The Crowded Grave bop-4 Page 5

  “Bonjour, mademoiselle, and welcome to the Perigord,” he said. “You know the body has been removed by the Police Nationale and taken for forensic examination?”

  “What? Without my seeing it in place?” Her voice had risen a notch.

  “That’s something you’d better discuss with Commissaire Jalipeau, the chief of detectives. But I gather it’s quite routine, particularly when there’s a problem of identification.”

  “We’ll see about that. I still want to see the site. Where will you meet me?”

  “In front of the mairie in thirty minutes. I’m in uniform, so you can’t miss me, and you can park there. But you might want to bring some boots or walking shoes. It’s some way off the nearest road.”

  “Right. Thirty minutes.” She hung up. Bruno looked at his watch. He had a little time, so he turned back to Monique.

  “Can I take a look in the big tent, the one you called their living room?”

  About fifteen feet square, with a peaked top and a large canopy, the main tent contained a couple of the picnic tables that the campground provided beside the barbecue stands. There was a small stereo-radio on one with a pile of CDs beside it, a five-liter box of cheap red wine and a pile of empty pizza boxes. On the other were cooking pots. Piled on a cloth beneath the bench were several boxes of vegetables and cereals and a dilapidated wicker basket containing some tools. Bruno noted a hammer and small saw, a couple of screwdrivers and a large pair of wire cutters.

  5

  A small blue Peugeot circled the roundabout too fast. It beeped its horn to deter a mother with two children in a carriage from setting forth on the pedestrian crossing before parking with a jerk across two of the marked spaces in front of the mairie. The front bumper stopped within an inch of Bruno’s leg. The young woman at the wheel in a gray woolen suit threw him a swift glance and then began collecting papers from a briefcase on the passenger seat. From down the street, he heard a siren. The Peugeot was freshly washed but far from new, with dents in the bumper and scratches on the rear fenders and the wide tires he’d only previously seen on cars used for race-car driving.

  Bruno tapped on her window. “Your documents, please, mademoiselle.”

  She turned from her papers and looked at him coldly. The sound of the approaching siren grew, and a blue gendarmerie van came into view, Sergeant Jules at the wheel.

  “You’re Courreges, the village policeman, right?”

  “Correct. You are illegally parked and about to receive a citation for failing to stop for a pedestrian crossing,” he said. He realized that this was the new magistrate, but the traffic in St. Denis was one of his responsibilities. He pulled out his notebook as Jules parked his police car behind the blue Peugeot, blocking its exit.

  “You got her too?” called Jules, heaving himself from the car. “We clocked her at seventy-eight coming into town.” He began to fill out a speeding ticket.

  “Meet our new magistrate,” said Bruno. “Annette Meraillon. Mademoiselle, this is Sergeant Jules of the gendarmerie.”

  “Putain,” said Jules. “I’ve started writing it now. Can’t tear it up, they’re all numbered.”

  “I’m sure Mademoiselle Meraillon believes that the law should always take its course,” said Bruno. “Where was she doing seventy-eight?”

  “Going past the vet, just where the limit goes down from fifty to thirty. That’ll be three points off her license.”

  “Plus the pedestrian crossing,” said Bruno. “That’s four. And the fines, not including the twenty euros for parking across two spaces.”

  “If you two have finished,” the young woman said, “I’m on official business and have an appointment-with you.”

  Jules and Bruno looked thoughtfully at each other.

  “Urgent official business, mademoiselle?” Jules inquired.

  “Of course.”

  “Mademoiselle Meraillon wants to see a crime scene from which she knows the body has already been removed,” said Bruno. “It may be official, but it’s not exactly urgent. And I don’t know of any provision for magistrates to break the traffic laws when there is no crime in progress.”

  “This is ridiculous-” she began, then came an interruption.

  “Well, I’m glad you’ve got the stupid woman,” said Florence, putting the brake on her carriage. The two children sitting inside, safely buckled in, waved at Bruno. He waved back. Florence, the science teacher at the local school, kissed him quickly as he bent to say hello to the children. She put her hand on the roof of the blue Peugeot and looked in.

