Black Diamond - Martin Walker [91]
“I’ll have to check in with J-J, and I’ll want to see Tran before I catch the train back to St. Denis. I’ve got a busy day. There’s a Christmas party for the children that I’ve got to arrange,” he said, starting to grin as her smile widened. “And that reminds me that I’m supposed to have a new Father Christmas costume waiting for me at the mairie. And at some point I have to pick up my new police van and then drive it up to Périgueux to pick up my new uniforms, since the old ones were damaged in the line of duty.”
She laughed, a genuine one this time. “This is real police work. Do explain, Father Christmas.”
So he told her everything that had happened, from the attack on Vinh’s stall and the theft and crash of his police van to the ruin of his uniform in the manure pit.
“I saw that in the paper, when you pulled that little boy out.”
“They made too much of it. Just that fool Pons, who invited all the schoolkids but didn’t secure his pool of dung …” He sipped at his drink. “What are your plans tomorrow?”
“We both have a meeting with the brigadier and the prefect at nine, and then I have to be at Merignac airport at eleven for another liaison session with the navy and the British. You’re right, there’s a ship we’re monitoring. And then in the afternoon I thought I’d better take a discreet look at this campsite near Arcachon the Viets told us about.”
“Be careful,” he said.
“We might not be boarding the ship at all, if the campsite is where they’re planning to bring them ashore. We could seal the place off and round them up there. I suppose that’s what tomorrow’s meetings will be about.”
“Sounds like an early start for both of us.” He began to push back his chair.
“Give me a minute to go up first, Bruno,” she said. “It would be too embarrassing to stand with you in the elevator, wondering if you were going to escort me to my door and pounce.”
“I’m not the pouncing type.” He grinned at her.
“No, but sometimes I am,” she said, rising, and leaned forward to kiss him on the mouth. “Good night, dear Bruno.”
Isabelle left with that proud and straight-backed stride of hers, and Bruno sighed and turned to the bar to pay for the drinks. As he headed through the foyer, he saw she hadn’t taken the elevator at all. She was standing on the pavement outside the revolving door, smoking another cigarette. He paused, tempted to go out to her.
He pressed the UP button and rose alone to his room, telling himself he should have joined her on the pavement and held her close. He shook his head. It would simply have forced them to decide all over again whether to revive an affair that had run its course. But he went to bed asking himself just what it was about his relationship with Pamela that he was being faithful to. With her new interest in politics she seemed to be spending as much time with Bill Pons as with him. He drifted off to sleep until the hotel phone woke him just after 4:00 a.m. It was J-J, telling him to get dressed fast because he was coming to pick him up.
22
“It’s the breakthrough we need,” said J-J as the unmarked car from the Bordeaux police pool raced up the deserted rue de Pessac. J-J had turned down the volume on the radio, but Bruno could still hear the constant chatter of the dispatchers and other cars reporting in. “Thanks to the bank card, and a security man who became unusually cooperative once we said this was about a terrorist bombing, we got the little bastard’s address. Apparently it’s a small apartment house above a cinema and another of their Chinese restaurants, owned by one of the holding companies linked to the treizième.”
“Bordeaux police are running the show?” asked Bruno, looking at his watch. It was not yet four-thirty. Dawn was more than three hours away.
“They’ll make any arrests, but the brigadier runs the show.”
“Does Bordeaux know that?” Bruno asked.
“The brigadier’s in the ops center, and he’s cleared it with the prefect. For once, Bordeaux