Текст книги "Bruno, Chief Of Police"

Автор книги: Martin Walker

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You can use the cabane by the swimming pool to change.’

Those last words almost disappeared into the wind as she took off again,

cantering over the turf to follow Christine back towards the house, taking the

long way round the back of the property rather than having to dismount and deal

with gates and fences.

‘Two handsome women riding fast on horseback. Mon Dieu, but that’s a magnificent

sight,’ exclaimed the Baron, and Bruno knew that whatever happened on the tennis

court, the day would be a success.

He had warned the Baron that the two women played in tennis dresses, so both men

wore white shorts and T-shirts. It struck Bruno that their four white-clad

figures looked almost formal as they met on the court and made introductions.

The Baron bowed as he presented Pamela with a bottle of champagne ‘to toast your

victory, Mesdames’. She took it quickly to the cabane, where an ancient

refrigerator purred noisily, and by the time she rejoined them, the Baron had

invited Christine to be his partner and Bruno was sending forehands over the net

to each of them in turn.

‘It looks like you’re stuck with me,’ he said as Pamela came onto the court,

bringing another can of tennis balls.

‘I always prefer to have the law on my side, Bruno,’ she smiled, and they began

to knock up seriously, two balls in play, with Bruno sending his to Christine

and the Baron playing with Pamela. The women played well and with careful

control, placing each ball deep, and Bruno found himself responding in kind and

getting into a rhythm of forehand after forehand. It was a satisfying routine

after his more usual knock-up style that sent half the balls into the net.

The first set went with serve to four all, although Bruno had to fight back from

fifteen-forty down. Pamela and Christine knew the court and the strange ways of

grass, and used their experience to position themselves while Bruno and the

Baron tired themselves scrambling to try and anticipate each wayward bounce. The

women still looked cool and fresh and in control, while the men were mopping

their brows and flapping the fronts of their shirts.

At set point, Bruno waited for the crucial serve, swaying gently on the balls of

his feet, knowing the Baron’s game well enough to expect a slice. But the Baron

fooled him, serving a fast ball to his forehand, and Bruno played it down the

line back to Christine. She returned it to him, and he played the same shot back

to her from the baseline. The rhythm was back. Five strokes, six and then eight,

and the rally was still going strong when Christine suddenly changed tactics and

hit her next forehand hard to Pamela. She played it back to the Baron, and it

was their turn to exchange strokes from the baseline. Then Pamela’s sixth shot

hit some oddity on the grass surface and the ball bounced high and wide. The

Baron barely scrambled it back, saw it hit the top of the net and drop forlornly

onto his side of the court. Game and set.

‘What a magnificent rally,’ called Pamela, with an enthusiasm so warm that Bruno

could not think it quite genuine. ‘Well done, Baron, and hard luck on that very

unfair last bounce. I think you had us but for that.’

‘I need a drink,’ said Christine, running forward to shake Bruno’s hand and then

going back to kiss the Baron on both cheeks. ‘And I need a shower,’ laughed

Pamela, ‘and then a drink. And thank you for the game and that last rally. I

can’t think when I played a rally that lasted so long.’

Bruno admired the easy skill of the women in soothing bruised male egos. He and

the Baron had been outplayed. Dripping with sweat, they looked as if they had

been through a long hard game instead of a single set of mixed doubles. The

Baron, usually grim faced and tight of lip when he had lost a game, was almost

purring with pleasure at their attention.

‘You’ll find a shower and towels in the cabane,’ Pamela told them. ‘We’ll take

our showers inside and see you out here in ten minutes for the champagne.

Meanwhile, there are bottles of water in the refrigerator. Help yourselves.’

Bruno mopped his neck with his towel, and put away his racquet as the Baron

limped up smiling.

‘What charming girls,’ he said.

Bruno grinned a weary assent. They were indeed charming, and yes, they were also

girlish, and if they could twist the cynical old Baron around their little

fingers so easily, they were two very formidable women. After he had drunk a

litre of water, showered and changed, he sauntered out to the table by the pool,

where four champagne flutes and an ice bucket stood ready, beside a bottle of

dark purple cassis. He looked discreetly at the label. It was a bottle of the

real stuff from the Bourgogne, not the industrial blackcurrant juice they sold

in supermarkets.

Pamela and Christine had changed into jeans and blouses when they reappeared

carrying trays – with plates, knives and napkins on one, pâté, olives, cherry

tomatoes and a fresh baguette on the other. The Baron uncorked his champagne,

poured a splash of cassis into each glass and then filled them carefully with

the wine.