  “You’re a dangerous driver,” she said. “I’d started crossing that road and it was my right of way. You have no right to drive like that in town.” Florence turned to Bruno and Jules. “Take my name. I’ll be happy to be a witness.”

  The woman in the car glanced at the children as if seeing them for the first time. She swallowed hard, looked at Florence and then back at the children. She gripped the steering wheel, braced her shoulders against the car seat and lowered her head.

  “I’m sorry,” said the magistrate, raising her head to look directly at Florence. “And I’m sorry if I frightened your children. I didn’t mean to, and I apologize. I was in too much of a hurry.” She reached into the bag on the seat beside her, pulled a driving permit from her purse and handed it through the window to Jules. Then she leaned across to open the glove compartment and took out a plastic folder with insurance documents and the carte grise, the car registration. She also handed Jules a laminated ID card with the red, white and blue stripes of the Republique Francaise across her photograph.

  “You were right, Monsieur Courreges. I’m a magistrate. The law should take its course. Please take this woman’s statement and then I will give mine. I freely admit that I was driving too fast and should have stopped for the pedestrian crossing.”

  Florence looked down at her. “When did you start this job?”

  “Monday. First job out of magistrates’ school.”

  “Well, in that case…” Florence paused. “Just be careful in the future.” She unlocked the carriage and wheeled her children off toward Fauquet’s cafe promising them ice cream.

  “I think I lost my witness,” said Bruno. “But the parking fine stays.”

  “And the speeding ticket,” said Jules. “But I’ll put it in the fifty zone. That won’t be too bad.” He filled out the ticket and handed it to her. “I’ll see you, Bruno.” He got into his van, reversed quickly and drove out of the parking lot.

  “Shall we start again?” Bruno said. “I’m Bruno, not Monsieur Courreges, and we’re supposed to be colleagues. May I call you Annette?”

  “Yes, please do, and I’m sorry about this.” She tried a hesitant smile. It made her look even younger. Fair-haired and slim, with a thin face that looked pretty now that she was not trying to be fierce, she could have been a teenager. The suit seemed incongruous, as if she were dressing for a role as someone older, a businesswoman perhaps.

  “I understand,” said Bruno. “I was very nervous when I started and probably tried too hard to make an impression. But I don’t think I was foolish enough to try doing it with a car.”

  “That woman with the children, is she a friend of yours?”

  “Yes, but then most people in this town have known me for years and I try to get along with everybody.”

  “It’s just… you have this reputation, Monsieur-I mean, Bruno.”

  He raised his eyebrows. He could imagine what young magistrates might think of him, an ex-soldier who hunted and drank and who tried never to arrest anyone and cared little for the subtleties of modern law enforcement with its counseling and political correctness.

  “Let’s go and have a coffee, and you might want to pay for that ice cream Florence promised the kids,” he said. “She’s a good woman, a teacher and single mother, and worth getting to know. I presume you haven’t many friends yet in the area.”

  She swung her legs out of the car. The skirt of the suit was tight and rather sho
rt, and her legs were shapely. He handed her back the car keys and she made to lock the door. Bruno coughed.

  “Perhaps you could fit the car into a single space, Annette,” he said.

  She grinned, got back into the car, reversed and straightened it. “Anything else, before that ice cream?”

  “I hope you have some spare clothes in the car. That suit won’t look so good after we get to the site.”

  “I brought walking shoes, as you advised. And I’ve got a snowman in the back of the car,” she said, referring to the white plastic coveralls that were worn by forensics teams. “What more does a girl need?”

  “This,” he said, handing her the parking ticket.

  Now that the skeleton had been taken away, the grave site had reverted to being an archaeological dig. Bruno noticed that the winch had been placed over the large pit. He told Annette to be careful to follow his footsteps between the trenches and led the way to the place that was still marked off with crime scene tape. Teddy and two other students were digging just beyond it, extending their ditch and still looking for the midden. Bruno leaned over the yellow tape and looked into the empty grave.

