Bruno 02 - The Dark Vineyard

him once. I remember that funny cap he wore and lots of London fog, and that he could identify hundreds of different kinds of cigars from their ashes.”
    “There was a story about a dog that failed to bark in thenight. The point was, he should have barked but he didn’t, so he probably knew the intruder. On this arson case, the usual dogs among all the activists didn’t bark at all, so I’m beginning to think this wasn’t the
écolos
but something else altogether, maybe someone with a grudge against that scientist who runs the research place.”
    “Have you talked to the brigadier about this dog that didn’t bark?” Bruno asked.
    “He’s the one that explained the strange silence of the
écolos
. You and me, we’re just the errand boys, the local help he expects to do the legwork for him. But his real interest in this case is using it to build up a database on all the
écolo
movements. He’s taking the opportunity to collect computer hard drives all over the region. That’s what they do in the RG. So we’re supposed to solve it on our own, because once he realized this wasn’t some big
écolo
conspiracy, his level of interest dropped right off.”
    “So you want to start looking into local feuds around the research station? Nothing much comes to mind. That director you met, Petitbon, lives a very quiet life, except that he’s passionate about cycling.”
    “Where else do we start to look?”
    “There are some things I should check on, like when Max picked the grapes, and whether anybody has found Cresseil’s dog. I also have to see if my phone can be repaired. You’ll need someplace to work and set up a squad room. I’ll take care of that, but it can’t be till tomorrow.”
    “That’s okay; I’ve got the mobile incident crew coming down now that we’ve got a suspicious death. I can work out of their new trailer. As soon as they get here, I’ll get the gendarmes to start bringing in the witnesses. We can set up here in the courtyard. I’d better stay here and wait for them, poke around a bit, see what’s in the house and the other outbuildings.”
    “That reminds me,” said Bruno. “I haven’t seen Max’s motorcycle, some antique that he managed to get running again. It’s probably in that shed.”
    Bruno looked around the outbuildings and the back of Cresseil’s house. He found an ancient SOMUA tractor that hadn’t been moved for decades, as well as a wooden dogcart that someone had sanded down and started to repaint, but no motorbike. There was little doubt where it had been, from the pool of oil on the floor of the small barn and cans of oil and tools on a bench beside it. There were some oil-stained rags and motorcycle magazines and a manual on a shelf above. And then a gap. Bruno pondered that gap, and on an impulse, hauled up an old crate, stood on it and looked at the gap on the wooden shelf. He saw a stain of regular shape, an oblong with rounded corners. It could be the shape of the bottom of a gasoline can. He pulled out his tape measure and scribbled down the dimensions and then looked at the slip of paper that marked a place in the manual’s oily pages. It was a receipt from Lespinasse’s garage for
mélange
, the oil-and-gas mix that old bikes require.
    Armed with the dimensions of the oil stain traced onto a sheet of paper, Bruno parked his van at the Total garage on the road to Bergerac. Lespinasse’s sister was dealing with a tourist who had stopped to fill his tank. Most of the locals went to the pumps at the supermarket, where the price was three centimes less per liter, which saved more than a euro on a full tank. But Lespinasse had always made more as a mechanic than he ever had from selling gas, and his son Edouard had inherited his father’s skill with engines. Before he walked back to the large garage at the rear, where they kept the old Citroëns they loved to work on and restore, Bruno stopped in the small showroom attached to the office and looked at the
bidons
, the small gascans. He saw two models in plastic and one in metal. He measured each of them, and the metal one was a perfect match.
    With a tinny radio blaring out a call-in show on France-Inter, father and son were working on a stripped-down
traction-avant
, a classic Citroën that dated from the 1930s and had been the staple of the old
policier
films that Bruno loved. Lespinasse was beneath the engine, and Edouard leaned perilously in from above, one foot on the running board and the other