Black Diamond - Martin Walker [32]
As soon as the first bar appeared, he began to call J-J, but then paused. This was one report he had better make by the book. He began by calling 15 for the SAMU emergency ambulance service and told them he’d wait by the junction with the Paunat road. Then he called a number in Paris that he had been given previously, in the course of a different inquiry, gave his name and asked for the brigadier. Apparently his name was still on the approved list at Renseignements Généraux because the brigadier was on the line within seconds.
“How’s life in the Périgord, Bruno?”
“Dangerous for some,” Bruno replied. “I’ve just found a body left hanging in the woods, murdered, probably tortured. He’s been killed within the last hour or two, and he’s one of yours. An old barbouze from Indochina, Algeria and the OAS, is how I was advised to put it by one of his military friends.”
“What was his name?”
“Hercule Vendrot. He had a Croix de Guerre and was a member of the Légion d’Honneur.”
“Putain, Bruno. Hercule’s a legend in this business. You said he’d been tortured?”
“I think so. It reminded me of some of the things I saw in Bosnia.”
“Putain. Someone thinks he was an informer. What had he been up to? How did you know him?”
“He’s been retired for as long as I’ve known him. He spent his time hunting for truffles. He was worried about some dirty goings-on at the truffle market in Ste. Alvère, where he lived. He and I go hunting together, and we were supposed to meet today in the woods.”
“Have you told anyone else?”
“Yes, I followed procedure and called the SAMU, told them it was a suspicious death. They’ll automatically inform the gendarmes and the Police Nationale when they send the ambulance. Next I’ll call our mutual friend J-J. Meantime, I’m waiting at a road junction to direct the SAMU guys into the woods. They’ll never find it otherwise.”
“I need a favor, Bruno. As soon as you’ve directed them to the body, would you go to Hercule’s house and make sure nobody else gets in until one of my people shows up? They’ll have identification.”
“I can’t keep the gendarmes out.”
“I’ll take care of them. You’ve got your hunting gun. Just get to Hercule’s house as soon as you can and keep it secure. Whatever happens, I’ll back you. Even if you have to use the gun. Does anybody else know of this?”
“Yes, my chum the baron. We were all going hunting together. He was the one who told me to call you and say Hercule was a barbouze. I left him at the scene.”
“Fine. You call J-J while I sort things out with the gendarmes and get somebody to the house in Ste. Alvère. I’ve got people in Bordeaux; with a chopper from the military airfield, expect them anytime after a couple of hours. But nobody else gets into that house.”
“I need to do this by the book,” Bruno said. “Once I get the SAMU guys to the body and they pronounce him dead, the rule is that any available law officer has to secure the scene until relieved by a senior officer or by the scene-of-crime unit. So we’d better get a gendarme out here fast. I’ll call one of the motorcycle teams from Sarlat to stand by until the SOCO guys turn up.”
“I’ll fax your mayor with a request for you to be seconded to us as a matter of national security. You’ll be covered.”
Bruno made his calls and waited, wondering what kind of barbouze Hercule had been. The word meant simply someone with a false beard, but had come to mean somebody operating undercover or in the murkier areas of security and intelligence. In the Algerian War the barbouzes had been outright killers, some of them taken straight from prison and offered a pardon if they joined the underground war to kill members of the OAS, the secret army fighting de Gaulle in a quixotic bid to maintain the French empire. Deals had been done with the Union Corse, the mafia of Corsica, to turn a blind eye to some of their organized crime work in return for help against the OAS. They had kidnapped, tortured and assassinated each other and had become almost indistinguishable, except that one group had the backing of the French state and the other