The Devil's Cave

by Martin Walker

  Bruno pondered this. And suddenly an image crossed his mind of the two infant grandchildren, Athénaïs born illegitimate in 1969 and her double cousin, the Count, born the following year as the heir to everything. And then in 1972 the law changed, allowing illegitimate children to inherit, and the Count’s claim on the family wealth and titles was suddenly overtaken by Athénaïs. The infant Count would have been too young to care, but his mother Héloïse would have been stunned by the reversal. And from what he had seen of her, Héloïse would have nursed the grudge. Might she have brought up her son to resent his brusque disinheritance? Could that have been a motive for murder?

  ‘How wealthy would the Red Countess be, Father? Would you know?’

  ‘In money, probably not well-off at all. In land and property, extremely rich, but much of the income is doubtless devoured by the cost of maintaining the old buildings. Why, do you think there is an issue of inheritance here? You said the dead woman in the boat was her granddaughter. Who inherits next?’

  ‘She has a daughter of her own in America. Presumably she’s the heir, that’s why I can’t see it as a motive.’

  ‘Make sure she’s kept safe. Do you remember your Balzac? I find I read him more and more.’

  ‘Not for years, but I remember what he wrote about every great fortune being founded on a great crime.’

  ‘No, not that, I was thinking of something he wrote in Le Cousin Pons, that “to kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure.” When I think of the confessions I hear of hatred and malice towards relatives over inheritance, I come close to despair.’

  Bruno took his leave and was threading his way through scattered children’s toys in the priest’s garden when his phone vibrated. It was Fabiola, announcing that she had spent the last forty minutes talking to various doctors at the Memory Research Centre in Paris. They had no record of the Countess being registered as a patient and they had scoffed at the claim that one of them was taken down to the Périgord by helicopter. Nor was she registered on the Alzheimer’s support network. Moreover, her colleague Dr Gelletreau could find no other doctor in the region who was treating her.

  ‘What’s the law on this?’ she asked. ‘This is an obviously ill woman with no doctor and those looking after her are lying about her care. We’re the medical centre for the region, do we have a legal right to intervene?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ he replied. ‘It’s out of my usual field, but she does have a full-time nurse. Can you call Annette? She’s a magistrate and if she doesn’t know the relevant laws she can find out. I’ll try the Procureur but it’s an obscure part of the law. And with someone as prominent as the Red Countess, it may get complicated.’

  He was trying to phone the duty clerk when he was called to resolve a dispute between two stallholders over the amount of pavement space one was taking, and then another claimed access to her stall was being blocked by the crowd watching the next stallholder demonstrate a new device for chopping vegetables. Usually he enjoyed this routine, joking and jollying the stallholders into seeing reason. But this morning he was brisk and even curt, startling some of them into grumbles and wry jokes about Satan’s influence on the market of St Denis.

  Feeling harassed and slightly ashamed of himself, and worried that events were accelerating out of control, he ran up the Mairie steps to his office and made his call. As he expected, the clerk in the Procureur’s office said he’d have to call him back and couldn’t it wait? He groaned as he opened his computer to find dozens of accumulated emails waiting. Quickly, he scanned them to see what could not get the clerk’s treatment of waiting until Monday. But one address made him pause. It was from someone calling themselves Prévertlady on a Hotmail account. It had to be Isabelle. Jacques Prévert was the author of the book of poems she had sent him. The message was a simple mobile phone number, not one she’d ever used before, with the words ‘Borrow someone’s phone’.

  He went down to the market and asked Stéphane, busy serving at his cheese stall, and was handed his phone without question, although his friend gave a pointed look to the phone at Bruno’s belt. He called the number and recognized Isabelle’s voice saying simply ‘Allo’.

  ‘This is Stéphane’s phone,’ he said, walking down the steps from the bridge to the privacy of the river bank.

