The Devil's Cave

by Martin Walker

  He checked his watch. ‘Usually in about thirty minutes from now, but they may be staying open later. Let me check.’ He reached for his mobile, ignoring the long list of messages and missed calls, and called Marcel and then Delaron to arrange to meet them at the cave when it closed.

  He kissed Isabelle, climbed into the shower and dressed in uniform. He began answering messages while she showered and changed. He then rang Alphonse, one of the original hippies from 1968 and a respected local figure. The first Green to be elected to the town council, Alphonse also kept goats and made the best goat’s cheese in the district. Bruno said he needed Alphonse’s advice and asked if he was free to join them at the cave.

  Leaving Balzac in the back of his official van with the remnants of Bruno’s sandal, they arrived at the ticket office as Marcel was escorting out the last of the tourists. The car park was overflowing, with more cars lined up and down the sides of the road. Delaron, inevitably, was taking photos of the scene.

  ‘Have you spoken to your nephew since he told me what really happened?’ Bruno asked.

  Delaron nodded nervously.

  ‘And you give me your word that you had nothing to do with the goat’s head and painting the Madonna?’

  ‘Nothing, honestly,’ he said. ‘That’s why Marcel wanted to call you in. It got us worried.’

  When Marcel joined them, Bruno introduced Isabelle as an inspector from the Police Nationale, which was technically correct, and said they wanted to take a further look.

  ‘The chapel is closed off with a rope. People can look in, but not walk in,’ Marcel said.

  ‘Has your son told you what he told me?’ Bruno asked, his voice cold with disapproval. Marcel nodded, and repeated Delaron’s assurances. When Bruno asked if business had been good, Marcel pointed at the car park and said it had been excellent, almost a record.

  ‘So I can be confident you’ll be making a generous donation to the school sports fund.’ Bruno asked for all the lights to be turned on and for the largest plastic bag they had in the gift shop. He was just heading for the tourist entrance when Alphonse arrived in his truck, the usual hand-rolled cigarette bobbing from his lower lip. Bruno made the introductions and then explained why he needed Alphonse as they entered the cave, took the steps down to the pedal-boats and headed across the lake to the chapel.

  ‘My wife was here all day, making sure nobody went in,’ Marcel said, moving to one side the makeshift barrier of two chairs and a rope that kept visitors outside Our Lady’s Chapel.

  ‘There’s the goat,’ Bruno said to Alphonse. ‘What can you tell me?’

  ‘It’s an Anglo-Nubian, same as the ones I have,’ he replied, bending down to look at the severed head. ‘A lot of people call them the rabbit goat because of those long floppy ears. It’s quite a popular breed, good for cheese because the milk has a high butterfat content, and it’s a sturdy animal. That Roman nose is unmistakable.’

  ‘It’s not one of yours, is it?’

  Alphonse shook his head. ‘It’s got horns, and like most breeders we de-bud them soon after they’re born. I only know one breeder round here who lets the horns grow, and that’s Widow Venturin over by Sarlat. She raises males for stud, where people like to see a good set of horns. That flat, gentle curve is distinctive.’

  ‘If it’s one of hers, would she recognize it?’

  ‘Probably. I’d recognize all mine. They’re very affectionate, the Nubians, and love to have their necks stroked.’

  ‘Could you give her a call, ask if she’s sold any recently?’

  ‘I can do better than that. She’s coming to pick up some of my cheese because she’s running short for the Sarlat market. We often help each other out.’

  Bruno saw Isabelle grin at this unexpected insight into the local goat culture. Bruno handed Alphonse the plastic bag and suggested he take the head with him.

  ‘Hang on a moment,’ he said. ‘Let me just see …’

  Alphonse began peering intently at the raw flesh where the neck had been severed, and then at the back of the head and the brow. Although the chapel was well lit, he asked for more light. Bruno shone his torch onto the head. Alphonse took it from him to peer more closely at the neck.

  ‘That’s nasty,’ he said, leaning back on his heels. ‘It wasn’t killed humanely. There’s no sign of a stun-gun being used and there’s a deep cut in the neck at the main artery. Without seeing the rest of it I can’t be sure, but I’d say this goat was hung up by its heels, bled in the way the Arabs do it before the head was severed. It certainly wasn’t killed at an abattoir, like the law says.’

