A Vintage End

by D'arcy Kavanagh

  “Why?”

  “A catering company is often heavy on work and light on rewards,” Claude said. “It’s highly labour intensive and marketing it can be an expensive venture. When times get tough, one of the first businesses that struggles is a catering operation because people cut back on entertainment costs.”

  “I get all that, so why go after it?”

  “Because our group isn’t interested in making huge amounts of money,” Claude said. “We’re definitely interested in a profit, of course, but we want to do more. We want to make a social contribution.”

  “A social contribution?”

  “We want to work with supplying well-cooked, nutritious meals to homeless shelters on a cost-recovery basis,” he said. “We also want to employ people who are struggling to make their way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean individuals who have been discarded by society and yet have something to contribute,” Claude said.

  Burke knew then what his friend meant.

  “Such as former inmates of a prison,” Burke said.

  Claude nodded. “Yes, such as those people,” he said. “Of course, we intend to be extremely diligent in whom we employ – they have to be rehabilitated, trustworthy, even honourable – and they have to be skilled in the kitchen. When I was in prison, to my surprise, I met a few people who fit that bill. Circumstances had resulted in them doing something wrong and getting into trouble. This company would give them a second chance. Of course, we would also employ others who don’t have the same past.”

  Burke had doubts about the idea, but he didn’t express them.

  “I can see you aren’t sure about our plan,” Claude said. “But we are. We’ve done our homework. We know there’s a market for such partnerships. Also, the German-Chinese consortium, once it had taken over Yablonski, was eager to rid itself of the Avignon catering firm.”

  “Because of the lack of financial return in tough times?”

  “Exactly,” Claude said. “At noon tomorrow, I will be a part owner in a catering company. And I can tell you we expect to get some good contracts very soon. The Avignon company has a decent reputation, despite what happened in Vaison with the vintage bike race, and it has access to communities across Provence. It’s the perfect location.”

  “So, you’ll have to move,” Burke said.

  “I’ll maintain an apartment in Nice and I’ll get a small one in Avignon, but mostly I’ll be around here,” Claude said. “I’ll be dealing with clients, but mostly I’ll be training staff and creating menus which I can do from here.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Claude, where … .”

  “Where did I get the money?” Claude said, interrupting.

  “Yes.”

  “A number of years ago, I made a series of investments that proved more than successful,” Claude replied. “I kept my café, because I loved it although the hours can be very long. And then when I was in prison, I was able to make a few more investments through my lawyer, Monsieur Richard, and those produced a handsome return. It was all done legally. With another lawyer, I wouldn’t have done a thing, but Monsieur Richard is the essence of honour.”

  “So, you’re good at playing the stock market.”

  “I would say I am.”

  “And when all the troubles started swirling around Bosco Yablonski, were you watching?”

  “I had no access to a computer because of the conditions of my sentencing, but I did have access to newspapers – and I made the most of that,” Claude said. “As soon as the skeletons occurred on that route to Saint-Raphaël and as soon as those websites were hacked with allegations that Yablonski was tied into the Nazis, I started to pay very close attention. And others I know did, too.”

  “And now you’re taking over a catering company,” Burke said.

  “When I was alone in that cell for so many hours, I got very depressed, Paul,” Claude said. “Then I realized I had to put my mind to something to survive. So, besides trying to learn Spanish, I started paying attention to Yablonski’s troubles with those vintage bike races, especially with a close friend involved. I became a student of everything that happened during those weeks.”

  “Remarkable, Claude,” Burke said. “But what about Hélène?”

  “She thinks it has risks like any new venture does, but she thinks it can work. Mostly, though, she is happy for me because I’m happy for me. She will tell you the same thing when you see her tonight.”

  The server came back to see if they were ready to order.

  “We are,” Claude said. “Tell me about your champagne. We have something to celebrate.”

  Chapter 82

  Burke’s cellphone rang. He checked his watch. It was just after 9 a.m. Early for him to get a call.

  “Get onto your computer now if you can,” came Antoine Pastore’s voice.

  “Why?”

  “Just do it, Paul, you won’t regret it.”

  Since he was at home reading a newspaper story about Claude’s new business venture, he was close to his computer.

  “I have a Wiki page for you,” Antoine said. “Type in ‘Yablonski family during the wars’ and see what happens.”

  “As in Bosco Yablonski?”

  “One and the same.”

  He did as Antoine said and saw a web page jammed with references.

  “How did you find out about this?” Burke asked his friend.

  “We got an email and so did most media outlets in this part of the world,” Antoine said.

  “It looks like all kinds of information about Yablonski and his family.”

  And then Burke saw one special name: Sébastien Hahn. He didn’t know the surname but the first name resonated. One click and he was reading how Sébastien Hahn, born in the Alsace region in 1909, had become a small bicycle manufacturer who, during the Second World, was conscripted into the German army. Another click and there was a photocopied document showing his official military status in 1941 – German soldier with the rank of driver which meant he served in transport and logistics.

