The Patriarch, page 7
“I thought it was slahnge mar, that’s the way Pamela says it,” he said.
“Slahnge just means ‘health’ in Gaelic,” said Crimson. “Slahnge mar means ‘good health,’ and you’ll hear some people say it slightly differently, Slahnge Mor, which was a subtle way of drinking to the Jacobite king rather than to those Hanoverians on the English throne. Mor is for ‘Marion,’ which was the name for Bonnie Prince Charlie, who fled into exile after the defeat of the 1745 rebellion. And if I pass my glass over the water jug when I drink, I’m drinking to him, the king over the water. It’s history you’re drinking here, Bruno, not just scotch.”
“Our tchin sounds very tame by comparison,” said Bruno, smiling. “I should say this isn’t entirely a social call. You may have heard that one of the guests at the Patriarch’s party died later that evening, Gilbert Clamartin.”
Crimson’s glass jerked as he was raising it to his lips. “Gilbert, dead? I had no idea. What happened?”
“He died in his sleep, very drunk. Apparently he threw up when he was passed out, and that did him in. No suspicious circumstances, the doctor said.”
“Old Gilbert…I knew he was hitting the bottle pretty hard, but he seemed fine when I saw him at the party, not drunk at all.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Quite sure. I was chatting with him and a couple of people, and he was bouncing back and forth between French, English, Russian, making a lot of sense and being amusing. He could be one of the most charming people you’d ever hope to meet, and he was certainly on form at the party. He died that evening, you say? Do you know about the funeral arrangements?”
“Not yet, but once I hear I’ll let you know. Did you notice a small disturbance at the party, a sudden drop in the conversation and a flurry of people?”
“Can’t say I did, I was having too good a time, at least until those damn planes came over. I thought there were rules about how low they are allowed to fly. What was the disturbance about?”
“Gilbert was apparently bothering a young woman, Victor’s daughter, trying to pull her away, and then Victor and some others intervened and escorted him off. I saw it, and he was stumbling drunk by then. But it can’t have been long before that when I saw him with you and Pamela and the foreign minister. It didn’t seem long enough to get so drunk.”
“I see what you mean,” said Crimson as he tried to work out the chronology. He and Gilbert had chatted with the foreign minister for a few minutes before the Russian ambassador joined them, and he’d stayed for a few minutes more. “I lost track of Gilbert after we were joined by our mutual chum, the brigadier.”
Bruno would not have put it like that. The brigadier was a senior official in French intelligence, attached to the staff of the minister of the interior but with a remit that seemed to run across the range of France’s police and security forces. He sometimes roped in Bruno for problems, political or diplomatic, that emerged in the Périgord. A thought struck Bruno: the brigadier also drank Bowmore; perhaps Crimson had introduced him to it.
“Did the brigadier know Gilbert?” Even as he asked the question, Bruno had a sinking feeling. Whenever the brigadier became involved, it spelled trouble, usually in the form of a letter from the minister to the mayor, asking for Bruno to be seconded to the brigadier’s staff for a temporary assignment. Since he was still officially on the reserve list of the French army, Bruno could always be conscripted if he tried to refuse the request.
“Of course. You don’t get to be military attaché in Moscow without getting to know people in the intelligence community.” That was where he had gotten to know Gilbert, Crimson explained.
He’d been attached to the British embassy during that extraordinary time when Gorbachev was in the Kremlin. Gilbert had been very well informed with lots of good contacts in the Soviet air force, so Crimson had made a point of getting to know him. It was also through Gilbert that Crimson had met the Patriarch. Gilbert had introduced them at one of his celebrated parties in his apartment in the old Arbat, the most desirable district. It had been a great deal grander than the usual place the Soviets assigned to one of Gilbert’s rank; Crimson assumed that the Patriarch’s influence had helped.
