The Patriarch: A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel (12 page)

As they left the prefect’s home, the mayor put his hand on Prunier’s arm. “I’m delighted to learn that you and Bruno know each other. I was about to invite Bruno to dine with me here in Périgueux, and perhaps we can tempt you to join us? Since you’re both policemen I thought we might try the Hercule Poirot; I’ve always like the idea of naming a restaurant after a detective.”

“Monsieur le Maire, I really ought to get back to see if I can help the gendarmes keep watch at Imogène’s house,” Bruno said.

“No, Bruno. You’re staying with me. You leave this business to the gendarmes, and that’s an order. Well, Prunier?”

“I’d like to, but I see my wife and kids little enough as it is,” Prunier replied. “Why not come back with me and dine with us? My wife’s from Alsace and can always rustle up a quick
Flammküchen.
She’s used to me turning up with unexpected guests.”

All three of them were parked in the prefect’s courtyard, and as they began to follow Prunier toward his home, Bruno’s phone vibrated. He looked at the screen and saw the telltale green light that signaled someone from the special security circuit. It was a phone Bruno had been given on a previous mission by the brigadier, the interior ministry official whose calls always spelled trouble.

“Why are you making inquiries into Colonel Gilbert Clamartin?” said the brigadier by way of greeting.

“He died the night of the Patriarch’s party with no will in sight, and I was trying to track down his heirs,” Bruno replied. “I was also curious about his death, apparently from too much alcohol, although some witnesses say he was sober. And then a very early cremation got me wondering. Why are you interested?”

“Clamartin’s name is on a special list. My office is alerted when somebody inquires into his military file.”

“Is that routine for people who did his Moscow job?” Bruno asked.

“I can’t say, Bruno.”

“Did you know he’d died?”

“Not until you told me, which is a little worrying. Our systems need to be more efficient. So you think there was something odd about his death?”

“A little, and there seems to be some unusual trust fund in Liechtenstein, although the people he was living with down here thought he was broke. One of our magistrates tipped off the
fisc,
and they’re looking into it.”

“Very well, I’ll take care of that. If you learn anything more, let me know.” The brigadier hung up.

Bruno followed dutifully behind the mayor’s car as they made their way to Prunier’s house in the comfortable suburb by the Périgueux golf course. Prunier’s two daughters, ages five and seven, were briefly introduced in their pajamas before being taken off to bed. Bruno and the mayor had chatted with Prunier’s blond and cheerful wife, Monique, while Prunier read the girls their bedtime story. They learned that she was the daughter of the local police chief in Colmar, where Prunier had been posted. She had been a primary-school teacher but sometimes helped out at her aunt’s restaurant on busy evenings, which was where she had first met Pascal. They were married within the year, moved to Normandy where the children were born and then to Paris. Monique said proudly that she had repainted this house herself, which offered so much more room than the apartment in Paris, and with a big garden for the children. The next step, she said, was to get them a dog.

“I think you’d better leave that to us,” said the mayor. “Bruno and I know a lot about dogs and we know just the breed you need, a basset. I had them for years, Bruno has one now, and there’s no better dog for children. Descendants of my last female are all over the valley, and most of the others were fathered by Bruno’s last dog, Gigi. There’s bound to be someone with a new litter.”

Bruno glanced admiringly around the large room. It ran the full width of the house, and a series of glass doors opened onto a terrace and garden. At one end was a kitchen, separated by a waist-high counter, and at the other end a vast corner sofa faced a large bookcase that held a TV, toys and DVDs. A low coffee table had newspapers on its bottom shelf and children’s picture books on top. Other toys were piled into a large plastic crate beside the coffee table, and children’s paintings were all over the kitchen walls and held to the fridge by magnets. A round dining table, four places already set for dinner, stood between the kitchen and the TV corner. It was all comfortable and inviting, a room where the family could be together. As Prunier came back downstairs to join them, Bruno thrust aside the touch of envy he felt and the concern that he might never have a family of his own to fill a room such as this.

Soon they were sipping Riesling and munching their way through the Alsace specialty that the French call
tarte flambée.
Bruno always thought of it as a Teutonic form of pizza. The thin crust of pastry was covered in crème fraîche, thinly sliced onions and bacon. Monique served it with two salads, one of tomatoes and basil and the other of lettuce and chives.

“Are you still playing at all, Bruno, or have you hung up your boots?” Prunier asked as he opened the second bottle of Riesling and his wife served a second
Flammküchen,
this one bedecked with thinly sliced leeks and sun-dried tomatoes.

