‘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

main room with a big old stone fireplace which was kitchen, dining and sitting

room all in one, and a tiny bathroom built onto the side. A meal had been

interrupted; half a baguette and some sausage and cheese lay on a single plate

on the table, alongside the remains of a bottle of red wine and a broken wine

glass. Two chairs had been knocked over, and a photo of the French soccer team

that had won the World Cup in 1998 hung askew on the wall. Bruno spotted a

bundle of cloth tossed into a corner. He walked across and looked at it. It was

a shirt, all its buttons now torn off as if the garment had been ripped from the

old man. No blood on it, so somebody quite strong must have done it before

starting to use the knife. Bruno sighed. He glanced into the bathroom and the

tidy bedroom, but could see nothing out of place there.

‘I don’t see a mobile phone anywhere, or a wallet,’ he said. ‘It may be in his

trouser pocket, but we’d better leave that until the scene-of-crime and forensic

guys get here.’

‘It’ll be sodden with blood anyway,’ said Duroc.

In the distance, they heard the fire engine’s siren. Bruno went outside to see

if his phone could get a signal this far from town. One bar of the four showed

on the mobile’s screen, just enough. He rang the Mayor to explain the situation,

and then everything seemed to happen at once. The firemen arrived, bringing life

support equipment, and Duroc’s deputy drove up in a big blue van with two more

gendarmes, one of them with a large, rather old camera. The other carried a big

roll of orange tape to mark out the crime scene. The place was suddenly crowded.

Bruno went out to Karim, who was leaning wretchedly against the side of his car,

his hand covering his eyes.

‘When did you get here, Karim?’

‘Just before I rang you. Maybe a minute before, not more.’ Karim looked up, his

cheeks wet with tears. ‘Oh, putain, putain. Who could have done this, Bruno? The

old man didn’t have an enemy in the world. He was just looking forward to seeing

his great-grandson. He’ll never see him now.’

‘Have you called Rashida?’

‘Not yet. I just couldn’t. She loved the old guy.’

‘And Momu?’ Karim’s father was the maths teacher at the local school, a popular

man who cooked enormous vats of couscous for the rugby dinners. His name was

Mohammed but everyone called him Momu.

Karim shook his head. ‘I only called you. I can’t tell Papa, he was so devoted

to him. We all were.’

‘When did you last see your grandpa alive? Or speak to him?’

‘Last night at Momu’s. We had dinner. Momu drove him home and that was the last

I saw of him. We sort of take it in turns to feed him and it was our turn