Martin Walker - The Crowded Grave

“Every two or three years he’d come to Wales and always bought a present for me, a book or something about Basque culture. He always sent something at Christmas, usually mailed from France.”

“When did he first talk about finding your father’s grave?”

Teddy explained that he e-mailed Fernando from time to time to keep in touch. He’d sent an e-mail last October, after his summer on the exploratory dig at the St. Denis site when it had first become clear they had a potential Neanderthal grave. Soon after that Fernando had appeared at Teddy’s room at university.

“He asked a lot of questions about the site and said he really wanted me to go back and work on it again,” Teddy said, smiling as he added that wild horses wouldn’t have kept him away.

“Fernando came back to see me in January. This time he had the map and said he thought it was probably my father’s grave,” Teddy went on. “I didn’t believe him at first-the coincidence was just too extraordinary.”

But Fernando had been positive, Teddy said. One of the problems the GAL had in the 1980s was the anger of the French authorities at the way Basque bodies kept turning up on their territory. So GAL had started burying their victims to avoid more trouble with the French. One of the killers apparently knew that the St. Denis site had already been pronounced uninteresting by Denis Peyrony so he reckoned it was a safe place for a burial. Now that there was digging there again, the Spanish police were worried that the grave was likely to be found and trigger a whole new controversy over the GAL’s activities.

“So Fernando had a source inside the Spanish police?” Isabelle asked. “Did he say anything about this source to you?”

“Only that he had access to the secret archives and had given Fernando the map.”

“Presumably a new scandal over GAL and these illegal killings was just what Fernando wanted,” Bruno said.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Teddy replied. “But it makes sense.”

“Have you had any contact with Fernando since you’ve been in France?” Isabelle asked.

“No, and no reply to the e-mails I sent after finding the body. Mum hadn’t heard from him either, last we spoke.”

Isabelle took a pen and pad from her bag and made Teddy write it all down in English as a statement and then sign it. She checked the wording, and promised to give him a photocopy.

“Am I under arrest?”

“Have you ever met any other Basques apart from Fernando?” she asked. Teddy shook his head. “Have you been in touch with anybody from outside the dig while you’ve been in France this time?” He shook his head again, saying “Just Bruno and the foie gras people and now you.”

Isabelle turned to Bruno and raised an eyebrow. She was going to leave this up to him, which would probably mean that each of them would spend a very difficult few minutes with the brigadier.

“I have your word that you won’t leave St. Denis without my permission and that you’ll be available for more questions if we need you?” Bruno asked. Teddy nodded.

Bruno suggested they go to the campground to drop their things. He’d talk to Monique and also let the magistrate know where they were. He proposed that they return to the dig so he’d know where to find them.

“One more thing. May I have your passports?”

Teddy unbuttoned his shirt pocket and handed his over. After a moment’s hesitation Kajte did the same.

Back in his office at the mairie after briefing the mayor, Bruno made calls to Monique and Clothilde about the return of the two students and had to explain to Clothilde that there was still no news about Horst. He couldn’t tell her about the cell they’d found at Jan’s smithy. He put off calling Annette until he heard from Mathilde at Medecins Sans Frontieres.

He opened his e-mails. One from Mathilde contained two attachments. The first was a press release from her organization, with “MSF” on its letterhead, praising Annette’s record and stating that she’d been the victim of a mugging in print. Bruno grinned, relishing a good phrase. The second one began by saying that MSF was joined in condemning that unfair attack on Annette by “Chef de Police Bruno Courreges of St. Denis, the town at the center of the storm over foie gras.” Mathilde had quoted him fairly, made it clear that he disagreed with Annette over foie gras and felt she’d been foolish to call it barbaric, but that she was sincere in her beliefs. Whatever her father did or whatever he spent on his fancy lunches, it wasn’t French justice to condemn someone by association. He e-mailed Mathilde back saying he approved, although privately he doubted whether much of it would make its way into print.

He cleared the rest of his e-mails, and took an apple and a banana for his lunch from the big fruit bowl that was kept in the mairie ’s kitchen. It had become a feature after Fabiola had come to one of the staff meetings to give them all a lecture on healthy eating. He called J-J to tell him that Teddy and Kajte had returned and gave him a summary of their statement. The forensics team at the smithy had reported back. Fingerprints were being checked against the Spanish files. The Bayonne hotel that had provided the small shampoo bottle he’d found had been contacted, but the guests had paid in cash. Bruno suggested that the hotel staff be shown a copy of Fernando’s Identi-Kit.

He sat back, hearing the familiar squeak from his chair, and wondered where Jan and the Basques might be at that moment. In their place, he’d look for a remote house that looked modernized but had all the shutters closed, the kind of place owned by Dutch or British vacationers who only came in the summer. Here they had the benefit of Jan’s local knowledge. He’d made wrought-iron fittings for wealthy foreigners restoring their properties, and he had to know dozens of places that were likely to be empty. With Easter so close and the school vacations starting, however, that might be risky. But there were hundreds of empty tobacco barns dotted around the fields, many of them far from roads or other buildings.

They would need supplies, he thought. They’d also need at least one car and more likely two or three for the surveillance that would have been required to keep a watch on Carlos, to locate his car and place a bomb beneath it. But cars were easily stolen and license plates changed. What else was essential? he asked himself. As soon as he formulated the thought he was looking at his own computer and answering his question.

They would need communications. Phones were too easily monitored, but they could use e-mail. It was simple enough to concoct a fake address through Yahoo or Hotmail. They might be somewhere too remote to have online access, but they could be using Internet cafes. He called Isabelle at the chateau, passed on his thinking and asked her to e-mail him the Identi-Kit sketch of Fernando and also the one he had done of Galder, the youth at Jan’s smithy. Perhaps gendarmes with the same sketches could be asked to check all the Internet cafes and facilities in the region, he suggested. He’d take care of St. Denis.

She told him that a police cyber team in Paris had already gotten into Fernando’s Hotmail account and were locating the various sites he’d used most recently. They’d found one in Sarlat and another in Bergerac used in the last week. The sketches were on their way. Almost at once his computer trilled to signal an incoming message. He printed out the two sketches and was reaching for his cap when his phone rang.

“It’s Annette. I’m calling to thank you. I just heard from Mathilde at Medecins Sans Frontieres and she sent me a copy of this press release the two of you concocted. How on earth do you know her?”