The Devil's Cave: A Bruno Courrèges Investigation (Bruno Chief of Police 5)

that night, some guys down from Paris and they had their own security guards outside. We were all ordered to stay indoors.’
    The security men from the defence Ministry had been at the entrance to the auberge. But on such a special occasion the Count would not have tolerated any more intrusions from Junot. What if Junot had been caught trying to break in at the rear? Could that have been sufficient motive to kill him? Or to beat him so badly they had to finish him and fake the accident? Lionel, or Léo as Francette knew him, was probably ruthless enough. Bruno had one more question.’Did you ever meet a girl called Eugénie, tall with dark hair?’
    ‘Could she have called herself Gina? She was with the Count at the party in Paris and again with him that night in the cave. She was really beautiful.’
    ‘Have you seen anyone from the hotel since you came back to your mother’s place?’
    ‘Léo came yesterday evening to ask when I was coming back. He brought flowers for Mum and was full of sympathy but he said I’d better get back to work soon. It was the way he said it, I got scared. After Mum told me about Tina in the boat, I knew we had to get away. And then this morning Richard came by in the car, just sat there and looked at the house. It was creepy.’
    ‘Richard has been staying at St Philippon?’ Bruno asked.
    She nodded. ‘There and at the Red Château over the river. He’s a friend of the Count. I don’t like him. He’s the one who hit me when he couldn’t get it up.’
    ‘How did you get down here from the farm?’
    ‘We walked down through the woods and along the river. There’s one more thing, Bruno. You’re going to have to be careful, they’re really freaked about you. Léo kept asking me if you’d been to see me at home.’
    ‘That’s all right, don’t worry about me,’ he said, and asked her to write down a statement, exactly as she’d told it to him. He gave her the phone he’d just bought and put his own numbers onto speed-dial.
    He left mother and daughter sitting silently, holding hands, and went in to explain to Sabine that Francette was being stalked by a violent ex-boyfriend. He asked for some writing paper and took it back to the terrace with his pen. As Francette began writing her statement he went to the duck barn for a word with Maurice.
    ‘I don’t think her ex-boyfriend will find her here, but if a white sports car turns up, call me straight away.’
    ‘I’ve got my shotgun,’ Maurice said. Bruno winced. He’d had enough trouble with Maurice’s shotgun over another matter when some animal rights activists had tried to liberate his ducks and geese. No guns, he insisted and left to buy another phone from a bemused Jolliot.
    As he left the shop, his usual phone buzzed at his belt. It was Lemontin, to say that the signature to authorize the mortgage payments was that of the Red Countess, dated in May of the previous year. But her sister had claimed the Countess hadn’t had a lucid moment in years. Not only did this look like fraud; it meant his plan for the hotel to be used as collateral for St Denis’s investment in the Count’s project couldn’t work. The hotel was not the Count’s to pledge.
    At the Gendarmerie, Sergeant Jules was visibly enjoying himself. Madame de la Gorce had sworn another statement saying Eugénie had been the one who told her that Bruno must have been the thief. In a second room, Foucher was insisting it was all a misunderstanding, while his drinking glass was now ready to be picked up by Yves from the forensic team for DNA analysis. The one problem was that Mademoiselle Ballotin was not at the Red Château and nobody seemed to know where she was.
    ‘If her name’s Eugénie, then that last message Foucher sent when you stopped him was to her,’ Jules said, holding up one of the phones that lay on the desk before him. ‘One word: flee. And here’s the bonus,’ he went on, holding up a plastic bag that contained a breathalyser unit. ‘The driver of a white Jaguar, one Richard Abouard, Lebanese passport, booked for speeding on the Périgueux road, passed his breathalyser test, but here it is. Yves will pick it up with the drinking glass.’
    ‘Excellent,’ said Bruno. ‘Is the
Procureur
still here? Or J-J?’
    ‘J-J is here taking statements. The
Procureur
has gone to brief the Prefect and the Mayor went with him. That inspector you know from Bergerac is leading the search team at the hotel. The forensic team linked