Martin Walker - The Crowded Grave

“A poem for every occasion,” Bruno said, smiling.

She reached across and touched his hand. She sat straight up, swiftly changing her mood as if by an act of will. “And I recognize this cheese, it’s the one your friend makes.”

“Stephane’s Tomme d’Audrix, and some mache from my garden to go with it.”

“I haven’t eaten like this since last summer. In the hospital, it kept me going, remembering dishes you made.” She paused. “I have to go back in a couple of months. They want to use plastic surgery to make my thigh look better. I can’t stand looking at it.”

Bruno nodded, trying to understand. “Coffee?” he asked.

“Yes, and I’ll have one of my rare cigarettes, if you don’t mind.” He gestured permission and she lit a Royale filter. He rose and went to the dresser, opened the drawer and pulled out an ashtray and a half-empty pack of the same brand and put them on the table beside her.

“I found the cigarettes after you left. There were moments when I was even tempted to smoke one.” He took the plates into the kitchen. He had barely started to make coffee when he heard her come in behind him and say his name softly.

He turned, and she raised one side of her skirt. She unhooked her stocking from the garter and rolled it down to her knee to reveal the savage crimson scar and the crater in her flesh, the thigh markedly thinner than the other as if the muscles had withered.

“Other than doctors and nurses, you’re the only one who has seen this,” she said, a catch in her voice that was almost a sob and an appeal in her eyes that he could not ignore. Her other hand reached out to him. “Oh, Bruno…”

Instinctively, he knelt swiftly and kissed the scar, the marks of the stitches still obvious. His hand gently stroked the side of her thigh, and he could feel under his fingers the parallel scar of the exit wound on the back of her leg. He felt her hand touch the back of his head, her fingers curling in his hair. She was whispering his name. He rose, and saw that her eyes were closed and her lips were trembling. Very softly, he kissed them, picked her up in his arms and carried her to his bed, aware only of her heart beating fast against him and the passion of her mouth against his own.

He had woken alone. She had left just before midnight, leaving him to his tousled bed and memories of her rolling the stocking back up and fastening it again to the garter belt so that all he saw was the whiteness of her flesh, the darkness of her eyes and nipples and the glorious geometry of black and white, pubis and stockings, that stretched so invitingly below her trim waist. Before he slept, he had taken down the Prevert and read again.

And now with Gigi trailing along behind, he was astride Hector, glowing from the gallop that his horse had unleashed along the ridge, as if Hector understood Bruno’s strange, almost magical mood of contentment and energy, the pistol he so seldom wore now thudding a tattoo against his hip. Descending to lift Gigi onto his horse’s back once more, Bruno let Hector again pick his way across the ford at the river. He waved a greeting to the sergeant from the CRS who sat high on the back of one of Julien’s mares, his machine pistol braced on his thigh.

“We just got confirmation,” the sergeant said, as Bruno let Gigi down to earth again. “The meeting’s being shifted here. They’re putting up the wind sock and painting the big H for the helicopter now. They found a crude bomb in the conference room, behind some new plasterboard. Sticks of dynamite and a digital timer, they tell me. A good job we got that Semtex before the terrorists did.”

How the hell could that have been done, and by whom? Bruno tried to remember the security arrangements for the chateau. Carlos and Isabelle had shared the responsibility, but the patrols were mounted by gendarmes from Perigueux. They’d all have some explaining to do. The brigadier would have people tearing apart every wall to see what else may have been planted. So far as Bruno knew, only he and the brigadier were aware of the plan to shift the site until the security teams started redeploying last night, so the Domaine should be secure.

Bruno nodded to the sergeant and spurred forward to the gardens behind the Domaine, Gigi at his heels. The schedule called for the two ministers to meet at the Bordeaux airport and then to take two helicopters on the forty-minute ride to St. Denis. He checked his watch. They should be arriving in not much more than an hour. He wondered if Isabelle would be told to stay back at the chateau to clear up the mess torn by the security breach, or if the brigadier would want her here. His heart gave a gentle jolt at the thought of seeing her again so soon, and he felt a smile come to his face as he turned into the stable yard. It was empty except for two black-clad and heavily armed mobiles from the gendarmes. He reined in at their challenge and pointed to the brigadier’s metal badge on his lapel. They asked him to dismount and show his special security pass with his photo. Behind them a sizable pile of horse manure steamed just by the stable door, a pitchfork stuck into it. Gigi ambled up to investigate and then to cock his leg against it. They’d better get that cleared away before the choppers landed.

“Anybody else inside?” he asked, as the gendarmes saluted and returned his pass after checking it against a very short list of names.

“The brigadier and the female inspector and a Spanish advance team,” he was told. “Caterers are on their way, under armed escort. They’ve already been checked.”

Bruno put Hector into the stable on a loose rein and left Gigi there in the stall. Once he checked in with the brigadier, he wanted to ride the perimeter and check the patrols. That was the work he knew, rather than the internal security, and he wanted all the patrolling troops to see him and learn to recognize him before the choppers landed and they went on hair-trigger alert.

In the main salon of the hotel all seemed chaos. The brigadier glared at him and nodded while talking fiercely into one phone. Isabelle had a hand over one ear and a satellite phone in the other. Carlos was shouting in Spanish into a third, two armed and serious-looking aides flanking him. All wore the same enamel badge that the brigadier had given to Bruno. Isabelle turned and her eyes seemed to flash as she saw him. Her cane leaned against the conference table. Carlos ignored him. Two CRS men stood in the lobby by the far entrance door, another on the landing of the broad staircase and another by the door that led down to the vast wine cellars. Two more black-clad men wearing the enamel security badge and Spanish flags on their sleeves were carrying submachine guns so futuristic that Bruno had never seen one before.

“You heard about the security breach?” the brigadier called across to him, snapping shut his phone. Bruno saluted, an automatic reaction in this militarized atmosphere. “Yes, sir.”

“Checked the perimeter patrols yet?”

“Just the riverbank so far, sir. Can I continue?”

The brigadier waved approval, and with a final glance at Isabelle Bruno headed back to the stables, showed his pass again and mounted Hector. The manure pile was still there. He left at a walk, Gigi trotting behind, and then Bruno urged Hector into a trot as he rode up the main lane beside the winery that led to the largest vineyard and to the figure of a mounted man at the far end of the vines. Farther up the lane was a parked jeep with two paratroopers inside. He slowed as he approached and held his pass at the ready. They checked him and waved him on between the vines where the other horseman was approaching.

“We should never have given up the horses,” said the major, grinning at the sight of the basset hound as Bruno rode up beside him so they could shake hands.