Massin. The commanding officer had come up to the forward positions against orders, trailing two nervous adjutants, hands on their guns and alert for the first Viet Minh to hurl himself over the earthworks. Rocco, from his position near one of the guns, had watched the officer strutting about the lines in his immaculate uniform, by turn snapping at battle-weary troops like a teacher controlling recalcitrant children, then reassuring them about reinforcements and a change of tactics that they all knew would never come. Already all but surrounded by enemy forces, they were too exhausted to be astonished at the stupid self-importance of the man, most turning their backs as he approached, to avoid the embarrassment of eye contact.
Seeing what he perceived as a gap in the defences, Massin had ordered more men forward, ignoring the more experienced NCOs who had seen it for what it was — a killing zone. Low down, with only one way in and one way out, it was overlooked by enemy positions, whose snipers had already notched up too many unwary sentries.
An hour later, after a blizzard of fire, just three men came struggling back. The others had fallen victim to a heavy machine gun on a distant hill, no doubt smuggled into position under cover of a previous barrage.
Shortly afterwards, they heard the opening barrage coming in as the Viet Minh began their final assault. The ground shook as the shells rained down on the inadequate dugouts housing the worn-out mix of French, Vietnamese and legionnaire defenders. Plumes of earth, bodies and material seemed to float in the air, each explosion creating another gap, another hole in the line. More men lost.
Turning to help a mortar team which had lost a man to a sniper, Rocco saw Colonel Massin stumble out of a dugout, face white and uniform dishevelled, staring around as if he could not understand the events that were unfolding. His mouth was working, but in the noise and confusion, his words went unheard. Another barrage came in, and Massin fell into a foxhole, where he lay screaming and kicking his legs, hands over his ears, his cries finally shrill enough to find a gap in the furore and reach the ears of the men on the defences. One of the nearest had turned his head and looked at him with mild detachment, then spat on the ground in disgust before turning to resume firing.
Then the order came to get Massin out. Too big a trophy to risk him being captured, said the instruction; bring him out by whatever means possible.
Rocco and two others were assigned to the task, along with Massin’s two adjutants. Under covering fire from the men on the front, they had moved on foot through the last known gap left towards the rear. As the small group moved out, the incoming barrage grew more intense, pounding the positions in a deadly, relentless drum roll. By the time they had covered a desperate, muscle-burning thousand metres, the barrage was beginning to fade. Another five hundred metres and it fell silent altogether, save for an occasional haunting gunshot.
Rocco slept, his dreams vivid. Eventually, at eight, he pitched himself from his bed feeling like death, his head reeling. He put on some coffee, then walked around the large garden, head up and tasting the morning air. It was fresh and cool, completely free of his usual intake of petrol and other inner-city fumes, and he breathed deeply for the first time in years.
A honking at the front of the house drew him to the front gate, where a grey Renault 2CV Fourgonnette stood in the middle of the lane. Mme Denis and two other women were standing by the rear doors. The driver, a lugubrious man in his sixties, waved a thumb towards the back. ‘Help yourself, Inspector — settle up at the end of the week.’
Rocco went through the greeting rituals with Mme Denis and her companions and helped himself to a baguette. He studied the car, remembering Claude’s recommendation of its finer points. Somehow he couldn’t see himself even squeezing inside, let alone driving one. He ambled back to the kitchen, where the aroma of coffee was replacing that of dust and mouse droppings, and settled down at the table. Breaking off one end of the baguette, he chewed the still-warm bread with relish, chasing it down with a mouthful of coffee. Stretched his legs out and sighed.
For the first time, Dien Bien Phu and everywhere since — even Clichy — seemed a long way away.
By ten, nursing a mild headache, he was heading back towards the cemetery. On the way he stopped outside the co-op and went inside. He was greeted by a raft of pleasant smells. A pretty, dark-haired woman was serving, and nodded in reply to his general good morning. The three other customers all turned and murmured back, eyeing him at length without a flicker of embarrassment before going back to their shopping.
Rocco forced a smile and waited; it was worse than being before a promotion panel. When the queue had gone, he selected some cheese, cooked meats and pickles. If he was going to live in the country, he might as well get used to country living, preferably without too much effort.
The woman rang up his purchases and put them in a bag.
‘Having a moving-in party, Inspector?’ she said with a smile. He was surprised, expecting more reserve towards an outsider. In Paris, he would have been served with little or no exchange, treated like the stranger he was.
‘This is the first course,’ he replied, and handed her the money, instantly feeling out of place, an amateur. The truth was, he had come to prefer the larger city shops, where contact was minimal and the choice was endless and not open to comment. Here, the scrutiny felt almost intimate. ‘Perhaps you could recommend a main course?’ He wasn’t sure where that had come from, and began to look for a way out.
‘Chicken’s good,’ she replied, ‘and easy to cook.’ She took off a cotton serving glove and held out her hand. Her fingers were soft and cool, but with a firm grip. ‘Francine Thorin. Welcome to Poissons, Inspector. We don’t bite, you know, unless you’re an inspector of taxes. Then we just won’t serve you.’
‘Rocco,’ he said briefly, feeling the conversation getting beyond his control. He gestured towards the door and said, ‘Thanks. Sorry… I have to be going.’ He turned and walked out, face burning, and felt her smile boring into his back all the way out of the door.
Back at the cemetery, he inspected the ground around the monument. There was no sign of John Cooke, and all traces of the body and the crime scene markers had been cleared away.
He wasn’t expecting to discover anything new, but he sometimes found that going back to the scene once all the evidence had been cleared away opened up new lines of thought and insight. But not this time. If there was something there, he wasn’t seeing it.
He walked up through the cemetery to where it abutted the wood, and hopped over the wall. Stepping cautiously into the trees, he negotiated a straggly wire fence half-buried in the undergrowth, recalling what Claude had said about the deadly contents of this place. He felt a shiver run up his legs at what might be lying in wait beneath his feet, and stood for a moment, absorbing the atmosphere, tuning in to the scenery around him. The breeze was lighter than yesterday, but there was still the rustling in the leaves, like whispering gossips, their words sibilant and foreign.
No images today, though; no clamminess.
He breathed easily and studied the ground. He was standing roughly where he had seen Didier Marthe yesterday. Over to his right, a patch of nettles lay crushed and bent. Further on, a section of ground cover had been disturbed, in clear contrast to the area immediately around it. Marthe had walked across here, trying to stay on open ground, where his traces would be less likely to show. No doubt the poacher he had once been… or maybe was still.
Rocco followed the trail, stepping carefully in Marthe’s footsteps, not deviating from the route by a centimetre. Although much heavier than the scrap man, he figured he was reducing his odds of setting off anything if he trod the same path.