A Taste for Vengeance

by Martin Walker

  The 7.5-millimeter bullet left the barrel with a muzzle velocity of eight hundred and fifty meters per second. At this range Bruno knew it would hit the target with an energy of around three thousand joules, at least six times the energy of a round from the handgun that he and Kelly each carried. It would not simply knock a big man off his feet, it would hurl him down onto his back. And the shock of impact would leave his central nervous system stunned for several seconds.

  Should he shoot? He was facing two escaped prisoners who had shot a cop and were armed and dangerous. They were known terrorists hunting a retired British official they saw as a legitimate target and were almost certainly intent on killing Crimson if they could. Since they had already shot their guard, they would have no hesitation in shooting Bruno as well. And he knew already how efficiently they had killed Monika and how brutally they had hanged Rentoul.

  He was tempted. Mon Dieu, Bruno was so tempted to fire that his trigger finger seemed to be twitching as if taking on a life of its own. Given who they were and what they had done, there would be no recrimination, barely even an inquiry. The Kellys were legitimate targets.

  At the back of Bruno’s mind an insidious voice was suggesting he could nudge Balzac with his foot to send him surging forward, knowing the surprise of the dog’s leap and sudden adrenaline peak would make the man and his wife lift their weapons and probably shoot. That would give Bruno every excuse to gun them down where they stood.

  At this range he could not miss. Bruno held two lives in his hands, but there was no need for a kill. He could settle for a disabling shot for each of them and the crisis would be over. But it would depend on how they moved, how they prepared to fire. Did they plan to kill Crimson or try to kidnap him? It would make a difference.

  But Bruno knew that he couldn’t shoot, not from an ambush like this, like a thief in the night. And he would not put Balzac at such risk. As that thought crossed his mind he heard the sound of a vehicle approaching.

  The IRA couple cocked their heads as they heard it and slipped behind their respective pillars, each one now with a gun drawn and ready.

  From where they waited they might see the car and identify it before he could. They knew where Crimson lived, so they probably knew his car. Bruno listened, recognizing the sound of a gasoline engine. The gendarmes used diesel.

  So it was either Crimson or Moore. Crimson’s Jaguar was white, and Bruno had no idea what car Moore would be using, or if it would be a diesel. And Bruno did not know whether Moore would be coming alone or perhaps with Hodge or a police driver.

  Putain, there could easily be three targets heading down that lane toward a possible ambush.

  Would Kelly shoot or let them pass? Would his wife have the same discipline as her husband? Or would she shoot from sheer nervousness? Perhaps Kelly and his wife would assume that these new arrivals were innocent visitors, friends of Crimson dropping by and quite likely to turn around and leave when they realized he wasn’t at home.

  Bruno suddenly understood that Kelly and his wife would be making the same calculations as he was, wondering whether these visitors were dangerous or harmless, whether this was a time to kill.

  Merde! A fierce new thought struck Bruno. Perhaps they already knew Moore’s face. The IRA were professionals, and they had been in this business for the last forty years. They had their own intelligence branch, whose experts had doubtless collected photos from press clippings and police websites, even photos of police rugby teams, and distributed them among their militants to be studied. Know your enemy.

  The sound of the engine was louder now. Did it sound more powerful, like Crimson’s Jaguar? Or did it sound more modern?

  Even as the question framed itself in Bruno’s mind, his peripheral vision was aware of something white approaching. That would be Crimson.

  Then Bruno heard a voice, a single phrase in English, a male voice saying quietly, “It’s him.”

  Kelly stepped out from behind the pillar, already in the classic shooter’s crouch, his arms stretched out before him, both hands on the weapon, his eyes focused and his finger whitening on the trigger. Bruno shifted his aim a fraction, shouted “Police,” and instantly fired into Kelly’s bunched hands at what seemed the very moment that Kelly pulled his trigger. Bruno worked the bolt to reload as he swiveled and saw the woman adopting the same shooter’s crouch.

