Bruno chief of police bcop-1 Read online

  ‘Did she see their car?’ Bruno asked.

  ‘A silver Renault Laguna, quite new.’ Jeanne read out the number. Interesting, thought Bruno. It was a number for the Departement of the Corrиze. They would have taken the train to Brive and picked up the car there, outside the Dordogne.

  They must have realised that the local spy network was watching for them. Bruno walked out of the pedestrian zone and onto the main square by the old stone bridge, where the inspectors would have to come past him before they reached the market. He phoned his fellow municipal police chiefs in the other villages with markets that week and gave them the car and its number. His duty was done, or rather half his duty. He had protected his friends from the inspectors; now he had to protect them from themselves.

  So he rang old Joe, who had for forty years been Bruno’s predecessor as chief of police of St Denis. Now he spent his time visiting cronies in all the local markets, using as an excuse the occasional sale from a small stock of oversized aprons and work coats that he kept in the back of his van. There was less selling done than meeting for the ritual glass, a petit rouge, but Joe had been a useful rugby player two generations ago and was still a pillar of the local club. He wore in his lapel the little red button that labelled him a member of the Lйgion d’Honneur, a reward for his boyhood service as a messenger in the real Resistance against the Germans. Bruno felt sure that Joe would know about the tyre-slashing, and had probably helped organise it. Joe knew everyone in the district, and was related to half of them, including most of St Denis’s current crop of burly rugby forwards who were the terror of the local rugby league.

  ‘Look, Joe,’ Bruno began when the old man answered with his usual gruff bark, ‘everything is fine with the inspectors. The market is clean and we know who they are. We don’t want any trouble this time. It could make matters worse, you understand me?’

  ‘You mean the car that’s parked in front of the bank? The silver Laguna?’ Joe said, in a deep and rasping voice that came from decades of Gauloises and the rough wine he made himself. ‘Well, it’s being taken care of. Don’t you worry yourself, petit Bruno. The Gestapo can walk home today. Like last time.’

  ‘Joe, this is going to get people into trouble,’ Bruno said urgently, although he knew that he might as well argue with a brick wall. How the devil did Joe know about this already? He must have been in Ivan’s cafй when Jeanne was showing the photos around. And he had probably heard about the car from Marie-Hйlиne in the bank, since she was married to his nephew.

  ‘This could bring real trouble for us if we’re not careful,’ Bruno went on. ‘So don’t do anything that would force me to take action.’

  He closed his phone with a snap. Scanning the people coming across the bridge, most of whom he knew, he kept watch for the inspectors. Then from the corner of his eye he saw a familiar car, a battered old Renault Twingo that the local gendarmes used when out of uniform, being driven by the new Capitaine he had not yet had time to get to know. From Normandy, they said, a dour and skinny type called Duroc who did everything by the book. Suddenly an alert went off in Bruno’s mind and he called Joe again.

  ‘Stop everything now. They must be expecting more trouble after last time. That new gendarme chief has just gone by in plain clothes, and they may have arranged for their car to be staked out. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’

  ‘Merde,’ said Joe. ‘We should have thought of that but we may be too late. I told Karim in the bar and he said he’d take care of it. I’ll try and call him off.’

  Bruno rang the Cafй des Sports, run by Karim and his wife, Rashida, very pretty though heavily pregnant. Rachida told him Karim had left the cafй already and she didn’t think he had his mobile with him. Putain, thought Bruno. He started walking briskly across the narrow bridge, trying to get to the parking lot in front of the bank before Karim got into trouble.

  He had known Karim since he first arrived in the town over a decade ago as a hulking and sullen Arab teenager, ready to fight any young Frenchman who dared take him on. Bruno had seen the type before, and had slowly taught Karim that he was enough of an athlete to take out his resentments on the rugby field. With rugby lessons twice a week and a match each Saturday, and tennis in the summer, Bruno had taught the lad to stay out of trouble. He got Karim onto the school team, then onto the local rugby team, and finally into a league big enough for him to make the money that enabled the giant young man to marry his Rashida and buy the cafй. Bruno had made a speech at their wedding. Putain, putain, putain…

  If Karim got into trouble over this it could turn very nasty. The inspectors would get their boss to put pressure on the Prefect, who would then put pressure on the Police Nationale, or maybe they would even get on to the Ministry of Defence and bring in the gendarmes who were supposed to deal with rural crime.

