That Sunday morning in St. Denis, the church bell was summoning the faithful to mass, Father Sentout was donning his vestments, and the less religious citizens were thronging to Fauquet’s to buy the special gâteaux, fit to grace a Sunday lunch en famille. Bruno, wearing civilian clothes, was sitting on the café terrace and feeding the heel of his croissant to Balzac. After checking on the chickens, they had taken Bruno’s morning run through the woods together and then, feeling the need for some more exercise, Bruno had cleaned out the ashes from his wood-burning stove while Balzac sat patiently watching. The dog had followed to observe Bruno empty the ashes onto that part of his vegetable garden that still lay fallow. Then he had turned over the soil to dig the ashes in, thinking that did not count as the kind of gardening forbidden by the lunar calendar. He had changed his sheets and towels, filled his washing machine, showered, shaved and headed into town, singing along to Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose” on the radio.
Once in town and alone on the terrace with his dog, Bruno turned on the playback feature of his phone and tried once again to make out the indistinct and mumbled words it had recorded between the two men in the retirement home once he and Gilles had left them. The previous evening, over Fabiola’s fondue, he and Gilles along with Fabiola and Pamela had tried with only occasional success to follow the conversation. But some words had come over clearly. One of them had been “Bugatti,” a second had been “millions,” a third had been “park,” and the fourth had been “Bérégevoy,” the name of the junkyard owner who had bought the contents of the barn at Perdigat.
Bruno was almost sure of a few more phrases, but there were some loose ends to tie up first. He called Marcel, the owner of the garage where Annette had bought the Bugatti radiator. Marcel remembered the name of the junk shop where he had bought the radiator. It had been the closing-down sale of Bérégevoy’s place when the owner died. Had anyone else asked about that recently? Bruno asked. Yes, Marcel replied, two people: the Englishman who was supposed to be driving with Annette and then, in a separate visit, a reporter from Paris Match.
Another of the recorded words that Bruno was sure of was “Félix.” The previous evening when they had been listening, Pamela had said that there had been a phone call for Félix at the stables that afternoon. The boy had then asked to use the computer in her office when he’d finished work.
“I was checking e-mails before coming over here, and there was a window that he must have left open on the computer. I remember it had a photo of an old car, which didn’t interest me so I closed it,” Pamela had said. She said she would look up the history function on her browser; Gilles had written down the steps she should take.
Bruno ordered a second cup of coffee and called her. Pamela reported that Félix had looked up websites about Bugatti, the Type 57 Atlantic, and the latest Concours d’Élégance at Villa d’Este in Italy, which had been won by Ralph Lauren’s car. Félix had then looked at a YouTube video of that same concours, which carried the headline in English “Ralph Lauren’s $40 million Bugatti Atlantic.”
One did not need fluency in English to understand that, thought Bruno, thanking Pamela and then listening once again to the voices of the two men talking. But he heard only odd words or snatches of phrases. At one point Étienne had said “Rome,” which baffled Bruno. He listened to that section again, and shortly before the reference to the Italian capital he was almost sure he heard the words Naud qui l’a acheté. Who or what was “Naud” and what had he bought? Bruno gave up and put the phone down. Perhaps if he gave it to J-J’s forensics experts they could find a way to enhance the recording.
“Bonjour, Bruno,” came a voice, and Bruno looked up, surprised to see his colleague Grégoire, Étienne’s son. He invited him to sit down, share a coffee and recommended the quality of the croissants. Then as Grégoire made friends with Balzac, Bruno asked what brought him to St. Denis.
“My dad,” came the reply. “He’s always been religious and he said this morning he wanted to hear mass with his old school friend. He asked me to drive him over so here I am.”
“Not religious yourself?” Bruno asked.
“Not really, just marriages and funerals, but it’s a nice day for a drive, and it’s not a day for gardening, so I was happy to agree. My wife’s with them in the church now.”
“Lunar calendar,” said Bruno, smiling. “We’re gardening by the same rules.”
“They always worked for my dad, and his garden’s still a sight to behold,” Grégoire said. “Dad told me he’d often wanted to visit the amusement park here in St. Denis, so we’ll go there after church. Then I thought we might make a day of it, go out for lunch and then drive home the long way up the Dordogne Valley and back through Sarlat.”
Grégoire’s coffee came, and then Balzac jumped to his feet and looked across the square giving a little yelp of welcome before trotting across to welcome Isabelle. She dropped to one knee to greet the basset hound, struggling to manage her shoulder bag, a plastic bag and a large manila envelope as Balzac tried to clamber onto her lap. Bruno called to Fauquet, standing in the door to enjoy the sun on his face, for another croissant and coffee.
“Bonjour, Bruno,” said Isabelle, offering each cheek for his bise. He introduced Grégoire, told her that he was also a cop and that the coffee and croissant were on their way.
