A Taste for Vengeance

by Martin Walker

  “I think so,” Bruno replied. “But why is Prunier under pressure?”

  “Failure to provide an adequate escort for two dangerous prisoners. Failure to check the identity of the fake Garda. He’s responsible.”

  “He shouldn’t be,” said Bruno. “The commander of the Bergerac commissariat ought to be responsible. He’d have assigned the escort and he should have checked the Irish credentials.”

  “You’re right, but that’s not how it works,” said J-J. “The commander is on sick leave and the acting commander was called to a meeting with the mayor. That leaves Prunier responsible. So it’s a mess.”

  “What’s a mess?” Prunier asked, suddenly arriving at Bruno’s side.

  “The fact that the press got here before we did,” J-J said. “We’d better get our version out fast.”

  “Yes, but we’d better make sure it’s right,” said Prunier. “How are you feeling, Bruno?”

  “I’m fine, thanks to the baron here.”

  “Good. I’d like to tell you that you did well, but you know the procedure we have to follow in an incident like this. Now, tell me under what authority did you bring in an armed civilian to accompany you to these premises?”

  “It’s all in my statement, sir, and I have nothing to add,” said Bruno. “And I’m not under your command.”

  “Merde, Bruno, I’m on your side so don’t give me that.”

  J-J put a hand on Prunier’s sleeve. “Sir, I’ve heard from the interior ministry that Bruno is currently under their orders on a counterterrorism operation, which means different rules of engagement. Maybe we’d better check with them.”

  Prunier looked coldly at J-J, turned back to shake his head at Bruno and walked away, pulling out his phone. J-J rubbed a hand over his face, loosened his collar and sighed.

  Bruno turned his gaze back to Yves, who was holding out one of the cards used to take fingerprints so that Moore could take a photograph with his phone. Moore checked the image, pressed some buttons and then came across to Bruno.

  “Yves has a good print,” he said. “It matches the one they got from the coffee cup in Bergerac, so the dead man is the fake Garda, sure enough. I’ve just sent it to our records office, and I already alerted them to carry out a rush check on known IRA prints. If that doesn’t work, we have the DNA. We’ll find out who the bastard was, don’t worry.”

  A car door slammed and Yveline was walking across, beckoning to J-J. Bruno heard her ask him if he would like to look at her draft report, and the two of them returned to the gendarme van.

  Bruno’s phone vibrated again and the screen told him that Isabelle was calling.

  “Moore called to let me know you’re okay and you did well and he and Hodge have already texted a note of appreciation to the brigadier,” she said. “You need to know that ever since we knew of the IRA involvement this has been an official counterterrorism operation and you were listed from the beginning as one of the team members. That means that the usual rules of engagement for use of firearms do not apply to you. There is no reason to worry. And we’re in a state of emergency, so whatever happened, Bruno, you’re covered.”

  “What about the baron?” Bruno asked. “I’m more concerned about him. He shot the IRA guy who was about to kill me.”

  “You are empowered to call upon civilian assistance in an emergency, so you and he are both covered. And it will get good media. Algerian war veteran uses hunting gun to save cop’s life. That’s how we’ll spin it, and remember that I’m the one writing the official report.”

  Bruno felt a wry smile coming to his lips. He knew about official reports, what their official authors chose to say and what they were determined to leave out.

  “I’ve already drafted the first report, saying this was a model of international counterterrorist cooperation,” she went on. “What are you doing this weekend?”

  “Gardening, visiting a friend who’s been in the hospital. Why?”

  “To finish the full report I may have to come down to the Périgord to wrap up the loose ends, and it would be lovely to see you.”

  Bruno felt his heart skip a beat but made his voice sound normal. “You know you’re always more than welcome.”

  “I’ll need to interview you. I’m still not altogether sure of who planned what,” she said.

  “I couldn’t work it out at first, but it seems clear enough now,” Bruno said. “There were two separate murder plots that came together. The IRA wanted Rentoul, but Felder’s first wife and his kids wanted to kill Monika before the old man died to keep her from getting any of his money. So Madame Felder set the IRA onto Rentoul, told them where to find him and that he was going by the name of McBride. Rentoul had been on the IRA death list for years because of Gibraltar. And for the IRA, killing the wife of a former head of British military intelligence was an extra bonus.”

  “I already drafted an arrest warrant for Madame Felder,” Isabelle replied. “I don’t know that we have enough evidence yet to arrest her two children. But our FBI friend is already talking of prosecuting all three of them under the RICO procedure.”

  “What’s that?” Bruno asked.

  “The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or conspiring to commit organized crime. The Americans brought it in to deal with the mafia. It puts the burden of proof onto the accused to prove that they weren’t conspiring. Hodge also thinks he can prove that the Felder company was built up with the American money from Baghdad. That way, the Felder family might not have much to inherit.”

  “That’s very clever,” said Bruno. “I’m not sure it’s a law I’d like to see in France, but I know Hodge is determined to get Uncle Sam’s money back.”

  “J-J tells me Hodge is equally concerned about recovering Uncle Sam’s wine from Rentoul’s cellar.” She paused, and when she continued her voice had softened and Bruno could imagine the smile in her eyes when she said, “But J-J thinks he’ll find that more difficult.”

  “You might even find yourself sampling a glass or two if you come down this weekend,” Bruno replied. “And you’ll get a chance to congratulate Balzac for his own heroic role in the final shoot-out.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He took care of one of the terrorists, the woman. He jumped onto her chest and gave a growl that scared even me. She must have thought he was about to rip her face off. You’d have been proud of him.”

