tonight, which is why I came up to fetch him.’

‘Did you touch anything?’ This was Bruno’s first murder, and as far as he knew

the Commune’s first as well. He had seen a lot of dead bodies. It was he who

organised the funerals and dealt with grieving families, and he had coped with

some bad car crashes so he was used to the sight of blood. But nothing like

this.

‘No. When I got here, I called out to Grandpa like I usually do and went in. The

door was open like always and there he was. Putain, all that blood. And that

smell. I couldn’t touch him. Not like that. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

Karim turned away to retch again. Bruno swallowed hard. Duroc came out and told

the other gendarme to start stringing the tape. He looked at Karim, still bent

double and spitting the last of the bile from his mouth.

‘Who’s he?’ Duroc asked.

‘Grandson of the victim,’ Bruno replied. ‘He runs the Café des Sports. He’s a

good man, he’s the one that rang me. I’ve talked to him. He touched nothing,

rang me as soon as he got here.’ Turning back to Karim, he said, ‘Karim, where

were you before you drove here to pick up your grandpa?’

‘In the café, all afternoon. Ever since I saw you this morning.’

‘Are you sure?’ snapped Duroc. ‘We can check that.’

‘That’s right, we can check that. Meantime, let’s get him home,’ Bruno said

soothingly. ‘He’s in shock.’

‘No, we’d better keep him here. I called the Brigade in Périgueux and they said

they’d bring the Police Nationale. The detectives will want to talk to him.’

Albert, the chief pompier, came out, wiping his brow. He looked at Bruno and

shook his head.

‘Dead for a couple of hours or more,’ he said. ‘Come over here, Bruno. I need to

talk to you.’

They walked down the drive and off to one side where the old man kept a small

vegetable garden and a well-tended compost heap. It should have been a pleasant

spot for an old man in retirement, the hill sloping away to the woods behind and

the view from the house down the valley.

‘You saw that thing on his chest?’ Albert asked. Bruno nodded. ‘Nasty stuff,’

said Albert, ‘and it gets worse. The poor old devil’s hands were tied behind his

back. That’s why his body was arched like that. He would not have died quickly.

But that swastika? I don’t know. This is very bad, Bruno, it can’t be anyone

from round here. We all know Momu and Karim. They’re like family.’

‘Some nasty bastard didn’t think so,’ said Bruno. ‘Not with that swastika. Dear

God, it looks like a racist thing, a political killing. Here in St Denis.’

‘You’ll have to tell Momu. I don’t envy you that.’

There was a shout from the cottage. Duroc was waving him over. Bruno shook hands

with Albert and walked back.

‘Do you keep a political list?’ Duroc demanded. ‘Fascists, Communists, Trots,

Front National types, activists – all that?’

Bruno shrugged. ‘No, never have and never had to. The Mayor usually knows how

everyone votes, and they usually vote the same way they did last time, the same

way their fathers did. He can usually tell you what the vote will be the day

before the election and he’s never wrong by more than a dozen or so.’

‘Any Front National types that you know of? Skinheads? Fascists?’

‘Le Pen usually gets a few votes, about fifty or sixty last time, I recall. But

nobody is very active.’

‘What about those Front National posters and the graffiti you see on the roads?’

Duroc’s face was getting red again. ‘Half the road signs seem to have FN

scrawled on them. Somebody must have done that.’

Bruno nodded. ‘You’re right. They suddenly appeared during the last election

campaign, but nobody took them very seriously. You always get that kind of thing

in elections, but there was no sign of who did it.’

‘You’re going to tell me that it was kids again?’

‘No, I’m not, because I have no idea about this. What I can tell you is that

there’s no branch of the Front National here. They might get a few dozen votes

but they’ve never elected a single councillor. They never even held a campaign

rally in the last elections. I don’t recall seeing any of their leaflets. Most

people here vote either left or right or Green, except for the Chasseurs.’

‘The what?’

‘The political party for hunters and fishermen. That’s their name. Chasse,

Pęche, Nature, Traditions. It’s like an alternative Green party for people who

hate the real Greens as a bunch of city slicker Ecolos who don’t know the first

thing about the countryside. They get about fifteen percent of the vote here –

when they stand, that is. Don’t you have them in Normandy?’

Duroc shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t pay much attention to politics. I never

had to before.’

‘Grandpa voted for the Chasse party last time. He told me,’ Karim said. ‘He was

a hunter and very strong on all that tradition stuff. You know he was a Harki?

Got a Croix de Guerre in Vietnam, before the Algerian war. That’s why he had to

leave to come over here.’

Duroc looked blank.

‘The Harkis were the Algerians who fought for us in the Algerian war, in the