A Taste for Vengeance

by Martin Walker

“Don’t worry about that, I’ll squeeze into the minivan with Miranda’s paying guests,” Crimson said. “And with any luck I’ll be in time to get to the club and raise a glass to Paulette in person and buy you a drink. I gather you made a splendid stand-in for me on the vineyard tour, and Miranda told me Gilles and Fabiola and the baron all back your plan to resume the Monday dinners. I’m delighted—I’ve been missing them, too.”

  The call ended. Bruno added a note to the case file that Crimson would be returning later that day and asking whether any extra security might be advisable. Then he logged on to the online edition of Kathleen’s newspaper to see a photo of a much younger Jack Crimson wearing some kind of medal after an investiture at Buckingham Palace.

  EX-SPY CHIEF FLED DEATH SQUAD was the headline, Kathleen’s byline beneath it and datelined St. Denis. The second paragraph said that the arrest of the IRA team meant it was now thought safe for Crimson to return to his home in France. On an inside page was a photo of Crimson’s home, with the caption “Spymaster’s French château.” Beneath the photo were some words too small to read. He enlarged the image and read “Photo credit: P. Delaron.”

  Bruno shook his head in disbelief. Did these newspaper people not understand that they had probably increased the danger to Crimson? The old diehards of the IRA were not the only terrorists who might be interested in targeting someone like him. Or were the journalists too arrogant to care?

  He sighed heavily before checking his watch, helping Balzac onto the passenger seat of his Land Rover and heading for Pamela’s riding school. There would be time to ride Hector before joining the cooking class for a farewell lunch of oysters at the market in St. Cyprien. The ride might calm him down, which was what Bruno needed before seeing Kathleen again. In his current mood, he’d be tempted to stuff the oysters down her throat, shells and all, but that wouldn’t help Pamela get the good publicity she wanted.

  Pamela, Miranda and the guests had gone, and their luggage was already piled up outside the barn where the lessons had been held, waiting for the trip to Bergerac airport. Bruno found only Félix and his parents, each of them making a useful twenty euros for cleaning the guest rooms and the barn, changing the sheets and loading the washing machines, and getting ready for the next contingent, who would be flying in on the same plane that took the departing guests back to England.

  Bruno enjoyed his solitary ride, cantering along the ridge at a moderate speed so that Balzac would not fall too far behind. In the back of his mind Bruno was working out the economics of Pamela’s cooking venture. He knew she charged eight hundred euros per person, reduced to fourteen hundred for a couple. This week she’d had only three paying couples since the two single women were sharing a room and Kathleen was getting a free place, so Pamela and Miranda would make four thousand two hundred. Their dinner at the Vieux Logis would certainly cost a hundred per head, and the lunch at La Tour des Vents fifty or sixty. The two professional chefs, Ivan and Raoul, were being paid five hundred each, and Odette took a hundred for her skills in finding and preparing the various local mushrooms. Pamela was also paying Lespinasse at the garage four hundred a week to rent the Ford Transit minivan, but that included the fuel.

  In addition, the two women had to feed their guests, buy the wine, the Sunday oyster lunch, all the cooking ingredients and also pay the cleaners. Pamela’s profit would barely reach a thousand euros, which meant five hundred each for her and Miranda after a long week’s work. That wasn’t all, Bruno reminded himself. They also had to run the riding school and stables, and Miranda had her children to care for.

  Not for the first time, Bruno mentally raised his cap to the small business people of the Périgord, on whose hard work the tourist trade depended. An extra couple, or some singles, would make a lot of difference to Pamela’s profit, but eight guests was the most they could squeeze into the minivan. Even though with all the gîtes filled she could accommodate seven or even eight couples, she would have to change to a small bus, which would cost far more. And there would be less personal attention to the cooking lessons. So it was a good thing that he and Jack Crimson gave their services for free, Bruno thought, although Pamela had tried to offer him some money. In fact, Bruno enjoyed the lesson he gave, proud to show off the cuisine of his region. And it was good for his English.

