Now, looking around the council table in the mairie of Ste. Alvère, listening to the predictable questions from the mayor and the council members, Bruno found it daunting to comprehend a France that had been so close to civil war. Bruno recalled Hercule when last they met saying he would have shot the baron if he had joined the OAS. Bruno had assumed he was joking, or at least exaggerating for effect. Now he knew better. Had some fearsome echo of those OAS years cost Hercule his life?
Suddenly aware that J-J and the rest of the gathering were looking at him and evidently awaiting an answer, Bruno hauled his attention back to the meeting. J-J had been talking about full cooperation, and Bruno had spent years learning the army rule that one could seldom go far wrong repeating an officer’s words back to him and adding “sir.”
“Full cooperation, Monsieur le Commissaire,” he said, which seemed to suffice. J-J’s penetrating gaze lingered on him a moment, but moved on.
The mayor began to explain ponderously that Hercule’s death could have had nothing to do with Ste. Alvère, since the truffle market was thoroughly monitored. Bruno tuned out again and looked gloomily at the DGSE man in the gray shirt who had arrived so late from Paris yesterday that after meeting with him there had been no time for a drink or even much of a conversation with Isabelle as he had raced her back to the station at Le Buisson to catch the evening train to Bordeaux. A little less speed, a bit more braking on the corners and just slightly more caution before passing other cars and she’d have missed her last train and been stuck for the evening. The thought had crossed his mind with a brief flutter of temptation. It was not that he wanted to restart their affair but that he still felt baffled and frustrated at the way it had ended. It felt unfinished and untidy; there were still matters between them to be resolved.
But there was other unfinished business that nagged at him. Once he had dropped Isabelle at the station, he had driven to Vinh’s house on the outskirts of St. Denis. It was one of the small modern homes, built from prefabricated kits for a hundred thousand euros and the cost of a small tract of land. They had been spreading around the region since the foreigners and the Parisians had pushed the price of the traditional Périgord houses out of reach. Bruno understood the need for them, but disliked them all the same with their shallow roofs of rounded red tiles, as if they were in Provence or Italy rather than the Périgord. But he remembered Vinh’s pride at his single-story home with two small bedrooms all on a flat platform of cement, and the feast he and his wife had given to celebrate his new status as a man of property.
The house had been closed and silent when Bruno arrived, the window shutters closed and no sign of Vinh’s small truck that he used to get to the local markets. As he tried to peer through the shutter gaps and poked around the tiny rear garden for any sign of life, Bruno remembered his mild surprise at finding Hercule among the guests that evening of Vinh’s feast. Hercule, the only Frenchman there who was not in some way attached to the St. Denis market, had made a brief speech, reminiscing fondly of his own days in Vietnam and his admiration for the nems and pho that Vinh’s wife made. Probably Vinh had taken his wife away for a few days to get over the shock of the attack. But he was not answering his mobile phone, and Bruno had no other Vietnamese contacts in the area, which meant he was stuck, although he very much wanted to know why Vinh had been attacked by a Chinese illegal immigrant with an expensive lawyer.
Beside him, the councillors were starting to pack away their papers and Bruno saw J-J moving to shake the mayor’s hand in farewell when there was the sound of a commotion outside the room and a flustered young woman came in.
“Monsieur le Maire, Nicco,” she began, stammering nervously as she looked round the room. “I’m sorry, but there’s a fight, some trouble in the market.…”
Nicco, old and slow, looked at Bruno for support, and the two of them went out to the street. There were shouts from the stalls to the right and the angry whine of a high-revving motorbike disappearing down the side street opposite the castle ruins. Bruno found himself looking at a scene he had seen before, a wrecked stall smeared with black stuff and angry stallholders and customers splashed with it. An Asian woman stood beside it screaming, smeared from head to foot in what Bruno could now smell was fresh black paint. Beside her, an Asian youth was hauling a big five-gallon paint can away from the wreckage of a glass-fronted cold display case and a deep fryer. Bruno peered under the deep fryer and turned off the butane gas bottle. They were lucky the paint had doused the burner or they could have had a fire along with everything else.