‘Next time, you must let me partner you, Bruno,’ said Christine. ‘Unless the

Baron would like to help me take our revenge.’

‘I’m not changing a winning team,’ laughed Pamela. ‘I’ll stick with Bruno.’

‘We are at your disposal, ladies,’ said the Baron. ‘Perhaps we might invite you

to play at our club tournament later this summer. You would do very well,

partnering each other or in the mixed doubles.’

‘Sorry, but I only have until the end of May,’ said Christine. ‘Then it’s back

to England to write up my research before the end of my sabbatical.’

‘Perhaps we could tempt you back for a week or so in August,’ the Baron

persisted.

‘No room at the inn, I’m afraid,’ Christine said. ‘Pamela lives for the rest of

the year on renting out her place in the high season, and August is the busiest

month.’

‘Well, you now have lots of other friends you might stay with. My modest

chartreuse is at your disposal, and since my daughters come down from Paris for

the tournament, you would be well chaperoned.’

‘Chartreuse?’ enquired Pamela. ‘I thought that was a charterhouse, where monks

lived.’

‘That is so, for monks of the Carthusian order. But it has also come to mean an

isolated country house or manor, and in this part of the world it usually refers

to a certain kind of building, rather long and thin, just one room deep and with

a long corridor. Grander than a farmhouse, but not so grand as a chateau,’ the

Baron explained. ‘It has been in my family for a long time.’

‘That’s very kind of you, but I don’t think I shall be able to get away in

August,’ Christine said. ‘I really have to get this book finished before the

next academic year.’

‘That reminds me,’ said Bruno. ‘You know something of the archives here and the

local wartime history. How would I go about researching a soccer team in

Marseilles, around 1939?’

‘Start with the local newspapers, le Marseillais or le Provençal, or the sports

paper, l’Équipe,’ Christine said. ‘Contact the local sports federation to see if

they have any records. If you have the names of the players, or of the team, it

should be quite straightforward.’

‘I only have one player’s name, but not the name of the team nor any other

information. The team played in an amateur youth league, and won a championship

in 1940 but I think their coach had been a professional player. I have his name,

Villanova.’

‘It could be a long search, Bruno,’ Christine said. ‘Regional papers like le

Marseillais tend to keep microfiche records, but I’d be surprised if they have

been digitised and so you can’t do an electronic search. You may have to go

through all the issues for 1940. But if they won a championship, that would

probably be at the end of the season, in the springtime, March or April. You

might try just looking for those months. Is this to do with that murder inquiry

you refused to tell us about when you were last here? We saw the reports in

Sud-Ouest.’

‘Yes, poor old Hamid, as you know, was the victim, and nothing seems to have

been taken except his wartime medal and this old photo, so I’m curious to see if

it might shed some light on the affair. It’s just a chance – he may have taken

the things down from the wall himself or thrown them away. We might be following

a false trail, but so far we don’t have much to go on.’

‘I thought I heard on Radio Périgord that some suspects had been detained, in

Lalinde, was it not?’ asked Pamela. ‘They didn’t give any names.’

‘No, if they’re under eighteen, they’re juveniles and their names cannot be

released. Some local youngsters involved in the Front National have been the

subject of police inquiries, but so far there’s no real evidence to connect them

to Hamid’s killing, or even to connect them with Hamid.’

‘I don’t know many young people around here,’ said Pamela thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps

I should. Some of my guests here have teenage children and it might be a good

thing to introduce them to some young locals. We did that a bit last summer with

a young French couple who played tennis on the court here. Rick and Jackie, I

think they were called.’

‘Rick and Jackie?’ Bruno said sharply. ‘Could that have been Richard and

Jacqueline?’

Pamela shrugged. ‘I just knew them by those names. An attractive young couple,

about sixteen or seventeen. She’s a pretty thing, blonde hair, a very good

tennis player. He’s slim, maybe sixty kilos. I think he said his father is a

doctor around here. Why? Do you know them?’

‘How did you meet them, Pamela? And when was this, exactly?’

‘They said they’d been walking in the woods and noticed my tennis court. They

said they’d never played on grass before and asked if they could give it a try.

I had an English family with some teenage children and they spent the afternoon

playing tennis. They seemed very pleasant and polite, but I got the impression

they had been courting pretty energetically in the woods, rather than just

walking. It must have been late August, maybe early September last year. Rick

and Jackie came two or three times. I think she had a car, but I haven’t seen

them this year.’

