The Devil's Cave bop-6

by Martin Walker

  ‘Well done, Father, a wonderful performance,’ said the Baron as the priest took his place in the middle row of the bus.

  Amid a flurry of congratulations and recollections of this and that event and much courtly praise of Florence, they drove off and to Bruno’s surprise they passed through St Denis and headed out on the back road to Les Eyzies. He’d assumed the Mayor had arranged a lunch in the Mairie as he did on other civic occasions. Instead, it looked as if they were heading for a restaurant. It was when they turned off on the road to St Philippon that Bruno realized they were heading for the Count’s hotel.

  Discreetly he opened his phone and looked again at the text from Isabelle that he’d received when he went into the cave some two hours earlier. It was succinct in Isabelle’s usual style and he saw it had come from a mobile phone number he’d never known her use before. Perhaps she was taking precautions. It read: ‘Beatrice 2 arrests prostitution Paris. No convix. Faxing.’

  There were several reasons why an arrest might not lead to a conviction, nor even to a formal charge, particularly with prostitutes who were often dismissed with a warning. Magistrates tended to look askance at a case where the only witness was an undercover flic from the morals squad, particularly when the same flic appeared in a dozen cases one after another. In some stations a woman could buy herself out of trouble with services rendered, usually sexual but sometimes with information. But Bruno had never heard of such an arrest being made without cause.

  A loud horn sounded repeatedly behind them. The driver pulled in and a white Jaguar swept past them, Foucher at the wheel, the Count beside him, and Beatrice and Eugenie waving cheerfully from the rear seat. It was going to be quite a party, thought Bruno, until he saw Father Sentout looking after the disappearing car, his face white and his lips moving as his fingers worked on his rosary beads. Had he been stunned to recognize someone in the car or was he just feeling the reaction from his exertions in the cave?

  ‘We finally manage to get you here for an informal occasion, although you’re still in uniform.’ Beatrice handed Bruno one glass of Pol Roger and a second to the Baron, who kissed her on both cheeks and called her ‘ma belle’. At a sign from the Mayor, Bruno excused himself and squeezed past J-J’s bulky form to join the Mayor and the Count, who were talking business with Foucher. Or rather, the Count was explaining the problems with Thivion in much the same way that Eugenie had outlined the impact of the financial crisis and the attempt to salvage something from the wreck.

  ‘If you want to slog through the paperwork, you’re welcome,’ the Count concluded. ‘You’ll find I lost money on the deal.’

  ‘As much as Thivion?’ Bruno asked politely. He knew his role when the Mayor summoned him to an encounter such as this. He was to ask the questions the Mayor would have put, except that his Mayor wanted to remain above any controversy so that he could intervene later as the sensible man of compromise and agreement.

  ‘Thivion would not have lost a centime if they’d followed my advice.’ The Count remained affable, refusing to rise to Bruno’s bait. Suddenly the Mayor excused himself and crossed to join an urgently beckoning Father Sentout, leaving Bruno, the Count and Foucher.

  ‘The Mayor in Thivion is a fool,’ said Foucher. ‘I spent hours with him, trying to explain that the worst option was to cut back on the quality of the project. But he refused to guarantee the loan we needed, so we had no option. I’m not proud of the way it turned out but we did our best.’

  ‘I suppose you know I’ve been trying to see you both,’ Bruno said. The Count nodded and said he thought he knew why. Bruno put down his glass and took a folded print of Athenais’s photograph from his breast pocket and showed it to him. ‘Your grandmother has identified this woman as her great-niece, your cousin Athenais. Do you agree?’

  The Count gave the photo a casual glance. ‘I believe I do, although I haven’t seen her for several years, not since one time when I was in New York on business. She was shopping around a film treatment to some independent producers and we met for a drink. She tried to persuade me to put some money into her film but I declined. We were never close.’

  ‘Did you know she was in France? Or why she’d want to kill herself?’

  The Count shook his head. ‘We weren’t in touch. Not even Christmas cards. I don’t know how she knew I was in New York that time, she just rang me out of the blue.’

