The Patriarch: A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel (8 page)

Back in his office, Bruno found atop his pile of mail a letter with no stamp, which must have been delivered by hand. The envelope was thick, the paper creamy, and his name and address had been written with a fountain pen. Inside was a handwritten letter of invitation to join the Confrérie du Pâté de Périgueux, a body whose members were sworn to uphold the traditions and quality of this delicacy. Each winter the
confrérie,
dressed in medieval robes and bonnets of red and green, awarded prizes for the best duck and goose pâtés of the year after a morning of tastings that were followed by a lunch whose lavishness had become a local legend.

The
pâté de Périgueux
itself was a very special dish that dated back to medieval times, not easy to make but one of Bruno’s favorites. At its heart were foie gras and truffles, which had to be the unique black truffles of the region. These were then surrounded by a pâté made of pork, and sometimes with a crust of pastry. That had been the traditional way to store it in the centuries before the invention of canning. Like many of his friends, Bruno made a point each year of going to the old town square in Périgueux where the name of that year’s winner, usually a local farmer or a charcutier, was announced. He would buy an example of the winner’s product to be eaten at a lunch on New Year’s Day.

Bruno was surprised and extraordinarily pleased. It was a considerable honor, and he wondered what had inspired them to invite him. There was a second letter inside the envelope, similarly heavy paper but in a different handwriting and topped with the engraved name and address of the Patriarch.

My dear Bruno,

It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance on the occasion of my birthday. My dear friend the Countess has informed me of your services to her. And as the honorary president of the Confrérie du Pâté de Périgueux, I have also recently learned from the mayor of St. Denis and our mutual friend Maurice Soulier of your fortitude in defending the interests of our local producers of foie gras against its critics. It would give me great pleasure and add greatly to the talents of our
confrérie
if you could join our ranks. Be assured, my dear
chef de police,
of my most distinguished sentiments.

Marco

Bruno at once wrote two letters of acceptance, one to the Patriarch and the other to the
confrérie
itself. Then, feeling almost childish in his pride, he went out from the
mairie
and down the rue de Paris to the Maison de la Presse and bought a small picture frame to fit the Patriarch’s letter. Once back in his office, he inserted the letter, took a hammer and nail from the caretaker’s room and hung the frame on his wall. He sat back in his chair and was admiring it when the mayor walked in through the open door and said, “I heard the hammering.”

Bruno rose in respect, as he always did for the elderly man who had become his friend as well as his mentor. They shook hands and Bruno gestured at the framed letter. The mayor smiled as he read it, murmured something about it being well deserved and then perched on the corner of Bruno’s desk.

“I saw you quoted in the paper this morning,” he said. “Is there any realistic prospect of Imogène raising the funds to make a refuge for those wretched deer of hers?”

Bruno shook his head sadly and recounted the conversation he’d had with her. Given the recession and the budget cuts, the mayor replied, there was no chance of any public money being forthcoming. Bruno suggested an exhibition and a sale of Imogène’s photos but admitted this would hardly raise more than a fraction of the funds required. It would at least show that the
mairie
was trying to help.

“I don’t think some of the councillors would stand for it, and if we mounted one for her I think it might well get wrecked,” the mayor said. “Feelings are running pretty high against Imogène. Some of the shopkeepers and the stallholders in the market have already told me they’ll refuse to serve her. I suspect some of our hothead friends in the hunting club might be tempted to take the law into their own hands. Perhaps you should have a word with them, try and calm them down, at least until the time runs out for Imogène to build that fence. I’ve spoken to the prefect this morning, and the moment she’s in breach of the court order, he’ll apply to the judge for authority to cull her herd. You’ll have to arrange that, assign some of the best shots, and you’d better do something to keep Imogène out of the way while it happens.”

Bruno nodded, thinking how often he was given tasks that had never been thought of at the police academy he’d attended after coming out of the army. And that reminded him of the news he’d heard at Raquelle’s lunch.

“That man who died after the Patriarch’s party, I found out by chance that he was cremated this morning,” he said. “They certainly didn’t lose any time.”

The mayor shrugged. “It was an unpleasant business so probably best to get it all out of the way quickly. Why not?”

“There are one or two aspects of it all that trouble me,” Bruno replied. “I’ve been told Gilbert was quite sober just a few minutes before the incident with the girl when we all thought he was so drunk. Then I went to his house and it was impeccably neat. I don’t know about you but I’ve never known a drunk like that. If Gelletreau hadn’t already signed the death certificate I’d have been tempted to suggest an autopsy.”

“That’s pretty thin. And I was there, don’t forget. It was blindingly obvious how he’d died. I watched Gelletreau make a thorough examination of the body. It’s sad, but there we are. These things happen.” He turned to leave. “Don’t forget to have a few words with the hunters, you know the ones I mean.”

