after the sun goes down.’

‘I wonder what the cave people ate,’ she mused, picking up a piece of sausage

with her fingers. ‘This is delicious but I’m getting full.’ She put her plate

down, and when Gigi came up to sniff it, the dog looked enquiringly at Bruno. He

put the plate down in front of his dog and stroked its head, giving Gigi

permission to eat.

‘We know what they ate from the archaeologists,’ he said. ‘They ate reindeer.

There were glaciers up in Paris in those days. It was the ice age, and reindeer

were plentiful. The archaeologists found some of their rubbish heaps and it was

almost all reindeer bones, and some fish. They didn’t live inside the caves –

they saved them for painting. Apparently they lived in huts made of skin,

probably like the American Indians in their tepees.’

He tossed the fishbones into the fire and put their plates and the cutlery into

a plastic bag. This went into his cool box after he’d brought out a small punnet

of strawberries and placed it beside the cheese.

‘This is it, the last course, but no picnic is complete without strawberries.’

Then he put some more sticks onto the fire, which blazed up as they lay on their

sides on the rug, the strawberries between them, and the sun just about to touch

the horizon.

‘It’s a lovely sunset,’ Isabelle said. ‘I want to watch it go down.’ She pushed

the strawberries aside and turned to lie close to him, her back against his

chest and her buttocks nestled into him. He blew softly against her neck. Over

on the far side of the fire, Gigi was discreetly asleep. Bruno put his arm

around her waist and she snuggled into him more tightly. As the sun finally sank

she took his hand and slipped it inside her blouse and onto her breast.

CHAPTER

23

Bruno woke up in his own bed, still glowing from what had happened the night

before. He reached across for the enchantingly new female body that had filled

his dreams and, for a moment, the emptiness of his bed surprised him. Then, with

his eyes still closed, he smiled broadly at the memory of the previous evening

by the fire before, reluctantly, they had dressed and Bruno had driven Isabelle

back to her demure hotel, stopping the car every few hundred yards to kiss again

as if they could never taste one another enough.

He sprang from his bed and into his familiar exercises, his mind fresh and alert

and alive with energy as he ducked into the shower, turned on the radio and

dressed to go outside and delight in the newness of the day. He fed himself, his

dog and his chickens, and then pondered the list of names he had scribbled down

from his telephone call the previous evening to the teacher of sports history at

Montpellier.

He read them through again, even though he had made the lecturer spell out each

one, letter by letter, so that there would be no more mistakes. The complete

list should already be on his fax machine at the Mairie, and he would have to

check it again, but clearly there was some error somewhere. How else to explain

why the final list of the Oraniens championship team contained no Hamid al-Bakr,

when the young man had pride of place in the official photograph? Unless of

course he had changed his name?

His phone rang and he leaped towards it, a lover’s intuition persuading him that

it was Isabelle.

‘I just woke up,’ she said. ‘And it’s so unfair that you are not here. I miss

you already.’

‘And I miss you,’ he said, and they exchanged the delightful nothings of lovers,

content just to hear the other’s voice in the electronic intimacy of a telephone

wire. In the background of her room, another phone rang. ‘That’ll be

J-J

on my

mobile for the morning report. I think I’ll have to go to Bergerac for the drugs

case.’

‘This evening?’ he asked.

‘I’m yours, until then.’

He gazed out over his garden, suddenly noting that it must have rained in the

night while he slept. At least the rain had held off for them, and he felt

himself smiling once more. But the list was still there by his telephone,

nagging at him, and he looked at the name that was listed as the team captain:

Hocine Boudiaf. Beside the word Hocine, Bruno had written in brackets ‘Hussein’,

which the Montpellier lecturer said was an alternative spelling and which looked

more familiar. He had not been able to come up with a team photograph, but he

promised to fax Bruno another photo that included Boudiaf, which might help

solve the puzzle. He checked his watch. Momu would not yet have left for school.

He called him at home.

‘Bruno, I want to apologise again, to apologise and thank you,’ Momu began

almost at once.

‘Forget it, Momu, it’s alright. Listen, I have a question. It comes from trying

to track down your father’s missing photograph. Have you ever heard the name

Boudiaf, Hussein Boudiaf? Could he have been a friend of your father?’

‘The Boudiaf family were cousins, back in Algeria,’ Momu replied. ‘They were the

only family my father stayed in touch with, but not closely. I think there might

have been some letters when I went through the stuff in his cottage, just family

news – deaths and weddings and children being born. I suppose I should write and

tell them, but I’ve never been in touch. My father felt he could never go back

to Algeria after the war.’

‘Did you know any of his friends from his youth, football friends or team-mates?

Do you remember any names?’

‘Not really, but try me.’

Bruno read down the list of the Oraniens team. Most got no response, but he put

a small cross beside two of names that Momu said sounded vaguely familiar. He

rang off and called Isabelle again.

‘I knew it was you,’ she laughed happily. ‘I am just out of the shower and

thinking of you.’

‘Sorry, my beauty, but this is a business question. That helpful man you spoke

to in the Military Archives. If you have his number, would he speak to me? I

have the list of the Oraniens team and the mystery is that Hamid’s name is not

on it. I want to see if we can trace any of the other team members. One or two

might still be alive.’

She gave him the number. ‘If you don’t get very far, I can try him. I think he

was an old man who liked talking to a young woman.’

‘Who could blame him, Isabelle? I’ll call your mobile if I need help. Until this

evening.’

As Bruno had expected, the faxes from Montpellier had already arrived at his

office when he got in. He checked the list. The names were the same, and then he

looked at the photo, grainy and not too clear. It had come from an unidentified

newspaper and showed three men in football gear. In the centre was Villanova

with his arms around two young North Africans, one of them named as Hussein

Boudiaf and the other as Massili Barakine, one of the names that Momu had half

remembered. Now he felt he was getting somewhere. He rang the Military Archives

number that Isabelle had given him, and a quavering voice answered.

‘This is Chief of Police Courrčges from St Denis in Dordogne, Monsieur. I need

your help in relation to an inquiry where you’ve already been very helpful to my

colleague Inspector Isabelle Perrault.’

‘Are you the policeman that I saw on TV, young man, in that riot?’

‘Yes, Sir. I think that must have been me.’

‘Then I’m at your entire disposal, Monsieur, and you have the admiration of a

veteran, sous-officier Arnaud Marignan, of the seventy-second of the line. What

can I do for you?’

Bruno explained the situation, gave the names, and reminded Marignan of the