  ‘Mine is a prepaid from FNAC, bought yesterday. You should get one, just in case. Listen, Bruno, this is getting very tricky. The Defence Ministry is trying to find out who’s behind these inquiries into the Count, saying there’s a big contract with the Lebanese military at risk. We know it’s true because we got a routine request to provide security for their defence minister, who’s apparently coming in to sign it. The Count’s companies have been doing fifty million a year and more in foreign sales and nobody wants to upset that.’

  ‘Have they been on to you?’

  ‘Not yet, but they have been on to the Brigadier and he asked me to find out what you think you’re playing at – his words. And he wasn’t talking about that charade your priest staged in the cave.’

  Bruno explained that this was no longer a possible fraud case, but that the Procureur had opened dossiers on two probable murders. Briefly, he described Junot’s crash and the injection marks.

  ‘It’s out of my hands now,’ he said. ‘J-J’s forensic guys are probably going to require a search of that hotel where we got turned away, so I hope there’s no plans for the minister to hold a signing celebration.’

  ‘You should have told me this before.’ Her voice was tightening. ‘We need to know this.’

  ‘It only began to come together last night.’

  ‘Is there anything that points to the two guys with the Count in those glossy photos I printed out?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said.

  ‘The Ballotin girl in the glossy photos, the one calling herself a nurse, it turns out she isn’t. No record of a diploma. And here’s some more news. The second time Béatrice was arrested, so was the Ballotin girl. Same time, same place, same profession.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ he replied. ‘But what I can’t work out is the motive for all this. It can’t be inheritance – Athénaïs has a daughter who’ll be the heir.’

  ‘Only if she lives to inherit. Where is she now?’ As she spoke, his own phone on his belt began to vibrate.

  ‘At college in Canada, Paris-Match tracked her down.’ Could Isabelle be serious, that a teenage girl was now at risk?

  ‘The Count’s short of money. If this Lebanese deal doesn’t come off, he’s in real trouble: bankruptcy, lawsuits, he may even be looking at a prison term. The only thing that could save him then would be to borrow more money using the family estate as collateral. We’ve been on this phone long enough. Get yourself a throwaway and send the number to the email I used to contact you.’

  His own phone had stopped ringing but the call had come from J-J. He’d expected this. Yves must have finished the forensic study and J-J would be preparing a search. He called him back.

  ‘Bruno Courrèges?’ J-J said, his voice curiously formal, as though someone official were listening in. ‘You are required to meet me at the Gendarmerie in thirty minutes. And consider yourself under suspension pending investigation. Your Mayor has been informed.’

  He rang off and Bruno was left staring at his phone, momentarily stunned. He checked his watch. Thirty minutes. He could do a lot in thirty minutes. He called Sergeant Jules but an automated voice asked him to leave a message. He considered calling the Mayor, but there was no point. If the Mayor was told his municipal policeman was under investigation he’d have no choice but to agree to the suspension. Bruno climbed the steps back up to the town square, handed the phone back to Stéphane and headed into his office at the Mairie.

  He pulled out the file with the printouts Isabelle had made, checked the internet address and called up the photo of the Count with the son of the Lebanese minister. He emailed that to his counterpart in
Sarlat, a good friend, and followed it with a phone call, asking him to show the photo to the widow who sold goat’s cheese in the old church of Ste-Marie to see if she recognized either man. Then he called Fabiola, to tell her that the nurse at the Red Château had no known qualifications. In turn, she told him that she had found Annette at home and she was researching the law. Apparently it depended whether the Red Countess was in tutelle, which would mean a court had ruled that she was not fit to conduct her own affairs, and her sister or her nephew might have been named her tuteur with legal powers to act for her.

  It was time to go. He settled his cap squarely on his head, checked his appearance in the mirror in the men’s room and walked briskly down the Rue de Paris towards the Gendarmerie, shaking hands and kissing cheeks as he always did. The thought crossed his mind that this might be the last occasion he would do so. He refused to speculate on the reasons for the investigation, but his inability to contact Sergeant Jules was worrying. Perhaps he should have called the Mayor after all, and he certainly should have called Isabelle.

