A Taste for Vengeance Page 14

  “This way,” he shouted, waiting to be sure she had heard and then waiting a little more until she turned her horse and came trotting toward him. She gave him a cheeky grin, as if to emphasize what she surely felt to be her victory. Bruno smiled indulgently. He would not spoil her moment by saying he’d held back Hector in case she had trouble handling her own steed when Hector came thundering alongside.

  He led the way down to the hunters’ trail that skirted the woods and ended at the quarry. Hector set off at a fast pace until he rounded the bend and saw the other horses ahead, Pamela and Félix having taken the short route. Bruno reined in to let Kathleen catch up.

  “What a lovely horse this is, as fast as the wind,” Kathleen said, coming alongside and slowing her horse. She was breathing hard and her face was glowing. “That was a glorious ride.”

  “It certainly was,” he agreed. “You must have been riding for some time.”

  “Since I was a little girl. I had my first pony at the age of six. There was a time when I thought I might go in for competitions but I broke a collarbone and then came exams that I had to pass to go to university.” She shrugged. “No regrets, that’s how life goes.”

  “Do you still ride in England?”

  “Not in London. It costs an arm and a leg and I travel so much for my job. But my parents live in the country where my childhood sweetheart runs a stable so I keep my horse there and in return I let him use it for his riding school. It’s not an ideal solution. Novice riders can ruin a horse’s mouth and upset its temperament, but it’s the best I can do.” As they caught up with Pamela and Félix she asked, “Why haven’t you come riding in the mornings before?”

  “I usually do, but I had police business in Périgueux,” he answered before he could stop himself. Merde, he thought. She’ll know I’m part of the team on this murder case.

  “On Monika Felder’s murder?”

  “Boring administrative stuff, learning new computer systems and doing my annual firearms check on the range.” It wasn’t entirely a lie.

  “So you’re no longer involved in the case?”

  “I’m riding today, am I not? And what about you? Didn’t you say your paper’s Paris correspondent was coming down to take over?”

  “Yes, but he’s thinking of going back to Paris already,” she said, rather too casually, and Bruno recalled J-J’s warning about the media.

  “I spoke to him last night,” she went on. “Our crime expert in London says he’s heard that the heat is going off the case. It looks as though Monika was killed by this mystery man claiming to be McBride, who then hanged himself. Is that what you hear?”

  “So it seems,” said Bruno, relieved to hear the press had not yet picked up on the possible IRA connection.

  “That’s what Philippe Delaron from Sud Ouest told us. He’s been very helpful, so Gordon—that’s our man in Paris—took us both to dinner at the Vieux Logis in Trémolat last night. Philippe seems to know you quite well.”

  “St. Denis is a small town.”

  “And Philippe says you know pretty much everything that happens in this region.” She nudged her horse so they were riding very close, almost knee to knee, and lowered her voice. “So I’d really be very grateful for any guidance you can give me on this story. Life isn’t easy for a freelance journalist in these days of the internet, and this could be a big chance for me.”

  Her meaning was obvious enough, Bruno thought, but it was depressing to be seen as a man who could be so easily tempted by the suggestion of sexual favors. She seemed generous about spreading them—he recalled Pamela’s comment about Kathleen’s late-night visitor.

  He said nothing but edged his horse away and looked back, saying he wanted to be sure that Balzac was still with them. When Balzac finally caught up, Bruno took refuge in talking about his dog until they reached the rear entrance to the riding school. He swung down, led Hector into the stables, removed his saddle and began to rub him down.

  “You’d better hurry up and get some breakfast,” Pamela told Kathleen as she came in with her own saddle. “We’re off to the truffle expert soon and you’ll see Bruno again later today. He’ll be guiding you all round the vineyards.”

  “Oh good. Will Balzac come too?” Kathleen said, squatting on the ground and petting the basset hound.

