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

traditional Périgord stone building. But it seemed somehow fake: the stones too regular, the tiles too new and the doors and windows were all too freshly painted, with no weathering by sun and rain. Leaving his gardening gloves and clogs at the door, Lemontin donned a pair of slippers awaiting him just inside the kitchen, washed his hands at the sink and turned on the kettle to make coffee.
    ‘Have you heard of a place called Thivion?’ he began. Bruno shook his head. ‘It’s in the next
Département
, the Corrèze. A small place, a bit like St Denis, with a river and some nice old buildings. They’re trying to build up the tourist trade. Out of the blue, they got an offer from a property company to build a high-class holiday resort with golf course. Theywere promised individual swimming pools for each of the luxurious holiday villas, which were to be built in the classic local style. No expense spared, they were told.’
    The kettle boiled and Lemontin made coffee and steered Bruno into a small room beside the kitchen, evidently his private study. It had the same spectacular view down the river, but no armchair from which to enjoy it, only Lemontin’s office chair at the desk, and a straight-backed wooden chair beside the filing cabinet. On the desk lay a telephone, a laptop and a notepad, with a single newly sharpened pencil. A bookcase stood next to the desk, with the annual copies of the telephone directory neatly in order and going back at least ten years. Bruno had never seen anyone who stored such stuff before. There was no painting nor poster on the walls, only the cheap calendar issued each year by the bank. While it struck him as slightly odd, the extraordinary neatness of the study gave Bruno confidence in the rigour of Lemontin’s files and researches.
    ‘It sounds a bit like the deal we’re being offered,’ said Bruno, taking the wooden chair, but turning it so that he could enjoy the view. ‘Is it the same company?’
    ‘Hard to tell,’ said Lemontin. ‘The names are different. Our company is called Mortemart Investments and theirs was Gondrin Investments, but they have some of the same directors and use the same bank. You’ll want to speak to the people in Thivion yourself, but here’s what they were promised.’
    He rose, opened the filing cabinet and withdrew a fat file. He handed Bruno an architect’s drawing for what looked like a very handsome development indeed, in a style very similar to the one Bruno had seen in his Mayor’s office.
    ‘And here’s the reality,’ Lemontin said, handing him a large print of what looked like a barracks, undistinguished buildings of one and two storeys jammed closely together with a communal swimming pool and vast common car park. The walls had recently been repainted in a less than successful attempt to cover large displays of graffiti.
    ‘The promised eighteen-hole golf course has turned into a small place for miniature golf,’ Lemontin said. ‘The buildings are not luxurious individual villas. The town ended up heavily in debt.’
    Under the original deal, the town was required to arrange full planning and construction permission and to install the roads, water and sewerage systems, the electricity and gas and to pay for new telephone lines. The development company would do the rest. This meant that all the town’s investment took place at the beginning of the project. Once the roads and sewers were built, Gondrin announced that it had been taken over by another company, which said the original plan was no longer viable and would have to be scaled back. Even to go ahead with a much cheaper project, the new company would require further investments and bank guarantees from the town. Having already invested nearly a million euros, the town council reluctantly went ahead.
    ‘And this is what they got for their two millions in debt,’ Lemontin said, pointing to the photograph of the barracks. ‘It’s leased out to one of the more notorious
banlieues
outside Paris as a holiday home for disadvantaged families. Not quite the upmarket clientele that Thivion was promised.’
    ‘Where did the two million debt come from?’
    Roads, sewers and legal fees, Lemontin explained, plus the town found itself responsible for architect’s fees and some very stiff management and accounting fees to Gondrin Investments. That was the first million. A further million to start the building work and another mortgage to complete it; otherwise they threatened