“He’s the star of our over-thirty team,” said the mayor. “And he trains the children’s teams. He’s a long way from retired. I heard you’re refereeing now?”

“That’s right, when I can get the time,” replied Prunier. “I cursed referees so hard when I was playing I thought it only fair to see the game from the other side of the whistle. But I want to talk about this situation in St. Denis. I know our prefect; he’ll want me to go in strong tomorrow and try to make some arrests as a way to appease the Greens.”

“The hunters aren’t fools; they’ll have all gone by then,” said Bruno. “And what’s the charge? You can’t even charge them with hunting out of season. The most you can do is charge individuals with shooting more than their quota, and you’ll have to prove every case. The guns will all have been cleaned by the time you get there, and there’ll be no witnesses.”

“There’ll be bullets. We can round up the rifles, run ballistic tests. We can get convictions,” Prunier insisted.

“Say you get some convictions. You might get their hunting permits confiscated and a fine,” the mayor broke in. “But in this
département
nearly a third of adult males have a permit and a lot of the women, too. That’s a lot of votes. Do you think this prefect will be foolish enough to stir up that kind of political opposition with Peyrefitte all over the radio and an election coming up? I’ll certainly try to talk him out of it, and I won’t be the only one. At some point he’ll drop it, and you’ll be left to take the blame.”

Prunier nodded glumly. “When I came to this job, my predecessor warned me that there were two kinds of prefect, and this one was the type from whom you wanted to get your orders in writing.”

The mayor and Bruno drove home slowly, the mayor following Bruno to ensure he didn’t defy his orders and head for Imogène’s place. Bruno felt a deep anger at being ordered to drive directly home and stay away from the scene of the action. He understood the mayor’s motives, and while he trusted the mayor’s political instincts, he hated the idea of failing in his duty. St. Denis was his town, and he was its policeman; he knew he should be on the scene. Bruno was surprised that there was nothing new on the radio, no reports of a house being burned to the ground nor of constant volleys of gunfire in the night. As he took the rise from Mortemart to the brow of the hill, he tapped his brake lights several times to signal to the mayor behind, slowed and pulled off the road. He saw the mayor pull in behind him, and they each climbed out, listening. There was no sound of rifle shots and no red glow on the skyline.

“It’s all quiet,” said the mayor, joining him. He sounded relieved. Bruno pulled out his mobile and called Sergeant Jules of the gendarmes, who had been put in charge of the roadblock at the end of the lane that led to Imogène’s house. Bruno and the mayor drove down to join him. There had been a flurry of gunshots lasting for about thirty minutes before dusk, Jules reported. So many deer were fleeing that he’d had to close the road. After that, silence. The gendarme
mobiles
had made half-a-dozen arrests of drivers with too much alcohol in their bloodstreams, but each of them had his rifle locked away in a case according to regulations.

“No attempt on her house?” Bruno asked.

“No, it was all too well organized and disciplined for that,” Jules replied. “And I hear there was a lot of exchanging of rifles going on at the hunters’ cabin near St. Cirq. So anybody trying to run ballistics tests will have trouble matching the guns to anyone around here.”

Bruno smiled to himself and felt a small glow of pride in the cunning of his fellow hunters, wondering who had been the brain behind it. He wouldn’t be in the least surprised to learn it had been Sergeant Jules, but that was a thought best kept to himself. He should have expected something like this. During World War II the people in this valley and its surrounding hills had organized some of the most sophisticated and effective Resistance groups in France. There was a folk memory here among local communities of the old ways to keep their affairs private and frustrate the intrusions of outsiders, whether it be an enemy occupation or their own government in Paris.

“Don’t tell me you’re surprised, Bruno,” the mayor said. “You know these people, and you’re their friend. They took good care that whatever they did wouldn’t embarrass you.” The mayor clapped him on the shoulder. “Go on home, Bruno, and get some sleep. I’ll see you at Fauquet’s café when it opens tomorrow morning, and I want it confirmed from Pamela that you’ve already exercised the horses. I don’t want you out in those woods at dawn. Your friends and neighbors might still have to perform a little community justice, so don’t get in the way. Good night. Remember, go straight home and sleep well.”

Bruno drove home and found Balzac waiting for him at the end of the lane by his home and greeting him with a cheerful bay. He petted his dog and felt the warmth of a body that had not spent a long evening standing and waiting. He checked the outdoor kennel where Balzac slept in summer, and the blanket that lined it was warm beneath his hand. Clever Balzac: he must have stayed inside it and only risen when he heard the familiar sound of his master’s Land Rover coming up the lane.

