Martin Walker: The Devil's Cave

‘The damn fool broke my line,’ said Patrice, spitting in disgust. The punt gathered speed as it moved into the deeper current and headed for the bridge. ‘That’s my best hook gone and no time to tie another. There’s no more I can do for you, Bruno.’

Bruno asked Dr Gelletreau to follow them as he and Antoine drove separately to Antoine’s campground with its small beach on the river. Bruno passed through the ornate gateway where two stone lions guarded the portal. He crossed the field where the gaily coloured jumps for the gymkhana had already been put in place. Four tents showed the campground’s season had begun. He parked and headed across the open terrace to the wooden chalet where Antoine kept his canoe paddles and life jackets, and where he cooked omelettes and sausages for his guests. Bruno collected a couple of paddles and handed Antoine a life jacket as soon as the boatman joined him. But Antoine was heading for the bar. A fresh Gitane smouldered on his lower lip and he scratched his head through thick grey hair as he pushed aside the pile of paper that comprised his accounts and reached for a bottle of Ricard.

‘We’ve got some time,’ Antoine said. ‘Another ten, fifteen minutes before it drifts down here. Want a drink?’ He pointed to the bottle and opened his fridge to pull out a wine bottle filled with chilled water. His eyes squinted against the smoke. He looked an unlikely candidate to sing the role of Jesus, but nobody in St Denis could match his powerful voice.

‘Too early for me, thanks,’ said Bruno. ‘But maybe I’ll take an orange juice.’

‘Suit yourself,’ said Antoine, adding water to his anis and savouring his first drink of the day. Just as well there were no breathalysers on the river, Bruno thought.

‘Did you see that tattoo?’ he asked.

‘Is that what it was?’ Antoine shrugged. ‘I couldn’t rightly make it out. Looked like something mathematical, triangles maybe. I only caught a glimpse when that fool sent the punt rocking. I thought for a minute he might have been trying to sink it.’

‘I suppose he was just trying to help,’ Bruno said. ‘He looked a bit familiar but I can’t recall where I’ve seen him before.’

‘I’d have remembered that girl,’ Antoine said with a wink. ‘Legs all the way up to her shoulders. Nice car, too.’ He finished his drink and led the way to the small beach, past the trailer whose racks were already filled with canoes. He would pile his clients into his battered Renault Espace and then attach the trailer to tow the canoes to Les Eyzies or St Leon or even as far as Montignac, where they could paddle downstream with the current. A row of red canoes had been turned upside down and placed just above the beach. A hose and brush suggested Antoine had been washing away the dust of storage to prepare them for the new season.

‘Get that one launched,’ he said, pointing to the largest canoe, one that could easily fit half a dozen people. It was made of a tough and rubberized red plastic that could survive repeated scrapings over the pebbles of the shallows. It looked almost unsinkable, with big flotation chambers at bow and stern and others serving as seats in the middle. ‘I’ll get some rope and a hook to tow the thing in.’

Bruno took off his boots and socks, his uniform tunic and trousers, put on a life jacket and hauled the canoe down from the beach to the shallows. Motorboats were forbidden on the river and it was too narrow for sailboats, so canoes were the only option. Some fishermen carried battery-driven electric motors for small outboards that could just about take them upstream when the currents weren’t too strong. The sand that Antoine shipped in every spring to cover the mud of his beach was still fresh and felt pleasantly cool under Bruno’s feet, but the river itself was cold. It could not have been a pleasant dip for the young man with the sports car.

Antoine fixed one end of his rope to a bracket on the bow and Bruno took the rear of the canoe so Antoine could handle the hook. They pushed the canoe knee-deep before clambering in. The current here was quite strong and they had to paddle steadily just to stay near the beach. Antoine dug his paddle deep and set a brisk rhythm to take the canoe upstream, explaining that he’d need some time to fix the tow and didn’t want to drift back. The punt had looked close to sinking anyway. It must have been forty years since anybody had punts on this river, so it would be old wood. Already waterlogged, it could slip beneath the surface at any time.

As the crow flies, they were no more than a few hundred yards from St Denis. But from Montignac upstream down to Limeuil below them, where their river flowed into the bigger Dordogne, the Vezere took a series of long oxbow bends as it meandered across the fertile valley. These were the water meadows that used to flood each springtime and autumn when the river rose, creating the vast wetlands that had attracted the ducks and geese that had made this region a paradise for hunters and for the foie gras they produced. Now the river had been largely tamed but the waterfowl had stayed. And with each springtime flood, the river carved more deeply into the banks on the outside of each bend so the loops became larger ever year.

‘There they are again,’ said Antoine, pointing at the entrance to his campsite where the white sports car was turning in from the road, Dr Gelletreau’s big old Citroen lumbering along behind. The girl waved. ‘Determined bugger, ain’t he? And with that car, I don’t think he’s coming here looking for a place to pitch a tent.’

Bruno briefly lifted a paddle in acknowledgement of the girl’s wave as the car disappeared behind the hedge and headed for the parking area. He tried to match Antoine’s experienced strokes as they drove the canoe forward against the river’s flow. On any other occasion, it would have been a pleasant excursion, the sun dappling the water as it filtered through the budding leaves of the trees along each bank. To their left loomed the high white limestone cliffs that dotted the valley with caves. Many were filled with paintings, testaments to the artistic skills of the people who had lived here tens of thousands of years ago. Others still showed traces of the medieval fortifications where men and women had taken refuge against the marauding English.

‘There it is,’ called Antoine, not turning round, but kneeling up in the bow and picking up the coil of rope he had prepared. ‘Just keep us going straight and try to bring her alongside.’

There was little of the punt to be seen as it drifted sluggishly towards them, maybe an inch or two of freeboard above the water. Antoine stretched out an arm as the punt approached, caught hold of the side and muttered, ‘The good Lord preserve us,’ as he looked at the woman within. A bird that had been perched, pecking, inside the punt flew away. When he caught the rusty iron ring at the stern of the punt, he deftly threaded his rope through it and tied a quick knot.

‘That’ll do,’ he said. ‘She’s too sodden for a tow, we might drag her under. We’ll just drift down to the beach and guide her in.’

The woman was almost awash, the water in the punt lapping over her legs, pubis and ears so that only her breasts, face and feet were visible. Her fair hair floated behind her head and her hands trembled in the water, the fingers seeming to move in the eddies of water almost as if she were waving. The bird had been at her left eye. The other stared sightlessly at the sky, but it was evident she had been an attractive woman, with good skin and fine features. Her nose and chin were well shaped and her cheekbones prominent. Bruno caught a whiff of something burned and also something oily, it might have been paraffin. An empty bottle of vodka stirred at her side.