The Patriarch: A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel by Martin Walker

clearly he seemed to think when riding, and then tapped his heels gently and let Hector stride out into a canter and then into a pounding, thrilling gallop along the ridge. He glanced back to see Balzac running bravely behind, his long ears flapping as he tried in vain to keep up. But at least now his dog was big enough to keep his master in sight during their rides. As they reached the trees, Bruno reined in and steered Hector down the trail that led to the quarry and to the long hunters’ path that led back toward St. Denis.
    An hour or so later, he was trotting back up the lane to Pamela’s house and saw her ancient Citroën
deux-chevaux
parked in the courtyard. He knew the car was older than he was, and Pamela was proud of the fact that its vintage status meant it was worth considerably more now than when she’d first bought it. She came out from the kitchen door when she heard Hector’s hooves on the gravel, bent to greet Balzac and then followed him to the stables, hugging Bruno when he dismounted. He took off the saddle and then each of them automatically picked up a rag to rub Hector down, one on each side. Then they brushed him before giving the horse his after-ride apple and draping a blanket over his long back.
    “Is it your Sunday off tomorrow?” she asked as they strolled back to the house. When he said it was, she went on, “There’s a riding stable that I know near Meyrals, and it’s up for sale. Some of the horses are first-rate, and I thought you might want to help me pick one out. Poor Victoria is getting too old for the kind of riding I enjoy.”
    “You know more about horses than I do, but I’d like to come along.” Pamela had taught him to ride and was a much-better rider. He’d noted that she had become more cautious than she’d been before she’d fallen when Bess, her favorite horse, had broken a leg in a rabbit hole and had to be put down. Bruno sometimes wondered if Pamela had ever forgiven him for executing that coup de grâce, necessary as it had been.
    “I had a text from Fabiola,” Pamela went on. “She and Gilles get back this evening, so I went shopping for dinner and got a shoulder of lamb. I was hoping you might make that dish of yours with Monbazillac.”
    “Not enough time,” he said, thinking that there was rosemary and mint in the garden. “The proper version takes twelve hours, but I’ll see what I can do.”
    “I’ve got some smoked trout and horseradish to begin, and I’ll make an apple tart. I think there are some black currants left in the freezer. I’ll check that, and you know where the wine is. There’s an open bottle of Monbazillac in the fridge if you need that for the lamb.”
    In this part of Périgord, where the water table is high, few of the old homes boast a cellar, so Pamela kept her wines in a small cave Bruno had helped her make beneath the stone steps that led up to her pigeon tower. He brought back a 2011 white from Château Monestier La Tour to go with the fish and a bottle of Pécharmant from Château de Tiregand for the lamb. He went back to the garden for the herbs, and then he and Pamela worked contentedly together in the kitchen as they had so often before, each with a work surface on opposite sides of the sink.
    “What time did Fabiola say they’d get here?” he asked, putting the white wine into the fridge and decanting the red.
    “In time for drinks before dinner, about seven or so. They’ll need to unpack and wash, so I’m assuming we’ll eat sometime after eight.”
    So Bruno had not much more than two hours for the cooking. He turned Pamela’s sometimes temperamental oven to two hundred degrees centigrade and began wiping the lamb with paper towels until it was completely dry. He cut some rough slashes into the fat side of the meat and then used the knife to poke a series of deep holes in the flesh and inserted a clove of garlic in each one. He stripped a couple of twigs of rosemary of their tiny green leaves and used a