“Of course the Patriarch was like a god to the Soviet military, fighting alongside them all the way to Berlin,” Crimson went on. Marshal Akhromeyev had been the Patriarch’s bosom friend; he was the chief of staff of the Soviet armed forces and the last serving Soviet soldier to have taken his tank into the heart of Berlin in 1945. So the Patriarch had smoothed Gilbert’s way in Moscow, introducing him to the marshal as a fellow fighter pilot and a close friend of his son. The British had sent a Royal Air Force squadron to fight on the eastern front around Murmansk, Crimson added, and a bomber group to attack the German warships that were trying to attack the Arctic convoys. But the British never reaped anything like the subsequent political harvest that the French managed with the Normandie-Niemen fliers and the Patriarch.
“Moscow was an extraordinary place back then,” Crimson went on. “Gorbachev dismantling the old Soviet system, his glasnost bringing amazing revelations in the press every day, people speaking out on TV and in public meetings like never before.”
Most of the Western diplomats were fascinated by it all, Crimson related, even as the security people were issuing dire warnings about remaining on guard. And most Westerners were still sufficiently in Cold War mode to stick together. Some of the old guard even had something called the SWAN rule over romantic liaisons; it stood for Sleep White—and NATO. Not that Gilbert took any notice of such foolishness, said Crimson, which was one of the many reasons he’d liked him.
“Gilbert was a man of great charm, made friends easily, and he probably had more Russian connections than almost any other Western diplomat in Moscow,” Crimson went on. “The Patriarch’s Russian son, Yevgeny, was doing some set designs for the Chaika Theatre at the time. He introduced Gilbert to the artists and theater people who were all having a glorious time with the new freedoms, and that gave him a way into the Soviet elite.”
“How was that?” Bruno asked. “I’d have thought those worlds would be quite separate, particularly in Moscow.”
Crimson grinned. “First rule of diplomacy, Bruno. The ruling classes in any society, and that included the Communist bloc, feel it part of their duty to cultivate the arts—opera and ballet, symphony concerts, the theater. At least their wives do; they like to think they’re part of the cultured classes, members of the intelligentsia. Get yourself invited to the artists’ parties and their weekend dachas, and pretty soon you start running into the sons and daughters of the Nomenklatura.”
“What’s that?”
“The Nomenklatura were the party elite, the Communist Party Central Committee and its staffs, government ministers and their top advisers, newspaper editors, directors of the big state enterprises. Gilbert already knew a lot of the top military men, and pretty soon he was uniquely well connected, hearing all the top-level gossip. I just rode along on his coattails, and I did pretty well out of it, even though Gilbert was very discreet, particularly about his dalliances with influential wives. As I said, he was a very charming man, handsome and with that fighter pilot’s dash about him. It wasn’t just the women that he bowled over; he was the kind of chap who also got on well with men.”
“So you and Gilbert stayed friends after Moscow?”
“Indeed, even though we didn’t see one another that often. But that sort of time in that sort of place, it creates a lasting bond.” Crimson refilled the glasses. “I knew he’d become a bit of a drunk, but he could still hold his liquor pretty well when he wanted to. And for the Patriarch’s birthday party, I’d have thought Gilbert would have wanted to stay in control. It seems very odd.”
“You mean there wasn’t enough time between your seeing him and his being led away to get that drunk?”
“Not quite. Since I didn’t see him carried off, I couldn’t say how long it might have been.”
“That incident took place very shortly before the Patriarch announced the fly-past.”
“In that case I’d say maybe ten minutes, fifteen at the maximum. But he’d have to have been drinking very hard and very fast.”
“He had a large flask with him, made in England, twice the size of a usual hip flask.”
“Heavens,” said Crimson, breaking into a smile. “I bought him that as a Christmas present when we were in Moscow. I’m touched that he still kept the old thing. It held half a bottle, I remember, because naturally I filled it before I gave it to him. If that’s what carried him off, I suppose that makes me an accessory. A bloody shame, he was a good man.”
“Did you see him after you bought your house here?”
“Off and on—the occasional lunch, and he always came to my garden parties, including the one you were at last year. I could never turn him on to Pimm’s, unlike you. Gilbert was a vodka man.”
He paused. “Where are you going with this, Bruno? Do you think there was something fishy about his death?”
“I don’t know.” Bruno shook his head. “I saw him drunk, and I saw the body, and it was pretty clear how he died. It’s just the timing I can’t fathom, how he got so drunk so quickly.”
