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

on the table with most of a baguette. She sat and began to slice the sausage. ‘The three of them are pretty much inseparable, and sometimes there’s a fourth with Mathieu, the boy you pulled out of that manure pool last year. Do you want me to see if I can find them now? Or once I’ve eaten?’
    Bruno checked his watch. He had to get to the station to meet Isabelle’s train.
    ‘I’d like to,’ he said. ‘But I’m expected somewhere so I’ll have to talk to them later, maybe when school ends today.’
    ‘I still want to be there when you talk to them,’ she said. ‘They’re all in my last class today, so why not come by the science lab at four o’clock and I’ll keep them there. And now I’ve got to get these kids to the crèche.’
    She stood up, took a cloth from the kitchen sink, cleaned the faces and hands of her children, and then wiped the table.
    ‘If this turns out badly for the boys, I’ll be very disappointed in you,’ she warned.

11
    The only other person waiting on the station platform was Fat Jeanne from the market. A jolly and almost spherical woman, she had cheerfully embraced the nickname given her by the stallholders whose fees she collected. She was, she informed Bruno, heading to Agen to visit her sister for a few days. That meant that everyone in town would learn that he’d been meeting that police inspector from Paris that he’d been in love with. But they might not hear it for a day or two unless, Bruno reminded himself, Jeanne thought it an item of gossip so delicious that she’d pull out her mobile phone the moment the train got under way.
    ‘Meeting someone?’ Jeanne asked after they had touched cheeks. He could see her brain churning, wondering who might be coming to see him on a train from Périgueux, or Limoges or perhaps even Paris. ‘Something official, is it? To do with this Satan business?’
    ‘A police colleague from Paris. You’ll remember her,’ he said.
    The train whistle blew from around the bend and at the end of the platform the automatic barrier dropped to close the road. ‘Ah, that one,’ she said, knowingly. She was probablythinking that these days he was supposed to be attached to the Mad Englishwoman whom everybody liked.
    Bruno wondered what it would be like to live in Paris or some big city where he could go out anonymously to meet someone without word spreading to all his friends and neighbours within moments. The train slowed to a halt, and even though it stopped for less than a minute Jeanne delayed her boarding, eager for a sight of the policewoman from Paris and the confirmation of her suspicion that Bruno was reviving an old affair.
    ‘
Ça va
, Bruno?’ Isabelle asked with a smile as she stepped down from the train, and he felt his heart leap happily in his chest. The line of her jaw and cheekbones still had a sharp look; she had yet to replace the weight she had lost from her already slim body after being shot. She was dressed as always in black, an open raincoat that fell almost to her ankles and black slacks with a wide red leather belt whose colour matched her lipstick. Her hair was cut even closer than usual to her enchantingly shaped head. Another millimetre and Bruno would have called it a crewcut. She had a small overnight case in one hand, a laptop bag over one shoulder, a cane in the other hand, and by her feet was another square case in plastic.
    Carefully avoiding any darting glance at the cane, which he’d hoped would no longer be needed, Bruno took the square case and her bag, and kissed her soundly on both cheeks. His hands encumbered with her luggage, he hugged her as best he could with his upper arms. The square case shifted and squirmed in his grip, as if it had a life of its own.
    ‘Careful, Bruno, it’s alive,’ she said. Jeanne looked baffled as she pulled herself onto the train and the doors began to close. As the train started to move Isabelle fell into his arms, hugging him tightly. But it was more the embrace of a fond relative than an impatient lover, Bruno thought.
    ‘What’s alive?’ he asked. He heard a tiny mewing as the case he was holding seemed to quiver of its own accord.
    ‘It’s the man who’s been sharing my bedroom,’ she said, leaning back to look at him but still holding his hand. ‘It’s your present from me and the Brigadier, and I want you to call him Balzac.’
    Bruno went down on one knee and turned the case to see the small metal grille, and behind it the pink tongue and