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

on, andthen we saw everything else and that’s when we ran.’
    ‘You ran back to the boat? Then pedalled back to the other bank?’
    ‘Yes, but I didn’t tell you. There was already a boat on the shore by the chapel when we got there. We took our boat back but I’d put on the master switch by then so everything was lit. Then we left by the stage door and I turned off the master switch.’
    ‘And did you tell your dad?’
    ‘No, we were all too scared.’
    Delaron was the one who should be in trouble, but the four boys would probably pay the worst price once their role was exposed. Had Delaron thought of that when he recruited his own nephew into the scheme? No doubt he assured the boy it was just a lark.
    But if he couldn’t expose Delaron without exposing the boys, could he stop the newspaper from printing the false story? He’d need some powerful evidence to convince them to drop it, and without the boys he had no evidence at all, except his and Florence’s word. She was pensive as she glanced from one of her pupils to the next, all the time stroking Balzac and letting the puppy nibble at her fingers. Would she confirm to the newspaper that the story was false, if it meant bringing the boys’ role into the open? He rather doubted it, which was one of the things he admired about her.
    ‘I don’t want their names connected with this,’ Florence said once the boys had clattered their way downstairs.
    ‘I was thinking the same thing, even though if we keep quiet about this, it lets Delaron publish a lie.’
    ‘If you want me to swear to Delaron’s editor that I know the story to be false, I’ll explain why I know but I’m not prepared to reveal the boys’ names.’
    The thought struck Bruno that he now had Delaron’s career in the palm of his hand. Even without the boys’ evidence, he could ensure that the newspaper would never employ him again. As he dismissed the thought, a sneaky little voice at the back of his head was suggesting it might be quite useful to have a hold on Delaron in the future.
    ‘After all, the story’s not altogether false,’ Florence said. ‘I believe the boys when they said that somebody else had been there before them.’
    ‘Delaron can’t have been responsible for that, or he’d have had no need to send the boys in.’
    ‘So there is truth in what Delaron is peddling,’ Florence replied. ‘Somebody is playing Satanist games in the cave, just as they did with that woman in the boat.’

13
    Bruno, intent on a serious talk on the ethics of journalism with Philippe Delaron, had left Balzac with Florence. She wanted to show the puppy to her own children. But his visit to Delaron’s camera shop was in vain. Delaron’s mother explained that her son had gone to Périgueux. Bruno took the back road over the hill, cutting across one of the great bends of the river to the home of Gaston Lemontin, no longer the deputy bank manager after signing his petition. Bruno found him in his garden with his wife, planting vegetables in the
potager
.
    ‘Time I did that myself,’ Bruno said. ‘I thought I might try some beetroot this year.’ He gazed down beyond the garden to the edge of the cliff and the impressive view along a stretch of the river to the far side of the valley. There was no other building in sight. No wonder Lemontin was prepared to take some risks to protect it.
    ‘You didn’t come here to talk about beetroot,’ said Lemontin. ‘You heard what happened at the bank?’
    ‘No, but I can guess. You’ve been transferred to Timbuktu.’
    ‘Not quite that far. I’ll be commuting up to Sarlat from Monday, and I get tomorrow off.’
    Lemontin’s wife turned from the beanpoles she was placing and said, ‘I’ll never vote for that damn Mayor again.’
    ‘I thought this might happen,’ Lemontin said. ‘I know how these things work. It might even be a blessing in disguise. I’m going to be deputy manager to a man who’s close to retirement, so I could get promoted.’
    ‘I really came to pick your brains,’ Bruno said. ‘You said there was something fishy about this deal and I need to know if you’re right.’
    Lemontin looked at him sceptically. ‘Is this you needing to know or the Mayor?’
    ‘Both. But it’s mainly local taxpayers like you who need to know whether this is a solid project or something that’s going to land us in trouble.’
    Lemontin led the way back up the gravel path that bisected his garden. His house was a modern copy of a