  The Mayor was standing on the steps of the Gendarmerie, a solemn look on his face as Bruno approached. A stately old Bentley limousine from the Fifties was standing in the car park.

  ‘The Procureur de la République has come down from Périgueux himself and an accusation of theft has been filed against you,’ the Mayor said. ‘Sergeant Jules said that was all he knew.’

  ‘Jules is here?’ The Mayor nodded. Bruno felt reassured and followed the Mayor inside, where Sergeant Jules greeted him with a wink and a sideways glance at a plastic evidence bag with a book inside. Bruno marched into the familiar office, halted in formal military style, stood to attention and saluted the Procureur. After seeing the Bentley outside he was not surprised to see the sister of the Red Countess and Foucher standing by the window. J-J stood to one side of the desk.

  ‘At ease, Courrèges,’ said the Procureur. Bruno was startled to see him wearing red corduroy slacks, a blue denim shirt and a bright yellow sweater, as if he’d been hauled from a golf course. This was a normal workday.

  ‘One moment, please,’ said the Mayor. ‘I understand that Chief of Police Courrèges is entitled to legal representation and I would like to say that while ready to provide him what assistance I can, I must protest against the haste in calling this inquiry without summoning a qualified lawyer. I should add that my officer has my complete confidence.’

  ‘Protest noted,’ the Procureur said and fixed Bruno with a cold stare. ‘Madame de la Gorce has filed a formal statement accusing you of stealing from her family library a valuable book, a first edition of Montaigne’s essays. She says that you obtained entry to the library with a spurious claim of being on duty and while you were left alone there the book disappeared. She claims that this edition of the book is worth over five thousand euros, but this particular example is priceless, having once belonged to the former royal family. What do you have to say?’

  ‘Not guilty, sir.’

  ‘Were you in the library alone?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did you see the book in question?’

  ‘Later, sir, I did, but not in the library.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Permission to call Sergeant Jules of the Gendarmerie, sir?’

  ‘I hope someone can explain.’

  Sergeant Jules entered and saluted, the evidence bag and a slim folder under his arm. He laid the bag on the desk.

  ‘Sir, Chief of Police Courrèges entrusted this book to me yesterday evening at his home. He’d called me to say that he believed this accusation of theft would be launched against him. I have had the book fingerprinted, sir, and his fingerprints are not to be found. However, the fingerprints of a young woman in the employ of the château were found, identified from her previous arrest record. That supports the Chief of Police’s statement that the woman in question called at his home and deliberately left the copy of the book in an attempt to incriminate him. Here is the Chief of Police’s statement, taken by me last night, and my own statement, sir.’

  Jules laid the slim folder on the desk and with a sharp glance at the old lady who was now leaning heavily on Foucher’s arm, the Procureur began reading the statements.

  ‘What’s this about a previous arrest?’ Madame de la Gorce interjected. ‘They must be in it together.’

  ‘Were you aware that this young woman in your employ, Eugénie Ballotin, had taken this book, Madame?’ the Procureur asked.

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Then who is responsible for what seems to be an attempt to incriminate the Chief of Police?’

  The old woman looked up in appeal to Foucher, who said smoothly, ‘There has evidently been a complete misunderstanding and Madame de la Gorce wishes to withdraw her statement and apologize to the Chief of Police and to you, Monsieur le Procureur, and is grateful for the book’s safe return.’

  ‘Not good enough,’ said the Procureur. ‘Where is this Mademoiselle Ballotin? I want her brought here now. And for what was she arrested in the past?’

  Sergeant Jules coughed discreetly, leaned forward and murmured into his ear.

  ‘Mon Dieu,’ said the Procureur. ‘I thought she was supposed to be a nurse.’

  ‘Apparently not,’ Bruno interrupted. ‘There is no record of her having any nursing qualification, which is a matter of great concern to Dr Stern of our medical centre, who fears that the Red Countess is not receiving any proper medical attention. Dr Stern also tells me that after inquiries in the Paris hospitals Mademoiselle Ballotin’s claim that a Parisian doctor was treating the Red Countess for Alzheimer’s disease turns out to be untrue. Furthermore, no local doctor can be found who has seen her. Dr Stern wishes to be allowed to see the patient and I filed an inquiry into the relevant legal requirements with your duty clerk this morning, sir.’

