A Grave in the Woods

Chapter 1

Bruno Courrèges, chief of police of the Vézère Valley in the Périgord region of France, eased himself a little stiffly from his venerable Land Rover and gazed up affectionately at the Hôtel de Ville of the small town of St. Denis. Behind the flags of France and Europe on the balcony was the office that had been his for over a decade but which he had not seen for more than two months. After being shot in the shoulder, he had spent several weeks in the hospital followed by six weeks at a convalescent center reserved for French police injured in the line of duty. On the less fashionable part of the Mediterranean coast, it had offered good food, congenial company, excellent nursing and physiotherapy, and Bruno felt restored if not yet fully recovered.

His faithful basset hound, Balzac, who had given Bruno a lavish welcome on his return to St. Denis, scrambled down from the vehicle and stood beside him. Balzac’s welcome the previous evening, and that of Bruno’s horse, Hector, and of his closest companions who had gathered at the familiar dining table of the riding school to celebrate his return, had touched Bruno’s heart. (Each of his friends had visited him in the hospital, first in Périgueux and then in Bordeaux, where his shattered collarbone had been rebuilt.) At the end of the meal, when all the others had discreetly left, Pamela had invited him upstairs to her room. A former lover who was now a very dear friend, she sometimes, when the mood was on her, claimed amorous privileges. This time was just to ensure, she had said playfully, that everything was in working order. And, gloriously, it was.

The flags drooped and the roofs around the square glistened from the heavy rains overnight. Glancing down over the balustrade, Bruno noted that the River Vézère was running very high, lapping over the quayside below. He was reminded that the weather always turned in late October, in time to make his winter hobbies of rugby and hunting into muddy affairs. But the rain was good for the Brussels sprouts and broccoli he’d planted back in August, he assured himself. There were few customers in the weekly market, and some were carrying umbrellas; others, like Bruno, were wearing woolen caps against the chill wind. Perhaps that was why, even with Balzac at his heels, nobody in the market seemed to recognize him as he walked to the familiar entrance.

Bruno mounted the stone stairs of the mairie, each one bow shaped by centuries of footsteps, up to the first floor where his office was located. Word of his return had spread, and a crowd was there to greet him: the mayor and his deputy, Xavier; Claire, the flirtatious secretary; Roberte, from the social security office; Michel, from public works; Marie, from the housing office; and even Laurent, the handyman, and his wife, Clémentine, the cleaner. His police colleagues, Juliette, the municipal policewoman from Les Eyzies, and Yveline, the local commander of gendarmes, were the first to greet him with a hug. They were followed by everyone else, save the mayor, who had been at the welcoming dinner the previous evening.

Genuine as the mairie welcome was, Bruno was aware of a certain stiffness among his colleagues, a disturbance in the atmosphere, as though something in the building had gone sour. He could not define it, but the place had changed. He was accustomed to being on a happy ship, where people worked well and amiably with one another, convinced that they were all doing something worthwhile. One or two of them glanced nervously at the closed door of Bruno’s office.

“I still have two more weeks of convalescent leave to go, and then the toubib has to sign off that I’m fit for duty,” he said, referring to the doctor. “I just came in to take a look in my office to be sure you haven’t borrowed all my pens and broken my printer.”

There was a slightly nervous laugh as the ranks parted and people shuffled aside, an expectancy in their eyes. Had they banded together to buy him a gift or filled his office with flowers? Bruno hoped not. Salaries in the mairie were notoriously low, and most of his colleagues had families to raise. “Good to be back, even briefly,” he said as he opened the door.

For a moment Bruno thought he had entered the wrong office. The desk was now under the window and the rest of the furniture had been changed. His battered old metal filing cabinet had disappeared, along with the elderly printer which he’d kept on top. In its place stood a humidifier, and he could smell incense burning, a vanilla scent. He could not see if his own swivel chair with its signature squeak had gone as well, since it was now behind the desk and occupied by a woman, her face silhouetted by the light spilling in from the window behind.

“Didn’t anybody ever teach you to knock?” came a sharp voice, her tone suggesting that his intrusion was yet another of many burdens to be borne.

“Not when entering my own office,” he replied, trying to conceal his surprise. “Who are you and why are you sitting in my chair?”

“My name is Cantagnac, and I’m the new executive administrator to the chief of police. And who are you?”

“I’m the chief of police. What was wrong with the office that had been prepared for you?”

“It didn’t meet the required norms. It was too small, with too little natural light. The workspace specifications for civilian officials supporting the police are very clear. I was told you were not due back to work until after your doctor’s approval at the end of next week. And if that’s your dog, it’s against regulations to have animals in the workplace.”

“He’s a great deal more than an animal,” Bruno said, putting into his voice a calm that he did not feel. “He is a highly skilled hound dog who has saved two lost children and an elderly citizen suffering from Alzheimer’s disease who was close to dying of hypothermia. He also helped us save a civilian hostage. His predecessor was shot dead saving me from an armed terrorist. I only hope, mademoiselle, that you might prove to be half as useful as Balzac, who was presented to me by the Ministry of the Interior to replace the dog that died. And now I’d like my chair and my privacy, please.”

He held open the door for her, but she did not move.

