Black Diamond

Jean-Jacques Jalipeau, the chief of detectives for the Police Nationale in Périgueux. Bruno counted him as afriend, with a touch of caution. Usually their interests coincided, but Bruno’s boss was his mayor, while J-J reported to the prefect of the Département of the Dordogne and to the Ministry of the Interior.
    “The explosive was a stun grenade, used by some young Asians after attacking a market stall. They got away in a stolen car. We’re looking at the stun grenade now, or what’s left of it. It looks like one of the grenades we had in the army, but it’s not French issue. We’ve got one of the attackers in custody plus his cell phone. He had the phone number of a Périgueux lawyer in his pocket.”
    “Which one?”
    “Poincevin. His office is supposed to be sending someone here. Do you know him?”
    “More than I’d like. He runs a big criminal defense practice, and he’s not particular about who he takes on, lots of lowlife clients and some shady councillors. This is the first time I’ve heard of him representing Asians. I’ll make some calls and send you down a forensics guy to look at your grenade and check out the cell phone. Hold the Asian under
garde à vue
until I can sort out an interpreter. When should I expect your incident report?”
    “By the end of today, but it’ll be very basic.”
    “Before you go, read me out the recent numbers he called on the mobile. There’s a special unit in Paris that deals with Asian crime. Our old friend the brigadier is involved. I’ll see if any of the numbers spark any interest.”
    “They’re mostly mobiles, but there’s a couple for Paris,” Bruno said, reading them out. “Anything going on with Asians I should know about?”
    “We had a tip from Paris. The biggest Chinese restaurant in Périgueux, owned by a guy with his own supermarketattached, just got taken over. He borrowed money from some big boys in Paris, loan shark stuff, and they screwed him on interest rates. It seems they did the same thing to a Chinese supermarket in Bordeaux a couple of months ago. The Paris cops think it’s organized crime, Chinese triads getting established in France. I’ll keep you posted.”
    As they hung up, Fabiola walked in with her medical bag and asked, “Where’s this prisoner?”
    “It’s Bruno you should look at,” said Jules. “He had a stun grenade go off beside him, and he was out like a light for about a minute. The Asian kid’s just groggy.”
    “I’m fine,” Bruno protested. But Fabiola was already turning him toward the window and pulling back his eyelids to look into his pupils. She took a small flashlight from her bag and shone it into his eyes.
    “No bleeding from your nose?” she asked, as she poked the flashlight into his ears.
    “No, Doctor. Jules here dosed me with a cold sponge, just like he does on the rugby field. I’m fine, just a bit of a headache, and I’ve got work to do.”
    “I want to see you at the medical center just before noon, and I’ll look again. And I want you to take the afternoon off. Otherwise I’ll put you in an ambulance to the hospital right now and insist they keep you overnight for observation.”
    Bruno knew better than to argue with Fabiola in professional mode so he grumpily agreed. She told him to take two aspirin for the headache and went downstairs to the interview room with Sergeant Jules to see the Asian. Bruno called the gas station to ask about his van. It had been new when he started the job as the municipal policeman of St. Denis, but that had been ten years, one reconditioned engine and more than two hundred thousand miles ago.
    “Looks like they didn’t know about the brakes,” said the garage owner when he came to the phone after a long wait. Jean-Louis Lespinasse, whose passion in life was to restore old Citroëns, took great pride in keeping Bruno’s van on the road. But the brakes needed special care. Bruno found that a combination of a low gear, pumping the brake pedal and prayer usually worked.
    “They only stopped when they ran into the lamppost,” Lespinasse went on. “If you ask me, the frame’s gone and it’s a write-off. I’ll get the boy to take some photos and e-mail them to you for the insurance. Meantime, what should I tell this guy whose car they took?”
    “Tell him the gendarmes have an alert out for it, and I’ll be along as soon as I can and give him the number of the incident report, but he might want to inform his insurance