Текст книги "Bruno, Chief Of Police"

Автор книги: Martin Walker

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Mairie. The Mayor himself stood waiting, the sash of office across his chest and

the little red rosette of the Légion d’Honneur in his lapel. The gendarmes were

holding up the impatient traffic, while housewives grumbled that their bags were

getting heavy and kept asking when they could cross the road.

Jean-Pierre of the bicycle shop carried the tricolore and his enemy Bachelot

held the flag that bore the Cross of Lorraine, the emblem of General de Gaulle

and Free France. Old Marie-Louise, who as a young girl had served as a courier

for one of the Resistance groups and who had been taken off to Ravensbruck

concentration camp and somehow survived, sported the flag of St Denis.

Montsouris, the Communist councillor, carried a smaller flag of the Soviet

Union, and old Monsieur Jackson – and Bruno was very proud of arranging this –

held the flag of his native Britain. A retired schoolteacher, he had come to

spend his declining years with his daughter who had married Pascal of the local

insurance office. Monsieur Jackson had been an eighteen-year-old recruit in the

last weeks of war in 1945 and was thus a fellow combatant, entitled to share the

honour of the victory parade. One day, Bruno told himself, he would find a real

American, but this time the Stars and Stripes were carried by young Karim as the

star of the rugby team.

The Mayor gave the signal and the town band began to play the Marseillaise.

Jean-Pierre raised the flag of France, Bruno and the gendarmes saluted, and the

small parade marched off across the bridge, their flags flapping bravely in the

breeze. Following them were three lines of the men of St Denis who had performed

their military service in peacetime but who turned out for this parade as a duty

to their town as well as to their nation. Bruno noted that Karim’s entire family

had come to watch him carry a flag. At the back marched a host of small boys

piping the words of the anthem. After the bridge, the parade turned left at the

bank and marched through the car park to the memorial, a bronze figure of a

French poilu of the Great War. The names of the fallen sons of St Denis took up

three sides of the plinth beneath the figure. The bronze had darkened with the

years, but the great eagle of victory that was perched, wings outstretched, on

the soldier’s shoulder gleamed golden with fresh polish. The Mayor had seen to

that. The plinth’s fourth side was more than sufficient for the dead of the

Second World War, and the subsequent conflicts in Vietnam and Algeria. There

were no names from Bruno’s own brief experience of war in the Balkans. He always

felt relieved by that, even as he marvelled that a Commune as small as St Denis

could have lost over two hundred young men in the slaughterhouse of 1914–1918.

The schoolchildren of the town were lined up on each side of the memorial, the

infants of the Maternelle in front sucking their thumbs and holding each other’s

hands. Behind them, the slightly older ones in jeans and T-shirts were still

young enough to be fascinated by this spectacle. Across from them, however, some

of the teenagers of the Collčge slouched, affecting sneers and a touch of

bafflement that the new Europe they were inheriting could yet indulge in such

antiquated celebrations of national pride. But Bruno noticed that most of the

teenagers stood quietly, aware that they were in the presence of all that

remained of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, a list of names on a

plinth that said something of their heritage and of the great mystery of war,

and something of what France might one day again demand of her sons.

Jean-Pierre and Bachelot, who might not have spoken for fifty years but who knew

the ritual of this annual moment, marched forward and lowered their flags in

salute to the bronze soldier and his eagle. Montsouris dipped his red flag and

Marie-Louise lowered hers so far it touched the ground. Belatedly, unsure of

their timing, Karim and the English Monsieur Jackson followed suit. The Mayor

walked solemnly forward and ascended the small dais that Bruno had placed before

the memorial.

‘Français et Françaises,’ he declaimed, addressing the small crowd. ‘Frenchmen

and Frenchwomen, and the representatives of our brave allies. We are here to

celebrate a day of victory that has also become a day of peace, the eighth of

May that marks the end of Nazism and the beginning of Europe’s reconciliation

and her long, happy years of tranquillity. That peace was bought by the bravery

of our sons of St Denis whose names are inscribed here, and by the old men and

women who stand before you and who never bowed their heads to the rule of the

invader. Whenever France has stood in mortal peril, the sons and daughters of St

Denis have stood ready to answer the call, for France, and for the Liberty,

Equality and Fraternity and the Rights of Man for which she stands.’

