The Patriarch: A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel (6 page)

Soon after leaving the riding school, Pamela and Bruno were sitting on the terrace at Laugerie Basse, the great cliff looming above them and off to one side the cave shelters of prehistoric people with their carvings of giant auroch bulls. The restaurant was a local favorite, family run and serving lavish meals at low prices. In the hunting season Bruno was here once a week with his hunting club, dining inside the same overhanging cave where people had lived fifteen thousand years ago.

“If I get all those
gîtes
running properly, I could bring in a hundred thousand a year,” said Pamela, showing him the notebook on which she had been calculating possible rental income.

“Less taxes, cleaning costs, repainting and upkeep and then there’s the marketing,” said Bruno. “You might clear forty thousand if you fill them all every week from Easter to the end of October, but that’s unlikely. And there’s a lot of money to be put in to repair the pool, fix up the jumps, repaint the stables and replace the broken tiles. And that roof on the big house looked to me like it needed replacing, next year if not this. You’d need a couple of stable hands at least and somebody else to help with the riding school and with the cleaning in the summer. There goes your revenue from the
gîtes,
and that’s without thinking of the costs of fodder and the vet’s bills.”

“I like running my own business, and I’m good at it,” she replied, sipping at her glass of rosé. “Unlike Marguerite. I can’t believe what a bad businesswoman she is, telling us all about what she can’t afford to do. Every time she spoke, I mentally knocked a few more thousands off the price.”

“She struck me as overworked, tired and depressed, and still in mourning for her dead partner,” said Bruno. He didn’t add that he’d been even more struck by Pamela’s decisive business style.

“And I’d get a good price for my own place,” Pamela went on. “I’ve already had one offer from those people from Wales who come back every year. And with the money from my mother’s estate I’d have the cash flow I need plus a very healthy cushion. I’d have to buy some new horses and a couple of ponies for children. The horses we didn’t look at seemed quite old and a bit run down, like the whole place.”

“Well, you know the risks and the hard work involved.” Bruno sat back as the plates of
rillettes de canard
were served along with a basket of bread and a bowl of cornichons.

“The risk might not be all mine,” she said, serving herself
rillettes.
She paused, and then spoke again, a little too casually and reaching to pour each of them a glass from the water jug to avoid meeting Bruno’s eye. “It was Jack Crimson who told me this place was up for sale. He said if I was interested in running it, he’d be ready to take a share in the venture. I’d have to set it up as a company, and it would be useful to have a second shareholder.”

Surprised, Bruno put down his knife and looked at her. He’d been about to remind her that there had to be a reason that riding schools around the region were going out of business. But he caught himself before he spoke. After all, it was her affair, her mother’s inheritance. Pamela raised her eyes to look at him, and her voice seemed deliberately offhand when she added, “Jack thought it could be a good investment.”

Bruno’s mind was racing. This was a surprise. He liked Jack and counted him as a friend, even though he’d been surprised when he’d first learned that the retired civil servant whom he’d first met at the St. Denis tennis club had spent his career in British intelligence. They had become friends after sharing an adventure that had begun with Jack’s home being burgled and Bruno then being lucky enough to track down his stolen possessions and recover them. A well-preserved man in his midsixties, Crimson was a widower whose wife had died shortly after they had bought their house near St. Denis. He seemed very comfortably off and was always generous with local charities. If he’d already spoken to Pamela about an investment, she visited the riding school to do more than look at a horse for sale.

“He’s a decent man and very smart. If he thinks it’s a good investment, it probably is,” Bruno said, recalling that he’d introduced Jack to Pamela at one of his own dinner parties. “I didn’t know you knew him that well.”

“Both being British, I suppose,” she said vaguely, looking away again and then starting to eat. “He knew I was looking for a horse, so he e-mailed me about the place and said it looked like it might be a bargain. We talked about it over dinner in London with his daughter, Miranda. I think Jack wants to get her involved, help her make a new start with the children. She’s just been through what sounds like a very unpleasant divorce, so I can sympathize.”

Bruno digested this. It was the first he’d heard of their meeting for dinner in London. “Would Jack be involved in running the place, or is he just planning to invest some money?”