  Back at the riding school he rubbed down Hector, remembering that Pamela refused to accept any stable fee for his horse, and then sluiced himself off at the sink before heading off to St. Cyprien with Balzac in tow. Bruno was fond of the medieval town up on the hill, founded by monks in the seventh century, who had begun building walls around their monastery after the first Viking raids. The old town clustered around the abbey and bell tower, which dated back to the twelfth century, albeit much rebuilt after being sacked and burned in the sixteenth-century wars of religion. The locals liked to claim that their ancestors had called this district Montmartre after the mount of martyrs long before the Parisians had stolen the name. Occupied by the English in the Hundred Years’ War, the upper town boasted a house that had been occupied by Talbot, the renowned English commander whose name lives on in the great wine of St. Julien in the Médoc, Château Talbot.

  The market was held every Sunday morning at the foot of the hill, more than filling the long, straight main street of rue Gambetta. Bruno recalled that Pamela had planned to park at the top and give her guests a downhill walking tour, so he strolled through the market to see if they had reached it yet. He knew some of the stallholders from St. Denis. He stopped to chat with his friend Stéphane at his cheese stall and heard that Pamela’s group had already been buying from him and from Gérard with his handwoven baskets. He found the group stocking up on foie gras, duck sausages and dried mushrooms to take back on the plane. Since they had already been buying wine and cheese, he assumed their suitcases would be bulging.

  “There you are, Bruno,” said Pamela as her guests shook his hand and smiled their welcomes. “Ready for your oysters?”

  The town was known for a fine fishmonger with his own restaurant, the Cro Marin, which on Sunday mornings offered plates of fresh oysters with white wine and bread. Pamela had originally planned to have a farewell brunch at the riding school, but Miranda had persuaded her that their guests would appreciate a last opportunity to buy delicacies at the market. The sun was out and it was warm enough to sit outside. Bruno found himself between the two friendly older women, Alice and Vera, but he was then not greatly surprised to find that Kathleen had maneuvered herself into the place opposite him, and was now fixing him with a gimlet eye.

  He bit back the angry comment he was sorely tempted to make. “Sorry to be leaving?” he asked her.

  “You don’t get rid of me that easily,” she replied with a guarded smile. “The paper asked me to stay on to keep up with developments, so I’ll be moving into a hotel in Lalinde to be near the action.”

  “I don’t think there’s much action these days,” he said mildly.

  “Not so. I was outside the Lalinde house early this morning and saw that tall man from the FBI and a big truck unloading a large machine, which I learned was ground-penetrating radar. So I presume you’re looking for buried treasure, probably linked to that FBI press release about the eighteen million dollars that went missing in Iraq.”

  “You have been busy,” he said. “I’m only a village policeman, so I imagine you know much more about all this than I do.”

  “Come off it, Bruno. You’ve been awarded the Croix de Guerre and the police medal of honor. I’m told you’re a bit of a legend in these parts.”

  “Really, the Croix de Guerre?” said Alice. “Goodness gracious, what war was that?”

  “He was with the UN peacekeepers in Sarajevo and pulled men out of a burning armored car during a mortar attack on the airport,” said Kathleen. “Then he pulled two immigrant children out of a burning house.”

  Merde, thought Bruno. She must also ha
ve been talking to Gilles, whom Bruno had first met in Sarajevo. Only he would have known about the airport attack. And no doubt Philippe Delaron would have been showing off his own local knowledge. He looked at Kathleen, wondering if she might have become Philippe’s latest conquest.

  “Sarajevo, that was in the Balkans, wasn’t it?” asked Alice. “I remember seeing the pictures on the TV news and thinking how dreadful it must have been.”

  Mercifully at that point the plates of oysters arrived, swiftly followed by the carafes of chilled white wine. Bruno busied himself pouring wine, handing the bread and slices of lemon around and helping Alice and Vera loosen the oysters from their shells.

  “I hope you enjoyed your time with us,” he said to Vera in an attempt to keep Kathleen from the interrogation she doubtless had in mind. The women confided that they’d had a wonderful time, enjoyed every minute and learned a lot.

