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

eye for the ball, but not a girl to spend much time at practice. Once she entered her teens Francette had spent more time eyeing the boys than working at her tennis. She had begun wearing make-up at an early age, but Bruno remembered seeing her scrub it off when she boarded the bus that took her up the hill towards home. She had left school early and worked at the checkout of the local supermarket and as far as Bruno knew she still lived at home. Perhaps he should start with her.
    On his desk phone was a recorded message from Delaron, who knew that a formal query on Bruno’s phone at the
Mairie
would have to be answered.
    Bruno listened to Delaron’s chirpy voice telling him that the newspaper was very interested in his photos of the dead woman in the boat, but they would make sure it was decent enough for a family newspaper. Could Bruno confirm in time for his deadline that the woman was dead, that she had been murdered and that it was looking like a case of ritual Satanist killing?
    ‘
Merde
,’ Bruno muttered to himself, as Delaron went on to say that Father Sentout had already said that the corpse ‘carried all the hallmarks of a Satanist outrage’.
    ‘
Putain de merde
,’ Bruno muttered. The Mayor was not going to like this and Father Sentout should have known better. Bruno picked up the phone and rang Delaron to tell him that all inquiries should go to the official police spokesman in Périgueux. Bruno could confirm only that the woman was dead, but there was no visible cause of death and it was noteven yet decided that the death was suspicious. Off the record, the doctor reckoned it was suicide. What about the Satanism? Delaron demanded. Any reference to Satanism was pure speculation, Bruno told him. He put the phone down and went to warn the Mayor.
    Gérard Mangin had been the Mayor of St Denis for over twenty years. He had hired Bruno as town policeman and educated him, a former soldier still battered in mind and body from his time in the Balkans, in the traditional and peaceful ways of St Denis. Bruno revered him as a Mayor, loved him as a father, but had few illusions about the Mayor’s ruthless pursuit of what he saw as the interests of St Denis. The most important, of course, was that Gérard Mangin should remain as Mayor.
    ‘Ah, Bruno, I have excellent news,’ the Mayor said, as Bruno knocked and entered the light-filled room with its view over the Vézère. The Mayor laid down the fountain pen that he still used for all his business, refusing any suggestion that he adopt a computer. He closed the large notebook in which he was writing the history of the town and opened a manila file with a green ribbon attached to its corner. Green meant a project that the Mayor supported.
    ‘I think I mentioned this proposal for a holiday village, very exclusive, golf course attached, up the river toward Montignac. A big investment group based in Paris, impeccable credentials,’ the Mayor said, looking pleased with himself. ‘It’s at the very edge of our commune and some of the land will be in two other communes, but it looks like we’ll get the bulk of the taxes. Of course, we’ll have to putsewers in and widen the river road, but we’ll get our money back in a few years and then it’s all income. And our people will get the building and landscape work, and the maintenance and cleaning jobs, and a couple of hundred wealthy new customers for our restaurants.’
    Much of the Mayor’s time was spent finding jobs for St Denis, or trying to save jobs that were threatened, or securing grants from Brussels and Paris for training and retraining schemes. He had always been obsessed with finding jobs for the young people who left for the universities of Bordeaux and Toulouse and never came back, but the global recession had made it more urgent. That St Denis flourished, when so many other French country towns were shrinking and dying as the populations aged, was testimony to his efforts and to his political connections. Bruno supported the Mayor’s plans in general, but tended to express only polite interest in the particular projects. He was thinking that an affluent holiday village with many of the homes empty throughout the year would be a magnet for burglars, which would be his problem, even though the village was at the far end of the commune, ten kilometres from St Denis. But he thought he’d better sound supportive.
    ‘Very good news, particularly if they agree to open the golf course to local