros, which was still excellent value for the soup, homemade pâté, main course, salad with cheese and dessert, with a quarter liter of house wine included. The bistro was full, and not only because word had raced around town about Bruno’s new colleague from Paris. Ivan’s place was a local institution and, thanks to his love life, Ivan’s restaurant had steered the tastes of St. Denis in new directions. There had been all the variants of mussels, à la Normande, à la crème, au curry as well as the usual marinière, thanks to a Belgian girl he’d met on a beach in Ibiza and persuaded to return with him. When she stalked out and began walking with her suitcase to the station, the whole town had mourned with Ivan.

  After a springtime break in Turkey, Ivan had returned with a Spanish girl for a memorable summer menu of paella, tapas and gazpacho. Bruno could still almost taste her dessert of leche frita, a rich creamy center encased in flour and beaten egg, fried and then dusted with sugar and cinnamon. A German girl had turned the entire valley into admirers of her Wiener schnitzel, which she served with a rich and slightly tart potato salad. Ivan’s last holiday in Thailand and Malaysia had excited great expectations of curries cooked with coconut milk and lemongrass, which was what arrived, except that the girl had been Australian rather than Thai.

  Ivan was currently living and cooking alone. Mandy, the Australian, had gone to her wine course in Bordeaux, and Ivan was back to serving his traditional cuisine of the Périgord, which he did very well. But even as they fell with pleasure on his soups and his roast meat and fowl, the diners would sometimes fall silent, a distant look appearing on their faces. Like hunting dogs on a scent, they would cock their heads as if thinking with nostalgia of the other cuisines they were missing.

  And so when Ivan asked whether Amélie had enjoyed her meal and questioned her about her native cuisine, all other conversation ceased. When she said “Guadeloupe,” the chorus of wistful sighs was like a tropical breeze wafting through the room. Dreams of fresh fish steaming over the embers of a fire on the beach as the Caribbean sunset blazed in the west convened Ivan’s customers into the kind of spiritual union that Father Sentout’s Sunday sermons seldom achieved.

  “And what do you miss most about it?” Ivan asked.

  “Epice,” she said. “It’s the classic sauce, made of stewed peppers and garlic, parsley, thyme and green onions. We use it in everything, but I like it best on rice and red beans along with my mother’s chicken and cashew nuts.”

  Even though he had eaten well, Bruno felt his taste buds start to stir again, and around the room he saw others virtually licking their lips. Ivan asked, “Could you teach me how to make that?”

  “You’re a bad man, stealing my mother’s secrets,” Amélie said with a laugh, and the whole bistro chuckled with her.

  One by one, they came up to be introduced: Rollo, the headmaster of the local collège; Dougal, the Scotsman who ran the agency for holiday rentals, along with Hubert, who ran the town’s famous wine cave. It was Joe, Bruno’s predecessor as town policeman, who lingered longest. He took Amélie’s hand in his own gnarled paws and asked what wine the locals drank with Caribbean food.

  “People drink rum, sometimes with cola, sometime with a squeeze of lemon juice. Here in France, my parents usually drink rosé in summer and red wine in winter.”

  Joe looked at the carafe of Bergerac Sec white wine that Ivan had served. He bought ten-liter boxes of Cuvée Roxanne from Hubert’s cave, the same wine that Bruno usually bought in summer for everyday drinking.

  “And do you think our local Bergerac would go well with your Caribbean food?”

  “Very well,” Amélie replied, smiling at the courteous old man.

  “We’ll have to start her education in our wines, Bruno,” Joe said, and raised her hand to his lips before departing.

  “That was quick. Your first day and you’ve won over half the town,” Bruno said as they left, after an amiable dispute over the bill. Amélie insisted on buying lunch, saying she was being given a daily allowance for this mission, and it was only fair since she was dining as his guest the following evening.

  “Now we’ll head up the valley, since I have to see my two colleagues,” Bruno said. He put Balzac into the back of his van and they set off. “You said you’d sung in nightclubs. What do you sing?”

  “Anything at all,” she replied. “I started in a church choir and had childish dreams of being an opera singer, but then I discovered Broadway musicals and jazz. Then my mom bought me an album of Ella Fitzgerald and I fell in love with scat, improvised vocals that use the human voice like an instrument.”

  “You mean like wop-bop-a-doo-bop?”

  She laughed, a rich, comforting sound that warmed the heart and was so infectious that Bruno laughed in turn.

  “Not really, more like this.”

  And off she soared, with an extraordinary cascade of sounds, not a single word to be recognized, only the pure, clear notes and syllables that seemed to mark the rhythm, almost as if they replaced the drums of a jazz combo. She went on with infinite variations until she sang the title of the song that Bruno had groped to recognize. It was “How High the Moon.” He noticed that his fingers were beating time on the steering wheel, his head nodding in time with her music.

  “That’s wonderful,” he said. “I used to wonder if it just meant the singer had forgotten the words.”

