almost perfectly spherical in shape. She was not a beauty by any stretch of the

imagination, but a cheerful woman at ease with herself. The old brown leather

satchel in which she collected the modest fees that each stall holder paid for

the privilege of selling in the market of St Denis thumped heavily against

Bruno’s thigh as Jeanne, squealing with pleasure to see him, turned with

surprising speed and proffered her cheeks to be kissed in ritual greeting. Then

she gave him a fresh strawberry from Madame Verniet’s stall, and Bruno broke

away to kiss the roguish old farmer’s widow on both wizened cheeks in greeting

and gratitude.

‘Here are the photos of the inspectors that Jo-Jo took in St Alvčre yesterday,’

Bruno said to Jeanne, taking some printouts from his breast pocket. He had

driven over to his fellow municipal policeman the previous evening to collect

them. They could have been emailed to the Mairie’s computer, but Bruno was a

cautious man and thought it might be risky to leave an electronic trail of his

discreet intelligence operation.

‘If you see them, call me. And give copies to Ivan in the café and to Jeannot in

the bistro and to Yvette in the tabac to show their customers. In the meantime,

you go that way and warn the stall holders on the far side of the church. I’ll

take care of the ones towards the bridge.’

Every Tuesday since the year 1346, when the English had captured half the

nobility of France at the Battle of Crécy and the grand Brillamont family had to

raise money to pay the ransom for their Seigneur, the little Périgord town of St

Denis has held a weekly market. The townspeople had raised the princely sum of

fifty livres of silver for their feudal lord and, in return, they secured the

right to hold the market on the canny understanding that this would guarantee a

livelihood to the tiny community, happily situated where the stream of Le

Mauzens ran into the river Vézčre – just beyond the point where the remaining

stumps of the old Roman bridge thrust from the flowing waters. A mere eleven

years later, the chastened nobles and knights of France had once again spurred

their lumbering horses against the English archers and their longbows and had

been felled in droves. The Seigneur de Brillamont had to be ransomed from the

victorious Englishmen all over again after the Battle of Poitiers, but by then

the taxes on the market had raised sufficient funds for the old Roman bridge to

be crudely restored. So, for another fifty livres, the townsfolk bought from the

Brillamont family the right to charge a toll over the bridge and their town’s

fortunes were secured forever.

These had been early skirmishes in the age-old war between the French peasant

and the tax collectors and enforcers of the power of the state. And now, the

latest depredations of the inspectors (who were Frenchmen, but took their orders

from Brussels) was simply the latest campaign in the endless struggle. Had the

laws and regulations been entirely French, Bruno might have had some

reservations about working so actively, and with such personal glee, to

frustrate them. But they were not: these were Brussels laws from this distant

European Union, which allowed young Danes and Portuguese and Irish to come and

work on the camp sites and in the bars each summer, just as if they were French.

His local farmers and their wives had their living to earn, and would be hard

put to pay the inspectors’ fines from the modest sums they made in the market.

Above all, they were his friends and neighbours.

In truth, Bruno knew there were not many warnings to give. More and more of the

market stalls these days were run by strangers from out of town who sold dresses

and jeans and draperies, cheap sweaters and T-shirts and second-hand clothes.

Two coal-black Senegalese sold colourful dashikis, leather belts and purses, and

a couple of local potters displayed their wares. There was an organic bread

stall and several local vintners sold their Bergerac, and the sweet Monbazillac

dessert wine that the Good Lord in his wisdom had kindly provided to accompany

foie gras. There was a knife-sharpener and an ironmonger, Diem the Vietnamese

selling his nems – spring rolls – and Jules selling his nuts and olives while

his wife tended a vast pot of steaming paella. The various stalls selling fruit

and vegetables, herbs and tomato plants were all immune – so far – from the men

from Brussels.

But at each stall where they sold home-made cheese and paté, or ducks and

chickens that had been slaughtered on some battered old stump in the farmyard

with the family axe rather than in a white-tiled abattoir by people in white

coats and hairnets, Bruno delivered his warning. He helped the older women to

pack up, piling the fresh-plucked chickens into cavernous cloth bags to take to

the nearby office of Patrick’s driving school for safe keeping. The richer

farmers who could afford mobile cold cabinets were always ready to let Tante

Marie and Grande-mčre Colette put some of their less legal cheeses alongside

their own. In the market, everyone was in on the secret.

Bruno’s cell phone rang. ‘The bastards are here,’ said Jeanne, in what she must

have thought was a whisper. ‘They parked in front of the bank and Marie-Hélčne