“I remember you,” said Grégoire. “You used to work for J-J in Périgueux. I think you were Inspector Perrault back then.”
“And you were the municipal cop in Terrasson,” she declared. “I remember you as well, that bank robbery that turned out to be an inside job. The guy went down for five years.”
“A good case,” said Grégoire. “I haven’t seen you for ages, but J-J always said you’d be the one to succeed him.”
Isabelle shook her head. “I transferred out. I’m with Eurojust these days, up in The Hague.”
“So you’re here on holiday, visiting old haunts?”
Bruno was sure Grégoire was simply making conversation, but Isabelle clammed up, saying simply, “Old haunts, old friends.” She fell silent and devoted her attention to her croissant. Grégoire took the hint and rose to his feet, muttering something about the sermon being over by now.
“Mission complete?” Bruno asked Isabelle once Grégoire had gone.
“Pretty much, but we have a lot of follow-up to do on the banks they used,” she said. “And there’s going to be a legal row over whether we can confiscate his cars and garage as proceeds of a criminal enterprise. That’s pretty much all that’s left. Sylvestre was running out of money. Most of his Alsace properties were mortgaged up to the hilt.”
“What about Freddy?”
“They lost him in Athens, found his phone dumped in a trash bin at the airport. The police showed his photo at all the check-in desks, and one of the attendants thought she checked him into a flight for Beirut, but she wasn’t sure. We’ve got the numbers of the credit cards he used to buy tickets, so we’re monitoring them, and we’re asking the Emirates police to seal off the Abu Dhabi showroom.
“We’ve sworn out a murder warrant for him, but I’m not altogether sure Freddy was Sylvestre’s killer,” she went on. She finished the remainder of her coffee and handed Bruno the manila envelope and the plastic bag. “Your two cameras are in there, and I printed out some of the better stills from the data card.”
She led Bruno through the photos. There was no sign of Freddy until he drove off in the middle of the night in his Range Rover. The timer on the print said he left at ten to four. But another car had come to the chartreuse after midnight. The image was too vague for the driver to be identifiable, but then the next print showed two people sitting by the pool. One of them was Sylvestre in a dark dressing gown. The other one had his back to the cameras. The image wasn’t helped by the flaring on the film from the open-air heaters that Bruno remembered. It could be Freddy, it could even be a woman with short hair and wearing slacks, or it could be someone else altogether.
“It’s clear that this other person and Sylvestre were drinking and smoking for over two hours,” Isabelle said. She turned over the next still, which showed Sylvestre standing by the pool and the other person rising from a chair. The person was wearing what looked like jeans and a sweater. The next image showed Sylvestre being pushed into the pool, his unidentified companion following right behind.
“I’ve never watched a murder in process before this,” said Bruno, shaken by what he was seeing but fascinated. “Could we enhance some of the images?”
“I tried, and I’ve got very good enhancement software on my computer. This is as good as you’ll get.”
The cameras couldn’t see into the pool, and the next movement that was triggered was of the second person climbing out, still fully dressed, still with his or her back to the cameras.
“Here’s your killer, standing right beneath one of the heaters and drying himself with a towel from the chair,” she said. “Because of the flare we can’t see the face, and then he covers his head with the towel and disappears. I say ‘he’ because his clothes are wet, and there’s no sign of female breasts. The next thing we see is Freddy leaving in his car and that’s all.”
“I couldn’t identify anyone from that,” said Bruno.
“You may not need to. And if you take my advice, you won’t use the prints in interrogation or when it comes to trial. Any decent lawyer would see through your little story about wildlife photography and argue the evidence was illegally obtained. If you have a suspect, don’t let him know that you have the prints but use what the images tell you. You know when the killer arrived, what he did, when he left, and you have a car. It’s a Peugeot, but it wasn’t driven far enough onto the property for us to pick up a license number. If you can’t leverage all that into a confession, you’re in the wrong business. Above all you have the towel. I made sure it was bagged, and the forensics guys should be able to get some of the murderer’s DNA from it.”
She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. “Good-bye, Bruno. Good luck,” she said, giving Balzac a final caress. She headed back across the square to her rental car.
Bruno watched her go, called for the bill and began looking again through the prints, hoping against hope that something in the stance or dress of the killer might trigger something. Bruno was almost certain it was a man, but could it be Martine? She was tall enough, but there was no way she could ever have concealed her lovely breasts. It could be Freddy, but the skin of the arms seemed too pale. Who else might it be? Bruno looked again at the photos, pondering.
After a moment wrestling with his conscience, he called Fabiola and said, “I need you to do me a very big favor, but if you feel you can’t do it, just tell me. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t really important.”
