Martin Walker - The Devil's Cave

‘Not far,’ she said vaguely. She dug her heels into her horse’s sides and set off down the bridle path at a pace slightly too fast for the track and the overhanging branches. He held Hector on a tight rein as he followed, knowing his horse always preferred to take the lead but this trail was too narrow for him to overtake.

At the cave, not yet open for the tourist season, her pale face was flushed and her eyes shining from the speed of her ride. He pointed across the car park to the path that led to the hunting trail and she took off once more, bending over her horse’s mane to avoid low branches. He followed at a slightly slower pace, aware of Hector’s impatience beneath him. He murmured reassurance to his horse, telling Hector he’d have his chance on the wide hunters’ trail. Bruno assumed Eugenie would stop at the bottom of the trail, uncertain which path to take. But she turned the correct way without hesitation and was twenty metres ahead by the time Bruno emerged from the trees.

For Hector, the sight of the other horse in front on the wide track was a challenge and Bruno felt the kick that signalled the animal’s lengthening stride. Hector’s neck stretched out and Bruno felt the landscape flash by as he began to gain steadily on Eugenie. Bruno hadn’t noticed the riding crop until she suddenly began to use it to drive her horse on, determined to turn the ride into a race. If that was what she wanted, thought Bruno, she hadn’t reckoned with Hector’s strength and eagerness to lead. Bruno knew Hector was still running well within himself, easily able to step up into a higher gear if need be.

Eugenie’s mare was beginning to labour as the track climbed. Specks of foam were flying back behind as Eugenie rose in the saddle to work her crop. His respect for her horsemanship went down a notch. He’d been taught never to treat a horse in such a way.

The brown gash in the green hillside that was the quarry still lay five hundred metres ahead as Hector drew level and then almost effortlessly stepped up his pace to ease into the lead. With a rhythm so smooth Bruno felt he could carry a full wine glass without spilling a drop, Hector galloped on, his breathing easy and not a fleck of foam at his muzzle. The trees on his right gave way to wooden fences and parkland. A car park and the road loomed ahead. Hector slowed his pace, knowing that his run was ending, and Bruno sat back in the saddle and turned to see Eugenie lumbering up at a heavy canter, at least fifty metres behind. Bruno was patting Hector and telling him what a fine horse he was when she finally drew rein alongside.

‘Is that horse of yours for sale?’ she asked.

‘Never.’ He shook his head in emphasis.

‘Well, thanks for the run anyway, and guiding us up that track.’ She dismounted, took a silk scarf from around her neck and used it to wipe her mare’s muzzle, murmuring to her and stroking her neck to thank her for the ride. She turned and looked up at Bruno. ‘I can find my way back from here.’

‘Very well,’ he said, not moving. ‘The track to Les Eyzies is marked but I’d take it easy if I were you. Your horse is blown.’

Again came that pause before she replied. ‘Yes, I know, and she’ll need a good rubdown when I get her back. But it was worth it for that gallop.’

Bruno turned Hector’s head to take the high road back to the stables at Pamela’s house.

‘I was told that you’re an important man in these parts,’ she called as he faced away from her. ‘You could help our project or hinder it. Is that true?’

He turned in the saddle and looked down at her, disconcerted by her remark. ‘I’m not sure what you’re asking. I’m just a village policeman. I’m not influential, and even if I were, your project is not my business. It’s for the council to approve or not.’

‘That’s not quite what I heard,’ she insisted. ‘I ought to be lobbying you for our project, but I think I’d rather just get to know you.’

‘Where do you live?’ he asked, wondering what she meant by that.

‘Where I can, while making the money to live where I wish,’ she said. There was neither humour nor coquetry in her voice, simply a statement of fact.

‘When you say our project,’ he asked, ‘do you mean you and Foucher, or you and the Count?’

He felt her scrutinize him coolly before she turned and swung back into the saddle.

‘The Count has the money and Foucher does the paperwork but the idea for the holiday village was mine,’ she said. ‘I have a share of the project, probably less than I deserve. But I’m still determined to make it work.’

Her horse plodded wearily away, and as he watched her leave Bruno pondered what business his friend the Baron might have in this project. He was the main landowner in the commune, so it would probably be some land that they needed, and once he realized they needed it he’d charge them a pretty price. It could even be the Baron’s old dream of having a golf course nearby, rather than having to drive to Siorac or Perigueux whenever he wanted a round. Bruno resolved that he’d simply ask his friend over a quiet drink; the Baron was not much of a man for secrets.

It was the darker end of twilight by the time he got back to the stables at Pamela’s house. It was becoming tiresome, this daily commute between his own place and hers. When she’d first flown off to Edinburgh to take care of her mother, they had both assumed she’d be away for only a few days and he’d been happy to agree to move into her place to take care of the horses, her Bess and Victoria as well as his own Hector. But the moving back and forth was becoming a logistical nightmare as he ran short of clean shirts and underwear and made late-night runs to look after his chickens.

A light flared in the stable yard as the door to Fabiola’s gite opened and the young doctor stood silhouetted in its frame.

‘ Bonsoir , Bruno. Have you eaten?’ she called.

He walked across, kissed her in greeting and confessed that he was starving and had been thinking about getting a pizza or a croque-monsieur from Ivan’s bistro in town.

‘I’m cooking and I made enough for two,’ she said. ‘Come in.’

‘Your mother’s risotto again?’ he asked, teasing. Fabiola was perversely proud of her limited cooking skills, and boasted that she had learned only one dish from her mother.

‘No, my father’s fondue, it’s the best comfort food I know,’ she said. Fabiola had a complicated family. Her mother was half Italian and half French, and her father was half French and half Italian-Swiss. Hence the fondue.

‘It’s good to see you,’ he said, beaming at her. ‘I thought you’d been avoiding me for some reason.’

‘No, I’m not avoiding you,’ she said, leading the way into the kitchen. Other than her books, her open laptop and a large framed photograph of a village in a valley overwhelmed by mountains, the house looked exactly as it had when Pamela was renting it out in the summer. ‘I’m avoiding a question you want to ask me about private patients and I don’t intend to answer. So having got that out of the way, how are you?’

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘A bit worried about Madame Junot and trying to trace the identity of this dead woman we fished out of the river. And I spoke to Pamela. She’s planning on coming back, but not for long, just to see whether she can find some care for her mother here in St Denis.’

Fabiola nodded, some of her dark hair falling from the loose bun in which she usually kept it. She pushed the lock behind her ear and began to open a bottle of white wine. Seeing Bruno trying to look at the label, she grinned at him and held up the bottle; one of his favourites, a Bergerac Sec from Clos d’Yvigne.

‘I know. Pamela rang me and asked what I thought and I told her it wasn’t a good idea. I’ve seen good people turn into depressives when they start taking care of a parent who’s become a vegetable. From what the doctor says, her mother can only get worse.’