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

‘I did a little research into this recent surge in forest fires,’ the Mayor explained. ‘A hundred dead in Greece three years ago and eighty in California, parts of Los Angeles evacuated and insurers losing more than twenty billion euros. And then there’s Australia with eleven million hectares burned, that’s about the size of England. What we’re doing here with fire watches, we’re just reacting. We need to think ahead.’

‘But how far ahead?’ Bruno asked. ‘When trees can live for hundreds of years we need a special kind of long view.’

And so the night went on, the two men chatting while eating their bread and saucisson and drinking their coffee from the thermos, breaking off to report a red glow suddenly in the sky to the south-east, towards Cahors. Nearer to dawn they reported another, due south near the old abbey of Cadouin. Each time the control room had already been alerted.

‘How does a fire suddenly break out at three in the morning, when there’s no lightning, no tourists dropping cigarette ends, no sun to start a flame through a piece of broken glass?’ the Mayor asked.

‘Albert says fire can lie dormant, just glowing for hours if there’s the right amount of fuel, until a sudden gust of warm wind licks it into life.’ Bruno upended the thermos. ‘There’s no more coffee and dawn’s coming. What’s your schedule today?’

‘I shall write a letter to the Minister of Defence and call him, the same for the Environment Minister. Since French law allows me the privilege of an immediate audience with all ministers I’d be failing in my constitutional duty as a former Senator if I didn’t take advantage of such access. I’ll also talk to the head of the research station. And you?’

‘I have a meeting with J-J and Prunier with a police lawyer in Périgueux to see if we have enough of a case for the Procureur to bring charges against Henri. There’s a text on my phone saying I should be there. I’ll also want to arrange a police guard for our main witness, the one we call Tante-Do. Then I ought to call in on Virginie, the young woman who’s making a face out of J-J’s famous skull. I feel a bit guilty about not doing more to make her welcome so I’ve invited her down to St Denis for the weekend. Fabiola is interested in the project and said she’d gladly let Virginie have her spare room and you ought to meet her. Then at some point I’ll go to visit an old lady who used to work at the Belleville Mairie who may be able to tell me more about these fake death certificates.’

‘I hope you’ll get some time to sleep.’

‘I slept well at your place and I might take a nap for an hour or so when we leave here. After the military I’m accustomed to a few broken nights. These night duties are probably worse for all the volunteer pompiers but we wouldn’t have a fire or rescue service without them. And it’s the same for you, taking your turn on fire-watch.’

‘If I didn’t, not a single volunteer pompier would ever vote for me again,’ the Mayor replied. ‘And they’d be right. When I think of the hours they put in . . .’

‘It’s not just the pompiers,’ said Bruno. ‘We have more than two hundred people from St Denis who’ve volunteered themselves and their cars to go pick up any old folk at risk. These are decent people that we work for.’

19

By nine in the morning, after a nap, a brisk ride of Hector with Balzac trotting behind, a shower and breakfast, Bruno arrived at the address of the woman with the unforgettable name of Rosa Luxemburg. He had to work at his memory to recall her surname, Delpèche. She lived in a small cottage outside the hilltop village of Carlux, close to the bridge over the Dordogne. The far side of the river was heavily cultivated but this side was so thickly wooded that the whole area looked to Bruno like a fire risk, threatening even the lavishly restored Château de Rouffillac on the slope dominating the bridge.

He parked his police van, put Balzac on a leash and approached a wooden gate that led to a well-tended garden. He stood for a moment admiring the neat rows of lettuces, peas, aubergines and tomatoes before wondering how on earth she watered them. Then he saw the large cistern, rather like his own, into which the cottage gutters fed. Interspersed between the rows he saw the tell-tale glint of inverted plastic bottles. She was using a drip system of irrigation, not unlike his own.

‘Bonjour, Madame Delpèche, and my congratulations on your watering system and the splendid potager you’ve made,’ he said, touching the brim of his cap as a tall, thin, elderly woman came briskly around the corner of the cottage. She was wearing baggy khaki pants, a blue denim shirt and an enormous straw hat. She carried a plastic bowl that looked half full of muddy water and she poured it into the cistern before turning to reply politely to his greeting and to stare at him with a confused half-smile as if trying to remember when and where she might have met him.

‘I assume you save the water from rinsing your vegetables,’ he said. ‘I do the same, but I don’t think you learned your gardening skills in Belleville. I’m Bruno Courrèges, municipal policeman from St Denis, and I’d be grateful for a few minutes of your time. The people at today’s Belleville Mairie tell me you’re the only person who can help make sense of what’s left of the old archives.’

‘I’m saving water because my cistern is nearly empty and I don’t see this heatwave ending soon,’ she said, coming forward to open the gate before shaking his outstretched hand. Her face widened into a broad smile when she saw Balzac. He always