“Too early to say, but he’s no horseman.” She put down her knife and fork and paused before looking Bruno squarely in the eye. “I think he recognized that I was ready for a new challenge, something I could get my teeth into. I’ve had just the two
gîtes
to run once Fabiola started renting one of them. When Mother died, I began asking myself if I was really happy with my very pleasant but predictable life, and I realized that I wanted to do something really ambitious while I still have the energy. This seems like a worthwhile project. I know
gîtes,
and I love horses, and this way I can combine the two while building a real business.”

“It sounds as though you’ve already made up your mind,” he said, and began to eat. If Pamela was intent on making such an important change in this aspect of her life, then she was probably ready for something different in her romantic life. He’d expected this, and while there was some sadness, he was also aware of a small but distinct sense of relief.

“I’m certainly determined to do something different,” Pamela said. “I think I told you I’d spoken with Florence about giving some English conversation classes to the senior class at the
collège.
But I’d rather do something involving horses. I always have.”

“It sounds as though the riding school is what you want to do. You love horses, you’re good with them, and speaking as your most recent pupil, I know you’re a natural teacher. And you know how to run a tourist business. I’m sure you’ll make a great success of it.”

“Do you really think so?” she asked, her eyes shining. Their empty plates were whisked away and replaced with generous portions of roast chicken and
petits pois
with carrots. “It won’t leave me much time to spend with you.”

“I understand, but I’ll still have to come along to exercise the horses, morning and evening. But if you’re going into business, I’d better start paying stable fees for Hector.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “But morning exercise will be different if we’re taking out a long string of horses behind us.”

“You’ll just have to ensure you have so many pupils at your riding school that they’ll do most of the exercising for you,” he said. “Then you might not even need Fabiola and me.”

“That reminds me,” she said. “I should have thanked you for the lamb last night. It was delicious, different from that slow-cooked version that you start marinating the previous day, but just as good in a different way. Fabiola was raving about the lamb this morning when we had coffee together before we took the horses out.”

Bruno sat back and thanked the waitress as she removed the empty plates and left a bowl of salad for them to help themselves. From the choice of desserts, they both picked the crème brûlée. “It’s good to see her and Gilles so happy. Fabiola said they had a lovely time, the weather was perfect, and the oysters were delicious.”

Arcachon was famous for its beaches, its seafood, and for a giant sand dune, nearly three kilometers long and over a hundred meters high, which shifted back and forth along the coast at the mercy of storms and tides. It had been Fabiola’s first real holiday since arriving in St. Denis. From what Gilles had said over dinner, Bruno had the impression that they’d spent more time together in their room than sightseeing, which was as it should be for new lovers.

They were well matched, he thought, Fabiola the gifted doctor and Gilles the writer, his passionate interest in national politics tempered by a warm good humor and a dry wit that Bruno appreciated. Bruno’s own interest in politics was mainly confined to the affairs of his commune and the
département,
but he liked to listen to Gilles’s views. It was something new for Bruno to have a close male friend who didn’t hunt, had little interest in rugby or any kind of sports and spent most of his time reading or attached to his laptop. It made Gilles a good partner for Fabiola, whose radio was always tuned to France Culture and whose favorite reading, apart from medical journals, seemed to be
Le Monde Diplomatique.
Other than the mayor, Bruno supposed they were the first intellectuals he’d known.

The crème brûlée finished, he and Pamela ordered coffee and enjoyed the view down the cliff and over the River Vézère, Bruno wondering if this would be the last time this year he’d be able to eat in the open air. And it might even be one of the last times he lunched with Pamela alone, which would be a loss, since he enjoyed her company.

“Would you like me to drive you back to the riding school?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’ll probably be there some time, poring over account books and getting a sense of just how far the place has run down and how much it’s going to cost me to put it back in order. If you drop me off at home, I’ll drive myself over there. I also want a good look around inside the
gîtes
and the big house. From the outside it seemed rather too big for me, but maybe I could rent it out and live in one of the
gîtes.
There’s always a good market for big manor houses like that in the summer.”

“Even if you decide against the riding school, there’s always that horse, Primrose. I liked riding her, a bit like Hector only smaller and less of a mind of her own.”

Pamela grinned. “I had a pony called Primrose when I was a little girl. And I won’t object if the Warmblood comes as part of the deal with the stables. He seemed a decent buy.”

“He didn’t have the charm of your Primrose.”

“She was luring you in; you know what they say about the female of the species,” Pamela said. “But she’s a fine-looking horse, a little short for a Selle, but with a good, broad face and a strong neck. She looks like a good worker, so she could be just what I want. But I’ll have to ride her a bit more to get a sense of her character and how well we’d get on together. You’re lucky, bonding with Hector the way you have. Not every rider is so lucky.”

