The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

to reverberate throughout the house, to the elegant young woman in black silk who answered the doorbell. Behind her, the hallway was uniformly white, the stairs, the tiles, the walls and woodwork and the single tall-backed wooden chair that was the only furniture.
    ‘Do you have an appointment?’ she asked, coldly.
    ‘Do you want an appointment with the inside of a jail cell, Mademoiselle?’
    ‘It’s alright, Clarisse,’ came a voice from the upper landing, and Edouard appeared. ‘May I help you, gentlemen?’
    ‘Where do you want to start being questioned, here or in my police HQ? Since I suspect you’ll end up in custody, it might save time if we went straight there.’
    ‘Let me see if I can help you here,’ Edouard replied calmly, descending the staircase as if making an entrance. He was wearing a black suit over a T-shirt so white that it gleamed. ‘I thought this had all been settled with your colleagues from the art squad.’
    ‘They’re not colleagues. They’re specialists who sip tea and make polite small-talk about Monet and Manet and money. I deal in murder and violence and that’s what I want to question you about.’
    Edouard led them into a large room, opposite the one to which Clarisse returned. It was again all in white except for a strikingly red chaise longue with chrome legs at one side of the fireplace and two very modern chrome and black leather chairs facing it. A block of polished steel sat between them to serve as a table and inside the large fireplace stood an African carving of a woman with row upon row of breasts descending the length of her torso. Above it hung a bizarre and multicoloured modern tapestry of jazzy abstract shapes from which hung festoons of blue and yellow fabric.
    ‘Where is your old boyfriend Paul Murcoing?’ J-J began.
    ‘I have no idea. I haven’t seen him for several weeks.’
    ‘Where were you last Tuesday afternoon and evening?’ J-J was referring to the time of Fullerton’s murder.
    ‘I think I was out of town with clients. It will be in my diary.’
    ‘Have you communicated with Paul in the last week in any way?’
    Edouard paused and examined his fingernails. ‘A couple of phone calls, perhaps, and some emails, all to do with business.’
    ‘You’ll have no objection to our going through your phone bills and emails?’ J-J’s aggressive delivery made it clear this was no question.
    ‘Perhaps I’d better discuss that with my lawyer.’
    ‘Discuss all you want, I’ve got an order from the
juge
.’ J-J waved the document he’d collected from Bernard Ardouin and turned to Bruno. ‘Call Josette in and tell her to get that computer from the secretary and have a look around for any more. Also she’s to bring down any mobile phones she finds.’
    ‘Don’t I know you?’ asked Edouard, studying Bruno.
    ‘The last time we met you were naked and your friends’ fathers had been beating the hell out of you. That was at the holiday home where you and Paul Murcoing and Francis Fullerton were first together.’
    Edouard nodded. ‘I remember. You pestered my parents and my school friends until you got bored and gave up.’
    ‘You’re wrong,’ J-J said. ‘He never gives up. That’s why he’s here. But compared with me, he’s a pussy-cat. Now, about your little playmate Paul …’
    Bruno went outside to call in Josette from the car. She was scanning a list of numbers on the screen of her phone when Bruno passed on J-J’s instructions. She handed him the phone.
    ‘I just downloaded his phone records from France Télécom. There’s a lot of calls in the last week from a number that looks like a disposable phone and some more from public call boxes,paid for with one of those cards you can buy. J-J will recognize them if you give it to him.’
    She slipped on a pair of evidence gloves and went into the house and into Clarisse’s room. Bruno heard angry female voices as he handed J-J the phone.
    ‘You get a lot of calls from public phone boxes, do you?’ J-J inquired. ‘No, only in the last few days. I wonder who that could have been. Wouldn’t have been the man we’re hunting for murder, would it?’
    ‘I don’t know where Paul was calling from, but yes, he has called several times in recent days.’
    ‘What about?’
    ‘Business, the legal position of the company after the death of Monsieur Fullerton, that sort of thing.’
    ‘Did you discuss anything else?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Did you know that we had put out public