Bruno let himself in, Balzac following and looking expectant, his intelligent eyes following Bruno into the rear hallway where he kept his boots and the big plastic bin in which he stored the dog biscuits he made. Balzac wolfed down a bowlful along with a sliver of ham that Bruno cut from the smoked haunch that hung from the kitchen beam. He lapped at his bowl of water and then went to the rear door, turning to look hopefully at his master.

It was a ritual he expected, the final round of the property before turning in. Balzac leading the way, they made a circuit of the garden, pausing when they emerged from the shadow of the white oak trees Bruno had planted to start his own small truffle plantation. As Balzac snuffled his way around the slope where rabbits had once been daring enough to build a warren, Bruno gazed up at the vast bowl of stars in the sky, wishing as he always did that he knew more of the constellations. They skirted the vegetable garden and went up the steps to the giant chicken run. The birds were all asleep, and Bruno secured the door to their coop while Balzac sniffed suspiciously around the outside, checking for any recent evidence of fox. All was well. Bruno went back inside, washed and brushed his teeth, donned the old rugby shirt he liked to sleep in and waited until Balzac had settled on the cushion in the corner of the kitchen before giving him a final pat good night.

Too tired to read, Bruno turned off the light and snuggled down under his duvet. Just before he drifted off to sleep, he felt an affectionate smile coming onto his face as he wondered whether it had been Sergeant Jules who had so thoughtfully organized the cull or whether it had been the wily old mayor himself, once he knew that Bruno had managed to spirit Imogène out of harm’s way.

Five minutes after opening, Fauquet’s café was already full, the espresso machine working nonstop and the fresh trays of croissants coming from the ovens below being swiftly emptied. The cheerful morning scents of butter and baking and fresh coffee greeted Bruno as he entered with the mayor. The mood was jolly and triumphant, reminding Bruno of the time when the town rugby team had won the regional championship. Friends and neighbors came up to slap Bruno and the mayor on the back. They shared conspiratorial winks and made jokes about who needed Paris or Périgueux when St. Denis could solve its own problems with the deer. The only reporter present was Philippe Delaron, himself a keen hunter, who told Bruno with a cheeky grin that anonymous donors had left six neatly gutted deer carcasses outside the old people’s homes in every town within twenty kilometers.

“Let’s hope we don’t end up with every hunter in town being arrested,” Bruno said. “I hope nobody’s been foolish enough to have any fresh venison in their freezers.”

Philippe showed them the front page of
Sud Ouest,
with a photo of three unidentified hunters, taken from behind, standing by a heap of dead deer. The headline read
ST. DENIS—THE LAW OF THE HUNTER.
The second headline read
DEER CAUSE A FAMILY TRAGEDY
, with a picture of Peyrefitte as he left the hospital after visiting his children and another portrait beside it of his dead wife. On the inside page was a photo Philippe had taken of Imogène at some point in the past, looking furtive and guilty as she tried to avoid his camera. The story said that the St. Denis policeman, Bruno Courrèges, had driven her to a place of safety long before the shooting had started.

The mayor had already alerted the town’s maintenance teams, and two trucks loaded with cans of gasoline followed Bruno’s Land Rover and the car of Achille Veltrier, the town vet, up the track to Imogène’s house. Bruno had taken his sidearm in case there were any wounded deer to be shot but saw not a single one. The hunters had been efficient. There were no live deer to be seen and few deer carcasses left; most of them had been taken away by the hunters. But in clearings and in the open space around Imogène’s cabin, they found piles of guts, already swarming with flies. Some of Imogène’s cats scurried away from the heaps as the men approached. They sloshed gasoline onto the guts and added dead branches to keep the fires burning, then tossed in lit matches. Bruno wondered how many of the workmen doing the cleanup had been out with their guns the previous evening.

“A strange sight, this wood, and sad,” said the mayor, gesturing at the almost-naked landscape. As Bruno had seen earlier, there was no ground vegetation and hardly any bark left on the trees, some of which had already died. Between their naked trunks Bruno could see for a hundred meters or more. It was indeed strange; usually the thick undergrowth of the Périgord blocked his view after a few paces. There was no birdsong, no scuttering sounds from the hordes of tiny creatures that usually inhabited the woodlands. The sheer numbers of Imogène’s deer had killed this wood, but Bruno knew that nature would recover, and within a year or two it would return to normal.