  “You must be reading, Paul,” Antoine said.

  Burke told his friend what he had just seen.

  “Who sent you the link?” Burke asked.

  “Anonymous, but clearly it was someone who had access to a lot of documents.”

  Burke paused for a moment.

  “Or to the work of others who spent a great deal of time looking into Bosco Yablonski’s past,” he said.

  “Maybe the work of our four troublesome graduate students?”

  “Exactly. And I know one person who might have access to all that documentation.”

  “You talked to him, didn’t you?” Antoine said.

  “By email,” Burke said. “I think I might give him a call and see where that goes.”

  “Of course, there’s a good chance the police are aware of this information,” Antoine added.

  “I know.”

  “And that brings in the matter of libel,” Antoine said.

  “Just like we talked about a few weeks ago,” Burke said. “But we’re in a different time now and I doubt Bosco Yablonski will be eager to pursue any lawsuits.”

  “I’ll leave you to read, Paul, but let’s talk later.”

  Burke agreed. He couldn’t get off the phone fast enough.

  And onto the web pages.

  For the next four hours, he read without any sense of the passage of time. Hélène popped in during a break at the café and he barely noticed her. When he explained briefly what he was reading, she smiled and left.

  Plato, feeling his master’s intensity, curled himself over Burke’s left foot and went to sleep.

  Burke read on.

  It took a while to put together the story from all the pages, but slowly Burke began to understand.

  Hahn, who was indeed Bosco Yablonski’s great uncle, had not wanted to join the Germany army when it had marched into France, but he didn’t put up much fight. Nor did he want to fight. He s
aw a way to escape front-line duties by making himself invaluable as a courier. He could ride a motorcycle and so he got a job as a dispatch rider.

  Then, when gasoline became more of an issue, he made sure the commanding officer knew about his skills with bicycles. Soon, he was a dispatch rider by bicycle, not by motorbike.

  When he was supposed to go with his German Waffen-SS company deeper into France, he concocted a plan to help the Germans manufacture bicycles at little cost and at great speed. He did it by forcing his fellow Frenchmen into working for him in conditions that bordered on barbaric.

  But it worked out for Hahn who didn’t go to battle and, as it turned out, didn’t end up participating in the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane in 1944.

  Instead, he helped the Germans make bikes in the Alsace region. And then, as the war went worse for the Reich, he produced bikes for the Germans inside their own boundaries.

  And as he did so, he hid money from his commanders.

  When the war approached its last few months, Hahn concocted a survival plan. He persuaded his widowed sister and her two young children to escape with him to Switzerland where they would sit out the remaining months.

  And that’s exactly what happened, Burke read.

  They made it into Switzerland under an alias – Yablonski. Ever resourceful, Hahn had managed to produce identity papers that satisfied the Swiss.

  Then, somehow, he helped others find refuge in Switzerland. The suggestion was he worked with a couple of corrupt Swiss officials to bring people in, not out of the goodness of his heart but for a hefty price.

  Knowing in the aftermath of the war that if he continued to work in the bicycle industry, someone might learn about his collaboration with the Germans, Hahn got into a new business – hotels. He bought a small, family-operated one right after peace in Europe was declared and made it a success. With plenty of money stashed away from the bikes he had made and from the people who had paid him for a safe haven in Switzerland, he quickly bought a handful of other hotels around the country. Then he expanded into manufacturing of various products. He succeeded in every business venture.

  Hahn’s sister never remarried and Burke had the sense that Hahn made sure she never did. He wanted control over the family fortune which continued to grow by the year.

  The money was all attached to the Yablonski name and, slowly, Hahn’s empire grew. And although he never again got into the building of bicycles, his love affair with the machine continued and he ended up sponsoring races and introducing his grand-nieces and nephews to the joys of cycling. Bosco Yablonski was among them.

  When Hahn took ill in the early 1970s, his nephew – and Bosco’s father – Louis took over. The younger man had the same knack for business and the same driven nature. He was also as equally secretive. It was years before it came out that the Yablonskis had expanded into the munitions industry with an emphasis on military explosives.

  The family wealth continued to increase.

  And then Hahn died, followed shortly after by his sister.

  And the Yablonskis continued to prosper with Louis at the helm.

  When the Bosnian War in the early 1990s erupted, Louis Yablonski, with his son Bosco at his side, made sure the war made them money. They acted mostly in secret, moving all kinds of munitions. It was war profiteering at its most subtle, but there were enough documents on the website to convince Burke that what he was reading was true.

  Then Bosco’s father got cancer and Bosco assumed control. A year after taking control, Bosco was alone; his father was dead. As for Bosco’s mother, she had been shut out of all business and had gone to live in Barbados upon her husband’s passing. She died a few years later.

  And just as his father had done, Bosco expanded the family empire, becoming not just its driving force but its sole leader. The activities of his great uncle, Sébastien Hahn, became lost in time.

