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

found injection points on the bodies,’ she said. There was a small needle mark in the arm of each corpse. Fabiola suspected it had been used to send air to the right atriumof the heart and from there to the lung, where it would block the capillaries and interrupt the circulation system. The person dies gasping, she explained, because the body thinks the problem is a lack of air. Without an X-ray the standard proof was missing.
    ‘In Junot’s case, there’s bruising that could have been caused by a physical attack, but the injuries sustained in the crash make it very hard to prove. In each case, the injection seemed to be done by someone with medical training and a very large syringe. You’d need about two hundred cc, that’s about a cupful. The usual syringe contains twenty cc.’
    ‘So it’s your informed opinion that it was murder by air injection? That’s enough for the
Procureur
to ask for a full inquiry.’
    ‘But you’ll need other evidence,’ she insisted. She had indications rather than proof, she explained, and another doctor could disagree. But her pathologist friend was faxing his report to the
Procureur
’s office with a copy for Bruno and another to J-J. As she rang off, Fabiola added that Junot wouldn’t have lasted long anyway unless he stopped drinking. His liver was yellow-orange and he had swollen breasts; advanced cirrhosis.
    Bruno had been strolling around the car park as he listened and now found himself beside a tall hedge through which he could see more vehicles. One of them was a large pickup truck, rare in France. He squeezed through a gap in the hedge and saw that it was a far-from-new Toyota Hilux, a powerful 3-litre model with crash bars front and rear. He walked around it, wondering if it would have the power to break the logson a crash barrier. The Toyota’s front crash bar, while badly scratched, seemed intact. The rear one was bent but clean. The cargo area was covered by a dirty tarpaulin, torn in places. There was no sign of blood nor of the fresh oil that might have suggested it had recently carried a motorbike. But it could have been used to cover the crash bar while it pushed at the fence on the road where Junot’s body had been found. Bruno took a small plastic bag from his pocket, plucked one of the threads from the tarpaulin and bagged it.
    He walked back to the terrace, where the lunch party was coming to an end with coffee being served. He went to Béatrice, sitting between J-J and the Baron and charming them both. He apologized for the interruption and asked for a private word with her.
    ‘You can be a very tiresome guest,’ she replied. After a final squeeze of the Baron’s arm, she led him back to her office. ‘Will this take long?’
    ‘I hope not. It’s about Francette’s father. Did you see him again after he came with me to see Francette?’
    ‘No. What is this, Bruno? You said he died in a road accident.’
    ‘We’re just trying to retrace his movements before the crash.’
    ‘Well, I didn’t see him here again.’
    ‘Thanks.’ He half-turned as if to go. ‘By the way, before this job I think you said you were in corporate entertaining. When was that and where? We’re doing a review of the beverage licences for all the communes in the
Conseil
.’
    ‘I don’t hold the beverage licence. That’s the Count.’
    ‘But you’re in charge.’
    She studied him and then opened a small filing cabinet in the side of her desk. ‘Here’s a copy of my CV.’
    He scanned it, noticing the vague references to ‘hospitality industry’ and the gaps and asked casually, ‘No convictions?’ She shook her head. ‘No arrest record?’
    She sat down at her desk. ‘Why not say what it is you want?’
    ‘I’m wondering how you got out of those two arrests without a conviction,’ he replied, taking a chair opposite her.
    ‘So even you country coppers can call up police records these days.’ She looked not in the least abashed.
    ‘We always could,’ he said mildly. ‘Why not tell me what happened?’
    ‘You don’t look like an innocent to me, Bruno. You can imagine what happened. But do you have any idea what hit the oldest profession when the Eastern Europeans came in? The Russians, the Albanians, the Serbs, the menaces and the threats, the girls terrorized, pimps shot, escort agencies fire-bombed. It was like a war zone in the Nineties. I got out as soon as I could.’
    ‘How did you get started?’
    ‘By being born in Beuvry, up on the