‘You say they came out of the woods and down to your property. Which woods,

exactly?’

‘Those over that hill.’ She pointed. ‘Over towards Hamid’s place. From the hill,

you can see both my place and his.’

‘Did they ever mention Hamid, or meet him, or see him here when he came to tell

you how to prune your roses?’

‘Not that I can recall.’

‘When they came to visit you again, did they come the same way, from the woods?’

‘No, they came up the road by car. I remember it well because she drove too fast

and I had to tell her to slow down.’

‘Did they go walking off into the woods again while they were here?’

‘Yes, I think they did, teenage passion and all that. You’re sounding very

policeman-like and serious, Bruno. Do you think they could be connected to

Hamid’s murder?’

‘I don’t know, but it suggests that they may have known the old man, or seen

him, or at least had the opportunity to do so, and other than that there is

nothing to connect them with Hamid.’

‘They didn’t seem like Front National types. They weren’t skinheads or thuggish

in any way. They seemed pretty well educated and had good manners, always saying

please and thank you. They even brought me some flowers once. They spoke quite a

bit of English, got on well with the English kids. They were really very

pleasant – I enjoyed meeting them.’

‘Well, it may be nothing, but since we have so few leads, we have to follow them

all. So I must say thank you for the game and get back to work. But I’d better

stroll up to those woods and see whatever’s to be seen before I go.’

‘Can we come too?’ asked Christine. ‘I have never seen a real policeman at

work.’

‘I’m not a real policeman, not in that sense,’ Bruno laughed. ‘I won’t be like

your Sherlock Holmes with his memory for a hundred different kinds of cigar ash

and his magnifying glass. I just want to take a look. Do come along if you

like.’

It turned into a gentle Sunday stroll up to the top of the rise, perhaps a

kilometre to the first thin trees. Another hundred metres through the woods and

over the ridge line, and there was Hamid’s cottage, five hundred metres or so

away and the only building in sight. They walked along the fringe of the woods

and found a small clearing of soft turf, sheltered and private but with a

glorious view over the plateau – a perfect place for a romantic rendezvous in

the open air, thought Bruno. He looked carefully around and found some old

cigarette stubs and a broken wine glass under a bush. He would have to send the

forensics team up here.

They walked back to Pamela’s house mostly in silence, and quickly drank what was

left of the champagne. Then the Baron and Bruno took their leave. The pleasant

atmosphere after the tennis had become sombre. They made no plans to play

together again, but Bruno decided he could always call. Now would not be a good

time, not with the shadow of a neighbour’s murder hanging over Pamela’s house

and the knowledge that the suspects had visited her, enjoyed her hospitality,

and played on the same tennis court where they had spent such an agreeable

morning.

CHAPTER

15

The Juge-magistrat, a dapper and visibly ambitious young Parisian named Lucien

Tavernier who might just have reached the age of thirty, had arrived on the

early morning flight down to Périgueux airport. Bruno took an instant dislike to

the man when he noticed the predatory way he looked at Inspector Isabelle at the

first meeting of the investigative team. It was just after eight a.m. and

Isabelle had woken him with a phone call at midnight to say his presence would

be required. Bruno had not wanted to go; he had a parade to organise for midday

and he was not a member of the investigative team, but

J-J

had specially asked

him to be there to explain the new evidence that put Richard Gelletreau and

Jacqueline Courtemine in the vicinity of Hamid’s cottage. Without Bruno’s phone

call to

J-J

on the previous day, Richard would already have been released.

‘What he said is that he used to go to the woods to have sex, and he hadn’t even

noticed Hamid’s cottage since he had other matters on his mind,’ said

J-J

. With

his hair awry and his shirt collar undone, he looked as if he’d barely slept as

he gulped thirstily at the dreadful coffee they served at the police station.

After one sip, Bruno had abandoned his plastic cup and was drinking bottled

water instead. There was a bottle, a notepad, a pencil and a report on J-J’s

last interrogation sessions in front of each person at the conference table,

except for Tavernier who had pushed these local courtesies aside.

