the building.
CHAPTER
25
They drove back in convoy to the police headquarters in Périgueux, Bruno riding
with
J-J
and Isabelle following behind with thick files of photocopies in the
back of her car. He would have driven with Isabelle but
J-J
held open the
passenger door of his big Renault and said, Get in.
J-J
waited until they were out of Bordeaux and on the autoroute before saying,
If you screw me around on this, Bruno, Ill never forgive you.
I thought you would threaten to put me in jail, Bruno said.
If I could, I damn well would,
J-J
grunted. I think you already know who
killed the bastard, and you are pretty sure that nobody else will ever find out.
Thats what you went out to tell your Mayor. You and your local knowledge. Am I
right?
No, youre wrong. I may have some suspicions, but Im pretty sure neither you
nor I nor anybody else is going to be able to prove it. Theres no forensic
evidence. If there wasnt enough to convict Richard and Jacqueline, I dont see
how youre going to be able to pin this on anybody else, not without a
confession. And some of these old Resistance types went through a Gestapo
interrogation without talking. They wont confess to you. If this case goes
public, you can imagine the lawyers wholl be standing in line to represent them
for free, for patriotism. It will be an honour to stand up and defend these old
heroes. Any ambitious and clever young lawyer can build a career on a case like
this. You know what, J-J? Tavernier will fight tooth and nail for the privilege
of representing them. Hell resign from the Magistrature, resign from the
Ministry, make a big media trial and ride it all the way to the National
Assembly.
J-J
grunted a kind of agreement and they drove on in silence.
Damn it to hell, Bruno,
J-J
finally burst out. Is that what you want? An
unsolved murder? Dark suspicions of racial killing? It will poison your precious
St Denis for years to come.
I have thought hard about that and its a risk we have to take, a risk we have
to balance against the alternative, Bruno said. And theres something else
that worries me. We toss this phrase around about him being a war criminal, and
it was hideous what he and that Force Mobile did around here. But think about it
a bit more. He was a kid, nineteen or twenty, living in the slums of Marseilles
in the middle of a war. No job, no family, probably despised as a dirty Arab by
the people around him. The only guy who ever gave him a break was his football
coach, Villanova. Suddenly through Villanova he gets a job and a uniform, three
square meals a day and his pay. And just for once hes somebody. He has a gun
and comrades and a barracks to sleep in, and he carries out the orders hes
given from a man he respects and who has all the authority of the state behind
him. After the Force Mobile was wound up, he paid his dues. He fought for
France, in our uniform this time. He fought in Vietnam. He fought in Algeria. He
was in a good unit that saw a lot of combat. And he stayed on for the rest of
his life in our own French army, the only place he could think of as home. So
yes, a war criminal, but he did his best to make up for it. He raised a fine
family, made his kids get an education so that now his son has taught every kid
in St Denis how to do his sums. His grandson is a fine young man with a
great-grandson on the way. Do we want to drag all that through the shit-storm
this would become?
Shit-storm is right.
Anyway, this is not going to be decided by you or me,
J-J
, Bruno went on.
This is going to go all the way to the top, to Paris. Theyre not going to want
a trial of some old Resistance heroes who executed an Arab war criminal sixty
years after he burned their farms, raped their mothers and killed their
brothers. Work it out. The Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Justice,
the Minister of Defence and the Prime Minister will all have to troop into the
Elysée Palace and explain to the President of the Republic how the TV news and
the headlines for the next few weeks are going to be about gangs of armed Arabs
collaborating with the Nazis to terrorise patriotic French families. And then
they evade justice by hiding out undiscovered in the French Army. And on top of
all that they fool us into making them war heroes with a Croix de Guerre. Can
you imagine how that plays out in the opinion polls, on the streets, in the next
election? Tell me, what would the Front National do with that?
Those are not our decisions, Bruno. We do our work, collect the evidence, and
then it is up to the judicial authorities. Its up to the law, not us.
Come off it,
J-J
. Its up to Tavernier, wholl do nothing without considering
every possible political angle and checking with every minister he can reach.
When we explain all this to him, he will understand instantly that this case is
political suicide. In fact Ill bet you a bottle of champagne that Tavernier
takes one look at all this and decides to take a prolonged leave of absence for
reasons of health.
I dont take bets I know Im going to lose, Bruno. Not for that little shit.
But its not just Tavernier. No matter how it gets sat on, this is going to leak
out eventually, probably from that English historian woman. Is she your latest,
by the way?
Mind your own business,
J-J
. But Ill tell you what I want out of today. I want
to go with you into Taverniers conference room and lay out the evidence, and
then I want to drive back to St Denis with young Richard Gelletreau in the back
of the car and hand him over to his parents with no charges against him. You
have your drugs conviction with that nasty little Jacqueline, and youll get
bonus points for cooperation with the Dutch police when Jacquelines evidence
convicts them. You have the Front National thugs on narcotics charges. You and
Isabelle come out smelling of roses.
That will be a nice farewell present for her,
J-J
said. You know shes being
transferred back to Paris? The order came in last night and I havent had the
chance to pass on the good news. Well miss that girl in Périgueux.
Dont tell me, Bruno said automatically, feeling he had just been punched in
the stomach, but knowing that he would have to say something or
J-J
would
notice. Deep down, he told himself, this was no surprise. It was inevitable. He
made an effort to keep his voice level. The Mayor predicted that she would be
assigned to the Ministers staff.
Who knows? But I wouldnt be surprised,
J-J
said fondly. He clearly thought a
lot of her. The orders just said she was assigned back to HQ in Paris as of
September the first. But shell go with a feather in her cap and what was that
old Napoleon phrase? with a Marshals baton in her knapsack. Shell probably
end up as my boss in a year or two, but Isabelle will always have a soft spot in
her heart for us rustics down here in Perigord. Well just have to keep her well
supplied with foie gras.
Tavernier knew all about the promotion, and strode into the conference room with
a cheerful smile and a comradely handshake. Let me be the first to congratulate
you, my dear Inspector Perrault, he said.
J-J
handed her the transfer order,
and for the briefest and most self-indulgent of moments Bruno watched her