Bruno 02 - The Dark Vineyard

irrigation system installed.”
    “Irrigation? Up here?” said Albert. “Somebody’s got more money than sense.”
    “Funny that the one field that has its own piped water supply is the one that gets torched,” said Bruno. “You ever heard of this Agricolae?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small metal flag he had plucked from the ground.
    “No. Could be some experimental seed, I suppose, but I never heard of anything like that up here.”
    They went back to the truck, where the elderly mayor, Gérard Mangin, stood patiently by the road. Behind him was a row of parked cars belonging to locals who had come to watch the excitement. The mayor stepped forward, smiled a greeting and shook hands with Albert and Bruno. A camera flashed. Philippe Delaron was recording the scene for the local paper.
    “Not much to report,” said Albert. “The danger’s over, and there’s no sign of anyone hurt. Not even me, thanks to Bruno. There’s a burned-out shed, a field of crops destroyed and one broken standpipe. I have my suspicions about what started this, but we’ll have to wait for the lab report.”
    “You mean the fire was set deliberately?”
    “It looks that way,
Monsieur le Maire
. And I think that explosion you saw was of a gasoline can going up. Whatever it was, it could have killed somebody. Could have killed me, if Bruno hadn’t pulled me out.”
    “I hadn’t realized this was so serious,” the mayor said.
    “Now I’d better go and see about getting my guys back to the station. And, Bruno, I’ll take that fire coat back. Those things cost a small fortune.”
    “Whatever they cost, they’re worth every centime,” said Bruno, shedding the coat. He turned back to the mayor. “There’s more to this than meets the eye. That field had its own water supply, and the shed contained what looked like office equipment. Not what you expect to find in a bare upland field in the middle of nowhere. I’ll have to inform the landowner, probably have to make a report for the insurance and so on.”
    “Have you told the gendarmes about this?”
    “Not yet. Captain Duroc is a bit preoccupied with the damage to his van. It appears they ran into a standpipe.”
    “Yes, I saw that.” In the strengthening light of dawn, Bruno watched a smile twitch at the mayor’s lips. “Well, it seems clear there’s been a crime here.”
    “Right, and that means the Police Nationale, not the gendarmes. They might even want to send a forensics team.”
    Bruno walked on to the row of parked cars and the small knot of locals to tell them there was no danger, that the show was over, and to ask them to move their cars so the fire trucks could turn around and leave. Big Stéphane the dairy farmer, afriend of Bruno’s from the hunting club, was there with his pretty young daughter Dominique. Their farm was just down the hill, probably one of the first that would have been hit if the fire had spread, and this was normally the hour when they would start the milking. Bruno shrugged off their questions and persuaded most of the onlookers back into their cars. Then he walked over to Captain Duroc to arrange for a gendarme to seal off the phone booth in Coux. It was just past 6 a.m. Fauquet’s café would be open, and Bruno needed a proper breakfast.
    Bruno walked toward two familiar cars, an elderly Citroën DS from the 1960s and an even older Citroën
deux chevaux
, a design with a canvas hood that traced back to the 1930s. His friend the baron, a retired industrialist whose trim figure belied his age, leaned against his big car. Beside him stood Pamela, the owner of the
deux chevaux
and of a local guesthouse, who was known to most of Saint-Denis as the Mad Englishwoman. Bruno had introduced them over a game of tennis, and Pamela and a visiting friend had thoroughly trounced them.
    “The baron woke me with a phone call. I hadn’t heard the siren,” Pamela said. A handsome woman whose features were too strong to be described simply as pretty, she was wearing an Hermès head scarf and a battered version of the English waxed cotton jacket that had become highly fashionable in France. Whether she was standing, walking or on horseback, Bruno could recognize her at a distance from her posture alone, the straight back and the proud neck, the bold stride of a woman wholly at ease with herself.
    “Where’s your horse?” Bruno asked, leaning forward to kiss her on both cheeks. She shrank back, laughing.
    “Sorry, Bruno.