‘Neither Richard nor Jacqueline have any alibi for the afternoon of the killing

except one another, and they claim to have been in bed at her house in Lalinde,’

J-J

went on. ‘But we now know that she used her credit card to fill her car at a

garage just outside St Denis at eleven forty in the morning. So first, they’re

both lying, and second, she at least could have been at the murder scene. This

strengthens the evidence from the tyre tracks on the way to Hamid’s cottage, and

we’re awaiting the forensic report on the cigarette butts and wine glass and the

used condoms found in the woods. But there’s still no clear evidence from the

cottage itself to demonstrate that they ever went into the place. So far, it’s

only circumstantial evidence, but in my view it points clearly to them. They

were in the vicinity, if not necessarily at the murder scene. I should add that

we have no traces of blood on their clothes nor in her car. But I think we have

enough cause to continue to detain them.’

‘I agree. We have a clear political motive, and the opportunity, and they are

lying – quite apart from the drugs,’ said Tavernier briskly, looking at them all

through his large and obviously expensive black spectacles. His equally

expensive suit was black, as was his knitted silk tie, and he wore a shirt with

thick purple and white stripes. He looked as if he were going to a funeral.

Lined up neatly on the conference table before him were a black leather-bound

notebook and a matching Mont Blanc pen, the slimmest cell phone that Bruno had

ever seen, and a computer small enough to fit into his shirt pocket that seemed

to deliver his e-mails. Phone and computer had come from discreet black leather

pouches on his belt. To Bruno, Tavernier looked like an emissary from an

advanced and probably hostile civilisation.

‘That’s quite a strong case,’ Tavernier continued. ‘We have no other suspects at

all, and my Minister says it is clearly in the national interest that we resolve

this case quickly. So if the forensic evidence from the woods places them there,

I think we might be able to file formal charges – unless there are any

objections?’

He looked severely around the table, as if daring any of those present to

challenge him.

J-J

was pouring more coffee, Isabelle was quietly studying her

notes. A police secretary was taking minutes. Another bright young thing from

the Prefecture was nodding sagely, and the media specialist from Police HQ in

Paris, a smart young woman with blonde streaks in her hair and sunglasses pushed

back above her brow, raised a hand.

‘I can schedule a press conference to announce the charges, but we’d better fix

the timing to catch the eight p.m. news. Then we have the anti-racism

demonstration in St Denis at noon. You’ll want to be there, Lucien?’

‘Have you confirmed that the Minister will be there?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Just the Prefect and a couple of deputies from the National

Assembly, so far. The Minister of Justice is stuck with meetings in Paris, but

I’m awaiting a call from the Interior Ministry. The Minister has a speech in

Bordeaux this evening, so there’s a suggestion he might fly here first.’

‘He will,’ said Tavernier, a note of triumph in his voice at being first with

the news. ‘I just received an e-mail from a colleague in the Minister’s office.

He’s flying into Bergerac and plans to be at the Mayor’s office in St Denis at

eleven thirty. I’d better be there.’ He looked at

J-J

. ‘You have a car and

driver ready for me?’ He turned to Isabelle with a smile. ‘Perhaps this charming

Inspector of yours?’

‘An unmarked police car and a specialist gendarme driver are at your disposal

for the length of your stay. Inspector Perrault will be engaged in other

duties,’

J-J

replied, his tone studiously neutral.

J-J

had been bitter when he

rang Bruno’s mobile earlier in the morning, as Bruno was driving up from St

Denis. The young hot-shot, as

J-J

called him, had only been Juge-magistrat for

three months. The son of a senior Airbus executive who had been at the École

Nationale d’Administration at the same time as the new Minister of the Interior,

young Lucien had gone straight from law school to work on the Minister’s private

staff for two years and was already on the executive committee of the youth wing

of the Minister’s political party. A glittering career evidently loomed. He

would want this case prosecuted, tried and convicted with maximum dispatch and

to his Minister’s entire satisfaction.

‘I’m heading back to St Denis after this meeting, so I could give you a lift,’

offered Bruno.

Tavernier looked at him, the only person there wearing police uniform, as if not

sure what Bruno was doing in his presence.

‘And you are?’

‘Benoît Courrčges, Chef de Police of St Denis. I’m attached to the inquiry at

the request of the Police Nationale,’ he replied.

‘Ah yes, our worthy garde-champętre,’ Tavernier said, using the ancient term for

the Police Municipale, dating back to the days when country constables had

patrolled rural France on horseback. ‘You people have cars now, do you?’

‘The Commune of St Denis is larger than the city of Paris,’ said Bruno. ‘We need

them. You’re welcome to a ride. It might help your inquiries if I briefed you on

the local background, and on some of the odd features about this case.’

‘It looks very straightforward to me,’ said Tavernier, picking up his little

computer and flicking his thumb on a small knob as he studied the screen.