“It won’t be that long before deer start coming back here,” the vet said. “Once there are green shoots again next spring, you’ll see the first of them return. A lot of them were born here, and they’ll have the urge to come back. And then after another few years with Imogène protecting them, they’ll breed and breed, and the whole problem will return.”

“Maybe she’s learned her lesson,” said the mayor. He didn’t sound hopeful. “But I suppose we’ll have to see what happens when Peyrefitte brings charges against her. She might have to sell her property to pay for her defense.”

“I imagine the Greens will want to make a show trial of it,” said Bruno. “They’ll milk it for publicity, probably mount a campaign to raise money for some good defense lawyers who’ll try to put St. Denis on trial instead of Imogène.”

The smell of burning meat was in the air, but not the appetizing odors that come from a barbecue. This was something much cruder and unpleasant, like animal manure mixed with gasoline. Some of the workmen had donned masks as they fed the fires with more branches, standing upwind to avoid the dark, oily smoke. Bruno, the vet and the mayor turned away and headed for Imogène’s house. It seemed not to have been touched. But the hunters had left one token of their presence. To the porch railing had been tied a young fawn. It lay still and silent on the ground, quivering with fear, its feet tucked beneath its thin body. Its eyes seemed enormous as they watched the three men approach.

“It’s only a day or so old,” said the vet. “Its mother must have been shot, and the fawn wouldn’t leave her. The hunters will have brought it here to be sure we’d find it. There’s nothing else for me to do here, so I’ll take it down to our clinic, we can take care of it there.” He took care of the farm animals, and his partner looked after the domestic pets of St. Denis.

“I’ll take care of the bill,” said Bruno, bending down and trying to stroke some reassurance into the tiny creature and wondering what its future might be without its mother. “How long before it can feed on its own?”

“We can feed it as long as you like, but that’s not the point,” Achille replied. “The problem will be finding some herd that will accept it and not drive it away. It might get lucky. Some of the deer from these woods will have gotten through the cordon, and it might meet up with some of them. Otherwise it faces a lonely life and probably a short one. At least it’s not a male; they’re always harder to integrate into a new herd.”

“What about somebody keeping it as a pet?”

“It’s possible, but the sooner you get the human keeper to them, the better. They need to imprint them young and make sure the fawn sleeps with something that smells of the keeper. Are you thinking of this for yourself?”

“No, for Imogène.” Bruno saw the mayor roll his eyes, whether in amusement or exasperation Bruno could not tell.

Achille nodded his understanding. “That’s not a bad idea; it might help that silly woman get over the shock, give her something to care for. Get her to come to my place later today so we can start her on the feeding. I can show Imogène what to do.”

Back in his office at the
mairie,
Bruno called Raquelle at Le Thot but learned she was at home. He called her there, asked after Imogène and Raquelle reported that her own doctor had put Imogène on a course of tranquilizers. Another one, thought Bruno; he knew that France consumed more of the things than any other country in Europe. He told Raquelle of the fawn, and she thought it was an excellent idea; she’d take Imogène to the vet for the feeding. Then in his e-mails Bruno found a message from Gilbert’s notary, asking him to call.

“Thank you for getting back to me,” said Rouard. “I hope I can count on your discretion, but I might need your help in tracking down the heir. Do you know if Gilbert had any dealings with a family called Desaix?”

“Yes, he lived with them. Victor Desaix was an old friend from the air force. They learned to fly together. He has a wife, Madeleine, and two children, Marc and Chantal. Victor’s father is
the
Desaix, the Patriarch. In fact it was just after the Patriarch’s birthday party that Gilbert died.”

“
Mon Dieu,
I had no idea he was attached to that family. Do you have an address?”

Bruno gave him the address of the vineyard, saying that was the most likely place to reach Victor. Well, he thought as he put down the phone, that was one mystery solved. Gilbert’s estate was going to his old friend Victor, the man he always listed as his next of kin. He wondered if the inquiry by the
fisc
into Gilbert’s mysterious trust fund in Liechtenstein would cause Victor any problems with the tax authorities. Another thought struck him; it might also hurt Madeleine’s political career.

He put her name into the search box on his computer along with the initials
UMP,
the Union for a Popular Majority, that had become the main political grouping of the conservatives. Several pages came up, mainly citing news stories in
Sud Ouest
and
Dordogne Libre
but with some from wine journals and one from
Gala,
a glossy celebrity magazine. He looked at that one first, a sizable photo layout about the Patriarch and the restoration he’d done on the château. Madeleine was pictured several times, identified as his daughter-in-law who also acted as his hostess. There was one family group photo with the Patriarch, Victor, Madeleine and the children, flanked by Yevgeny and Raquelle.

