The Patriarch: A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel (20 page)

“Madame Larignac, Nicole?” Bruno asked, and scooped up the toddler to hand the child to her before he introduced himself, his dog and stated his business. He showed her the
notaire
’s letter and was invited in for coffee.

“We had a basset when I was a girl,” Nicole said, leading the way into the kitchen and plugging in an electric kettle. She pulled a
cafetière
from the draining board and filled it with three generous spoonfuls of Ethiopian coffee with a fair-trade logo.

“Ours was called Hubert, and I remember him being very patient with me and my brothers and sisters, whatever foolishness we got up to. Do you think little Patrice will test Balzac’s patience?” She put the child down, and much to the dog’s pleasure the boy immediately began fondling Balzac’s long, velvety ears.

“So Gilbert is dead,” she said, shrugging, not seeming to be greatly moved by the news. “He didn’t long outlive my Laurent. Cirrhosis of the liver was it, like Laurent?”

“He died in his sleep,” said Bruno, diplomatically. “Would you like to call the
notaire
? He wants to make arrangements for the reading of the will.” He offered his phone, but she waved it aside.

“I wouldn’t have thought Gilbert would leave much,” Nicole said. “At least Laurent went on the wagon from time to time. He managed five years one time, three years another, thanks to AA and his job at the airport. I’d have left him otherwise. But Gilbert never seemed to want to stop, however much Laurent tried.”

“Did you know him well?” Bruno asked.

“That’s a complicated question,” she replied with a playful smile and looked away, staring through the kitchen window with a fond, nostalgic expression, as though recalling happy, if private, memories. Bruno thought she must have been a very lovely woman when Gilbert had known her. Nicole was still attractive, and she knew it. She put cups and saucers and coffee onto a tray as well as a jar of honey and handed the tray to Bruno. “Put it down in the main room, on your left. I’ll bring the coffee and steer little Patrice to join us.”

“I take it Patrice is your grandson,” Bruno said when they settled on two armchairs that faced each other across the coffee table. On top of the table lay an open magazine about yoga; perhaps that was how Nicole stayed trim. The room was painted white, the furniture was modern, and a huge blown-up photograph of the New York skyline at dusk dominated the main wall.

“Yes, he’s my son’s boy. Like Laurent my son was an air-force mechanic and now works for Air France; so does Patrice’s mum, at the airport. I suppose I’d better call the lawyer.”

Bruno called the number, handed her his mobile and sipped at his coffee as she spoke. She gave the
notaire
her address and mobile number and asked if it would be necessary for her to make the long trip to the Auvergne for the reading of the will. She seemed relieved to hear it would not; the lawyer could send her a copy of the will once it was read.

Bruno finished his coffee, thanked her and rose to go. “You might remember Gilbert’s fellow pilot Victor,” he said.

“Can’t say I much want to see him again. Gilbert was twice the man and ten times the pilot that poor Victor was, always living in the shadow of his famous dad. If not for Gilbert, Laurent doubted whether Victor would have made it through training school. How is he, anyway? How’s that second marriage of his turning out?”

“He looked after Gilbert for the past few years and was heartbroken when he died. I think Victor’s doing fine, producing some good wines at his vineyard, and his wife seems bent on becoming a politician,” said Bruno. “He has two fine kids, one from each marriage.”

“I wonder if they take after Gilbert,” said Nicole almost slyly as Bruno extracted Balzac from Patrice’s embrace. Bruno gave a neutral nod and steered Balzac out of the door. “Sometimes I can still see something of him in Patrice. What a waste the booze made of a lovely man. That’s why I never touch the stuff myself.”

“Not even the Haut-Brion they make around here?” Bruno asked.

“Not even that,” she said. “Thanks for coming, and for bringing the dog.”

