The Coldest Case by Martin Walker (mobi reader android txt) 📕

Bruno went to Philippe’s office, the ground floor of a small terraced house at the far end of the Rue de Paris. Philippe lived upstairs, and rented out the neighbouring house that had been his father’s and grandfather’s camera shop until the coming of mobile phones had overtaken the family business. Fortunately for Philippe, he’d already started taking sports photos for Sud Ouest and quickly turned it into a full-time job as regional correspondent for the whole valley, from Le Buisson up to Montignac. He and Bruno had a complicated relationship of mutual dependence that made them part-allies and part-adversaries. Bruno had the stories and Philippe had the means of publicity so each found the other useful. They also liked each other, which helped. Bruno had kept the teenage Philippe out of trouble over a youthful escapade that involved a stolen car that had been crashed. Philippe and his friends had to work for months to pay off the owner and the garage.

‘Here are the prints I’ve saved for the félibrée book,’ said Philippe, handing Bruno a cardboard box. ‘Did you track down the others?’

‘Thanks, Philippe. The Mayor saved the others in the archives and even kept them dry. I’ll tell you as much as I can as soon as I can. In the meantime, keep this to yourself but if this works out we’ll probably be coming to you for a publicity campaign. Have fun with the pompiers and give them my best. If I’ve got time, I might drop by to watch this training for forest fires.’

‘Did you see the weather forecast?’ Philippe asked. ‘They say this heatwave is going to last into August.’

‘The tourists will love it. Thanks, Philippe.’

‘Here’s something you might need,’ Philippe said, reaching into a pocket and handing Bruno a loupe. ‘Screw it into your eye socket and you get good magnification while your other eye can see the wider context. But I’ll want it back and take good care of it – it was my father’s.’

The town treasurer, a fellow member of the hunting club, saw that Bruno could hardly shake hands while carrying the box, so he patted him on the back before showing him into the long room at the back of the treasury building that contained the archives. He showed Bruno how to use the catalogue that identified where each item was to be found by row and shelf number. There were copies of registrations for births, marriages and deaths going back to the nineteenth century, property tax records and handwritten annual reports from local officials. There were even old cadastre maps that went back to before the French Revolution, showing who had owned every plot of land in the commune. Testing the system, he looked up the reports by the town policemen that went back to Napoleon’s day, when such officials were called garde champêtre, a rural guard. Joe’s reports were also here, but not Bruno’s. Since he was the current holder of the post, Bruno’s reports for the past decade were kept in the Mayor’s office. Bruno made a mental note to come back and glance through all this stuff one day.

Bruno knew the Mayor had planned the archive system, not only for the convenience of the town administration but also for his own purposes. He was writing the definitive history of St Denis, dating from the Neanderthals who were buried at La Ferrassie seventy thousand years ago and the Cro-Magnons who had engraved bears and mammoths on the walls of a local cave. His account went on through the Bronze and Iron Age peoples, the Romans, the Arab invasion, Charlemagne’s visit, the three centuries of the English occupation, the Wars of Religion and all the way through to modern times. The last Bruno had heard, the Mayor was about to tackle the period of the French Revolution.

‘You’ll find the photographs at the far end on the left,’ the Treasurer said and handed Bruno the key. Bruno glanced around, saw a large table with two chairs and more chairs stacked against the wall. That would do. But he’d need a table lamp.

‘Commandante Yveline from the gendarmes will be joining me shortly,’ he said. ‘Might you have a magnifying glass and a table lamp we could use?’

‘Of course, Bruno. But what’s all this about?’

The Treasurer seemed as keen as Philippe to be the first to pick up the latest gossip. Bruno smiled and said, ‘It’s a matter of identifying someone. I’m sure the Mayor will let you know the details when he can.’

Bruno first found the box with all the negatives and beside them three larger boxes of prints covering all three weekdays of the félibrée plus another two boxes for each of the weekend days. He’d just finished carrying them to the desk at the front of the room when Yveline and Sabine came in, carrying a magnifying glass and a table lamp.

He kissed Yveline on both cheeks and shook hands with Sabine.

‘I have a present for you,’ he said, and took out the print he’d made of the photo from the campsite. ‘Look behind Tante-Do at the couple in the swimming pool.’

‘Oh, it’s Mum,’ Sabine exclaimed. ‘And she’s looking so happy and beautiful. Can I keep this when we’re done?’ She beamed at him. ‘Thank you, Bruno, that’s terrific.’

‘See the guy embracing your mum with most of his face hidden?’ Bruno said. ‘I think that’s Max, your brother’s biological father. And now I have nearly two thousand photos of the félibrée to go through. We’re looking for your mum and Tante-Do and hoping to find them with these two men, Max and Henri.

‘We need to organize how we do this,’ he went on. ‘I have a box that contains about a hundred and fifty of the best photos, selected by the photographer’s son. I’ll start with that. I suggest that you two start on the box with the photos from the weekdays, and one of you skims each print for any sign