Black Diamond - Martin Walker [61]
“It looks perfect,” he said as J-J shone the light on it.
“I never saw that done before,” said J-J. “I can smell it from here. What would that be worth?”
“At least three hundred euros, maybe more,” Bruno said. “But I’m not going to sell this one.”
He put it into his pocket and then knelt again to push the pile of loose earth back into the hole.
“Very neat and tidy,” said J-J, “but I don’t think the woods will notice.”
“That’s not the point,” said Bruno. “That soil contains spores. By putting it back, chances are this tree will produce more truffles in the same spot. That’s why I’m marking this place in my mind, and why I’m going to imprint it into Gigi’s memory.”
Bruno caressed Gigi, murmuring to him and pushing his nose gently down to sniff the earth again and then the tree, stroking him all the time and telling him what a fine dog he was.
“That’s why I prefer a dog to a pig for hunting truffles,” said Bruno. “Some people will tell you it’s because the pigs eat them and the dogs won’t, but that can be fixed by putting a muzzle on the pig. The real reason is that a properly trained dog remembers the spot and remembers the trail back to it. Speaking of that, we’d better be heading back.”
Bruno rose and brushed his hands together, then led the way toward his cottage, Gigi happy at his heels and J-J at the rear, following the flickering glow of the flashlight he shone on the earth before his feet.
“You were saying it wasn’t Hercule who acted as Vinh’s sponsor for the immigration.”
“It surprised me, but no,” J-J said. “Vinh’s sponsor was a Capitaine Antoine Savani. My team’s trying to find out what we can about him. Vinh’s file also had a supporting letter from one Général Gambiez. But Vinh was just a baby when he came here. It was his parents who got the sponsorship, along with a few thousand others who decided that Vietnam without French protection wasn’t a safe place to be.”
“Like the Harkis who fought for us in Algeria and got slaughtered when we left.”
“Exactly,” said J-J. “It’s a dangerous move to pick the wrong side in that kind of war.”
“So you’ll start putting all this together next week?” Bruno asked.
“We’re going through channels. I’m not sure how frank the defense ministry will be with the files.”
“You think I can do any better?”
“You have that friend in the military archives, the one who helped us out before with that dead Arab. He might be useful.”
“I can try, but I think you’d have more luck with the brigadier.”
“He’s a last resort,” said J-J. “He’s not a cop, so he doesn’t have our concerns about catching murderers. He’ll only help if it suits his own agenda.”
“I think you’re being too hard on him,” said Bruno. “He’ll help so long as it doesn’t hurt his own agenda. There’s a difference. I think his regard for Hercule means he’ll go a long way to help us catch his killers, plus he owes us some favors.”
Back at Bruno’s house, they loaded the hay box into the back of the Land Rover, fixed a tight lid on the saucepan of soup and put that between J-J’s feet. Bruno grabbed a couple of spare towels, a sleeping bag and an old rugby shirt and threw them into his sports bag. The wake would go on late, and they’d probably bed down at the baron’s. He boosted Gigi into the back of the vehicle, and they set off down the hill toward town and the tiny hamlet beyond it that huddled around the baron’s chartreuse. They parked in the small square that was named after the baron’s grandfather.
The chartreuse covered more than a side of the square. It was almost two hundred feet long, built of stone that had stood