A Taste for Vengeance

by Martin Walker

  “Do I stop every vehicle trying to cross?” she asked.

  “No, they’re armed and dangerous, so don’t try to stop them even if you have other weapons there. Your job is to deter them. If they see men with rifles they won’t try to cross the bridge. And if they even see a roadblock they’ll probably look for another route. Park your police van so that only one vehicle can cross at a time. If you do see a blue Renault Espace, let it through. I don’t want you hurt. But please note the license plate number and call me at once and the Police Nationale operations center. You have their number.”

  He called Louis without success, left a message and then called the baron, to ask him to bring a rifle and shotgun to the bridge. Then he called Claire at the mairie and asked her to inform the mayor of the emergency.

  “What’s this about, Bruno?” called out Lespinasse, pulling up in his tow truck. It was too wide to squeeze through the gap.

  “Somebody shot a cop on the Bergerac road so we’re putting up roadblocks. I’ll pull back a bit to let you through.”

  By this time car horns were sounding from a line of traffic that ran the length of the bridge and back the other way beyond the mairie. There was no blue Renault Espace in sight, but the mayor arrived on foot, demanding to know what was happening. Bruno explained and the mayor nodded.

  “I’ll get some big signs made and we’ll put them up. People will understand,” he said and walked quickly back to the mairie.

  Minutes later, as Bruno waved cars through from alternate directions one by one, the mayor returned with Xavier, his deputy, and Roberte from the social security desk, each carrying a big piece of cardboard on which someone had printed in huge letters: SORRY FOR ROADBLOCK. POLICE INCIDENT.

  Roberte placed herself on the roundabout about fifty meters short of the roadblock, and Xavier went to the far end of the bridge, where Bruno saw the baron arriving on foot, a weapon over each shoulder. Xavier held up the sign as he passed each car and then walked on to the end of the line of traffic. The baron handed Bruno a shotgun and then stood behind one of the big stone blocks that flanked the bridge, his body covered but keeping his rifle in full view. Bruno saw it was the baron’s favorite, a sturdy MAS-36 of the kind the baron had been issued in the Algerian war.

  “Who are we looking for?” the baron asked.

  “No idea,” said Bruno and explained how little he knew. “We’re here as deterrence, so don’t shoot unless they gun me down, and keep your rifle like that, in full view.”

  By now the drivers understood the routine and the traffic began to flow as Bruno kept waving them through. Louis called to say he’d received the message and was at the Montignac bridge. Bruno called his colleague Quatremer at Lalinde, who was manning his own bridge. There were still some bridges unguarded, so Bruno called the mayor.

  “Can you call the mayors at Trémolat and Siorac and ask them to post someone to watch the bridges? I don’t want a roadblock, just ask them to watch and to call me immediately on my mobile if they see a blue Renault Espace.”

  “I’ll take care of it. I already had the mayor from Siorac calling to ask if I knew what was going on.”

  “And see if you can persuade the mayor at Sainte Alvère to post someone to watch the crossroads.”

  “Right, leave it to me.”

  We should have rehearsed this and devised a proper plan, Bruno thought to himself. When this was over he’d draft a proposal and persuade Prunier to rehearse it and put it into effect. He kept waving through vehicles, ignoring people who slowed to ask questions and waving them on with his shotgun as he thought about what had happened.

  He knew there were two prisoners at the commissariat de police in Bergerac, Kelly and his wife, and J-J had told him they were to be taken north that day to Périgueux. They would have been handcuffed with a police driver at the wheel and at least one armed guard. The obvious route would have taken them up the route nationale to Périgueux. Could they have broken free, somehow seized the guard’s weapon, shot him and made their escape?

  There would have been one other police vehicle taking that road, the one carrying the Irish policeman from the Garda who was flying in from Dublin that morning. Perhaps he’d already landed at Bergerac airport, where he’d have been met and driven to Périgueux. Bruno called Moore’s mobile to ask if the Garda man had arrived yet.

  “Not that I know of, Bruno, but it’s chaos here. You know a cop has been shot?”