“Probably because they weren’t taught to ride by you,” said Bruno. He’d been thinking of raising the question of their own relationship, but Pamela seemed too focused on her plans for the riding school. He put down a twenty-euro note and another five in coins, thinking a four-course meal with wine might have cost him twice as much in Bordeaux or Paris.

“I’ll call you this evening and let you know what I find out,” said Pamela.

Bruno paused at the end of the gravel drive, looking down the avenue of fruit trees to admire Jack Crimson’s home, a small manor house of the kind that was these days called a
gentilhommière,
a gentleman’s residence. Crimson said he’d chosen it because it reminded him of the Georgian country houses in England, albeit in miniature form. There was a handsome front porch flanked by stone pillars, two sets of French windows on each side of the door and five mansard windows on the upper floor. The effect was pleasingly symmetrical. The house looked comfortable and inviting with its roof of old tiles and the warmth of the honey-colored stone. Some hardy late roses provided a splash of pinks and yellows.

Balzac gave a cheerful bark and scampered down the drive, stopping to sniff at the various trees before lifting his leg on a cherry tree. Then he ran onto the porch just as Crimson opened the front door and bent to caress the basset hound he’d known since Balzac was a puppy.

“My dear Bruno and Balzac, a pleasure to see you both, and you’re just in time for a
p’tit apéro,
” said Crimson with a wide smile. As usual, he looked as if he’d taken care in how he was dressed, as if he were preparing to be photographed for a glossy English lifestyle magazine. His gray hair was neatly brushed, and there were precise creases in his khaki slacks. His checked shirt was open at the neck, and a yellow cashmere sweater was slung with casual elegance around his shoulders. His brown brogues were highly polished.

“A glass of scotch, a Ricard, some wine? I think it’s still warm enough to enjoy it in the open air while Balzac renews his acquaintance with the garden.”

Installed on the terrace with its view across a well-kept lawn to the ridge that led down to the River Vézère, Bruno accepted a small glass of single-malt whiskey, Crimson’s usual Balvenie. His host added a splash of water, murmuring something about the need to liberate the bouquet. Crimson clinked their glasses together and said
Slahnge,
and Bruno replied
Tchin
in the French way.

“I thought it was
slahnge mar,
that’s the way Pamela says it,” he said.

“
Slahnge
just means ‘health’ in Gaelic,” said Crimson. “
Slahnge mar
means ‘good health,’ and you’ll hear some people say it slightly differently,
Slahnge Mor,
which was a subtle way of drinking to the Jacobite king rather than to those Hanoverians on the English throne.
Mor
is for ‘Marion,’ which was the name for Bonnie Prince Charlie, who fled into exile after the defeat of the 1745 rebellion. And if I pass my glass over the water jug when I drink, I’m drinking to him, the king over the water. It’s history you’re drinking here, Bruno, not just scotch.”

“Our
tchin
sounds very tame by comparison,” said Bruno, smiling. “I should say this isn’t entirely a social call. You may have heard that one of the guests at the Patriarch’s party died later that evening, Gilbert Clamartin.”

Crimson’s glass jerked as he was raising it to his lips. “Gilbert, dead? I had no idea. What happened?”

“He died in his sleep, very drunk. Apparently he threw up when he was passed out, and that did him in. No suspicious circumstances, the doctor said.”

“Old Gilbert…I knew he was hitting the bottle pretty hard, but he seemed fine when I saw him at the party, not drunk at all.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Quite sure. I was chatting with him and a couple of people, and he was bouncing back and forth between French, English, Russian, making a lot of sense and being amusing. He could be one of the most charming people you’d ever hope to meet, and he was certainly on form at the party. He died that evening, you say? Do you know about the funeral arrangements?”

“Not yet, but once I hear I’ll let you know. Did you notice a small disturbance at the party, a sudden drop in the conversation and a flurry of people?”

“Can’t say I did, I was having too good a time, at least until those damn planes came over. I thought there were rules about how low they are allowed to fly. What was the disturbance about?”

“Gilbert was apparently bothering a young woman, Victor’s daughter, trying to pull her away, and then Victor and some others intervened and escorted him off. I saw it, and he was stumbling drunk by then. But it can’t have been long before that when I saw him with you and Pamela and the foreign minister. It didn’t seem long enough to get so drunk.”