When the mayor left, Bruno dealt with the rest of his paperwork, and then called the regional crematorium and asked them to fax him a copy of the legal certificate of disposal for Gilbert’s remains. While he waited for it he called Annette, a friend who was a magistrate in the
procureur
’s office in Sarlat, to ask about procedures in the event of someone dying without leaving a will.

“Have you checked the Fichier Central?” Annette asked. When he said he’d never heard of it, she explained it was the central depository of wills in France, and all legal wills drawn up by a notary had to be filed there. She offered to do the search for him, and he gave her Gilbert’s name. She asked if he had any special interest in the affair, and he explained Gilbert’s death and his surprise at the speed of the cremation.

“If a doctor signed the death certificate and said no suspicious causes, then that’s all they need, unless the death was in a public place. In that case we’d have to issue it. If you know the doctor, it all sounds pretty straightforward. I’ll let you know about the will.”

Bruno had known Dr. Gelletreau for years and trusted him. He thanked Annette and turned to the fax machine where the crematorium had sent its reply. It cited the date and number of the death certificate, noted that the death was the result of natural causes and in the section for next of kin it gave Victor’s name, identifying him as “landlord and oldest friend.” Bruno had never heard of such a designation, but then he’d never known anybody die without any living kinsfolk. Even he, an orphan, listed his aunt in Bergerac and her children, his cousins, as next of kin in the
mairie
employment records. That made him think about Imogène, who’d told him she had no heirs to her property. He’d have to check whether she had any friends or distant relatives she might be persuaded to stay with when the cull eventually took place.

He called Raquelle to thank her for lunch and ask if she knew if Imogène had any close friends.

“I’m probably as close to her as anyone,” Raquelle replied. “She’s something of a loner, and even among the Greens she’s got a reputation of being a bit batty. She’s got a good heart and always turns up for demonstrations, but she’s very disorganized. You can never rely on her to do anything much beyond stuffing envelopes at election time. But I got to respect her when we worked together with those photos, and I remember she told me she had no family.”

Bruno explained that a cull of Imogène’s deer was beginning to look inevitable, and he wanted to be sure she wasn’t there when it happened. Was Raquelle close enough to her to take her in for a day or two? As she reluctantly agreed, Bruno was thinking it might be longer than that.

He began to draft some notes on what he’d have to do to organize the cull. He began by making a list of the reliable hunters he’d need. He went to the
cadastre,
the
mairie
’s detailed map of the district, and checked the size of Imogène’s property. It ran for two hundred meters along the road and then widened as it went back up the slope for almost a kilometer. Her property stopped on the ridgeline, but at that point its length was more than three hundred meters.
Mon Dieu,
he thought as he scribbled down the figures, that’s twenty-five hectares. It would cost over twenty thousand euros just to cover the two long sides of her property. Bruno tried to think how many deer he’d seen as he drove up to Imogène’s house. At least fifty to the hectare, he estimated, maybe more. There would be well over a thousand deer to be disposed of.

He called the nearest abattoir and asked to speak to the director, a man he knew from the rugby club. Sorry, Bruno, he said, but there was no way he could process or store that many deer. Even if he rounded up some other abattoirs to help they would need to check the quality of the meat. Culled deer were usually too thin. Usually after a cull, the dead deer were simply piled into heaps with a bulldozer and then burned in place.

“Imogène has to pay,” the mayor said. “And if she can’t, she’ll have to sell up. When she realizes what she’s facing, she’ll let us into the property to make our own cull.”

“Even then we’ll need everyone with a hunting permit to volunteer in exchange for the meat. And we’ll still have hundreds of corpses to burn,” Bruno relied.

“In that case we’ll need the prefect to give us permission to raise the limit beyond one deer per person for this season. I can take care of that,” the mayor said. “By the way, what’s happening with you and Pamela? I was surprised to see her with Crimson at the Patriarch’s party.”

When Bruno arrived in his office the next morning there was an e-mail from Annette. She had traced a will for Gilbert, registered by a notary in the Cantal district of the Auvergne, with an address near Riom-ès-Montagnes deep in the Massif Central. Bruno knew this region of ancient volcanoes mainly for its splendid cheese and the
apéritif
made from the roots of the local
gentiane
flower. He dimly recalled seeing signposts for the place once, when taking some of the schoolchildren on a skiing trip. He called the notary’s number and was surprised when a voice answered,
“Mairie.”
The notary, he learned, was also the mayor. Bruno introduced himself and asked if the notary was aware that his client, retired Colonel Gilbert Clamartin, had died and been cremated.

“
Mon Dieu,
no, not Gilbert. Oh, God rest his poor soul.” Bruno could hear the shock in the man’s voice.

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of sad news, but although we made a thorough search we couldn’t find any will among his effects, and a local magistrate found you had registered one in his name,” he said.