“Tell me what it is,” she said, and he explained. He could hear the reluctance in her voice when she replied that she’d think about it and call him back. Bruno put the photos back in their envelope and the envelope into the bag with the cameras and then glanced across the square where people were coming up the rue de Paris from the church.
As the crowd reached the crossroads, the numbers thinned, and Bruno saw the two old men. Félix was beside them and an elderly woman followed, whom Bruno did not know. Grégoire appeared in his car and greeted them all. The old men and the woman, presumably Grégoire’s wife, climbed into the car, and Félix went to his bicycle, parked in the rack outside the mairie, and unlocked a chain from around the rear wheel. He cycled off, following the car.
Then Bruno recognized three more people, dressed for church, coming across the square toward him. It was Simon, his wife and Tristan. They came onto the terrace of the café and stood awkwardly before him. He rose saying “Bonjour, monsieur-dame.”
“As you can see, I got them back from the beach,” said Simon. “And I heard from the mayor, so my wife has something to say to you.”
She squared her shoulders, fixed her eyes at some point a little above Bruno’s head and said quickly, without drawing breath, “I want to apologize for writing you that e-mail. I was very upset and not myself. And now that I know you are doing everything you can to prevent Tristan from being sent to prison, I want to thank you.”
She stopped, dropped her eyes to look him in the face and nodded. Then she nudged her son, who kept his eyes on the ground. She nudged him again, and in a strained voice Tristan said, “Thank you, Bruno, for giving me this chance. I’ll try not to let you down.”
Mother and son then both turned to look challengingly at Simon, as if they had been given some grueling but unwelcome test and had managed, despite themselves, to pass it. Simon ignored them and stepped forward to hold out his hand. Bruno shook it.
“Thanks, Bruno. That document will be in the procureur’s hands tomorrow morning.”
He led his family back to his Mercedes, opening the passenger door for his wife. Bruno watched them leave, wondering what art of persuasion or force of character Simon had deployed for the apologies to be delivered. Or perhaps it was something the mayor might have said to Simon.
“It’s a good job that family didn’t try coming in my café,” said Fauquet, coming out to clear away the coffee cups. “I wouldn’t have served them, not after what that boy did. I never liked his mother anyway, stuck-up old bitch. Thinks she’s the lady of the manor just because her old man manages a supermarket. It’s just a big shop, when all’s said and done.”
“You’ve never liked him since he opened the bakery department in the supermarket and took some of your business away,” said Bruno.
“You’d have to be pretty hard up to eat that frozen muck they reheat and sell as fresh bread, and don’t even get me started about those mass-produced things they call cakes.
“They say it’s not even his son,” Fauquet went on. “Simon had just arrived in town as one of the undermanagers, and Amandine was working as a cashier. She’d been going out with a man from the butchery department who looked a lot like Tristan. He left town, and before you could turn around she was going out with Simon and married him a couple of months later. It was all before your time, Bruno. And then Simon was promoted to manager, and she started putting on airs. But some of us have long memories. Arnaud, his name was, Arnaud Messager. I wonder what happened to him?”
Something clicked in Bruno’s mind. That phrase on the recording that had eluded him, the “Naud” who had bought something. It could have been Arnaud.
He reached for his wallet to pay Fauquet, who looked at him in surprise and said, “Losing your head? You already paid me once.” Then he handed Bruno a large brown paper bag, big enough to hold a dozen baguettes. “Stale bread for your chickens,” he said. “No charge, just give me a few eggs if you get any extra this week.”
“Thanks, Fauquet,” said Bruno. “Do you know of anyone else around here called Arnaud, apart from the guy you were just talking about?”
“Nobody who’s still alive,” said Fauquet. “There was a man who used to sell cheese in the market before Stéphane, but he wasn’t from St. Denis. I think he was from Belvès. And there was Jérôme’s dad, who started the amusement park, but he’s been dead for over thirty years.”
“Park,” thought Bruno. And “Rome,” that could be for “Jérôme.” And Grégoire had said the two old men wanted to visit the amusement park. Bruno slapped a fist into his other hand and turned to kiss an astonished Fauquet on both cheeks.
“If I’m right, my friend, I’ll get you a lot more than half-a-dozen eggs. You might just have solved a murder case!”
He used his key to get into the mairie, closed on Sundays, and went to his office to drop off the plastic bag. He then went into the registry to check the cadastre, the giant map that listed each house and property lot in the commune. He looked up the section that included the amusement park and then compared that with the tax records. He called the mayor and then Gilles.
“I think we’re getting to the endgame for your story on the Bugatti,” he told Gilles. “Can you meet me at the amusement park just as soon as you can? Call Young and see if he wants to join you. I finally worked out what the old boys were saying on my phone.”
“On my way,” Gilles replied, and with Balzac at his heels, Bruno walked over the bridge and turned right at the bank to go down the rue de la Paix toward the amusement park.