The Crowded Grave

said the major as a second blur came into view. Bruno recognized the CRS sergeant who found Jan’s arms cache with him. “I saw you coming down the far slope and thought you might be heading this way.”
    Bruno dismounted, lifted Gigi and placed him on theground. He shook hands with the two uniformed men, observing that the security should be easier here, with the open views through the vines, than it would have been in the wooded hills above the château.
    “True, but we can’t get the jeeps through the vine rows,” the major said. “Watching you, I was thinking that it would make sense to put some of the patrols on horseback. Have you got any spare horses we can use? Two or three would do it but I wouldn’t mind borrowing yours.”
    “I might be using him myself,” said Bruno. “But Julien at the Domaine keeps a couple of horses for hotel guests. I’m sure he’d be happy to add them to the bill.”
    Leading his horse, Bruno walked with the two men to the small stable yard at the rear of the hotel-château and installed Hector in an empty stall, where he snorted and then gazed at the two other horses there. Julien was happy to rent them out for the day, and after saddling the two rather elderly mares Bruno and the two soldiers set out to ride the property. The two horses knew their territory and walked slowly through the vines.
    They rode back to the river, where Bruno suggested that one squad might be based at Gérard’s canoe site on the other bank. After a full circuit of the Domaine, the major pronounced himself satisfied, and they returned to the stable yard. Julien invited them in for a
p’tit apéro
of Ricard, but Bruno said he had to go.
    At Pamela’s he unsaddled Hector and rubbed him down, then drove back with Gigi to his own house to resume his cooking of the
navarin d’agneau
. He lit a fire in the stone
cheminée
and then decanted a bottle of the Pomerol that he and the baron bought by the barrel. They bottled it themselves with friends on a bibulous autumn afternoon each year. He fedhis ducks and chickens and then Gigi, calling him in from his patrol of the grounds, then quickly showered and changed into khaki slacks and his favorite green corduroy shirt.
    At the back of his mind, where he tried with little success to keep it, was the question of how the evening would progress. Was this to be a dinner of old friends and former lovers who had exchanged passion for simple affection? Or would Isabelle be offended if he did not invite her back into the familiar bed? Bruno knew which he’d prefer. Isabelle entranced him in ways that were beyond the usual urgings of lust, in ways that balanced the sadness that he would feel when she left for Paris again, as she always did. He chided himself for the touch of self-pity that had crept into his thoughts.
    A car horn gave a cheerful double beep from the lane, echoed by the joyful yelps of Gigi. Curious, thought Bruno, that his dog was so devoted to Isabelle, while only mildly affectionate toward Pamela, who made just as much fuss over him and saw him far more often. Was there a message for him in that? Bruno thought fleetingly, as he opened the door to greet her and welcome her back into his home.
    “What a lovely fire,” she said after hugging him briefly on the doorstep and then advancing into his living room. She shrugged off her coat to reveal a black turtleneck sweater and a black skirt that came to below her knees. Elegant boots of black leather and a belt of heavy silver chains completed the outfit. “I’ve never been here before when it’s cold enough for a fire.”
    She reached into her bag and brought out a box wrapped in brown paper and sealed with red wax. This was the characteristic sign of one of the better bottles from the renowned cave of Hubert de Montignac, which for many Frenchmen was St. Denis’s greatest claim to fame.
    “It was so nice to see Hubert again. When I told him I was eating with you he suggested I get you this, but said it wasn’t for drinking tonight. You should really keep it a couple of years.”
    “Then we’ll save it for a future visit,” he said, breaking the seal and unwrapping a bottle of Clos des Ursulines Pommard ’05. “This is wonderful, thank you.”
    “Hubert said it was high time you widened your horizons beyond your beloved Pomerols,” she said. “I told him how much trouble I always had in getting you to widen them as far as Paris.”
    When he offered her a drink, Isabelle asked