connection with the Commandos d’Afrique who had landed near Toulon in 1944. And

did the archives have a photograph of the young Hamid al-Bakr?

‘Yes, I remember. And we should have an identity photo on the copy of his pay

book, if not for the Commandos d’Afrique then certainly after his transfer. Give

me your phone number and I’ll call back, and a fax so I can send a copy of the

pay book photo. I’m afraid we can’t send the original. And please convey my

regards to your charming colleague.’

Bruno smiled at the effect Isabelle seemed to have on the telephone, and began

thinking what other lines to pursue. He was about to ring Pamela’s number when

he suddenly caught himself, took a piece of notepaper from his desk and wrote a

swift letter of thanks for his English dinner. He put the envelope in his Out

tray, then rang Pamela, exchanged amiable courtesies, and asked for Christine.

He gave her the new names for her researches in Bordeaux, made sure they had one

another’s mobile numbers and rang off. Instantly the phone rang again. It was

J-J

.

‘Bruno, I want to thank you for that good work on Jacqueline’s movements,’ he

began. ‘It turns out those Dutch lads she was with are well known up there.

Drugs, porn, hot cars – you name it, they’re into it. From what I see of their

convictions, in France we’d have locked them up and thrown away the key, but you

know how the Dutch are on prisons. To get to the point, we showed Jacqueline the

evidence you collected and she cracked last night. I tried to reach Isabelle

late last night to tell her but she was out of contact; bad mobile service out

there in the country, I suppose. Anyway, we have a full confession on the drugs,

but she’s still saying nothing on the murder.’

‘That’s great as far as it goes,

J-J

. What about Richard? Was he involved in the

drugs?’

‘She says not, so I don’t think we can still hold him. We can’t shake his story,

and now that she’s come clean on the drugs I’m inclined to believe her on the

killing. If it were up to me, Richard would be out today, but that decision is

up to Tavernier. By the way, what did you guys do to him yesterday? He came back

steaming and spent hours on the phone to Paris.’

‘I think our Mayor gave him a talking to, as an old friend of his father’s. You

know he got the gendarmes to pull an arrest on Karim, the young man who found

his grandfather’s body. For assault, after Karim charged into those Front

National bastards in the riot.’

‘He did what? He must be out of his mind. Half of France saw that riot and they

all think you St Denis lads are heroes.’

‘Not Tavernier. He said the law had to be even-handed.’

‘Even-handed, between a bunch of thugs and some law-abiding citizens? He must be

mad. Anyway, you seem to have sorted it out. Anything else?’

‘We seem to be making a bit of progress on that photo of the football team. I’ll

keep you posted.’

‘It’s a bit of a sub-plot, Bruno, but keep at it. We’re still looking for a

killer, and we don’t have any other leads.’

As he rang off, Bruno heard Mireille’s voice in the corridor greeting Momu.

Should he not be at school at this hour? He looked out into the hallway and saw

Momu about to go into the office of Roberte, who looked after the Sécu, the

social security paperwork. He waved and Momu came over to shake his hand.

‘I can’t stop,’ he said. ‘I just came up in the morning break to sign these

papers closing down my father’s Sécu. But it’s good to see you.’

‘Give me ten seconds, Momu. I have a picture to show you.’ He went and got the

fax from his desk, without much conviction that Momu might recognise any of

them, but since he happened to be here

‘Where in heaven’s name did you get this?’ Momu demanded. ‘That’s my father as a

young man, or his identical twin. What’s the name?’ He pulled out his reading

glasses. ‘Hussein Boudiaf, Massili Barakine and Giulio Villanova. The Boudiafs

are our cousins, so I suppose it’s a family likeness, but that’s an

extraordinary resemblance. And Barakine? I recall that name from somewhere.

Villanova is the coach he talked about. But that Hussein Boudiaf – I’d almost

swear it was my father as a young man.’

Bruno sighed as he opened his mail and read three more anonymous denunciations

of neighbours. It was the least pleasant aspect of the citizens of St Denis, and

of every other Commune in France, that they were so ready to settle old scores

by denouncing one another to the authorities. Usually the letters went to the

tax office, but Bruno got his share. The first was a regular letter from an

elderly lady who liked to report half the young women of the town for

‘immorality’. He knew the old woman well, a former housekeeper for Father

Sentout who was probably torn between religious mania and acute sexual jealousy.

The second letter was a complaint that a neighbour was putting a new window into

an old barn without planning permission, and in such a way that it would

overlook other houses in the village.

The third letter, however, was potentially serious. It concerned that

incorrigible drunk Léon, who had been fired from the amusement park for

misplacing Marie-Antoinette on the guillotine and cutting her in half rather

than just decapitating her, much to the horror of the watching tourists. They

were even more appalled when he fell drunkenly on top of her. Now Léon was

reported to be working au noir for one of the English families who had bought an

old ruin and had been persuaded that Léon could restore it for them, payment in

cash and no taxes or insurance.

He sighed. He wasn’t sure whether to warn Léon that somebody was probably

reporting him to the tax office, or to warn the English family that they were

wasting their money. Probably he’d do both, and tell the English about the

system whereby they could pay a part-time worker legally and cheaply, and still

have the benefit of workers’ insurance. Léon had a family to support, so Bruno

had better get him onto the right side of the Sécu. He checked the address where

he was supposedly working, out in the tiny hamlet of St Félix, where he had had

a report of cheeses being stolen from a farmer’s barn.

He looked again at the letter about the offending window. That was St Félix as

well; mon Dieu, he thought, a crime wave in a hamlet of twenty-four people. He

sighed, grabbed his hat, phone and notebook, plus a leaflet on the legal

employment of part-time workers, and went off to spend the rest of the day in

the routine work of a country policeman. Halfway down the stairs he remembered

that he would need his camera to photograph the window. Fully burdened, he went

out to his van, thinking glumly that Isabelle would not be very impressed if she

knew how he usually spent his days.

Three hours later he was back. The English family spoke almost no French, and

his English was limited, but he impressed upon them the importance of paying

Léon legally. He would leave it to them to discover the man’s limitations. The

owner of the allegedly offending window had not been at home, but Bruno took his

photographs and made his notes for a routine report to the Planning Office. The

affair of the stolen cheeses had taken most of his time, because the old farmer

insisted that somebody was destroying his livelihood. Bruno had to explain

repeatedly that since the cheeses were homemade in the farmhouse, which fell

well short of the standards required by the European Union, they could not be