‘Lucas Rocco,’ murmured Claude, stretching out the words and pronouncing Lucas the American way, with the ‘s’. ‘You’re not from these parts, are you?’

‘I’m relieved you can tell.’ Rocco wondered how long the dissection would go on for. Probably days, given the fact that so little else seemed to happen here.

‘Easy. You don’t look shifty enough.’

‘What have people here got to be shifty about?’

‘Everything. Nothing. Living and dying, mostly.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

‘You’ll be looking for somewhere to doss down, I suppose?’

Rocco decided he might get to like this man – if he didn’t have to arrest him for something first.

‘I might. Are you the local psychic, or a letting agent?’

‘If I was either, I’d die of boredom. You’ve seen the café?’

‘I have. Not my thing.’ His recommended billet above the bar-tabac, where he’d just stopped to check out the facilities, was too public, and the smell of stale beer and cigarette smoke too invasive, for his tastes; he’d lodged in too many similar fleapits over the years to look on them with affection. It was at best a stopgap until he found something better; somewhere he could call his own space while he considered what the hell he was supposed to be doing out here.

‘Go see Mme Denis, down Rue Danvillers.’ Claude tilted his head towards a lane running off at an angle from the village square. ‘Last but one on the left. She has the keys to an empty house down there. Plenty of room to park the cop machine, too.’ He grinned knowingly. ‘In your line of work, you’ll feel right at home.’

‘Why?’

‘A man was murdered there years ago.’

CHAPTER TWO

Rocco? Arrogant and disrespectful.

Lieut. André Thomas – head of administration and accounts, Clichy-Nanterre district

‘Say again?’ Rocco stared him down, his voice a growl, and the grin faded quickly.

‘Only kidding. It’s a nice place. Peaceful.’

Then the crowd moved and the man named Didier Marthe was in front of them. No doubt aware that he’d lost his audience’s attention in favour of the new arrival, he stared belligerently up into Rocco’s face, craning his head with difficulty.

‘What are you doing here, flic?’ he demanded, cigarette bobbing angrily. ‘We’ve done nothing wrong. It’s a bomb, that’s all. Not a drama; not an arrestable offence … unless you go around locking up explosive devices these days?’ He turned and sniggered at the crowd, seeking support against the outsider, the cop. ‘They turn up all the time, these things, like turds on a sheep farm. The whole area was one big munitions dump back in forty-four, and what wasn’t stored here was dropped like bird shit by the British as they scuttled back to England.’

‘Easy, Didier,’ murmured Claude. ‘He’s a newcomer. Show some respect, huh?’

‘Respect?’ Didier spat on the ground, easing the gobbet around the cigarette. ‘He’ll have to earn it like everyone else!’

Rocco stood his ground, although he was trying not to gag. It wasn’t the little man’s aggressive demeanour, nor even the potentially deadly object sitting just a few feet away which bothered him: rather, Didier’s breath, which was toxic enough to kill a chicken at ten paces. A mixture of vin de pays, cheap tobacco and several other unnameable substances, it wafted out in a vicious cloud whenever he spoke, enveloping anyone within range in its evil embrace.

‘We’d best call the gendarmes,’ Monsieur Thierry called out anxiously. ‘Before it goes off and flattens the village.’ He looked in a state of shock, staring in awe at the spot where his shovel had hit the casing with some force. A silvery scar was clearly visible where the rust had been chipped away.

‘What?’ Didier spun round in horror, and Rocco could guess why. The fire brigade was the first force called on in emergencies, but the local brigade probably wasn’t equipped to deal with explosives. The gendarmes, while less popular – and likely viewed by cynics as expendable – would keep whatever they dealt with as evidence. ‘Why let those thieving maggots get their hands on it?’ Didier turned back to Rocco, including him in his contempt and huffing out a fresh wave of halitosis.

Rocco fought to hold on to his breakfast. The idea that this man might take a hammer to the thing simply to prevent the police from confiscating it was frightening. But short of surrounding it with armed guards or decking him, he couldn’t think of any way of preventing it.

‘What do you say, Inspector?’ The question came from Thierry, looking to officialdom for support – probably a rarity in these parts, Rocco guessed. Anyone representing the government or its agencies would clearly be viewed with hostility and caution.

He shrugged, wondering what made them think he was an expert on bomb disposal. Then it hit him: if anything went wrong, blame the flic. It was probably an English bomb, made in Coventry or some such hellhole, and since the English were probably no more popular in these parts than the police, what could be more fitting? Barely twenty years since the end of the last global conflict centred on France, the debris of two wars was just as fresh in people’s minds as it was in the ground beneath their feet.

He was about to suggest evacuating the immediate area and calling in the gendarmes, as Monsieur Thierry had suggested, when a man pushed through the crowd. He was dressed in filthy overalls and carried a canvas tool bag.

‘Philippe Delsaire,’ Claude informed Rocco helpfully. ‘He’s what passes as a plumber in these parts. Also farms a small plot outside the village. Gambler, too.’ He rubbed his fingertips together. ‘Not a bad plumber or farmer, but lousy at cards.’ He grinned knowingly.

Everyone watched as Delsaire stared hard at the object. Then he stepped forward with a large wrench, and without warning, gave the hexagon nut a resounding thwack.

In spite of his doubts about the object being a bomb, Rocco felt his testicles shrink and witnessed fleeting images of his past life go by at speed. A collective groan testified to others sharing this same life-death experience. Even the mad bomb-basher, Didier, looked fleetingly alarmed, while Thierry crossed himself and muttered something obscene.

The newcomer struck the object again. But instead of the expected flash and monumental explosion that should have sent Poissons-les-Marais into orbit like a space rocket, the nut simply fell off, and out onto the grass glugged a stream of rust-coloured water.

Delsaire smiled and tossed the wrench into his tool bag.

‘Water container,’ he said simply. ‘A prototype. Only seen a couple of them in my time. The design never caught on.’ He pointed to where the water was bubbling out. ‘With only one hole you can’t get a steady flow, see? Probably fell off a lorry and got buried.’

As Delsaire walked away, whistling, Didier glared around, daring anyone to say a word. Then he calmly scuttled forward and claimed the container as his property.

The crowd left him to it, some looking almost disappointed that a discarded water tank wasn’t about to reduce them and their village to microscopic dust particles.

Rocco was about to return to his car when Claude stopped him.

‘So what’s a city detective doing out here?’ he asked. ‘We’re just a pimple on a cow’s arse. It’s not like there’s any real crime – nobody’s got anything worth stealing. And certainly nothing to trouble an inspecteur.’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Rocco truthfully. ‘They haven’t told me.’ Captain Santer, his boss, had merely presented him with his new orders, an accommodation warrant and directions, and told him to go and investigate cowpats until further notice. All part of a new nationwide initiative, he had explained vaguely, a small grinding of a very large wheel in the Fifth Republic’s efforts to modernise its police force. So far, Rocco judged, going by what he’d seen, as initiatives went, it was a case of wait and see.