Bruno had a sudden image of the powerful video that had accompanied the song, a mother and her child on a beach, the wind blowing away a sandcastle as the sky darkened and the mother searched in vain for her son as the wind drove her back. He shivered, hoping it was not an omen.
Dinner was over. Gilles decided to drive Fabiola to the clinic and then report with his car to the St Denis fire station. He and the Baron were both on the list of volunteers to help drive people being evacuated to the shelter at the St Denis collège. Pamela said she’d drive Virginie back to her place where she could stay the night, since Gilles and Fabiola would both be away from their home. She would also look after Balzac.
‘Before we all go,’ said Gilles, ‘I have a question for the Baron. How did you enjoy the meal?’
‘Very good, reminded me of a meal I enjoyed in the Algerian war,’ he said, and then paused and his face widened into a smile. ‘I’d almost forgotten how delicious a meal of simple vegetables could be.’
‘I win,’ said Bruno. ‘Gilles bet me a bottle that you wouldn’t notice.’
‘But I didn’t notice all through the meal,’ the Baron said. ‘It didn’t cross my mind until Gilles asked the question in that rather pointed way which suggested that a private wager was at stake. And since I was given that clue, I’d call it a draw, except that we all won. It was a fine meal, Bruno. Off you go, and good luck.’
Bruno called the Mayor, who was already at the St Denis fire station. He immediately asked, ‘What do you want me to do with your Land Rover? It’ll be far more useful off road than your police van and I’ve made sure the petrol tank is full. Philippe Delaron is here, about to go to Siorac where I gather the control point will be.’
‘Good idea. I’ll come now for the Land Rover and I’d better change into uniform at the Mairie. Tell Philippe I’ll see him at Siorac.’
The car park at the Siorac golf course was filled with police and fire vehicles, a command truck flying a tricolor beside a military signals van. A row of arc lights had already been lit against the gathering dusk. Philippe was waiting outside the command truck, talking urgently into his phone in such a way that told Bruno he was live on air with the local radio station. By now Bruno could smell the smoke. He reported to the command truck, saying he had a Land Rover available. He was given a large-scale map and a list of three remote dwellings near St Laurent-la-Vallée inhabited by two old couples and a disabled woman. They were to be taken to the Mairie at Coux and then he should report back. He checked the map he’d been given against his phone, identified the three remote cottages and set off.
His Land Rover took twenty minutes to get there, an endless line of cars coming the other way, their headlights dimmed by the smoke that was starting to thicken as the evacuation gathered pace. In St Laurent, he spotted a Gendarme truck with Yveline and Sergeant Jules directing traffic. He slowed, peeped his horn and waved. Yveline flagged him down and came across to his vehicle with a list. She put a tick beside the three addresses assigned to Bruno and told him to report back to her before heading for Coux.
‘You won’t have much time,’ she said. ‘The fire’s getting close.’
He found the first house easily enough. After checking that they had their key documents with them along with a change of clothes, he installed the two old people into the bench seat alongside him. In the second house he found the disabled woman in a wheelchair with her young daughter, no more than eleven or twelve, Bruno thought. He lifted the woman from her wheelchair and laid her on one of the Land Rover’s rear benches while the daughter folded the wheelchair. She went back for a suitcase and sat on it beside her mother. Bruno heaved the wheelchair onto his roof rack and secured it with bungee cords. The third house was harder to find. It was deep in the woods and by now the smell of smoke was strong and an ominous orange glow coloured the darkening sky to the south.
‘There,’ called the girl from the back. ‘Off to the right behind us, I saw a light.’
Bruno reversed along the dirt track, saw a small unmarked turning to the right and a single light some fifty metres away in the trees. He drove down, thinking his police van could not have made it down this overgrown track. He turned the Land Rover for an easier departure, went to the front door of the house and knocked, noting the stench of a septic tank that had not been emptied for too long. No answer. The door was unlocked and he went in, almost gagging from the smell of rotting food and something else, something ominous. The main room was empty, and so was the kitchen, the sink overflowing with dirty plates. He called out the names of the couple who lived there but there was no reply.
He checked the bathroom at the back of the house by the kitchen, where the stench of the septic
