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

alongside.’
    There was little of the punt to be seen as it drifted sluggishly towards them, maybe an inch or two of freeboard above the water. Antoine stretched out an arm as the punt approached, caught hold of the side and muttered, ‘The good Lord preserve us,’ as he looked at the woman within. A bird that had been perched, pecking, inside the punt flew away. When he caught the rusty iron ring at the stern of the punt, he deftly threaded his rope through it and tied a quick knot.
    ‘That’ll do,’ he said. ‘She’s too sodden for a tow, we might drag her under. We’ll just drift down to the beach and guide her in.’
    The woman was almost awash, the water in the punt lapping over her legs, pubis and ears so that only her breasts, face and feet were visible. Her fair hair floated behind her head and her hands trembled in the water, the fingers seeming to move in the eddies of water almost as if she were waving. The bird had been at her left eye. The other stared sightlessly at the sky, but it was evident she had been an attractive woman, with good skin and fine features. Her nose and chin were well shaped and her cheekbones prominent. Bruno caught a whiff of something burned and also something oily, it might have been paraffin. An empty bottle of vodka stirred at her side.
    As they neared the landing beach, Antoine skilfully steered them across the current and climbed out of the canoe when the bank shelved to guide the punt up onto the sand. The young man in white, his trousers still wet, came down to help him haul it up, but Antoine waved him away. Brunobeached the canoe, climbed out to haul it higher and shook Dr Gelletreau’s hand before the doctor moved across to look into the punt. Antoine had tipped it slightly onto its side to let some of the water out, but small streams were dribbling from cracks in the hull. One large black candle, nearly a metre in length, toppled out of the punt and a second one rolled against the gunwale. Bruno had only ever seen candles that size in church, but never in black. At least he now knew what the stumpy mast had been.
    ‘How is she? Is she dead?’ the young man from the sports car asked. Bruno recognized him now from the previous year’s tennis tournament when the girls had flocked around him. He had the arrogant good looks of a model in a glossy magazine. He’d played with someone in the men’s doubles, reaching the semi-finals with an aggressive game of serve-and-volley.
    ‘We’ll wait for the doctor’s verdict,’ Bruno said. ‘Didn’t you hear us yelling at you not to dive in back at the bridge? You must have seen I was a policeman. You might have sunk the boat.’
    ‘I was only trying to help,’ he said pleasantly, with a slightly mocking tilt to his eyebrow. He had an educated voice, an accent that sounded Parisian and a manner that suggested he was used to getting his way. ‘I thought I could stop it crashing into the bridge.’
    ‘What brings you to St Denis?’ Bruno asked.
    ‘We have a business meeting at the
Mairie
,’ he said. ‘We were crossing the bridge when the crowd turned up, climbed out and saw her drifting down and I thought I might be ableto reach the boat from the other bank. Sorry, I’m Lionel Foucher.’
    He put out a hand, and Bruno shook it, turning to look at the young woman sitting in the driving seat of what Bruno now saw was a new-looking Jaguar. She was wearing sunglasses and raised her hand in languid greeting. Bruno suddenly remembered he was wearing only his underpants, shirt and a life jacket. He grinned at her and waved back.
    ‘That’s Eugénie, my partner,’ said Foucher. ‘Well, you’ve got her safely ashore. We’ll leave you to it.’
    ‘I’m sure the Mayor won’t mind your wet trousers, not in the circumstances,’ Bruno replied, and turned back to the punt as Foucher climbed into the car and was driven off.
    ‘No name or markings on the punt,’ said Antoine.
    ‘I can’t give you much of a time of death,’ said Gelletreau, rising from beside the punt. He had a pair of tweezers in his hand, holding something that looked like a small circle of wet cardboard. He took a plastic bag from his medical case and put the object inside.
    ‘Water plays the very devil with body temperature and lividity, all the usual signs. No obvious cause of death so we’ll probably need an autopsy. No jewellery and no sign of any belongings so there’s no indication of identity. Some bruising around the vulva and the