The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

the
Procureur
assigned a
juge d’instruction
, an investigating magistrate, to supervise the case. Delaying the formal alert to the
Proc
was a fairly common police tactic, giving them more time to question a suspect. Bruno’s response had been to go to his car to call Annette Meraillon, a young magistrate he trusted. When he mentioned Valentoux’s name, she perked up to say she’d seen a couple of his plays in Paris and had been impressed. She promised to follow it up.
    It would infuriate J-J and Yveline, but that was their problem. Then as he’d driven to Pamela’s house he’d heard a report of the murder on Radio Périgord. Albert must have tipped them off, but it meant that any inquiry from Annette could have been triggered by the media. Bruno put it from his mind and began to pour his treasured Pécharmant red.
    ‘So what do you think?’ Pamela pressed him when the lamb had been served, the rowan jelly tasted and praised along with Bruno’s red wine.
    ‘I don’t think he did it. He seemed genuinely stunned by Fullerton’s death. Maybe I’m overcompensating because of the way J-J and the Gendarmes seemed to leap to conclusions. But I’m also wondering whether there’s a link to this spate of burglaries I mentioned.’
    The coincidence had struck Bruno when Valentoux had described Fullerton’s astute method of doing business, buying French antiques for sale in England and then doing the reverse in a neat back-and-forth across the Channel, taking advantage of the snob appeal of foreign antiques in each country. It was the kind of operation that would fit sweetly with burglaries, taking stolen goods abroad for sale where they would be less likely to be traced. Although the timing of Fullerton’s travels did not work, whoever had burgled Crimson’s house had known which items were worth taking. There was serious money to be made and perhaps a wider organization involved, and that could provide a motive for murder.
    Over fresh salad from the garden and Pamela’s Blue Lanark cheese, they finished the wine and Pamela looked thoughtfully at the painting of an extremely plump pig that hung on her kitchen wall.
    ‘I wonder if I should think about getting some special insurance. That’s quite a valuable painting and I’ve got some decent furniture.’ Pamela had been stunned to hear that Crimson’s house had been emptied; they were frequent tennis partners and she knew him well. ‘I’d never worried about burglaries around here before.’
    ‘You don’t even lock your door, half the time,’ said Fabiola. ‘I keep telling you about it.’
    ‘Nor does Bruno,’ Pamela retorted. ‘And he’s a policeman.’
    ‘I lock my shotgun and the shells away, but I’ve got nothing else worth stealing,’ he protested. ‘And Balzac’s there most of the time.’
    ‘Balzac is still too much of a puppy to deter any thief. And there’s your wine – you’d be furious if that got stolen.’
    After the fresh strawberries and the coffee, Fabiola helped them wash the dishes, then said a discreet goodnight.
    ‘Would you like to stay the night?’ Pamela asked, taking his hand. ‘I’d hate for you to be stopped and breathalysed by this new Gendarme woman.’
    ‘It wouldn’t be her. There’s a new rule that Gendarmes can’t go on traffic patrol in their own commune, to stop them recognizing a friend and letting them off with a warning. And yes, I’d love to stay the night, but if you’re tired I can use your guest room.’
    ‘I could tell that’s where you slept while I was away. Why didn’t you use our bed?’
    ‘Because it’s your bed,’ he said. He’d been exercising her horses as well as his own while she had been in Scotland, so he had usually had dinner with Fabiola and then stayed over at Pamela’s rather than drive home after a glass or two too many. It was on the tip of his tongue to say: ‘I don’t think of your bed as ours.’ But he’d caught himself, and said: ‘Your bed isn’t the same without you in it.’
    ‘Silly Bruno,’ she said, kissing him. ‘In my bedroom the bath is en suite, much more convenient. Why don’t we go up with a candle and take a nice hot bath together?’

6
    ‘Murder in Périgord’ said the headline in
Sud Ouest
the next morning. ‘Englishman brutally slain in
gîte
. Parisian man held for questioning.’
    ‘So you’ve got the guy already?’ asked Fauquet with a hungry gleam in his eye as he served Bruno his coffee and croissant. Owner of the