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

it did fall short, but that wasn’t our fault.’
    It was the timing, she explained. When the financial crisis hit the American mortgage market their funding had dried up at the bank. She claimed that she, the Count and Foucher had worked with the Mayor to salvage what they could of the deal, but the Count had lost money in the process. Thatwas the risk that any property development would face, most of all in the worst global recession in seventy years. She launched into a long and complex explanation of the different companies involved in the deal that simply left Bruno confused.
    ‘So this could happen again with St Denis?’ he asked.
    ‘No, the funding is secure this time. It’s not from a bank.’
    ‘The people of Thivion have some serious allegations against your company. Perhaps I should say companies. There seem to have been several of them involved at various times.’
    She dug her heels into her horse’s side, rode on a few yards and wheeled the horse to confront him.
    ‘If we’d been trying to defraud Thivion, they could have taken us to court,’ she said, rising in the stirrups, her eyes blazing. ‘And believe me they tried, but all the lawyers they consulted said they had no case. I know because I had to put my name to sworn statements, spelling out what really happened. We worked night and day trying to make that deal work, and if that damn Mayor of Thivion had guaranteed the loan we’d have had the money to build the place as we planned and the whole project would have worked.’
    Her horse was shying at the tension coming from Eugénie and she had to walk it in a circle to calm it, patting her mare’s neck and forcing herself to calm down. Hector, aware of some change in the mood, backed slightly away.
    ‘They have no right to make such accusations against us, against me,’ she said, calmer now, but her voice still tight. ‘There was no fraud, and there’s no fraud in what we’re trying to do here with St Denis. The Count’s grandmother lives here,for heaven’s sake. Would he be trying to cheat the town on his family’s own doorstep? It’s absurd.’
    It was plausible. Bruno was aware that the courts were filled with cases of property deals that had been aborted by the recession and most of them were thrown out or settled out of court.
    ‘There’s a simple solution,’ he said. ‘If the funding is secure, then it can be put into escrow so we know it’s there.’
    ‘It doesn’t work like that. We have written confirmation of the funding but no money will be released until we start work.’
    ‘In that case, my Mayor will almost certainly want some sizeable collateral before he commits town funds for the preliminary work. How about the Auberge St Philippon? That belongs to the Count, I believe?’
    ‘It’s a different company,’ she said, coldly.
    ‘One of the things that worries us about Thivion is that you seemed to have many companies at your disposal, all doing different things,’ he said. ‘Their Mayor said every time he dealt with one of your companies another one stepped in.’
    ‘That’s common in property deals,’ she said. ‘One company to do the planning and the finance, one to supervise the construction and another to handle the management.’
    ‘It’s not common in Thivion and it’s not common round here.’
    ‘You say that as if we’re under suspicion! Have you been told about the plans for the sports hall we gave to your Mayor? Doesn’t that prove we’re genuine? Architectural plans don’t come cheap.’
    Bruno shrugged.
    ‘Why is the Mayor negotiating through you?’ she asked. ‘You told me you had no influence in these matters.’
    ‘I’m not negotiating and I have no authority to do so. I’m simply telling you of the town’s concerns. I’m very pleased the Count wants to build St Denis an indoor sports centre. It’s something I’ve been trying to raise money for ever since I got here.’
    ‘I’ll have to think about all this and discuss it with the others,’ she said.
    ‘You’re a very unusual nurse.’
    ‘And you’re a very unusual policeman,’ she replied, turning her horse and riding off.
    Bruno looked after her for a while as Hector pawed at the ground and the other two horses looked at him curiously, waiting for the word to follow. He looked down at Balzac on his chest.
    ‘Mother kangaroo,’ he said to himself, acknowledging the aptness of her remark, and chuckled as he turned Hector towards the track that led the