“You say you are the chief of police in St. Denis in the Périgord,” the notary replied, sounding suspicious. “I don’t know of any connection he had in that town. Let me check your credentials with the St. Denis
mairie,
and I’ll call you back. Can I reach you through their switchboard?”

Within minutes, Bruno’s phone rang, and the mayor-notary, apparently satisfied, was back on the line, asking if Bruno could fax him a copy of the death certificate. He took down the fax number, sent it over with the cremation document and waited again.

“This is very depressing news,” said the mayor-notary a few minutes later. Bruno could hear a fax machine still whirring in the background as the man spoke. He gave his name as Amédée Rouard. Bruno hadn’t heard that old-fashioned Christian name for years. “Gilbert was a childhood friend from school, and we were quite close until he left for the air force. The death certificate says he died of natural causes when drunk. It’s very sad, but I can believe it. I know he was certainly hitting the bottle when I last saw him, just as he was when he came back from Moscow. He was never the same man again after that.”

“When was it that you saw him last?” Bruno asked.

“Four years ago, when his sister died, Gilbert’s last remaining relative. That’s when he made his will. It’s going to take some time to sort out, but in the meantime I’ll have to arrange a meeting with his heir for the formal reading of the will.”

“I didn’t know he had one,” said Bruno, surprised. “I thought you said his sister had been his last remaining relative.”

“She was the last one I knew of, not even any cousins remaining, certainly none around these parts. It was only when Gilbert made the will that I learned of another heir.”

“I presume there’s not much in the estate,” Bruno said, half expecting Rouard to tell him to mind his own business. He recalled Madeleine saying that Gilbert had left a trail of ex-wives and mistresses but nothing about children. Surely his friend Victor would have known.

“It’s complicated,” said Rouard. “But as you’ll see when you read the will that I registered in the Fichier Central, there’s some property near here, the family farm. It must be worth a hundred thousand or more, maybe a lot more now that they’re building ski chalets for Puy Mary. It’s all been rented out since his sister died, house and land separately. And then there’s some kind of trust fund that Gilbert set up, but I’ve no idea what’s in it.”

“The people he was living with near here told me Gilbert was broke, spending his pension on clothes and vodka,” Bruno responded, thinking this Gilbert was full of surprises.

“I don’t know why they should say that,” Rouard replied. “Gilbert wasn’t rich, but he was comfortable enough and a very generous man. The rent was paid directly to a charity, along with other donations he made from time to time, always to the same one.”

“What was the charity?” Bruno asked, expecting something like the air-force widows’ fund.

“The children of Chernobyl, a fund to bring those sick kids to France for summer vacations. You remember that nuclear accident?”

“Of course.” Bruno sat back in his chair, thinking this was suddenly becoming complicated and wondering how much more the notary might be prepared to tell him. “Is there anything I can do from St. Denis that would help you settle Gilbert’s affairs?”

“Not really. I’ll have to write to the bank where the trust fund is based and send them copies of the death certificate. I can’t say I’ve ever dealt with anything like it. The bank is somewhere in Liechtenstein, for tax reasons, Gilbert said. Then I’ll have to trace his heir, but it’s a delicate matter. If I should need your help, I have your e-mail address and your number.”

“Thank you for being so helpful,” said Bruno. “I hope I can be of service to you if need be.”

“I’m not telling you anything I shouldn’t; you’ll find the bank’s address in the will, although the identity of the heir is in a separate codicil. But thank you for the news, sad as it is. I’ll miss Gilbert, and a part of my childhood goes with him.” Rouard hung up.

Bruno e-mailed Annette to ask her to send him a full copy of Gilbert’s will, since he’d learned it contained some interesting new information. That would ensure she’d read it, and she’d certainly take a look at the fiscal aspects of this trust fund. Tax evasion had become a serious issue, and French citizens were required to register any foreign holdings. But did it have any impact on Bruno’s own curiosity about the death? Probably not, unless this mysterious heir was somehow involved in it. Even then, there was no evidence of foul play and no longer any remains that could be autopsied.

He knew something of the way military pensions worked from his own case, the wound he’d received in Bosnia entitling him to an invalidity pension after thirteen years’ service. But there was a sizable difference between his pension as a
sergent-chef
and that of a colonel; moreover, he had no idea how long Gilbert had served. He called a contact in military records who had proved helpful before and gave him Gilbert’s details and was told it would take a few hours to answer Bruno’s questions. The moment he put his phone down, it rang again. It was Annette.

“This case is getting interesting,” she said. “I’ve tipped off my colleagues in the
fisc,
and they’re going to look into it, check Colonel Clamartin’s bank and tax records and see whether this Liechtenstein account was ever registered. Depending on what’s in this trust, there could be some heavy death duties. Who’s the heir?”

“I don’t know. The
notaire
said it was in a separate codicil.”