  Bruno knew that a fair number of pigs were killed that way by local farmers despite the law, because that was the way it had been done for centuries. Indeed, he’d usually attend at least one such event every year, and collecting the blood was important for making the boudin noir.

  ‘Does that mean somebody killed this goat for food?’

  Alphonse shook his head. ‘It’s not like a pig, you don’t use the blood, at least I never heard of anyone doing so. This is an old male, which is not good eating, not like a tender kid. There’s not much demand around here for goat meat, not that I’ve heard, but I’ll ask the Widow. If it’s not one of hers, I wouldn’t know where to look.’

  Alphonse left with his plastic bag in his hand, the two long horns sticking out of the top. Marcel said he’d see him out and Bruno said he and Isabelle would continue on their own. She had already taken samples of the paint from the Madonna and the side wall and candles and put them into evidence bags. Together they made a careful search of the rest of the chamber, behind the Madonna and around the makeshift altar. Their only finds were a long thread of dark wool and a grubby white tassel. Either one could have come from anywhere and been there for years, but they bagged them anyway.

  ‘So if it wasn’t the boys, how did they get in?’ she asked.

  Bruno explained the limited number of entrances and then told her of the passage the Baron had shown him.

  ‘But I already looked and there were decades’ worth of dust there, quite undisturbed.’

  She said she’d like to see it anyway, so he led the way back, taking it slowly to favour her wounded leg. They passed Napoleon’s Bedchamber and the great organ on their way to the three solid stalagmites that rose like the stumpy teeth of some giant prehistoric beast to protect the entrance to the Baron’s secret way. He felt around with his hands until he found the ring and heaved up the trapdoor.

  ‘Follow me down but be careful, the steps are steep and narrow. Best face forward.’ He put his torch between his teeth and gingerly felt his way down. At the bottom, he turned his beam of light down the tunnel and the dust looked undisturbed as before. The light above him dimmed as Isabelle’s body filled most of the narrow stairway and he stood ready to help her down.

  ‘I’ve got you,’ he said, his hands on her waist as he lifted her down, surprised at the lightness of her.

  ‘I see what you mean about the dust,’ she said. ‘But remember your Sherlock Holmes: when all other possibilities have been exhausted, look at the one that remains, however unlikely.’

  She played her own torch on the dust on the steps and then at the dust beneath their feet and down the tunnel. She bent to examine it closer and picked up some of the dust. She rolled it between her fingers and brought it closer to examine it more carefully.

  ‘Animal hairs and fluff, probably carpet fluff,’ she said. ‘That’s the kind of dust you’d find when you empty a household vacuum cleaner, not the kind I’d expect in a rocky tunnel.’

  She scooped some of the dust near her into an evidence bag and asked Bruno to go further up the tunnel and do the same. He took some from about a metre further along and then some more from a few metres further.

  ‘They’re different,’ he said. ‘The further stuff is all rock and grit. And there are footprints and scuff marks in it, so the path has been used.’

  ‘So somebody thoughtfully covered their tracks in here an
d out,’ she said. ‘Apart from you and the Baron, who’d know about this?’

  ‘Resistance veterans, and whoever they told, I suppose. Now we know, why don’t we explore it the whole way?’

  ‘Won’t the guys at the cave mouth wonder where we are?’

  ‘You could go out and say I’m still searching. I walk along to the exit and you take my van and meet me at the cemetery in St Philippon. There’s a map in the door pocket.’

  ‘It makes more sense the other way round, for me as the specialist to continue searching and you take the van,’ she said. ‘You’re just trying to spare me the tunnel because of my leg. Stop treating me as an invalid.’

  He tried to object but she set off down the tunnel, calling over her shoulder, ‘You know it makes sense. Go, and I’ll see you there.’

  ‘You don’t know how long it is,’ he called after her.

  ‘I’ll find out. Just go.’