“I see what you mean,” said Crimson as he tried to work out the chronology. He and Gilbert had chatted with the foreign minister for a few minutes before the Russian ambassador joined them, and he’d stayed for a few minutes more. “I lost track of Gilbert after we were joined by our mutual chum, the brigadier.”

Bruno would not have put it like that. The brigadier was a senior official in French intelligence, attached to the staff of the minister of the interior but with a remit that seemed to run across the range of France’s police and security forces. He sometimes roped in Bruno for problems, political or diplomatic, that emerged in the Périgord. A thought struck Bruno: the brigadier also drank Bowmore; perhaps Crimson had introduced him to it.

“Did the brigadier know Gilbert?” Even as he asked the question, Bruno had a sinking feeling. Whenever the brigadier became involved, it spelled trouble, usually in the form of a letter from the minister to the mayor, asking for Bruno to be seconded to the brigadier’s staff for a temporary assignment. Since he was still officially on the reserve list of the French army, Bruno could always be conscripted if he tried to refuse the request.

“Of course. You don’t get to be military attaché in Moscow without getting to know people in the intelligence community.” That was where he had gotten to know Gilbert, Crimson explained.

He’d been attached to the British embassy during that extraordinary time when Gorbachev was in the Kremlin. Gilbert had been very well informed with lots of good contacts in the Soviet air force, so Crimson had made a point of getting to know him. It was also through Gilbert that Crimson had met the Patriarch. Gilbert had introduced them at one of his celebrated parties in his apartment in the old Arbat, the most desirable district. It had been a great deal grander than the usual place the Soviets assigned to one of Gilbert’s rank; Crimson assumed that the Patriarch’s influence had helped.

“Of course the Patriarch was like a god to the Soviet military, fighting alongside them all the way to Berlin,” Crimson went on. Marshal Akhromeyev had been the Patriarch’s bosom friend; he was the chief of staff of the Soviet armed forces and the last serving Soviet soldier to have taken his tank into the heart of Berlin in 1945. So the Patriarch had smoothed Gilbert’s way in Moscow, introducing him to the marshal as a fellow fighter pilot and a close friend of his son. The British had sent a Royal Air Force squadron to fight on the eastern front around Murmansk, Crimson added, and a bomber group to attack the German warships that were trying to attack the Arctic convoys. But the British never reaped anything like the subsequent political harvest that the French managed with the Normandie-Niemen fliers and the Patriarch.

“Moscow was an extraordinary place back then,” Crimson went on. “Gorbachev dismantling the old Soviet system, his glasnost bringing amazing revelations in the press every day, people speaking out on TV and in public meetings like never before.”

Most of the Western diplomats were fascinated by it all, Crimson related, even as the security people were issuing dire warnings about remaining on guard. And most Westerners were still sufficiently in Cold War mode to stick together. Some of the old guard even had something called the SWAN rule over romantic liaisons; it stood for Sleep White—and NATO. Not that Gilbert took any notice of such foolishness, said Crimson, which was one of the many reasons he’d liked him.

“Gilbert was a man of great charm, made friends easily, and he probably had more Russian connections than almost any other Western diplomat in Moscow,” Crimson went on. “The Patriarch’s Russian son, Yevgeny, was doing some set designs for the Chaika Theatre at the time. He introduced Gilbert to the artists and theater people who were all having a glorious time with the new freedoms, and that gave him a way into the Soviet elite.”

“How was that?” Bruno asked. “I’d have thought those worlds would be quite separate, particularly in Moscow.”

Crimson grinned. “First rule of diplomacy, Bruno. The ruling classes in any society, and that included the Communist bloc, feel it part of their duty to cultivate the arts—opera and ballet, symphony concerts, the theater. At least their wives do; they like to think they’re part of the cultured classes, members of the intelligentsia. Get yourself invited to the artists’ parties and their weekend dachas, and pretty soon you start running into the sons and daughters of the Nomenklatura.”

“What’s that?”

“The Nomenklatura were the party elite, the Communist Party Central Committee and its staffs, government ministers and their top advisers, newspaper editors, directors of the big state enterprises. Gilbert already knew a lot of the top military men, and pretty soon he was uniquely well connected, hearing all the top-level gossip. I just rode along on his coattails, and I did pretty well out of it, even though Gilbert was very discreet, particularly about his dalliances with influential wives. As I said, he was a very charming man, handsome and with that fighter pilot’s dash about him. It wasn’t just the women that he bowled over; he was the kind of chap who also got on well with men.”

