Bruno 02 - The Dark Vineyard

hunting boots and some swimming goggles and a bottle of water in his sports bag. Maybe there was an old tennis shirt he could soak and use as a face mask. He pushed the accelerator harder as the van labored up the hill. He knew this area well but tried in vain to remember where there might be a barn this high up on the plateau, where the land was too poor for farming. It was mainly woods and thin pasture, some tumbledown shepherds’
bories
of old stone, plus the tall microwave tower.
    As Bruno rounded the last bend before the plateau, the whole night sky ahead seemed to pulse and glow red above thetrees. He remembered the dry summer, the river so low that the tourist canoes had to search out the deeper channels. Now he could smell the burning. He slowed down. At least some of the pulsing red was the flashing light of Albert’s fire truck. Bruno parked off the road. He put on his boots, gloves and hunting cap, looked at his swimming goggles and stuffed them into a pocket, poured water on the tennis shirt he had found and ran up the road to the truck, where two
pompiers
stood bracing the spouting hose, silhouetted against the flames.
    “Not a barn, just a big wooden shed. We couldn’t save it,” shouted Albert over the crackling of the flames and the roaring noise of the truck. He reached into the back of the vehicle and pulled out a heavy yellow fireman’s jacket and handed it to Bruno, nodding his approval of the stout boots on Bruno’s feet.
    “It could have been a lot worse. We were here in time to stop it from spreading to the woods.”
    More pulsing lights began to grow on the road as Ahmed approached with the second fire truck and the big water tanker, and then there were flashes of blue as the gendarmes arrived in their big van. Albert was calling the neighboring fire chiefs to say their help would not be needed.
    “No sign of any people?” Bruno asked. Albert shook his head and ran off to direct the second truck. “How did you hear about the fire?” Bruno called after him.
    “Anonymous call from the phone booth in Coux,” Albert shouted back.
    Bruno made a mental note of that as he tried to get his bearings. He remembered this road being thickly wooded on both sides, but where he stood there was a break in the trees, and a new-looking dirt track curved into the wide stretch of field and pasture that was burning low but steadily. What little breeze he felt on his cheeks was coming toward him and toward thewoods, where the
pompiers
were soaking the brush to deny the flames any fresh fuel. The biggest fire was the ruin of what had been the shed, standing amid the charred crop. Bruno’s foot caught on something. He looked down and saw a small metal flag, like the one farmers used to identify which seeds they had sown in which rows. He plucked it from the ground and, in the light from the truck headlights, read the words AGRICOLAE SÉCH G71 . That meant nothing to him, but he stuffed the flag into his pocket. Shouts came from behind, and he turned to see more yellow-clad
pompiers
struggling up with a second hose, which bucked in their hands as it filled and a much more powerful jet of water lanced onto the edge of the woods.
    “Smell anything funny?” Albert asked, suddenly looming beside him. “Come on, this way.”
    He led Bruno across the still smoldering ground and around the side of the shed until they were upwind, where it was quieter. Inside the shed, a metal table supporting some charred machinery was still hot enough to spit as water dripped from what was left of the roof beams. Two smoking roof timbers thrust into the sky, perched on top of what looked like an old filing cabinet. Bruno caught a stink of burned plastic and rubber, and something else.
    “Gasoline?” he asked.
    “That’s what I think. We’ll send some trace evidence off to the lab in Bordeaux, but I’ll bet this was deliberate. If you go over to the far side of the field, you’ll smell it again. Somebody was thorough—he got the crops, the shed, everything. This is going to be a job for you a lot more than for me.”
    “If it’s arson, it’s the Police Nationale,” said Bruno. It would be a good idea to seal off the phone booth in Coux to check fingerprints, Bruno thought.
    “If it’s arson against crops,” said Albert, “it’s local. Somefarmers’ feud or somebody’s been playing games with another man’s wife. And that means the Police Nationale won’t have the first idea where to start.”
    Bruno