Martin Walker: The Devil's Cave

‘By the way, Doc,’ Bruno said. ‘I thought Fabiola was on duty today.’

‘She said she had something to attend to. I got the impression it was some private patient.’

‘That’s not like her,’ Bruno said. ‘She’s always been critical of private practice. Medicine for the people, you know Fabiola.’

‘I know, that’s why she likes working at the clinic,’ said Gelletreau. ‘Odd, isn’t it? Maybe she needs the money. She was saying she needed a new car.’

He stood, looking at Bruno, as if there was more to be said but he didn’t know how to say it. Bruno felt the same way but decided to take the plunge.

‘This funny stuff as you call it, the pentagram and black candles,’ Bruno said, still not quite sure how to voice the suspicion in his mind. ‘Does it look like she was dabbling in black magic, some kind of Satanism?’

‘Exactly that,’ said Gelletreau, nodding. ‘It’s been on my mind. When I get home I’ve got an old book somewhere on historic legends that refers to it. Maybe you might want to ask Father Sentout about it; Satanism has been an interest of his for years. It makes me wonder whether I ought to join Antoine in a quick Ricard and one of those disgusting cigarettes of his. In fact, as your doctor I’m tempted to prescribe a stiff drink for you as well. If this death has something to do with black magic then I suspect you’re going to need it.’

Back in his office at the Mairie , Bruno settled down at his desk to study the handwritten letter that had arrived in his mail. All in capitals, it was one of the anonymous denunciations that regularly came to him and many other policemen in France. He’d always blamed the war years of the Vichy regime for encouraging the practice, until he read a book on the history of the French Revolution which quoted extensively from the anonymous letters sent to the Committee of Public Safety in the 1790s that had condemned thousands of people to the guillotine. Most of the ones Bruno received denounced people for sexual immorality, which he ignored, or for tax evasion or working on the black market, which he was obliged to investigate. This one at least was written in black ink, rather than the green or violet that usually recounted sins of adultery. But its tenor was disturbing, denouncing a farmer whom Bruno knew only slightly for beating his wife.

It was a crime he detested, but one that frequently complicated his life. Most magistrates were reluctant to press charges, even when the medical evidence was clear, because the wives so often refused to testify against their husbands. The old ways were strong in St Denis, particularly on the more remote farms, and Bruno had more than once heard mutterings in the bars and cafes about a nagging wife deserving a clip around the ear. And there’d always be some old codger ready to spout the doggerel:

‘ A dog, a wife, a walnut tree,

The more you beat them, the better they’ll be. ’

Bruno’s predecessor, Joe, had a rough and ready way with domestic violence. He’d ignore the occasional slap or punch on a Saturday night after drink had been taken. But if he knew that the beating was a regular occurrence, or above all if the children were also beaten, then Joe would go to the court of public opinion, letting it be known in the bars that a situation was getting out of hand. When a consensus developed, Joe and a couple of his chums from the rugby team would go out to the farm, take the offending husband behind the barn and treat him to some of his own medicine. Bruno gave a wry smile at the recollection that Joe had called it his own version of community policing. He claimed it was very effective. Maybe it was, but it was not the kind of rough justice that policemen could apply these days, and it was not Bruno’s way.

He turned back to the letter. The farmer, a taciturn and hard-faced man who scraped some kind of living from the poor tract of upland and hillside that he had inherited from his father, was named Louis Junot. His wife came from somewhere in the north, where Junot had met her while doing his military service. They had a daughter, Francette, whom Bruno remembered from his tennis classes. She had been a promising player, fast around the court and with a good eye for the ball, but not a girl to spend much time at practice. Once she entered her teens Francette had spent more time eyeing the boys than working at her tennis. She had begun wearing make-up at an early age, but Bruno remembered seeing her scrub it off when she boarded the bus that took her up the hill towards home. She had left school early and worked at the checkout of the local supermarket and as far as Bruno knew she still lived at home. Perhaps he should start with her.

On his desk phone was a recorded message from Delaron, who knew that a formal query on Bruno’s phone at the Mairie would have to be answered.

Bruno listened to Delaron’s chirpy voice telling him that the newspaper was very interested in his photos of the dead woman in the boat, but they would make sure it was decent enough for a family newspaper. Could Bruno confirm in time for his deadline that the woman was dead, that she had been murdered and that it was looking like a case of ritual Satanist killing?

‘ Merde ,’ Bruno muttered to himself, as Delaron went on to say that Father Sentout had already said that the corpse ‘carried all the hallmarks of a Satanist outrage’.

‘ Putain de merde ,’ Bruno muttered. The Mayor was not going to like this and Father Sentout should have known better. Bruno picked up the phone and rang Delaron to tell him that all inquiries should go to the official police spokesman in Perigueux. Bruno could confirm only that the woman was dead, but there was no visible cause of death and it was not even yet decided that the death was suspicious. Off the record, the doctor reckoned it was suicide. What about the Satanism? Delaron demanded. Any reference to Satanism was pure speculation, Bruno told him. He put the phone down and went to warn the Mayor.

Gerard Mangin had been the Mayor of St Denis for over twenty years. He had hired Bruno as town policeman and educated him, a former soldier still battered in mind and body from his time in the Balkans, in the traditional and peaceful ways of St Denis. Bruno revered him as a Mayor, loved him as a father, but had few illusions about the Mayor’s ruthless pursuit of what he saw as the interests of St Denis. The most important, of course, was that Gerard Mangin should remain as Mayor.

‘Ah, Bruno, I have excellent news,’ the Mayor said, as Bruno knocked and entered the light-filled room with its view over the Vezere. The Mayor laid down the fountain pen that he still used for all his business, refusing any suggestion that he adopt a computer. He closed the large notebook in which he was writing the history of the town and opened a manila file with a green ribbon attached to its corner. Green meant a project that the Mayor supported.

‘I think I mentioned this proposal for a holiday village, very exclusive, golf course attached, up the river toward Montignac. A big investment group based in Paris, impeccable credentials,’ the Mayor said, looking pleased with himself. ‘It’s at the very edge of our commune and some of the land will be in two other communes, but it looks like we’ll get the bulk of the taxes. Of course, we’ll have to put sewers in and widen the river road, but we’ll get our money back in a few years and then it’s all income. And our people will get the building and landscape work, and the maintenance and cleaning jobs, and a couple of hundred wealthy new customers for our restaurants.’

Much of the Mayor’s time was spent finding jobs for St Denis, or trying to save jobs that were threatened, or securing grants from Brussels and Paris for training and retraining schemes. He had always been obsessed with finding jobs for the young people who left for the universities of Bordeaux and Toulouse and never came back, but the global recession had made it more urgent. That St Denis flourished, when so many other French country towns were shrinking and dying as the populations aged, was testimony to his efforts and to his political connections. Bruno supported the Mayor’s plans in general, but tended to express only polite interest in the particular projects. He was thinking that an affluent holiday village with many of the homes empty throughout the year would be a magnet for burglars, which would be his problem, even though the village was at the far end of the commune, ten kilometres from St Denis. But he thought he’d better sound supportive.