  “Not at all, it’s about the creation of new sounds, new words, if you like. And it comes in different styles. Listen to Ella Fitzgerald sing scat and you can hear that she’s catching the sound of the big band era in which she began her career. Listen to Sarah Vaughan and it sounds like one of the bebop jazz combos where she started out. Two women, two styles, but all scat, jazz for the human voice. People in the Caribbean have sung that way for generations, and some claim it began with slaves singing African dialects when they were brought across the sea. Who knows? But it needn’t only be jazz. Listen.”

  She launched into a classic operatic aria, slow and evidently tragic, that Bruno half recognized. As she sang her invented sounds, he realized that it was not greatly different from hearing it sung in the original Italian, a language he did not know.

  “That’s from Tosca,” she said. “An aria called ‘Vissi d’Arte,’ and when I hear it performed by Leontyne Price it sounds like scat to me. Or listen to Maria Callas sing ‘Casta Diva’ from Norma and it’s the same. But that’s not all I sing. Do you like Cole Porter and Irving Berlin?”

  Without waiting for an answer she launched into “Cheek to Cheek,” a song Bruno knew in a French version by Daniel Roure. Although she was a far-better singer, he began singing along, he in Frenc
h, Amélie in English, until they stopped at the roundabout before Les Eyzies.

  “Thank you, I enjoyed that,” he said, driving on when the road cleared. “Normally I only sing for my dog. Or in the shower.”

  “I usually have to sing alone these days, so it’s good to share it with someone. You can carry a tune well.”

  “Have you stopped performing?”

  “Mostly,” she said, and shrugged. “When I was at law school there wasn’t time, except for parties, singing for friends. I’d love to keep it up, although I’m not sure it would do my career much good.”

  “We do free concerts on the riverbank in St. Denis during the tourist season, so if you ever want a vacation, all expenses paid and a modest fee for singing in the evening, we can sign you up right away. I organize the concerts and do the bookings.”

  “I’m flattered. It sounds like fun and it’s something to add to my notes about your work as a policeman.”

  He parked the car in the shadow of a huge cliff towering over the long main street of Les Eyzies. As they climbed out, he pointed upward to where a giant statue of a man, done in primitive style, gazed out from a ledge in the cliff across the town and the river.

  “That’s our Cro-Magnon man, a symbol of all the prehistory we have within a hundred meters of where you’re standing. I always salute him when I pass.”

  Louise Varenne, the town policewoman, was waiting for them at the mairie. She showed no surprise at Amélie’s presence; Bruno assumed Sergeant Jules must have phoned ahead to tip her off. Bruno had introduced Yveline, Jules and his wife to both of his police colleagues up the valley over a barbecue of fresh-caught trout in his garden. It was the first time that Louise had met the gendarme commandante socially, and now they were on first-name terms, which did wonders for their cooperation. Food, Bruno believed, was a village policeman’s secret weapon. The more people who came to eat at his table, the more he heard and learned and the more welcome he was in the twelve hundred households that made up the commune of St. Denis.

  “I made copies of your photo of the dead woman and took it around the campsites, shops and cafés,” Louise said after welcoming them, including Balzac. “No success so far except for the owner of the gas station who thinks the woman filled the tank of a silver Peugeot Traveller a couple of days ago. No credit card slip, though. She paid cash.”

  Bruno related what the count had told him about previous break-ins at Commarque. “Do you know of any Templar enthusiasts around here?”

  “Dozens, after that spate of bestselling novels came out all about them,” Louise replied. “I read some of them myself. But I don’t think the craze lasted, except for people living off the tourist trade.”

  Half the shops in the region offered toy swords, plastic helmets and child-sized white surcoats emblazoned with a red cross. English tourists thought these items celebrated their warlike ancestors while all the others knew it as the sign of the Templars.

  “Do you know anywhere that sells blue-green nylon rope or climbing ropes?” Bruno went on. “Dr. Stern found some strands on the body.”

  “No, but my brother’s in the climbing club,” Louise said, reaching for her phone and calling him to explain her query. She listened a moment, thanked him and said she’d e-mail him a photo of the dead woman in case she was known to any of the climbers.

  “He says it doesn’t sound like proper climbing rope, more like the cheap nylon stuff available in hardware stores. I’ll let you know if anyone recognizes the woman.”

  Bruno thanked her and led the way around the corner to the museum, where he embraced the two women at the ticket desk, introduced Amélie and asked if Clothilde was in her office. They knew he was to be a témoin at Clothilde’s wedding, and he was told to go straight up. Climbing the stairs, he was explaining to Amélie that Clothilde was one of the leading prehistorians in France, when he heard footsteps above him and a voice saying, “Stop it, Bruno, you’ll make me blush. You’d better not put any of that flattery into your wedding speech.”

  A small powerhouse of a woman appeared, with fiery-red hair piled on her head and held in place with a pencil. She wore a green-and-white-striped man’s shirt over black leggings. Reading glasses dangled from a chain around her neck.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting,” Bruno said, kissing her and introducing Amélie. “I need to pick your brains about a woman found dead beneath the cliff at Commarque this morning.” He showed her the photo and explained that the count thought she might have been a Templar fan. And he asked about the pose that echoed the Venus of Laussel.