He stopped and nodded at Sylvie from the bakery. She pushed forward her small

daughter, who carried the floral wreath. The little girl, in red skirt, blue top

and long white socks, walked hesitantly towards the Mayor and offered him the

wreath, looking quite alarmed as he bent to kiss her on both cheeks. The Mayor

took the wreath and walked slowly to the memorial, leant it against the

soldier’s bronze leg, stood back, and called out, ‘Vive la France, Vive la

Republique.’

And with that Jean-Pierre and Bachelot, both old enough to be feeling the strain

of the heavy flags, hauled them to an upright position of salute, and the band

began to play Le Chant des Partisans, the old Resistance anthem. Tears began to

roll down the cheeks of the two men, and old Marie-Louise broke down in sobs so

that her flag wavered and all the children, even the teenagers, looked sobered,

even touched, by this evidence of some great, unknowable trial that these old

people had lived through.

As the music faded away, the flags of the three allies – Soviet, British and

American – were marched forward and raised in salute. Then came the surprise, a

theatrical coup engineered by Bruno that he had arranged with the Mayor. This

was a way for the old English enemy, who had fought France for a thousand years

before being her ally for a brief century, to take her place on the day of

victory.

Bruno watched as Monsieur Jackson’s grandson, a lad of thirteen or so, marched

forward from his place in the town band where he played the trumpet, his hand on

a shiny brass bugle that was slung from a red sash around his shoulders. He

reached the memorial, turned to salute the Mayor and, as the silent crowd

exchanged glances at this novel addition to the ceremony, raised the bugle to

his lips. As Bruno heard the first two long and haunting notes of the Last Post,

tears came to his eyes. Through them he could see the shoulders of Monsieur

Jackson shaking and the British flag trembled in his hands. The Mayor wiped away

a tear as the last pure peals of the bugle died away, and the crowd remained

absolutely silent until the boy put his bugle smartly to his side. Then, they

exploded into applause and, as Karim went up and shook the boy’s hand, his Stars

and Stripes flag swirling briefly to tangle with the British and French flags,

Bruno was aware of a sudden flare of camera flashes.

Mon Dieu, thought Bruno. That Last Post worked so well we’ll have to make it

part of the annual ceremony. He looked around at the crowd, beginning to drift

away, and saw that young Philippe Delaron, who usually wrote the sports report

for the Sud-Ouest newspaper, had his notebook out and was talking to Monsieur

Jackson and his grandson. Well, a small notice in the newspaper about a genuine

British ally taking part in the Victory parade could do no harm now that so many

English were buying homes in the Commune. It might even encourage them to

complain less about their various property taxes and the price of water for

their swimming pools. Then he noticed something rather odd. After every previous

parade, whether it was for the eighth of May, for the eleventh of November when

the Great War ended, on the eighteenth of June when de Gaulle launched Free

France, or the fourteenth of July when France celebrated her Revolution,

Jean-Pierre and Bachelot would turn away from each other without so much as a

nod and walk back separately to the Mairie to store the flags they carried. But

this time they were standing still, staring fixedly at one another. Not talking,

but somehow communicating. Amazing what one bugle call can do, thought Bruno.

Maybe if I can get some Americans into the parade next year they might even

start talking, and leave one another’s wives alone. But now it was thirty

minutes after midday and, like every good Frenchman, Bruno’s thoughts turned to

his lunch.

He walked back across the bridge with Marie-Louise, who was still weeping as he

gently took her flag from her. The Mayor, and Monsieur Jackson and his daughter

and grandson were close behind. Karim and his family walked ahead, and

Jean-Pierre and Bachelot, with their almost identical wives, brought up the

rear, marching in grim silence as the town band, without its best trumpeter,

played another song from the war that had the power to melt Bruno: J’attendrai.

It was the song of the women of France in 1940, as they watched their men march

off to a war that turned into six weeks of disaster and five years of prison

camps. ‘… day and night, I shall wait always, for your return.’ The history of

France was measured out in songs of war, he thought, many sad and some heroic,

but each verse heavy with its weight of loss.

The crowd was thinning as they turned off to lunch, most of the mothers and

children going home, but some families making an event of of the day and turning

into Jeannot’s bistro beyond the Mairie, or the pizza house beyond the bridge.

Bruno would normally have gone with some friends to Ivan’s café for his plat du

jour, usually a steak-frites – except for the time when Ivan fell in love with a

Belgian girl staying at a local camp site and, for three glorious and passionate

months until she packed up and went back to Charleroi, steak-frites became

moules-frites. Then there was no plat du jour at all for weeks until Bruno had

taken the grieving Ivan out and got him heroically drunk.

