The Crowded Grave

comfortable, and Hector felt well balanced beneath him. He responded smoothly when Pamela led them into a trot, showing no signs of impatience or tugging on the reins. Pamela paused by the gate to watch as Bruno took Hector on a couple more circuits and then she opened the gate from the paddock and led the way out to the open land that stretched up to the ridge above St. Denis.
    From the trot she raised the pace to a slow canter, and for the first time Bruno felt the power of Hector’s muscles as his horse stretched into an easy rhythm that was as familiar as if they had been riding together for years. He could sense Hector’s enjoyment of the run, the open land and the feel of the wind going past them, the effortless way the horse ate up the distance, his pace not slackening as they took the slope to the ridge.
    “I told you he was a good horse,” Pamela said, laughing with pleasure as he reined in beside her atop the ridge.
    “He seems happy,” Bruno replied. He looked at Pamela and felt a rush of tenderness. Hector walked in slow circles around Pamela and Bess, as if eager to start again as they waited for Fabiola to catch up on Victoria. Hector’s breathing was normal, but plumes of mist came from his nostrils as his warm breath reached the chill morning air. Bruno leaned down to pat Hector’s neck. “And I’m a very happy rider.”
    “We’ll walk them round the edge of the woods and then try a gentle gallop,” Pamela said. “I don’t want him going through trees until you know each other better.”
    She took them from a trot to a canter and then as the last of the trees passed behind them she bent over Bess’s neck and loosened the reins and urged her into a gallop. Beneath him, Bruno felt the surge as Hector followed, running well within himself but seeming to bound forward as if he’d been yearning for this. In a few strides, he drew level with Bess and then pulled ahead as if all Hector wanted to see before him was open ground.
    From the wind around his ears Bruno knew he was going faster than ever before, but Hector’s stride was smooth and his seat felt as steady as rock. A fleeting thought struck Bruno that he might almost be able to hold a full glass of wine without spilling a drop.
Putain
, but this was a marvelous horse. Moving as one with another living creature, sharing the same rhythmand the same movement and feeling the play of strength and muscle of another being merging with his own, was an exhilaration. What was it that made him feel so close to animals? Bruno wondered. With his dog when they hunted, it was almost as if they could read each other’s mind, and now with Hector he felt the promise of a similar intimacy.
    “I can see it in your face,” Pamela said when he finally reined in and she and Bess caught up before the slope that led down to her home. Her smile was wide and her eyes bright, even as her chest heaved from the gallop. “You felt it. You were at one with your horse. And on your first ride together, you lucky man. And now comes the hard part, rubbing him down and mucking out his stall. It’s not all thrills and gallops, Bruno. Just like love.”
    Bruno was drying off from his shower in Pamela’s bathroom when he heard the town’s siren start its eerie whine, just before his phone rang. It was Albert telling him there had been some kind of fire at Gravelle’s, the small foie gras canning plant on the road to Les Eyzies. Bruno dressed in a hurry and skipped his shave, telling himself he should get one of those travel razors to keep in his van. He downed a coffee while explaining to Pamela his need to rush, kissed her good-bye and was on the road within three minutes. At least this could not be blamed on the Dutch girl, he told himself. She should be in Amsterdam by now.
    “I found it when I came to open up,” said Arnaud Gravelle when Bruno arrived. He was the grandson of the founder of the family firm and now the manager since his father’s retirement the previous year. He was white faced and shaking. “I said it was a fire, but all this damage, I don’t know …”
    The entire showroom at the front of the small factory wasdemolished, the windows gone and the remains of the flat roof sagging. Scores and perhaps hundreds of tins of foie gras and other delicacies were scattered around the parking lot amid broken bricks as if they had all been tossed by a giant hand. Gravelle also sold wine, and the floor of the place was awash with broken glass. By his