  The information was devastating. Yablonski, wherever he was, would not be able to shrug off the family’s activities, from the co-operation with the Nazis to the trafficking of refugees to the munitions deals.

  Burke thought the contents were so damaging that the group of four students could have released the information, and maybe should have, without much fear of libel action. The details were so convincing and powerful that Yablonski could not have won a libel suit. But the students hadn’t offered the information to the world. They had hoped someone with deeper pockets would pick up the investigation. The thought of fighting a libel suit with a billionaire had likely been too intimidating; their families could have gone bankrupt. And so they had stayed with their strategy.

  Burke knew it was Professor Bertrand, the students’ advisor, who had released the information in the wake of the arrest of his students. No one else would have had such access to it. Obviously, the professor felt there was value in the world learning the details behind Yablonski and his family. And it seemed Bertrand wasn’t frightened by a possible lawsuit. At least, not anymore.

  Two questions still haunted Burke: Had Bosco Yablonski ordered his security people to threaten Luc Houle and the others tormenting him, and had Yablonski been involved in covering up the young man’s death?

  Then another question came to Burke.

  Where was Bosco Yablonski these days?

  Chapter 83

  Burke punched in a phone number.

  “Sergeant Sylvie Côté, please,” he asked. “Tell her it is Paul Burke calling.”

  If anyone might know the whereabouts of Bosco Yablonski, it might be her, Burke thought. She had been with the case almost from the start and had certainly been involved in the end. She’d probably be going to court to testify once the various cases got that far.

  She answered in her usual sharp tone.

  Burke told her who was calling and then, knowing she appreciated brevity, asked what the latest information was about Bosco Yablonski’s whereabouts.

  “Is this for one of your blogs, Monsieur Burke?” she asked.

  “Not really,” said Burke, recognizing that if he did learn something new, he would share it with Lemaire. “I’ve been reading a new website that details the background of Yablonski’s family. It is powerful information.”

  “I’m aware of it,” she said. “We‘ve been going over the information ourselves.”

  “It seems to me, with that kind of past, Yablonski always had a lot to lose if all that information had come out,” Burke said.

  “Your point?”

  “That if he had that much to lose – and we’re talking about the period before he lost all his companies – he might have tried to protect the family name at all costs.”

  “Which would mean?”

  “That he had knowledge of the killing of Luc Houle and that old man – and he might have even directed his staff to do those things,” Burke said.

  There was a pause and Burke wondered what Côté was thinking.

  “Those are all matters we have looked into,” she said.

  “And what did you find? So far, I haven’t heard anything about Bosco Yablonski being implicated in the two deaths.”

  There was another pause.

  “You have another question, Monsieur?”

  “Where is Yablonski these days? You must have some idea,” Burke said.

  “I cannot tell you where he is,” Côté replied.

  Another pause. Burke knew she wasn’t going to provide any more information.

  “Is he protected in some kind of way, Sergeant?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re suggesting, but I can tell you he is a citizen like anyone else,” she said. “His rights are neither more nor less than yours or, for that matter, mine.”

  Burke had met his dead end.

  Then one more question came to mind.

  “After I talked to you and the other detectives in that office at the gendarmerie in Vaison, I overheard you say ‘That’s why he is useful.’ You were talking about me. What did you mean?”

  “That your ideas sometime
s prove worth following up on,” she said.

  This time, Burke paused.

  “The other officers, particularly Favreau and Bonnier, weren’t so sure up to that point that you did anything but create problems,” Côté said.

  “What about Julien Sauvageot?”

  “He learned on his own about what you can sometimes accomplish.”

  Burke was silent again.

  “As a result, when you were in Vaison, we had you followed on race day,” she said. “We thought you had reached a point in your own little investigation that you would likely encounter the students going after Yablonski. As it turned out, we were right.”

  “That’s why you showed up so quickly in that little square and arrested them,” Burke said.

  “Yes.”

  “But you can’t tell me more about Yablonski?” Burke said.

  “No,” Côté said.

  And then she ended the call.

  Chapter 84

  The sweat stung Burke’s eyes as he cycled toward Grasse on the back road from Villeneuve-Loubet. He thought about stopping, but put the thought aside; he had just five kilometres to do and he wanted to keep his momentum on his first ride in a week.

  He wasn’t pushing the pedals hard. He was just maintaining a consistent, smooth pace.

  And then, finally, Burke was in the top part of the small city renowned for its perfumes.

  He rode by the bus station, a couple of cafés, a few shops and a classic old hotel before stopping by the small, garden-filled park that overlooked the rest of the community and, in the distance, the coastline of the Riviera. He loved the view. He doubted he could ever get tired of it.

  He sat and took a couple of well-earned gulps from his water bottle. He thought about having lunch at a café in the nearby Old Town; it served some of the best food in all of southern France. And then he considered just sitting there for a while and relaxing. He wouldn’t mind letting his mind take a break from all the thinking of the last few weeks and especially with all that had happened during the four vintage bike races that he had raced in and covered.