But today was a special day, and so the Mayor had organised a déjeuner d’honneur

for those who had played a part in the parade. Now they climbed the ancient

stairs, bowed in the middle by centuries of feet, to the top floor of the Mairie

which held the council chamber and, on occasions such as this, doubled as the

banquet room. The town’s treasure was a long and ancient table that served

council and banquet alike, and was said to have been made for the grand hall of

the chateau of the Brillamont family itself in those happier days before their

Seigneur kept getting captured by the English. Bruno began counting; twenty

places were laid for lunch. He scanned the room to see who his fellow diners

might be.

There was the Mayor with his wife, and Jean-Pierre and Bachelot with their

wives, who automatically went to opposite ends of the room. For the first time,

Karim and his wife Rashida had been invited, and stood chatting to Montsouris

the Communist and his dragon of a wife who was even more left-wing than her

husband. Monsieur Jackson and Sylvie the baker and her son were talking to

Rollo, the local headmaster, who sometimes played tennis with Bruno, and the

music teacher, who was the conductor of the town band, and also the master of

the church choir. He had expected to see the new captain of the local gendarmes,

but there was no sign of the man. The plump and sleek Father Sentout, priest of

the ancient church of St Denis who was aching to become a Monsignor, emerged

puffing from the new elevator. He was pointedly not talking to his lift

companion, the formidable Baron, a retired industrialist who was the main local

landowner. Bruno nodded at him. He was a fervent atheist and also Bruno’s

regular tennis partner.

Fat Jeanne from the market appeared with a tray of champagne glasses, swiftly

followed by young Claire, the Mayor’s secretary, who carried an enormous tray of

amuse-bouches that she had made herself. Claire had a tendresse for Bruno, and

she’d talked to him of little else for weeks, leaving the Mayor’s letters

untyped as she thumbed through Madame Figaro and Marie-Claire to seek ideas and

recipes. The result, thought Bruno as he surveyed the offerings of celery filled

with cream cheese, olives stuffed with anchovies and slices of toast covered

with chopped tomatoes, was uninspiring.

‘They are Italian delicacies called bruschetta,’ Claire told him, gazing deeply

into Bruno’s eyes. She was pretty enough although over-talkative, but Bruno had

a firm rule about never playing on one’s own doorstep. Juliette Binoche could

have taken a job at the Mairie and Bruno would have restrained himself. But he

knew that his reticence did not stop Claire and her mother, not to mention a few

other mothers in St Denis, from referring to him as the town’s most eligible

bachelor. At just forty he thought he might have ceased being the object of this

speculation, but no. The game of ‘catching’ Bruno had become one of the town’s

little rituals, a subject for gossip among the women and amusement among the

married men, who saw Bruno as the valiant but ultimately doomed quarry of the

huntresses. They teased him about it, but they approved of the discretion he

brought to his private life and the polite skills with which he frustrated the

town’s mothers and maintained his freedom.

‘Delicious,’ said Bruno, limiting himself to an olive. ‘Well done, Claire. All

that planning really paid off.’

‘Oh, Bruno,’ she said, ‘do you really think so?’

‘Of course. The Mayor’s wife looks hungry,’ he said, scooping a glass of

champagne from Fat Jeanne as she swept by. ‘Perhaps you should start with her.’

He steered Claire off to the window where the Mayor stood with his wife, and was

suddenly aware of a tall and brooding presence at his shoulder.

‘Well, Bruno,’ boomed Montsouris, his loud voice more suited to bellowing fiery

speeches to a crowd of striking workers, ‘you have made the people’s victory

into a celebration of the British crown. Is that what you meant to do?’

‘Bonjour, Yves,’ grinned Bruno. ‘Don’t give me that people’s victory crap. You

and all the other Communists would be speaking German if it wasn’t for the

British and American armies.’

‘Shame on you,’ said Montsouris. ‘Even the British would be speaking German if

it wasn’t for Stalin and the Red Army.’

‘Yes, and if they’d had their way, we’d all be speaking Russian today and you’d

be the Mayor.’

‘Commissar, if you please,’ replied Montsouris. Bruno knew that Montsouris was

only a Communist because he was a cheminot, a railway worker, and the CGT labour

union had those jobs sewn up for Party members. Other than his Party card and

his campaigning before each election, most of Montsouris’s political views were

decidedly conservative. Sometimes Bruno wondered who Montsouris really voted for

once he was away from his noisily radical wife and safe in the privacy of the

voting booth.

‘Messieurs-Dames, ŕ table, if you please,’ called the Mayor, adding, ‘before the

soup gets warm.’