  ‘How about you?’ Bruno asked Foucher. ‘You tried pretty hard to stop the boat with her body from drifting under the bridge. Are you going to tell me that was coincidence?’

  ‘I never knew her in life, so there’s nothing for me to recognize,’ Foucher said dismissively. ‘Isn’t all this financial stuff a bit above your pay grade?’

  ‘Not when I know someone involved has a conviction for insider trading,’ Bruno said, instantly regretting the impulse that made him play an important card for such a petty reason as countering a sneer.

  He stared at Foucher until the other man’s eyes fell and turned back to the Count, who was watching the exchange with eyebrows raised, an amused look on his face.

  ‘You have been busy,’ the Count said. ‘Looks like you’ve been underestimating our local police, Lionel.’

  ‘We’ll need somebody to come to the morgue in Bergerac and make a formal identification,’ Bruno said. ‘I’d rather not impose on your grandmother. Will you do it? It won’t take long.’

  ‘I’ll do it as a family duty, but I can’t say I’m keen to do you any favours. I hear you’re the one who’s been trying to stop my project.’

  ‘Whoever told you that is misinformed,’ said Bruno, with a glance at Foucher. ‘I want that sports hall you’ve kindly promised just as much as you want the project. I just want to be sure that St Denis gets the project it’s been promised, unlike Thivion.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said the Count, with a half-smile that seemed genuine. ‘That’s what I want to build. This place is the nearest I have to a home, don’t forget. I was even baptized in the family chapel. And I’m serious about the sports hall. We even commissioned a design for it from the architects.’

  ‘I took care of that and delivered the plans to the Mayor myself,’ intervened Foucher. ‘What more do you expect us to do?’

  ‘Tell me about your charming manager,’ Bruno said, trying another gambit. ‘I’m wondering how you found her. Have you known her long?’

  ‘A few years,’ the Count replied vaguely. He was looking across at his other guests where the Baron seemed to have monopolized Beatrice. ‘She was working in the corporate hospitality business and we used her company a fair bit when I launched the private equity firm. She impressed me so I hired her.’ He handed his glass to Foucher, who went off to fill it again. ‘Any more questions or can we join the others? I can’t wait to talk to that fascinating singer. I hear she planned all the theatrics. Will you introduce me before we eat?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Bruno replied, leading the way. ‘But not all the theatrics. I think that last little thunderclap was arranged by you and the Baron and performed by the man who’s bringing your next glass of champagne. I’d love to know how you persuaded our priest to go along with it.’

  ‘He loved the idea, once it was properly explained.’

  26

  A telephone call from Fabiola took Bruno from the table halfway through lunch.

  ‘It’s not entirely clear, but from the autopsy I think you may have two cases of murder,’ she told him. ‘The woman in the boat and Junot both died the same way, of what looked like a heart attack. I’m prepared to bet it was induced circulatory failure. I think they had air bubbles injected into their veins but I can’t prove it. What do you know about embolism?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ he admitted.

  When a pathologist suspected murder, she explained, or when the person had died gasping for breath, it was customary to X-ray the corpse before beginning an autopsy. Air bubbles showed up very clearly on X-rays. There was also a technique to conduct the autopsy underwater, when t
he air bubbles could be seen to escape, like putting a punctured bicycle tyre in water to locate the leak. But there’d been no reason to do that with the woman in the boat, and Junot’s circulation system had been compromised by his injuries.

  ‘We found injection points on the bodies,’ she said. There was a small needle mark in the arm of each corpse. Fabiola suspected it had been used to send air to the right atrium of the heart and from there to the lung, where it would block the capillaries and interrupt the circulation system. The person dies gasping, she explained, because the body thinks the problem is a lack of air. Without an X-ray the standard proof was missing.

  ‘In Junot’s case, there’s bruising that could have been caused by a physical attack, but the injuries sustained in the crash make it very hard to prove. In each case, the injection seemed to be done by someone with medical training and a very large syringe. You’d need about two hundred cc, that’s about a cupful. The usual syringe contains twenty cc.’