  Bruno still worried as he climbed back up the steep steps, replaced the trapdoor and covered it with grit again. Checking that he had the evidence bags and they were all labelled, he headed back the length of the cave to the entrance where Delaron and Marcel were waiting. He showed them the evidence bags and said the Inspector was still collecting stuff for forensics.

  ‘I’ll keep the key and come back to pick her up later,’ he said.

  ‘There’s a guy waiting to see you, a journalist, says he knows you from Bosnia,’ said Marcel. ‘He’s waiting in the snack bar.’

  ‘I don’t have much time now,’ Bruno said. ‘And I want a private word with Philippe.’

  He took the photographer out to the car park and opened the rear door of his van to see Balzac sitting tangled in the line from Bruno’s fishing rod and chewing energetically on one of the training shoes he used for rugby. He found himself grinning and sighing at the same time, and he tried to remember how long it had taken to train Gigi. He gave Balzac a quick pat and pulled Lemontin’s file from his briefcase.

  ‘After the trick you pulled with the kids, Philippe, I want to talk with you,’ he began, ‘and maybe I should include your editor in Bordeaux in the call. What do you say?’

  Delaron shrugged. ‘It was rather overtaken by events. There was a break-in and it looks like Satanists.’

  ‘That was lucky for you. Do you think your editor will see it that way? Or that people are going to trust you again? Do you think I should trust you in future?’

  ‘From the look of that file in your hand, I’d say you were going to give me a chance.’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Bruno. ‘I’m giving you a test.’ He removed the single page that showed the links between the companies behind the Thivion development and the one planned for St Denis.

  ‘You’ll need to do some research. Go to a place called Thivion and take some photos of what was supposed to be a new holiday village just like the one coming here. Their Mayor is pissed off with what happened to them and I don’t want it to happen to us.’

  ‘What’s this list of names?’ Delaron asked, looking at the sheet of paper Bruno had given him.

  ‘The names of companies behind the two developments and their directors. You can see some overlap. I’m not going to spell it out for you.’

  ‘You give me one sheet of paper, but it looks like you’ve got a big file on this already,’ said Delaron.

  Bruno simply smiled at the young man, slapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘Good hunting.’ Then he turned and headed to the snack bar, looking at his watch and wondering how long Isabelle would take to reach the end of the tunnel. He paused outside the door. The figure sitting over a plastic cup looked slightly familiar. Bruno tried to subtract a decade and more from the man’s features and a few kilos from the plump waistline. He mentally replaced the neat tweed sports jacket and rollneck sweater with the scruffy denims and down jackets the journalists used to wear in Bosnia. He still couldn’t identify him. Then the guy looked up and Bruno realized it was the absence of a beard that confused him.

  ‘Gilles from Libération,’ Bruno said, pleased at the way his memory had summoned the name. He’d forgotten the surname, but not the slightly hooded eyes. It was Gilles who had written the piece that got Médecins Sans Frontières to take over responsibility for the safe house where Bruno and his squad had taken the Bosnian women they’d rescued from the Serb brothel.

  ‘Sergeant Courrèges,’ said Gilles, rising. ‘You wouldn’t recognize Sarajevo these days. There’s even a Starbucks.’

  ‘So that’s what we were fighting for,’ Bruno said. ‘I often wondered.’

  ‘I’m with Paris-Match these days and you can guess what brings me here.’

  Bruno nodded. ‘Right now is not a good time. I have a meeting and some forensic stuff to deliver and I’m already late. But here’s my card with my mobile number. When’s your deadline?’

  Gilles grinned. ‘No deadlines in these days of instant media. I’ll be posting stuff on the website every day.’

  ‘Quite a change, going from Sarajevo to Satanism.’

  ‘At least I’m working, and there aren’t too many journalists can say that these days. The Satan thing is a nice detail but that’s not what catches my interest. I want to find out who the dead woman was. That’s the real story.’

  ‘Would that mean you’ve got some kind of lead?’

  ‘Maybe, but it’s a long shot. As long as I get to keep the scoop for Paris-Match, I can guarantee you’ll be the first to know. I presume you still haven’t identified her.’

  Bruno shook his head. ‘She doesn’t seem to be reported missing anywhere in France, but we’re still checking. You’ve seen the photo we issued?’

