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

concerned?’
    ‘I’m no financial expert,’ Bruno replied.
    ‘Go ahead with my blessing,’ said the Mayor. ‘I always suspected that any financial transaction that cannot be completely understood by an honest man is probably best avoided.’
    Isabelle’s text message had said simply ‘12.50’, which gave Bruno a little time. He stopped at Ivan’s Café de la Renaissance to check the
plat du jour. Soupe aux haricots
and Wiener Schnitzel, he was told, which meant that the buxom German tourist Ivan had brought back from his winter holiday in Morocco was still installed in his bed and his kitchen. The development of Ivan’s menu was a reliable guide to his love affairs. She might depart next week, but the Schnitzel would remain for ever a part of Ivan’s repertoire, at least until a Greek came to introduce him to the possibilities of moussaka or a Spaniard to lure him into deep bowls of paella. Bruno approved of the German girl. He’d never had veal quite like the Schnitzel she’d brought to St Denis. It was hammered out so thin that it almost hung over the edges of the plateand covered with a delicate coating of bread crumbs. It was served with a whole lemon cut into quarters, and a bowl of potato salad and another of coleslaw on the side. Bruno was thinking how a glass of Bergerac Sec would go perfectly with the veal when Ivan beckoned him inside, tamping down a new serving of coffee into the filter basket.
    ‘Try this,’ Ivan said. ‘It’s Griselda’s latest idea. She said she had it in Italy, called an
affogato
, so I’m going to try it here.’
    He took an espresso cup, spooned in a small helping of vanilla ice cream and put the cup beneath the coffee machine.
    ‘What do you think?’ Ivan asked, as Bruno tried to decide whether he should eat it with a spoon or try to drink it first. He compromised with a small sip of what seemed to him like a particularly good coffee ice cream.
    ‘Be a good dessert for the
plat du jour
,’ said Bruno.
    Ivan shook his head. ‘I want them to buy a coffee as well as the menu. This will be something different, mid-morning maybe.’
    Bruno asked him to hold two places for about one o’clock and then headed to Karim’s Café des Sports, also licensed to sell tobacco and close enough to the
collège
to stock a vast selection of confectionery. Beyond the sweets were racks of magazines and newspapers, and beyond the tobacco stretched the big coffee machine and the bar. Rashida was serving glasses of Ricard for the pre-lunch crowd, her baby asleep in a shawllike pouch that kept him tucked against her breast. Her husband Karim, star of the town’s rugby team, loomed over the till.
    ‘
Un p’tit apéro
, Bruno?’ he asked. Bruno shook his head andhanded him the plastic bag containing the bubblegum wrapper he’d found in the cave. He asked if Karim recognized it.
    ‘It’s this one,’ Karim said, reaching over the counter to pick out a small pack in garish colours. ‘It has cards inside, all the footballers who’ve played for France, and the kids collect them. I must sell fifty a week, maybe more. It’s a new line, running just this year.’
    So it can’t have been litter from last year’s tourists, Bruno thought. Whoever had thrown away the wrapper had kept the card, which Bruno assumed meant it could have been a collector. That would suggest that the tableau in the cave had been the work of kids.
    ‘Would you know the main collectors?’ he asked.
    It was a mixture, Karim explained, of the older kids in
collège
and the younger ones in primary school, all the football fans, and quite a few girls. He broke off to sell a copy of
Télé-Journal
and some lottery cards to Ahmed from the fire station.
    ‘What about this cigarette end?’ Bruno asked, handing over another plastic bag. ‘It smells funny.’
    Karim looked at the dark brown filter and sniffed at the bag, and grinned.
    ‘It’s a
kretek
, from Indonesia. I’m the only one round here who sells them. I keep them for my cousin Hassan, who won’t smoke anything else. It’s flavoured with cloves, supposed to have been invented by an asthmatic. It took me ages to find an importer.’
    He pulled a pack from the rows of cigarettes behind himand handed it to Bruno. The pack was dark brown, and marked Djarum Black. Bruno sniffed at it, and picked up the faint scent of cloves.
    ‘Anybody else buy them?’
    ‘Hardly anybody, these days. When I began stocking them, a lot of people bought a pack to try