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

He wondered why Isabelle had called in the mobiles, usually only employed in hostage rescue or situations requiring a heavily armed response. If she was simply delivering to Henri his presidential pardon, Bruno saw no reason for their presence. He felt as frustrated as she evidently was that the Elysée was letting Henri off the hook in return for the scrapbook or dossier or whatever it was that he was using to buy his pardon. Bruno had wondered whether Henri might not simply be handed over to the German authorities to let them prosecute him for the murder of Max, a German citizen. But the proof of that was purely circumstantial, that Henri was there at the right time and place and with a motive. Certainty of conviction required more than that.

J-J’s car stopped before they reached the Bazaine vineyard and the mobiles’ van pulled in behind it. J-J stepped out and beckoned to Bruno to join him. He was shown into the back seat, squeezing in beside Isabelle and the diplomat.

‘The mobiles have been briefed to come into the vineyard exactly five minutes after we go inside,’ she said. ‘It’s just insurance, in case. But we don’t want Henri seeing them before that and I think you deserve to be in at the kill, as it were.’

‘In case of what?’ Bruno asked.

‘We’ll see.’

They pulled into the vineyard. The door of the house opened as they climbed out of the car and Henri appeared on the threshold. He appeared to be alone.

‘Bonjour, Monsieur Bazaine,’ she began. ‘We spoke yesterday evening and I have here the official document from the Elysée.’

‘Please come inside,’ he said, looking curiously at Bruno and J-J and the diplomat, as if uncertain what they were doing at this presentation. ‘Why are these policemen here?’

‘It’s a courtesy since they have been involved in the case for which you are being granted immunity.’

Henri shrugged, gestured to them to enter but made no move to shake their hands as they passed him at the door. They were all steered into a large, rather old-fashioned and dark sitting room, in which the paintings on the wall were a motley brown colour with occasional lighter patches, as if generations of wood fires had darkened them and they’d never been cleaned. Some seemed to be gloomy landscapes, but Bruno thought he could make out a cow and a stream on the one closest to him. The windows were few and low and the furniture heavy, leather and deliberately formal. There were no flowers, no books or magazines on view, no television and no sign of anything electronic except for two lonely wall lamps. Above all, to Bruno’s surprise, there were no other people present. Henri’s wife and children were not to be part of this encounter.

‘Thank you for receiving us, Monsieur Bazaine,’ Isabelle said. ‘As I told you by phone late yesterday, I have the honour to present to you the formal document of presidential pardon for any crimes or misdemeanours you may have committed on French soil.’

She placed her briefcase on a small side table, opened it and removed a scroll from which hung a ribbon of red, white and blue, which had been affixed with a seal of red wax. She handed the scroll to Henri. He unrolled it and read carefully through the text.

‘That appears to be satisfactory,’ he said. He pulled out a smartphone and punched in a number that had already been programmed into the device. ‘Maître Vautan? This is Henri Bazaine. I have the document from the Elysée. Would you care to read out the version you drafted so we can be sure the texts agree?’

Henri listened on the phone and Bruno could make out the tinny sound of a voice reading aloud.

‘That is identical to the phrasing on the document that has just been delivered to me,’ said Henri. ‘Please go ahead and surrender to the Elysée the item I entrusted to you.’

He closed the phone and turned to Isabelle with a triumphant smile, as if savouring this moment. ‘That appears to conclude our business, madame.’

She nodded at him coldly, and said, ‘It appears, monsieur, that your presidential pardon is allowing you to get away with the murder of Max Morilland, the man you grew up with at the orphanage near Dresden.’

‘Murder?’ Henri shrugged. ‘It was a fair fight. Max was trying to make off with the scrapbook that my lawyer is now handing over to the authorities. I tried to stop him. He picked up the spade we’d used to dig the latrine. We fought over it and I won.’

‘So, finally you admit that you killed him,’ said J-J.

Henri shrugged again. ‘It was him or me.’

The room fell silent. Then Isabelle said curtly, ‘Commissaire Jalipeau, this was your case. Over to you.’

J-J moved forward with great speed for such a large man, and swiftly put a pair of old-fashioned metal handcuffs onto one of Henri’s wrists but Henri jerked away too quickly for J-J to grab the other. Bruno moved in, grabbed Henri’s free arm and pulled it up hard behind his back, using the leverage to force him down to his knees so that J-J could fix the cuffs onto the wrist. Then J-J picked Henri’s phone from the floor where it had fallen and tossed it onto the couch.

‘Monsieur Bazaine, I am placing you under arrest as the object of an extradition request received from the Dominion of Canada and formally authorized last night by the French Minister of Justice,’ said Isabelle, taking another document from her briefcase. ‘You are charged with blackmail, demanding money with threats from a Canadian citizen, Monsieur Loriot, and his company, Les Vins de la Nouvelle France, to the sum of two hundred and sixty thousand euros, together with another four hundred thousand French francs when that was the prevailing currency. You will now be surrendered to the custody of the Canadian legal attaché pending your transfer to the jurisdiction of