  “Yes, I know. I’m manning one of the roadblocks looking for the blue Renault Espace the cop was driving. But do we know who was in the vehicle? Could it have been the Kelly couple?”

  “Christ, I hope not, but I don’t know. Hodge and I are here in the conference room, and Prunier and J-J are in the operations center.”

  “They must know by now which cop was shot and whether he was on the Kelly escort. Could you get to the operations center and ask? You and Hodge both have a right and a need to know.”

  “All right, I’ll call you back.” Moore hung up.

  Let’s assume it was the Kelly couple and they had somehow managed to escape, Bruno thought. Their priority would be to get out of France, perhaps to Spain or the much longer distance to Italy or Belgium, or to Ireland if they could. All the autoroutes and main roads would by now be blocked and the train stations watched. That left small aircraft and boats, and Bruno presumed the IRA was sufficiently well organized to arrange such a voyage. There were yacht harbors all along the coast, airports at Périgueux, Bergerac, Limoges and Brive, private airfields at Belvès, Domme, Fumel, Agen, Cahors….Putain, if the IRA had access to a helicopter they could be picked up anywhere.

  But what if they chose to stay? Given some support, they could hide out almost indefinitely in this region full of gîtes and rental properties. Any Irish, or British or American sympathizers could take a long vacation rental and hide them there for weeks or even months until new passports or escape routes were arranged.

  What if they had a mission or a target more important than escape? Perhaps to free their friends the O’Rourkes in Périgueux? Or to take hostages to try to negotiate their freedom? They must know that France would never permit that, not after the murders and the cocaine and with the British and Americans already involved.

  There was one obvious target, Bruno thought, and pulled out his phone to call Jack Crimson. It rang for some time before a woman’s voice answered in English. It was Miranda.

  “Do you know where your dad is?” he asked.

  “He said he was going wine tasting,” she replied cheerfully. “He was here to arrange about picking up the children for tonight’s dinner, but he forgot his phone.”

  “Any idea which one he was visiting?”

  “He said he was going to Montravel, I don’t know which vineyard.”

  “If you hear from him, could you tell him to call me right away? It’s really important.”

  “I will, and thanks for taking care of the children this evening.”

  Montravel was on the far western side of the Bergerac wine area, on the border with the Bordeaux region. Bruno pulled from his van the map of the vineyards issued by Vins de Bergerac to look up some phone numbers but was interrupted by an incoming call.

  “Bruno” came Moore’s urgent voice. “Prunier has told me that the shooting involved the police van that was bringing Kelly and his wife to Périgueux. There was an armed guard and Kelly and his wife were handcuffed but they somehow managed to escape in the van. The armed guard is in the hospital, shot in the lung, and the driver is badly concussed. They were found at the side of the road. They were in a blue Renault Espace.”

  “I’m looking for that van at my roadblock.”

  “They might have switched it by now. They took the guard’s weapon, so they’re armed and could easily have stolen another. They left the handcuffs at the scene, got the keys from the guard.”

&nb
sp; “I’m worried they might be going after Jack Crimson,” Bruno said.

  “Me too, he’d be a high-value target for them. Can you call him?”

  Bruno explained about the forgotten phone. “Could you tell Prunier I’m going to abandon the roadblock and go to Crimson’s place, just in case.”

  “Where is it? I’ll join you.”

  “Just outside St. Denis, on the way to St. Avit, a small château called L’Aumônerie. It should be on the GPS in your car, which means Kelly can also find it, if he hasn’t checked it out already.”

  Bruno rang Sergeant Jules, alone at the gendarmerie, to explain that he needed one of Yveline’s gendarmes to replace him at the roadblock on the bridge while he went to protect Crimson.

  “I’ll come myself,” Jules replied. “I’ll get the wife to take over the phone here. You make sure Crimson is safe and I’ll ask Yveline to send you reinforcements.”

  As he waited, Bruno explained to the baron the threat to Crimson.