“If this used to be your office,” she snapped, “you should be ashamed of yourself. Files in disarray, worksheets not completed, proper records not kept, your annual health and fitness reports never filled out, letters unanswered, and you have yet to file a single report on the work of your subordinate officers in Les Eyzies and Montignac.”

“Mademoiselle Cantagnac, I have a conference with the mayor which will last for about an hour. When I get back, I want this office vacated, the desk and chair returned to where they used to be and a report from you on what you claim to have achieved so far.”

He pondered adding that if she did not comply, she faced arrest for obstructing a senior officer in pursuit of his duties, but he would save the big guns for later. And there would most certainly be a later.

“You’re still on convalescent leave,” she replied. “You have no status here until you’re formally declared fit for duty. Au’voir, Monsieur le Chef de Police.”

Telling himself that this was but a temporary retreat and summoning what little dignity he could manage, Bruno walked out, leaving the door open. He wondered what on earth the woman had done in her previous job to have been assigned here. He would have to find out.

Then, as Bruno began to walk away, he heard a familiar but most unusual sound, that of a dog purring almost like a cat. It was a contented rumbling deep in the basset’s throat, which Balzac only did when he was happy. Bruno turned and saw his trusted hound fraternizing with the enemy. Balzac was standing on his hind legs, his paws in her lap, while Mademoiselle Cantagnac tickled his favorite spot just behind the ear.

Well, he thought, she can’t be all bad if Balzac likes her. Bruno had limitless faith in his dog’s instincts.

“You survived your first encounter with our new battle-­ax, I see,” said the mayor when Bruno took his usual seat across the vast desk that was said to be even older than the mairie itself. “Watch your step with her, Bruno. She’s an impressive woman, committed to public service and terrifyingly efficient. She even got a law degree in her spare time.”

“I survived, but barely,” Bruno replied. “She began by telling me that no dogs were allowed in the workplace and finished by charming Balzac into that special purr of his. She not only seems to have commandeered my office and changed the furniture but she reprimanded me for inadequate paperwork.”

“You know that she’s the queen bee of Interco?” the mayor asked, referring to the civil service labor union to which almost all mairie employees belonged. He put up his hands, palm first, as if to signal his helplessness in the matter. This was unusual. A former senator, he had learned his politics while working for Jacques Chirac, first when Chirac was mayor of Paris and then when he became prime minister. The mayor had then gone on to hone his bureaucratic skills in Brussels. One of the three or four most powerful officials in the département, and probably the most experienced, he very seldom waved the white flag.

“What was her last job?” Bruno asked.

“Running the Nouvelle-­Aquitaine task force on diversity, rooting out sexism, racism and any other ism you can think of,” the mayor said. “Her last report was received with great public acclaim and private relief; her task force was wound up with the thanks of a grateful bureaucracy, and she no longer had a position. She has been assigned to you as executive administrator, to make sure this experiment in modernizing municipal policing is properly managed and committed to the latest principles of enlightened public service. Blame your friend Amélie at the justice ministry in Paris. She dreamed up this pilot program and put you in charge of it.”

“I’m surprised that with her skills Mademoiselle Cantagnac hasn’t taken over your office rather than mine,” Bruno said.

“My plan is to move her into the big new gendarmerie we’re building near the station when it’s ready. It’s twice the size of the old one, so there’ll be lots of room. My argument will be that such a move will improve coordination between the various arms of the police, which may be sufficient to convince the head of the gendarmes to accept the arrangement. With luck, you’ll have your office back in six months.”

“And in the meantime?”

“You’re hardly ever in your office anyway,” the mayor said. “You’re patrolling the market, or should I say taking Balzac for a stroll. You’re out meeting people, teaching the kids to play tennis and rugby, visiting the communes up and down the valley, having a drink in all the hunting clubs, making connections and building trust. As you always say, Bruno, preventing crime is much better than having to solve it.”

“So now that I’ve been banned from my office, why don’t I move in here with you?” Bruno asked, leaning back and gesturing at the big, high-­ceilinged room with its walls of bookshelves and its views up and down the river. “If I don’t, Mademoiselle Cantagnac will probably have you evicted and move in.”

“Nice try, Bruno. Just leave this with me, and I’ll have something sorted out by the time you come back on duty, which the battle-­ax tells me is not for another two weeks, and you have to be judged physically fit first. Now, changing the subject, what do you know about abandoned graves?”

“Not much. Is this our business? Or is it a church problem?”

“You know the old disused hotel, the Domaine de la Barde, on the road to Périgueux just outside town? It’s a lovely eighteenth-­century building, classic Palladian design, but now pretty run down. It went bankrupt before you arrived here, about fifteen years ago or more, leaving lots of creditors. Since we are the main ones, for unpaid property taxes, I had thought vaguely of taking it over and turning it into an arts complex or maybe some new center for computer training. But we now have a potential buyer, except that this abandoned grave on the property may be a problem. Are you fit enough for a stroll? It’s not far.”

“A stroll will do me good, and Balzac. Who’s the buyer?”

“An Englishman, a Monsieur Birch, somewhere in his late thirties, with a wife and young child. He has an interesting idea, turning the outbuildings into gîtes, with bed-­and-­breakfast rooms in the château and a cooking school in the offseason. Apparently, he used to be a chef. He already took over another old building outside Sarlat, restored it, got it running as a business and sold it at a handsome profit. And there’s another interesting aspect that I’ll explain as we walk.”