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

‘That bastard Baldin is a menace,’ said Prunier, once they were in the privacy of his office. ‘But his dad was a commandant here so he gets away with a lot. He’s also active in the union. Thanks to this sickening business, we might finally be able to get rid of him once and for all.’

‘Let’s do this right,’ said Bruno. ‘He ought to be dismissed, never to wear the uniform again. And he should be put on the sex offenders’ list.’ He pulled out his phone, checked that Prunier was happy for him to begin, and pressed the recording function.

‘I’m recording this statement of my own free will,’ he began. ‘I arrived at the police lab at eleven thirty on this day, July tenth, to see the progress of the work of the young volunteer, Virginie, whose facial reconstruction skills I recommended to Commissaire Jalipeau.’

He went on to give a detailed account of what he had seen and done. He forwarded the sound file of his statement to Prunier’s phone, who in turn forwarded it to his secretary sitting outside to be typed up.

‘A couple of questions,’ Prunier said, and turned on his own phone’s record function. ‘First, have you met Gardien Baldin before?’

‘I know his face by sight from passing him in corridors and the canteen but didn’t know his name until this incident.’

‘What made you call at the lab at that moment?’

‘I’d arrived early for an appointment with you and J-J, so I decided to use the time to see what progress Virginie had made on the facial reconstruction. I was the one who first proposed to J-J that we bring her here to work on Oscar’s skull.’

‘Last question: how much force did you use to restrain Gardien Baldin?’

‘I used reasonable force since Baldin is a big man, nearly two metres tall and powerfully built. When I kicked down the door and saw him assaulting Virginie, I shouted at him to stop, kicked his groin to stop the sexual assault and then his knee to limit his movements. I then pulled him backwards, which probably prevented him being more badly slashed by Virginie’s scalpel. He fell to the floor and I restrained him. I put a tourniquet on his left arm and called for help.’

‘Right, that’s it, thanks. We’ll get all that typed up for you to sign. You’ll have to appear at the disciplinary hearing against Baldin and at the trial. I’m suspending him from duty as of now.’

‘Good,’ said Bruno. ‘And there have been some developments on the case with Henri Bazaine. It’s all become a lot more complicated.’ He explained the offer made by the lawyer to the Elysée, his own meeting with Rosa Luxemburg Delpèche and his discussion that morning with Isabelle. ‘I suggest that before taking a decision on arresting Bazaine, you wait to hear from General Lannes, who seems to have taken over this inquiry at the request of the Elysée.’

‘Putain, just how many French-speaking sleeper agents did the Stasi churn out from this orphanage?’ Prunier asked.

‘I don’t know, but Rosa Luxemburg said she saw at least twenty kids and we have no idea how many were produced in previous years. Isabelle is contacting the German security people to see what they can find out. This Lefort couple had emigrated to East Germany in the fifties so they had thirty years to produce their fake French citizens.’

‘And we never found any of them, never knew anything about this? It makes my head spin. I suppose I’d better wait to hear from General Lannes before arresting Bazaine. What would you do?’

Bruno shook his head. ‘I don’t like the idea of granting immunity to a murderer, if indeed that’s what happened. But we may have no choice. If Henri really can give us information that identifies all the undercover agents the Stasi trained and sent us, it’s probably worth doing the deal. Even though the Stasi is long dead, who knows if the Russians are still making use of these people?’

‘You really think Henri Bazaine is behind this lawyer’s offer to the Elysée?’

‘I can’t be sure but it looks likely,’ Bruno said. ‘That gives me an idea. We can check Henri’s credit cards for train bookings and flight lists to see if he went up to Paris to see this fancy lawyer, Maître Vautan. If he drove, there should be a record on the autoroute tolls. Maybe he arranged it all through his own lawyer, the People’s Pierre. Either way I think Maître Vautan would have wanted to see something that looked like proof before he went to the Elysée. I can’t see Henri giving any lawyer the original scrapbook so he may have made a photocopy.’

Prunier scribbled a note. ‘I’ll get someone onto the travel records. What are the operative dates?’

‘Henri couldn’t have known we were looking for him until last Friday at the earliest, and the publicity about the Rosenholz dossier did not start until Sunday.’

‘So if we can show he went to Paris since then, it looks pretty certain. We can arrest him and then search his place for the scrapbook.’

‘It could be in a safe deposit box in a bank vault or hidden on his property. I don’t think you have the manpower to dig up all those hectares of vines. And it might all be on microfilm, anyway. He was trained to be a spy, don’t forget, so he’ll know all these tricks. If I were him, I’d have buried the original somewhere very deep but kept a microfilm hidden close to hand. He could even have emailed some selected pages of microfilm to the lawyer in Paris while keeping the original in a safe place.’

‘He’d have wanted to brief the lawyer in person, so let’s see if he went to Paris.’

‘It’s worth trying,’ Bruno said. ‘But let’s not expect to get a murder conviction. I doubt we’ll ever be able to prove that Henri killed Max, unless he confesses.’

‘Well, at least