The Crowded Grave

fresh baguette from Fauquet.”
    “What year for the Tirecul?”
    “The ’05.”
    “That should do it. Call me when you’re done. We can have lunch, and I can tell you about the new nightmare that’s coming into your life. Her name’s Annette Meraillon, and she finished at the top of her class at the magistrates’ school in Bordeaux last year. She’s right up your alley. She’s a vegetarian feminist, and she spent her last summer vacation in Paris working for some rights group for Muslim women. She’s just been assigned to the subprefecture at Sarlat, which means she’ll be your new magistrate.”
    “A vegetarian magistrate for St. Denis? They must be mad. What does she think about hunting?”
    “She’s against it. She wants all guns out of private hands. Unless they’re Muslim women, I suppose. Remember that young inspector of mine in Bergerac, Jofflin? He met her taking a course at law school and said she didn’t even drink. Not a glass. And she’s going to hate foie gras, even yours. You’re in for a fun time with her, Bruno.”
    As a municipal policeman employed by the
mairie
, Bruno seldom sought to bring prosecutions under criminal law. So he’d have a great deal less to do with the new magistrate than the gendarmes and the Police Nationale. But she could call on him to help her with local inquiries, take up his time and interfere endlessly in his business. Bruno had so far been lucky; for the past decade and more the main magistrate for St. Denis and the neighboring communes had been a genial fellow, a keen hunter and former chairman of the rugby federation for the Département of the Dordogne. He was also a
prud’homme
of the Jurade de St. Émilion, which since the twelfth century had defined when the grapes should be harvested and had kept jealous guard over the branding iron which marked each barrel of the renowned wines of St. Émilion. These days it was an honorary role for local worthies and the occasion for some spectacular dinners. But it meant that he took his wine and the pleasures of the table and local tradition very seriously. Bruno could hardly imagine a more appropriate principal judicial officer for the region that saw itself as the gastronomic heartland of France. This new woman sounded as if she’d be very much less accommodating.
    “There’s a chopper coming in, probably the brigadier,” said Bruno. “I’ll call you back if he’s finished with me in time for lunch.”
    Bruno hung up and walked out of the courtyard and into the park where the commune of Campagne held an open-air antiques market every summer. For the first time he saw the newly erected wind sock and the big whitewashed circle, marked for a helicopter to land. He put his hand on his hat against the sudden rush of air as the chopper swooped in to flare for its landing on the marked patch of grass. Two tough-looking men in dark suits were the first out, one carrying a FAMAS submachine gun and frowning as he scanned the nearby hillsides, thesecond with his hand casually inside his jacket. He nodded into the darkness of the helicopter, and two more men appeared in the doorway. Bruno recognized the brigadier and watched him invite the other man to precede him. Trust the brigadier never to turn his back, Bruno thought.
    Officially a senior officer in the gendarmes, but long attached to the shadowy Renseignements Généraux intelligence arm, the brigadier was now on the personal staff of the minister of the interior. Bruno had known him to be involved in monitoring militant ecologists, the extreme right, Asian gangs and networks that smuggled illegal immigrants. He had wide powers, a very loosely defined job and access to a helicopter whenever he wanted. Since Bruno was employed by the commune of St. Denis, the brigadier had no formal authority over him. The brigadier overcame this technicality by bringing a formal request to the mayor from either the prefect of the
département
or from the interior minister himself for Bruno to be seconded on special duties. And if that failed to work, Bruno had few doubts that the brigadier would activate his army reserve status and have him conscripted.
    Bruno felt a wary respect for the man. He had also been in command of an operation in which Isabelle Perrault, a woman with whom Bruno had had a truncated love affair, had been seriously wounded. She had been a police inspector when Bruno had met her, before being lured away to the brigadier’s staff in Paris. The