The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

by Martin Walker

  ‘If we head across the field below and up the next ridge, we should be able to see the third house. There’s just the one gate in our way that I can see.’

  ‘Good, I could do with a canter and so could Bess. These woodland trails can get tiresome.’

  Bruno decided not to retort that Pamela had insisted on joining him, asserting that two people out riding would look much less suspicious than one and nobody would ever mistake her for a policewoman. She was probably right, but her presence made him nervous. There was an outside chance that this mission could be dangerous and a small voice in the back of Bruno’s head murmured that he was putting her at risk because of his own pride, his desire to show Yveline that with his friends and local knowledge he could achieve results that her Gendarmes would never match.

  He flicked at the reins and Hector walked on until the woods gave way to moorland. At the prospect of an open field Bruno’s horse tossed his head and moved smoothly into his stride. He seemed to have overcome his initial urge to race ahead of any other horse in sight, now sufficiently at ease with Pamela’s mares to accept the way Bess had moved alongside to keep pace.

  At the gate, Bruno looked back at the house before he dismounted, but the place remained still, no flicker of sunlight reflecting from some lens in one of the upstairs rooms, no empty bottles or rubbish bags outside the kitchen door. They rode on, making their way up the ridge and then skirting some woods and hedges before getting to the long arm of woodland that slanted down towards the next house on the list, promising good cover. There was no trail and the undergrowth was thick, so he went forward on foot, then pulled himself up on a couple of low-lying branches until he had a clear view of another isolated house. He checked carefully with the glasses but saw no sign of habitation. The barn was big enough to take a camper van but he couldn’t see its doors from this side. The dirt lane up to the house was thick with weeds that looked unbroken by any passing wheels. He walked back to Pamela and the horses.

  ‘You go on ahead along this ridge. There’s a firebreak through the forest that leads towards that hunters’ shack where we had a picnic, remember? I’ll meet you there. We can look at one more house and that’s it for today.’

  ‘I remember the hunters’ shack, but what are you going to do?’

  ‘I need to skirt round and take a look at the barn doors on the other side, see if they’re big enough for the van. Don’t worry, I won’t get close.’

  ‘If it’s safe enough for you, it’s safe enough for me. Besides, I’m getting bored. Let’s go.’

  Pamela put her heels into Bess’s side and cantered down the hill, gathering speed as she headed directly for the house. Quickly he mounted and chased after her until he was alongside and she could see him gesture to his left. He merely wanted to stay on the high ground, but she thought he was inviting her to race and bent forward in the saddle to urge Bess to go faster.

  ‘No, no,’ he shouted, feeling a sense of alarm as he tried to catch up with her to head her off. ‘Go left, up the slope.’

  Hector stretched out his neck and stepped up his pace, soon outpacing Pamela’s much older mare, but the gelding ignored Bruno’s efforts to stay in front so he could start nudging Pamela to the left. Hector raced on ahead and only then would consent to heed the rein, veer to the left and back up the hill. Bruno reined him in and risked a look behind, to see Pamela, whooping with joy at the thrill of her speed, continuing her gallop down the hill on a course that would take her within a hundred metres of the house.

  Bruno’s heart was in his mouth. If Murcoing was hiding inside, a burst from his Sten gun could be lethal at that range. Cursing, Bruno took Hector on a tight rein down the hill after her, conscious of the gun bouncing on his hip. He hoped it was covered by the hunting windcheater he wore as a riding jacket. Suddenly his horse jinked to one side, surprising him. Bruno looked down and saw Hector had sidestepped to avoid a fold in the ground, the grass scratched away at one side. Then he saw the holes, and realized they were riding into a rabbit burrow.

  Even as he began to shout a warning he heard a scream. He looked up to see Pamela tumbling through the air and her horse sprawling, one foreleg still trapped in one of the dozens of holes that rabbits had made.

  Skirting the burrows, he rode as fast as he dared to where Pamela lay, dreading what he might find as he jumped down from the saddle and bent over her still form, willing his ears not to hear the hideous screeching from her stricken mare. He felt the pulse at her neck and it was still beating. He didn’t dare to move her, fearing a broken neck. Her limbs were lying straight, and when he pinched the tendon above her knee her lower leg twitched. The spinal column was still functioning.