  In the millisecond before he squeezed the trigger, Bruno recalled that she was right-handed and that therefore once hit she would no longer be a danger and he could shift his aim back to Kelly. He put a bullet into the bone of her right shoulder, the one nearest to him.

  Bruno saw her blown back into the pillar, stunned, her gun going off but firing wild as her arms flew up. Her gun rose into the air, spinning in what seemed almost like slow motion. Feeling he had all the time he needed, Bruno swiveled back to see Kelly trying to get a leg beneath him to stand.

  “Police, hands up,” he shouted in English.

  There was no response, just another attempt by Kelly to lurch to his feet, his bloodied left hand on the ground helping him to rise on his right leg. Bruno couldn’t see his gun. It could be in the hidden right hand. He aimed again and pumped another round high into Kelly’s right leg to knock him down again and send him sprawling as he cried out in shock and pain.

  Once Kelly crumpled to the ground, Bruno ran out and slammed his rifle butt into the back of the man’s head. Then he turned to look at the woman.

  Balzac, so accustomed to the sound of guns, had leaped forward with his master. He was now standing over the stricken woman, growling with bared teeth into her face. Bruno breathed out, the tension easing, muscles relaxing in the tiredness that came after an adrenaline rush. It was over.

  “Think you’re so fucking clever” came a voice from the undergrowth behind Bruno where Kelly had made his approach.

  Bruno turned his head, raising his rifle and tensing as he dived to one side. But even as he landed and rolled and worked the bolt again he knew it was hopelessly late.

  A new figure had emerged onto the driveway with yet another gun aimed at him, the muzzle looking enormous.

  And then this third figure disappeared in a red mist as the double sound of a shotgun’s two barrels cracked from behind the pillar.

  “There’s always another one,” said the baron, the shotgun still smoking in his hands. His voice was distant. Bruno’s ears were still deafened by the sound of the shots.

  “That’s what they taught us in Algeria,” the baron continued as he reloaded. “Always another one.”

  The door of the Jaguar opened, and Crimson emerged, looking bemusedly from Bruno with his rifle to the baron with his shotgun, and then from the still and silent Kelly to the man’s wife, now keening as she lay on the ground. Her left hand was trying to stanch the bleeding from her shoulder as she stared at the snarling Balzac.

  “Putain, mon vieux, I’d be dead without you,” Bruno said to the baron. “Can you call the urgences? And then the gendarmes?”

  He walked across the driveway to look at the shredded figure, a stranger, in what had been a dark suit before the twin barrels of buckshot and birdshot had hit him. Bruno was startled to see that the man’s shoes were black and highly polished.

  He made sure he had turned on the safety catch of the rifle and that the chamber was empty before he handed it to Crimson. The baron was already talking to the urgences on his phone. From his rear hip pocket Bruno withdrew a set of evidence gloves and pulled them on. He found Kelly’s gun under the prone body and his wife’s gun in the middle of the driveway. He left that one where it was, took Kelly’s gun and put it beside the other one, then searched behind the bloody mess of death on the ground until he found the third shooter’s weapon.

  It was an automatic pistol, but he did not recognize its make. Bits of the man’s hands were still attached to the butt. Bruno pulled off a branch to
mark the spot.

  Another car appeared and braked behind the Jaguar. Still crouching, Bruno drew his handgun, only to replace it when he saw Moore emerge from one side and Hodge from the other, each with a gun in hand. Hodge glanced at the groaning woman and then advanced to stand over Kelly. He bent and put his left hand to Kelly’s neck.

  “He’s still alive,” Hodge said. “But he needs an ambulance.”

  “We’ve called for one.”

  “Bloody hell,” said Moore. “What exactly happened here?”

  “It’s over, it’s clear,” said Bruno. “Kelly and his wife came to kill Crimson. But who was the third one?”

  “The Garda man,” said Moore, looking down at the corpse. “Or rather, the IRA guy who took the real Garda man’s place. He was met by one of J-J’s men at Bergerac airport and taken to be welcomed at the headquarters in Bergerac. He volunteered to help escort Kelly and his wife to Bergerac and then, we presume, freed them both when he overwhelmed the guard.”