Marie-Françoise had texted Bruno a reply, saying she and Chantal would meet him for lunch at a bistro in Pessac called le Boeuf sur le Toit; it was opposite the cinema, he couldn’t miss it. Again he was struck by the way the vineyards that produced the lovely Pessac-Léognan were squeezed between suburban settlements. Domestic gardens covered by lawns and cheap swimming pools must be taking up land that could produce grand vintages. Marie-Françoise was at the Montaigne branch of the university, one arm of the much-larger Bordeaux university system, which specialized in the humanities, while Chantal was studying wine at the Segalen school. The two girls shared an apartment in Pessac and arrived together on bicycles as Bruno was enjoying a
citron pressé
on the terrace in front of the bistro.

Each one was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, their hair tumbling down as they removed their helmets and shook their heads, laughing as they used their fingers to fluff out their locks and looking ridiculously young. Feeling his age at the sight of them, Bruno rose to kiss cheeks, and after studying the menu scrawled on a blackboard they each ordered the plat du jour of
bifteck-frites
with a green salad and a glass of Pessac-Léognan.

“It’s about your godfather, Gilbert,” Bruno began, and went on to explain the
notaire
’s wish to contact her directly without alerting the rest of the family. Chantal looked stunned, unable to believe that Gilbert had anything worth leaving and even more surprised that her brother was to get nothing. Bruno used his phone to call the
notaire
once more and handed it to Chantal. After listening for some moments she pulled a diary from her backpack and suggested a meeting the following Monday when she had no lectures. She looked at Bruno.

“He wants to know if you can escort me up to his place at Riom-ès-Montagnes on Monday. I’ll get a train to Brive and you could pick me up and drive on from there. Is that all right with you?”

She handed Bruno the phone, and the
notaire
told him, “I don’t want to impose on you, but there’s something that I think you need to see. I think it’s important that you come.”

Bruno agreed, closed his phone and saw Marie-Françoise huddled over her smart phone. She looked up and said, “I’m just checking the train schedules. Here’s one from Bordeaux St. Jean at seven-thirty that gets to Brive just before ten, but you may have to come back from Périgueux.”

“I don’t think I want his money,” said Chantal when their food arrived. “I feel guilty about it; I wasn’t very nice to him in the last few years, he always seemed to be drunk. He was different before.”

“How do you mean?” asked Marie-Françoise. “He wasn’t drinking?”

“He stopped drinking whenever it was time for my treat, the little trips he’d take me on. You know I was sent to boarding school in England when I was twelve so I’d be fluent in the language? On the first half-term holiday, he took me to London to see all the sights. And then the next time, he took me to Venice, and after that it was Barcelona, then Amsterdam and Florence. And he never touched a drop, just took me to the museums and the sights and good restaurants and treated me like a princess. I adored him then, but when I came back to the lycée and lived at home, seeing him in that grim little cottage and drinking, it became awful for us both, humiliating for him.”

“You have to take the money, but you don’t have to keep it,” said Bruno, not looking up from the steak on his plate and asking himself why Gilbert would have left everything to just one of his godchildren. Maybe he felt close to her, but there was another, more likely reason. He looked up at her, but there was no apparent physical resemblance to Gilbert that he could see. It might be useful to check her DNA. He was pondering whether to take away her empty glass or her napkin after the meal when Chantal sneezed into a tissue and tossed it into an empty ashtray. That would do.

“Do what you like with the money,” he said. “Buy your own vineyard, give it to the poor or to a decent charity. There’s a woman in St. Denis trying to raise money for a wildlife refuge. Or start your own business, go traveling. Your godfather has given you the freedom to choose. Think of him kindly; I think he earned it in a very hard way.”

“What do you mean?” Chantal asked, her tone suggesting a challenge rather than a question.

“I’m pretty sure the money was his pension from the intelligence services for the work he did in Moscow during the Cold War. Can you imagine what that must have been like—the secrecy, the pressures, the strain?”

“But he was a diplomat. If the Russians had caught him, they’d have expelled him, not sent him to jail.”

“What about the people he worked with, the Russians who trusted him?” Bruno countered. “He must have felt responsible for them, knowing what their fate would be if he were caught and deported. That strain must have worked heavily on him. Isn’t that why he became an alcoholic?”

