The Coldest Case by Martin Walker (mobi reader android txt) 📕

He took three champagne flutes to the small table on the terrace and went back for the brut and the cassis.

When they came downstairs, Alain presented him with a bottle of champagne and Rosalie gave Bruno a small, wrapped parcel, saying, ‘Alain tells me you were always a great reader and that as a boy you loved Sherlock Holmes, as did I. Here’s a modern writer’s attempt to do a Sherlock, but it’s about his brother, Mycroft. I read it when it was first translated and I thought you might enjoy it as much as I did, unless you get enough detection in your day job.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ he said, hugging her in thanks and catching a hint of roses from her newly applied scent. ‘Thank you for the champagne and the book. I’ll look forward to both. Meanwhile, here’s some Bergerac champagne. Of course we’re not allowed to call it that, even though it’s made by the method invented by Dom Perignon long before he went north to teach the people of Champagne how to do it. Would you like it with cassis or without?’

Alain chose it with and Rosalie asked to try it without. She stood a moment to sweep her eyes across the vegetable garden, the avenue of truffle trees, the chicken run and the roses that climbed up the front of the house.

‘It’s lovely here, a charming spot,’ she said. ‘Did those roses by our bed come from the climbers beside the door?’

Bruno shook his head and pointed to the cluster of rose bushes at the corner of his driveway, pleased that she had noticed the roses in their room. He then told them of their booking for Lascaux in the morning and of his own police business.

‘I have to leave here soon after nine,’ he said, ‘and I need to make my usual patrol of the Saturday market tomorrow morning at about eight so I suggest we go down to St Denis for coffee and croissants in my favourite café, then you can go to Lascaux and I’ll head for Bergerac. And I really recommend you take a canoe ride on the way back from Lascaux. Tomorrow evening we’re having drinks at a lovely small chateau that belongs to a good friend and then we’ll head to a tiny village with some more friends to have dinner at a night market.’

He explained that they could park at Beynac and the canoe rental people would drive them upstream to Castelnaud, from where they could launch their canoe into the river and paddle gently downstream to Beynac with the current. Two formidable medieval castles, Castelnaud and Beynac, had changed hands several times but usually one was held by the English and the other by the French.

‘If you have time, it’s worth visiting Castelnaud and the museum of medieval warfare there,’ Bruno said. ‘At this time of year they have fencing exhibitions and you might see them fire one of the trebuchets, the heavy artillery of the middle ages. Amazing machines, they can toss an eighty kilo rock as far as two or even three hundred metres. The Crusaders learned to use them from the Saracens and brought them back to Europe.’

Aware that he was prattling, Bruno gave Rosalie a rueful grin. ‘Sorry, but this kind of thing captivates boys of all ages and I think Alain might like it.’

‘Not just boys,’ she said, returning his smile. ‘Why do you think I joined the military? That sounds great and thank you for arranging all this.’

As Bruno refilled their glasses she asked, ‘How far does your land go?’ He pointed to the top of the hill behind the house and said it ran from there down to the hedge in the lower field, where some cows were grazing.

‘Do those Blondes d’Aquitaine belong to you?’ she asked.

‘You know your cows, Rosalie. No, they belong to a neighbouring farmer. He uses my pasture and gets a dozen of my eggs each week and I get a lot of free veal in return.’

‘Are we eating veal tonight? Alain tells me you’re a good cook.’

‘No, I thought in this heat we should have something light but a lot of it will have come from this garden.’

‘I can’t wait until Alain and I have a garden of our own but I think we’ll be turning to you for advice. And what are we eating?’

Bruno suggested they move to the larger table he had laid for dinner and brought out on a tray the bowls of chilled vichyssoise to which he’d added some fresh parsley. He poured out glasses of the cuvée Quercus, cut some bread from the tourte and said, ‘Bon appetit.’

‘Delicious, and I suspect these are your vegetables,’ she said. Bruno thanked her for the compliment, aware that she was working hard to make friends with the cousin of her future husband. This was an interesting aspect of etiquette. Here were two people who might in other circumstances have been attracted to one another, each trying hard to please the other out of their mutual affection for Alain. Bruno could foresee many Christmases, birthdays and New Year’s Eves being spent together. The thought of such shared family events pleased him.

‘Would you like to come into the kitchen while I finish the next course?’ he asked, and they joined him with refilled glasses once the plates had been cleared.

He boiled a kettle, put the julienne of carrots and celery into boiling water and reheated the white wine sauce, adding the crayfish once it began to simmer. He drained the julienne, thoroughly mixing the carrots and celery together and spooned a generous portion into each of three warm bowls, added the crayfish, and then offered Rosalie a teaspoon of the sauce to taste. She nodded her approval and he poured the sauce into the bowls.

The evening was still light enough for them to eat without candles and, with the odd word and murmur of appreciation, they devoted their attention to the food and