“Alcoholics can be like that, one moment fine and then the next drink tips them over the top.”
“I suppose so.” Bruno took a last sip of his drink, debating with himself whether to ask the next question. Then he plunged in. “I didn’t know you were interested in horses,” he began. “Pamela told me of your interest in the riding school.”
Crimson’s eyes crinkled into a smile. “I was wondering if you’d bring that up. Are you intending to ask me if my intentions toward your Pamela are honorable?”
“She’s not my Pamela, as you put it. She’s her own woman,” Bruno said, more curtly than he’d intended. He softened his tone. “And no, I’m not asking that. I simply would like to hear why you think Pamela could make a success of the place when those other two woman didn’t, and one of them was a well-known horsewoman, an Olympic rider.”
“Two reasons: The first is that Pamela understands such a place is best run as a tourist-rental business which happens to have a riding school attached. So, unlike the recent owners, she won’t indulge in fanciful dreams of turning out more champions, which means she won’t be investing far too much money in very expensive horses. Pamela’s a smart woman with a good head for business. The second reason is that I’ve got a daughter, recently divorced, who has always dreamed of running a riding school. She was mad about horses as a girl and worked in some stables before she got married. It would mean a new start for her and her children.”
“Have she and Pamela discussed it?” Bruno was realizing just how advanced Pamela’s plans had been. He’d assumed she was interested in a horse and had only then begun to think about the stables. He was surprised she had not taken him more into her confidence.
“Yes, we all had dinner together in London when she was on her way up to Scotland. They got on well, and Miranda, that’s my daughter, likes the idea of living in France. The children are five and seven, a boy and a girl, a good age to put them in school and make them bilingual. And I’d see more of them, since I’m planning to spend a lot more time here in the Périgord.”
“It sounds as though you’ve all worked it out very thoroughly. Has your daughter been over here yet to see the place?”
“No, but she’s coming over this weekend, if Pamela still wants to go ahead with the plan after going through the accounts. I’m planning a dinner party for her, and of course you’ll be invited, along with Fabiola and Gilles.” He held up the bottle. “Another drink before you go? And talking of dinner, I’ve got a lasagna in the oven that’s far too much for me. Would you like to share it, or do you have other plans?”
“That’s kind of you. I was planning a quiet evening with an omelette and a novel, but a bachelors’ evening sounds like more fun.”
“I’ll go and set the table, and perhaps you’d go down to the cellar and pick out a really good couple of bottles to go with the meal. After all, if you hadn’t got my wines and furniture back from those damn burglars, I’d have nothing to drink.”
After some agreeable minutes admiring the collection in Crimson’s cellar, Bruno turned his back on the classic Bordeaux and Burgundies and focused on the Bergeracs. It was partly regional loyalty, but also he was impressed by Crimson’s knowledge. Bruno climbed from the cellar carrying two bottles that he’d heard of but never tasted. One was a 2005 Côtes de Bergerac red from Les Verdots, made by a young vigneron with a stellar reputation, David Fourtout. The other was a 2009 Divine Miséricorde, Divine Mercy, a cuvée made only in exceptional years by Château Montdoyen. His friend Hubert de Montignac, the local wine merchant, had told him this was his favorite of all the white wines produced in southwestern France. Hubert had organized a blind tasting among sommeliers at the last Vinexpo wine fair in Bordeaux, and the Divine had tied with the great whites of Château Haut-Brion and Château Margaux.
“You pick,” said Bruno, joining Crimson in the kitchen. “I can’t choose between these two.”
“That’s easy,” said Crimson, taking a corkscrew to the Divine. “We’ll open both. If you could decant the red into that carafe, I’ll serve the smoked salmon, which should go well with the white.”
“You must have put a lot of research into your cellar.”
“Nothing to do with me, I only drink the stuff. Hubert picks it. He was telling me of this handful of brilliant winemakers who were transforming the reputation of Bergerac wines, so I asked him to send me a case of each one he recommended. It seemed the simplest way. He made a very good selection, and I haven’t been disappointed yet.”
He poured them each a glass of the Divine, swirled his own and sniffed. “Nectar. So we’ll have no lemons with the smoked salmon. And when it comes to red wine, I can’t think when a humble lasagna has been so honored.”
