Martin Walker - The Crowded Grave

“I don’t. I just dialed the main number and asked for the press office.”

“She spoke as if she’d known you for years. She sent me a scan of the Paris Match article with that photo of you swinging out of the window in a ball of fire.”

“It looked more dramatic than it was. Being in a car with you took a lot more courage,” he said. “But I’m glad you called. Teddy and Kajte have come back and surrendered themselves to my custody.”

After telling her they’d be available for questioning, he explained that the corpse Teddy had discovered was his own father, shot by undercover Spanish cops in their war on the ETA movement.

“He dug up his own father’s corpse? He must have known where to find it, which means… God, I’m not sure what it means. Is he connected to ETA?”

“Only through his father. He’s helping us. But since you had opened that dossier on Teddy and his girlfriend, I thought I’d better tell you that they both are back in the district. Is it still open, on them and on Maurice?”

“Along with my disciplinary proceedings against you, the Maurice matter was dropped on orders from my superior this morning, which means the dossier on those students is also closed. That was Duroc’s business, anyway. And have you heard that he’s been suspended?”

“Suspended? What for?”

“It happened this morning. I heard about it at the morning staff meeting because we’ll have to assign someone to the case. There was an internal investigation by the gendarmes, and they say he was fixing traffic tickets.”

“I just know he fixed your speeding ticket.”

“Yes, but I paid it, just like I paid your parking fine. I sent off checks that very night. But it seems there were quite a few tickets Duroc took care of, and some of the beneficiaries claim they paid him to do it.”

“I don’t suppose they’ll assign you to the case.”

“No. You’re getting another new magistrate. I’m being transferred to the Sarlat office, along with a formal reprimand for my TV interview.”

“I can point you to one or two foie gras factories there that I’d like to see hit with a hygiene order,” he said.

“I think I’ll stay away from that issue for a while. But look, thanks for what you did and please tell those two students and Maurice that the case is closed.”

“Thank you,” he said. “But when you called me in to say you were launching disciplinary action against me, you said I’d helped those two students evade arrest. Wherever did that come from?”

“It was a letter of denunciation handed in to the gendarmerie. It said you had treated the girl’s shotgun wounds in secret and then told them to bribe the farmers to stop them filing formal complaints.”

“Was it signed?”

“I don’t remember. That was Duroc’s big complaint against you, cheating him out of an arrest. Was it true?”

“Yes, I suppose it was,” he said. “But I still think it was for the best.”

“Maybe you were right,” she said, and hung up leaving him with the feeling that some little justice had been done. But who knew enough about what he had done to have written the letter? He couldn’t see Teddy and Kajte doing it. He’d have to find the letter. But that meant going through the gendarmerie, and the thought of Duroc’s suspension sobered him. It didn’t say much for Bruno’s skills that Duroc had been fixing speeding tickets under his nose and Bruno had known only about Annette’s. He called Sergeant Jules.

“What’s this I hear about Duroc being suspended?”

“First we knew was when a new captain came in this morning and told us. He’s just temporary, from Nontron up in the north of the departement. Apparently they’d had their eye on him for some time. Some guy trying to talk his way out of a jail sentence for repeated drunken driving shopped Duroc a few weeks ago. We’re in deep mourning. Come by the bar this evening and you can share our grief. I’m buying.”

“I’m tied up this evening,” said Bruno. “But drink a glass for me. This security stuff will be finished in a couple of days. One thing you can help me with. There was some kind of letter delivered to the gendarmerie accusing me of secretly helping those two students evade Duroc. Do you know anything about it?”

“Francette found it in the postbox, in a sealed envelope addressed to Duroc. Give me a minute. His office is empty so I can take a quick look.”

Bruno waited, wondering whether Kajte had said something to the Villattes or Maurice about his treating her wounds. If not, that left him with Carlos or Dominique as the most likely sources of the letter. Dominique didn’t like Kajte, but Bruno couldn’t see her wanting to denounce him. That left Carlos. But what possible motive could he have? And could he write a letter in French good enough to fool a French speaker?

“Got it,” said Jules, coming back to the phone. “It was in a file in his drawer marked ‘Bruno,’ and it’s unsigned. I’ll make you a copy.”

“Is it in good French?”

“It’s no worse than half the anonymous letters we get. A couple of misspellings, some odd turns of phrase but nothing out of the ordinary. I can’t tell about the accents because it’s all typed in capital letters.”

Before he set off on his search of the Internet sites, Bruno called an old contact at the French military archives and asked what their files had on Eurocorps. Carlos had served in it and been based in Strasbourg, where he’d learned his French. The old soldier at the archives said the Eurocorps records were remarkably good. He wrote down Carlos’s name and the units Bruno could recall and promised to call back. Bruno took the old stone stairs down to the square, heading for the town’s tourist office, where Kajte had done the photocopying that had first alerted him to her role in attacking the farms. He showed the sketches to Gabrielle, who looked at them carefully and said she was sure she had seen neither one.

“And what finally happened to that Dutch girl?” she asked.

“It turned out just as you suggested, Gabrielle. She went to the farmers and apologized and paid them compensation and she’s now back at work on the dig. The matter is closed, thanks to your excellent advice. Merci.”

Patrick at the Maison de la Presse did not recognize the sketches, but the woman behind the counter at the Infomatique looked at them carefully, called over a male colleague, and they both pronounced themselves convinced that Galder, or someone very like him, had paid ten euros to use their computer for an hour late the previous afternoon, just before they closed at six. In fact, he was the last person to use it. Bruno immediately called Isabelle and asked for a fingerprint man to be sent.

“He spoke really bad French,” said the man as they waited. He offered to check the cache to see what sites Galder had used, but Bruno told him that neither the chair nor table nor computer could be touched until the fingerprints had been checked. They remembered little else about him, except that he had paid for the computer time from an impressive roll of fifty-euro notes. He had arrived and left on foot with no sign of a vehicle. They did not recognize Fernando.

Bruno went to the nearest shops-a small supermarket, a gift shop and a property sales and rental agency-but nobody recognized his sketches. Nor had they served any obvious foreigners the previous day. When he returned to the Infomatique, Yves had already arrived with a fingerprint man and was shining a flashlight sideways along the keyboard.

“Not a trace,” he said. “It’s been well wiped.” Wearing gloves, he checked the memory cache and declared that wiped too. He searched for the computer’s IP address and scribbled a note of the number. Then he called Isabelle and gave her the number and asked if she wanted him to bring back the hard drive. Bruno couldn’t hear her answer, but Yves hung up and took a CD from his briefcase and inserted it into the computer, opened a browser and then called another number. He spoke briefly, and then a small window opened on the monitor screen, asking if the user agreed to surrender control. Yves hit the “Oui” window and sat back.