  Clothilde shook her head at the photo. “I don’t know her, but I can scan the photo and put it on my Facebook page. A lot of us archaeologists stay in touch that way. But I can’t see an archaeologist climbing up something. We usually dig down.”

  “What about these letters?” He showed her his photo of the graffiti. “We think she was writing them in graffiti on the wall of the donjon when she fell. Do they mean anything to you, any language that springs to mind?”

  “Sorry, no. But I can tell you it’s not English.” Clothilde turned to Bruno. “Oh, Bruno, did you know that the ground-penetrating radar and seismic team are coming this very week and working near where that woman fell? It’s going to play hell with all my plans for the wedding. Horst and I will have to be there when they’re working, so we may have to call on you to tie up various loose ends.”

  “I’d better ask the Police Nationale if they’re still treating it as a crime scene, but whatever happens, I’ll do my best to help out.” He grinned at her. “You’ll be pleased to hear that I’ve got my speech drafted. When does your dame d’honneur arrive?”

  “Lydia Manners is flying in from London on Friday with her husband to be in time for the dîner des témoins at Laugerie Basse. They’re opening the inside cave for us, and we’ll dine in there. Her husband is English, a former soldier, so you and he should get on. She’s American, but they live in Oxford where she works at the Ashmolean Museum. And don’t forget you’re organizing the bachelor dinner with Horst and his male friends on Thursday. And for God’s sake don’t let him drink too much.”

  “Have you heard of some Templar scholar in Sarlat called Dumesnil?” Bruno asked. “The count mentioned him as an expert I might consult.”

  “Dumesnil? You’ll meet him at the wedding. Both Horst and I think the world of him. A brilliant man, he’s written one of the few really good books on the Templars. He teaches history in Brive, but if you get a chance, visit him at home in Sarlat. It’s like entering a medieval cloister, and he’s said to follow the Benedictine rule, although he’s not a priest.”

  “What’s that?” asked Amélie.

  “Monastic prayer discipline. Matins at midnight, Lauds at three in the morning, that kind of thing. If you ask me, he’s slightly crazy, but brilliant in his way, of course. He could waltz into a job at any university in Europe, but he says that being a schoolteacher is his version of the public service of the rule. He’s an odd duck, but he’s very engaging at the same time.”

  “He follows the rule, but he’s not a monk?” Bruno asked.

  “No, nor is he a priest. Auguste claims to have no vocation, but if you ask me it’s because they stopped holding services in Latin. He also helps with the choir at Sarlat Cathedral.”

  After more coffee with Clothilde, Bruno and Amélie headed up the main road to Sarlat, Bruno pointing out the various prehistoric sites and châteaux along the way before turning off to Cap Blanc to ask the staff if they recognized the dead woman. When he’d checked the parking lot earlier that morning, the cave had not yet been opened to the public. The woman selling tickets looked carefully at the photo and said she remembered her buying some local guidebooks two or three days earlier.

  “She spoke French like someone who hadn’t lived here for a long time,” the woman added. “It was perfect, but a bit old-fashioned, a bit stilted. And she had some American dollars in her purse along with the euros. I remember her because she
asked if there was a path across the valley to Commarque, and I pointed it out to her. It’s not easy to find through the trees. And I noticed she was wearing walking shoes and carrying a rucksack. She took it off to put the books inside.”

  Bruno made a note and thanked her before heading back to his van, telling Amélie he’d have to make sure all the hotels and campsites and rental agencies were shown the photo. “If she’s a foreigner or a visitor from another country I’ll have to get the foreign ministry to circulate her photo to the embassies. Tracking missing persons is about the most time-consuming job I know.”

  “Can’t you use facial recognition software?” she asked. “I know there’s a pilot scheme at the interior ministry trying to use the database of the photos on French ID cards, and you could try the Americans. If she had dollars in her purse, she may well have been to the U.S., and they’ll have her photo on file.”

  Surprised to hear this, Bruno glanced sideways at her as he drove. “In all the tons of paperwork I get sent by the various ministries, there’s never been anything about identifying unknown persons from the photos on their ID cards. It could be very useful. I don’t think J-J knows about it; he’s the chief detective for the département.”

  Amélie was already tapping at her phone, and Bruno noticed that she was doing so faster than he could type.

  “Ever since the ISIS attack in Paris,” she said, “there have been a lot of new projects to exploit the databases the state already controls—ID cards, driving licenses, passports, criminal records. It’s a huge job, and I don’t know how far they’ve gotten with it, but I’m sending the photo to a friend from law school who’s working at the Ministry of the Interior. Maybe she can run it through their database and also send the request to Interpol. It’s ridiculous that you haven’t been informed of these new capabilities,” she said as she finished texting. “That’s exactly the kind of information I need to put in my report. How often do you see this J-J?”

  “A lot. He’ll check in with me about anything that comes up in this part of the département. I saw him this morning at Commarque after I called him about the dead woman. A suspicious death is his business. We work well together, and strictly speaking it’s his job to identify her, but I’ll always try to use our local contacts to help. Just because the Police Nationale and the gendarmes and I have three different employers, I don’t think that stops us working together. We’re all on the same side.”