The news stories traced her political career, first as a member of the welcoming party for Sarkozy’s visit to Bergerac during his 2007 presidential campaign. She’d already been elected to the Bergerac city council and to the executive committee of the UMP women’s section. Sarkozy had then appointed her to the party’s agricultural policy committee, and she’d been one of the French delegates to some global conference of women in Beijing. That story was accompanied by a photo of Madeleine chatting with Hillary Clinton. Madeleine had been nominated by Alain Juppé, Sarkozy’s foreign minister who was also the longtime mayor of Bordeaux. He’d also appointed her to a European policy advisory group. She’d probably gotten to know Juppé through regional politics, since she, too, was on the executive committee for the UMP in Aquitaine.

There were more photos of Madeleine speaking on behalf of mayoral candidates and other conservatives around the region. She was described as a brilliant speaker, a popular campaigner and rising star of the party and almost certain to be high enough on the party list to be sure of being elected to the European Parliament in Brussels. And every story had made the point that she was the Patriarch’s daughter-in-law.

So that was how it was done, thought Bruno, climbing through committees and party ranks, serving on advisory boards and delegations, making political friends by speaking on their behalf and becoming known to the party leaders. Given her looks, once met they weren’t likely to forget her. Bruno took little interest in party politics, so it was no surprise that he hadn’t heard of Madeleine in this context. But then he saw a reference to an article on marketing the wines of Bergerac that she’d written for the opinion page of
Sud Ouest,
and he recalled reading and agreeing with it at the time. There was another article, on women in the military, and it also made sense to him.

He clicked his way back on the computer to the full-page picture in
Gala
of her standing with the Patriarch, looking coolly elegant, effortlessly lovely. Victor was a lucky man. And now she faced the dilemma of accepting a safe seat in the European Parliament or taking the chance of replacing Peyrefitte as UMP candidate for Périgueux in the National Assembly. Bruno had never heard of any individual member of the European Parliament, but maybe she’d prefer the international arena. He looked again at the bland pose of the photo, enjoying her beauty when the mayor walked in.

“What brings her to your screen?” he asked.

Bruno explained the potential complications of Gilbert’s will for her political career. One minister in Paris had just been forced to resign after admitting to having an undisclosed foreign bank account.

“If somebody leaves something to her husband in a will, I don’t see how that can hurt her as long it is disclosed to the tax authorities. If you’re interested in her political career, come along with me tomorrow evening. She’s speaking at a public meeting in Bergerac, debating one of the Greens from the European Parliament, and I bet she speaks about Imogène’s deer. It will probably be on TV somewhere, but I always enjoy a good public meeting; they can be as entertaining as the theater.”

“Are you interested in her or the topic?” Bruno asked, smiling.

“Both, of course. I just had a chat with an old political colleague. Peyrefitte has told the party chairman that he’s going to back out for the sake of his kids. So the seat looks like it will be Madeleine’s, so long as she does well tomorrow night. A lot of senior party figures will be there, and more of them will be watching.”

Bruno raised his eyebrows. “A political star is born.”

“Not necessarily,” said the mayor. “She has a significant family hurdle to overcome.”

Bruno was surprised to hear it and said so. “Her connection to the Patriarch can bring her nothing but good, her daughter is grown, and I’m told Madeleine’s family has owned land around here since Eleanor of Aquitaine’s day.”

“Yes, but that isn’t all they’re known for. They were collaborators. Her uncle was an out-and-out Nazi and anti-Semite, a follower of Charles Maurras in the thirties. He shot himself in 1944 after the Liberation, before he could be arrested. What was left of the lands and title went to his brother, Madeleine’s father, a naval officer who stayed loyal to Vichy until almost the last moment. Around here, these things aren’t forgotten.”

“No wonder she makes herself so useful to the Patriarch,” said Bruno as the politics became clearer and he realized how Madeleine’s father-in-law was her antidote to any attempt to tar her with her family’s record.

“Exactly, but it does mean that it’s not altogether certain that she’ll get the Peyrefitte seat. She has to do well in this debate. She can probably count on getting most of the usual conservative votes, and she’ll have the wine trade behind her. But if she can also bring in the hunting vote, she’ll win.”

“I have a hunch this will be quite a debate,” said Bruno. “Heaven help that poor Green.”