Martin Walker - The Devil's Cave

‘You know what the minimum wage is here, and then you can almost double it for the social charges,’ Bruno said. ‘But I’ll ask around.’

Pamela rang off, and Bruno saw that Bess and Victoria, who had done this ride with Pamela a thousand times, had reached the end of the firebreak and had now turned round and begun to trot back. He put the phone into its holster and urged Hector into a trot, pondering the impact the arrival of Pamela’s mother might have on their affair. At that moment he spotted a white horse being led by a tall woman emerging from the small clearing. It was presumably the same horse he had seen from the corner of his eye.

‘Can you hear me this time?’ came a woman’s voice. She was standing at the far side of the horse, and as she spoke she removed her black riding cap and pulled something at the back of her neck to release a great rush of dark, glossy hair that fell over her shoulders. She stepped forward, and he heard the clicking of spurs on her riding boots. Pamela had taught him never to wear them; his horse should work with him through trust rather than fear. It took him a moment to recognize the woman from the white sports car. Her name came to him: Eugenie.

‘Yes, I hear you,’ he said, stopping. ‘But I didn’t know you’d spoken before. Can I help?’

‘My horse started limping. I think maybe he has something caught in his shoe.’ She spoke like a Parisian but there was some regional accent underneath it that he couldn’t identify, perhaps Alsace or somewhere near the Swiss border. Without the sunglasses, her eyes were dark brown. With her raven-black hair he’d have expected an olive complexion, something of the south. Instead she had the light skin of a blonde.

Bruno dismounted, tying Hector’s reins loosely around the nearest tree, and fixing the leading rein to Victoria and Bess. The two mares ambled across to Eugenie’s horse, which whinnied in greeting. She looked lame, favouring a foreleg.

‘Do you know your horse well?’ he asked her when his horses were secure. ‘Have you looked at her foot?’

‘It’s only the second time I’ve ridden her and she won’t let me look at it.’

The horse didn’t look temperamental. A mare, she was smaller and looked a lot older than Hector. She seemed calm in the company of Bess and Victoria. Bruno approached her through them, trailing his hand across Bess’s flanks. The white mare let him stroke her nose and he began whispering to her as he’d seen Pamela do to a strange horse. Finally he knelt and felt the foreleg. There was no swelling so he picked up the foot to examine the shoe and found that it was hanging slightly loose, two of the nails gone and others on their way. He didn’t see how Eugenie could have ridden it without noticing it, or hearing it. He took a small all-purpose tool from the pouch on his belt and unfolded the pliers, pulled out the remaining nails and handed the woman the horseshoe.

‘I’d walk her home if I were you,’ he said. Some might have called Eugenie beautiful, her complexion a perfect ivory and her features classic. But there was a lack of animation or perhaps too much self-control in her face. He would like to see her laugh, or be excited by something. ‘And she’ll need to see a marechal before you ride her again.’

‘You know your horses, Monsieur le chef de police ,’ she said, making no move to leave nor to comfort her horse. ‘You must be an expert, from the speed you were going when you raced past me.’

‘I’m a beginner,’ he laughed. ‘I only started riding last year, but I’ve had a great teacher and a wonderful horse. This is Hector. He’s the expert, not me.’

He expected her to say, ‘Hello, Hector,’ or to make some friendly overture or even to thank him. Instead, after a brief pause to consider what he had said and while keeping her features immobile, she asked, ‘Where do I find this marechal ?’

He raised his eyebrows. Any horsewoman should know that. ‘In the phone book, under c for chevaux . There’s one in Sarlat and another in Bergerac, or try the stables at Meyrals. There’s an old stable hand called Victor who knows a lot more about horses and horseshoes than most blacksmiths.’

She gave neither acknowledgement nor thanks, and her face remained impassive. And again there was the pause before she spoke.

‘Is there any news about the woman in the boat? Has she been identified yet?’ she asked.

Bruno shrugged. ‘Not that I’ve heard. We’re waiting for the pathologist’s report. But she’s not on any of the lists of missing persons in this Departement .’

‘I thought you could identify everybody these days, with teeth and fingerprints and DNA.’

‘Sure, if you simply want to confirm someone’s identity and you have their dental records and the DNA of a relative. But if you have no reference to go on, as in this case, then it’s very slow and uncertain. If we’re lucky, her fingerprints may be on file somewhere. Otherwise, we may never identify her.’

‘So what you need would be a national data base of DNA and dentistry, then you could identify anyone.’

‘In theory, yes, if the computer program worked and if the dentists never misfiled their records and the courts didn’t condemn it as a breach of human rights.’ He spoke lightly, trying to be jocular, conscious of a slight sense of challenge in trying to provoke some life into her face. He did not succeed.

‘What about those markings on the body?’ she asked. ‘Perhaps they could help identify her.’

‘If they had been tattoos, you could be right. But they were temporary markings.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘You must have heard the radio, that business about Satanism.’

‘No, I didn’t hear the radio. But I talked to the reporter and said it seemed far-fetched. It doesn’t seem to have stopped him.’

‘You don’t take it seriously?’

‘Death is always serious, but I don’t know what the devil has to do with it.’

‘Your local priest sounded rather alarmed, according to what I heard on the radio. And he seemed to know what he was talking about.’

‘So he should. He’s a priest,’ Bruno said. ‘Getting alarmed about the devil is part of his job description.’

She considered this. ‘You mean like that line from Voltaire — “God will pardon me; it’s his profession.”’

Bruno smiled. ‘That sounds about right, but I didn’t know it came from Voltaire.’

‘These clever sayings usually do,’ she said with a sudden and unexpected smile. It felt to Bruno like a reward. ‘That’s why I always say Voltaire when I don’t really know.’ She fell silent, but the smile lingered on her lips and she waited, as if expecting him to say something.

‘Are you living down here or just visiting?’ he asked. He remembered that Foucher had called her his partner. She wore no wedding ring, just a curiously shaped black band in some dull metal that seemed to curl sinuously up her index finger like a tiny snake. Her eyes followed his glance and she shifted her grip on her horse’s bridle.

‘Visiting, but I might end up staying some time,’ she said. Again there was that short pause, as if waiting for a translation, before her reply.

‘The Mayor told me about the plans for a holiday village,’ he said, aware that his probing was clumsy and that she’d realize he was simply trying to prolong the conversation. ‘That’s a big piece of land to put together.’

She said nothing, didn’t even shrug. ‘I must be getting back. Among other things, there’s an old lady I have to look after.’

Bruno’s thoughts went back to his phone conversation with Pamela. Perhaps this woman would know something useful about caring for the elderly.