French Army,’ Bruno explained. ‘When we pulled out of Algeria, the ones we left

behind were hunted down and killed as traitors by the new government. Some of

the Harkis got out and came to France. Chirac made a big speech about them a few

years ago, how badly they’d been treated even though they fought for France. It

was like a formal apology to the Harkis from the President of the Republic.’

‘Grandpa was there,’ Karim said proudly. ‘He was invited up to be in the parade

for Chirac’s speech. They paid his way, gave him a rail ticket and hotel and

everything. He wore his Croix de Guerre. Always kept it on the wall.’

‘A war hero. That’s just what we need,’ grunted Duroc. ‘The press will be all

over this.’

‘Kept the medal on the wall?’ said Bruno. ‘I didn’t see it. Come and show me

where.’

They went back into the room that looked like a slaughterhouse and was beginning

to smell like one. The pompiers were clearing up their equipment and the room

kept flaring with light as the gendarme took photos. Karim kept his eyes firmly

away from his grandfather’s corpse and pointed to the wall by the side of the

fireplace. There were two nails in the wall but nothing hanging on either one.

‘It’s gone.’ Karim shook his head. ‘That’s where he kept it. He said he was

saving it to give to his first grandson. The medal’s gone. And the photo.’

‘What photo?’ Bruno asked.

‘His football team, the one he played in back when he was young, in Marseilles.’

‘When was this?’

‘I don’t know. Thirties or Forties, I suppose. He was in France then, as a young

man.’

‘During the war?’

‘I don’t know,’ Karim shrugged. ‘He never talked much about his youth, except to

say he’d played a lot of football.’

‘You said your grandpa was a hunter,’ Duroc said. ‘Did he have a gun?’

‘Not that I ever saw. He hadn’t hunted in years. Too old, he used to say. He

still fished a lot, though. He was a good fisherman, and he and Momu used to go

out early in the mornings before school.’

‘If there’s a gun, we’d better find it. Wait here,’ Duroc instructed, and left

the room. Bruno got out his phone again and rang Mireille at the Mairie, and

asked her to check whether a hunting or fishing licence had been issued to the

old man. He checked the name with Karim. Al-Bakr, Hamid Mustafa al-Bakr.

‘Look under A for the al and B for the Bakr,’ Bruno said. ‘And if that doesn’t

find him, try H for Hamid and M for Mustafa.’ He knew that filing was not

Mireille’s strong point. A widow, whose great skill in life was to make a

magnificent tęte de veau, the Mayor had taken her on as a clerk after her

husband died young of a heart attack.

Duroc emerged from the house. ‘Now we wait for the detectives. They’ll probably

take their own sweet time,’ he said glumly. The Gendarmerie had little affection

for the detectives of the Police Nationale. The gendarmes were part of the

Ministry of Defence, but the Police Nationale came under the Ministry of the

Interior and there was constant feuding between them over who did what. Bruno,

with his own chain of command to the Mayor, was pleased not to be part of it.

‘I’ll go and see the neighbours,’ said Bruno. ‘We have to find out if they heard

or saw anything.’

CHAPTER 6

The nearest house was back towards the main road. It led to a gigantic cave, a

source of great pride to the St Denis tourist office. Its stalagmites and

stalactites had been artfully lit so that, with some imagination, the guides

could convince tourists that this one was the Virgin Mary and that one was

Charles de Gaulle. Bruno could never remember whether the stalactites grew up or

down and thought they all looked like giant church organs, but he liked the

place for the concerts, jazz and classical, that were held there in summer. And

he relished the story that when the cave was first discovered, the intrepid

explorer who was lowered in on a long rope found himself standing on a large

heap of bones. They belonged to the victims of brigands who lay in wait to rob

pilgrims who took this route from the shrines of Rocamadour and Cadouin to

Compostela in distant Spain.

The house belonged to Yannick, the maintenance man for the cave, and his wife,

who worked in the souvenir shop. They were away from home all day and their

daughters were at the lycée in Sarlat, so Bruno did not expect much when he rang

the doorbell. Nobody came, so he went round to the back, hoping that Yannick

might be working in his well-tended garden. The tomatoes, onions, beans and

lettuces stood in orderly rows, protected from rabbits by a stockade of chicken

wire. There was no sign of Yannick. Bruno drove back to the main road and on to

the nearest neighbour, the mad Englishwoman. Her house was a low hill and a

valley away from the old Arab’s cottage, but they used part of the same access

road so she might have seen or heard something.

He slowed at the top of the rise and stopped to admire her property. Once an old

farm, it boasted a small farmhouse, a couple of barns, stables and a pigeon

tower, all built of honey-coloured local stone and arranged on three sides of a