The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

we can round up some Gendarmes to keep the press away from the house. The question is whether this is just a straightforward burglary or whether there’s something more to it. Does this Murcoing have any British or American connections?’
    ‘He’s a suspect in the murder of the British antiques dealer,’ he said.
    ‘Jesus, this gets worse.’ She rang off, leaving Bruno holding a dead phone. Why might it not be a straightforward burglary? And why had she asked about American connections? Apart from a retired New York lawyer, a widower, and two old dears who had taught French in Californian high schools, he didn’t know any Americans in the area. There was Jacqueline, of course, but she was a French citizen. Suddenly he remembered why she had looked familiar when he’d called at her house. He had not simply seen her in the market or at the Post Office, it had been at Crimson’s garden party the previous summerand she’d been wearing a black cocktail dress. They hadn’t spoken, there must have been forty or fifty people present.
    Jacqueline knew Crimson, and she was writing a book which could make a big splash in the media about American funding in French politics. But that was history, sixty years ago, the dawn of the Cold War. It wasn’t the kind of issue that would have any serious political impact today. Most of the old parties had disappeared or merged into new ones; only the Socialist and Communist parties remained from the old days. He shook his head; that couldn’t be it. However, there had been that cryptic remark Jacqueline had made about the French nuclear deterrent not being really independent. That was different; that could have an impact, he mused. If Crimson knew about it, and had just been holding high-level talks with the Americans, with French elections coming up the prospect of a scandal about the crown jewels of France’s defence system was likely to worry the Brigadier and his Minister. This was all very fanciful, Bruno concluded, and way above his pay grade. He’d better talk to the Mayor.
    His phone rang again. It was Monique, asking if he was still looking for Yvonne Murcoing. Indeed he was, he replied. Monique had just checked Yvonne’s room, to see if she might have returned, and on the notepad by the bed she’d found a phone number with the words ‘camper van’.
    Bruno scribbled down the number in his notebook and thanked her. The woman who answered his call said Yvonne had rented their camper van the previous year and she’d recently asked to do so again. But she and her husband were about to take a week off themselves. When had Yvonne called, Bruno asked. In the evening, three days earlier, he was told.That would have been the day of Fullerton’s murder. Bruno rang J-J and left a message asking if his team could start checking van rental agencies. As he put his phone away, it gave the little ding that meant a call had come in while he’d been talking. The number showed it had come from Paris. He checked the voicemail and listened.
    ‘
Salut
, Bruno. Gilles here from
Paris Match
. I’m interested in this burglary of your British spy chief. It’s a quiet week otherwise so I thought I might come down to your delightful part of the world, maybe do an interview with Crimson with a sidebar on the Brits in Périgord. I’d be grateful if you’d call me back,
ciao
.’
    Gilles was a reporter Bruno had known from his time in Sarajevo, during the siege, and they’d renewed their friendship recently when Gilles had been more than helpful in the case of the Red Countess. Gilles was a smart man. Once he realized that Isabelle, whom he also knew, had come down to St Denis he’d soon sniff that there was more to this burglary than met the eye. Bruno would have to handle this with care.
    The Mayor looked rather more cheerful when Bruno knocked and entered his office. The delay with the new sewers had apparently been fixed and the Mayor asked Claire to make two fresh coffees. Bruno described his talk with Isabelle. Could her sudden interest in the Americans be somehow connected to the revelations in Jacqueline’s book?
    ‘I doubt it,’ the Mayor said. ‘Her book isn’t finished and it won’t be published until well after the elections.’
    ‘Bits could leak,’ said Bruno. ‘Has anybody seen it but you?’
    ‘I don’t know. I imagine she has sent parts of it to her editor at the university press which is publishing it. And I know she’sgiven a talk to a couple of