Martin Walker - Black Diamond

“I’d be surprised if it wasn’t him, but I’ll check for you.”

Bruno’s statement took fifteen minutes to complete, and when he left the room Nicco was waiting for him, to confirm that it had been Duchot who served the closure notice on Bill’s restaurant. Bruno used Nicco’s phone to call the huissier and ask the question that had been nagging at him since the children’s party.

“Sorry to bother you at home, Gaby, but it’s about L’Auberge des Verts, where you served the closure today. Somebody said you also had to close a camping site and move some campers off. Is that right?”

“Not really a camping site, Bruno, more a trailer park. There were four campers there, the kind you can sleep in. And yes, we had to tell them to go elsewhere. In fact one of them asked me where he could fill up with diesel. I showed him the way to Lespinasse’s garage.”

“You wouldn’t have made a note of the license plates, would you?”

“Sorry, no. But if they filled up at Lespinasse’s place, he’ll have a note of their credit card. And since that break-in he’s got one of those security cameras. That would have the numbers.”

“Thanks, Gaby. By the way, were they foreign?”

“Yes, Asian, maybe Chinese. All four drivers.”

“Did they seem to know the owner, Guillaume Pons?”

“Oh yes, but the guy they were really talking with was a tall Chinese who said he was the cook. He was the one who was angry with me. At one point I thought he was coming for me with that big cleaver of his. The French owner-he said to call him Bill-he calmed the cook down once I’d explained about the water department.”

“I’m glad it ended quietly, Gaby, and thanks again.”

Bruno rang off, his mind racing. Trailers and Chinese parked in a place within two hours of Arcachon where they’d attract no suspicion, and Pons had Chinese connections and a Chinese cook. He told himself to slow down and cover all the details. He gave Nicco back his phone and used the mayor’s mobile to ring Lespinasse at home. He reached his son.

“ Salut, Edouard, it’s Bruno. That was a quite a game you played the other day.”

“Not too bad yourself, old man. What’s up?”

“Those campers that filled up at your place today, did they pay by credit card?”

“Part of the bill; they had to. Didn’t have enough cash, not for all four campers. They weren’t happy about it.”

“And the card went through all right?”

“Sure.”

“And were your security cameras working?”

“As far as I know. Want me to spool them back and get the license plates on all eight campers?”

“Eight? I thought there were four.”

“Four came first, then four more came down the back road behind the cemetery and joined them.”

“The back road? There’s nothing up there except a couple of old barns and that cave the tourists go to, but it’s closed this time of year.”

“Right. I assumed they just spent the night at a quiet place where they wouldn’t be disturbed and where they wouldn’t have to pay parking fees.”

“Did you see where they were heading?”

“They took the road to Perigueux. That would get them onto the autoroute for Bordeaux or Brive and then up to Paris.”

“Could you check the film and get me the numbers of the campers and the credit card, and I’ll call you back.”

“I can give you one registration number now-I always write it down on the credit card slip, and I’ve brought all the slips back home to enter them in the books. Hang on… Here you are.” He read the number out, and Bruno scribbled it down. The license plate ended in 59-that meant it came from Lille.

“Thanks a lot. There’s no hurry on the other plates from the security film, but if you could get them for me tomorrow, that would be great. I’ll just read the numbers back to check.”

Bruno’s next call was to J-J, to give him the numbers, but as soon as he answered J-J said, “Monsieur le Maire?”

“No, it’s Bruno.”

“You’re supposed to be under arrest. I warned Jofflin about you and told him to give you a hard time. Stealing the mayor’s phone now?”

“Stop it, J-J, I’ve got something important. Remember those campers we saw at the Chinese place in Bordeaux? I’ve just had eight more of them here in St. Denis, Chinese drivers and a Lille license plate.”

“You have the number?”

“Yes, and better still, I’ve got the credit card they used to buy diesel.”

“Let’s have it. We might be able to roll up the whole operation with this, maybe even some of the big boys of the treizieme.”

“What time are you going in?”

“That’s up to them. The air force has the ship on radar closing in on the coast. We’ve got the roads sealed from the campsite and a couple of patrol boats and choppers ready to take the ship. We’ll wait till they bring all the bodies ashore, catch them in the act.”

“Where are you now?”

“In the operations room at Merignac. The brigadier sends his regards, says he has that fancy new phone for you.”

“Where’s Isabelle?”

“With the assault team at Arcachon. Don’t worry, they’re wearing flak vests.”

“One more thing, the place the campers stayed is called L’Auberge des Verts in St. Denis. It’s owned by Guillaume Pons, who just came back home with a sackful of money he made in China. He moved all over Asia, and he’s got a big, tough-looking Chinese, Minxin, who he calls his chef.”

“The Chinese connection?”

“Exactly. Could you tell the brigadier about this and ask him to check if anything is known about Guillaume Pons, calls himself Bill. The Brits might have something on him from Hong Kong. I remember he told us he’d been a cognac salesman in Shanghai, sold wine in Vientiane, taught French in Bangkok and then worked in a casino in Macau-”

“Hold on, I’m writing this down,” J-J interrupted. “Casino in Macau, that sounds interesting.”

“I think he was a croupier. Put all that together, and the brigadier should be able to get something from his own networks. Maybe our Corsican friend Savani knows about him.”

“Right, I’ve got all that. Hang on, the brigadier wants a word.”

Bruno waited no more than a couple of heartbeats, and the familiar gruff voice came onto the line. As always, he got straight to the point, no small talk.

“This Pons guy, how old is he?”

“Mid- to late thirties, I’d say. Looks a bit younger.”

“What about his father?”

“Boniface Pons, at least seventy, a big local businessman, involved in timber, sawmills, truffles. We’re onto him for money laundering at the local truffle market, hundreds of thousands of euros. Not much liked locally, and he’s said to have been a wife beater. He and his son hate each other. They had a public fight not long ago. Oh yes, and he’s an ex-soldier, Algeria.”

“Boniface Pons,” said the brigadier, as though thinking aloud. “So that’s what happened to him.”

“Did you know him?”

“I knew of him. Dirty work in Algeria. That’s for tomorrow, when we get tonight’s business finished. Thanks as always, Bruno.”

J-J’s call woke Bruno just after five in the morning. He felt as if he had not slept long, lying awake and thinking about Isabelle waiting in the sand dunes by the Arcachon campsite as a darkened ship crept close to shore.

“It’s over, we got them, but there’s some bad news,” J-J said.

“Isabelle? What happened?” He shot up in bed, his heart pounding. He closed his eyes.

“She’s been wounded. She took two on the bulletproof vest and one high on the leg. It’s a bad wound but she’ll recover. She’s in the operating room now at the hopital militaire. We had a medevac chopper on hand, thanks to the brigadier.”