“It’s good publicity,” she went on. “A hedge-fund magnate has to show how successful he is. And he’ll be just as pleased at my humiliation. He never wanted me to go to Africa, nor to be a magistrate, nor to have any kind of job except working for him. I suppose he wanted a son to inherit the business and he got me instead. He even hates my being a rally driver.”
She closed her eyes and let her head sink forward to rest on the steering wheel, as if the contact with her car gave her comfort.
“And now I suppose I can never have a life of my own after this. People will never forget it.”
“They will,” he said, patting her shoulder. “It doesn’t seem like it now, but people have short memories. And it doesn’t matter what they think. It matters what you do, what you achieve, what you think. It also matters how you bounce back from this.”
He persuaded her to go into Fabiola’s house, where she had coffee ready. She hadn’t seen the paper but knew all about it from the daily press review on France Inter’s morning news show. But instead of the sympathy that Bruno had expected, Fabiola stood with a wide grin on her face and a glass of champagne in each hand.
“Well, that’ll teach you to call the neighbors barbaric,” she said. “Come on, cheer up and join in a toast to the most notorious woman in France for the next fifteen minutes-and you didn’t even have to sleep with a politician to get the title.”
Annette froze, then shook her head, clenched her fists above her head and laughed. She took a glass from Fabiola and downed it fast.
“Thank the Lord for you, Fabiola,” she said. “You’re right. There’s nothing to be done about it now so we might as well drink champagne.”
“I pinched it from Pamela’s cellar,” Fabiola said. “I thought it probably counted as an emergency.”
“I think she’d approve,” said Bruno. “If not, I’ll buy the replacement bottle.”
Bruno downed his champagne and his coffee and wolfed his croissant before heading to his car to get to the chateau for the morning security meeting. After Isabelle’s late-night message, he planned to corner her to explain before the committee gathered. But as he slowed for the turn at Campagne, his phone rang and he answered automatically without looking at the screen. As soon as he heard the note of vengeful triumph in the mayor’s voice, he responded with a single word.
“Overkill,” he said. “I’m worried it’s the kind of demolition that can do more harm than good. Hell, even I’m feeling sorry for her now.”
“Is that why you were having breakfast with her?” the mayor asked, his voice grumpy at Bruno’s reaction.
“No, I had breakfast with Fabiola,” Bruno said patiently, silently cursing Fat Jeanne, a woman he usually adored for her endlessly cheerful nature. “I’m staying at Pamela’s to look after the horses. Pamela’s mother had a stroke so she flew back to Scotland. Annette happened to be staying with her new friend Fabiola. She wanted to buy the papers, I wanted to buy the croissants.”
“You think the Libe story was over the top? Everyone else thinks it’s wonderful, particularly after France Inter picked it up this morning.”
“We wanted to isolate her, not destroy the woman. Anyway, I think she might have been ready to withdraw from the case even before this. If you get asked about this, you might consider taking the high ground, no visiting the sins of the father on the daughter. We’ve made our point. Leave the door open for a reconciliation. She’d certainly appreciate it just now.”
The mayor was silent, but Bruno could hear him chewing on the stem of his pipe. “Interesting,” he said finally. “I’ll have to think about that. Meanwhile, am I meant to give a formal welcome to these two ministers tomorrow?”
“I think they’re too worried about security for that, and with good reason. I can’t say any more.”
“Tell me what you can, when you can,” said the mayor, and hung up.
27
Bruno made the 9:00 a.m. meeting by the skin of his teeth, having to park far from the chateau because of the military and gendarme vehicles filling its parking lot. There was no time to speak to Isabelle. And she was already distracted by the firearms report. Ballistics analysis had confirmed that the nine-millimeter automatic pistol that Bruno had found beneath the blacksmith’s coke pile was the gun that had killed Teddy’s father more than twenty years earlier.
The British police had reported that Teddy’s mother had heard nothing from him since they had spoken the day after Horst’s lecture. She knew nothing of the discovery of the skeleton of Teddy’s father and had seemed truly stunned by the news. She was trying to help a British police artist create an Identi-Kit sketch of the only contact she had with Todor’s family, a cousin named Fernando who visited occasionally with gifts for Teddy. What she had been able to provide was the news that the authorities in Madrid had not yet been able to deliver-the date and place of birth for her Basque lover.
“We’d better check that thoroughly,” said Carlos. “It’s always possible that he didn’t give her the right date. I’m sorry, but it seems we’re having trouble back in Madrid tracking anything about this guy.”
“False dates of birth are standard procedure for these people,” said the brigadier, diplomatically trying to spare Carlos embarrassment. The minister must have insisted the Spaniards be treated with every consideration, Bruno thought.
The brigadier ran through the arrangement for the security cordons and mobile patrols, giving brief credit to Bruno although the committee had now been joined by a tough-looking young paratrooper major. He’d have been a junior lieutenant when Bruno had served with them, but there was no look of recognition. With a final pep talk on the need for the Basques to be found before the scheduled summit the next day, the brigadier closed the meeting having said nothing of the backup plan he had arranged at the Domaine.
“Could the reason why Madrid can’t trace this man be linked to the desparicedos from Franco’s time?” Isabelle asked Carlos as they headed out the door. Bruno had heard of the “disappeared ones” in Argentina, when people were rounded up and arrested, never to be seen again. But he’d never come across the term in the context of Spain.
“I was wondering that myself,” said Carlos, nodding solemnly. He turned aside and asked one of the security guards to bring his car around from the hotel. Then he seemed to notice Bruno’s raised eyebrows and stopped to explain. It had happened earlier in the Franco period, after the civil war and the world war, when the Spanish dictator was still terrified of the left. Women militants would have their babies in prison, who would then be taken away to church orphanages or to be adopted by reliable Spanish families. This had been standard treatment for Communist militants but also for the Basques.
“If it did happen that way, the boy would never have been given the name ‘Todor’ in an orphanage,” Carlos added. “The Basque children were always given Spanish names to break the link with the real parents. They were usually dead anyway.”
Isabelle nodded and turned to Bruno. “I saw what the newspapers did to that magistrate of yours this morning. Ugly. Remind me never to take on St. Denis.”
“I’m not proud of it.”
“Were you involved? It didn’t seem like your kind of strategy, even if she did try to get you fired.”
“It wasn’t, but there’s no point making excuses. I suppose we’re all responsible.”
Carlos shrugged and walked on to the communications center. Bruno and Isabelle were left alone.
“Sorry I missed you last night,” he said. “I was staying at Pamela’s, looking after the horses. I told you, she had to go back to Scotland to look after her mother.”
“I shouldn’t have come,” she said. “I was depressed and lonely. It was Gigi I wanted to see as much as you.” She gave a half smile, but her eyes were fond. “Brigadier permitting, shall we have dinner tonight?”
“Of course,” he said. His heart gave a lurch. “Home or restaurant?”
“Home, with Gigi,” she said. “But it’ll have to be quick. This chaos here will get worse all day and later tonight, and probably stay that way until the deal is signed and the ministers have gone.”
If she thought this was chaos, wait until the brigadier announced the move to the backup plan tomorrow