Chantal looked at him solemnly for a long moment before nodding. “I see what you mean.”

“If you think it’s not fair for Marc to have no money, you can always give him some,” said Marie-Françoise. “It’s not like you’re trapped by this. Bruno’s right, you’re in charge of the money, you can do what you want with it. And it’s not as though you or Marc were poor before this.”

“In that case,” said Bruno, smiling affectionately at the two healthy and wealthy young women who could afford luxury but preferred to ride bicycles and enjoyed sharing a student lodging, “you can each pay for your own lunch.”

Not for the first time, Bruno wondered how his life might have been different if he’d had better schools, better teachers and a chance to go to university. It might also, he mused, have meant the chance to meet intelligent and cultured young women like Chantal and Marie-Françoise rather than the hard-faced women who hung around the bars and discos outside the military barracks where he’d spent so much of his youth. Bruno didn’t regret his days in the army. He had seen a bit of the world and learned how to lead a group of tough young men and how to take care of them as well as himself. Above all, he’d learned to be self-reliant, self-disciplined and self-confident, with a good sense of his own capabilities and limitations. His education had been basic, but he’d always been curious and had discovered in himself a love of reading, history and biography at first, and then the classic French novels.

Women, Bruno knew, had been crucial to this awakening side of himself. Katarina, the Bosnian schoolteacher, had started him reading seriously. Isabelle had introduced him to the poems of Prévert, Pamela to horseback riding and classical music and Fabiola to the movies. And now Florence had started him reading some books on science and the environment. But his male friends had also played a role. The mayor started him reading French history, and Hubert had lent him books on wine. His German friend Horst had lent him some books on archaeology that had immeasurably increased his appreciation of the unique wealth of prehistoric paintings and engravings in the caves of Périgord. It was one of the great delights of friendships, Bruno thought, that friends shared their enthusiasms and broadened his horizons.

Musing as he strolled back to his parked Land Rover on how much he owed to his friends and how much he’d changed since arriving in St. Denis a decade earlier, he pondered how to spend the rest of the afternoon before driving home. His work was done; Chantal and Nicole had been put in direct touch with the
notaire,
so he had some time to himself. But his first action, once in his vehicle, was to label the evidence bag into which he’d put Chantal’s used tissue.

He knew Bordeaux well, so perhaps he’d call at La Bouquinérie, a secondhand bookstore he liked. But then he recalled that he’d never visited the contemporary art museum at the Entrepôt Lainé. Built in the 1820s as a vast warehouse for produce from France’s colonies, it had been saved from demolition by a popular campaign and now housed what he’d heard was a striking collection of contemporary art. He was just looking at the city map when he was interrupted by the vibration of the phone at his waist. It was not a number he recognized, but he answered and was surprised to hear Madeleine’s voice, saying she was returning his call about Fabrice.

“I need to talk to you about him, since he’s been arrested. It looks like he was responsible for tranquilizing some wild boar and then deliberately letting them loose in a prized garden,” he said.

“I can’t meet today, I’m in Bordeaux for a tedious political meeting that lasted all morning, and I have another one followed by lunch in the city tomorrow. Maybe sometime tomorrow afternoon? I don’t know much about Fabrice. It was my father-in-law who hired him.”

“I’m in Bordeaux myself,” he replied. “I was just about to walk my dog along the riverbank and then spend an hour trying to understand modern art at the Entrepôt Lainé before driving back, but perhaps you have some time free?”

“I’m free until dinner, and we keep an apartment here that overlooks the Quinconces,” she said, referring to the huge square by the river with its statue to the martyred Girondins, the moderate delegates from Bordeaux to the National Assembly whose slaughter launched the Terror that followed the Revolution of 1789. “I like dogs, so bring him along. It might be one of the last days we can enjoy this sun on the balcony.”

