Bruno, Chief Of Police

into the handkerchief and returned the embrace.

‘I think it’s over,’ said Bruno.

‘Should we go back to Momu, do you think? Tell him the truth in private and in

confidence?’ The Mayor stepped back, his usual self-control restored.

‘Not me,’ said Bruno. ‘I’m content to let it lie, which means that Momu goes on

teaching the children how to count, Rashida will still make the best coffee in

town and Karim continues to win our rugby games.’

‘And the younger generation uses Resistance tricks with potatoes to immobilise

the cars of our town’s enemies.’ The Mayor smiled. ‘They are our people now,

three generations of them. One of the things that troubled me most was that Momu

and the whole family would feel they had to leave St Denis if all this became

public.’

‘They don’t even know that the old man was not who he claimed to be,’ said

Bruno. ‘Maybe it’s better that it stays that way.’

The Mayor donned his sash of office and Bruno polished the brim of his cap as

they walked down the stairs together to the square, where the town band had

already begun to gather for the parade and Captain Duroc had his gendarmes lined

up to escort the march to the war memorial. Bruno called Xavier, the Deputy

Mayor, and the two of them posted the Route Barrée signs by the bridge and

brought up the flags from the basement of the Mairie. Montsouris and his wife

approached and respectfully took the red flag, and Marie-Louise took the flag of

St Denis, and Bruno smiled and hugged her closely as he remembered that the

Force Mobile had destroyed her family’s farm after she was sent to Buchenwald.

He looked around, just a little nervously, but there was no sign of Bachelot and

Jean-Pierre.

A crowd was beginning to gather, and he went across to the outside tables of

Fauquet’s café where Pamela and Christine were sharing a table with Dougal, wine

glasses now empty in front of them. ‘We’re celebrating Waterloo day,’ laughed

Pamela as he kissed both women in greeting and shook Dougal warmly by the hand.

Then he turned and saw Isabelle striding jauntily towards him. For the pleasure

of it rather than the camouflage for the gossips, he kissed her formally on both

cheeks and Christine rose to kiss her too. He supposed that Isabelle would

ensure that the Englishwoman understood the need to keep the town’s secrets.

With a burst of cheery greetings, Monsieur Jackson and his family arrived, the

grandson with his bugle brightly polished, and Pamela introduced them to

Isabelle, who dutifully admired Monsieur Jackson’s British flag.

It was less than five minutes to twelve when Momu arrived with Karim and his

family. Bruno kissed Rashida, who looked ready to give birth there and then, and

hugged Karim as he handed him the flag with the Stars and Stripes, and the Mayor

came across to greet them. Bruno checked his watch. The two old men were usually

here by now. The siren was about to sound, and the Mayor looked at him, one

eyebrow eloquently raised.

And then Jean-Pierre and Bachelot emerged, walking slowly and almost painfully

up opposite pavements from the Rue de Paris into the square, and made their

separate ways to the Mairie to collect their flags. The two men were very old,

Bruno thought, but neither one would stoop to use the assistance of a walking

cane while the other walked unaided. What power of rage and vengeance had it

required, he marvelled, to endow these enfeebled ancients with the strength to

kill with all the passion and fury of youth?

He stared at them curiously as he handed them the flags, the tricolore for

Jean-Pierre and the Cross of Lorraine for Bachelot the Gaullist. The two men

looked at him suspiciously and then shared the briefest of glances.

‘After all that you’ve been through together, and I include the secret you’ve

shared for the past month, do you not think in the little time remaining to you

that you two old Resistance fighters might exchange a word?’ he asked them

quietly.

The old men stood in grim silence, each one with his hand on a flag, each with a

small tricolore in his lapel, each with his memory of a day in May sixty years

ago when the Force Mobile had come to St Denis, and a day in May more recently

when the story had come full circle and another life had been taken.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ snapped Bachelot, and turned and looked at his

old enemy, Jean-Pierre.

A look passed between them that Bruno remembered from the schoolroom, two small

boys stoutly refusing to admit that there was any connection between the broken

window and the catapults in their hand; a look composed of defiance and deceit

that masqueraded as innocence. So much contained within a single glance, Bruno

mused, so much in that initial look they had exchanged when they first saw the

old Arab at the victory parade. That had been the first direct look between the

two veterans in decades, a communication that had led to an understanding and

then to a resolve and then to the killing. Bruno wondered where they had agreed

to meet, how that first conversation had gone, how the agreement had been

reached to murder. Doubtless they would have called it an execution, a righteous

act, a moment of justice too long denied.

‘If you’ve got something to say, Bruno, then say it,’ grunted Jean-Pierre. ‘Our

consciences are clear.’ Beside him, Bachelot nodded grimly.

‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,’ Bruno quoted.

This time they did not need to look at one another. They stared back at Bruno,

their backs straight, their heads high, their pride visible.

‘Vive la France!’ said the two old men in unison, and marched off with their

flags to lead the parade as the town band struck up the Marseillaise.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank Gabrielle Merchez and Michael Mills for luring him to

the Périgord, René for making the house so comfortable, and Julia, Kate and

Fanny Walker and our basset hounds Bothwell and Benson for filling it with life.

This is a work of fiction and all the characters are invented but I am indebted

to the incomparable Pierrot for inspiration and for his cooking, to the Baron

for his wisdom and his wines, to Raymond for his stories and his bottomless

bottle of Armagnac, and to Hannes and Tine for their friendship, tennis and

memorable meals. The tennis club taught me how to roast wild boar; everybody

taught me how to make vin de noix, and those who taught me how to ensure that

nothing of a pig was wasted had better remain nameless, in view of the European

Union regulations. It would be invidious to name all my wonderful friends and

neighbours who filled our lives with warmth and welcome but the inhabitants of

the valley of the river Vézčre in the Périgord rightly call it a tiny corner of

paradise, and I am honoured to share it. Jane and Caroline Wood between them

whipped the book into shape and I am deeply grateful.