Monsieur Jackson gave a hearty English laugh, but stopped when he realised

nobody else was amused. Sylvie took his arm and guided him to his place. Bruno

found himself sitting beside the priest, and bowed his head as Father Sentout

delivered a brief grace. Bruno often found himself next to the priest on such

occasions. As he turned his attention to the chilled vichyssoise, he wondered if

Sentout would ask his usual question. He didn’t have to wait long.

‘Why does the Mayor never want me to say a small prayer at these public events

like Victory Day?’

‘It is a Republican celebration, Father,’ Bruno explained, for perhaps the

fourteenth time. ‘You know the law of 1905, separation of church and state.’

‘But most of those brave boys were good Catholics and they fell doing God’s work

and went to heaven.’

‘I hope you are right, Father,’ Bruno said kindly, ‘but look on the bright side.

At least you get invited to the lunch, and you get to bless the meal. Most

mayors would not even allow that.’

‘Ah yes, the Mayor’s feast is a welcome treat after the purgatory that my

housekeeper inflicts upon me. But she is a pious soul and does her best.’

Bruno, who had once been invited to a magnificent dinner at the priest’s house

in honour of some visiting church dignitary, raised his eyebrows silently, and

then watched with satisfaction as Fat Jeanne whipped away his soup plate and

replaced it with a healthy slice of foie gras and some of her own onion

marmalade. To accompany it, Claire served him with a small glass of golden

Monbazillac that he knew came from the vineyard of the Mayor’s cousin. Toasts

were raised, the boy bugler was singled out for praise, and the champagne and

Monbazillac began their magic work of making a rather staid occasion convivial.

After the dry white Bergerac that came with the trout and a well-chosen 2001

Pecharmant with the lamb, it became a thoroughly jolly luncheon.

‘Is that Arab fellow a Muslim, do you know?’ asked Father Sentout, with a

deceptively casual air, waving his wine glass in Karim’s direction.

‘I never asked him,’ said Bruno, wondering what the priest was up to. ‘If he is,

he’s not very religious. He doesn’t pray to Mecca and he’ll cross himself before

a big game, so he’s probably a Christian. Besides, he was born here. He’s as

French as you or I.’

‘He never comes to confession, though – just like you, Bruno. We only ever see

you in church for baptisms, weddings and funerals.’

‘And choir practice, and Christmas and Easter,’ Bruno protested.

‘Don’t change the subject. I’m interested in Karim and his family, not in you.’

‘Karim’s religion I don’t know about, and I don’t think he really has one, but

his father is most definitely an atheist and a rationalist. It comes from

teaching mathematics.’

‘Do you know the rest of the family?’

‘I know Karim’s wife, and his cousins, and some of the nephews who play with the

minimes, and his niece Ragheda who has a chance to win the junior tennis

championship. They’re all good people.’

‘Have you met the older generation?’ the priest pressed.

Bruno turned patiently away from a perfectly good tarte tatin and looked the

priest squarely in the eye.

‘What is this about, Father? I met the old grandfather at Karim’s wedding, which

was held in the Mairie here without any priest or mullah in sight. Are you

trying to tell me something or worm something out of me?’

‘Heaven forbid,’ said Father Sentout nervously. ‘No, it is just that I met the

old man by chance and he seemed interested in the church, so I just wondered

He was sitting in the church, you see, while it was empty, and I think he was

praying. So naturally, I wanted to know if he was a Muslim or not.’

‘Did you ask him?’

‘No, he scurried away as soon as I approached him. It was very odd. He wasn’t

even polite enough to greet me. I had hoped perhaps he might be interested in

Catholicism.’

Bruno shrugged, not very interested in the religious curiosity of an old man.

The Mayor tapped his glass with a knife and rose to make the usual short speech.

As he listened dutifully, Bruno began to long for his after-lunch coffee, and

then perhaps a little nap on the old couch in his office, to restore himself for

a tiresome afternoon of administration at his desk.

CHAPTER 4

Bruno always made it his business to establish good relations with the local

gendarmes, who kept a station of six men and two women on the outskirts of town,

in front of the small block of apartments where they lived. Since the station

supervised several Communes in a large rural district in the largest Department

of France, it was run by a Captain, in this case, Duroc. Right now, a very angry

Duroc, dressed in full uniform, was leaning aggressively across Bruno’s untidy

desk and glowering at him.

‘The Prefect himself has telephoned me about this. And then I got orders from

the Ministry in Paris,’ he snapped. ‘Orders to stop this damned hooliganism.

