Black Diamond - Martin Walker [29]
Fabiola was smiling broadly as she stood by the door, watching this exchange. Jules gave her a wink, but quickly returned his face to its usual stolid expression when Poincevin began casting his eyes around the room as if daring anyone to witness his frustration.
“This is ridiculous,” he said, his long nose looking white and pinched while two red spots flared on his cheekbones.
“Chef de Police Courrèges is quite correct, monsieur,” said Sergeant Jules. “I’m currently the officer on duty and as a lawyer you will understand that the regulations do not permit anyone to visit a detainee unless he or she has the proper authorization. I’ve never heard of a lawyer being unable to identify someone he claims to be a client. May I see your own identification papers, please?”
His thin lips tightening, Poincevin pulled out his wallet and handed over his identity card. Jules took it, went to a desk and formally copied down the particulars.
“Merci, monsieur,” said Jules. “And who is it you are here to see?”
“One moment,” said Poincevin after a long pause. He pulled out a mobile phone and a notebook, juggled with them both but finally put the notebook on the counter and began to punch in some numbers. Once he had a connection, Poincevin squeezed past Fabiola and walked out the main door to speak in private. As the door closed behind him, Fabiola let a gust of laughter escape from the lips she had held tightly closed.
“Did you get them, Jules?” Bruno asked urgently. He had seen Jules discreetly scribbling the numbers down on his palm. Jules nodded and showed his hand so Bruno could see. It was a French mobile number, and Bruno punched the digits into the memory of his own phone and then called J-J, to pass them on to his contacts in Paris. Fabiola rolled her eyes and left them to it.
Poincevin returned, slipping his phone into an elegant pouch at his waist. He was followed by a young Chinese in a black suit, white shirt and dark tie. The lawyer, back in control of himself after his mysterious phone call, kept his voice flat and his face immobile as he announced that he wished to see his client, Yiren Guo. The client was twenty-two, a Chinese citizen and student, visiting France as a tourist. He read out a passport number from a notebook. Jules wrote it all down and then solemnly led the way downstairs to the interview room.
7
They took the baron’s hunting car for the rendezvous with Hercule. It was one of the few vehicles that had ever aroused Bruno to pure, burning lust. An old French army jeep, still bearing the markings of the baron’s former regiment of Chasseurs, it had all its old military fittings, including the can of fuel on the back and the circular canvas bag to carry the towing chain. Bruno had spent a considerable part of his military career in jeeps such as this, and his sense of nostalgia was almost as powerful as the four-wheel drive that could haul the vehicle over any terrain that wasn’t vertical, and even that could usually be tackled with the winch. And it was simple, quite different from the computerized mysteries of modern cars. Bruno knew that, armed with a basic tool kit, a little ingenuity and a lot of patience, he could fix just about anything that went wrong with a jeep. The speed might be modest and the cornering dangerous and there was zero protection from the weather. But for the woodland trails and the muddy, boulder-strewn streambeds and the steeper slopes of the Périgord hills it was perfect.
Not that the current journey needed the jeep’s special attributes. The tract of forest that was reserved for Hercule’s hunting club—covering a long ridge with wooded valleys on either side—was easily reached via the road from Ste. Alvère to the medieval abbey church of Paunat. A gravel road rose gradually into the woods for a kilometer and then became a dirt track for