legally sold, and thus they had to be listed as cheeses for domestic consumption
in his formal complaint of a crime. Then he had to explain it all over again to
the farmers wife. She finally understood when he pointed out that the insurance
company would seize the chance to refuse to pay for the theft of illegal
cheeses.
In his office, the phone was ringing. He lunged and caught it just as camera,
keys and notebook tumbled from his grip onto the table. It was the sous-officier
from the Military Archives.
This name Boudiaf, the old man said. The name you gave me was Hussein, and
for that we have no trace. But we do have a Mohammed Boudiaf in the Commandos
dAfrique and his file. He was a corporal, enlisted in the city of Constantine
in 1941, joining the Tirailleurs. He then volunteered for the Commando unit in
43, and on the recommendation of his commanding officer he was accepted. He
took part in the Liberation, and was killed in action at Besançon in October of
1944. No spouse or children listed, but a pension was paid to his widowed mother
in Oran until her death in 1953. Thats all we have, Im afraid. Does that
help?
Yes, indeed, said Bruno automatically. Does the file list any siblings or
other relatives?
No, only the mother. But I think we might assume that Corporal Mohammed Boudiaf
was a relative of your Hussein Boudiaf. Now I know its Hamid al-Bakr that you
are interested in, but there is a coincidence here. Al-Bakr joins the unit in
August 44 in an irregular way, a unit where his acceptance would have been made
a lot easier by Corporal Mohammed. Is there a possibility of a name change here?
Its just speculation, but in cases like this we often find that the new recruit
had some good reason to want to change his name when he enlisted. They do it all
the time in the Legion, of course, but its not uncommon in other branches of
the service. If your man al-Bakr was originally called Boudiaf and wanted to
change his name, no easer way than to join a unit where his brother or his
cousin was already well installed.
Right, thank you very much. If we need copies of this for the judicial
proceedings, may I contact you again?
Of course, young man. Now, did you receive my fax of the pay book photo? Bruno
checked the fax machine. It was there, the first two pages of an Army pay book,
featuring a passport-sized photo of a young man known to the French Army as
Hamid al-Bakr. Beneath it were two thumbprints, an Army stamp, and on the
previous page the details of name, address, date and place of birth. The address
was listed as Rue des Poissoniers, in the Vieux Port of Marseilles, and the date
of birth was given as 14 July 1923.
Yes, its here. Thank you.
Good. And again, well done in that brawl of yours. We need more policemen like
you. I presume you are an old soldier.
Not that old, I hope. But yes, I was in the combat engineers.
You were in that nasty business in Bosnia?
Thats right. How did you guess? I couldnt resist looking up your file. You
did well, young man.
I was lucky. A lot of the lads were not.
Feel free to call on me any time, Sergeant Courrčges. Goodbye.
His ear was damp with sweat when he removed the phone. He focused on the notepad
in front of him and the two photos. Hamid al-Bakr of the French Army was the
spitting image of Hussein Boudiaf, the footballer. Could they be one and the
same person? That would explain Momus surprise at the photograph and Momus
surprise had been real. If Hamid had changed his name, why had he done so? What
was he so intent on covering up that he hid his real name from his own son? And
could this secret of the past explain Hamids murder, nearly sixty years after
the young football player decided to join the Army and change his name?
He could talk this through with Isabelle this evening, he thought, smiling at
the prospect, then admitting to himself that there probably wouldnt be a lot of
time spent talking about crime and theories or talking about anything. He
remembered the way she had kissed him in the cave, just a millisecond before he
was going to kiss her, and then that sweet and trusting way she had slipped his
hand onto her warm breast The phone broke into his reverie.
Bruno? Its Christine, calling from Bordeaux. Im at the Moulin archive and I
think you had better get down here yourself. Theres nothing about Hamid al-Bakr
that I could find, but we have certainly tracked your Villanova and that new
name you gave me, Hussein Boudiaf. Its dynamite, Bruno.
What do you mean, dynamite?
Have you ever heard of a military unit called the Force Mobile?
No.
Look, Bruno, youre not going to believe it unless you come and see this stuff
for yourself. Your men Villanova and Boudiaf were war criminals.
War criminals? Where? How do you mean?
Its too complicated to explain on the phone. Theres so much background. What
I suggest is that you go to Pamelas house and ask her to give you a couple of
my books that shell find on the desk in my room. Have you a pen? Ill give you
the titles. Look up the Force Mobile in the indexes. The first one is Histoire
de la Résistance en Périgord by Guy Penaud, and the other one is 1944 en
Dordogne by Jacques Lagrange. Ill call Pamela and get her to look them out for
you, but you have to read the bits about the Force Mobile and call me back. I
Dammit, my phones running out of juice. Ill recharge it and wait for your
call. And my hotel in Bordeaux is the Hotel dAngleterre, easy to remember.
Believe me, you have to come here.
CHAPTER
24
In Pamelas large sitting room, where the walls were glowing gold in the
sunlight and her grandmothers portrait stared serenely down at him, Bruno
plunged back nearly sixty years into the horror of war and occupation in this
valley of the Vézčre. The smell of burning and cordite seemed to rise from the
austere pages of Christines books, and the history of times long before he was
born suddenly seemed intimately, terribly close.
The Force Mobile, he read, was a special unit formed by the Milice, the
much-feared police of the Vichy regime that administered France under the German
Occupation after 1940. Under German orders, transmitted and endorsed by French
officials of the Vichy government, the Milice rounded up Jews for the death
camps and young Frenchmen who were conscripted into forced labour in German
factories. As the tide of war turned against Germany after 1942, the Resistance
grew, and its ranks were swollen by tens of thousands of young Frenchmen fleeing
to the hills to escape the
STO
, the Service de Travail Obligatoire. They hid out
in the countryside, where they were recruited by the Resistance and took the
name Maquis, from the word for the impenetrable brush of the hills of Corsica.
To this raw material, the Maquis, came the parachute drops of arms and radio
operators, medical supplies, spies and military instructors from Britain. Some
came from the Free French led by de Gaulle, some from Britains Special
Operations Executive and others from British Intelligence, MI6. The British
wanted the Maquis to disrupt the German Occupation, or, in the words of Winston
Churchills order establishing the
SOE
, to set Europe ablaze. But as the
invasion neared, the prime British objective was to disrupt military
communications in France, and to force German troops away from defending the