  ‘So it’s your informed opinion that it was murder by air injection? That’s enough for the Procureur to ask for a full inquiry.’

  ‘But you’ll need other evidence,’ she insisted. She had indications rather than proof, she explained, and another doctor could disagree. But her pathologist friend was faxing his report to the Procureur’s office with a copy for Bruno and another to J-J. As she rang off, Fabiola added that Junot wouldn’t have lasted long anyway unless he stopped drinking. His liver was yellow-orange and he had swollen breasts; advanced cirrhosis.

  Bruno had been strolling around the car park as he listened and now found himself beside a tall hedge through which he could see more vehicles. One of them was a large pickup truck, rare in France. He squeezed through a gap in the hedge and saw that it was a far-from-new Toyota Hilux, a powerful 3-litre model with crash bars front and rear. He walked around it, wondering if it would have the power to break the logs on a crash barrier. The Toyota’s front crash bar, while badly scratched, seemed intact. The rear one was bent but clean. The cargo area was covered by a dirty tarpaulin, torn in places. There was no sign of blood nor of the fresh oil that might have suggested it had recently carried a motorbike. But it could have been used to cover the crash bar while it pushed at the fence on the road where Junot’s body had been found. Bruno took a small plastic bag from his pocket, plucked one of the threads from the tarpaulin and bagged it.

  He walked back to the terrace, where the lunch party was coming to an end with coffee being served. He went to Beatrice, sitting between J-J and the Baron and charming them both. He apologized for the interruption and asked for a private word with her.

  ‘You can be a very tiresome guest,’ she replied. After a final squeeze of the Baron’s arm, she led him back to her office. ‘Will this take long?’

  ‘I hope not. It’s about Francette’s father. Did you see him again after he came with me to see Francette?’

  ‘No. What is this, Bruno? You said he died in a road accident.’

  ‘We’re just trying to retrace his movements before the crash.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t see him here again.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He half-turned as if to go. ‘By the way, before this job I think you said you were in corporate entertaining. When was that and where? We’re doing a review of the beverage licences for all the communes in the Conseil.’

  ‘I don’t hold the beverage licence. That’s the Count.’

  ‘But you’re in charge.’

  She studied him and then opened a small filing cabinet in the side of her desk. ‘Here’s a copy of my CV.’

  He scanned it, noticing the vague references to ‘hospitality industry’ and the gaps and asked casually, ‘No convictions?’ She shook her head. ‘No arrest record?’

  She sat down at her desk. ‘Why not say what it is you want?’

  ‘I’m wondering how you got out of those two arrests without a conviction,’ he replied, taking a chair opposite her.

  ‘So even you country coppers can call up police records these days.’ She looked not in the least abashed.

  ‘We always could,’ he said mildly. ‘Why not tell me what happened?’

  ‘You don’t look like an innocent to me, Bruno. You can imagine what happened. But do you have any idea what hit the oldest profession when the Eastern Europeans came in? The Russians, the Albanians, the Serbs, the menaces and the threats, the girls terrorized, pimps shot, escort agencies fire-bombed. It was like a war zone in the Nineties. I got out as soon as I could.’

  ‘How did you get started?’

  ‘By being born in Beuvry, up on the Belgian border. The last coal mine there closed just before I was born. No jobs, shit schools, Dad died and Mum was a drunk who kept bringing home men who liked my pretty face — what else was I going to do? When I was fifteen I headed for Paris with my best friend. You can imagine the rest. The friend got into drugs. She’s dead now.’

  ‘And the arrests?’ Bruno made an effort to his keep his voice dispassionate.

  ‘The first time was working for an escort agency. They rounded up all the girls from the agency records but they couldn’t make the charges stick. Maybe they were paid off.’

  ‘And the second?’

  ‘I’d moved on to an exclusive maison de passe, not quite Madame Claude’s but close. We were known as Chez Foufounette.’

  Her eyes twinkled as she said it. Foufounette was the most affectionate of French slang words for the female genitalia.

