shot,” Bruno told him. “And because it’s in your interest to keep Capitaine Duroc from blundering into the scene, which would ruin the first case of that new magistrate you warned me about.”
J-J pursed his lips as Bruno briefly explained the informal agreement that he had brokered between Kajte and the farmers. J-J would be sympathetic to anything that could reduce his paperwork.
“Any chance of persuading the Dutch girl to head back to Holland on the next train? That would make it a lot easier.”
“We can try it,” said Bruno. “But if she’s set on a career as an archaeologist, this is the place to be.”
J-J’s phone trilled, and after a quick glance at the screen he answered, mouthing the word “Duroc” at Bruno. There was a pause as he listened, keeping his eyes fixed on Bruno.
“You’ve heard of the new security alert in the region, Capitaine, because of this high-level international meeting coming up?” J-J said. “That’s why all firearms and other potentially suspicious events are being handled by me during this period. I was just discussing these special measures with the general at today’s security meeting.” J-J gave Bruno a broad wink, and continued: “Would you like me to put him on the line so you can explain why you want an exception in this case? No? Very well, and I’ll be sure to let you know whatever action I decide to take.”
“I hope that’s not my general whose name you’re taking in vain, J-J,” Isabelle said. She had suddenly appeared at J-J’s side, walking more easily than Bruno had expected and with the cane held loosely by her side rather than used as support. She leaned forward to kiss her old boss, but J-J threw his arms around her, saying the Perigueux detectives had not been the same since she left. Bruno too was kissed lightly on the cheeks, but the hand that was not carrying the cane discreetly squeezed his own.
“So many damn generals around me these days I’m bound to upset someone,” J-J said.
“Carlos has just been telling me about his introduction to your own methods of policing here in St. Denis,” Isabelle said, grinning at Bruno. “It seems to involve rugby and hunting, foie gras and a pretty girl, archaeology and gunplay-have I left anything out?”
“Guilty on all counts,” Bruno replied, laughing and raising his hands in the air in surrender. “But you left out the mayor and my dog.”
“And how’s Gigi?” she asked eagerly. “I hope you’ll bring him along to tomorrow’s meeting. He’ll be more fun than the generals.”
“Why are we standing here talking about dogs when there’s a perfectly good bar at the hotel across the road?” J-J asked, leading the way to the door. “These committee meetings are thirsty work.”
Maurice’s call came to Bruno just as the first glasses of Ricard were emptying and thoughts turning to dinner. Maurice and Sophie had returned home to feed the ducks, and had found a curt note from Capitaine Duroc ordering them to appear the following morning at the gendarmerie. Bruno assured them that he’d be there and suggested they call Pouillon and ask him to attend. Just before hanging up, leaving Bruno no time to protest, Maurice added that he’d left a cooler with some fresh foie in the secondhand refrigerator Bruno had installed in his barn. With that, the question of dinner was solved, and Bruno led the way by the back road skirting Les Eyzies and through the woods to his home.
“I love this road. It feels almost magical, like something in a fairy story,” said Isabelle as he turned off by the disused quarry along the single track where the flanking trees leaned inward so that their branches met and intertwined above the road, making a dark and mysterious tunnel. At each bend, the eyes of watching animals gleamed in Bruno’s headlamps.
Bruno’s heart had given a little leap when she led the way from the hotel and installed herself in the passenger seat of his car, leaving Carlos and J-J to follow in a separate car.
“Happy birthday for tomorrow,” she said, kissing his cheek before sitting back to fasten her seat belt. “Don’t be surprised that I remembered. You Pisces, me Leo.”
He smiled, recalling the way they had celebrated her birthday with a champagne breakfast in his bed in what he recalled as the happiest summer of his life. He had teased her then about the way she checked her own horoscope each day in a newspaper, and she liked to read his aloud over their morning coffee. It was one of the little rituals of their affair that he missed.
“Your leg seems to be healing well,” he said. “Do you still need the cane to walk?”