  Balzac, who had a particular fondness for women, rolled onto his back, inviting her to scratch his tummy. He then closed his eyes and looked ecstatically happy when she complied, all the while telling him what a fine and handsome dog he was. She looked and sounded as though she meant it, but Bruno’s suspicions of her motives lingered as he strolled up to Pamela’s house to shower, shave and change into his uniform before heading for the mairie.

  Juliette’s message from Les Eyzies was longer than the usual “routine patrols.” She had added “possible smuggling.” He phoned her and learned that the local tobacconist was complaining of a sudden drop in cigarette sales, which meant that somebody had obtained a cheaper supply.

  “Let me come over to Les Eyzies and buy you a coffee,” he said. As he drove there along the River Vézère, he pondered how best to explain to a keen but inexperienced policewoman that the law was one thing but enforcement was another. They took an outside table at the Hôtellerie du Passeur, which did all sorts of fancy mochas and lattes, but they ordered traditional small espressos and Bruno began Juliette’s education in the realities of village policing life.

  “This always happens between December and March,” he explained. “It tends to peak in the school holidays, when ski clubs and school outings by the busload drive to the Pyrenees. Most of them go to Spain because the hotels and restaurants are cheaper, and so are the cigarettes. The smart ones visit Andorra, which is virtually tax free, fifteen euros for a carton of cigarettes, compared to seventy here in France. Everybody comes back with at least a couple of cartons, plus food mixers, wide-screen TVs, laptops, whatever. You can bring back up to five hundred euros of manufactured goods. That means a big family can pretty much pay for the ski trip. And the return trip is free because you can fill up a car or van with diesel or gas for about ten euros in Andorra.”

  “What do we do about it?”

  “Does your mayor smoke?”

  “I don’t know. My dad does, though.”

  “And he’s on the council. My mayor smokes a pipe. I’m pretty sure he’d be unhappy if I went around persecuting his fellow smokers. It’s the kind of thing that can lose a lot of votes. What’s more, most of those tax-free cigarettes are legal because they only come in as duty-free allowances during the peak skiing season. And as far as French voters are concerned, a little fiddle like this is one of the minor pleasures of life. It means they’ve got the better of the state.”

  “You sound as though you approve.” Juliette was looking confused.

  “I don’t mean to do that. Let me put it this way: It’s not our job. It’s up to the douanes to enforce our customs laws. That’s why they’re stationed at the border. If they wanted, they could stop every vehicle returning to France from Andorra and they would probably find a few cartons of cigarettes more than the regulations allow. The people they want are professional smugglers, who ship stuff out by the truckload.”

  “So we ignore it?” Her tone was doubtful.

  “Oh no, that would never do. The public has to know that we know what they’re up to,” Bruno replied, smiling. “Say you’re in a café and you see someone’s pack of cigarettes on the bar or on the table. Pick it up and look for the little printed mark that says VENTE EN FRANCE. That shows French taxes were paid. If you don’t see that, you can say, ‘A good trip abroad, was it? Lots of duty-free?’ Word will get around that you’re no fool, but neither are you looking to give people a hard time.”

  “They don’t teach us that at the police academy.”

  “Well, in my experience they do, they just don�
�t teach it in the classroom. It’s what you hear over a drink in the bar from the old veterans at your graduation party. You know Louise, your predecessor. Take her out for a pizza one evening and ask her advice, because there’ll be aspects of being a female cop that I can’t help you with.”

  “Thanks for the tip. But what do I tell the tobacconist? I promised her that I’d look into it.”

  “You have. You consulted your senior officer. You tell her that inquiries at a much higher level have established this pattern of people coming back from ski trips. It’s the same in summer when they come back from abroad. They bring in enough cheap cigarettes to keep going for a couple of weeks and then they’re back in the tabac. Tell her it’s the duty-free allowances, shrug and commiserate a bit. If it were me, I’d express some surprise that she hadn’t noted this seasonal pattern already. Every other tobacconist in France knows it well.”