‘Well, there’s the question of the missing items, the military medal and the

photograph of Hamid’s old football team,’ said Bruno. ‘They disappeared from the

wall of the cottage where they’d always been kept. It might be important to find

out where they went or who took them.’

‘Ah yes, our brave Arab’s Croix de Guerre,’ Tavernier said, still studying his

screen. ‘I see my minister is bringing some brass hats from the Defence Ministry

with him.’ He looked up and focused on Bruno and, adopting a patient and kindly

tone as if he were addressing someone of limited intelligence, said, ‘It’s the

Croix de Guerre that persuades me that we have the right suspects. These young

fascists from the Front National would detest the idea of an Arab being a hero

of France. They probably threw it away in a river somewhere.’

‘But why take the photo of the old football team?’ Bruno persisted.

‘Who knows how these little Nazis think,’ Tavernier said airily. ‘A souvenir,

perhaps, or just something else they wanted to destroy.’

‘If it were a souvenir, they’d have kept it and we’d have found it by now,’ said

J-J

.

‘I’m sure you would,’ drawled Tavernier. ‘Now, when do we get the forensic

report on that little love nest in the woods?’

‘They promise to have it by the end of today,’ said Isabelle.

‘Ah yes, Inspector Perrault,’ said Tavernier, turning to give her a wide smile.

‘How do you feel about our two prime suspects? Any doubts?’

‘Well, I haven’t attended all the questioning, but they look very strong

candidates to me,’ Isabelle said firmly, looking directly at Tavernier. Bruno

felt a small bud of jealousy begin to uncurl inside him. Isabelle would not have

a difficult choice to make between a lowly country cop and a glittering scion of

the Parisian establishment. ‘Naturally I’d like some firm evidence, or a

confession, I’m sure we all would. They both come from backgrounds that can

afford good lawyers, so the more evidence we have, the better. And maybe we

should also be looking hard at those thugs from the Service d’Ordre, the

security squad of the Front National. They are no strangers to violence. But

again, we need evidence.’

‘Quite right,’ said Tavernier with enthusiasm. ‘That’s why I’d like the

forensics people to take a second look at the murder scene and at the clothes

and belongings of our two suspects. Could you arrange that please, Mademoiselle?

Now that they know what they are looking for, the forensics types might come up

with something that puts them at the killing ground. Wouldn’t that calm your

doubts about circumstantial evidence, Superintendent? Or would you like me to

call down some experts from Paris?’

J-J

nodded. ‘Some of my doubts, yes it would. But our forensics team is very

competent. I doubt that they’ll have missed anything.’

‘You have other doubts?’ Tavernier’s question was silkily put, but there was

irritation behind it.

‘I don’t quite get the motive,’

J-J

said. ‘I see the obvious political motive,

but why kill this Arab, at this particular time, in this particular way, tying

up and butchering the old man as if he were a pig?’

‘Why kill this one? Because he was there,’ said Tavernier. ‘Because he was alone

and isolated and too old to put up much resistance and it was a remote and safe

place to commit this ritual slaughter. Look at your Nazi psychology,

Superintendent. And then they took his medal to demonstrate that their victim

was not really French at all. Yes, I think I have their measure. Now it’s time

for me to question these two young fascists myself. I’ll have what, two hours

with them before I have to leave for this little town called – what is it? – ah

yes, St Denis. Not the prettiest or most unusual of names, but I’m quite sure

the Minister and I shall both be thoroughly charmed.’

J-J’s office was in spartan contrast to the man.

J-J

was overweight and looked

scruffy inside his crumpled suit, but his desk was clean, his books and

documents all neatly filed, and his newspaper precisely aligned with the edges

of the low table where they sat, drinking some decent coffee that Isabelle had

made in her own adjoining room.

J-J

had kicked off his shoes and smoothed his

hair, and was riffling through a slim file that Isabelle had brought him. She

looked cool and very efficient in a dark trouser suit with a red scarf at her

neck, and what looked like expensive and surprisingly elegant black training

shoes with flat heels and laces. She looked at Bruno levelly, with a very faint

and disinterested smile, and he felt a touch of embarrassment at the fantasies

of her he had conjured up after she left his cottage.

‘There’s something odd about this military record of the victim,’ said

J-J

. ‘It

says he came onto the strength of the First French Army for pay and rations on

28 August 1944, listed as a member of the Commandos d’Afrique. That unit was

part of something called Romeo Force, who had taken part in the initial landings

in southern France on 14 August 1944, and they seized a place called Cap Nčgre.

