The Patriarch: A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel (11 page)

Bruno’s car radio was tuned to Bleu Périgord. The station had sent a reporter to the hospital, and she had managed to snatch an interview with Peyrefitte as he arrived. He said only that this was no time for politics, that he was focusing on his children and feeling his grief for the death of his wife. But the reporter concluded by reminding the listeners that Peyrefitte had in the past been an outspoken critic of people he called “Green extremists.” A hospital spokesman said that the surgeons were fighting to save the life of one of Peyrefitte’s two children.

Imogène was stone-faced as Bruno took a hunters’ path through the woods and concentrated on navigating the narrow trail. The news gave way to a talk show that began with a caller denouncing “that deer woman” as a murderer. He heard Imogène give something like a sob, and then she bent over and began to retch. Bruno stopped his vehicle, leaned across her to open her door and helped her lean out to be sick. He switched off the radio and gave her a bottle of water and a towel that he kept in his sports bag. While he waited for her to finish, he texted the mayor: “Imogène out. En route safe house.”

He took the back roads through St. Chamassy and Meyrals all the way to Raquelle’s house in Montignac. Once in the small parking area outside Raquelle’s house, he called her and asked if it was convenient for Imogène to arrive now, or did she have visitors in the house? She was alone, Raquelle replied. Bruno escorted Imogène inside and dropped her bag and photos in the sitting room and said to Raquelle, “I know you’ll be discreet.”

“I’ve been listening to the radio. I understand.”

“Even your family…,” Bruno began.

“Particularly my family and most especially Madeleine,” Raquelle said with a grim smile. “For this issue, we’re on different sides. You know she’s campaigning to be the UMP candidate for the European Parliament?”

Bruno raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t known, but the news came as little surprise. Madeleine was a woman of firm opinions, and the current Socialist government was struggling in the opinion polls. It was a seat she could win. He thought back to the Patriarch’s party and the politicians who had been there, doubtless invited to help her cause. And he remembered how tirelessly Madeleine had worked the crowd and how she had done the same at the wine tasting earlier in the day.

“She’s been building support among the winegrowers, the hunting clubs,” said Raquelle. “She wants to be sure there’s no Chasseur Party candidate taking votes from her. So my dear sister-in-law is the last person I’d let know that Imogène has taken refuge here.”

“I’m grateful, Raquelle. You’re a good woman.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her, even though I don’t agree with Imogène’s stubborn insistence on saving these deer of hers.”

“If she’d only agree to keep the numbers in balance, I think we could get some kind of refuge status for her.”

“She and I are going to have some time together. Maybe I can talk her into it.”

The prefects of France date from Napoléon’s time, have a quasi-military uniform and are the direct representatives of the central government in the regions. There is one for each
département,
and they have a staff of up to a thousand people, mostly issuing driver’s licenses, passports, car registrations and the like. But the prefects also ensure that the various layers of local governments follow national policy, and they have particular responsibility for law and order and the different bodies of police. This is an exceedingly complex task, since nowhere is the French genius for multilayered and overlapping jurisdictions more in evidence than in its various forms of policing.

The police forces the prefects must seek to coordinate begin with the gendarmes, traditionally a paramilitary force under the Ministry of Defense. Then there is the Police Nationale, a body with two functions. It is first a nationwide police force under the interior ministry, responsible for public security, border guards, SWAT teams and the much-feared CRS riot police. It also runs the DCRI, the Directorate of Internal Intelligence, which brings together the counterespionage service and the old police intelligence network, the Renseignements Généraux. In its second function the Police Nationale also runs the Police Judiciaire, a nationwide force of detectives and specialist scientific investigators similar to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States. These elite crime investigators usually work under the direction of a magistrate who is assigned by the local public
procureur,
or “prosecutor,” to mount a criminal inquiry to assess whether there is sufficient evidence for a trial. If so, the investigating magistrate takes the case to court.

Along with all these bodies, the prefect must also seek to coordinate the dozens of separate municipal forces in different towns and communes. Among these was Bruno’s one-man operation in St. Denis. So when the mayor called as Bruno was leaving Raquelle’s house and told him to drive directly to Périgueux to join him there for an urgent meeting at the prefect’s office, Bruno was serving two masters. His employer and real boss was the mayor and council of St. Denis, but the prefect could also claim authority over him.

Bruno sighed as he headed north to the autoroute, the fastest way to Périgueux. He was not greatly impressed by the current prefect, appointed by the Socialist government, which had the support in parliament of the Green Party. The political affiliations did not bother Bruno, but he had learned that their particular prefect was unusually sensitive to any issue touching on the cherished values of the Socialists or the Greens. In the case of Imogène and her deer, the prefect would be torn between the two. To appease the Greens, he would want to protect the deer and Imogène, which would probably mean deploying a lot of police to protect her property. But the Socialists were also traditionally wary of the power and often-ruthless tactics of the police. The deer-related death of the wife of a leading conservative politician made the issue even more complex. The result, Bruno feared, would be that the prefect would dither, try to appease everyone and end up making a mess of things.