Stop it, arrest the criminals and make an example of them. The Prefect does not

want embarrassing complaints from Brussels that we Frenchmen are behaving like a

bunch of Europe-hating Englishmen. My boss in Paris wants no more destruction of

the tyres of government inspectors who are simply doing their job and enforcing

the law on public hygiene. Since I am reliably told that nothing takes place in

this town without you hearing about it, my dear Chief of Police, I must formally

demand your cooperation.’

He almost spat the final words and delivered ‘Chief of Police’ with a sneer.

This Duroc was a most unappetising man, tall and thin to the point of gauntness,

with a very prominent Adam’s apple that poked out above his collar like some

ominous growth. But, thought Bruno, one had better make allowances. Duroc was

newly promoted, and evidently nervous about getting orders from high in his

first posting as officer in charge. And since he would be here in St Denis for a

couple of years at least, getting off on the wrong foot with him would be

disastrous. In the best interests of St Denis, Bruno knew he had better be

diplomatic, or he could forget his usual courteous requests to ensure that the

traffic gendarmes stayed at home with their breathalysers on the night of the

rugby club dance or the hunting club dinner. If the local sportsmen couldn’t

have a few extra glasses of wine on a special night without getting stopped by

the cops, he would never hear the end of it.

‘I quite understand, Capitaine,’ Bruno said emolliently. ‘You’re quite right and

your orders are entirely proper. This hooliganism is a nasty blot on our

reputation as a quiet and law abiding town, and we must work together on this.

You will have my full cooperation.’

He beamed across his desk at Duroc, who now sported two white, bloodless patches

on his otherwise red face. Clearly, the Captain was very angry indeed.

‘So, who is it?’ Duroc demanded. ‘I want to bring them in for questioning. Give

me the names – you must know who’s responsible.’

‘No, I don’t. I might make some guesses, but that’s what they’d be. And guesses

are not evidence.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Duroc snapped. ‘You wouldn’t even know what

evidence is. You’re just a country copper with no more authority than a traffic

warden. All you’ve got to offer is a bit of local knowledge, so you just stay

out of it and leave it to the professionals. Give me the names and I’ll take

care of the evidence.’

‘Evidence will not be easy to come by, not in a small town like this where most

of the people think these European laws are quite mad,’ Bruno said reasonably,

shrugging off the insults. In time Duroc would discover how much he needed

Bruno’s local knowledge and, for his own good, he would have to cultivate the

patience to teach his superior. ‘The people round here tend to be very loyal to

one another, at least in the face of outsiders,’ he continued. ‘They won’t talk

to you – at least, not if you go round hauling them in for tough questioning.’

Duroc made to interrupt, but Bruno rose, raised his hand to demand silence, and

strolled across to the window.

‘Look out there, my dear Capitaine, and let us think this through like

reasonable men. Look at that scene: the river, those cliffs tumbling down to the

willows where fishermen sit for hours. Look at the old stone bridge built by

Napoleon himself, and the square with the tables under the old church tower.

It’s a scene made for the TV cameras. They come and film here quite often, you

know. From Paris. Foreign TV as well, sometimes. It’s the image of France that

we like to show off, the France we’re proud of, and I’d hate to be the man who

got blamed for spoiling it. If we do as you suggest, if we go in all

heavy-handed and round up kids on suspicion, we’ll have the whole town round our

ears.’

‘What do you mean, kids?’ said Duroc, his brows knitted. ‘It’s the market types

doing this stuff, grown-ups.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Bruno said slowly. ‘You ask for my local knowledge, and I’m

pretty sure that a few kids are doing this. And if you start hauling in kids,

you know what the outcome will be. Angry parents, protest marches,

demonstrations outside the Gendarmerie. The teachers will probably go on strike

in sympathy and the Mayor will have to take their side and back the parents. The

press will descend, looking to embarrass the government, and the TV cameras will

film newsworthy scenes of the heartland of France in revolt. It’s a natural

story for them – brutal police bullying children and oppressing good French

citizens who are trying to protect their way of life against those heartless

bureaucrats in Brussels. You know what the media are like. And then all of a

sudden the Prefect would forget that he ever gave you any orders and your chief

back in Paris would be unavailable and your career would be over.’

He turned back to Duroc, who was suddenly looking rather thoughtful, and said,

‘And you want to risk all that mess just to arrest a couple of kids that you

can’t even take to court because they’d be too young?’

‘Kids, you say?’