“Silence,” he shouted. Some of the stallholders were known to him. “Marie, please call the medical center to have someone come and check out this lady for any injuries or just to help clean her up.” He turned to the Asian youth. “You stand there and try to remember everything that happened. I’ll come to you in a moment. Now, Léopold, let’s start with you. What happened?”
Apparently a motorbike with two people wearing helmets had driven through the market, weaving in and out of the shoppers. The one on the rear of the seat was carrying the paint can and threw it directly into Madame Duong’s stall. Then they rode off before anyone could stop them. That was it. Not a word had been said. The bike had barely slowed.
“Anybody get a look at the people on the bike?”
“Not in those helmets,” said Léopold. “It was all over so fast.”
“Who are you?” he asked the young Asian, black paint still dripping from the sleeve of his shirt. He looked frightened and very young. No more than sixteen, Bruno thought.
“I’m her son,” he replied, speaking in a local accent. “Pierre Duong. I just came today to help her. Usually it’s my dad, but he was busy.”
“Any idea who attacked you? Or why?”
The young man shook his head. “I have to call my dad.” His hand dropped to the mobile phone at his waist, but it was sodden with paint.
“Where’s your father?”
“Back at the office.”
“Look after your mother until the medics get here. One more thing, Pierre. Do you know Vinh, runs the stall in St. Denis?” The youth nodded and Bruno handed him his own mobile phone. “I’d be grateful if you could call your dad, tell him he’d better get here fast and probably with some clean clothes.”
Bruno turned to the crowd, gathered in a circle and waiting to see what he’d do next.
“Anybody who saw the registration number or knows the make or color of the motorbike, anything that might help us identify them?”
“I’ll take some statements,” said Nicco, pulling out a dogeared notebook and pen.
“Maybe you could organize a cleanup crew,” Bruno told him, thinking of the protocol. This was Nicco’s town. He was always doing this, Bruno chided himself, jumping in to take charge when something obviously needed to be done and nobody else was doing it. “You’d better take over here, Nicco. It’s your turf.”
“The cleanup crew is on the way,” the mayor said, putting away his mobile phone. “And we’ll pay for the turpentine and towels,” he added as Marie scurried up toward them, laden with a large pack of paper towels. Suddenly Bruno heard an ambulance siren, getting louder.
“Bruno,” J-J called from across the street, standing in a shop doorway and beckoning for Bruno to join him.
“Is this like the incident at your market the other day?”
“Yes and no,” Bruno replied. “Paint instead of fuel oil and the attackers came by motorbike rather than car. I think it’s a safe bet they’re linked, but they learned something from what went wrong in St. Denis. I need to talk to Vinh, the man whose stall was trashed earlier. I’ve no idea what’s behind this. And Vinh’s disappeared along with his wife. At least now I’ve got another Asian victim.”
“So have I,” said J-J heavily. “Just got a call from the office. You know that big Chinese restaurant in Périgueux, the Golden Dragon, beside the Asian supermarket?”
Bruno nodded. “The one you told me the big boys in Paris
were interested in.”
“That’s the one. It got burned down last night, or rather early this morning. Gasoline bombs through the windows, front and back.”
“Vinh was hit by a Chinese in St. Denis, and now the Chinese get hit in Périgueux.” Bruno paused. “I’m out of my depth here, J-J. If this is turning into some kind of Asian gang war, I wouldn’t know where to start looking.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions. The restaurant could have been firebombed by the aggrieved former owner.”
“Maybe, but he’d be a brave man, taking on the big boys like that.”
“A fool, more likely. It could be an insurance scam. The Chinese do a lot of that.”
Suddenly young Pierre was looming at Bruno’s shoulder, holding out Bruno’s mobile phone. “My father’s on his way, stopping off first for some clothes.” He paused. “I was careful not to get any of this paint on your phone.”
