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

The handle dropped from his hand and he sank heavily to his knees, bending his head down and making retching sounds as he tried to suck air into his lungs.
    Bruno went across to the well, where a full bucket stood beside the stone rim. He carried it back to Junot and emptied the contents over the man’s head. He looked up and saw Junot’s wife standing at the door of her kitchen, a dishcloth twisting in her hands but her face impassive. At least, Bruno thought, she had not rushed to her husband’s defence. He’d taken a bruise or two from battered wives in the past. She turned and went back into the kitchen, closing the door behind her.
    Junot was half panting, half sobbing, but he seemed to be getting some air. He raised his head and a long trail of drool fell from his mouth. His eyes began to focus and he looked up at his house with its closed door and then at Bruno.
    ‘Bastard,’ he said, and vomited.
    Bruno picked up the jug of wine and emptied it onto the ground. He could smell its sourness, as bitter as the sense of defeat that seemed almost to ooze from Junot. His farm and family falling apart around him, and now he gets knocked down on his own land and his wife doesn’t want to back him up. Bruno went back to the well and loosened the ratchet to send the bucket down to fill it again.
    ‘It’s not so easy when someone fights back,’ he said, coming back with the bucket and putting it down by Junot’s knees. ‘Least of all when you’ve been drinking all day.’
    Junot put his hands in the bucket and lapped from them, and then splashed water over his face.
    ‘What’s wrong with the tractor?’ Bruno asked.
    ‘Bugger won’t start.’
    ‘You checked the plugs?’
    Junot shrugged. Some rusty tools were piled into a plastic box that had once held ice cream. Bruno pulled out the only spanner but it didn’t fit. He went back to his van and came back with his own tool box, took out a can of lubricating oil and poured it onto the rust around the sparking plugs. He checked the wiring and then fitted his own ratchet wrench to remove the plugs. The first one took a couple of taps with the hammer but the others came out easily enough. They looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned for years, the gaps clogged with old carbon. He used his wire brush to clean them, put them back and then handed the starting handle to Junot, still kneeling by the bucket as he watched Bruno work.
    ‘Give her a try,’ Bruno said. Maybe Junot would open up enough to talk if something went right for him today. He lumbered to his feet, looking first at Bruno and then at the starting handle, squared his shoulders and inserted it into the hole at the base of the engine. He braced himself and turned it, getting a reluctant mechanical cough for his effort. He turned it again, the handle kicked in his hands and the engine roared into uneven life.
    ‘It must recognize your touch,’ Bruno said, speaking loudly over the sound of the engine.
    ‘I’ve known it since I were a lad, when my dad first got it,’Junot said, climbing into the seat and driving it from the barn into the yard.
    ‘Can you give me a hand with the harrow?’ he asked as he jumped down. ‘I want to get the potatoes in today.’
    Bruno helped him push out the broad harrow with its eight discs, and they fixed it to the tow bar. Then Junot turned off the motor, leaned against the big side wheel and began to roll himself a thin cigarette.
    ‘You going to arrest me?’
    ‘You tell me. Are you beating her?’
    ‘It wasn’t like that.’ Junot lit his cigarette and squinted at Bruno through the smoke. ‘It was Francette. She disappeared one weekend, came back two days later with some fancy new clothes, new hairstyle, perfume. I never saw her look so good.’
    Junot shook his head, half-smiling at the memory, but then his face darkened. Bruno could almost see the frustration in the man, his pride in his daughter battling against his fears for her and his own shame at not being able to provide her with the clothes and life she craved.
    ‘She looked like a different girl, but it was more than that,’ Junot said, a harder note back in his voice. ‘She acted different, like she had stars in her eyes. But she wouldn’t say where she’d been or who paid for it all.’
    He fell silent. Bruno waited a long moment and asked, ‘What then?’
    ‘She went away for a whole week, not telling us. I was frantic, wanted to call you or the Gendarmes. But the wife said, no, we