  The Procureur looked startled, and then grave as he thought about the implications of someone as well known as the Red Countess being denied medical care.

  ‘Madame de la Gorce, is your sister in tutelle?’

  Again, Foucher answered for her. ‘No, she is not. We believed from the qualifications Mademoiselle Ballotin presented that we had competent medical attention.’

  ‘Then you will have no objection to my insistence that Dr Stern be allowed to examine the patient and make a recommendation to me.’

  ‘Madame de la Gorce would like to consult her own legal and medical advisers, but of course that medical report would be available to you,’ Foucher said.

  ‘Are you a lawyer?’ the Procureur demanded. Foucher shook his head. ‘Then please don’t answer for your employer. In fact, I think you’d be most usefully employed getting a chair for Madame de la Gorce.’

  She looked frail as she took her seat, but her eyes were bright and they glared at Bruno with malice before she composed herself to turn a polite face to the Procureur. Standing behind her, half-screened by the back of the chair, Foucher was looking down and appeared to be doing something with his hands.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Bruno, stepping forward and closing his hand over the mobile phone on which Foucher was tapping out a text message. ‘Did you authorize this Monsieur to use his phone?’ he asked the Procureur.

  ‘Certainly not,’ came the reply. ‘Take it off him.’ The Procureur turned to Madame de la Gorce, his voice cold. ‘You may bring in whatever other medical expert you choose, but I want Dr Stern to visit the Countess and I want a medical report on my desk by Thursday morning so I can take a decision before the Easter weekend. If there is a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s I will apply for your sister to be placed in tutelle, with a professional tuteur, since I’m not satisfied with the arrangements made by her family. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, and my own lawyers will contest that,’ she replied, with a glance at Foucher behind her.

  ‘That is your right. However, I give you notice that I shall investigate further this ridiculous allegation against the Chief of Police, who would
appear to me to have a substantial case against you, Madame, for defamation. Since you insisted on filing this allegation with my office as a formal and sworn statement, you do not have the right to withdraw it as you please. You may wish to consult your legal adviser on that, and now please wait outside. Sergeant, please see that they don’t leave and confiscate their mobile phones. And have this Mademoiselle Ballotin brought here forthwith. I want to see her sworn statement about these events and she is not to consult with her employer in the meantime. Is that clear? Very well, I thank you Sergeant, and well done.’

  When just J-J, the Mayor and Bruno were left with him in the room the Procureur said to J-J, ‘I should have listened to you.’ Then he turned to Bruno and said, ‘My apologies, J-J told me he suspected a set-up. I should never have listened to the old woman, but she’s a social acquaintance of my wife and came to my home first thing this morning with her statement already written out and signed. She insisted I witness it.’ He looked down at his colourful clothes. ‘It’s supposed to be my day off.’

  ‘No harm done, sir,’ said Bruno.

  ‘Harm has been done. In tracking down J-J and your Mayor here, half my office knows that you were being suspended on charges of theft. Word like that spreads fast, which is why you should bring an action against that silly old woman for defamation. I’ll be glad to testify on your behalf. It will never go to court, of course, but you should get something in settlement.’

  J-J cleared his throat. ‘If you’re right about these rumours spreading from your office about the Chief of Police, you may want to consider putting out a statement that clears his good name.’

  ‘Good idea. I’ll issue a press statement. Now let’s all take a seat and Bruno, if I may call you that, tell me what this is really all about and start at the beginning. Why are they trying to shut you up and blacken your name?’

  Bruno’s phone vibrated. He saw it was his counterpart from the police in Sarlat.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. This call may be relevant.’

  He answered, to be told that the widow who sold the goat’s cheese had recognized the photo of the Arab who had bought her goat. Bruno thanked his colleague and closed his phone.