Free The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6) by Martin Walker Page A

said, reaching into her raincoat pocket for her cigarettes. She had given up smoking when they’d been together in that magical summer before she had taken the job in the Minister’s office in Paris.
    ‘And grand to see you. How was Greece? And your leg?’ Isabelle had taken a bullet during an operation against a shipload of illegal immigrants the previous year. She now had a titanium implant in her thigh. The latest stint in hospital had been for plastic surgery to repair the fist-sized hole in her flesh, and the cruise around the Greek islands was her convalescence.
    ‘The docs say the op was a success,’ she said. ‘There’s still a scar, but it’s fading and the cruise ship was fine. I lay on my deckchair and read trashy novels. It’s left me with a strange suntan and a couple of extra kilos.’
    ‘You needed to put some weight on and they don’t show.’
    ‘How would you know?’ she asked, and then gave him a flash of that private smile of hers, the one that came from her eyes. ‘Enough chit-chat,’ she said briskly. ‘What do you make of all this?’
    He explained about the previous burglaries, each using the same method to break in. He added that he’d confirmedthe cleaning woman’s alibi for the time the phone wire had been cut.
    ‘Who’s been handling the burglaries, the Gendarmes?’
    ‘Yes.’ He told her they had left him to file the insurance reports and he’d be emailing photographs of some of the stolen items to the national watch list.
    ‘Big embarrassment in Paris,’ she said. ‘The Minister called his counterpart in London to apologize and the Brigadier did the same with his contacts. They virtually promised the Brits we’d clear it up, get all the stuff back and send the thieves to Devil’s Island. That’s where you come in. The Brigadier wants your local knowledge and has asked for you to be seconded to us to track down the burglars. I gave the Prefect his letter last night and I’ve got another one to give to your Mayor.’
    As a municipal policeman, Bruno was officially employed by the Mayor and council of St Denis, part of the magnificent complexity of French judicial bureaucracy that had the Gendarmes employed by the Minister of Defence and the
Police Nationale
by the Ministry of the Interior. But the Ministry could always dragoon him into service when they thought his local knowledge might be useful. Bruno shrugged in reluctant acceptance of the inevitable. ‘You know we’ve also got a murder on our hands?’
    ‘I heard it on the car radio. Who’s the guy being questioned?’
    ‘A Parisian theatre director named Yves Valentoux. He found the body and J-J thinks he did it as a
crime passionnel
. I’m not so sure.’
    ‘Leave that to J-J. The burglars are your priority. Apparently Crimson has been in Washington but the Brits got in touch with him and he’s heading back.’
    ‘I brought some tools to seal the broken shutters, lock the place up again and secure it.’
    ‘We’ll take care of that. I’ll have someone here until Crimson returns.’ Somehow she had taken his arm and steered him out of earshot across the terrace towards the pool, still covered from the winter. Dead leaves covered the plastic sheeting. Beyond it was a
potager
and young tomato plants had already been staked. He saw the filigree green of carrot tops, young courgettes and lettuce. Crimson must have a gardener to take care of the grounds. When had the gardener last been here? He would ask Gaëlle.
    ‘I trust you had a pleasant evening,’ Isabelle said. ‘I was squeezed in at the last minute into the Prefect’s dinner party. His wife took one look and put me way down the table, between the Mayor of Ribérac and the headmaster of the
lycée
. Once they learned I was a
flic
, they talked golf, which made me miss you a little.’
    Her eyes sparkled with mischief, as they always did when she teased him.
Mon Dieu
, it was good to see her again.
    ‘A career woman like you, perhaps you should