The Crowded Grave

Don’t worry. And if you need me …”
    “God, this is like a scene from
Brief Encounter
,” she said, looking behind her at the approaching train.
    “From what?” He spoke loudly over the squeal of the train’s brakes and the rumble of metal wheels.
    “It’s an old film that always makes me cry,” she said. “It’s very British, about a doomed love affair and a railway station. Only it had steam trains.”
    “I like steam trains,” he said, pressing the little green button on the gleaming blue and silver door that slid back with smooth, electronic grace. He put her suitcase aboard, turned back and took her in his arms to kiss her firmly on the lips and then lifted her onto the train as the guard blew his whistle. Her bronze-red hair spread out, tumbling over the white cashmere on her shoulders, and there were tears in her eyes. As he watched, one spilled over and rolled down onto her cheek.
    “Bon voyage, my beautiful Pamela, and I hope your mother is better soon, and don’t worry about the horses, or anything.”
    The train doors slid together leaving her standing behind them, one hand to her eye, the other raised in an uncertaingesture that might have been a farewell wave, or she might have been reaching to him through the glass. The train began to move and he stood immobile, watching it diminish down the track.
    “
Ça va
, Bruno?” It was Jean-Michel. “Can I help you with something?”
    He shook his head. “A woman,” he said. “Saying good-bye.”
    Jean-Michel looked at him quizzically. “But that was your Mad Englishwoman. She lives here. She’ll be back.”
    “She’s not mad,” said Bruno, quietly. “And she’s from Scotland.” He crossed back over the rails to the ticket hall and out to his car in the parking lot.
    Bruno was putting down the phone after telling Clothilde there was still no news of Horst when the mayor called his name. Along with most of the rest of the employees of the
mairie
, the mayor was looking at the small TV set in the staff room beside the kitchen, and peering over the heads of others Bruno could see on the screen a shot of Gravelle’s wrecked showroom with a headline “War on Foie Gras?”
    The next image was the scrawled slogan on the wall of the factory, and then a short interview with a tongue-tied Arnaud Gravelle. A brief cheer went up as they saw their
mairie
on screen, and then a close-up of the mayor standing beside the old stone pillars of the market hall.
    “There’s no excuse for these attacks on innocent farmers and shopkeepers going about their normal and entirely legal duties,” the mayor was saying. “Foie gras is one of the glories of French cuisine and a pillar of our economy, and only crazy militants would resort to this kind of violence, bombing a quiet country town. We count on the police to bring these extremists to justice.”
    Another brief cheer greeted the mayor’s remarks, but then the TV reporter, standing on the bridge with the River Vézère flowing placidly behind him, said not all the local authorities agreed. And some maintained that foie gras was indeed cruel to animals. The image shifted again, to Annette, their new magistrate, standing on the steps of the gendarmerie. She looked calm, attractive and highly professional in a neat white blouse and trim blue jacket.
    “There have been other nonviolent attacks protesting against this cruelty to animals,” Annette said. “Two demonstrations have taken place against local duck farms, and on the second occasion the farmer fired his shotgun and we found blood at the scene. Perhaps in an understandable response to this violence, it seems an escalation has taken place. But I note that it was a bombing against property in which nobody was injured. As the investigating magistrate I take this very seriously, but I regret to say that the local authorities seem more concerned with protecting their foie gras industry than with seeing justice done.”
    “Do you mean that your investigations have been deliberately obstructed?” the interviewer asked. The staff room of the
mairie
was silent in shock.
    “I mean precisely that, and I will be filing a complaint to the proper authorities,” Annette said. “There are laws against cruelty to animals and I’m convinced that foie gras is not just cruel, it’s barbaric.”
    The camera cut away as the dozen or so people in the staff room erupted in jeers and booing.
    “If not a war on foie gras, it looks like a war over foie