know he got the gendarmes to pull an arrest on Karim, the young man who found
his grandfathers body. For assault, after Karim charged into those Front
National bastards in the riot.
He did what? He must be out of his mind. Half of France saw that riot and they
all think you St Denis lads are heroes.
Not Tavernier. He said the law had to be even-handed.
Even-handed, between a bunch of thugs and some law-abiding citizens? He must be
mad. Anyway, you seem to have sorted it out. Anything else?
We seem to be making a bit of progress on that photo of the football team. Ill
keep you posted.
Its a bit of a sub-plot, Bruno, but keep at it. Were still looking for a
killer, and we dont have any other leads.
As he rang off, Bruno heard Mireilles voice in the corridor greeting Momu.
Should he not be at school at this hour? He looked out into the hallway and saw
Momu about to go into the office of Roberte, who looked after the Sécu, the
social security paperwork. He waved and Momu came over to shake his hand.
I cant stop, he said. I just came up in the morning break to sign these
papers closing down my fathers Sécu. But its good to see you.
Give me ten seconds, Momu. I have a picture to show you. He went and got the
fax from his desk, without much conviction that Momu might recognise any of
them, but since he happened to be here
Where in heavens name did you get this? Momu demanded. Thats my father as a
young man, or his identical twin. Whats the name? He pulled out his reading
glasses. Hussein Boudiaf, Massili Barakine and Giulio Villanova. The Boudiafs
are our cousins, so I suppose its a family likeness, but thats an
extraordinary resemblance. And Barakine? I recall that name from somewhere.
Villanova is the coach he talked about. But that Hussein Boudiaf Id almost
swear it was my father as a young man.
Bruno sighed as he opened his mail and read three more anonymous denunciations
of neighbours. It was the least pleasant aspect of the citizens of St Denis, and
of every other Commune in France, that they were so ready to settle old scores
by denouncing one another to the authorities. Usually the letters went to the
tax office, but Bruno got his share. The first was a regular letter from an
elderly lady who liked to report half the young women of the town for
immorality. He knew the old woman well, a former housekeeper for Father
Sentout who was probably torn between religious mania and acute sexual jealousy.
The second letter was a complaint that a neighbour was putting a new window into
an old barn without planning permission, and in such a way that it would
overlook other houses in the village.
The third letter, however, was potentially serious. It concerned that
incorrigible drunk Léon, who had been fired from the amusement park for
misplacing Marie-Antoinette on the guillotine and cutting her in half rather
than just decapitating her, much to the horror of the watching tourists. They
were even more appalled when he fell drunkenly on top of her. Now Léon was
reported to be working au noir for one of the English families who had bought an
old ruin and had been persuaded that Léon could restore it for them, payment in
cash and no taxes or insurance.
He sighed. He wasnt sure whether to warn Léon that somebody was probably
reporting him to the tax office, or to warn the English family that they were
wasting their money. Probably hed do both, and tell the English about the
system whereby they could pay a part-time worker legally and cheaply, and still
have the benefit of workers insurance. Léon had a family to support, so Bruno
had better get him onto the right side of the Sécu. He checked the address where
he was supposedly working, out in the tiny hamlet of St Félix, where he had had
a report of cheeses being stolen from a farmers barn.
He looked again at the letter about the offending window. That was St Félix as
well; mon Dieu, he thought, a crime wave in a hamlet of twenty-four people. He
sighed, grabbed his hat, phone and notebook, plus a leaflet on the legal
employment of part-time workers, and went off to spend the rest of the day in
the routine work of a country policeman. Halfway down the stairs he remembered
that he would need his camera to photograph the window. Fully burdened, he went
out to his van, thinking glumly that Isabelle would not be very impressed if she
knew how he usually spent his days.
Three hours later he was back. The English family spoke almost no French, and
his English was limited, but he impressed upon them the importance of paying
Léon legally. He would leave it to them to discover the mans limitations. The
owner of the allegedly offending window had not been at home, but Bruno took his
photographs and made his notes for a routine report to the Planning Office. The
affair of the stolen cheeses had taken most of his time, because the old farmer
insisted that somebody was destroying his livelihood. Bruno had to explain
repeatedly that since the cheeses were homemade in the farmhouse, which fell
well short of the standards required by the European Union, they could not be
legally sold, and thus they had to be listed as cheeses for domestic consumption
in his formal complaint of a crime. Then he had to explain it all over again to
the farmers wife. She finally understood when he pointed out that the insurance
company would seize the chance to refuse to pay for the theft of illegal
cheeses.
In his office, the phone was ringing. He lunged and caught it just as camera,
keys and notebook tumbled from his grip onto the table. It was the sous-officier
from the Military Archives.
This name Boudiaf, the old man said. The name you gave me was Hussein, and
for that we have no trace. But we do have a Mohammed Boudiaf in the Commandos
dAfrique and his file. He was a corporal, enlisted in the city of Constantine
in 1941, joining the Tirailleurs. He then volunteered for the Commando unit in
43, and on the recommendation of his commanding officer he was accepted. He
took part in the Liberation, and was killed in action at Besançon in October of
1944. No spouse or children listed, but a pension was paid to his widowed mother
in Oran until her death in 1953. Thats all we have, Im afraid. Does that
help?
Yes, indeed, said Bruno automatically. Does the file list any siblings or
other relatives?
No, only the mother. But I think we might assume that Corporal Mohammed Boudiaf
was a relative of your Hussein Boudiaf. Now I know its Hamid al-Bakr that you
are interested in, but there is a coincidence here. Al-Bakr joins the unit in
August 44 in an irregular way, a unit where his acceptance would have been made
a lot easier by Corporal Mohammed. Is there a possibility of a name change here?
Its just speculation, but in cases like this we often find that the new recruit
had some good reason to want to change his name when he enlisted. They do it all
the time in the Legion, of course, but its not uncommon in other branches of
the service. If your man al-Bakr was originally called Boudiaf and wanted to