limitations. After a double fault, a missed volley and one accidentally

excellent serve that made Bruno think he might one day be able to play this

game, they changed ends.

‘Have you caught the bastard yet?’ Michel asked as they passed each other at the

net. He ran the local public works department. Sixteen men served under him and

he supervised a motor pool of trucks, ditch-diggers and a small bulldozer. He

was a powerful man physically though not tall, and compact with a small but firm

paunch. He was even more powerful in the life of the town and his signature was

needed on any planning permission. He came from Toulon, where he had served

twenty years in the Navy engineers.

Bruno shrugged. ‘It’s out of my hands. The Police Nationale are running the

show, and Paris has got involved. I don’t know much more than you do, and if I

did, you know I couldn’t talk about it.’

He knew that his companions wouldn’t let him get away with that. These four were

the town’s shadow government. The Baron owned the land, and was rich enough to

make the discreet donations that helped the tennis and rugby clubs to keep

functioning as they did. Michel was a man of real influence and Xavier was the

Maire-adjoint, the deputy who did most of the administrative work and ran the

day-to-day business of the Mairie. He had worked in the sub-Prefecture in Sarlat

until he came home to St Denis, where his father ran the Renault dealership and

his father-in-law owned the big local sawmill. Along with Bruno and the Mayor,

these men ran the business of the town. They had learned to be discreet and they

expected Bruno to keep them informed, above all at these ritual Friday meetings.

Michel had a classic serve, a high toss of the ball and good follow-through, and

his first service went in. Bruno’s forehand return hit the lip of the net, and

rolled over to win the point.

‘Sorry,’ he called, and Michel waved acknowledgement then bounced the ball to

serve again. When they reached deuce, which they called egalité, two men entered

the court, shaking the raindrops from their faces. Rollo from the school always

arrived a little late. He waved a greeting, and he and Dougal, a Scotsman who

was the Baron’s neighbour and drinking chum, sat on the bench to watch the end

of the set. It was not long before Rollo and Dougal rose to take their turn.

This was the usual rule. One set, and then the extra men played the losers.

Bruno and the Baron sat down to watch. Rollo played with more enthusiasm than

skill and loved to attack the net, but Dougal had once been a useful club player

and his ground shots were always a pleasure to watch.

‘I suppose you can’t say much,’ the Baron began, in what he thought was a low

voice.

‘Not a thing,’ replied Bruno. ‘You understand.’

‘It’s just I heard there were some arrests over in Lalinde last night and that

you were involved. A chum of mine saw you there. I just want to know if there

was a connection to our Arab.’

‘Our Arab, is he now?’ Bruno asked. ‘I suppose he is, in a way. He lived here,

died here.’

‘Our Arab I said, and I mean it. I know Momu and Karim as well as you do. I know

the old man was a Harki, and I have a very special feeling for the Harkis. I

commanded a platoon of them in the Algerian war. I spent the first month

wondering when one of them would shoot me in the back, and the rest of the war

they saved my neck on a regular basis.’

Bruno turned and looked at the Baron curiously. In the town, he had a reputation

as a real right-winger, and it was said that only his devotion to the memory of

Charles de Gaulle kept the Baron from voting for the Front National.

‘I thought you were against all this immigration from North Africa,’ Bruno said,

breaking off to applaud as Michel served an ace.

‘I am. What is it now, six million, seven million Arabs and Muslims over here,

swamping the place? You can’t recognise Paris any more. But Harkis are

different. They fought for us and we owed them – and we left too damn many of

them behind to have their throats cut because we wouldn’t take them in. Men who

fought for France.’

‘Yes, the old man was a Harki. More than that, he got a medal. He fought for us

in Vietnam too, that’s where he won it.’

‘In that case, he wasn’t a Harki. They were irregulars. He sounds like he was in

the regular Army, probably a Zouave or a Tirailleur. That’s what most of their

regiments were called. They were allowed back into France when it was over, but

most of the Harkis were refused entry and got their throats slit. And most of

the ones who made it to France were put in camps. It was a shameful time. Some

of us did what we could. I managed to bring some of my lads back on the

troopship, but it meant leaving their families, so the bulk of them decided to

stay and take their chances. Most of them paid the price.’

‘How did you find out that they had been killed?’ Bruno wanted to know.

‘I stayed in touch with the lads I brought over, helped them get jobs, that sort

of thing. I took some of them on in my business. They had ways of keeping

contact through their families. You know I’m not much of a churchgoing type, but

every time I heard one of my Harkis had been killed, I used to go and light a

candle.’ He stopped, looked down at his feet. ‘It was all I could do,’ he

murmured. He cleared his throat and sat up. ‘So tell me about our Arab, a good

soldier of France. Do you know who killed him?’

‘No. Our enquiries continue, just like the police spokesmen say. We’re just at

the start of the case and I’m not even really involved. As I said, the Police

Nationale are handling it. They’ve set up a temporary office in the exhibition

rooms.’

‘What about Lalinde?’

‘There may not even be a connection. It seems to have been more of a drugs

bust,’ Bruno said, careful not to tell his friend an outright lie.

The Baron nodded, his eyes still fixed on the game. Rollo had just served two

double faults in a row.

‘Did I ever tell you about how we left Algeria?’ he asked suddenly. Bruno shook

his head.

‘We were in Oran, at the harbour. Chaos it was. De Gaulle had signed the peace

deal at Evian and then the Paras and half the army in Algeria launched that

crazy coup d’état. I was the only officer in my unit who refused to join and I

would have done, except that I wouldn’t go against de Gaulle. Anyway, my lads

would never have joined in. I was running a platoon of conscripts by then, young

Frenchmen, and they all had those new-fangled little transistor radios from

Japan so they could listen to their rock music. But what they also got on their

radios at that time was de Gaulle, telling them to disobey any officer who

wanted them to take up arms against the Republic, against him, against France.

So the conscripts stayed in their barracks and wouldn’t move – that’s what

stopped the coup. They stayed there until the troopships came in to take us

home.’

‘This was that time in ‘61?’ Bruno asked. ‘General Salan and those people who

went on to start the

OAS

, the ones who tried to assassinate de Gaulle?’

‘That’s right,’ said the Baron grimly. ‘Anyway, I got our unit down to the

troopship, and on the way we picked up those of my old Harkis that we could

find, or who were smart enough to know they had better get out fast. My sergeant

had been with me all through the war and he liked the Harkis, so he helped. We

scrounged some uniforms – no shortage of them – and we just let them board with