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

sliced butter into the frying pan to melt before he drained the potatoes and asparagus. He put them into new dishes, poured on the melted butter, sprinkled more parsley on the potatoes and rejoined the others. By the time he returned, Balzac was sitting happily on Isabelle’s lap and sniffing at her empty plate.
    ‘The asparagus was perfect,’ she said. ‘But I’ve always had them with Hollandaise sauce before.’
    ‘You had your eggs in the omelette,’ J-J said. ‘Bruno’s thinking about my diet. I’m supposed to lose ten kilos this year.’
    Isabelle glanced at Bruno and raised a quizzical eyebrow as J-J forked a piece of ham and a new potato, dripping with butter, into his mouth.
    ‘Time we got to business,’ J-J said. ‘Do you think the old woman was lying about not seeing your dead blonde before? That maid who let us in looked very nervous when she saw the photo.’
    ‘I can’t say the sister convinced me,’ Bruno said. ‘I’m pretty sure the punt came from their boathouse, but that doesn’t mean she knew about it. The boathouse is a long way from the château. And I’ve met that nurse while out riding. That’s why I asked you to go round to the back of the building when we left. I wanted to see their stables, and there were at least three horses there, yet that nurse claimed not to know where to find a farrier to put a new shoe on her horse.’
    ‘The sister said her name was de la Gorce,’ said J-J, looking at his notebook. ‘Probably a married name. Ring any bells?’
    ‘I can look it up in the
Almanach
,’ said Isabelle. ‘From what you say of the Red Countess,
Renseignements Généraux
will have a huge file on her, going all the way back to the 1940s. Watching Communists was their top priority in those days. Still, that château didn’t look like the kind of place for a coke-fuelled orgy. But maybe I’ve led a sheltered life.’
    Bruno smiled at her, and turned to J-J. ‘The question is whether we’ve got enough to open a proper investigation.’
    ‘You know the procedure,’ said J-J. ‘I can draft a report for the
Procureur de la République
but since the pathologist’s report suggests suicide, he’ll need a lot of convincing to turn this into a full-scale inquiry. Our budget’s in enough trouble.’
    ‘All the publicity around this Satanism stuff may help,’ said Isabelle. ‘But in my experience, he’s going to want youto come up with an identity for the corpse before he takes a decision.’
    J-J nodded. ‘You’ve checked the missing persons’ index and I’ve sent off a request for a fingerprint search. We haven’t gone through the known prostitutes list yet, not even for this
Département
. I doubt that anything will come of it but I’ll see that gets done over the weekend. She died Monday evening and it’s now Friday. We’ll get a new batch of missing persons posted on Monday, but if nothing else comes up, we’re stuck.’
    Bruno sighed, began gathering the empty plates and asked who wanted coffee.
    ‘No dessert?’ asked J-J. ‘I don’t want you taking my diet too seriously. I get enough of that at home.’
    ‘No dessert,’ Bruno said firmly. ‘There is another thing that concerns me, based on the story in the paper today about the break-in at the cave.’
    He explained about Delaron paying the boys to stage the break-in, but that somebody had been there before them.
    ‘I told them at the cave not to disturb that chapel until I could see whether you’d be prepared to send in a forensic team,’ Bruno said.
    J-J shook his head. ‘Not on what we’ve got so far.’
    ‘Bruno, perhaps you and I could take another look at the cave?’ Isabelle said. ‘I’d like to see it anyway and I don’t have to be back in Paris until Sunday evening.’ She paused, and gave Bruno a roguish glance that reminded him that it was in another cave that he’d first kissed her. ‘I have a soft spot for caves, even without prehistoric paintings.’
    ‘Just so long as you also have a soft spot for goat’s heads, too,’ he said, laughing.
    He rose and collected the plates. Balzac teetered on the edge of Isabelle’s lap, intent on following. She let him down to the ground and he trotted after Bruno, who put the plates in the sink and then gave the puppy the trimmings from the ham. As he made the coffee, Bruno pondered how critical he should be of Marcel, when he saw him at the cave. Since his son was involved, Marcel must have been in on Delaron’s hoax. As for