The Crowded Grave

gras, here in St. Denis, in the Périgord, where a bomb destroyed a local factory producing the famed delicacy this morning,” said the reporter, signing off.
    “And now sports,” said the news announcer, and the mayorstepped forward, turned off the TV, ejected the videotape and turned to the staff.
    “This is a serious situation and I’ll be convening a full council meeting to discuss our response,” he told his staff. “All media questions, and any inquiries from the magistrate, will be referred directly to me until further notice. Bruno, please join me in my office.”
    “This is war,” said the mayor, once inside his office with the door closed. “What grounds might she have for complaint against us?”
    “Capitaine Duroc has made sure that she blames me for that demonstration when the farmers blockaded the gendarmerie,” Bruno said. “So now she thinks I organized it and she’s demanded my phone records to prove it.”
    “What will those records show?”
    “Nothing. No calls that morning. I said I was happy for her and Duroc to look at my phone logs.”
    “Good.” The mayor paused, then looked at Bruno quizzically. “I don’t want to pry into your emotional life, but is there anything personal that’s gone on between you two that would explain this vendetta? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, that sort of thing?”
    “No, not at all, though I gave her a parking ticket once,” he said with a grin. “She may try to blame me for the disappearance of the chief suspect, the Dutch student at the dig, who has apparently returned home to Holland. But since the magistrate has filed no charges against the girl and has just made it publicly clear that she is in sympathy with the allegations of cruelty against animals, she’s on weak ground. Remember, she used the word ‘barbaric’ about foie gras, a dish that is eaten in two-thirds of French households. When it comes to a battle for public opinion I don’t think she can win.”
    “Are you sure that’s the right terrain?”
    “No, that’s our last ditch,” Bruno said. “We have to do two things. First, we have to separate her from Duroc. And you don’t want to know, but I think I have a way to do that. Second, and this you do want to know because you’ll have to be part of it, we attack her credentials in this case.”
    “How do we do that?”
    Bruno explained that he’d already asked her, in front of Sergeant Jules, to recuse herself from the case on grounds of partiality. In view of what she’d just said on TV she’d have no choice. It was unfair to have a magistrate investigating an affair where her prejudice was so public.
    “Most people already think the magistrates are just a bunch of lefties,” said the mayor, nodding in agreement.
    “True, but we mustn’t say that,” Bruno insisted. “The last thing we want is to get all the magistrates rallying to her side in solidarity.”
    The mayor looked at him keenly, a half smile on his face. “You want us to speak more in sorrow than in anger.”
    “Precisely,” Bruno replied. “We love French justice, we want a magistrate. We just maintain we have a right to be investigated by a magistrate who hasn’t already told the French public that we’re a bunch of barbarians because we make a food that France loves.”
    “Meanwhile, we’d better get some allies standing with us. I’ll get the Société des Gastronomes de France to complain to the justice minister,” said the mayor, his eyes lighting up. “We can ask the great chefs of France for their views on foie gras. I’ll get my old friends in the Senate to pass a resolution on foie gras as part of our national heritage. I’ll get all the other mayors in the Périgord to join us. The farmers’ union, the
vignerons
of Monbazillac and Sauternes, the
députés
of the Assemblée Nationale—we’ll build a coalition, Bruno.”
    “And we have to make sure that no coalition rallies aroundher. Bring in Alphonse,” Bruno said. “He’s a Green, but he’s one of our own councillors and he likes his foie gras. We get him on our side and we split the Green movement. We have to think where she might get support, and work out how we can neutralize it in advance. We have to leave her with no allies but the extremists.”
    “Leave this to me,” the mayor said, rubbing his hands together with glee. “This is my specialty. This is politics.”

21
    The Danish student was named Harald, and being short, plump and dark haired,