“So you and Gilbert stayed friends after Moscow?”

“Indeed, even though we didn’t see one another that often. But that sort of time in that sort of place, it creates a lasting bond.” Crimson refilled the glasses. “I knew he’d become a bit of a drunk, but he could still hold his liquor pretty well when he wanted to. And for the Patriarch’s birthday party, I’d have thought Gilbert would have wanted to stay in control. It seems very odd.”

“You mean there wasn’t enough time between your seeing him and his being led away to get that drunk?”

“Not quite. Since I didn’t see him carried off, I couldn’t say how long it might have been.”

“That incident took place very shortly before the Patriarch announced the fly-past.”

“In that case I’d say maybe ten minutes, fifteen at the maximum. But he’d have to have been drinking very hard and very fast.”

“He had a large flask with him, made in England, twice the size of a usual hip flask.”

“Heavens,” said Crimson, breaking into a smile. “I bought him that as a Christmas present when we were in Moscow. I’m touched that he still kept the old thing. It held half a bottle, I remember, because naturally I filled it before I gave it to him. If that’s what carried him off, I suppose that makes me an accessory. A bloody shame, he was a good man.”

“Did you see him after you bought your house here?”

“Off and on—the occasional lunch, and he always came to my garden parties, including the one you were at last year. I could never turn him on to Pimm’s, unlike you. Gilbert was a vodka man.”

He paused. “Where are you going with this, Bruno? Do you think there was something fishy about his death?”

“I don’t know.” Bruno shook his head. “I saw him drunk, and I saw the body, and it was pretty clear how he died. It’s just the timing I can’t fathom, how he got so drunk so quickly.”

“Alcoholics can be like that, one moment fine and then the next drink tips them over the top.”

“I suppose so.” Bruno took a last sip of his drink, debating with himself whether to ask the next question. Then he plunged in. “I didn’t know you were interested in horses,” he began. “Pamela told me of your interest in the riding school.”

Crimson’s eyes crinkled into a smile. “I was wondering if you’d bring that up. Are you intending to ask me if my intentions toward your Pamela are honorable?”

“She’s not
my
Pamela, as you put it. She’s her own woman,” Bruno said, more curtly than he’d intended. He softened his tone. “And no, I’m not asking that. I simply would like to hear why you think Pamela could make a success of the place when those other two woman didn’t, and one of them was a well-known horsewoman, an Olympic rider.”

“Two reasons: The first is that Pamela understands such a place is best run as a tourist-rental business which happens to have a riding school attached. So, unlike the recent owners, she won’t indulge in fanciful dreams of turning out more champions, which means she won’t be investing far too much money in very expensive horses. Pamela’s a smart woman with a good head for business. The second reason is that I’ve got a daughter, recently divorced, who has always dreamed of running a riding school. She was mad about horses as a girl and worked in some stables before she got married. It would mean a new start for her and her children.”

“Have she and Pamela discussed it?” Bruno was realizing just how advanced Pamela’s plans had been. He’d assumed she was interested in a horse and had only then begun to think about the stables. He was surprised she had not taken him more into her confidence.

“Yes, we all had dinner together in London when she was on her way up to Scotland. They got on well, and Miranda, that’s my daughter, likes the idea of living in France. The children are five and seven, a boy and a girl, a good age to put them in school and make them bilingual. And I’d see more of them, since I’m planning to spend a lot more time here in the Périgord.”

“It sounds as though you’ve all worked it out very thoroughly. Has your daughter been over here yet to see the place?”

“No, but she’s coming over this weekend, if Pamela still wants to go ahead with the plan after going through the accounts. I’m planning a dinner party for her, and of course you’ll be invited, along with Fabiola and Gilles.” He held up the bottle. “Another drink before you go? And talking of dinner, I’ve got a lasagna in the oven that’s far too much for me. Would you like to share it, or do you have other plans?”

“That’s kind of you. I was planning a quiet evening with an omelette and a novel, but a bachelors’ evening sounds like more fun.”

“I’ll go and set the table, and perhaps you’d go down to the cellar and pick out a really good couple of bottles to go with the meal. After all, if you hadn’t got my wines and furniture back from those damn burglars, I’d have nothing to drink.”