Folly wasn’t necessarily murder.

Except that someone had discovered the body, but instead of alerting the authorities, had kept it for a while before placing it where it would eventually be discovered. Somebody with an acute lack of sensitivity.

The presence of alcohol raised a few questions. If a party guest goes missing – even one in a tasteless uniform – there would be questions asked. The police would be informed, the area searched, the family and friends expressing fear and loss, the usual incomprehension when someone – especially a woman – disappears. The area would be buzzing with rumour, gossip and innuendo.

Yet none of that had happened.

Either nobody cared … or they didn’t know. Or did they not want to know?

He lay back down, then sat up again when a rooster crowed nearby, the harsh, gurgling sound drifting on the air with the clarity and reach of a bugle. He checked his watch. Almost five-thirty; time had passed swiftly. He shrugged on some old, lightweight cotton trousers and a T-shirt, and a pair of battered gym shoes: his training gear. His chances of getting back to sleep were less than slim, so he opted instead for a workout run. It was his first in three weeks, but it would help shake out the cobwebs.

He went out into the lane and turned away from the village. No sense in scaring the neighbours; he didn’t expect too many of them had a training regime other than the hard, physical labour which made up their days. He worked his way up to a gentle trot, breathing deeply and swinging his arms as he made his way out into the open countryside. The birds were just beginning their chorus, and he nodded a salute to them as he passed by, an intruder in their midst, wincing at the pain in his knees and already wondering if this wasn’t a few steps too far.

At seven, warmed by his run and a simple breakfast of toasted bread and coffee, Rocco reached the marais, taking a track off the road leading to the station and the cemetery. Laid with a thin surface of aged and cracked tarmac, it meandered through a belt of tall poplars, skirting three small lakes and a vast, untamed stretch of reed beds, regularly dotted with notices saying FISHING – PRIVATE. The morning sun filtered through the branches of the trees and reflected in patterns off the water, giving the area a shimmering, unreal quality. Rocco felt the Citroën wheels dip each time he strayed off the tarmac, and his gut tilted at the idea that the ground here might swallow him and the car without warning at any moment.

He nosed the car into a large clearing with tyre tracks in the surface showing where other vehicles had turned to go back to the road. The end of the line for anything on four wheels.

He stopped with the nose pointing back along the track and killed the engine. Opened the door to let the air in. It smelt loamy, with a background scent of rotting vegetation and standing water. He got out and looked around.

A large wooden lodge dominated the clearing, standing proud of the trees behind it yet merging into the foliage as if camouflaged. It was plainly old, with peeling walls and weather-worn shutters over the windows, and a layer of soft moss on the shingle roof. A broad veranda ran the length of the front, with a wooden rail in the style of houses in the American Deep South. No rocking chairs, though, Rocco noted. No welcome mat, either.

He stepped onto the veranda and felt the rough planks flex beneath his weight. His footsteps made a hollow noise over the crawl space beneath, but the place had been built to last with seasoned hardwood – a wise move situated here in the marshes. He tried the front door, which had a shutter over the central panel, but it, too, was locked tight. He walked along the veranda to the end, and looked round the corner of the building. There was no garden to speak of and no fence – merely a patch of rough grass and weeds stretching back several paces to a reed bed. Beyond the reeds lay a large expanse of water, surrounded on all sides by trees, reeds and tangled underbrush. The nearest sign of life was a family of ducks about thirty metres away on the water, and the occasional plop of a fish jumping.

At the other end of the veranda he found the same scenery, with the addition of an overturned aluminium rowing boat lying just out of the reeds, a large barbecue bay and a metal rack which he guessed was for fishing rods. He hopped over the veranda rail and walked across the grass for a closer look at the boat. Worn and dented in places, the soft metal was scarred along the sides. There was no sign of an engine mounting, but he guessed that on a lake this size, oars were the best form of propulsion.

He turned to study the rear of the lodge. It boasted two large windows and a narrow door, all tightly shuttered. Whoever owned this place believed in security, and he wondered if the locals had a reputation for helping themselves when the owners were away.

It would be an ideal place for parties, he decided. Unusual, even slightly sinister, especially at night, but maybe that’s what gave it a special cachet among its visitors. What better place to let loose and have a fling without anyone overlooking you?

He returned to the front of the building, making a mental note to find out whose name the place was registered in. City folk, no doubt.

He stopped.

Claude Lamotte was standing by the front steps. His feet were planted solidly, his weight balanced, and he had a shotgun slung across one arm.

Rocco felt his throat go dry.

The twin barrels were pointing right at his midsection.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Rocco? I barely remember the man.

Not one of our best, in my opinion.

François Massin – former brigade CO Indochina campaign – now divisional commissaire, Picardie

‘Taking a chance, bringing that thing in here,’ said Claude genially, nodding back at the car. ‘Ground’s very soft off the road. Swallow a man whole in the wrong places.’

The shotgun barrels hadn’t wavered and Rocco felt the muscles in his gut contract. The idea of it going off even accidentally at this range didn’t bear thinking about. He tried to ignore it.

Very carefully, he slid a hand into his coat pocket and felt the reassuring heaviness of the MAB.

‘So I gathered,’ he said. He moved across the front of the house as if to study a poster wrapped around one of the heavy wooden uprights. The move was to take him out of the line of fire, but when he stopped and looked back, Claude had turned with him. ‘Could you point that thing somewhere else?’

‘Oh, sorry.’ Claude moved his hand and the gun broke. He extracted two red cartridges. ‘I was out hunting rabbits. You get used to walking around locked and ready to go in this place.’ A harsh sound broke the silence, and Claude glanced up into the trees behind the lodge. He inserted one of the cartridges, flicked the barrels up again. They locked into place with an efficient click, and he sighted at a crow sitting in the uppermost branches. Then he lowered it without firing.

By the time the barrel swung down again, Rocco had his gun pointed towards Claude through the fabric of his coat.

He still wasn’t sure about Lamotte. He was local, after all, and knew everyone and probably everything: which way was up, which was down; the good, the bad and the plain indifferent. He was genial, too, and appeared to have accepted Rocco’s arrival with genuine ease. Many would have been grudging at the very least, downright resentful at most. It didn’t mean he was up to anything, but Rocco had spent too many years learning not to take anyone at face value or to drop his guard too quickly.

As he stood there, wondering whether Claude was going to break the shotgun again, he detected the smell of the oil he’d used last night to clean the MAB, the aroma set off by the warmth of his hand. It had been relaxing, he remembered, and he’d taken his time, dismantling the weapon piece by piece, the movements practised and smooth.