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

Michel in touch with the school of architecture at Bordeaux University, where he spoke with a young professor who’d done an exchange year at the school of architecture in Quebec.
    ‘It’s a Canadian specification,’ Michel explained. ‘And the guy recognized it, because it was a school project he’d been involved in, designing a sports hall for a town called Jonquière in northern Quebec where it gets as cold as hell. Because it was a public project, the plans were on the internet. It looks like they simply downloaded them, put the Paris firm’s name on them and gave them to us. The plans didn’t cost them a centime. I was just going to call the Mayor.’
    ‘And tell him what I learned from the Paris architects about the unpaid bill and the lawsuit,’ Bruno said.
    He turned back to his folders. The faxed copies of Béatrice’s arrest records echoed what she had told him in her office but gave him places and dates and the names of the arrestingofficers. They might be useful. Fabiola’s fax was a copy of two autopsy reports with their conclusions and recommendations. Each case was now classified as a suspicious homicide with ‘indications of death deliberately induced’. That would do. No discreet little pointing of a finger at J-J’s ceiling would derail this inquiry.
    Bruno sat back in the seat of his van and pondered how much he should tell Gilles. His story would be published by now, but he hoped that Gilles would follow up the hints he’d dropped about the Red Château. They had parted in the morning as amicably as two hungover men could manage after three cups of Bruno’s strongest coffee. Bruno at least had managed a gentle jog through the woods before his shower, but Gilles had not looked markedly better when Bruno had spotted him in the press section of the cave.
    ‘Have you seen the internet?’ Gilles asked as soon as he picked up the phone. ‘The story’s huge, picked up everywhere. Even
Le Monde
’s putting it on page one. We’re printing an extra hundred thousand copies. Hold on …’
    Bruno heard Gilles muttering excuses to colleagues and walking to somewhere more private. ‘We’re on the track of the daughter and the ex-husband. One of our guys is on his way to their house in Santa Barbara. We thought we’d fly her over for her mother’s funeral. Is it scheduled yet? Will it be at the château?’
    ‘I don’t know, but there’s no funeral in prospect. They’re still writing up the autopsy, so the
Procureur
won’t clear it for burial for a while.’ Bruno didn’t say that after the pathologist’s report it might be some weeks.
    ‘I’ve got to do a piece on the Red Countess,’ Gilles said. ‘We’ve got a lot of old photos and it’s mostly clippings but is there anyone in town who knew her?’
    Bruno gave him the names and numbers for Antoine the riverman and Fouton the old schoolmaster. He added Montsouris, as a loyal Communist. ‘What did you make of the exorcism?’
    ‘Great for TV, not so much for us and now everybody’s trying to prove that the final crash of the basket was faked,’ Gilles said. ‘Do you know if it was?’
    ‘Not for sure, but you might want to track down a guy called Lionel Foucher. I saw him coming down the path from the winch with grease on his hands. He works for the Count as some kind of estate manager, drives a white Jaguar and lives somewhere in the château grounds.’
    ‘Thanks, and thanks for dinner,’ said Gilles. ‘It took me a while to recover this morning but once I did I remembered a great evening.’
    ‘We’ll talk later. I’ve got to go,’ Bruno said, seeing the familiar forensic van coming round the corner to the
déchetterie
.
    Yves was in charge of the team and Bruno had worked with him before. He gave Yves the cardboard box and explained the contents. He then gave Yves the two evidence bags with the threads of waxed cotton, one from the broken crash barrier and the other from the Toyota pickup.
    ‘That’s certainly blood on the plastic,’ said Yves, and asked him to mark the crash site on a map. ‘Have you taken a statement from the guy in charge of this place?’ Bruno said no but told him of the video camera.
    ‘Leave it to us. And thanks for that tip about that disc that was found inside the woman in the boat. It was a host, sure enough. I persuaded our local priest to let us have one of his to make a match. Apparently it’s just another bit of bread until the service. So what was it doing in her