As a former soldier, Bruno knew that nothing was worse than a hesitant commander and uncertain orders. When a state deployed force, it had to know what the objectives were and make sure the troops knew them, too. In the case of Imogène, a choice had to be made whether to protect her and her property and thus her deer from a potential mob or to protect the road-using public from the overpopulation of her deer. Since Imogène was now safe, thanks to Bruno, the only things at risk were the deer, which would have to be culled anyway, and Imogène’s ramshackle house.

But the moment that Bruno arrived at the grandiose
préfecture
off the handsome avenue of the Cours Tourny, he found himself directed to the prefect’s home. Bruno knew what this meant: a meeting that was not quite official. It could thus, in the event of political embarrassment, be said never to have taken place. Once there, Bruno was directed not to the prefect’s office nor his study but to a long veranda at the rear of the imposing house, where he found the prefect, the mayor and the general in charge of the gendarmes, wearing civilian clothes, all drinking coffee and mineral water. A TV set was tuned to the twenty-four-hour-news channel but with its sound off, and a radio was giving local news from Bleu Périgord. While driving, Bruno had been listening to its reporter’s account of scores of hunters from across the
département
gathering at St. Denis, amid threats from the hotheads that they would start their cull before dusk fell.

“Ah, Bruno,” said the mayor as Bruno shook hands with the others. “We’re just waiting for the
commissaire de police,
and then we can begin. Anything to report? Imogène is safely stashed away?”

“She’s safe for a few days,” he replied. The prefect waved him vaguely to the drinks trolley and Bruno helped himself to some mineral water.

“Once night falls, it’s far too dangerous to send my gendarmes into wooded country full of armed men,” the general was saying. Bruno was relieved to hear it. “I’m seriously worried that there could be a bloodbath. And I don’t have nearly enough men to control the perimeter of this property. Even if you authorize me to call for reinforcements from Limoges and Bordeaux, they won’t be here before morning.”

A fifth man, also in civilian clothes, was shown into their presence by a white-jacketed steward, who bowed and backed away. This new man, Pascal Prunier, the police commissioner for the
département,
was young for the job, just a few years older than Bruno, but with a sound reputation from his last responsibility in Paris. And he’d won the grudging respect of J-J, the chief of detectives for the
département
and Bruno’s friend. J-J had described Prunier as ambitious, political, tough but trustworthy and always ready to back his men. That was good enough for Bruno. When he had been younger, Pascal had played rugby for Clermont-Ferrand, one of the best clubs in France. Bruno recalled playing against Prunier in a police-versus-army match just before he’d been deployed to Bosnia. Being tackled by Prunier was like being hit by a truck. He still looked very fit.

Like the mayor, Bruno rose to shake hands and noted that both the general and the prefect stayed in their seats. Prunier shook their hands anyway and then turned to Bruno.

“Glad to see you again, Courrèges. The last time we met, you were the man who stopped me getting an otherwise certain try and winning the game. You don’t look like you’ve changed much. It’s been what, ten or twelve years?”

“A good twelve years, Commissaire,” Bruno replied, trying to conceal his pleasure at being remembered.

“Call me Pascal. Is it true you’ve managed to take this deer woman to somewhere safe?”

“Yes, but word from St. Denis is that things are heating up.”

“The general has just been telling me he doesn’t want to deploy his gendarmes at night,” said the prefect.

“He’s right,” said Prunier. “I have my CRS and intervention teams deployed nearby and ready to intervene, as you ordered. But I have to warn you of the very dangerous risks of sending them into the woods after dark. It’s not an order I would give, sir.”

“So we permit an armed mob to take the law into their own hands, destroy property and slaughter deer?” the prefect asked. “That’s not what Paris wants. I discussed the matter with the deputy minister just before this meeting. He’s counting on us to keep order here in the Périgord.”

“In that case, he can issue the orders himself,” Prunier replied. “But has he done so?”

“Only a suggestion. Not an order,” the prefect replied, looking worried. “And it was made verbally.”

“I’ve had no orders from Paris beyond consulting with you, Monsieur le Préfet. So he’s leaving us to take responsibility.” Prunier turned to the general. “What about your gendarmes?”

“I’ve had no orders from Paris, neither from the defense ministry nor from the Ministry of the Interior. But I agree with you. Sending gendarmes into those woods at night would be insane.”

“You’re the man on the ground, Bruno. What do you think?” Prunier asked. It was striking how fast he’d taken command of the meeting, Bruno thought.

“We did a lot of training in night fighting when I was in the military, and even then it was full of risks, despite the night-vision goggles,” said Bruno. “If you decide to send untrained men at night into those woods, we could have a real disaster on our hands. And even if you ordered us to do so and everything worked as planned, we’d still face the problem of the deer.”