  He fumbled for his phone and rang Fabiola, who was supposed to be waiting for them with the horse van near the next house they were to check. Bruno told her what had happened and where he was.

  ‘I’m in the next valley but I’ll get there as soon as I can,’ she said. ‘Listen, Bruno, calm down. Call an ambulance right away. Above all don’t move Pamela.’

  Dully, feeling as if his mind was working slowly, he dialled 15, the number for medical emergencies, and found himself connected to Ahmed at the St Denis fire station, and was told they’d be there within fifteen minutes.

  ‘What’s that screaming?’ Ahmed asked, and when Bruno said it was her horse, he replied: ‘Shoot the poor bugger.’

  As he trudged back towards Bess, he realized that no sign of life had come from the house. Nobody could have ignored the dreadful noise that Bess was making, and his eyes filled with tears when he saw that Hector was standing over Pamela’s mare and tenderly nuzzling her, as if giving what comfort he could. Bess didn’t seem to notice. Her foreleg was still trapped inside the hole and the rest of her leg lay at a brutal angle. Her entire weight must have pivoted on the trapped hoof and snapped all the delicate bones. There was no way Bess’s leg could be saved, and she was an old horse.

  He didn’t give a damn if Murcoing and his sister were inside the house and alerted to flee as soon as they heard gunfire. He pulled his automatic from the holster on his belt and flicked off the safety catch. He slapped Hector’s rump to push him away, kneeled beside Bess and tried in vain to hold still her tossing head. He could barely think with the noise, but tried to remember the drill as he looked at this faithful horse on whom he had learned to ride. He drew an imaginary X from right ear to left eye, and right eye to left ear.

  Bess suddenly seemed to be looking at him and the thrashing of her head stopped for a moment. Aiming for the centre of the X he put the muzzle close to the mare’s forehead to avoid any chance of a ricochet and fired twice into the skull. That was the rule; if the first shot failed to penetrate the second one would. Bess’s great head jerked and then sank to the ground.

  The echo of the shots, so different from the sound of a shotgun, seemed to rock the air around him as he closed the safety catch, reholstered the weapon and went back to Pamela. He slipped the shotgun from his shoulder and took off his jacket to cover her. There was no movement on her face, no flickering of eyelids, but her hands were warm, her pulse still firm.

  He tried to remember how she had fallen. She had tumbled over Bess’s head, exactly as if turning a somersault. Thanks to the way she’d been galloping, her waist and knees had been bent and her head tucked low. That was the shape he remembered seeing as she turned through the air, rising almost slowly before she came down fast, her body still curved. Had she landed on her head or her back? He tried to remember. She had rolled once and again, then her limbs had gone loose and she’d sprawled. He closed his eyes and squeezed them tight, forcing the visual memory of her landing, but it had been too fast, too shocking to him. The exact way she had hit the ground was not clear in his mind.

  A sound came from behind him; Hector, stepping slowly, looking from Bess’s body to Bruno. He came another step, lowered his head and moved again, close to Bruno, shaking his head nervously. Bruno remained still until Hector brought his nostrils down to
breathe on Bruno’s neck. Slowly, his hand stroking Hector’s neck, Bruno rose to his feet and mounted his horse.

  He turned Hector’s head away and trotted around the side of the isolated house to check the far side of the barn. It was open to the elements, no wall and no door. Half a dozen camper vans could have parked inside but there wasn’t a single one, just some scattered, ancient hay. As he completed the circuit, he heard the sound of the ambulance siren in the distance and checked his phone. All the hunters had now reported in. Each of the houses on Dougal’s list had been checked and pronounced empty. It had all been for nothing. He dismounted and led Hector back to Pamela’s still form.

