Martin Walker: The Devil's Cave

‘But even if the Count wanted Athenais dead, he also needed her body,’ the Procureur had objected. ‘Without it, he could not have inherited.’

‘The Count wasn’t there. He was with me that night. Foucher called him, panicking, and we got up and looked out of the window and saw the fire. The Count left in his car but then he had to drive to the bridge to cross the river. I dressed and went down to the river and saw the boat drifting away but the Count must have still been on the road. I know he was furious when I saw him the next day.’

Bruno knew they might never be sure of the full truth. But the conclusion was that Eugenie had killed Athenais and then she and Foucher had put her body in the boat to dispose of it by fire. And then Foucher had tried to sink it or to recover the body when it floated to the bridge at St Denis.

‘Remember,’ Beatrice had concluded, ‘Athenais, Foucher and Eugenie were all stuffing themselves with coke.’

‘That’s speculation,’ the lawyer had said, and ended the interrogation. The Procureur was still deciding whether to charge her with withholding evidence and obstruction of justice.

At this second funeral, Beatrice was dressed in the same black silk and veil and standing close beside the Baron. Had the Baron’s broken arm not been in a sling, Bruno suspected she’d have had her hand resting possessively on it. But they had not arrived here together. Bruno was aware Beatrice had suggested the Baron buy the Auberge St Philippon from the Red Countess. But the Baron knew as well as Bruno that there would be no more Defence Ministry events to boost the revenues. Maybe some professional hotelier could make a success of it, once the scandal had died down.

Beatrice was a survivor, Bruno thought. If she couldn’t attach herself to the Baron, she’d find someone else. She seemed to have acquired the white Jaguar and her lawyer was already demanding what Beatrice insisted was her share of the Auberge. She’d even talked to the Baron about reviving the project for the holiday village, but without the Count’s ability to raise money that idea seemed dead. All that was left were his debts, his hollow property companies and the profitable group of defence companies. Various bureaucrats and businessmen in Paris were arguing over their fate, now that the Lebanese arms deals had collapsed and Richard Abouard had taken advantage of his diplomatic immunity to return to Beirut. According to Isabelle, Abouard had stood to take a fat commission from steering the Lebanese contract to the Count.

The disposal of the estate would be up to the Red Countess, or more likely, up to Marie-Francoise. The bruises on her face were fading. The girl had been transformed from a Californian teenager to heiress of one of the grand families of France and the lands and chateaux that went with it. She seemed to have forged a close friendship with Fabiola in the days when her grandmother was being nursed out of the tranquillized fog in which she’d been kept. Fabiola had arranged for the girl to have intensive tuition in French. She’d also driven her to Bordeaux to arrange for Marie-Francoise’s transfer to the university there, and to persuade the best dentist in the city to shift his schedule and start repairing the damage Fouchet’s gun butt had done to the girl’s mouth.

The girl was a keen horsewoman, so Fabiola had brought her along on the evening rides. She had shyly avoiding looking at Bruno the first time, as if she remembered his stripping her in the cave to rub her dry and dress her in Sergeant Jules’s voluminous uniform. Balzac had overcome her hesitation, and the first time Bruno had seen her laugh was when she saw him tuck his puppy inside the binocular case as he mounted Hector. She now seemed fine, and had insisted Fabiola drive her to see Bruno’s burned house, where the builders were already at work to repair the damage. The insurance payment had been agreed in record time; the Mayor had made sure of that.

Bruno wondered what role her American father would play in the inheritance. He looked a decent man, standing behind his daughter and looking solemnly at the coffin of his estranged wife. He was a few years older than Bruno, and seemed to have forged a friendship with Gilles, with whom at least he could speak English. Bruno knew from Gilles that the man was a moderately successful scriptwriter, and he was already talking of reviving Athenais’s film project on her ancestor, the Royal Mistress. Somehow, Bruno could not think Marie-Francoise would want her mother to be commemorated that way.

‘ Requiem?ternam dona eis Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescant in pace ,’ intoned Father Sentout, and made the sign of the cross over the two coffins as they were lowered into the adjoining graves. One was covered in wreaths, but the Count’s bore just two: one from his grandmother and the other from Beatrice. ‘ Amen. ’

Marie-Francoise helped her great-grandmother to the edge of Athenais’s grave and gave her a small handful of soil to toss down before pushing the wheelchair away. She and the Red Countess ignored the second gap in the earth where only Heloise stayed to mourn. Pamela squeezed his good arm, the one without the bandages from the scraping of the gravel, and they joined the line following the wheelchair into the courtyard of the Red Chateau to pay their respects to the Countess.

‘You do seem to get into extra trouble when I’m not here to keep an eye on you,’ Pamela said.

‘That seems like an excellent reason why you should stay.’