  “That was a very daring plan,” said Bruno, a note almost of admiration in his voice.

  “Daring or perhaps desperate,” said Moore. “But it must have been one of their best men, so I think I may know who it was.”

  Moore walked across to the broken branch where Bruno had marked the third man’s gun.

  “It’s a Walther P99, as issued to authorized officers of the Garda,” Moore said. “It belonged to the real Garda officer, who has just been found gagged and tied to his bed in Dublin, still woozy from being given sodium thiopental. His passport, identity card, air ticket and weapon were then used for the fake Garda man to fly to Bergerac this morning.”

  Bruno was still trying to work out the complexity of it all and marveling that he was still alive. “How did you know he was not the real Garda man?”

  “He left Bergerac in the van with the Kellys. Then he disappeared with them. We got the Garda in Dublin to fax a photo and fingerprints of the real man. The photo was ambiguous, but the prints on the coffee cup he’d used at Bergerac didn’t match. That was when the Garda went to the home of the officer who should have flown here and found him tied up.”

  Hodge joined them, glanced at the corpse and then at Bruno. “Did you get him with a shotgun?”

  “No, my friend got him, thank God,” Bruno replied, nodding to the baron.

  “Who are you, monsieur?” Hodge asked the baron, eyeing the shotgun.

  “Jean-Pierre Picot, monsieur, formerly a captain in the Chasseurs,” the baron replied evenly. “I’m long since retired from the army, but I’m a friend and hunting partner of Bruno here.”

  “He just saved my life,” said Bruno as he heard the first wail of the ambulance siren in the distance.

  Hodge nodded and looked from the corpse of the false Garda man back to the baron. “So you’re like what we’d call in the United States a deputy?”

  “Really?” beamed the baron, who was a devout fan of Western movies. “I’m a deputy? How wonderful.”

  Chapter 25

  Yveline and a second gendarme arrived as the ambulance attendants were loading Kelly and his wife into their vehicle. Yveline told her colleague to accompany the couple to the clinic at St. Denis, and to call her as soon as they arrived.

  “And be careful,” she called after him, before turning to Bruno. “I need to take statements,” she said, pulling out a notebook. “I’ll start with you.”

  Moore came to stand beside her, a small tape recorder in hand. “Do you mind?” he asked Bruno, who shook his head and began to recount what had happened.

  “You definitely shouted ‘Police’ before you opened fire?” Yveline asked.

  “He did,” said Crimson. “I heard it just when I thought I was going to be killed.”

  When she had finished, Bruno sat, leaning against the pillar with Balzac’s head on his lap as Yveline took statements from the baron, from Crimson and then from Hodge and Moore. He knew the routine. A policeman who opened fire while on duty would be placed on administrative suspension pending an inquiry to determine whether his action was justified and that the standard rules of engagement had been followed.

  Bruno’s phone vibrated and he answered, to hear Florence’s voice.

  “I’ve just had a call from Paulette’s friend,” she began. “The procedure took place this afternoon, everything went as it should and Paulette is resting. She asked her friend to convey the message that she’d like to see us both in Périgueux later this week, and I thought we could discuss when to visit her after we put the children to bed this evening. What time do you want us?”

  “I’m sorry, but we’ll have to cancel tonight’s dinner at my place,” Bruno said. “We’ve just had an emergency. The baron and Crimson and I will be tied up with the police for some time. None of us is hurt and I’ll call you when I can.”

  “I see. What’s the emergency that includes you, Jack and the baron?”

  “I can’t speak now, Florence, I’m sorry. Let me tell you later. But I’m glad it went well for Paulette.”

  Sergeant Jules appeared and began stringing red-and-white crime scene tape across the approach road, just before Gilles arrived in one car and Philippe Delaron and Kathleen arrived in another. Bruno glared at them both as they converged on him.

  “Do you realize that your news story about Crimson may have led to this?” he snapped at Kathleen.

  “Stop this now,” barked Yveline, jumping in front of Bruno and pushing Philippe and Kathleen away. “You cannot say a word to the press. You two get back behind that crime scene tape or I’ll arrest you both.”

