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

this.’
    ‘Thanks.’ Bruno put it on, fixing the familiar chinstrap. Rather than let any discussion drag on he picked up the rope and the sealed torch, asked Albert to bring the breathingequipment and headed for the causeway. He tied one end of the rope around his crotch and shoulders, and the other to Albert, then lay down, bracing against the shock of the cold water as it flowed over the stone and down into the depth below. He turned on the torch through the plastic, put his head over the rim and looked down. If there was a bottom at twelve metres, he couldn’t see it. It might just have been an outcrop of rock his stone had landed on before. He’d soon find out.
    ‘I’m going to climb over the lip here and then you let me down with the rope,’ he said to Albert, slipping off his boots. ‘When I reach somewhere I can stand, give the rope to J-J and then you come down with the breathing equipment. I’ll need you down there to pull me out if required.’
    He rolled over the lip, holding on with one hand, the torch in the other, and he told Albert to let him down slowly.
    ‘You’re mad,’ said Albert, but with Jules and J-J helping him hold the rope, the fire chief began letting Bruno down, a few centimetres at a time.
    Bruno turned his head to one side to avoid the rush of water, but told himself it wasn’t much stronger than the powerful showers at the rugby club. He felt the water filling his clothes and adding to his weight. Under his stockinged feet the rock felt very smooth. There would be no handholds to help him climb back up.
    ‘Twelve metres,’ shouted Albert from above, his voice almost drowned out by the waterfall.
    ‘Keep going,’ Bruno shouted back. ‘There’s another couple of metres of rope wrapped around me.’
    Suddenly his foot touched something flat. He tested it and it took his weight. He explored with his other foot and found he was on a flat ledge, maybe a metre wide, with a smoothly rounded lip that had been worn away by countless centuries of water. But he could stand and turn and the light showed him the froth of the waterfall at his feet, falling into a pool perhaps ten metres wide and not much more than two metres across. To his left the wall of rock was smooth and unbroken. To his right, in the direction of the Gouffre, was a tunnel though which he could see the water flow. He put his hand in; the current was insistent, rather than strong. He could probably swim against it on the return journey. With Albert pulling him, he was sure he could.
    He looked up and pointed his torch, and through the mist rising from the falling water he saw Albert’s bullet-shaped head poking over the rim.
    ‘It’s fine, there’s a ledge. Come on down,’ he shouted, and beckoned Albert to join him. He steadied the rope as the burly fire chief let himself down hand over hand.
    ‘
Putain
, that plastic rope gets slippery when it’s wet,’ said Albert as he let go of the rope and studied his raw palms. ‘I had to take my gloves off, I had no grip.’
    Bruno helped him off with the breathing apparatus and strapped it onto his back. Albert took off his goggles, unhooked the breathing mask from where it hung around his neck and checked the connections before handing them to Bruno.
    ‘Let me check something first,’ said Bruno. ‘I’m going to turn off the torch because people in the Gouffre should have the lights on and we may be able to see a glow.’
    ‘The bomb could have killed the lights,’ said Albert.
    ‘Let’s try it anyway.’ Bruno switched off the light.
    The blackness was not quite total. A faint glow came from above them, over the lip of the waterfall where a single candle barely illuminated the cave. He saw the silhouettes of the heads of J-J and Jules as they looked down at them. Bruno could not be sure, but he thought he felt as much as saw a glimmering deep in the water.
    ‘What’s happened?’ shouted J-J, dimmed by the water.
    ‘It’s OK,’ Bruno called. ‘Just checking the light.’ And he turned it back on. ‘Let go of the rope so we can use it down here.’
    It snaked down and Bruno tied the loose end of the rope around Albert’s crotch and shoulders and showed him how to lie on the ledge, his feet braced on the wall beside the tunnel. It might be a problem to throw the rope back up to Jules and J-J but he’d cross that bridge if he came to it.
    ‘That gives me twenty metres of rope to explore that tunnel, and if there’s light in the Gouffre, I