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

decanter from the table, poured and then put the wine to the side of the fire, away from the direct heat. She sipped at the soup, almost greedily, until most of the liquid had gone, and then she took the spoon to break up the melted cheese and toast.
    ‘I don’t feel too good but I’m starving,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure I’ll appreciate the wine.’
    ‘Only one way to find out,’ he said, handing her a glass. He sipped at his own and nodded with pleasure. ‘Do you want some risotto? It will only take a few minutes.’
    She nodded and squeezed his hand. ‘Sorry, I’m not good company this evening. I didn’t like being in that cave on my own. I knew you were coming but that place made me shiver. It wasn’t scary in the usual sense, more disconcerting, almost as if I could sense something … maybe alien is the word. I don’t know if it was evil but it felt very different, like another form of life altogether.’
    He glanced at her curiously as he stoked the fire; this wasn’t like Isabelle. He’d never seen her nervous, far less afraid of anything.
    ‘People have usually invested the caves with strange powers,’ he said. ‘It always seemed to me significant that our prehistoric ancestors did their engravings and paintings in the caves, but they never lived in them.’
    ‘I understand why,’ she said, and shivered again.
    He felt her brow. ‘You’ve got a fever, and that probably made you feel a bit woozy in there.’
    ‘I feel under the weather,’ she said. ‘But I still want your risotto. And that book on the table – is that left out because I was coming or do you read it?’
    He glanced across at the book of Prévert’s poetry that had been her gift.
    ‘That’s us, I suppose,’ she said, a finger stroking the back of his hand, tracing the line of each of his fingers. ‘His poemabout parted lovers, and the sea erasing the footprints left in the sand.’
    ‘But we still have to eat,’ he said, and took out the soup bowls. In the kitchen he used the almost boiling water to fill a hot-water bottle and put it in the bed on the side where Isabelle always slept. Then he put the shallots and garlic into the frying pan with a little more duck fat and a cup of Arborio rice and began to stir, waiting for the grains to turn translucent and then just slightly brown. He added the mushrooms and a little of the wine, stirring until the rice had absorbed the liquid, and then did the same with the duck stock. He gave it a little more time, tasting until the rice had just the hint of crunch to it. Once satisfied, he served it onto two warmed plates and returned to Isabelle and the fire.
    She seemed to be dozing but she stirred as he put another log on the fire, took her plate and began to eat, making purring noises of approval. After a moment, she asked him, ‘Can Balzac eat this?’ and he nodded and brought her a spoon. She offered a small amount of rice to the puppy, who took it with evident pleasure.
    ‘I made a little extra just for him,’ Bruno said. ‘Not the mushrooms, just the rice. Let me bring his bowl so he gets used to it.’
    He went to his utility room, where he kept his washing machine, his freezer and his shotgun, with the cupboard where he locked his ammunition away. From the top of the cupboard he took down Gigi’s old bowls, which he had placed there so mournfully on the day his dog had been killed. It had also been the last time he had seen Isabelle. He washedthem quickly in the kitchen sink, filled one with water and the other with the rest of the risotto and took them back to the fire.
    ‘I’m warm now and sleepy,’ said Isabelle as they sipped their wine and watched the dog eat. When Balzac was done, Bruno put him in the kitchen with Gigi’s old cushion and some newspapers on the floor, and then led Isabelle to bed.
    ‘I only have my very romantic nightgown with me,’ she said, as she headed for the bathroom. ‘Somehow I don’t think I can live up to its promise tonight.’
    ‘Try this.’ He handed her one of his rugby shirts, which he used instead of pyjamas on cold nights.
    ‘Perfect,’ she said and disappeared. Returning, her face was free of all make-up and she smelled of toothpaste. His rugby shirt hung down below her knees.
    ‘A hot-water bottle, how wonderful,’ she said as she slipped between the sheets. Her voice was small and tired. When he joined her, she curled into him and drifted quickly to sleep and he listened to her breathing and wondered