  Philippe backed away, still taking photographs, and Gilles shouted, “You okay, Bruno?”

  Bruno nodded as Yveline waved Gilles back.

  “I can’t say a word to the press,” Bruno called to him. “But the baron and Crimson are civilians. They were here and they can talk. Ask them.”

  “Shut up right now,” Yveline snapped at Bruno and then turned to Gilles. “I’m sorry, but you have to leave. Bruno and the baron have been involved in a shooting incident and have to be detained.”

  “You can’t detain me, Yveline,” said Crimson and led Gilles away, talking as they went. Yveline looked after them and shrugged. Then she turned to Bruno. “Don’t worry, Bruno, but I have to take your handgun.”

  “I know,” he said. He eased Balzac’s head away, stood up, undid his holster and handed it to her.

  “If I have anything to do with this, you’ll have it back tonight,” she said. “And I’m the one writing the incident report.”

  “I know, thanks,” he said, looking at Crimson talking volubly to Gilles, Philippe and Kathleen. “You might want to add that Sergeant Jules did well.”

  “So did Jules’s wife,” Yveline said. “I’d better draft this report before Prunier and J-J get here.”

  She went back to her van, climbed inside, pulled a small laptop from her case and began typing.

  “Could we be in trouble?” the baron asked him quietly. “Not that I’m much bothered, but do you think I should call a lawyer?”

  “No,” said Bruno. “It’s simply the rules we have to go through. But if you get any other official questions, say nothing and refer them to the statement you made to Yveline. You fired to save my life, that’s what matters.”

  Yves from the forensics squad and the crime scene team from Périgueux were the next to arrive. They donned their snowman suits and began photographing the body of the false Garda and the rest of the scene before collecting all the weapons and cartridge cases, labeling them and putting each one into a separate plastic bag. Yves examined the corpse, and then Moore approached him to point out the dead man’s gun.

  Yves bent over, took more photos and then rose suddenly and went back to the forensics vehicle. He returned with what looked like a fingerprint kit and tubes for blood samples. He’d be tryi
ng to identify the dead man, Bruno thought as he watched Yves at work. Moore was on his phone, speaking English, Hodge at his side.

  From the far side of the tape strung across the driveway, another phone rang and Bruno saw Philippe answer it with his usual cocky self-assurance. He listened for a moment and then his face seemed to slump.

  “She what? Paulette’s done what?” he cried in a voice more like a sob. “When?” He paused. “Are you there?” he shouted, then took the phone from his ear and stared at it. He punched a button to redial, his face a picture of frustration as he waited and waited for an answer that would not come. Kathleen put her hand on his arm, but Philippe shook it off as if it were a bothersome fly and tried calling again.

  So that was it, thought Bruno. Philippe must have got to know Paulette from covering all those rugby matches. He’d certainly published lots of photos of Paulette in the newspaper. Bruno wondered how long it would take for Philippe to return to his usual jaunty self. It might even help him grow up.

  Shortly afterward, Prunier and J-J arrived in separate cars, brushed aside the three reporters and separated, Prunier going to speak to Moore and Hodge, and J-J coming toward Bruno.

  “The good news is that the cop who got shot on the Bergerac road is in intensive care but they say he’ll live,” said J-J quietly. “The bad news is that Prunier is under pressure. Have you given statements?”

  Bruno nodded. “Me, the baron, Crimson, Hodge and Moore, all of us. Yveline is writing them up now.”

  “What did you say exactly?”

  “Acting on information received, I came to protect a civilian from what I believed was danger of assassination by an armed and known terrorist. I shouted a warning and then shot to save Crimson from a bullet. And I added that the baron fired to save my life from another terrorist. That was it.”

  “Right, say no more, not another word,” said J-J. “I heard from Isabelle just before I got here. Moore called her and told her what happened and she told me to let you know that you are under the brigadier’s orders, so don’t let Prunier tell you otherwise. The paperwork has been done and your mayor is in the picture. Have you got that?”