The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

now so you can see them on the porch. We aren’t allowed to smoke in the building anymore so that’s where they take their breaks.’
    Pierre had made no deliveries to Crimson’s house on the relevant days and recalled seeing nothing of interest. But Pascal had delivered a letter and a couple of circulars to Fullerton’s
gîte
two days earlier.
    ‘I was on late shift,’ he said, his Gitane bobbing from his lips as he spoke. ‘Must have been late afternoon, sometime around five o’clock. It’s a long drive up the track and as I was driving back I had to stop and reverse because of the
chauffagiste
. He was in a big white van and he had trouble getting round me. That’s how I saw the sign.’
    ‘What did it say?’
    ‘Chauffage-France or France-Chauffage. I’m thinking of putting in central heating so I remembered the address. It was inBelvès, in a
Zone Industriel
, and I thought I might ask them for an estimate, see if they’re any cheaper than the ones round here.’
    ‘Did you get a look at who was in the van? One person or two?’
    ‘Just the driver, a youngish guy I think, but I didn’t really notice. I was trying to be sure I didn’t take my own van so far over I’d end up in the ditch. The funny thing was, when I looked up the firm in the phone book I couldn’t find any listing for a heating firm in Belvès.’
    ‘Could have been a new one, not in the phone book yet.’
    ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Pascal, glancing at his watch. ‘So I looked it up on the master list we keep in the office that has all the new subscribers, and there was nothing on there either.’
    Pascal looked across to the yard where his friend Pierre was already loading boxes of letters into the back of his van. ‘Break over,’ he said, rising. ‘Got to go. It’s not the place where they had that murder, is it? They said on the radio it was up by St Chamassy.’
    ‘There might be a connection. We’ll check it out and may have to come back and take a statement. Did you see anybody at the house or was there a car parked when you dropped off the mail?’
    ‘Not that I remember. There might have been a vehicle but I can’t be sure.’ He shook his head.
    ‘Do you remember anything about the driver of the van, what he was wearing?’
    ‘The usual blue overalls.’ Pascal shut his eyes as he tried to remember. ‘His sleeve was rolled up and he had a tattoo onhis arm, very striking with thick stripes. It was like an abstract design rather than one of the usual mermaids or an anchor. When we slowed down to squeeze the two vans past one another I got a good look at it. His arm was resting on the rim of the door and we were so close we were almost touching.’
    ‘What about the van?’
    ‘It was one of those extra-tall Renaults they use for moving furniture, big enough for people to stand up inside.’
    ‘You said white. What colour was the sign?’
    ‘It was in blue letters, quite big because I could read it easily. It had the Belvès postcode. There was a phone number, too, but I didn’t write it down.’
    *
    Back in his office at the
Mairie
, Bruno called his counterpart in Belvès to ask what he knew of the industrial zone where the heating firm was supposed to be based. Bruno learned that it contained two construction companies, two warehouses, a commercial laundry and a firm that specialized in handmade staircases, but no heating company.
    ‘What’s in the warehouses?’ he asked. One stored goods for a local chain of do-it-yourself stores and the other was run by a company that did household removals and parked big trucks in the zone’s secure parking lot.
    Bruno opened his phone directory and looked through the yellow pages for sign-makers. The fourth one he tried, in Bergerac, had the previous month made two truck signs for a company called Chauffage-France, with an address in Belvès. The customer, a young man, had paid cash, and said his name was Lebrun. The address he gave was the alleged workshop in the industrial zone.
    ‘Had you seen him before?’
    ‘No, but I wouldn’t mind seeing him again,’ said the woman on the other end of the phone. ‘He was a good-looking guy.’
    ‘So you’d know him if you saw him again?’ Bruno asked.
    ‘Sure. And if I need to jog my memory we’ve got him on tape. We’ve got security cameras now, for the insurance. You could come and see for yourself. What’s he done, this guy?’
    Bruno evaded the question but within the hour he was at the sign