“Thanks, Pierre,” said Bruno, quickly saving the last number dialed so he’d be able to keep contact with Duong. He didn’t want to lose him like he’d lost Vinh. He turned to Léopold and led the big Senegalese away so they could talk quietly.
“Remember you told me that Vinh had a bit of trouble last Saturday in Sarlat market? Is that the only other incident?”
It was, Léopold said, the only one he’d seen. But he’d heard of scuffles in Bergerac and in Rouffignac where Chinese vendors were trying to muscle in on the best locations at the markets. There were only enough customers for one Asian food stall, particularly in winter. In the summer, the big tourist trade might have meant enough business for many stalls. But in winter the Vietnamese knew their livelihood was at stake, and they couldn’t afford the Chinese competition. They would fight back, all of them.
“And they’re friends, the Vinhs and Duongs, not rivals?” asked Bruno.
“Some kind of cousins, I think. You’d better ask them,” Léopold said. “And I’d better get back to my stall. All these interruptions are bad for my business too.”
When he had gone, Bruno spoke quietly to J-J. “Hercule Vendrot was a friend of the Vinh family. He’s murdered. They’ve disappeared after being attacked. Now their cousins are attacked. Smells like a connection to me.”
“That’s how I see it,” J-J replied. “But we need to get the Duongs to talk, and to find your man Vinh.”
“That son of theirs, Pierre, was born and brought up here and speaks like a local. If the Duongs have been here that long, they’ll be naturalized by now. Do you think your office could check out their citizenship applications? We might find something useful, other family members and addresses, sponsors, that kind of thing.”
J-J eyed him doubtfully. “How’s that going to help us with Hercule’s murder?”
“I don’t know. But Hercule served in Vietnam, had a Vietnamese wife who died young. He may have a Vietnamese daughter somewhere, but if we can’t find her, his will leaves his money to a Viet scholarship fund. If that’s the connection, we’d better follow it. Unless you have a better plan.”
J-J shook his head, pulled out a pack of Gauloise filters and flicked his old-fashioned gasoline lighter.
“The only plan I have is to wait for the DGSE to tell me what clues they find in Vendrot’s papers,” he said, blowing out a plume of smoke. “But I suspect they’re more worried about what little embarrassments he’s left behind than with solving a murder. What about this truffle business he was stirring up? Where does that fit in?”
Bruno shrugged. “Do you see truffles as a motive for murder?”
“Depends how much money is involved. But it’s a line I have to pursue.”
“One thing you should look out for is Hercule’s truffle book, a journal where he recorded all his finds and sales and prices. Everybody in the market knows about it. Apparently he left it to me in his will. I didn’t see it in his house, and it’s not in his car. That DGSE man promised you full cooperation, and he’ll be at Hercule’s house now, going through the files. You could go and ask him for it, make it official.”
“I’m planning on picking up the records of Hercule’s phone calls. We’ve got a fixed line and a mobile. What about you?” J-J asked.
“Going back to St. Denis, where I’m supposed to work. On the way I’ll stop by the medical center to check on Madame Duong.”
10
Madame Duong was wearing a suit of white overalls borrowed from a nurse, and she smelled strongly of turpentine. Her son Pierre sat beside her, his face and hair clean, but he was still clad in the paint-drenched shirt and trousers he had arrived in. Sheets of newspaper protected the chair he sat on in the medical center’s waiting room.
“I don’t know,” she said for the fifth time. Whatever Bruno asked about the attackers, or about Vinh’s whereabouts, or about trouble in other markets, she gave the same flat reply. He couldn’t tell if she was suspicious of the police in general or just wary of anyone who wasn’t Vietnamese. Perhaps she was still in shock. Her fingers kept plucking nervously at the white cloth of the nurse’s jacket, and her fingernails were bitten down to the quick. From the age of her son, she could hardly be older than fifty, but she looked closer to seventy, with tired eyes and white roots in her hair. She kept her eyes down, refusing to look at him, and her thin mouth was set in a determined line.