  “You think she’s testing me?”

  “Probably. People do that to see if we’re a soft touch, what they can get away with. It’s normal, the way people are. Pretty soon the novelty will wear off and they’ll get used to you and remember that you grew up here.”

  “Okay. Now is there anything you can tell me about the murder case? People keep asking me about it.”

  “I can imagine. You were at school with Philippe Delaron, weren’t you? I bet he’s been after you.”

  Juliette blushed. “Yes, well, we went out together for a bit when we were at the collège. I know where he heard about the dead man being McBride. He got it from Sylvain. They were at the lycée together in Sarlat.”

  “You’re going to be good at this,” Bruno said. “You’re already putting the patterns together, working out who knows who, and why.”

  “Beware of flatterers,” she said, smiling in response.

  “Speaking of which, you’ll be dealing with Philippe for years to come. Cops and reporters, we’re often covering the same case. We have to stay in contact. Anyway, another guy from Sud Ouest happened to be one of the neighbors you visited that afternoon to ask if they had seen anything suspicious. It was a coincidence. These things happen.”

  “So he killed her and then hanged himself?”

  “That’s the most obvious explanation, but J-J is still working on it. I understand the pathology is not conclusive, but this stuff is all way above my head. Anything else I can help you with?”

  “Do you get anonymous letters?”

  “Yes, we all do. It started with the Revolution, when people began denouncing their neighbors, often in the hope of grabbing their land. I get two or three a week, glance through to see if I recognize the handwriting or typeface. We have to file them, and if we get a visit from the inspector general, he’ll want to see them and ask what action you took. Most of the ones I get are pathetic, dark suspicions about other people’s sex lives. You can ignore those. Some of the others have some fire beneath the smoke, usually the ones about people working on the side without paying taxes. That’s where you have to use your common sense. If you are told about the same person two or three times, go and have a friendly chat with him and say how embarrassing it would be to call in the fisc, the tax police. If they’re working for foreigners, explain to the foreigners about the chèque service system. The employer pays a surcharge, which covers the social security payment but also insures the employer against any injury the worker gets on the job. It could save them a fortune. The mairie will have pamphlets about it.”

  “Any more advice?”

  “Make a courtesy call to every house in your commune at least once a year and leave each of them your card with your mobile phone number. Make a note of birthdays and weddings and baptisms and wish people well. Make yourself into a friendly fixture of everyone’s life and find some way to have regular involvement with all the kids, just as you got to know me through tennis.”

  * * *

  —

  Bruno drove home to pick up his Land Rover and a civilian shirt and jacket. He draped his uniform on a hanger and hung it on the hook in the back of his vehicle. He texted Claire at the mairie that he was taking the afternoon off because he’d be spending the evening at police headquarters in Périgueux. Then he called Prunier’s secretary to ask what time the meeting would be.

  “We still don’t know, but certainly after six. That’s when the Paris plane gets in and there are a couple of people coming down to talk about the case. One has an English name, Hodge. That’s all I know. I’ll text you as soon as a time is confirmed.”

  Bruno took the road through Le Buisson and Lalinde to get to the roundabout by Bergerac airport and then drove through the vineyards, a landscape he always enjoyed. He found the neat rows of vines calming, making the world seem an orderly and well-tended place. Being a winemaker was one of many alternative fantasy lives he occasionally dreamed up for himself, along with being an archaeologist and the manager of a top-rank rugby club. When Bruno was a boy, he’d wanted to be a fighter pilot. Perhaps when he grew older the fantasies would change again, but he suspected the lure of the vines would always be at the back of his mind. He liked to help out his friends by picking grapes at harvest time, sharing in that glorious sense of abundance when basket after basket of grapes was tumbled into the giant vats.