  “In that case, I’ll come with you,” the baron said. “He’s my friend, too. But leave your police van here at the block. If they see that at Crimson’s place, they’ll know it’s a trap. My car’s parked just across the bridge.”

  “Good thinking,” said Bruno and waited until Sergeant Jules, breathing heavily, trotted up the street toward the bridge. Bruno waved to him and let Balzac out of the van. He explained to Xavier that Jules was taking over the roadblock and then he, Balzac and the baron climbed into the stately old Citroën DS and headed around the stalled traffic to Crimson’s place.

  Chapter 24

  As the baron drove, Bruno began calling the Montravel vineyards. He drew a blank at the three best-known châteaus, Moulin Caresse, Puy Servain and le Raz. On an impulse, he called Château Marsau, which was mainly in the neighboring département of the Gironde, and thus in the Bordeaux appellation. But one parcel of their land was on the Bergerac side of the border and they had a small vineyard in the Montravel called L’Enclos Pontys, which Bruno recalled Crimson praising to his friends. And yes, they replied to his question. A charming Englishman with the credit card of a Monsieur Crimson who was driving an elderly Jaguar had been in their tasting room that day and had bought half a dozen of the Pontys and another half dozen of their Château Marsau Merlot. He’d left less than an hour ago.

  “If he’s driving fast, Jack might beat us back to his place,” Bruno said.

  “How do you want to handle this?” the baron asked. “I’ll park at the back out of sight, but do we wait for them in the house or ambush them in the driveway?”

  “One of us has to be at the head of the driveway,” Bruno replied. “That way we’d be able to see Crimson arrive and warn him to drive on and get the hell away. We both have our phones, and we’d better put them on vibrate. We don’t want them ringing at the wrong moment. I’ll take the driveway and the rifle and you stay in the house with the shotgun. There’s a landing on the staircase with a window that overlooks the driveway. That would be a good place to wait.”

  “What’s your plan? If you see them will you shoot?”

  “That depends on them. If they drive in I’ll probably try to shoot out a tire and tell them to surrender. I can recognize Kelly, and I think the only weapon he’ll have will be the handgun he took from the guard in the van. His wife may have the driver’s gun. She’s long-term IRA, so she may know how to use it.”

  The baron shook his head. “Why do you think they’ll roll up in the car? I wouldn’t. In their shoes, I’d leave the vehicle hidden and then creep up on foot using cover. One in the front, one in the back in case Crimson makes a run for it. And first I’d try to check whether Jack is at home.”

  Bruno considered this and then nodded. “You’re right, but I’ll still need to stop Jack if I see him. And we might be getting reinforcements, maybe our gendarmes, maybe a British cop, although he must still be half an hour away. I’d better wait undercover at the top of the driveway. And pull in here. I’ll go ahead with Balzac and scout.”

  They were still on a commune road, tarred and decently maintained, about a hundred meters short of the bumpy approach that led to Crimson’s house. The baron pulled off onto a hunters’ track through the woods and checked that he was out of view of the road before he applied the brake.

  “I’ll leave the car here and come on foot with you,” he said.

  “You know where Crimson keeps his spare key?” Bruno asked.

  “Under the seat of his lawn mower.”

  “How much ammo do you have?”

  “Six each, buckshot and heavy birdshot for the shotgun, one already loaded in each barrel. Two spare deer slugs in my pocket. For the rifle, five rounds in the internal magazine, two more clips.” He handed Bruno the MAS-36 rifle and spare clips. “If that isn’t enough, they’ll drum us out of the hunting club.”

  Bruno went carefully through the woods, parallel to the approach to Crimson’s driveway but keeping it a good ten meters on his left. Balzac was at his heels. The baron was another ten meters to his right and slightly behind him, the distance they kept when hunting. They had trained Balzac together and hunted together frequently enough that Balzac would obey the baron as if he were Bruno. When the approach road turned before reaching the stone pillars that began Crimson’s private driveway, Bruno stopped, crouched on one knee and waved to the baron with one hand. Then he tapped Balzac on his left shoulder and the dog crept silently forward and slipped into the hedge by one of Crimson’s pillars.

