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Authors: Martin Walker
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grumbled.
The only new piece of evidence came from the dead man’s trouser pocket; two paper receipts that Bruno had missed in his initial search. Fullerton had twice on the previous day filled his van with diesel, once in Calais and then from a station at the shopping centre outside Périgueux. J-J had sent a detective to check the tapes from the latter’s security camera. Since the receipt gave the time of purchase, it was a simple matter to wind back the tapes, and the man filling his van was wearing the same clothes as Fullerton and looked sufficiently like him for a preliminary identification. After filling his van, he had gone to the air pump to check his tyres and had opened the rear doors, revealing that the van had been full of furniture.
‘So that’s the second mystery, apart from the murder,’ Bruno said over the smoked salmon. ‘What happened to the furniture? Did he deliver it somewhere before he picked up the keys to the
gîte
or was it stolen by his attacker? And why did he arrive a day early? Valentoux seemed certain that they had arranged to meet today, and Fullerton had said he’d get an early train through the tunnel and planned to arrive here early afternoon today.’
‘And he has no alibi that could show he’d been in Paris yesterday evening?’ Pamela asked.
Bruno shook his head. ‘He was racking his brains trying to remember, but he’d been at home since the late afternoon. We asked if he’d had food delivered, gone out for a drink, had a phone call – anything.’
‘What about his mobile phone?’ Fabiola asked. ‘Can’t you find out from that where he was?’
‘Yes, but if he was trying to fabricate an alibi he could have left the phone at his apartment in Paris and still come down here to commit the murder. At least he gave us Fullerton’s cellphone number and we’re trying to trace its movements, but there was no sign of it in his van or in the suitcase we found in the house.’
‘Are you sure they were a gay couple?’ Pamela asked.
‘Valentoux confirmed that when he was being interrogated.’
Bruno did not mention the tension that had arisen with J-J and Yveline when Bruno had argued there was too little evidence to hold Valentoux for questioning. There had been another row when Bruno learned that Yveline had delayed sending a fax to the
Procureur
, the public prosecutor, until after his office had closed. Under French law, once a crime had been committed, the
Procureur
assigned a
juge d’instruction
, an investigating magistrate, to supervise the case. Delaying the formal alert to the
Proc
was a fairly common police tactic, giving them more time to question a suspect. Bruno’s response had been to go to his car to call Annette Meraillon, a young magistrate he trusted. When he mentioned Valentoux’s name, she perked up to say she’d seen a couple of his plays in Paris and had been impressed. She promised to follow it up.
It would infuriate J-J and Yveline, but that was their problem. Then as he’d driven to Pamela’s house he’d heard a report of the murder on Radio Périgord. Albert must have tipped them off, but it meant that any inquiry from Annette could have been triggered by the media. Bruno put it from his mind and began to pour his treasured Pécharmant red.
‘So what do you think?’ Pamela pressed him when the lamb had been served, the rowan jelly tasted and praised along with Bruno’s red wine.
‘I don’t think he did it. He seemed genuinely stunned by Fullerton’s death. Maybe I’m overcompensating because of the way J-J and the Gendarmes seemed to leap to conclusions. But I’m also wondering whether there’s a link to this spate of burglaries I mentioned.’
The coincidence had struck Bruno when Valentoux had described Fullerton’s astute method of doing business, buying French antiques for sale in England and then doing the reverse in a neat back-and-forth across the Channel, taking advantage of the snob appeal of foreign antiques in
The only new piece of evidence came from the dead man’s trouser pocket; two paper receipts that Bruno had missed in his initial search. Fullerton had twice on the previous day filled his van with diesel, once in Calais and then from a station at the shopping centre outside Périgueux. J-J had sent a detective to check the tapes from the latter’s security camera. Since the receipt gave the time of purchase, it was a simple matter to wind back the tapes, and the man filling his van was wearing the same clothes as Fullerton and looked sufficiently like him for a preliminary identification. After filling his van, he had gone to the air pump to check his tyres and had opened the rear doors, revealing that the van had been full of furniture.
‘So that’s the second mystery, apart from the murder,’ Bruno said over the smoked salmon. ‘What happened to the furniture? Did he deliver it somewhere before he picked up the keys to the
gîte
or was it stolen by his attacker? And why did he arrive a day early? Valentoux seemed certain that they had arranged to meet today, and Fullerton had said he’d get an early train through the tunnel and planned to arrive here early afternoon today.’
‘And he has no alibi that could show he’d been in Paris yesterday evening?’ Pamela asked.
Bruno shook his head. ‘He was racking his brains trying to remember, but he’d been at home since the late afternoon. We asked if he’d had food delivered, gone out for a drink, had a phone call – anything.’
‘What about his mobile phone?’ Fabiola asked. ‘Can’t you find out from that where he was?’
‘Yes, but if he was trying to fabricate an alibi he could have left the phone at his apartment in Paris and still come down here to commit the murder. At least he gave us Fullerton’s cellphone number and we’re trying to trace its movements, but there was no sign of it in his van or in the suitcase we found in the house.’
‘Are you sure they were a gay couple?’ Pamela asked.
‘Valentoux confirmed that when he was being interrogated.’
Bruno did not mention the tension that had arisen with J-J and Yveline when Bruno had argued there was too little evidence to hold Valentoux for questioning. There had been another row when Bruno learned that Yveline had delayed sending a fax to the
Procureur
, the public prosecutor, until after his office had closed. Under French law, once a crime had been committed, the
Procureur
assigned a
juge d’instruction
, an investigating magistrate, to supervise the case. Delaying the formal alert to the
Proc
was a fairly common police tactic, giving them more time to question a suspect. Bruno’s response had been to go to his car to call Annette Meraillon, a young magistrate he trusted. When he mentioned Valentoux’s name, she perked up to say she’d seen a couple of his plays in Paris and had been impressed. She promised to follow it up.
It would infuriate J-J and Yveline, but that was their problem. Then as he’d driven to Pamela’s house he’d heard a report of the murder on Radio Périgord. Albert must have tipped them off, but it meant that any inquiry from Annette could have been triggered by the media. Bruno put it from his mind and began to pour his treasured Pécharmant red.
‘So what do you think?’ Pamela pressed him when the lamb had been served, the rowan jelly tasted and praised along with Bruno’s red wine.
‘I don’t think he did it. He seemed genuinely stunned by Fullerton’s death. Maybe I’m overcompensating because of the way J-J and the Gendarmes seemed to leap to conclusions. But I’m also wondering whether there’s a link to this spate of burglaries I mentioned.’
The coincidence had struck Bruno when Valentoux had described Fullerton’s astute method of doing business, buying French antiques for sale in England and then doing the reverse in a neat back-and-forth across the Channel, taking advantage of the snob appeal of foreign antiques in
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