  If they leant on Karim and Rashida to start talking, there was no telling where it might end. Criminal damage to state property would mean an end to Karim’s licence to sell tobacco, and the end of his cafй. He might not talk, but Rashida would be thinking of the baby and she might crack. That would lead them to old Joe and to the rest of the rugby team, and before you knew it the whole network of the quiet and peaceful town of St Denis would face charges and start to unravel. Bruno couldn’t have that.

  Bruno carefully slowed his pace as he turned the corner by the Commune notice board and past the war memorial into the ranks of cars that were drawn up like so many multi-coloured soldiers in front of the Crйdit Agricole. He looked for the gendarme Twingo and then saw Duroc standing in the usual line in front of the bank’s cash machine. Two places behind him was the looming figure of Karim, chatting pleasantly to Colette from the dry cleaning shop. Bruno closed his eyes in relief, and strode on towards the burly North African.

  ‘Karim,’ he said, and swiftly added ‘Bonjour, Colette,’ kissing her cheeks, before turning back to Karim, saying, ‘I need to talk to you about the match schedule for Sunday’s game. Just a very little moment, it won’t take long.’ He grabbed him by the elbow, made his farewells to Colette, nodded at Duroc, and steered his reluctant quarry back to the bridge.

  ‘I came to warn you. I think they may have the car staked out, maybe even tipped off the gendarmerie,’ Bruno said. Karim stopped, and his face broke into a delighted smile.

  ‘I thought of that myself, Bruno, then I saw that new gendarme standing in line for cash, but his eyes kept moving everywhere so I waited behind him. Anyway, it’s done.’

  ‘You did the tyres with Duroc standing there!?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Karim grinned. ‘I told my nephew to take care of it with the other kids. They crept up and jammed a potato into the exhaust pipe while I was chatting to Colette and Duroc. That car won’t make ten kilometres before the engine seizes.’

  CHAPTER 3

  As the siren that sounded noon began its soaring whine over the town, Bruno stood to attention before the Mairie and wondered if this had been the same sound that had signalled the coming of the Germans. Images of ancient newsreels came to mind: diving Stukas, people dashing for aid raid shelters, the victorious Wehrmacht marching through the Arc de Triomphe in 1940 to stamp their jackboots on the Champs-Elysйes and launch the conquest of Paris. Well, he thought, this was the day of revenge, the eighth of May, when France celebrated her eventual victory, and although some said it was old-fashioned and unfriendly in these days of Europe, the town of St Denis remembered the Liberation with an annual parade of its venerable veterans.

  Bruno had posted the Route Barrйe signs to block the side road and ensured that the floral wreaths had been delivered. He had donned his tie and polished his shoes and the peak of his cap. He had warned the old men in both cafйs that the time was approaching and had brought up the flags from the cellar beneath the Mairie. The Mayor himself stood waiting, the sash of office across his chest and the little red rosette of the Lйgion d’Honneur in his lapel. The gendarmes were holding up the impatient traffic, while housewives grumbled that
their bags were getting heavy and kept asking when they could cross the road.

  Jean-Pierre of the bicycle shop carried the tricolore and his enemy Bachelot held the flag that bore the Cross of Lorraine, the emblem of General de Gaulle and Free France. Old Marie-Louise, who as a young girl had served as a courier for one of the Resistance groups and who had been taken off to Ravensbruck concentration camp and somehow survived, sported the flag of St Denis.

  Montsouris, the Communist councillor, carried a smaller flag of the Soviet Union, and old Monsieur Jackson – and Bruno was very proud of arranging this – held the flag of his native Britain. A retired schoolteacher, he had come to spend his declining years with his daughter who had married Pascal of the local insurance office. Monsieur Jackson had been an eighteen-year-old recruit in the last weeks of war in 1945 and was thus a fellow combatant, entitled to share the honour of the victory parade. One day, Bruno told himself, he would find a real American, but this time the Stars and Stripes were carried by young Karim as the star of the rugby team.