  Fabiola arrived first, the horse van that was attached to Bruno’s Land Rover bouncing and jolting on the dirt track. She left the engine running, glanced at Bruno without speaking and went to Pamela, the medical bag she always kept close jerking as she ran. Kneeling, she checked for a pulse and then gently pulled back an eyelid. She opened her bag, took out an instrument and used it to peer into Pamela’s eyes, into her ears and then up her nose. Finally she ran her hands carefully over Pamela’s limbs and then stood as the ambulance came into view.

  ‘She’s concussed, unconscious, no sign of bleeding from the ears,’ she said. ‘How did she land?’

  ‘I’m trying to remember, but all I can be sure of is that she was tucked in like a ball, as if somersaulting. She rolled once when she hit the ground and then again before she sprawled.’

  Fabiola glanced at the dead horse. ‘You took care of Bess? I thought I heard two shots.’

  ‘That was me.’

  Ahmed and Fabrice ran from the ambulance with a stretcher. Doctor Gelletreau heaved his bulk along behind, carrying a neck brace. He slowed to a walk as he recognized Fabiola.

  ‘I was nearby with the horse van,’ she explained, and repeated what she had told Bruno. ‘We’ll need an X-ray and a scan so that means we take her straight to Sarlat. I’ll go with her,’ she concluded.

  ‘I’ll come, too,’ said Bruno.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ she said, in a tone so harsh that Bruno felt she was accusing him of doing more than enough damage already. He felt a savage sense of guilt. He should never have allowed Pamela to come with him. And it had all been pointless, his little glow of pride at thinking of his quarry’s access to Dougal’s list now destroyed. If he’d been a better rider, perhaps he could have headed Pamela off before she reached the rabbit warren. He should have found the words to dissuade her from joining him on the search. At the least he should have realized that his slow, cautious searching of the deserted houses was leaving her bored and eager for a gallop. He’d been so focused on his task that he’d barely thought of her at all.

  And now as he watched Fabiola help Ahmed and Fabrice put the brace on Pamela’s back and head before gingerly edging her onto the stretcher, he felt a surge of something much deeper than concern flood through him as he pondered what Pamela meant to him. She had created a private world for herself with her pool and horses and tennis court and her own little community with Fabiola. And she had generously and without any demands shared it with him. There was always good food and a welcome, horses to ride, companionship and easy conversation, and above all that sensuous warmth and pleasure that she offered him in the privacy of her bed. There were many forms of love, Bruno reflected, but he had no doubt that many of the deepest and sweetest kinds were embodied for him in this woman who was now being placed in the back of the ambulance.

  Fabiola stared at him impassively from the bench inside until Fabrice closed the rear doors. After it pulled away, Bruno with difficulty took the saddle and bridle from Bess’s body and then called the vet to arrange for Bess’s removal. He unsaddled Hector, led him into the horse van and drove gingerly down over the rough field and onto the track that led to the road. As he reached it, his phone rang.

  ‘I’m at the hospital,’ said the Mayor, his voice hollow. ‘Cécile passed away peacefully this afternoon.’ He hung up before Bruno could say a word.

  21

  There was no sign of the Mayor’s Peugeot when Bruno pulled into the parking lot of the hospital just east of Sarlat. He asked for Pamela in the emergency wing and was told she’d been taken to the main hospital for X-rays. He found his way to the right department and a tired-looking nurse told him to wait. He showed her his police ID. Again she told him to wait but this time added that she’d fetch a doctor. A young man in a white coat arrived to say she was concussed and the X-rays had shown a broken collarbone. Pamela had now been admitted at least for the night and was scheduled for a scan sometime the next day. If complications developed she might have to be moved to Bordeaux.

  ‘Has she come round?’

  The young man told him no, adding that the woman doctor who had brought her in was still with her. He gave Bruno the room number.

  Fabiola was sitting beside the bed where Pamela lay. She had an intravenous drip in her arm and a small tube feeding oxygen into her nostrils. Electrodes were attached to her temples and more wires snaked under the hospital nightgown and onto her chest. Displays on the machines behind the bed showed bright lines dancing rhythmically. Her face was white, her lips pale, her neck and throat encased in a foam brace.