10
Bruno had been looking forward to Raquelle’s lunch. The drive up the valley of the River Vézère was more than familiar, a landscape that never failed to please him even as some of the landmarks were personal. It was at that parking lot that the Spanish policeman’s car had exploded, and up on that cliff was the small cave of the Grotte du Sorcier where he had first kissed Isabelle. In the next small side valley was the archaeological site where an inconveniently modern skeleton had been unearthed. After Les Eyzies the road climbed and wound along wooded cliffs until the pointed turrets peeking above a low ridge marked the château of the Red Countess, whom he’d first seen drugged and kept comatose by a nurse who had been paid to do so. Beyond Tursac was the turnoff that led to Jacqueline’s house, where Bruno had first heard of the secret help the Americans had given to modernize France’s nuclear arsenal. He assumed that every cop kept such private landmarks filed away in his head, a thought that reminded him of the metal box in which Dr. Watson kept his notebooks of the cases of Sherlock Holmes, tales that Bruno read and reread with pleasure.
But there were fewer personal echoes that triggered memories along this drive. Whether from superstition or simple respect for his predecessors in this valley, Bruno always raised a hand to salute the giant statue of prehistoric man on the cliff above Les Eyzies. And he felt a smile come unbidden to his lips when he saw the turrets of the sixteenth-century Château de Losse and remembered his happy surprise at first seeing the startling elegance of its gardens tucked along the riverbank. Then came the turnoff to the prehistory park of Le Thot, where Raquelle wanted to show him her studio before going to her home in Montignac for lunch.
Bruno always enjoyed visiting Le Thot, the companion site to the famous Lascaux Cave. It appealed to him as a place that tried to give modern relevance and meaning to the prehistoric cave art that had been painted seventeen thousand years before. It was an unusual mix, part museum, part education center and part zoo. As he always did, he started by walking around the park filled with animals that had been bred to resemble as closely as possible the giant auroch bulls, primitive shaggy horses, the deer and goats that had shared this valley with the Cro-Magnon people who had painted the caves. He grinned at the life-size model of a woolly mammoth that towered over him and the awed and fascinated children who stared at it before they scampered off to pet the baby goats. And he thought of the courage, or perhaps the desperate hunger, of those remote ancestors who had taken on the massive aurochs, now placidly grazing like ordinary domestic cows.
He stopped off at a place he’d never seen before, a small stone building with three walls and a throng of children busy inside. The interior walls had been painted white, and with tools and pigments like those the cave painters had used, the kids were happily painting aurochs, horses and deer on the walls. The clamor of their voices testified to their enthusiasm as they ran back and forth from the wall to the table with the pigments. Bruno smiled at the cheerful patience of the artist in residence who was draping the young painters in leather smocks to protect their clothes and showing them how to make their first outlines in charcoal. Museums had never been like this when Bruno had been taken on school trips to musty old buildings with glass cases and rows of poorly labeled flints and ancient pots that had signified little to him.
Bruno strolled back past the woolly mammoth, seeing a spindly new fence around a deep pit at the edge of the woodland. He glanced in, wondering whether they were digging for flints or planning to re-create a mammoth trap, possibly with models of prehistoric hunters attacking the trapped beast. There was a prehistoric park at Tursac that specialized in such scenes.
He didn’t linger in the museum, since he’d already seen the first copies of the paintings in the original Lascaux Cave that had been made by Monique Peytral and other local painters who then produced the exact copy of the cave that tourists could now visit. The original, its paintings damaged by the bacteria brought in by hundreds of thousands of visitors, had been closed to the public for fifty years. But Bruno always liked the exhibition that showed how the cave people had used moss and animal fur as paintbrushes on the white chalk walls, and tiny blowpipes to apply the paints they made from crushing minerals. He knew they had used manganese for the black pigment, ocher for the yellows and a brown clay that turned red when baked in a fire. And he always marveled at their tiny stone lamps, with deer fat and juniper twigs as wicks, the only combination that would burn with a clear and smokeless flame that would neither asphyxiate the painters nor darken the chalk with smoke.