‘Kids,’ repeated Bruno. He hoped this wouldn’t take too much longer. He had to

do those amendments to the contract for the public fireworks for the Fourteenth

of July, and he was due at the tennis club at six p.m.

‘I know the kids in this town very well,’ he went on. ‘I teach them rugby and

tennis and watch them grow up to play in the town teams. I’m pretty sure it’s

kids behind this, probably egged on by their parents, but still just kids.

There’ll be no arrests out of this, no examples of French justice to parade

before Brussels. Just a very angry town and a lot of embarrassment for you.’

He walked across to the cupboard and took out two glasses and an ancient bottle.

‘May I offer you a glass of my vin de noix, Capitaine? One of the many pleasures

of this little corner of France. I make it myself. I hope you’ll share a small

aperitif in the name of our cooperation.’ He poured two healthy tots and handed

one to Duroc. ‘Now,’ he went on, ‘I have a small idea that might help us avoid

this unpleasantness.’

The Captain looked dubious, but his face had returned to a normal colour.

Grudgingly he took the glass.

‘Unless, of course, you want me to bring in the Mayor, and you can make your

case to him,’ Bruno said. ‘And I suppose he could order me to bring in these

children, but what with the parents being voters, and the elections on the

horizon …’ He shrugged eloquently.

‘You said you had an idea.’ Duroc sniffed at his glass and took a small but

evidently appreciative sip.

‘Well, if I’m right and it’s just some kids playing pranks, I could talk to them

myself – and have a quiet word with the parents – and we can probably nip this

thing in the bud. You can report back that it was a couple of underage kids and

the matter has been dealt with. No fuss, no press, no TV. No nasty questions to

your minister back in Paris.’

There was a long pause as the Captain stared hard at Bruno, then looked out of

the window and took another thoughtful sip of his drink.

‘Good stuff this. You make it yourself, you say?’ He sipped again. ‘I must

introduce you to some of the Calvados I brought down with me from Normandy.

Maybe you’re right. No point stirring everything up if it’s just some kids, just

so long as no more tyres get slashed. Still, I’d better report something back to

the Prefect tomorrow.’

Bruno said nothing, but smiled politely and raised his glass, hoping the

inspectors had not yet found the potato.

‘We cops have got to stick together, eh?’ Duroc grinned and leaned forward to

clink his glass against Bruno’s. At that moment, to Bruno’s irritation, his

mobile, lying on his desk, rang its familiar warbling version of the

Marseillaise. With a sigh, he gave an apologetic shrug to Duroc and moved to

pick it up.

It was Karim, breathing heavily, his voice shrill.

‘Bruno, come quick,’ he said. ‘It’s Grandpa, he’s dead. I think – I think he’s

been murdered.’ Bruno heard a sob.

‘What do you mean? What’s happened? Where are you?’

‘At his place. I came up to fetch him for dinner. There’s blood everywhere.’

‘Don’t touch anything. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ He rang off and turned

to Duroc. ‘Well, we can forget about childish pranks, my friend. It looks like

we have a real crime on our hands. Possibly a murder. We’ll take my car. One

minute, while I ring the pompiers.’

‘Pompiers?’ asked Duroc. ‘Why do we need the firemen?’

‘Round here they’re the emergency service. It might be too late for an ambulance

but that’s the form and we had better do this by the book. And you’ll want to

tell your office. If this really is a murder, we’ll need the Police Nationale

from Périgueux.’

‘Murder?’ Duroc put his glass down. ‘In St Denis?’

‘That’s what the call said.’ Bruno rang the fire station and gave them

directions, then grabbed his cap. ‘Let’s go. I’ll drive, you ring your people.’

CHAPTER 5

Karim was waiting for them at the door of the cottage, white-faced. He looked as

if he had been sick. He stepped aside as Bruno and Duroc, still in his

full-dress uniform, strode in.

The old man had been gutted. He lay bare-chested on the floor, intestines

spilling out from a great gash in his belly. The place stank of them, and flies

were already buzzing. There was indeed blood everywhere, including some thick

pooling in regular lines on the chest of the old Arab.

‘It seems to be some kind of pattern,’ Bruno began, leaning closer but trying to

keep his shoes out of the drying pools of blood around the body. It was not easy

to make out. The old man was lying awkwardly, his back raised as though leaning

on something that Bruno could not see for the blood.

‘My God,’ said Duroc, peering closely. ‘It’s a swastika. That’s a swastika

carved in the poor bugger’s chest. This is a hate crime. A race crime.’

Bruno looked carefully around him. It was a small cottage – one bedroom, this