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

eager eyes of a puppy. Its feet were far too big for its small body and its ears were so long they trailed in the layers of newspapers that lined the travelling cage. One half of his heart lifted at the sight of a baby basset hound. The other half regretted that Isabelle had not understood his wish to choose his new dog himself. He opened the grille and the puppy bounded out and clambered up one thigh to perch on his other knee and then start squirming his way up Bruno’s arm to lick his face.
    ‘It looks like he’s chosen you,’ Isabelle said.
    ‘Balzac,’ Bruno said, holding the puppy in both hands and bringing it close to his face to study it with a hunter’s eye.
    The snow-white legs, pedalling merrily, were short and sturdy, the hips almost as broad as the shoulders. The puppy’s chest and belly were the perfect pink of new flesh, the brown fur on its sides becoming black from the white collar alongthe spine to the rump. Balzac’s tail had the characteristic white tip, so in the woods Bruno would be able to see it above undergrowth. The pads of Balzac’s paws were still pink and soft, and his tiny teeth were like needles as Bruno looked inside his mouth. A white stripe from his scalp ran down between eyes that already carried the wisdom of generations of bassets. With the rational part of his mind, Bruno knew this was a hound of classic breeding, and all the rest of him was falling in love.
    ‘I was worried at picking one out for you, rather than letting you choose,’ Isabelle was saying, an unusual tone of nervousness in her voice. ‘But the Brigadier insisted on this breed. He called the head of the hunting pack at Cheverny and asked where to find the best bassets in France and got him to pick this one out.’
    She explained that Balzac came from the original kennels of the legendary French breeder Léon Verrier, and his grandmother had been crossed with the Stonewall Jackson line from America.
    ‘You know that the Marquis de Lafayette took bassets to George Washington as a gift when we helped free the Americans from the British?’ Bruno interrupted.
    She shook her head. ‘My briefing didn’t go that far.’
    She paused and put her hand on his shoulder, where Balzac quickly began to lick it. ‘Now, pay attention, Bruno, because I learned this little speech off by heart just for you.’
    She coughed to clear her throat and Bruno stood, his puppy nestling against his chest and licking the underside of his chin, as Isabelle closed her eyes and began to recite.
    ‘We know that no dog could ever replace Gigi, but this comes with the personal thanks of the Minister of the Interior and his staff. We were going to pay for your new dog with Ministry funds, but when the kennel heard how Gigi was killed, they wanted you to have it as a gift. By special arrangement, Gigi’s name has been inscribed on the roll of honour at the headquarters of the 132nd Bataillon Canine, at Suippes in the
Département
of the Marne.’
    She stopped, opened her eyes, and smiled at him brilliantly. ‘Oh yes, and they’ll be in touch with you in a couple of years because they want to breed from him.’
    Bruno’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Is this a joke?’
    Isabelle shook her head. ‘We in France deploy and train more military dogs than any other country on earth. I found out a lot about this when the Brigadier took me down to Suippes, seven hundred dogs in the biggest military kennel in Europe.’
    With his spare arm, Bruno reached for her and drew her into a close embrace, little Balzac squirming to lick first Isabelle and then him and back again.
    ‘The dog is wonderful, and I’m very happy. So thank you,’ he said, trying to kiss a part of Isabelle’s face that was not covered by a tiny head and enormous ears. ‘I’ll give you a letter to take back to the Brigadier to thank him and you’ll let me have the address of the kennels. I hope this means you’ll be making regular maternal visits.’
    ‘Maternal?’ she said in mock horror, moving Balzac’s head to one side so that she could kiss him in return. ‘You’ve got the wrong girl, Bruno. That’s the last thing I have in mind.’
    ‘What’s on my mind right now is lunch,’ Bruno replied.‘Ivan’s doing his
soupe aux haricots
, the one where he makes his stock with a pig’s tail.’
    ‘And I’m justifying my little trip down here with a visit to the
Ecouteurs
’ school, telling them our latest priorities,’ she said. ‘But that’s not until later