  “There’s nothing to see,” said Annette, sounding irritated.

  “The forensics people have been doing their job,” Bruno said.

  “They even took some of the soil, probably wanting to see if the body bled in place,” said Teddy. “They sieved it first, which was decent of them, but found nothing.”

  “Not even a bullet?”

  “I heard them talking,” said one of the other students; he spoke good French, but with a strong accent. “They said it was still in the skull.”

  “And you are, monsieur?”

  “Kasimir, from Poland, University of Krakow.” He had dark hair, clear blue eyes and wore a T-shirt featuring some Polish artist Bruno had never heard of. Kasimir leaned against the side of the ditch, pulled a pack of tobacco from his pocket and began to roll a cigarette. “They put a black cloth over the grave and sprayed something. Then they shone a light down and said they were sure he’d been killed right here.”

  “Kasimir, did you hear anything else that might help the magistrate here?” Bruno recognized the standard forensic test for blood, although he’d be surprised if traces had lasted so long.

  “They said they thought they might get a rough date of death from the shoes he was wearing. They were sneakers, or at least they had been.” He shrugged. “Other than that, the skeleton looked intact, what we could see. They put screens up.”

  “People must be upset,” said Annette. “Would you like me to arrange for some counseling?”

  “Counseling?” asked Kasimir, snorting. “We’re here to find bodies. Skeletons are what we do.”

  “Something else I wanted to ask,” Bruno said, turning to Teddy. “Where were you in the early hours of this morning, around dawn?”

  Teddy looked startled. “In bed, fast asleep, back at the campsite.”

  “And Kajte? That girl I saw you with.”

  “She was with me.” There was a touch of bravado in the statement. “She was there when I woke up. We all had breakfast together. Kas was there. You remember this morning?”

  “I’m not good in the mornings, but we were all there today, drinking the worst coffee in the world,” Kasimir said, lighting his cigarette. “Why do you ask?”

  “Some animal rights militants tried to liberate a farm full of ducks. Some of the ducks were killed when they wandered onto the road, which seems a funny way of protecting animals.”

  “Maybe no worse than the alternative,” said Teddy. “But you’re all into foie gras around here.”

  “Not all of us,” said Annette, suddenly animated. She turned to Bruno. “What happened?”

  “A nearby farm had its fences torn apart, and PETA leaflets were stuck on the bits that were left. It stands for ‘People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,’ ” Bruno said. “The farmer has kids to raise, and he barely makes a living as it is, without losing a few ducks and geese and having to repair fences. And around here, we believe in the ethical treatment of farmers.”

  Teddy said nothing, but Kasimir looked at him curiously.

  “You ever tried foie gras?” Bruno asked, his tone conversational rather than challenging.

  “Of course,” said Kasimir, as Teddy shook his massive head. “We have it in Poland as well, always at Christmas. We have a sweet white wine from Hungary with it, a Tokay.”

  “So the cruelty these PETA people talk about, it doesn’t worry you?”

  Kasimir grinned. “If there’s any cruelty, blame Mother Nature. Ducks and geese always stuff themselves to swell their livers before they fly off on winter migration. That’s how they store their energy. Everybody knows that.”

  From the look on Teddy’s face, it didn’t appear to Bruno that he knew that gavage, the force-feeding of the birds, was also a natural process. He glanced at Annette. She also looked surprised.

  “Well, if you hear of any of your pals making plans to attack more farms, talk them out of it. Or I’ll be making arrests for criminal damage. And Annette here will have to bring charges. That’s her job.” Bruno turned away, then looked back at Teddy.

  “One more thing. Rugby practice is tomorrow evening at six, if you’re interested, and again at nine on Saturday morning. We have spare gear at the stadium-you know where it is? First left after the Bricomarche, and you’ll see the rugby posts.”

  “Thanks,” said Teddy, looking surprised. “I’d like that.”