  “Maybe we can get him a commendation,” Isabelle replied, delight in her voice. “The minister will love that. Dog to the rescue—it’s the sort of thing the media laps up. If we can put Balzac into the story we’ll get his picture in all the papers and on TV. And he’s so photogenic.”

  “Better him than me,” said Bruno.

  “I have other plans for you,” she said. “But we’ll save those for the weekend.”

  Acknowledgments

  Although set in the lovely valley of the River Vézère in the enchanting French region of the Périgord and including so many references to real places like Périgueux, Montignac and Les Eyzies, this is a work of fiction. All the characters are figments of my imagination. So the stalwart guardians of the peace in Montignac would never behave like Louis in this novel. The character of Paulette is not drawn from any of the magnificent young women who grace our rugby fields and make us just as proud of their skills as we are of their male colleagues. The growth of women’s rugby has been a striking and welcome development of the twenty years I have now been devoted to the Périgord.

  There are, however, real people who triggered ideas and inspiration for my fictional characters. My friend Pierre Simonet, our wise and genial municipal policeman with his passion for teaching rugby and tennis to the town’s schoolchildren, gave me the initial idea for writing about a country policeman in la France profonde. And I would like to thank him and his splendid wife, Francine, for two decades of friendship,
for many wonderful dinners and for Francine’s tolerant and jocular comments on the lively romantic life of my fictional hero. The first Bruno novel was rightly dedicated to Pierrot.

  The second Bruno novel was dedicated to the baron. My neigh-bor, Jean-Henri Picot, known to everyone as le baron, was the first to take me under his wing and introduce me around the neighborhood. A major landowner (who donated land for the town rugby stadium), an entrepreneur and industrialist, and a passionate hunter and sportsman, the baron was the proud son of Paul Picot, a Resistance leader in World War II, who was arrested by the Gestapo and came close to death in the Mauthausen concentration camp. The baron was a young officer in the Algerian war and a passionate supporter of General de Gaulle. He invariably welcomed every British and American war veteran he encountered as “my liberator.” When he learned that my father-in-law, Graham Watson, had landed in Normandy on the day after D-day, the baron gave him an unforgettable welcome. Along with Pierrot, the baron and his wife, Claude, sustained and cared for me during my mother’s final days. The baron was a dear man, a larger-than-life figure, a regular tennis partner, and we dined together weekly until his death. I was honored to be asked to say a few words in his memory at his funeral and I miss him still.

  As a young Guardian journalist in the 1970s, I reported briefly from Northern Ireland, interviewed IRA leaders and was guided around the Republican stronghold of the Bogside in Londonderry by the journalist and civil rights activist Eamonn McCann, at a time when he and I each had rather more hair than we do today. But I am in no way any kind of expert on the Northern Ireland Troubles, so I must record my debt to Eamonn’s books, particularly to War and an Irish Town; to Tony Geraghty’s The Irish War: The Hidden Conflict Between the IRA and British Intelligence; to Mark Urban’s Big Boys’ Rules: The SAS and the Secret Struggle Against the IRA; and to Richard English’s Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA. The account of the killing of the IRA squad in Gibraltar is based on fact, and the New IRA is indeed active, just as the Northern Ireland peace settlement is looking politically fragile.

  There are many people offering cooking courses and wine tours in the Périgord, but I am particularly grateful to Ian and Sara Fisk of Le Chèvrefeuille, just outside St. Cyprien, for their insights on the hosting and teaching of clients in their well-regarded cooking school (see lechevrefeuille.com). I must also record my debt to my friends Caro Feely of Château Feely (www.frenchwineadventures.com), and Emma Mayes and her husband, Max, of Duck & Truffle, for their guidance on their own excellent vineyard tours (www.duckandtruffle.com). I am thankful to Steve Martindale, editor of our local English-language newspaper, The Bugle, for encouraging me to write a monthly column on wine. The hospitality of the vineyards of the Bergerac, and the pleasure of visiting them and tasting their wines, can hardly be exaggerated. The Maison des Vins in Bergerac is an excellent place to start. Like Bruno and many other local inhabitants, I keep a copy of their free map of the vineyards in my car.

  As always, I am deeply grateful for the hospitality and goodwill of my Périgord friends and neighbors. I deeply appreciate the honor, which came while this book was being written, of my election to the Académie des Lettres et des Arts du Périgord. As always, I owe a great deal to Jane and Caroline Wood in Britain, to Jonathan Segal in New York and Anna von Planta in Zurich, for their heroic work on my manuscripts. My wife, Julia, and our daughters, Kate and Fanny, are the first to read, correct and improve my raw drafts. Without Julia’s guiding and restraining hand, Bruno’s meals might turn into culinary disasters. And Benson, our basset hound, who died in his fourteenth year as this book was being edited, remains in my heart as a constant comfort and a faithful companion.

  Martin Walker, Périgord, September 2017

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Martin Walker served as foreign correspondent for The Guardian in Africa, the Soviet Union, the United States and Europe and was the editor of United Press International. He is a senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson Center and directed the Global Policy Council, both in Washington, D.C. He now lives mainly in the Périgord region of France, where he writes, chairs the jury of the Prix Ragueneau cooking prize and is a chevalier of the Confrérie du Pâté de Périgueux. This is his eleventh novel featuring Bruno, chief of police.

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