Black Diamond - Martin Walker [27]
Duroc went down to the communications room to monitor the search for the stolen car. Françoise, the only woman among the small team of gendarmes, came in waving an evidence bag, looking pleased with herself. A curl of charred plastic was visible inside the bag along with some scraps of paper.
“It’s what was left of the stun grenade,” she explained. “There are some numbers and other markings that might help identify it.” She reached over the desk, pulled a magnifying glass from the drawer and turned on the desk lamp to shine it onto the evidence bag. “See there. Are those letters or what?”
Bruno’s phone rang, and the screen showed it was a familiar and expected caller. “What’s this about explosives?” demanded Jean-Jacques Jalipeau, the chief of detectives for the Police Nationale in Périgueux. Bruno counted him as a friend, with a touch of caution. Usually their interests coincided, but Bruno’s boss was his mayor, while J-J reported to the prefect of the Département of the Dordogne and to the Ministry of the Interior.
“The explosive was a stun grenade, used by some young Asians after attacking a market stall. They got away in a stolen car. We’re looking at the stun grenade now, or what’s left of it. It looks like one of the grenades we had in the army, but it’s not French issue. We’ve got one of the attackers in custody plus his cell phone. He had the phone number of a Périgueux lawyer in his pocket.”
“Which one?”
“Poincevin. His office is supposed to be sending someone here. Do you know him?”
“More than I’d like. He runs a big criminal defense practice, and he’s not particular about who he takes on, lots of lowlife clients and some shady councillors. This is the first time I’ve heard of him representing Asians. I’ll make some calls and send you down a forensics guy to look at your grenade and check out the cell phone. Hold the Asian under garde à vue until I can sort out an interpreter. When should I expect your incident report?”
“By the end of today, but it’ll be very basic.”
“Before you go, read me out the recent numbers he called on the mobile. There’s a special unit in Paris that deals with Asian crime. Our old friend the brigadier is involved. I’ll see if any of the numbers spark any interest.”
“They’re mostly mobiles, but there’s a couple for Paris,” Bruno said, reading them out. “Anything going on with Asians I should know about?”
“We had a tip from Paris. The biggest Chinese restaurant in Périgueux, owned by a guy with his own supermarket attached, just got taken over. He borrowed money from some big boys in Paris, loan shark stuff, and they screwed him on interest rates. It seems they did the same thing to a Chinese supermarket in Bordeaux a couple of months ago. The Paris cops think it’s organized crime, Chinese triads getting established in France. I’ll keep you posted.”
As they hung up, Fabiola walked in with her medical bag and asked, “Where’s this prisoner?”
“It’s Bruno you should look at,” said Jules. “He had a stun grenade go off beside him, and he was out like a light for about a minute. The Asian kid’s just groggy.”
“I’m fine,” Bruno protested. But Fabiola was already turning him toward the window and pulling back his eyelids to look into his pupils. She took a small flashlight from her bag and shone it into his eyes.
“No bleeding from your nose?” she asked, as she poked the flashlight into his ears.
“No, Doctor. Jules here dosed me with a cold sponge, just like he does on the rugby field. I’m fine, just a bit of a headache, and I’ve got work to do.”
“I want to see you at the medical center just before noon, and I’ll look again. And I want you to take the afternoon off. Otherwise I’ll put you in an ambulance to the hospital right now and insist they keep you