  Bruno rose, signaled the baron to follow and moved quickly forward, knowing from his dog that the area around the pillars was clear. At the pillar, he sent Balzac forward again, watching his dog slink quickly through the bushes that lined the driveway until he reached Crimson’s garage. Then Balzac stopped and looked back at Bruno, his tail low and all four feet on the ground. That meant that zone was also clear. Bruno signaled to the baron, who went through the undergrowth to the garage, looked through the windows and shook his head. It was empty.

  Crouching by the garage, the baron sent Balzac to circle the house. When the dog returned, the baron slipped inside the garage for a few moments and then went to the back door to let Balzac in before he followed. Bruno waited until his phone vibrated and answered it to hear the baron murmur that the house was clear and he was sending Balzac back to join Bruno at the driveway.

  “Right, I’m about ten meters back from the pillars and keeping them to my right,” Bruno said. “I’m in cover with a clear view of the driveway and the approach road.”

  The cover was patchy but adequate. He stood behind the trunk of a chestnut tree that would stop a bullet. A thick hedge of bramble sprawled to his left, and to his right were fallen trees and undergrowth that could easily trip the unwary. Bruno told himself he would have to tread carefully. He bent down, spat onto his hand and rubbed it in the soil to make it muddy so that he could draw stripes onto his cheeks and nose and brow to camouflage his face. Then he waited for the sounds of the woods to resume, the birdsong and small animal rustlings that had ceased at his approach. He wondered if Kelly was a country man. Running a garden center suggested that he might be.

  Minutes passed and then Balzac silently appeared at his side. Bruno bent down to caress him and heard a distant voice, a woman’s voice, strangely rhythmic. As it came close he realized the woman was singing.

  Bruno smiled. That was clever. Nothing could be more innocent than a woman singing on a country walk. Kelly would have sent her on ahead and he would follow, using cover but keeping close behind her. The fact that she was moving alone made the chances that the woman had a second gun much higher. Bruno put a finger on Balzac’s head to keep him still and silent. Then he waited, rifle to his shoulder, for her to come into view. He could clearly hear the words of her song.

  In Mountjoy jail one Monday morning,

  high upon the gallows tree,

&n
bsp; Kevin Barry gave his young life

  for the cause of liberty…

  Bruno guessed that she was in her fifties, maybe a little older, a handsome dark-haired woman with an easy walk and good posture. Dappled sunlight shone through the trees, and he saw that she was wearing running shoes, dark jeans and a leather jacket over a dark-colored shirt.

  Silently, Bruno pulled out his phone, hit the single autodial for the baron and held it facing the woman, knowing that the baron would hear her singing and understand that Bruno was indicating that their quarry was approaching.

  The woman paused, still singing, when she saw the pillars and the house beyond. She turned her head to the right and slipped her right hand into the inner left side of her jacket. So that was where she kept her gun. She must be right-handed.

  Bruno tried to follow her gaze, expecting that she’d be looking for her man. He used the hunter’s trick, staring not directly but at a tree near where he expected Kelly to be, knowing that indirect vision caught movement more easily. He saw a branch shift down low in the trees beyond the woman, a shadow be-hind it.

  Bruno waited, saw what might have been a hand gesture from Kelly, and the woman walked on, in silence now. She was moving more slowly and with care, glancing briefly behind her and to each side until she stopped at the pillar nearest Bruno. She stood silent for a long moment before peeking around it at the house. She moved back and gave a thumbs-up to her right.

  There was a long pause, some movement in the trees and then the man Bruno had seen in the Bergerac interview room slipped into view beside the other pillar. A handgun like the one Bruno now carried at his waist was in Kelly’s hand. That meant he had at least fifteen rounds, less however many he had shot at the policeman who was the gun’s rightful owner. He might also have a spare magazine.

  Bruno had a clear shot at them both and he knew the rifle he was aiming. He had used the baron’s gun before. It was well kept and it aimed true. Bruno knew he could work the bolt and load another round in little more than a second.