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

start reading the classic novels of his new dog’s namesake. He remembered the Mayor telling him soon after Bruno took office that all he would need to know about the politics and passions, the feuds and dynamics of St Denis, would be found in the pages of Balzac. He tucked his own warm and sleepy Balzac into the crook of his elbow as he went up the stairs to the science lab where Florence held her classes.
    He had assumed there could be no better prop for a conversation with youngsters than the puppy, but the four boys had a guarded and almost shifty look as they lined up to greet him and shake his hand. Their defensiveness continued even when he put Balzac on the teacher’s bench before them, taking worried glances at one another from under lowered brows. At least Florence was instantly charmed, smiling indulgently as she took a paper towel to wipe a little dribble the puppy left as he ambled towards her.
    Bruno knew all four boys through his tennis and rugby lessons. They were normal, healthy youngsters, still a year or two short of puberty. They had grown up in the countryside where they could roam free all day and where there were few dangers. Other than the tourists, everyone knew everyone else in St Denis, a town where people seldom bothered to lock their doors at night. Raised in a community where theirparents would swiftly be told of any bad behaviour, the boys were polite to their elders and almost always cheerful and noisy with one another. Their subdued and troubled manner itself was for Bruno a clear signal that something was wrong.
    ‘I’m trying to find out who made a mess in Our Lady’s Chapel in the Gouffre, and I found some clues that I think will tell me who was responsible,’ Bruno told them.
    He took out the evidence bags with the vodka bottle, the bubblegum wrapper and the strange cigarette end and laid them on the bench. He smoothed out the bag with the bubblegum so the trade mark could be clearly seen, and the boys began to fidget.
    ‘You know what fingerprints are, don’t you?’ he asked, glancing from one to the other.
    ‘It’s what you look for to find out who did something, the lines on people’s fingers that get left when they touch something,’ said Luc, Delaron’s nephew.
    ‘That’s right. Everybody on earth has different fingerprints, so if we find some on a clue, we know who it was.’ He paused, and smoothed out the bubblegum again. ‘The glass on that bottle or shiny paper like this is wonderful for showing fingerprints, so I’ll soon know who touched this. People have been sent to prison on the evidence of their fingerprints.’
    ‘I’ve seen it on TV,’ said Jean-Paul. ‘It was an American show. I’m not allowed to watch
Engrenages
, my mum says I’m too young.’
    ‘Your mum is right, sometimes I wonder if I’m old enough to watch it,’ Bruno said, thinking of the hit TV series that always seemed to start with a dead body in a rubbish dumpor in the boot of a burned-out car. ‘What about you, Abdul?’ Bruno said, turning to Karim’s cousin’s son. The boy almost jumped out of his skin. ‘Do you know what DNA is?’
    Abdul looked across at his teacher, who smiled at him encouragingly.
    ‘Genetics,’ the boy said.
    ‘That’s right. Whoever smoked this cigarette in this bag left some saliva on the filter. The saliva contains DNA so we can identify who it was. Did you know that?’
    Abdul shook his head. Luc was swallowing hard and Mathieu, the youngest, was looking on the verge of tears. Jean-Paul, son of the manager of the cave, had gone white. Bruno did not feel at all proud of himself but he couldn’t see how else to go about his questioning. He looked up at Florence for reassurance and she nodded for him to continue.
    ‘I’m pretty sure I know which boys were in that cave, and when I take fingerprints or DNA I’ll be able to confirm it. But if I have to do that, I’ll have to bring in your parents and a magistrate and it all becomes very serious. Do you all understand that?’
    The boys nodded.
    ‘Now, I’m just going to ask you, Jean-Paul, because you know where your family keeps all the keys, how did you get into the cave?’
    Jean-Paul looked across at his friends, chewing his lip. At that moment, Balzac tottered across from sniffing Florence’s sleeve to stand in front of the boys. He looked at their faces and then slumped down, paws and ears outstretched, in frontof Jean-Paul and looked up at the boy with big, sad eyes, his tail