need to answer. Its just curiosity.
She died. The night that I was wounded, she was in a Bosnian village that got
attacked and burnt out. She was among the dead. My captain went looking for her
after the battle and told me when I got out of hospital. He knew that she meant
a lot to me.
Captain Mangin, the son of the Mayor of St Denis, which is how you came to be
here. Captain Mangin who was promoted to Major while you were in hospital and
then resigned his commission.
You knew all along?
J-J
recognised the name, and then we talked to him in Paris. He teaches
philosophy and is a rising star in the Green Party. Hell probably be elected to
the European Parliament next time. He says you were the best soldier he ever
knew, and a good man, and hes proud to be your friend. He told us about
rescuing the women from that Serb brothel but he didnt say anything about
Katarina. At least she knew some happiness with you before she was killed.
Yes, he said. We knew some happiness.
Isabelle rose and came round to his side of the kitchen table. She opened the
shirt she was wearing and put his head against her breast and stroked her hands
through his hair. She murmured, I know some happiness now, with you. She bent
to kiss him.
June the eighteenth, Resistance Day, he said later. Youll be able to see all
our main suspects gathered at the war memorial at midday. I have to go and make
the preparations, and find time to track down a cheese thief, uncover some
unemployed labourer for making some cash as a gardener, and probably rescue a
lost cat from a tree. And later I have to collect the green walnuts to make this
years vin de noix. All in a days work. And as a special treat because you are
the guest of the local Chief of Police, you are invited to lunch in the banquet
room of the Mairie after the ceremony, the same place from which youll see
tonights firework display. And then tomorrow, I can show you our famous weekly
market and you can help me protect the farmers from the new Gestapo of
Brussels.
Poor old Paris will seem very flat, after all this, she said drily, kneeling
to stroke Gigi as she waved him goodbye.
When he reached the Mairie and parked his van, Bruno noticed Father Sentout
bustling up the street from the church into the square, and heading for the
building. They shook hands, and Bruno bowed to let the plump priest go first
and, as a courtesy, joined him in the elevator rather than taking the stairs.
Ah, Father, and Bruno, just the men I wanted to see, called out the Mayor,
waving them into his office. Now, Father, you know that under the law of 1905
separating church and state, there are strict limits on the degree to which you
may participate in civic events. However, since this year we are marking the
tragic recent death of an old soldier of the Republic, as well as the usual
ceremonies, I wondered if you might give us a short prayer of reconciliation,
forgiveness of our enemies. I dont think the Republic will fall if you do that.
A very short prayer and a blessing. No more than one minute. Forgiving our
enemies and we all sleep in the peace of the Lord. Can you do that? Ill have to
cut you off if you go beyond a minute.
My dear Mayor, I shall be delighted. One minute it is, and forgiving our
enemies.
And of course we shall see you afterwards, at lunch, the Mayor added. I think
we are having lamb again.
Splendid, splendid, said the priest, bowing his way out, and visibly delighted
that at last the word of the Lord had penetrated the secular temple of the
Republic.
The case is suspended until Tavernier gets his orders from Paris, Bruno began
once Father Sentout had gone. But I dont think that future inquiries are going
to be energetically pursued.
Good, said the Mayor. Putting those two old devils on trial would be the last
thing this town needs.
Have you spoken to them?
The Mayor shrugged. I couldnt think what to say, and nor I imagine can you.
They are old men, and Father Sentout would tell you that they will soon face a
far more certain justice than our own.
Two unhappy old men, said Bruno. They fought on the same side and lived and
worked opposite one another for sixty years and refused to exchange a single
word because of some old political feud, and they all but poisoned their
marriages by constantly suspecting their wives of betraying them. Think of it
that way and the good Lord has already given them a lifetime of punishment.
Thats very neat, Bruno. Perhaps we should tell them that. But theres
something else Momu and his family. What did you tell them?
I saw them both, Momu and Karim, and told them that we had new evidence that
convinced us that Richard and the girl could not possibly have been reponsible
for Hamids murder, and that in the absence of any other evidence, the police
would now have to start work on the theory that the swastika was a distraction
carved onto the corpse to mislead us. So the next line of inquiry would have to
be Islamic extremists who saw the old man as a traitor.
Did they buy that?
Momu kept silent at first, but Karim said the old man had a good long life and
died proud of his family and knowing that he had a great-grandson on the way. He
seemed fatalistic about it. Then Momu said hed been thinking a lot about the
rafle of 1961 that he told me about, and how much things had changed since then.
He said he was touched by the way everybody in the town came out to be sure that
Karim was released by the gendarmes. He never thought hed live to see the day
that his son was a town hero. When I left, he came after me and said that as a
mathematician he always knew that there were some problems beyond human
solution, but none beyond human kindness.
The Mayor shook his head, half-smiling, half-grimacing. I was a student in
Paris at the time of the rafle and all we heard was rumour. But do you know who
was the Prefect of Police at the time, the man responsible? It was the same man
who had been Prefect of Police of Bordeaux under the Vichy regime in the war; a
man who rounded up hundreds of Jews for the Nazi death camps, and had Force
Mobile troops under his orders. Then the same man went on to be Prefect of
Police in Algeria during that dreadful, dirty war Maurice Papon. I met him
once, when I was working for Chirac. The perfect public servant, who always
followed orders and administered them with great efficiency whatever they were.
Every regime finds such men useful. Its our dark history, Bruno, Vichy to
Algeria, and now it all comes home to St Denis again, just as it did in 1944.
The Mayors voice was calm and measured, but tears began spilling down his
cheeks as he spoke. Bruno considered: a month ago, he would have stood
impotently by, not knowing what to do or say. But now, realising how much he
loved this old man, he stepped forward to hand the Mayor his handkerchief, which
smelled faintly of Gigi, and put his arm around his shoulder. The Mayor snorted