  The Mayor gave the signal and the town band began to play the Marseillaise.

  Jean-Pierre raised the flag of France, Bruno and the gendarmes saluted, and the small parade marched off across the bridge, their flags flapping bravely in the breeze. Following them were three lines of the men of St Denis who had performed their military service in peacetime but who turned out for this parade as a duty to their town as well as to their nation. Bruno noted that Karim’s entire family had come to watch him carry a flag. At the back marched a host of small boys piping the words of the anthem. After the bridge, the parade turned left at the bank and marched through the car park to the memorial, a bronze figure of a French poilu of the Great War. The names of the fallen sons of St Denis took up three sides of the plinth beneath the figure. The bronze had darkened with the years, but the great eagle of victory that was perched, wings outstretched, on the soldier’s shoulder gleamed golden with fresh polish. The Mayor had seen to that. The plinth’s fourth side was more than sufficient for the dead of the Second World War, and the subsequent conflicts in Vietnam and Algeria. There were no names from Bruno’s own brief experience of war in the Balkans. He always felt relieved by that, even as he marvelled that a Commune as small as St Denis could have lost over two hundred young men in the slaughterhouse of 1914-1918.

  The schoolchildren of the town were lined up on each side of the memorial, the infants of the Maternelle in front sucking their thumbs and holding each other’s hands. Behind them, the slightly older ones in jeans and T-shirts were still young enough to be fascinated by this spectacle. Across from them, however, some of the teenagers of the Collиge slouched, affecting sneers and a touch of bafflement that the new Europe they were inheriting could yet indulge in such antiquated celebrations of national pride. But Bruno noticed that most of the teenagers stood quietly, aware that they were in the presence of all that remained of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, a list of names on a plinth that said something of their heritage and of the great mystery of war, and something of what France might one day again demand of her sons.

  Jean-Pierre and Bachelot, who might not have spoken for fifty years but who knew the ritual of this annual moment, marched forward and lowered their flags in salute to the bronze soldier and his eagle. Montsouris dipped his red flag and Marie-Louise lowered hers so far it touched the ground. Belatedly, unsure of their timing, Karim and the English Monsieur Jackson followed suit. The Mayor walked solemnly forward and ascended the small dais that Bruno had placed before the memorial.

  ‘Franзais et Franзaises,’ he declaimed, addressing the small crowd. ‘Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, and the representatives of our brave allies. We are here to celebrate a day of victory that has also become a day of peace, the eighth of May that marks the end of Nazism and the beginning of Europe’s reconciliation and her long, happy years of tranquillity. That peace was bought by the bravery of our sons of St Denis whose names are inscribed here, and by the old men and women who stand before you and who never bowed their heads to the rule of the invader. Whenever France has stood in mortal peril, the sons and daughters of St Denis have stood ready to answer the call, for France, and for the Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and the Rights of Man for which she stands.’

  He stopped and nodded at Sylvie from the bakery. She pushed forward her small daughter, who carried the floral wreath. The little girl, in red skirt, blue top and long white socks, walked hesitantly towards the Mayor and offered him the wreath, looking quite alarmed as he bent to kiss her on both cheeks. The Mayor took the wreath and walked slowly to the memorial, leant it against the soldier’s bronze leg, stood back, and called out, ‘Vive la France, Vive la Republique.’

  And with that Jean-Pierre and Bachelot, both old enough to be feeling the strain of the heavy flags, hauled them to an upright position of salute, and the band began to play Le Chant des Partisans, the old Resistance anthem. Tears began to roll down the cheeks of the two men, and old Marie-Louise broke down in sobs so that her flag wavered and all the children, even the teenagers, looked sobered, even touched, by this evidence of some great, unknowable trial that these old people had lived through.

  As the music faded away, the flags of the three allies – Soviet, British and American – were marched forward and raised in salute. Then came the surprise, a theatrical coup engineered by Bruno that he had arranged with the Mayor. This was a way for the old English enemy, who had fought France for a thousand years before being her ally for a brief century, to take her place on the day of victory.

