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

were waiting, and bought three croissants and a baguette. They were still warm when he parked at Antoine’s camping site where he could smell fresh coffee.
    ‘Thanks for doing this,’ Bruno said as Antoine pushed a cup of coffee across the bar towards him followed by a jar of apricot jam made by his wife, Josette.
    ‘He’s looking forward to it,’ Josette said, coming in from the kitchen with butter and hot milk. ‘He always likes doing a trip down the river at the start of the season, to see how the banks and currents have shifted.’
    ‘And I’m just as curious as you about where our mystery woman could have gone into the river,’ Antoine said, tearing his croissant in half to dip it in his coffee. ‘Any news about her, who she might have been?’
    His mouth full of croissant, Bruno shook his head. ‘Still waiting for the autopsy,’ he said, swallowing. ‘By the way, do you remember anything about that bottle in the punt?’
    ‘Vodka, some Russian writing, can’t say I remember.’ He turned and looked at the bottles lined up on the shelves above his bar. ‘It looked like the Smirnoff I sell.’ Bruno made a mental note to check if the forensic team had followed up.
    They loaded a canoe onto the trailer and climbed into the van for the drive upriver to Montignac, nearly thirty kilometres away and the farthest point from which the punt could have drifted in the time the woman had been dead. Antoine reckoned it had been put into the water much closer to St Denis, but it was best to be sure. Bruno assumed that the woman had been alive when she got into the punt and took her lethal cocktail of pills and vodka, so time of death might not be the most reliable guide to her embarkation point.
    The morning was still fresh when they donned life jacketsand put the canoe into the water, while Josette drove the van back to the campsite. Antoine settled at the stern, sending Bruno to the bow, and baited the row of hooks before fixing his fishing line to a bracket beside him. Then he put an unopened bottle of Bergerac Sec into a string bag, tied the bag to the boat and lowered the wine into the water to keep cool. There was no one else on the river as they paddled downstream, pausing to look at each boathouse and landing stage. Most of them were still padlocked from the winter, and they saw no signs of recent footprints or launchings.
    Bruno thought he knew his river reasonably well, but it was the road and pathways he knew far better than this special viewpoint from the water. The trailing fronds of the willows cast a dappled light before being overtaken by the sudden darkness cast from the majestic oaks and chestnut trees. The river could seem black and still as night one moment and as clear as glass the next before frothing into ripples over the sudden shallows. The current was steady, a little slower than walking pace, speeding as the river turned into a curve before slowing into a deceptive stillness that seemed so perfect Bruno hardly wanted to disturb the surface with his paddle. The rhythm of his paddling was almost soporific, and even as he tried to focus on each possible landing, his thoughts kept drifting.
    Helping Eugénie and her horse the previous evening had made him late for dinner. He’d been looking forward to it, an invitation to Florence’s apartment beside the college where she now worked. They had been six at table: the headmasterRollo and his wife Mathilde, Serge the sports teacher and one of the stars of the town’s rugby team, and an unusually subdued Fabiola.
    It had been a simple meal. Smoked salmon to begin, roast chicken, a salad with an array of local cheeses followed by an apple tart bought from Fauquet’s. Sensibly, Florence had bought local wines. With the bottle of Pomerol that was Bruno’s contribution and Rollo’s bottle of Chablis, and the table made colourful by the bouquet of daffodils that Fabiola had brought, the evening had been a success.
    Bruno had been pleased for Florence. Not only was it her first dinner party in St Denis but in Rollo she was also hosting her boss. Bruno had known Rollo so long it was a mild shock to think of him that way, but Florence had ever so slightly deferred to him and gone out of her way to include his wife, Mathilde, in the conversation. Inevitably, some of the talk had turned to questions of the college: the shortage of teachers prepared to work in rural areas, the lack of jobs for school-leavers, the curriculum changes. Bruno had