  ‘No mistaking the speciality of the house.’ He couldn’t help grinning.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Beatrice replied, laughing in return. ‘Some of the clients even surprised me. That ended when a deputy from the Assemblee Nationale reckoned he’d caught a dose and complained to the Mayor. We were raided but some of the other clients ensured it was hushed up. One of them offered to make me his mistress and set me up in my own apartment. I said I’d be delighted to be his mistress but I’d like a job. He started me in public relations and it went from there.’

  ‘And then you met the Count.’

  ‘And then I met Cesar. He’s a very sweet guy, takes good care of his old mistresses. So he knows all about my past. You can’t put pressure on me that way.’

  ‘I don’t intend to. I really just wanted to ask if Junot had been here. But I also have to ask whether this place has anything to do with your old profession.’

  ‘You mean whether our corporate clients are able to enjoy female company? As I said, you’re no innocent. We don’t exactly discourage it. The girls can always say no.’

  ‘Is that how Francette got that thick lip?’

  ‘No, it was like I told you.’ Her good humour had suddenly gone. ‘Francette fell because of a clumsy guest, not exactly sober. At least, that’s what she told me. I wasn’t in the room.’

  ‘Might Junot have known what his daughter was doing here?’

  ‘Not unless Francette told him. We’re very discreet.’

  ‘Yes, I can tell,’ he said, rising. ‘Thanks for your time. Tell me, is Eugenie also part of your stable?’

  ‘Why? Are you interested?’ Her eyes twinkled at him again and he wondered if it was genuine or something she turned on and off at will. ‘As it happens, she isn’t, but maybe she’s spoken for.’

  The dechetterie of St Denis was run by an old sous-officier of the paras, a giant of a man known as Jacquot, who ruled over the municipal rubbish dump as if it were a parade ground. Woe betide any citizen who dared to mix their plastics with their leftovers or their dead batteries with their garden waste, or whose car moved a centimetre outside the painted guidelines that led to each of the huge containers. Bruno parked outside and walked in to shake hands and ask about plastic sheeting or any other kind of wrapping that might have been dumped on Saturday night or Sunday.

  ‘We’re closed then,’ said Jacquot.

  ‘Yes, but we both know people throw stuff over the fence. They can see which container is which.’ Jacquot on occasion hid in his little wooden hut to spy on
malefactors and take photos of their crimes. A couple of well-publicized fines had curtailed that practice but not stopped it altogether.

  ‘We’ll start with plastic,’ said Jacquot, leading the way and placing a stepladder against the container. He had a long pole with a sturdy hook on the end to sift through the rubbish.

  ‘There was a box in the cardboard bin I wanted to take a look at later, hadn’t been folded. That always makes me think there’s something stuffed inside. They think I don’t notice but I’ll get them later. See my new box of tricks?’ Jacquot pointed to the top of his hut and Bruno saw a small camera.

  ‘Was that working over the weekend?’ Bruno asked.

  ‘Of course it was. Why do you think I installed it?’

  The sides of the container for cardboard were too high for Bruno to peer in.

  ‘I’ll have to get inside,’ said Jacquot. ‘Bring that other ladder over, the one leaning against my hut.’

  He climbed in, pulling a knife from his belt, and Bruno followed him up the rungs to watch as Jacquot began slicing the cardboard with the precision of a master chef. ‘This what you want?’ he called, displaying a dirty but folded plastic sheet from inside an anonymous and medium-sized box. ‘Looks like oil and something else, paint maybe, still sticky.’

  ‘Could it be blood?’

  ‘I’d say so.’ Jacquot came out of the container and handed the box to Bruno.

  While he waited for the forensic team to come, Bruno called Father Sentout to ask where the baptismal records for St Philippon were kept. At the bishop’s office in Perigueux, he was told. And that would include the records for the private chapel at the chateau? Indeed it would, the priest replied, but why did Bruno want to know?

  ‘Just checking names and dates. The baptismal records have the full names, not just the ones on the birth certificates?’

  ‘Yes, and in old families they often add the names of the godparents,’ Father Sentout answered. ‘Is there anything in particular I can help you with?’