  “We loved the visits too, all those castles and the caves. We could have done with more of that,” said Alice.

  As Kathleen leaned forward to start again, Bruno forestalled her by turning to Vera. “You’ve tried an oyster with a squeeze of lemon juice, so now try it with this.” He handed her the small bowl of chopped shallots in vinegar.

  “And then with this,” he went on, still keeping Kathleen at bay by handing Vera a bowl of cocktail sauce that the fishmonger made only for tourists. Bruno had never tried it. “These various sauces make the oysters taste different every time.”

  “Thank you, dear, but I like them simply as they come. Do you remember that trip we made to Whitstable, Alice? Those lovely fat oysters we had there.”

  “Do you carry your gun when you’re out of uniform?” Kathleen asked in French, interrupting Vera.

  Bruno stared at her without answering, suddenly and with a touch of dismay seeing a parallel between this sharp and aggressive journalist and Isabelle. Like hers, Kathleen’s focus on her career and her ambition served to conceal, or perhaps to protect, something beneath that was softer and more vulnerable. But Kathleen looked both older and harder than Isabelle, with a tightness around her eyes and a brittleness in her manner that hinted at the price she paid for her work. Bruno wondered, Was this how Isabelle would look after a few more years?

  “Well, do you?” she pressed, a mocking glint in her eye that said she was enjoying the opportunity to needle him. He recalled what her paper had done to Jack Crimson that morning and Bruno’s patience snapped.

  “Do you think before you write?” he said, speaking English so that the rest of the table would understand him. “Or do you never worry about putting people’s lives at risk as you did with your story in the paper this morning? You even published a photo of where Crimson lives, and another of what he looks like, even though you know he’s being targeted by the IRA.”

  “The IRA team have been arrested,” she said, blustering. “It’s a legitimate news story.”

  “And how did you find out Crimson was coming back?” Bruno went on, aware that the rest of those at the table had fallen silent and were staring at him. “I can’t believe Miranda would have told you if she thought you’d print it and put her father’s life at risk. Or maybe her children told you their grandpa was coming home without knowing how you would use it. Do you have no sense of decency? No sense of honor?”

  Kathleen had retreated as far as she could from Bruno’s anger, her back pressed hard against her chair, her fists clenched, her mouth open. She glanced to her left and right, at the fascinated faces of the rest of the table.

  “You printed that in your paper today?” Miranda demanded, rising to her feet. “Is that why you were talking to my children yesterday?”

  “Don’t you believe in a free press?” Kathleen snapped in return, but her eyes were on Bruno.

  He was saved from answering by his phone. As soon as he heard Hodge’s voice, he pushed back from the table and walked away from the group.

  “I’m at Rentoul’s place, where we’ve found what we think is his safe,” the American said. “If you want to be here when we open it, you’d better get moving.”

  “On my way.” Bruno offered his apologies to Pamela and made his farewells to the group. He was gratified to be given a kiss by both Alice and Vera, handshakes from the rest and a hug from Miranda. Kathleen, he saw, was left sitting alone. Alice, Vera and the others had shifted their chairs to turn their backs on her.

  He called Balzac away from the chunks of bread and occasional oyster the English were slipping to the dog with such appealing eyes. Bruno drove back home, swiftly changed into uniform and took his new gun from the locked arms cabinet and donned the holster. He left Balzac in the garden, refilling his water bowl by his kennel, and took his police van to Lalinde, half-expecting Kathleen to be there already.

  But there was no sign of her at Rentoul’s home. In the driveway was Hodge’s car, a van Bruno recognized from the Périgueux forensics unit and a large flatbed truck, which presumably had brought the GPR system. Quatremer was standing in the doorway enjoying a smoke. They shook hands, and he told Bruno he’d find Hodge inside, in the wine cellar beneath the kitchen.

  “Is the radar in the house?” he asked.

  “No, they found something behind the wine cellar. Now it’s at work in the barn where we found the Range Rover.”