Our man is not, apparently, listed as a member of the original assault force for

the invasion. He just appears on the strength, out of nowhere, on 28 August at a

place called Brignolles.’

‘I called the military archives and spoke to one of the resident staff,’

Isabelle took up the story. ‘He told me that it wasn’t uncommon for members of

Resistance groups to join up with the French forces and stay with them

throughout the war. The Commandos d’Afrique were a Colonial Army unit,

originally from Algeria, and most of the rank and file were Algerians. They’d

taken heavy casualties at a place called Draguignan, and were keen to bring

their numbers back up to strength with local Resistance volunteers. Since our

Hamid was Algerian, he was signed up and stayed with them for the rest of the

war. In the fighting in the Vosges mountains in the winter, he was promoted to

corporal, where he was wounded and spent two months in hospital. And then, when

they got into Germany, he was promoted to sergeant in April of 1945, just before

the German surrender.’

‘And he stayed in the Army after the war?’ Bruno asked.

‘Indeed he did,’ said

J-J

, reading from the file. ‘He transferred to the twelfth

regiment of the Chasseurs d’Afrique, with whom he served in Vietnam, where he

won his Croix de Guerre in the failed attempt to rescue the garrison at Dien

Bien Phu. His unit was then posted to Algeria until the war ended in 1962 and

the Chasseurs d’Afrique were wound up. But before that, along with some of the

other long-serving sergeants and warrant officers, he was transferred to the

training battalion of the regular Chasseurs, where he remained until he was

demobilised in 1975 after thirty-five years’ service. He was hired as a

caretaker at the military college at Soissons after one of his old officers

became the commander.’

‘So what’s so strange about it, J-J?’ Bruno asked.

‘We can’t find any trace of him in the Resistance groups around Toulon, where he

was supposed to be before joining the Commandos. Isabelle checked with the

Resistance records. Since it was useful after the war to be able to claim a

fighting record in the Resistance, most of the unit lists were pretty thorough.

And there’s no Hamid al-Bakr.’

‘It might not mean much,’ Isabelle said. ‘There aren’t many Arab names in any of

the Resistance groups – and not many Spanish names either, although Spanish

refugees from their civil war played a big part in the Resistance. But the

records for the two main groups, the Armée Secrčte and the Franc-Tireurs et

Partisans, tend to be fairly reliable. He could have been in another group or he

may have slipped through the net. He might even have used another name in the

Resistance – it wasn’t uncommon.’

‘It just nags at me a bit, like a loose tooth,’ said

J-J

. ‘Once Hamid was in the

Army, the records are impeccable, but we can’t track him before that. It’s as if

he just turned up out of nowhere.’

‘Wartime,’ Bruno shrugged. ‘An invasion, bombing, records get lost or destroyed.

And I can tell you one thing from my own military service. The official records

may all look very neat and complete because that’s how they have to be and how

the company clerks file them. But a lot of the paperwork is pure invention, or

just making sure the books balance and the numbers add up. What we know is that

he served for thirty-five years and fought in three wars. His officers respected

him enough to take care of him and he was a good soldier.’

‘Yes, I know all that,’ said

J-J

. ‘So Isabelle tried to look back a bit

further.’

‘We asked the Marseilles and Toulon police to run a check, but there’s not much

left of the files before 1944 and they had nothing,’ Isabelle said. ‘The date

and place of birth that he listed in Army records was back in Oran in Algeria on

14 July 1923. The chap at the archives said a lot of the Algerian troops listed

that birth date because they didn’t know their real birthday and that was the

easiest date to remember. Birth registers for Algerians were pretty hit and miss

in those days, even if we could get access to the Algerian records. And we don’t

have a date for his arrival in France. As far as we can tell, he had no official

existence until he turns up with the Commandos d’Afrique.’

‘I’ve been pushing this because I’m not sure about our two suspects,’ said

J-J

.

‘I talked with each of them separately for a long time, and I just don’t feel

confident that they did it. Call it a hunch. So I had Isabelle check back into

Hamid’s history to see if there were any clues there that might open other

possibilities.’

‘Tavernier seems happy to go ahead and press charges,’ Bruno said.

‘Yes, and I’m not comfortable with that, not with the evidence we have so far,’

said

J-J

.

‘As I said in the meeting, I’d also like more evidence,’ said Isabelle.

‘That makes three of us,’ said Bruno, ‘but there doesn’t seem to be much other

evidence of any kind, either to incriminate them or to steer us anywhere else.’