“The question of the deer is now in the hands of the courts,” the prefect said, waving a dismissive hand.

“Legally, sir, that’s true,” Bruno acknowledged. “In practice, tonight, those deer are in the hands of those hunters that the radio says are gathering, and I don’t see how we can stop them.”

“Wait,” said the prefect, leaning back to turn up the sound on the radio. Peyrefitte was being interviewed at the hospital after seeing his children. One was out of danger; the other was in intensive care.

“I just hope no other families ever have to go through this kind of tragedy and grief,” Peyrefitte was saying in a voice choked with heartbreak. “And all for the sake of a crazed Green woman and her deer. Have they all gone mad in Paris? Have they no idea up there what our life here in the countryside is like?”

“When you say ‘a crazed Green woman,’ do you hold her responsible for the death of your wife?” the radio reporter asked him.

“Of course, and I will be pressing the
procureur
to bring charges against her for manslaughter. If he refuses, I’ll file civil charges against this woman, although if I were her lawyer I’d be tempted to plead insanity. People cannot be allowed to make our country roads into killing grounds. We already have so many deer that they’re a menace. It’s not as though they’re an endangered species. What I learned today is that my wife and children are the endangered ones, along with all the other families on these roads. Can’t we agree that human beings have to come first?”

The news moved on to the Middle East, and the prefect turned the sound back down and said, “I’ll have to talk to the
procureur.
”

“Peyrefitte just gave him a perfect excuse to duck it,” said the mayor, with an assurance that came from years of experience. “He’ll let Peyrefitte go ahead with his civil suit.”

The prefect nodded sagely and then said, “We have to consider the political dimension.”

“If Peyrefitte runs, he’ll win by a landslide after this,” said Prunier.

“Why do you say ‘if’ he runs?” the prefect asked. “He’s running already.”

“He’s lost his wife, and now he has to look after his two children, one of them in critical condition, which means convalescing for quite some time,” the mayor replied. “I know Peyrefitte. He’s a decent man, and he’ll put his children first. He’ll decide to back out of politics and stay at home with the kids. And he’d be right to do that.”

“Which means the government might not lose the seat,” the prefect said, looking distinctly more cheerful.

“Possibly, but it depends on the candidate the UMP finds to replace him, and in Bergerac right now there’s someone who could be very hard to beat,” the mayor said. “Madeleine Desaix is good-looking, stably married, a mother, runs a vineyard and the Patriarch is her father-in-law. If the old man campaigns for her, and I expect he will, she has a very good chance.”

Bruno raised his eyebrows. Madeleine’s political prospects seemed even grander than he’d thought. The prefect sank down a little deeper into his chair and looked out at the sky. Dusk was on the way. He glanced at his watch, evidently wavering as the men around him added their own discreet pressures for him to make a decision, looking at their own watches, glancing at their mobile phones, putting their water glasses firmly down and leaning forward in their chairs as if about to stand.

“By the way, Monsieur le Maire, I finished those estimates,” Bruno said, thinking that was a good time to drop another factor into the prefect’s thinking. “If and when the judge authorizes the cull of Imogène’s deer, it’s going to cost between twenty and thirty thousand euros.”

“We could try to get the money back from her,” said the mayor, picking up on Bruno’s tactic. “But that would mean forcing her into selling her home, and that would provoke a scandal. The Greens would be furious. So we’d probably have to apply to you, Monsieur le Préfet, for emergency funding.”

The prefect switched his gaze suspiciously from Bruno to the mayor and back again, and then looked at Prunier and the general of gendarmes. He suspected that he was being manipulated, but he also knew that these men were right about the dangers of sending armed men into the woods at night. If anything went wrong, it would be the end of his career.

“Any news from your men in place, General?” he asked. The general was thumbing through messages on his mobile phone.

“No, sir. There was a report of some scattered gunshots a few minutes ago, but there are legal hunting grounds all around there. There’s no sign of any organized march onto her property.”

“I’d better stand down the CRS before we get into overtime pay,” said Prunier. “I can have them on standby to return there in the morning.”

“I’ll keep a couple of mobiles on the outskirts of St. Denis doing alcohol checks,” said the general. “And we’ll have a vehicle, lights blazing, at the entrance to her property. I’ll make sure they patrol up to this woman’s house throughout the night. Just one thing, Monsieur le Préfet—do you have any orders for my men if they hear shooting break out?”

“Not unless it’s World War Three,” said the prefect with a practiced smile. He rose from his seat. “Very well, we’ll just keep watching overnight and not put any of your men at risk. I’ll inform the deputy minister that your advice was unanimous. Thank you, gentlemen, for your reports and your very helpful counsel. I imagine all this will be settled tomorrow, one way or another.”