Martin Walker - The Devil's Cave

The Mayor cleared his throat. ‘Thank you, Father, for that very interesting historical perspective, but I’m not sure the intrigues of the court of Louis XIV are our particular concern. I think it’s clear that we’re probably dealing with the suicide of an unbalanced woman, and that is the line we should all take, including you, Father, in the event of further inquiries from the media.’

‘Just one more thing, Monsieur le Maire ,’ said Bruno, and went on to explain the results of his search of the river. ‘We have three likely spots for the launch of the boat and a couple of possibles. I’ll be visiting each of them from the land side with a detective from the staff of Commissaire Jalipeau of the Police Nationale .’

Bruno described the lagoon by the Red Chateau, a busy boathouse and landing dock near Les Eyzies and a small creek with a crumbling landing stage below the Maison-Forte of Reignac.

‘The Red Countess,’ said the Mayor, sitting back with a wistful smile on his face. ‘I haven’t heard that name in years. Whatever became of her? She must be well into her eighties.’

‘Not dead, that’s for sure,’ said Montsouris. ‘She’d have had a hell of a funeral and I’d have heard about it. The Party loved her. Merde , I’d have gone up to Paris for that and we’d have had mourning on all the trains.’

‘De Gaulle called her a heroine of France, you remember?’ said the Mayor. ‘It was after she had that illegitimate child by some dead Resistance hero. Didn’t they make a film about her?’

‘It was called The Red Countess ,’ said Louis Fouton, a retired schoolteacher who was the oldest man at the table. ‘I saw it when I was a boy and I remember a lot of misty close-ups and German soldiers shouting “ Achtung ” and “ Donner und Blitzen ” as we clever French ran rings round them. An escaped Russian prisoner-of-war played the hero. I remember the photos of the Red Countess in the Kremlin when she went for the Moscow premiere.’

‘She used to lead those demonstrations against our war in Indo-China back in the Fifties, and then she supported the Algerian independence movement,’ said the Mayor.

‘She never saw a national liberation movement she didn’t like,’ said Fouton, filling his old pipe. In respect for his age, he was the last person allowed to smoke inside the council chamber. ‘And she never saw a handsome man she didn’t appreciate.’

‘She’s a descendant, you know, of Madame de Montespan,’ Father Sentout said into the silence as the men around the table searched their memories for half-remembered stories that explained the Countess’s fame.

‘The Red Countess?’ scoffed Montsouris. ‘ Va t’en foutre. ’

‘No, she’s descended from Montespan and one of the illegitimate children of Louis XIV,’ the priest insisted. ‘I remember looking into it. The chateau was one of the gifts from the king after he took her back in defiance of the Church.’

‘If she’s still alive, where is she?’ the Mayor asked. ‘If she were living down here, I imagine we’d know about it.’

‘She’s mainly lived in Paris. There’s a younger sister who’s here from time to time,’ said Father Sentout. ‘I was called once to say Mass in the private family chapel. It’s an impressive place, a bit run down.’

‘I presume there’s a housekeeper, someone to answer the door when I make inquiries,’ Bruno said.

‘It’s not in our commune so I don’t know if they pay the taxe d’habitation but we can find out,’ said the Mayor. He stood up, signalling that the meeting was over. ‘And remember, gentlemen, this is a tragic suicide by a disturbed woman, probably under the influence of drugs, and we’ll have no more speculation about devil worship or long-dead royal mistresses, if you please.’

Bruno usually took Hector on a different route for his evening ride. Today, almost without thinking, he found himself once again cantering into the long straight track through the heart of the forest in the hope of another encounter with the mysterious Eugenie. Even as the thought took shape, a familiar figure on a white horse emerged, silhouetted against the evening light, into the gap between the trees at the far end of the trail. He felt a boyish urge to impress, to gallop towards her and then haul Hector to a magnificent halt, up on his hind legs and neighing like a warhorse, front hoofs pawing at the air. Bruno repressed the temptation, reminding himself that he was not that good a horseman and he’d look ridiculous if he fell off. Instead, he kept the eager Hector to a stately trot, which gave him plenty of time to consider this meeting and his own motives.

He found Eugenie to be a strikingly attractive woman. He was lonely, he told himself, and feeling bruised. Pamela had been away in Scotland this past month. Isabelle, the fiery police inspector, had such a grip upon him that she could entice him into her arms almost at whim. But she was back in Paris, on her fast-track career on the staff of the Minister of the Interior. A wonderful summer and a love affair that seemed to consume them both had been followed by one truncated weekend together and then one solitary but passionate night.

Why do I always fall for women who would never be satisfied with the simple life I offer? he asked himself. But Bruno knew his own nature well enough to supply the answer. The problem was not the women; it was him. The women who appealed to him were independent, ambitious and determined to build a life on their own terms. Family life and children were not high on their priorities, although Bruno felt them becoming steadily more important to him.

‘Do you always ride this way?’ Eugenie asked when he drew rein. Hector ambled slowly towards the white mare and the two horses nuzzled one another with politeness. She was dressed, he saw with surprise, rather like him, in jeans and a blue denim shirt. He was wearing his police uniform sweater over the shirt against the expected evening chill; she had a dark blue sweater tied around her waist.

‘Not always,’ he replied. ‘But Hector tends to turn this way if I let him.’ He had been aware of her eyes on him as he had trotted up the forest ride.

‘I see you got your horse shoed,’ he went on.

‘I came back this way in the hope that I’d see you. I wanted to thank you. I called the stables at Meyrals and Victor took care of it, the man you recommended. He’s a sweet old man and he gave me a map of the bridle trails.’ She tapped her pocket.

A small alarm bell tinkled somewhere at the back of Bruno’s head. If she was staying at a place where horses were already installed, they would have their own arrangements for a farrier. If she had hired a horse herself for the duration of her stay, it would have come from a stables that could take care of matters like shoeing. She should have had no need of his advice.

‘Which way are you heading?’ he asked. She paused before replying, much as she had the previous evening, in a calculated way that put him on edge, awaiting her response.

‘I was going to ask you for suggestions back to the ford at Mauzac or the bridge above Les Eyzies. I know my way from there.’

‘And where have you ridden from today?’ he asked. He found the stillness in her face strangely fascinating.

‘From the stables at Meyrals. A friend dropped me off there when Victor called to say my horse was ready.’

‘From here there’s a bridle path through the woods to the big cave where all the tourist coaches go, you know the one?’

‘You mean the one they call the Devil’s Cave, with the stalagmites and the jazz concerts?’

He nodded. ‘That’s the old name. We usually call it the Gouffre de Colombac, which the management thought was better for the tourists. After the cave there’s a hunting trail where you can canter that takes you to the quarry at Campagne and to the right of the entrance there’s a bridle path signposted to Les Eyzies. Do you have far to go from there?’