“Not really, but it’s useful,” she said, twisting the silver handle and lifting so that Bruno could see the gleam of steel beneath. “It’s an old sword cane, a gift from the brigadier. It could come in useful, walking home at night in Paris.”
“So he does feel guilty about sending you into that fire-fight,” Bruno said. “And so he damn well should. There was no need for you to be there.”
“I volunteered,” she said crisply. “And as you can see, I’m making a complete recovery. But enough of that. Tell me about yourself. Are you happy? Is your Englishwoman looking after you? I always found it hard to read your face.”
“I’ve become a horseman, thanks to her. She taught me to ride, and I love it. Perhaps we appreciate skills more when we learn them when we’re older. I had to work at riding, and it gives me enormous pleasure.” He looked across at her, leaning back into the corner of the car seat, studying him with fond amusement. “Do you ride?”
“No, but then I’m not in the rural police,” she said. He could hear the gentle teasing in her voice. “I like the thought of you patrolling the far reaches of St. Denis on horseback, like an old-fashioned garde-champetre, or perhaps like a sheriff in a Western. Bruno, the fastest gun in the Perigord.”
He laughed. Two could play at this game. “And now you’re the queen of the committees, a rising star among officials, with generals and prefects deferring to your leadership,” he said. “A woman with a future.”
“A woman with a career,” she said quietly as he turned up the lane that led to his home. “I’m good at it and I’m proud of it. And I’m not going to let this leg slow me down.”
Bruno nodded, giving what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Inwardly he sighed. This was the irony that governed them and that had doomed their affair. Everything that made him love her, Isabelle’s courage and her drive and self-confidence, was locked inextricably into her job and her determination to excel. And that meant living in Paris and working at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior on place Beauvau. If she gave that up and returned to live with Bruno, she’d probably succeed J-J as chief detective for the departement. But diminished by the curtailing of her own ambition, she’d no longer be the Isabelle he loved. And if he accepted her offer to move to Paris, giving up his hunting and his garden and all his friends and roots in St. Denis, he knew he’d no longer be the Bruno that she loved. He wasn’t made to live in a city. He’d be unhappy and resentful in a way that would slowly but certainly undermine whatever happiness they found together. He had pondered it and thought it through to the same bleak conclusion on dozens of solitary evenings and walks in the woods with Gigi. But it didn’t stop him thinking of might-have-beens.
As he rounded the last bend she lowered the car window and poked her head out, shouting “Gigi, it’s me,” and opening the door before Bruno had fully stopped to welcome the galloping basset hound, his short legs pounding and his long ears flapping as he leaped into Isabelle’s lap and licked passionately at her neck.
Bruno left them to their reunion, musing how much easier such encounters seemed to be for dogs than for humans, and took the packet of foie from the barn. He let himself in the back door and opened the front one for his guests. Isabelle laid the table and J-J made more drinks from the supply Bruno kept in his kitchen. Carlos, who had brought two bottles of Rioja from a case in the back of his Range Rover, leaned against the window frame to watch.
Bruno put a kettle on to boil and from his larder took a large glass jar filled with an enchaud de porc he had made earlier in the winter, a fillet of pork cooked and preserved in duck fat and garlic. Usually he served it cold, but the night was chilly so he spooned the duck fat into a frying pan to melt on low heat, sliced the fillet and put it into the oven to warm, along with four plates. He peeled and sliced some potatoes, threw in some salt and added them to the boiling water. Then he cut thick slices from the fat round loaf of pain de campagne and put them under the grill. Without being told, Isabelle took the cheese from the refrigerator, half of a Tomme d’Audrix that Stephane made and some cabecous of goat cheese from Alphonse. She put them on a wooden board and took it into the dining room.
“Making your special foie?” she asked on the way out. When he nodded she said, “I’ll come back to watch. Anything I can do?”
“Peel and slice those shallots,” he said, and for a moment it was as though she had never left, each of them falling into the familiar kitchen rhythms, neither getting in the other’s way.