  The landscape was changing as he approached the slope that rose to the low ridge that looked down onto the town of Bergerac. Fewer of the vineyards presented the traditional disciplined appearance of soldiers on parade in straight lines with gleaming white chalk and gravel between the rows, and more and more of them showed grass between the vines, some of it trimmed but increasingly left to grow for the insects and wildlife to flourish as more vineyards became organic. As a boy, he’d been accustomed to seeing the workers wearing masks as they treated the vines with chemicals that had now been taken off the market as too dangerous. That was the fashion then, when so-called scientific farming was all the rage. Now the fashion was changing. After Alsace, the Bergerac vineyards were the most organic in France, and in Bruno’s view the wine was all the better for it.

  As his vehicle began to climb, Bruno could see the pointed turrets of the Château de Monbazillac. It was a Renaissance jewel, built after King Francis I came back from his Italian wars in the early sixteenth century, bringing with him the elderly Leonardo da Vinci, who lived out his final years at the French court. With him came the new styles of art, architecture and learning that had enchanted the French. Now a museum, the château was at the heart of the Monbazillac appellation and symbolized the venerable heritage of the region’s wines.

  He saw Pamela’s minivan already parked in the forecourt of La Tour des Vents restaurant and hastened inside to join her and her clients. He’d been looking forward to this lunch, since he had a deep respect for Marie Rougier, its self-taught chef. She had taken over her mother’s small vineyard and modest restaurant serving crêpes and slowly but surely transformed it into one of the handful of restaurants in the region with a Michelin rosette.

  Bruno had eaten there only once, invited by J-J in return for his help on a difficult case, and they had feasted on her signature dish, ris de veau à l’ancienne. He recalled it also as the first time he’d tasted a lovely Bergerac red wine from the nearby vineyard of Clos d’Yvigne.

  Today they offered what was known in France as a light lunch, a formule pause déjeuner. On their day, that meant a first course of fresh asparagus in a rich brouillade of fresh eggs and butter, and a main course of a duet of capon, the thigh as a confit and the breast served roasted with spiced eggplant. The dessert was another signature dish, a presentation of chocolate mousse, bananas flambé and homemade caramel and rum ice cream. Not bad for thirty-five euros, Bruno thought as he scanned the menu and considered how many people would be working in the kitchen of a Michelin-starred restaurant. It was a place that had traditionally kept its prices down by growing its own food.

  A chorus of greetings wel
comed him as Bruno took the place that had been left for him, one of the younger wives to one side and the schoolteacher, Alice, on the other. The younger woman, whose name he recalled just in time was Nicole, asked him in stilted French how he would define a brouillade.

  “A scrambled egg cooked in the very best butter by angels, with a little cream added, and taken from the heat while not quite set and placed on a very warm plate so when it arrives before you it is perfect,” he replied. “It’s not easy to get the timing right. I almost never do.”

  “Tell us about the vineyards we’re going to visit,” said Alice.

  “We are seeing two that are run by English people,” he told them carefully in English. “Château Lestevenie is run by a man whose wife has a seat in your House of Lords. He makes very good wine from the Cabernet Franc grape. Most Bergerac wine comes from Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. His name is hard for a French person to pronounce, it sounds like Omfray.”

  “Humphrey?” suggested Nicole.

  “Exactly, thank you,” said Bruno. “Then we go to Château de la Jaubertie, which used to be a hunting lodge for my favorite King of France, Henri IV. It was bought nearly fifty years ago by the Ryman family, great innovators, using new techniques developed in California and Australia. They pick the grapes for white wine at night, when it is cooler, and keep them chilled. And they see green harvesting, taking out some grapes in early summer so the others ripen better. They were among the first to reintroduce the old grape Malbec in some of their red wines. Their Cuvée Mirabelle, hand-picked from specially chosen grapes, is magnificent, full of fruit and very smooth. Then we go to Château de Tiregand, one of my favorites, an elegant and classic wine of the Pécharmant, a small and special region. Some people say the name means hill of charm, but it’s really named for a man called Armand who owned the place in Charlemagne’s time.”