  Bruno called Hodge’s name as he entered the house, glancing once more at the hunting photos on the wall. Then something clicked in his memory and he stopped to study the coastline behind the beach scene. The two flat-topped buttes were the trigger. He’d seen them often enough when practicing amphibious landings on the Ras Doumeira peninsula in Djibouti on the horn of Africa, where France had its largest overseas military base. Whatever had taken Rentoul there?

  He heard an answering shout through the open door in the kitchen that gave way to a set of steps. Bruno went down, noting that this cellar was newly built, the walls to the staircase made of cement blocks. Wine cellars were not common in the Périgord, where the water table was usually quite high, but maybe up here on the slope it had been easier to excavate one. At the bottom of the steps a door made of iron bars with a key in its formidable lock had been left open.

  Hodge was squatting beside Yves, head of the forensics team, at the far end of the cellar. About three meters wide and five long, it seemed cool and dry. Cases of wine had been moved to expose the breeze blocks at the far end. Some of the lower blocks had been removed and stacked behind Hodge. The top box of wine would hold half a dozen bottles and the brand on its side said it contained Château Pétrus, 2005. Bruno swallowed; the contents would be worth as much as his annual salary. A box beside it contained Romanée Saint-Vivant, 2007.

  “The damn safe has been cemented in,” said Hodge by way of greeting. “We may have to blow it.”

  “You can’t blow it, not without removing this wine to a safe place,” said Bruno. “It would be sacrilege.”

  “That’s what I told him,” said Yves, turning from his task so Bruno could see he was wearing a stethoscope, the listening end held against a fat combination lock. On his lap sat a small computer with a wire leading from it to some attachment beside the lock. “I’ve got the first two digits, three and four.”

  “How many digits altogether?” Bruno asked, taking out his notebook and thumbing through it to the page where he had written Rentoul’s details.

  “Six.”

  “Try his British army number, three-four-seven-four-eight-four.”

  “You sure it’s only six figures?”

  “He was an officer, they only have six. Other ranks have eight.”

  Yves turned back to his task, and Hodge grinned at Bruno. “Even if we don’t get any cash back, I guess Uncle Sam will be happy to take all this wine as compensation.”

  Bruno laughed and glanced along the ranks of individual bottles in their racks above the cases. There was a row of four bottles of Chât
eau d’Yquem, with another four of La Tâche above it and Angélus above that.

  “Does that mean they would end up in the White House cellars?”

  “No, there would have to be an auction.”

  “Shush,” said Yves, bending close to the lock and turning the dial slowly, his eyes closed in concentration. He grunted and then began turning it back in the opposite direction. Despite the lure of the wine, Bruno could not take his eyes off Yves at his work.

  “Youpi! Au poil,” Yves announced with glee and swung open the door. “No, wait,” he added, as Hodge leaned forward. “We have to do this by the book.”

  Bruno could see only three shelves inside, the top one filled with assorted papers, the middle one with bundles of what looked like cash and the lowest one with a bundle of something in a bag, a taut wire from it leading to the inside of the safe door.

  Yves became still, craned his neck to listen, and then burst out, “Putain!” Bruno blinked to be sure of what he saw and shouted “Grenade” and tried to dive back through the door. Hodge flung himself to one side as Yves slammed the safe door shut and ducked away.

  The muffled sound of an explosion came from behind the safe door.

  “The bastard booby-trapped it,” Yves said calmly.

  He opened the safe door gingerly, just a crack, and the stink of cordite filled the cellar.

  Bruno picked himself up and felt his heartbeat racing. The palms of his hands were wet and his mouth had gone dry.

  “Merde, but you’re a cool customer,” he said to Yves, his voice unusually high. “I thought we were done for.”

  “I just hope it hasn’t destroyed the contents, but those looked to me like armored shelves,” Yves said, his tone almost clinical. Bruno was amazed at his calm.

  Yves opened the door more widely and looked inside with a sigh of satisfaction, seeing the contents of the upper two shelves untouched. The shelves themselves were at least four centimeters thick and extended into slots in the door. In the bottom space were some scattered lumps of metal. Yves put the back of his hand close to one and pulled it quickly away, saying, “Still hot.”