Black Diamond - Martin Walker [62]
It led into a large hall that the baron had turned into a kitchen with an open fireplace, festooned in black iron hooks and large enough for a man to stand in. From one of them an age-blackened cauldron was suspended. Chains hung down that could raise and lower the hams that were hoisted there to smoke. On either side of the grate, where a couple of long logs flickered above a bed of red ashes, stood tall iron stands, notched to hold spits and roasting irons. To one of the thinnest of them were affixed a dozen pigeons, turning slowly through an alignment of cogs, each smaller than the next. They were moved by clockwork sturdy enough to rotate a sheep, as Bruno knew from experience.
Including J-J, they were twelve for dinner. Nicco from Ste. Alvère was accompanied by Roland, the president of Hercule’s hunting club. Roland had brought his two sons, who claimed that their father had taught them to shoot, but Hercule had taught them how to hunt. From St. Denis were Stéphane, Hubert and Jo, Bruno’s predecessor as chief of police, whose farm stood on the outskirts of the baron’s hamlet. With them were the mayor and Sergeant Jules from the gendarmerie, each of whom had memories to share of hunting with their departed friend. They gave a chorus of welcome as Bruno carried his hay box into the big kitchen, took out the heavy pot and hung it unopened on one of the big hooks over the fire. J-J was carrying the soup, and Bruno directed him to put it on top of the modern six-burner stove. The ritual of handshakes followed, interrupted by a festive pop as the baron opened another bottle of champagne.
“Thank you for the wine,” the baron said to J-J, nodding across to the sink where Hubert was decanting bottle after bottle. “It’s very generous. We’ll give Hercule a grand sendoff.”
“The real send-off will be when we catch his killers,” said J-J. “But it looks as if they were professionals. It won’t be easy. While you’re all here, we’ve been going through Hercule’s phone records, and there are some numbers Bruno didn’t recognize that you may be able to help identify. Come and take a look at these printouts.”
“You’re assuming he knew his killers, or that they’d phoned him?” asked the mayor.
J-J shrugged. “Who knows? At this stage we’re just looking for anything unusual. Hercule may have been doing something or making some inquiries that put his life in danger. Maybe his phone calls can lead us onto that trail.”
A handful more numbers were identified as local friends from Ste. Alvère, Nicco winking as he explained that at least one of the unregistered cell phones was owned by a friend who was having an affair. Nervous that his wife might be keeping an eye on the bills for his usual cell phone, he kept a separate phone for his mistress. He must have confused the phones when he called Hercule.
“And this one is Didier, who manages the truffle market,” Nicco added, putting a fat thumb beside one of the numbers on J-J’s list. “He lost his old phone recently and got a new one but probably never got around to registering the number. And these two are renifleurs from the market who don’t want the tax man looking into their phone records.”
“That leaves me with just three unidentified numbers,” said J-J. “That’ll make life easier as we try to track them down. There’s one more bit