wonderful dog is this the great hunting dog
J-J
told me about?
J-J
asked you to come? She was not the first woman to come here alone bearing
food, but she was the first to descend upon him uninvited, and he was
old-fashioned enough to be disconcerted by her arrival. He decided he had better
approach this unexpected evening as if she were here as a professional
colleague, just another police chum. At least he had no inquisitive neighbours
to start a new episode of the St Denis soap opera that he privately dubbed
Catching Bruno.
Not exactly, said Isabelle, down on her knees and making much of the enchanted
Gigi, who always liked women. Can basset hounds really hunt wild boar?
Thats what they were bred for, supposedly by St Hubert himself. They arent
fast but they can run all day and never tire so they exhaust the boar. Then one
hound goes in from each side and grabs a foreleg and pulls and the boar just
sprawls flat, immobilised until the hunter comes. But I use this one mainly to
hunt bécasse. He has a very gentle mouth.
J-J
said I should brief you on the days developments, she said, prising
herself free from the dogs attentions. He left me in charge at the murder room
here, but all the action has moved to Périgueux and I got bored and lonely, so I
thought Id pay you a visit. It was another time
J-J
told me what you liked to
eat, as if I couldnt guess.
Well, Im curious to know the latest and you are most welcome. And
congratulations on finding the house.
Oh, that was easy, she said. I just asked the woman in the Maison de la
Presse when I went to pick up Le Monde. They have a small piece about a racist
murder in the Périgord, with the Front National involved. Half of the Paris
press corps will be down here by Monday.
And with Dominique in the Maison de la Presse, the whole of St Denis would know
by now that Bruno had a new lady friend. Theyd be staking out the bottom of the
road to see if she left at a decent hour. He resolved privately that she would.
Hes called Gigi, said Bruno, as his dog signalled complete devotion by
rolling onto his back and baring his tummy to be scratched.
Short for Gitane.
J-J
told me. Hes a great fan of yours and he told me all
about you on our first drive down here.
Hes a good man and a fine detective, said Bruno. Hand me that bag and come
and sit down. What would you like to drink?
A petit Ricard for me, lots of water, please, and then can you show me round?
J-J
said youd been in the engineers in the army and you built the whole place
yourself.
She was trying very hard to please, thought Bruno, but he smiled and invited her
through the main door and into the living room with the large fireplace he had
built last winter. They went into the kitchen where he made the drinks while she
leaned against the high counter where he normally sat for his solitary meals. He
poured four careful centimetres of Ricard into each tall glass, tossed in an ice
cube and filled the glasses from a jug of cold water from the refrigerator. He
handed one to Isabelle, raised his glass in salute, sipped and turned to work.
He unwrapped the beefsteak she had brought and made a swift marinade of red
wine, mustard and garlic, salt and pepper. Then he took the flat of a cleaver
and hammered the steaks until they were the thinness he liked, and put them in
the marinade.
Your own water? she enquired.
We put an electric pump in the well. It takes it up to a water tank and it
tastes good, I had it tested. I said we. My friends from the town built this
place more than I did the plumbing, electricity, foundations, all the real
stuff. I was just the unskilled labourer. Come on, theres not much more to
see.
He showed her his boot room by the door, where he kept the washing machine and
an old sink, his boots and coats, fishing rod and gun, and the ammunition, all
locked away. She hung her leather jacket on a spare hook and he showed her the
big bedroom he had built and the smaller spare room that he used as a study. He
watched her make a fast appraisal of the double bed with its plain white sheets
and duvet, the bedside reading lamp and the shelf of books. A copy of Le Soleil
dAusterlitz, one of Max Gallos histories of Napoleon, lay half open by the
bed, and she moved closer to look at the other books. She ran a finger gently
down the spine of his copy of Baudelaires poems and turned to raise a
speculative eyebrow at him. He half-smiled, half-shrugged, but said nothing, and
kept silent when she turned to him again after studying the print of Douanier
Rousseaus Soir de Carneval on the wall opposite the bed. He bit his lip when he
saw her looking at the framed photographs he kept on the chest of drawers. There
were a couple of happy scenes of tennis club dinners, one of him scoring a try
at a rugby game, and a group photo of men in uniform around an armoured car,
Bruno and Captain Félix Mangin with their arms around each others shoulders.
Then, inevitably, she focused on the photograph of Bruno, in uniform and
laughing and lounging on an anonymous riverbank with a happy Katarina, pushing
her long fair hair back from her usually sad eyes. It was the only picture he
had of her. Isabelle said nothing but brushed past him and looked into the
spartan bathroom.
Youre very neat, she said. Its almost too clean for a bachelor.
Thats only because you caught me on cleaning day, he grinned, spreading his
hands in innocence. So now she knows there was a woman in my life, he thought.
So what? It was a long time ago, and the ache had dulled.
Where does Gigi sleep?
Outside. Hes a hunting dog and supposed to be a watchdog.
Whats that hole in the ceiling?
My next project, when I get round to it. Im going to put a staircase and a
couple of windows in the roof, and make an extra bedroom or two up there.
Theres no TV, she said.
I have a radio, he said flatly. Come and see the outside and Ill make a
barbecue for the steak.
She admired the workshop he had made at one end of the barn, the tools all
hanging on a pegboard on the wall, and the jars of pâté and preserves standing
in military ranks on the shelves. He showed her the chicken run, where a couple
of geese had joined the descendants of Joes original gift of chickens, and she
counted the numbers of tomato plants and the rows of vegetables.
Do you eat all that in a year?
A lot of it, and we have dinners and lunches down at the tennis club. Any extra
I can always give away. I put some into cans for the winter.
He picked up a stack of dried branches from last years grapevine and stacked
them in the brick barbecue, then he shook a bag of wood charcoal onto the top,
thrust a sheet of old newspaper underneath and lit it. Back in the kitchen, he
put plates, glasses and cutlery on a tray and opened her wine, a decent cru
bourgeois from the Médoc. He opened the jar of venison pâté she had brought, put
it on a plate with some cornichons and arranged the wedge of Brie on a wooden
board.
Lets eat outside, he said, taking the tray. You can make the salad while I
do the steak, but we have time to enjoy our drinks before the barbecue is
ready.
Theres no sign of a woman here, Isabelle remarked, when they had sat down at
the green plastic table on his terrace and were watching Gigi licking his lips