The Crowded Grave

them.
    “One more thing. May I have your passports?”
    Teddy unbuttoned his shirt pocket and handed his over. After a moment’s hesitation Kajte did the same.

29
    Back in his office at the
mairie
after briefing the mayor, Bruno made calls to Monique and Clothilde about the return of the two students and had to explain to Clothilde that there was still no news about Horst. He couldn’t tell her about the cell they’d found at Jan’s smithy. He put off calling Annette until he heard from Mathilde at Médecins Sans Frontières.
    He opened his e-mails. One from Mathilde contained two attachments. The first was a press release from her organization, with “MSF” on its letterhead, praising Annette’s record and stating that she’d been the victim of a mugging in print. Bruno grinned, relishing a good phrase. The second one began by saying that MSF was joined in condemning that unfair attack on Annette by “Chef de Police Bruno Courrèges of St. Denis, the town at the center of the storm over foie gras.” Mathilde had quoted him fairly, made it clear that he disagreed with Annette over foie gras and felt she’d been foolish to call it barbaric, but that she was sincere in her beliefs. Whatever her father did or whatever he spent on his fancy lunches, it wasn’t French justice to condemn someone by association. He e-mailed Mathilde back saying he approved, although privately he doubted whether much of it would make its way into print.
    He cleared the rest of his e-mails, and took an apple and a banana for his lunch from the big fruit bowl that was kept in the
mairie
’s kitchen. It had become a feature after Fabiola had come to one of the staff meetings to give them all a lecture on healthy eating. He called J-J to tell him that Teddy and Kajte had returned and gave him a summary of their statement. The forensics team at the smithy had reported back. Fingerprints were being checked against the Spanish files. The Bayonne hotel that had provided the small shampoo bottle he’d found had been contacted, but the guests had paid in cash. Bruno suggested that the hotel staff be shown a copy of Fernando’s Identi-Kit.
    He sat back, hearing the familiar squeak from his chair, and wondered where Jan and the Basques might be at that moment. In their place, he’d look for a remote house that looked modernized but had all the shutters closed, the kind of place owned by Dutch or British vacationers who only came in the summer. Here they had the benefit of Jan’s local knowledge. He’d made wrought-iron fittings for wealthy foreigners restoring their properties, and he had to know dozens of places that were likely to be empty. With Easter so close and the school vacations starting, however, that might be risky. But there were hundreds of empty tobacco barns dotted around the fields, many of them far from roads or other buildings.
    They would need supplies, he thought. They’d also need at least one car and more likely two or three for the surveillance that would have been required to keep a watch on Carlos, to locate his car and place a bomb beneath it. But cars were easily stolen and license plates changed. What else was essential? he asked himself. As soon as he formulated the thought he was looking at his own computer and answering his question.
    They would need communications. Phones were too easily monitored, but they could use e-mail. It was simple enoughto concoct a fake address through Yahoo or Hotmail. They might be somewhere too remote to have online access, but they could be using Internet cafés. He called Isabelle at the château, passed on his thinking and asked her to e-mail him the Identi-Kit sketch of Fernando and also the one he had done of Galder, the youth at Jan’s smithy. Perhaps gendarmes with the same sketches could be asked to check all the Internet cafés and facilities in the region, he suggested. He’d take care of St. Denis.
    She told him that a police cyber team in Paris had already gotten into Fernando’s Hotmail account and were locating the various sites he’d used most recently. They’d found one in Sarlat and another in Bergerac used in the last week. The sketches were on their way. Almost at once his computer trilled to signal an incoming message. He printed out the two sketches and was reaching for his cap when his phone rang.
    “It’s Annette. I’m calling to thank you. I just heard from Mathilde at Médecins Sans Frontières and she sent me a copy of this press release