The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

those rollers.’
    More furniture was stored in the barn: large and small tables, more dressers, tall glass-fronted bookshelves with ornate carved headings and sets of handsome dining chairs.
    Bruno called Isabelle, trying without success to keep the pride from his voice, to tell her that he’d found at least some of Crimson’s belongings and that his suspicions had been confirmed of the link between the burglaries and the murder. He allowed himself a few moments to enjoy her praise, feeling like a schoolboy rushing home with a prize, and then rang J-J to get the arts squad and forensic team to the Corrèze farmhouse.
    ‘We’ve found the white van and we may even have the murder weapon,’ he went on. ‘It ties Murcoing with Fullerton and we may be able to clear up a whole host of burglaries into the bargain.’
    ‘On my way,’ snapped J-J, and Bruno turned to see Brian delving into one of the dressers in the back of the white van. He was wearing gloves so he’d do no harm. It was probably all his property anyway.
    ‘Is it OK with you if I head off home now?’ asked the local
flic
, looking at his watch. ‘I was due off at two.’
    Sure, said Bruno, shaking hands and thanking him. He promised to send a copy of his report to the Ussel station, and to make sure they got some of the credit once Murcoing was caught. He watched the police van disappear down the bumpy track.
    ‘Can you give me a hand to move this furniture a bit?’ Brian asked from inside the van. ‘Just lean that dresser over to the left so I can get this drawer open.’
    Bruno complied, and was rewarded with a triumphant cryfrom Brian as he eased from the drawer a white Apple laptop computer.
    ‘That’s where my brother always hid it when he was travelling,’ said Brian. ‘Do you think I might get it back when you’re done with investigating what’s on it? I always lusted after one of these.’
    ‘I thought you said you and your brother weren’t close,’ Bruno said. ‘You seem to know a lot about his habits.’
    ‘We made the effort to keep up. I even came out here with him once, just the two of us.’
    ‘What about his mobile phone?’ Bruno said. ‘We never found it at the
gîte
. Maybe that’s here, too.’ He sighed as he looked at the mass of furniture to be moved.
    ‘No problem,’ said Brian, took out his own phone, thumbed through the address book and dialled a number. ‘If it’s here, we’ll hear the “Money, money, money” song from the musical
Cabaret
. That’s his ringtone.’
    No sound came. Brian shrugged and took the laptop into the house. Bruno followed him into a room that was used as a study, with a desk and crammed bookshelves and an old-fashioned phone. As Bruno glanced around, Brian ducked under the desk, and pulled up a power cord still attached to a converter plug.
    ‘Francis always left a power cord here, in case he forgot one,’ Brian explained, and plugged in the laptop. He began muttering to himself as the screen opened and demanded a password. Suddenly he looked up and struck himself on the forehead. ‘Idiot!’
    He turned to Bruno. ‘I forgot to look at the shrine. It’s that big cupboard. Is it open?’
    He pointed to a giant built-in corner cupboard. It had two double doors that stretched from floor to ceiling, nearly three metres tall, in heavy, age-darkened oak. Bruno tugged at the handles but the doors were locked. Brian pulled the drawer completely out from the desk, and from the back of it took a key that had been attached with heavy-duty metallic tape.
    ‘This may come as a bit of surprise,’ said Brian, sounding apologetic as he inserted the key. ‘I should have mentioned it before.’
    ‘
Mon Dieu
,’ breathed Bruno as the doors opened and a rack of guns met his eye. There were two rifles, two old submachine guns, a revolver, a small mortar and an antique radio set, all grouped around a large framed photograph of a young man in British army uniform of the Second World War. He wore three white stripes on his sleeve. A smaller photo of a pretty young woman of the same era hung beside it. Draped above the portrait was a flag from the FFI, the French Forces of the Interior. Below it was a row of medals, two Nazi daggers and an old Wehrmacht helmet. Between them, very expensively framed, was a Banque de France banknote that Bruno recognized – the same design and denomination as the one he had seen gripped in the hands of old Loïc Murcoing.
    ‘Meet Grandpa,’ said Brian.