  Bruno watched as Monsieur Jackson’s grandson, a lad of thirteen or so, marched forward from his place in the town band where he played the trumpet, his hand on a shiny brass bugle that was slung from a red sash around his shoulders. He reached the memorial, turned to salute the Mayor and, as the silent crowd exchanged glances at this novel addition to the ceremony, raised the bugle to his lips. As Bruno heard the first two long and haunting notes of the Last Post, tears came to his eyes. Through them he could see the shoulders of Monsieur Jackson shaking and the British flag trembled in his hands. The Mayor wiped away a tear as the last pure peals of the bugle died away, and the crowd remained absolutely silent until the boy put his bugle smartly to his side. Then, they exploded into applause and, as Karim went up and shook the boy’s hand, his Stars and Stripes flag swirling briefly to tangle with the British and French flags, Bruno was aware of a sudden flare of camera flashes.

  Mon Dieu, thought Bruno. That Last Post worked so well we’ll have to make it part of the annual ceremony. He looked around at the crowd, beginning to drift away, and saw that young Philippe Delaron, who usually wrote the sports report for the Sud-Ouest newspaper, had his notebook out and was talking to Monsieur Jackson and his grandson. Well, a small notice in the newspaper about a genuine British ally taking part in the Victory parade could do no harm now that so many English were buying homes in the Commune. It might even encourage them to complain less about their various property taxes and the price of water for their swimming pools. Then he noticed something rather odd. After every previous parade, whether it was for the eighth of May, for the eleventh of November when the Great War ended, on the eighteenth of June when de Gaulle launched Free France, or the fourteenth of July when France celebrated her Revolution, Jean-Pierre and Bachelot would turn away from each other without so much as a nod and walk back separately to the Mairie to store the flags they carried. But this time they were standing still, staring fixedly at one another. Not talking, but somehow communicating. Amazing what one bugle call can do, thought Bruno.

  Maybe if I can get some Americans into the parade next year they might even start talking, and leave one another’s wives alone. But now it was thirty minutes after midday and, like every good Frenchman, Bruno’s thoughts turned to his lunch.

  He walked back across the bridge with Marie-Louise, who was still weeping as he gently took her flag from her. The Mayor, and Monsieur Jackson and his daughter and grandson wer
e close behind. Karim and his family walked ahead, and Jean-Pierre and Bachelot, with their almost identical wives, brought up the rear, marching in grim silence as the town band, without its best trumpeter, played another song from the war that had the power to melt Bruno: J’attendrai.

  It was the song of the women of France in 1940, as they watched their men march off to a war that turned into six weeks of disaster and five years of prison camps. ‘… day and night, I shall wait always, for your return.’ The history of France was measured out in songs of war, he thought, many sad and some heroic, but each verse heavy with its weight of loss.

  The crowd was thinning as they turned off to lunch, most of the mothers and children going home, but some families making an event of of the day and turning into Jeannot’s bistro beyond the Mairie, or the pizza house beyond the bridge.

  Bruno would normally have gone with some friends to Ivan’s cafй for his plat du jour, usually a steak-frites – except for the time when Ivan fell in love with a Belgian girl staying at a local camp site and, for three glorious and passionate months until she packed up and went back to Charleroi, steak-frites became moules-frites. Then there was no plat du jour at all for weeks until Bruno had taken the grieving Ivan out and got him heroically drunk.

  But today was a special day, and so the Mayor had organised a dйjeuner d’honneur for those who had played a part in the parade. Now they climbed the ancient stairs, bowed in the middle by centuries of feet, to the top floor of the Mairie which held the council chamber and, on occasions such as this, doubled as the banquet room. The town’s treasure was a long and ancient table that served council and banquet alike, and was said to have been made for the grand hall of the chateau of the Brillamont family itself in those happier days before their Seigneur kept getting captured by the English. Bruno began counting; twenty places were laid for lunch. He scanned the room to see who his fellow diners might be.