The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

separate,’ Brian replied. ‘With Murcoing, I think there was much more devotion on Murcoing’s side. It reminded me a bit of that line from La Rochefoucauld, that in love there is always one who kisses and one who offers the cheek. Murcoing was very much the one doing the kissing.’
    ‘I’m wondering if that could have been a motive for the murder,’ Bruno said. ‘Murcoing could have felt betrayed if or when he found that Francis was about to have a romantic holiday with another man.’
    ‘I’ve asked myself the same question. The relationship with Murcoing had lasted for a long time, according to the emails. That was unusual for Francis. I used to wonder if Francis ever really loved anybody, except maybe his nephews and nieces,my children. It’s hard to tell, and even harder to match the charming little brother I knew with what he later became. He could be quite a monster when he was on drugs.’
    Brian called up the final exchange of emails and turned the laptop so Bruno could read.
    The last email from Francis had been sent on Monday and he’d arranged to meet Murcoing at his Corrèze farm ‘after the weekend’, presumably meaning this weekend. Francis had added that he was bringing a full load of furniture from England to be unloaded and would then return across the Channel with French furniture from the barn. Bruno worked out the timing. Today was Sunday. The email had been sent the previous Monday, and on the Tuesday Francis had taken the Chunnel train and called at Dougal’s to pay for the extra days’ lease and to pick up the keys.
    ‘So my brother would not have been expecting Murcoing when he suddenly showed up at the
gîte
. There could have been an angry scene,’ Brian said. ‘But I don’t understand how Murcoing knew that Francis planned to arrive early for a romantic interlude with this other man.’
    ‘His sister works for the rental agency,’ Bruno replied ‘She knew which
gîtes
were going to be occupied and when. And the name of the tenant is also listed for the relevant week so the cleaners and gardeners know who’ll be there. She’d certainly have recognized his name, since this affair with Murcoing had been going on for over a year, you say.’
    ‘Maybe even longer. Look at this.’ He scrolled back to the beginning of the chain of emails between the two men, the first one dated in September, over eighteen months earlier, and sent by Murcoing when Francis had returned to Englandafter their affair had begun, or perhaps resumed. He pointed to a line in the rather rambling and passionate message.
    ‘I have often thought of you even before that magical reunion when I saw you at the fair in Monpazier,’ Bruno read, and wondered just how long it had been between the reunion and their previous meeting.
    That triggered a memory, something he had noted at the time and planned to follow up, but it had slipped his mind. It was to do with Valentoux and the night he had told Bruno about his daughter. Valentoux had been asking around the gay community for information about Paul Murcoing and had been told he was known as a mercenary youth.
    The conversation began to play back in Bruno’s head. They had been standing on the steps of his home because Yves had wanted a cigarette. Yves recalled that Francis Fullerton had recounted some story of being in this region and meeting a boy a decade or so ago. And then an image suddenly appeared in Bruno’s mind of the studio portrait of a sultry-looking Murcoing that had been on Francis Fullerton’s bedside table in Corrèze and of Yves mentioning a poem that Francis had written about a boy named Paul.
    Mon Dieu
, he thought to himself, it’s the missing boy from Bergerac who gave the medical clinic a false name on that case I could never resolve, the one that kept me awake at nights. It will be in one of my first notebooks.
    He began to rise clumsily, jolting the table and startling Brian, who reached out to steady his drink. Bruno was thinking of the pile of cardboard boxes in his barn where he stored his old papers.
    ‘Sorry, I just remembered something,’ he said.
    ‘Is it to do with the case?’
    ‘Maybe, but it’s probably not that important, it’s just that there may be a connection with something that happened a long time ago.’
    ‘Can you tell me about it? Does it involve Francis?’ ‘I think it might, it happened about ten years ago. A group of English gays rented a
gîte
and invited some French boys back to their pool.