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

for the season, but we’ve been doing work all winter,’ Marcel said. ‘For the last few days, we’ve been working outside, so the cave has been locked and sealed.’
    There was just one other way in, he explained: the route the first explorer had taken. Customers paid extra to be lowered in a small basket operated by a winch. All three entrances had been securely locked, and the only keys were held by Marcel and his family.
    ‘And by me, one complete set,’ the Baron added.
    ‘I came in this morning to check the lighting, because the damp can be a problem with the junction boxes, and I knew something was wrong because one of the boats was missing,’ Marcel continued. ‘It must have been taken under that shelf of rock and through the tunnel that leads to Our Lady’s Chapel. That’s the only place where you could hide a boat in here. So I took another boat and went across and then saw what had been done in the chapel. That’s when I called you,’ he said, addressing the Baron.
    ‘Have you touched anything in there?’ Bruno asked.
    Marcel shook his head. ‘It’s not exactly damage – I think it’s worse.’
    Down at the lake, Marcel directed them into another boat which he began to pedal across the still, dark waters. Occasional drops of water plopped from the roof above. When one landed on his hand, Bruno could see the tiny flecks of limestone that had come down with the water. Occasional stumps of stone rose from the surface of the lake where the drops had formed over centuries, perhaps over millennia. They ducked their heads as Marcel pedalled under the shelf of stone and they emerged into a long tunnel, lit with an eerie blue light.
    He pulled alongside a low stone wharf, where they could climb out and keep their feet dry, and tied up to an iron ring set into the stone. He led the way from the water’s edge into a wider passage where he opened a small plastic junction box and flicked some switches. At once, the sound of Gregorian chant echoed from the stone walls and a clear light gleamed from the end of the tunnel.
    Bruno remembered the chapel and the religious music from his previous visit. It had been the largest of the smaller chambers and shaped liked a triangle, roughly ten metres deep and almost as wide at the entrance, narrowing to two metres wide at the far end where the stone Madonna stood. A large but low boulder with a flat top sat on the floor before her and had inevitably been dubbed the altar. Two church candles, an altar cloth and a small crucifix had been placed on it to complete the tableau. The rest of the chamber was empty except for the artful lights. The effect was of the interior of a church, dimly lit by natural sunlight. But on each of the side walls a projector cast an image of a stained-glass rose window which suffused the space with tones of gold, red and blue. Two small spotlights lit the Madonna, clear white from the left and blue from the right.
    But now this Madonna was black. The whole stalagmite had been covered in black paint and the two church candles on the altar had been replaced with black ones. A severed goat’s head stood between them, its horns almost touching the candles and its tongue lolling. A cheap metal cup lay on its side beside the goat’s head, wine dregs drying inside, as if some perverted form of communion had taken place. There was a smell of stale tobacco smoke and something different, perhaps incense. An empty bottle of vodka had rolled to one side of the cave. This time Bruno noted that the brand was Smirnoff. And a large pentagram had been scrawled in black paint, the precise size of the projection of the rose window.
    ‘That’s the window at Chartres they defaced,’ said Marcel. ‘It’s Rouen cathedral on the other side, but for some reasonthey left it alone. But you can see why I thought of that dead woman, Bruno. I don’t know about Satanism but this is for sure the devil’s work.’
    ‘And you’ve touched nothing?’ Bruno asked again. Marcel shook his head. Bruno looked at him closely, wondering if this was all some clumsy publicity stunt to take advantage of the media interest in the woman from the river.
    Bruno walked across to the altar. It was smeared with dried blood from the goat. A long drop of blood hung from its tongue. It was still sticky, so the goat could not have been killed much before the previous evening. He’d check the local butchers and goat farmers. He turned his attention to the candles. These were