Bruno, Chief Of Police

‘And you’re saying that I don’t?’ she challenged, looking at him intently.

‘You’re able and ambitious and you want to follow your talents as far as they

will take you. You like challenges. That’s your nature and I admire it.’ He

meant it.

‘But we’re different people with different priorities and our lives will take

different trajectories. That is what you’re saying. Am I right?’

‘Trajectories? Now there’s a word. Our careers will probably take different

trajectories because you have that kind of drive.’ He got the feeling he had

suddenly been drawn into a different kind of conversation altogether, where the

language was different and the meanings had shifted.

‘Drive for what?’ she persisted. He noticed her fingers were clenched around her

pencil.

‘To get to the centre of things, to fulfil your talents.’

‘You mean I want power?’ She was looking almost fierce. He threw up his hands.

‘Isabelle, Isabelle. This is me, Bruno, and yet from my side this feels like an

interrogation. You’re putting words into my mouth and I like you too much to get

into a confrontation.’ Her fingers seemed to relax on the pencil. ‘What I’m

saying is that you’re a dynamo, Isabelle, you’re full of energy and ideas and

you want to shape things, to change things. I’m the kind of person who likes to

keep them the same, but I have been around long enough to know that people like

you are needed, probably more than people like me. But we have our uses too.

That’s how le bon Dieu made us.’

‘All right, Bruno. Interrogation over,’ she said, smiling and laying the pencil

down on the desk. ‘You promised to take me to dinner, remember?’

‘Of course I remember. Around here we have a choice of bistro, pizza, not very

good Chinese food, several restaurants serving the Périgord cuisine you are

probably tired of by now, and a couple of places with a Michelin star, but we

would have to drive to those. Your choice.’

‘I was thinking of something less formal, more in the open air like a picnic. I

liked your cooking.’

‘Are you free this evening?’ She nodded, suddenly looking happy and very young.

‘I’ll pick you up at seven. Here, or at your hotel?’

‘The hotel. I’d like to bathe and change.’

‘Okay. Don’t dress up. Picnic-style it will be.’

He had to rush, and Bruno hated that. There were the final details to clear with

the company that had the contract for the three firework displays of St Denis –

the June eighteenth event that really launched the season, the usual national

celebration on the fourteenth of July, and the feast day of St Denis at the end

of August, which the town celebrated as its birthday. The company had wanted

60,000 euros for the three events, but with a little trimming of the display and

a lot of negotiation he managed to reduce the bill to 48,000, which was just

short of his 50,000 euro budget. That meant more money for the sports club fund.

Then he had to call all the local businessmen to persuade them to take out their

usual ads in the tournament brochure for the tennis club, and each had to

grumble about the bad season and cancellations, but finally it was done. A

tourist had lost a purse and he had to take a statement. He had to brief the

Mayor on the latest developments in the murder case, fend off two interview

requests, and check over the Mayor’s deposition describing the riot. He just had

time to get to the tennis club at four o’clock and change for his minimes class

of five-year-olds.

By now the kids could hold a racquet, and were starting to put together the

hand–eye coordination that allowed most of them to hit the balls most of the

time. He lined them up at the far end of the court, and with the big wire basket

of balls beside him at the net, he tossed a gentle bounce to each of the kids,

who ran forward in turn to try and hit the ball back towards him. If they were

lucky enough to send the ball his way, he would tap it back gently with his

racquet and the child was entitled to another hit. Two was usually all they

could manage, but in every class there would be one or two who were naturals,

who struck the ball surely, and these were the ones he kept his eye on. But for

the young mothers, who stood watching in the shade of the plane trees, each

child was a future champion, to be cheered on before hitting the ball and

applauded after it. He was used to it, and to their complaints that he was

throwing the ball at their little angel too hard or too high, or too low or too

out of reach. When they became too strident he would suggest it was time for

them to start preparing the milk and cookies that ended each session of the

minimes.

Young Freddie Duhamel, whose father ran the camp site, got the ball back to him

four times and was looking like a natural, and so was Rafiq, one of Ahmed’s

sons. The other was a natural rugby player. And Amélie, the daughter of Pascal

the insurance broker, was even able to play a backhand shot. Her father must

have been teaching her. The kids went round ten times. They all counted

carefully, and knew that after three rounds there would be no more balls in the

wire basket and they could scamper around the court to pick them all up and

replace them. Sometimes he thought that was one of the parts they most enjoyed.

The other favourite moment came at the end of the ninth round when, by

tradition, he would declare the session over and they would all shout that Bruno

couldn’t count and they had the tenth round to go. Then he could count off each

of his fingers and admit that they were right, and give them each another round.

The final part of the class was what he called the game, knowing the kids were

desperate to play against one another. There were three open courts, so he

stationed four children at one end of each court, each child in its own little

square and responsible for balls that landed in his or her territory. By this

time, he had sent the mothers into the clubhouse to prepare the snack, or they

would have become impossible in their partisanship. He started the game at each

court by hitting a ball high into the air, and the game began when it bounced.

He had just hit the ball to launch the game in the second court when he noticed

that one of the mothers was still watching, but when he turned to look he saw

that it was Christine. He started the game in the third court and then strolled

across to the fence to say bonjour.

‘That was a wonderful dinner last night,’ he began, wondering what had brought

her here. She looked dressed for a walk, in strong shoes, loose slacks and a

polo shirt.

‘That was Pamela’s cooking, not me,’ she said. ‘This is very strange after

seeing you fight the way you did in the square, and now here you are like every

kid’s favourite uncle. You French police have a remarkable range of skills. I

didn’t know that tennis lessons were part of your duties as a country

policeman.’

‘It isn’t exactly a duty, more a tradition, and I enjoy it. It also means I get

to know every kid in the town long before they start getting to be teenagers and

ripe for trouble, so that counts as crime prevention. And while we talk of