  “You might want to bring Kajte along,” Bruno added. “And tell her to be careful where she does her photocopying.”

  Teddy’s cheerful face suddenly clouded, and he looked away.

  “What was that last remark about?” Annette asked as they headed back to Bruno’s car.

  “I made a few inquiries. Kajte was doing the photocopying for the dig, work rotations and stuff. I think she photocopied the leaflets that were left on the wire, and I checked the websites she was using-she was looking up PETA slogans and campaigns.”

  Annette stopped in her tracks, her expression horrified and her voice suddenly shrill. “You searched her private computer?”

  “No, I looked at the public computer she used in the tourist center,” said Bruno equably. “She hadn’t cleared the cache. No privacy was breached, and the computer is owned by St. Denis, so I have every right to consult it.”

  Annette nodded, but still looked troubled. Then she looked at him challengingly. “But if you have a case against somebody, why give them a warning like that? It’s not as though you share their sympathies about animal rights. And I should let you know that I do, and if there are any cases of wanton cruelty to animals, there are statutes against it that I would want to enforce.”

  They were walking side by side, amiably enough, although there was a sharper tone in her voice. But she seemed ready to listen. Bruno was reminded of times in the army when a new officer had come to take over the squad. It was always Bruno’s job as sergeant to educate him, buff away the officer-school polish and teach him how to make forty tough young soldiers obey their orders cheerfully. He wondered if Annette would be amenable to some gentle coaching, after making such a disastrous entry into St. Denis. He’d have to try. Nobody would benefit from a constant tension between town and magistrate.

  “I want to stop it now before it gets any worse,” he said. “You must have seen angry farmers on TV, dumping cartloads of manure on the steps of a mairie, blocking roads with tractors, throwing bureaucrats into the river. That’s what could happen here unless we can defuse the situation. It would hurt the museum and mean trouble for my friend Horst, a German professor who runs the dig.”

  “He wasn’t there today?”

  “No, he’s giving a public lecture at the museum tonight so he was probably preparing that. I’m looking forward to it. He’s a good speaker, he’s passionate about this prehistory, and I’ve been getting some hints that he has something big to say. If you ha
ve nothing better to do, you might want to come along and listen, meet some of my friends and start to understand what’s so special about this valley.”

  6

  Bruno recognized the image on the giant screen, the deep pit he had seen that morning at Horst’s dig, the flat stone with the strange cup-shaped depressions and the smoothness of bone. A small ruler, in red and white with gradations for each ten centimeters, lay alongside what Bruno could now identify as a human femur. The red spot of Horst’s laser pointer picked out the details he chose to highlight on the enlarged photograph as he spoke.

  “A new prehistoric burial site in this region is always a remarkable discovery and this one with its two adults and child may be very special indeed,” Horst was saying from the podium.

  The auditorium at the new National Museum was filled, with some of Horst’s students standing at the back and more listening to his lecture through a loudspeaker in the hall. Bruno counted well over a hundred seats, another score or so against the walls and with the overflow there must have been two hundred people in attendance, the largest audience Bruno could remember. Nor did he recall ever seeing TV cameras at the back of the hall before, and for once Philippe Delaron from the local Sud Ouest newspaper was not the only reporter present. Bruno sat between Pamela and Fabiola, with his tennis partner, the baron, next in the row and the new magistrate beside him. Annette had changed into jeans and a white silk shirt that looked expensive. Pamela was wearing a light green sweater that Bruno guessed was cashmere. It set off the hints of red in her bronze hair.

  The skeletons, Horst was saying, were around thirty-three thousand years old. That meant they came from the pivotal period when the Neanderthals were being replaced by the Cro-Magnons, modern mankind. Horst paused, then stepped out from behind the podium toward the front of the stage, his face suddenly illuminated by the light from the projector. His shadow fell thick and long on the screen behind him. It was a deliberately theatrical move. His eyes must have been blinded by the projector light, but he swiveled his head slowly as if to look at each part of the audience before he spoke again.