“We’ll find out after the will is read, and it goes to probate,” she said. “It looks like there could be more to this death than meets the eye. I should know better than to dismiss your hunches.”

“I’m not sure I’d even call it a hunch, more a curiosity,” he said. “Whatever it is, the trail seems to have gone cold.”

“Except for the money,” she said.

Bruno called the clinic and learned it was Dr. Gelletreau’s day off, but he was at home on call. Bruno drove out to the village of Bigaroque on the road to Sarlat. The formal street name within the precincts of St. Denis was rue du 5 Mai, a date that had mystified him until the mayor had explained it marked the opening of the Estates-General in 1789, the gathering of parliament that led to the storming of the Bastille and the French Revolution. He parked off the road and climbed up the steps to the house, one of a group of old buildings nestled into the hillside, where the doctor lived with his wife, a pharmacist in St. Denis. Their son, Richard, was at the Sorbonne in Paris. He found Gelletreau dozing in his small walled garden in the autumn sun, a copy of that day’s
Le Figaro
on his lap. Bruno accepted a glass of apple juice, and the doctor took a small Ricard.

“I presume this isn’t a social visit,” Gelletreau said.

“Not exactly. Did you know that Gilbert has been cremated already?”

“No, and I’m surprised I wasn’t invited to the funeral. I was his doctor for nearly twenty years.”

“Since he came back from Moscow?” Bruno asked.

“That’s right. I liked him when he was sober, which wasn’t often. We tried getting him into various clinics to dry out, but it never lasted. His liver would have gotten him sooner rather than later, but I can’t say I was greatly surprised at the way he died.”

“Something odd has cropped up about his will, so I need to ask you if there was anything at all unusual about his death.”

Gelletreau spluttered into his drink. “Unusual? You mean foul play? Not in the least. Dead drunk and drowned in his own vomit. I’ve seen it before, although usually with people who’ve taken barbiturates.”

“So is it common with drunks?”

“The amount of alcohol taken is what matters, and you saw the size of that flask. He was already stumbling drunk when we took him away from the party. He passed out when we put him on that couch. I made sure he was lying on his side, just in case he did throw up, and I told Victor to keep checking him.”

“Was he in the same position when you pronounced him dead?” Bruno asked.

“No. When we found him dead, he was lying on his back, his mouth completely blocked. He must have woken up at some point to empty that damn flask we found, so he probably changed position after that. Once something enters the airways you get a laryngospasm, the larynx constricts and seals the air tube.”

“In retrospect, don’t you think an autopsy might have been justified?”

Gelletreau shook his head and looked Bruno squarely in the face. “I didn’t then and I don’t now. I knew Gilbert and his drinking so I simply wasn’t surprised by the manner of his death. There was nothing suspicious about it, no bruising round the nose and mouth that you might have gotten if somebody helped him along, no sign of chest constriction or of any flailing of the limbs you might expect if he resisted. The coverlet was neatly in place.”

Bruno took a deep breath. “Okay, I understand. But I had to be sure.”

“So what’s this funny business with the will?”

“There was no will among the papers at his house but now one has turned up with a notary; that’s all I can say.”

“I’m surprised he had anything to leave, other than his pension,” Gelletreau said. “He’ll probably have left anything he had to Victor. I remember when we were first checking him in to a clinic there was a form to be filled in, and he wrote Victor’s name as next of kin.”

“Did you know Gilbert before he went to Moscow?”

“Just a bit. He was at the christening for Victor’s son Marc, the one by his first wife, so I met him, and we chatted. He seemed like a nice fellow, a bit bouncy like most fighter pilots, but I didn’t really get to know him. I took him on because I’ve been Victor’s doctor since he left the air force, long before you came to St. Denis. Not long after Gilbert arrived to live at Victor’s place, I was called in to treat him for bronchitis. The silly bastard had been too drunk to get the key into the door of his house, and he’d fallen asleep in the rain on the doorstep. It was a cold night, too. I tried to take him in hand, get him to stop drinking, but you know how it is, Bruno. At the end of the day it has to be up to them; they’ve got to want to stop.”

“So you look after the whole family?”

“No, just Victor and the children. Madeleine has some fancy doctor in Paris; that’s where she went to have her baby. But for the usual childhood ailments they’d call on me, not that I see them often. Perfect physical specimens, both of them, and a very pretty girl, that Chantal. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

“And how’s your boy Richard doing in Paris?” Bruno asked, rising to take his leave.

“Fine, fine, I’ll tell him you asked.”

When Bruno got back to his office he found a message on his phone from his friend in military records. The file on Colonel Clamartin was unusually thin. It gave his date and place of birth and the date eighteen years later when he’d joined the air force. There were also the details of his subsequent commission and his decorations and promotions. It also listed his honorable discharge in 1993 with full pension after twenty-five years’ service. The rest of the record had been sealed.