“My mother is tired,” Pierre said, more resigned than aggressive. “Can’t you leave us alone?”
“I don’t know anything,” she said again, but then the medical center’s doors opened, and she rose to her feet as her husband rushed in and embraced her and his son. Probably around forty or forty-five, he was thin and wiry, distinctly shorter than Pierre and dressed in a tracksuit. Through the window Bruno could see the car that had brought Duong waiting outside, one man at the wheel, another standing beside the car and looking tough and vigilant; he reminded Bruno of a professional bodyguard.
Duong handed a bag of clothes to his wife and another to his son and was walking with them into an adjoining room when Bruno cleared his throat and said, “Monsieur Duong, I’ll have to ask you some questions about the attack on your wife.”
“Who are you?” he said, although Bruno was in full uniform. Unlike his wife, he spoke French without an accent, and unlike his son he spoke it more like a Parisian than anyone brought up in the Périgord.
“I’m a friend of your cousin Vinh, who was attacked like your family was,” Bruno said. “I want to find your attackers.”
“I know nothing. I wasn’t there,” he replied.
“Where’s Vinh?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are Vietnamese stalls being attacked?”
“I don’t know.” His eyes kept darting around the room.
“You should know I was a friend of Hercule Vendrot,” Bruno said. And this time Duong focused on Bruno and gave a slight, sad smile.
“A very good man.”
“You know that he’s been murdered?”
He nodded and sighed. “These are very difficult times.”
“Your wife and Vinh have been assaulted and Vendrot murdered, very brutally. I need your help if I’m to do something about it.”
Again that sad smile, but no words.
“Why are you so frightened? Why do you come here with a bodyguard?”
“He’s a friend, not a bodyguard. Excuse me, but I must take my family home now,” he said as the door to the adjoining room opened and his wife appeared in black slacks and a sweater.
“These people are trying to destroy your livelihood. Why won’t you help me find out who they are?”
“I know nothing that could help you in your work.”
Bruno shrugged and pulled out one of his cards. Madame Duong came to stand beside her husband. He put his arm around her shoulders. “If you see Vinh, ask him to call me,” Bruno said, and gave him the card. “His friends are worried about him.”
Duong looked at Bruno for a long moment and then asked, “Are you the man who fought for them in St. Denis dressed like
Father Christmas?”
Bruno nodded. “Vinh is a friend.”
“Yes, I remember, that feast he gave when he bought the new house. You were there, I think.”
“Along with Hercule Vendrot.”
“I’ll try to find a way to pass a message to Vinh, but if you couldn’t protect Hercule Vendrot …” He shrugged.
“You think the people who attacked you also murdered Hercule?”
Duong shrugged again. “How would I know?”
“What will you do, now that they’ve destroyed your stall, and Vinh’s?”
“We’ll find something. We have friends with restaurants, we can work there.”
“You know a restaurant was attacked with firebombs in Périgueux last night?”
Duong’s eyes went blank. He shook his head.
“A Chinese restaurant,” Bruno added. “Destroyed.”
“Difficult times,” Duong repeated as his son came out. He gathered his family and went out toward the waiting car. At the door, he turned. “Vinh will get your message. Thank you for your help.”
They climbed into the back of the car. With a last raking look around the parking lot, the bodyguard followed them, and the car took the Bergerac road. That was interesting. Bruno had checked the address on Madame Duong’s carte vitale, the French health insurance card. Their home was in Vergt, which lay in the opposite direction.
Perhaps I should have been tougher, Bruno told himself. He could have insisted on taking them to the gendarmerie to make formal statements. Another kind of policeman, like Capitaine Duroc, would have threatened them with arrest for obstruction. But the very fact that a Duroc might have tried such a trick was reason enough for Bruno to avoid it. He needed these people’s cooperation and their trust, not their hostility.
He walked into the empty waiting room and knocked on the door that led to Dr. Gelletreau’s consulting room. He could hear a string quartet on the radio and then the sound of a chair being pushed back and heavy footsteps coming to the door.
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