The Devil's Cave: A Bruno Courrèges Investigation (Bruno Chief of Police 5)

spent the morning on mycomputer. You’ll have to be more imaginative with the password for your modem. Gigi and your birthday was too easy. And you’d better put the food in the fridge. I’ve booked us a table for dinner at the Vieux Logis, my treat. Well, the Ministry’s treat. If I add together all my per diem allowances, that should cover it.’
    It wouldn’t, thought Bruno, making a quick calculation, but kissed her again and smiled his thanks before putting the chicken into his larder. It was cool enough in there, and he was a great believer in hanging meat for a while before eating it.
    ‘And I’ve done some research for you on your Count Vexin, a very enterprising man. His birth name was de la Gorce. Does that remind you of anything?’
    ‘It’s the married name of the sister at the Red Château.’
    ‘He’s her grandson. He’s also very well connected politically and smart, being an
Enarque
.’
    The
Ecole Nationale d’Administration,
its students and graduates known familiarly as
Enarques
, had been founded by de Gaulle in 1945 to train a new French elite to run its civil service. Producing only a hundred graduates a year, the ENA had provided two Presidents of France, half a dozen prime ministers and most of the leaders of France’s big corporations. The Count, Isabelle told him, had graduated high enough in his year to join the
Inspection Générale des Finances
, gone from there to Germany to work in EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, and had then started his own private equity company.
    ‘That’s where I’d heard of him,’ she said. ‘He’s on ourministry list of significant figures, not because of the money but because he specializes in defence. He bought into small European defence and electronics companies, cut costs and rationalized them. Then he started merging them, launched them on the stock exchange and made a fortune.’
    ‘So how does he get involved in this provincial property development?’
    ‘That’s where it gets interesting,’ she said.
    In 2006 the Count had started a hedge fund. He’d done very well at first, particularly in property in Paris, London and Brussels. But the timing was against him when the American mortgage market got into trouble the next year. Then had come the crash and the Count lost a lot of money. In recent months he’d returned to private equity deals in the defence industry that he knew best, and had started dabbling again in property.
    ‘This holiday village still seems like pretty small stuff for a guy like him,’ said Bruno.
    ‘Don’t forget the family, and Granny in the château,’ Isabelle replied. This valley was a place the Count knew, she explained, and an opportunity to make some money. The hotel that had turned them away the previous evening was designed to make use of his defence connections, a discreet place to wine and dine clients and celebrate.
    ‘I can see the logic in it,’ Isabelle continued. ‘And I was going to email you the file I put together. But on second thoughts, maybe I shouldn’t, or at least I’d better make a discreet check with my boss. If he’s in our files, and he’s also on the Defence Ministry’s approved list, the Brigadier will want to know why I’m making inquiries.’
    ‘How much of this is in the public domain where anybody can find it on the net?’
    ‘Most of it, starting with this on Google.’ She opened another tab and brought up a page of celebrity photos from
Gala
magazine.
    ‘That’s our Count and you were right. He is good-looking, and so are those two women with him. But look at the other guy, the one with his arm around him.’
    Bruno whistled. ‘That’s the President’s son?’ But his eye was drawn to one of the women in the photo. It was Eugénie in a low-cut dress, not named and described as ‘a friend’.
    ‘The son by our President’s first marriage, and it’s a party for the new Airbus, the Count’s aviation connections again, and now try this …’
    ‘Wait,’ he said, and pointed to Eugénie. ‘Don’t you recognize the nurse at the Red Château?’
    ‘I know. I just wanted to see if you’d say so. OK, you pass the test.’ She grinned.
    He felt himself blushing. ‘What else did you want to show me?’
    ‘Remember the car with Lebanese diplomatic plates? I googled the Count and Lebanon and he’s got a house there. And another investment company. And his partner in the company is – tra-la – the son of their Minister of