The Crowded Grave

wrecked Range Rover. “He’s paid for it now.”
    He turned Hector’s head back up the lane and settled intoa steady trot that ate up the distance. He could see the helicopters flaring in for their landing, and he felt rather than heard his phone ringing. He answered it, wanting to put a hand to his other ear but needing to hold the reins.
    “Bruno, is that you?” he heard Pamela say.
    “It’s me,” he said. “But it’s also helicopters. Hold on, they’ve landed and the noise will stop.”
    “How’s Hector?” he heard her ask, after a pause.
    “Magnificent, a hero horse, I’m riding him now,” he said, as the rotor blades slowed and halted. The noise died away and men scurried out as others saluted. He was about to tell her of Gigi’s death, but with a great effort that Pamela would never know he forced himself to hold his tongue and to think of Pamela. She had enough to cope with. “How’s your mother?”
    “No change, well, there is some change for the worse. She’s still in a coma, but she’s had a brain scan and there’s some damage. It looks as though there’s not much hope of a recovery.”
    “I’m sorry,” he said. The sound of her voice triggered a different memory, of Isabelle in his arms the previous night. He shook it off. “Do you want me to come?”
    “No, I want you to stay and look after the horses and take care of things for me there. Are you busy?”
    “A bit,” he said. “But it’s all right. You must be tired, you’ve probably sat up with her all night.”
    “There was no point,” she said. “But it’s not easy sleeping. And I miss you.” She paused. “I presume those helicopters involve something you have to attend to. I’ll call again, take care.”
    As she hung up, his phone buzzed again, and he heard the familiar voice of the retired veteran from the military archives, saying he’d faxed a copy of Captain Carlos Gambara’s file from his time at Eurocorps.
    “It’s an interesting file, more for what it doesn’t say than for what it does,” he said. “No names of parents, which is unusualeven for orphans. His education is listed as a church-run orphanage in Tarragona, and he joined the military as a boy-soldier at the age of fifteen, just like you.”
    “Thank you,” Bruno said, remembering that Tarragona had been the orphanage where Teddy’s father had been raised. “We’re just clearing up a terrorist incident here in which Gambara has died. You may or may not read about this, that’s not my decision. But would you have any contacts with your opposite number in the Spanish archives?”
    “I’m afraid not. But I’ve got a contact in the NATO registry who deals with them all the time.”
    After asking for any more information that could be obtained from NATO, Bruno hung up and rode into the stable yard with the ambulance following him, Carlos’s body inside. At the top of the steps, the double doors to the salon were closed, and Isabelle sat on the balustrade outside, holding the small stone pineapple that Carlos’s Range Rover had knocked from its pedestal. She put it to one side and rose to her feet as Bruno dismounted and climbed up the steps toward her.
    She looked weary beyond exhaustion, her hair tousled and her face frighteningly pale. He dragged his eyes away to look through the doors to the salon where Gigi had died. It seemed to be full of security men and medics bending over prone figures, blood smeared on the floor. Men were shouting, radios crackled and from a distance he heard ambulance sirens. He had steeled himself to see the body of his dog, but it wasn’t there.
    “If it wasn’t for Gigi he could have shot us both,” said Isabelle.
    He saw the tears in her eyes as he took her in his arms. She seemed to slump against him and from deep inside himself came a spasm of grief that turned into a sob so heavy it almost choked him. It felt like a release, that at last he couldacknowledge the sense of loss. And his own tears spilled down his cheeks at the memory of Gigi, shot in the back but refusing to relax the grip of his jaws on the man who had attacked his master. He took a long breath, and caught the familiar scent of her.
    “Are you all right?” he asked her. “I never thought that swordstick was real.”
    “Nor did I,” she said into the hollow of his neck, “until it worked. The bomb was in the flower urn.” She paused. “I had Gigi’s body taken away to be wrapped. You don’t want to see him.”
    “We can