  ‘How serious is it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s always serious when someone’s unconscious, and the longer it lasts the more serious it is. It looks like there’s no cervical spine injury, but we’re watching for any build-up of intercranial pressure or any lesions. From the marks on the back of her helmet and riding jacket it looks like she landed partly on her head but mainly on her shoulders and back. You said she was rolling when she landed, it may have saved her from a broken neck. Were the two of you racing?’

  ‘No, she was galloping but I wasn’t. I was some way behind her, it took twenty or thirty seconds to reach her and she was completely still by the time I did. I’d been trying to get her to turn away from that house. It was Hector who spotted the rabbit warren and I tried to shout a warning, but too late. I should never have allowed her to come with me.’

  ‘Probably not.’ Fabiola turned her face away to look at the machines.

  He couldn’t tell if there was some medical duty she had to perform or if she couldn’t bear the sight of him. He knew from the look she had given him as the ambulance doors closed that Fabiola was furious with him and probably blamed him for Pamela’s fall. That was fair enough; he blamed himself. Was this the end of his friendship with Fabiola or an anger that would pass as Pamela recovered? He hadn’t really considered the prospect that Pamela might not recover fully. He’d assumed that since her neck was not broken and her limbs seemed to work she would wake up and be back to normal in a day or so. But what if it wasn’t so simple, or if she had suffered lasting brain damage or would eventually awaken with some change in her personality?

  He quelled the thought and looked around. There were three more beds in the room, two of them empty and someone lying still in the third, bandages wrapped so thickly around the head that Bruno could not tell if it was a man or a woman. There were no paintings, no TV set or radio in the room. It was entirely functional.

  ‘Are you planning to stay here?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I’ll come back with you. I’m just giving the staff a bit of a break by being here, otherwise that nurse would have to be in and out. I’ll come back tomorrow to have a look at the scan results. They’ll tell us more. If she’s not awake by then …’ She broke off and glanced at her watch.

  ‘Can I touch her?’

  Fabiola nodded. ‘Could be a good thing.’

  Bruno went to the far side of the bed, took Pamela’s hand and stroked it, thinking how odd it was to feel no returning pressure. Trying to avoid the wires and tubes, he bent forward to kiss her cheek, smelling the antiseptic wipes they had used on her.

  ‘What worries me is that she told me once that she’d fallen before and had been concussed,’ Fabiola said. ‘Over dinner one evening she was explaining why she’d given
up show-jumping. She came off when her horse shied at a fence and she blacked out then for a few minutes. A second time can make it much more serious.’

  ‘Can I come back with you tomorrow?’ Bruno felt that dismaying sense of helplessness that a non-medical person feels in a hospital, dependent on the staff for information, for reason to hope.

  ‘I’ll call you after we look at the scan, but I expect she should have surfaced by then, at least I’m hoping for that. We can go when you’re ready. I’ll tell the nurse and have a word with the doctor. They’re pretty good here.’ She left the door open when she left the room.

  Bruno didn’t know if he was imagining things but he thought he felt some movement of Pamela’s hand where it lay in his. He looked at her eyelids but there was no sign of any quivering. He told Fabiola when she returned and she checked the screens on the machines.

  ‘Her pulse rate is up a little.’ She lifted Pamela’s eyelids again, looked for a long moment. ‘No change.’

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘If the pupils are of different size, that’s a clue to look for brain damage. It doesn’t mean there is any, it’s just an indicator. And you want to see how the pupils react to light.’

  ‘You think there might be brain damage?’ The words were out before Bruno could stop himself.

  Fabiola paused before she answered and turned to look him in the eye. ‘We’re at one of those unpleasant moments when doctors are as much in the dark as you. Until we see the scan, or until she recovers consciousness and we can start to assess her state, we don’t know what the outlook is going to be and there’s not much point in speculating.

  ‘I know it was an accident and I know how Pamela sometimes rides like a mad thing. But I’m not just a doctor, I’m her friend and I’m human. Right now I’m furious with you and looking for someone to blame. So please just drive me home with the radio on and let’s not talk. There’s nothing more I can tell you.’