She gave him the address and entry code for the street door, and within thirty minutes he’d parked, found the place and was installed on the top-floor balcony in his shirtsleeves, a fresh pot of coffee steaming before them. She had made a fuss of Balzac and greeted Bruno with a real kiss on each cheek, not the brief and contactless pout toward an ear that had become the fashion. And she’d held his hand a moment too long to lead him to the balcony. He was touched when he saw that she’d put out a bowl of water for his dog.

Madeleine was barefoot, wearing white capri pants and a sleeveless white blouse that set off her golden tan. Her hair had been pulled back into a loose ponytail that was held by a white ribbon that was tied into a bow. She gave off a faint scent of soap as if she’d showered after her lunch. Her face was free of makeup, but her complexion seemed as clear and youthful as her daughter’s. And yet to Bruno she was somehow more beautiful, more self-aware. There was something in her eyes that spoke of lessons learned and a life well lived.

Beside the coffee cups were two tall glasses and a bottle of mineral water. The view over the Gironde River was spectacular, and the balcony was as large as the ground floor of his own home. Balzac was exploring the place with his unfailing curiosity. A pair of pruning shears and gardening gloves lay on the tables, and a bucket full of weeds from the tall pots filled with red geraniums stood by the glass doors that led into the large living room.

“I was catching up on the gardening,” she said. “Thank you for saving me from that chore. You probably know more about it than I do. Do you think it’s time to bring the geraniums into the conservatory?”

Madeleine pointed to the glass-covered end of the balcony where he presumed the family could enjoy the view throughout the winter. Even so casual a gesture seemed elegant and poised. She’d have made a wonderful actress, Bruno thought, suddenly recalling a film with the young Catherine Deneuve. If anything, Madeleine was lovelier, perhaps because she had more animation or more of that toughness he’d seen as she demolished her opponent in the Bergerac debate.

“In Périgord I’d be surprised if we get any frost before December at the earliest, but maybe here in Bordeaux the weather is different.” Bruno felt relieved that he could focus on something as mundane as gardening. “You need to ask a local, or call Rollo, the expert with the radio program, the guy whose garden was just destroyed.”

“Destroyed by Fabrice, you believe.” She poured the coffee and turned slightly to look at the river, giving Bruno the benefit of her classic profile. He also noticed with a start of surprise that she was wearing nothing beneath her blouse. He felt his mouth suddenly go dry.

“The evidence points that way, but it will be up to the
procureur
to decide whether to bring charges. I gather you got to know him through hunting, when he transferred to your club after he was asked to leave his old one. Did you know about that?”

“I heard some gossip, yes, and I know about his being banned from rugby.” She continued to gaze across the river. Was she avoiding his eyes? “But if we banned every aggressive young man who goes a bit foo far, we’d end up living in a world of wimps. You ought to hear Marco on the topic. Fabrice is a fine shot and a good hunter. Marco had been out with him and been impressed, so we accepted him and then gave him the job. It was Marco who’d heard that Fabrice’s dad had been a gamekeeper, so he knew the life, and it’s not easy to find decent gamekeepers these days. I think Marco was just trying to do the young man a good turn. You should ask him.”

“I will.” He sipped at his coffee, enjoying its quality, trying to suppress the image of Yevgeny’s painting of her that came creeping into his head as he looked at her. “Do you know Fabrice at all well?”

“We chatted a bit when he joined, and naturally we were at the occasional
casse-croûte
after a morning’s hunting, and I think I recall a club dinner. But he was a bit shy at first, at least until he’d had a drink or two.”

“He was mainly hunting what, boar and deer?”

“Yes, mostly deer, from one of the hunting stands. I was only out with him once. One of the older guys had complained that Fabrice was too quick on the trigger, so I went out to the stand with him. He wouldn’t dare shoot before a woman.”

“Did you ever know Fabrice to use a tranquilizer gun?”

She turned back to face him, looking directly into his eyes and nodding pensively. “Just once, a pregnant deer with a broken leg, and I wanted to save the fawn. We had to take her to the vet, who said it would be the best way.”

“Were you there?” He held her gaze but felt his voice sounding a little hoarse, his throat drying in what he assumed was some hormonal response to her beauty. He took a sip of mineral water.