  ‘Of course. Is there anything you can tell me that wasn’t in the papers? Anything from the autopsy?’

  He spoke a little too casually and Bruno’s antennae began to twitch. ‘Are you just fishing here, Gilles? You know better than that.’

  ‘Not entirely. But perhaps you could tell me if there’s anything that suggests she might have been in the States at some point?’

  Bruno studied him, remembering that Gilles had been a good man back in Sarajevo. Serious about his journalism yet casual about the danger, he’d never lost his sense of humour. ‘Strictly off the record, the dentistry looks like it was American.’

  ‘Aha,’ Gilles said, nodding as if it confirmed something. ‘Would that be cosmetic dentistry?’

  ‘It would. And so …?’

  ‘So I could be on the right track. Are you free for dinner later?’

  ‘Sorry, no. Maybe next week or Sunday night, if you’re still here.’

  ‘I’ll be here,’ he said, looking at Bruno’s card. He handed Bruno one of his own. ‘And I’ll call you tomorrow if I get anywhere.’

  18

  Bruno drove like the wind, thinking of Isabelle doggedly following the tunnel. He cursed himself for agreeing to her demand to explore it alone, despite her lame leg. He had the map unfolded on the steering wheel before him, taking the risk of occasional darting glances as he tried to think how the roads knitted together outside his own commune. The river’s twists and the steep rising of the cliffs alongside forced the roads to take strange, illogical routes and confused his sense of direction. As the crow flies, the Gouffre was not much more than a kilometre from St Philippon, but by road it was more like six or seven.

  How could he have been so arrogant as not to check the map in advance? Why hadn’t he realized that if someone had used the tunnel, they might still be there, or they might have sealed the far end? Maybe he should go back into the cave and follow her through the tunnel. At least the route was known and he’d be certain to find her. No, he had to stick to the original plan. If he got to the ruined chapel and there was no sign of Isabelle and he could not find his way in, that would be the time to retrace his tracks.

  He braked hard as he came to a fork in the road. Cursing, he looked at the map but the light was going. He stepped out to examine it close to his headlamps. He glanced at the setting sun, kno
wing that was west, and then he used his finger to follow his route from the cave. He found the fork, and saw he was almost there. He roughly folded the map and jumped back into the van, took the right fork and drove more slowly, looking for a turnoff to the left that would take him down to the beginning of the valley that held the ruins of the abandoned village of St Philippon.

  He found the turnoff. With his lights on high beam he saw the stark outline of the crumbling cross on the roof of the chapel. He braked, left the engine running and the lights shining into the ruin, calling Isabelle’s name as he stumbled forward and almost fell over the shallow hillocks of the graves.

  Calm down, Bruno, he told himself. Walk back to the van and get the torch. Check the ground before your feet. If you break an ankle it won’t help Isabelle, stuck in the belly of the earth. Remember what the Baron said: the entrance is hidden in the ruins of the chapel. He made himself stop and examine what was left of the structure. About six metres deep and four wide, the roof was formed of lauze, the thick slabs of limestone that locked into one another, supporting themselves without wooden beams. About a third of the roof had gone. The gable end had been rotted by the relentless growth of vegetation so that the cross it supported leaned drunkenly, poised to follow the lauzes down into the chapel’s nave.

  The door was just a memory. He shone his torch inside over the confusion of tumbled stone. If there had been a trap-door in the floor, it was long since buried. But somebody had used this tunnel recently; there had to be a way in. He went outside and studied the walls and surrounding ground. He tried to rock at the nearest gravestones but they were solidly fixed. He went back into the chapel and looked again. The only structure that seemed solid was the altar, a long stretch of pale stone. Why would a remote chapel such as this have something so solid and handsome?

  Bruno tried vainly to lift the huge slab. He bent down to examine and then knock and probe the front and sides of the altar. At the rear the stone was different; three separate squat flags supported the great weight of the altar. He shone his torch onto the floor and was heartened to see scratch marks on the flags by the central stone. He pushed at the top, at the bottom and then felt just a hint of movement. Finally he pushed at one side and the stone, almost a metre high and nearly as wide, swivelled and opened.