Black Diamond

He’d have to talk to Pons. The house had its own parking lot, and all the shutters were closed except for one set at a side window. Bruno looked in. A large sitting room was dimly lit by table lamps with heavy shades and decorated in an old-fashioned way that surprised him. He’d never have thought Bill would go for chaise longues in gilt and red plush and those overstuffed cushions. The room looked as if it had been designed as a whole, rather than filled haphazardly with furniture picked up at auctions.
    There was a tap on his shoulder, and he turned to see Minxin, the chef. He looked cross. “Private here, you go now,” he said, with none of the affability he’d shown in the restaurant.
    “Ah, Minxin. I’m glad to see you,” Bruno said. “I wanted to talk to you about your nieces. They have to be registered for school.”
    “No school. Chinese teacher,” said Minxin, shaking his head. “You go now.”
    “Children in France go to school. It’s the law,” said Bruno firmly, but recognizing he’d get nowhere with the tall chef. He nodded in a friendly fashion, and as he turned to head back to the Green Fair, he added, “I’ll have to talk to Pons about this.”
    Juliette, a plump and divorced primary-school teacher who always flirted with Bruno, waved as she saw him approach. Bill Pons, bare-headed and dressed as if for skiing at a fashionable resort, was standing beside a distinctly pungent hole in the ground. It was covered in thick black plastic with pipes leading into a small hut alongside. Pons was frowning as he tried to explain to the ten-year-olds the way in which cow manure could be turned into methane that could then produce hydrogen for fuel cells. Groans of disgust and much holding of noses greeted his efforts. Bill seemed irritated and impatient at this reaction. Had Bill never been ten years old? Bruno wondered. He deliberately walked into the boys’ sight line and watched them take notice and stop their clowning. They all knew him from tennis and rugby lessons, and some saluted him cheerfully, which seemed to irritate Bill even more.
    “As I was saying,” Bill said crisply, “the methane gets turned into hydrogen …”
    Bruno strolled off, leaving Bill to his explanations. Just then his mobile phone began to trill the “Marseillaise.”
    It was his old acquaintance at the army archives, calling to say he’d faxed Hercule’s army records to Bruno’s office. He explained that he’d known Hercule in Algeria and sat through a course he’d run on counterinsurgency operations. So he took Hercule’s murder personally.
    “I thought I’d tell you some detail you won’t find in the official records,” the man said. “He wrote a pamphlet on counterinsurgency, and I’ve still got a copy that I’ll send you. He went back to Vietnam in sixty-seven and sixty-eight when the Americans were fighting there. They had asked him to come and give some lectures on the French experience. Therewas a big fuss behind the scenes when de Gaulle found out. And he was very opposed to the use of torture, said it did far more harm than good. I thought you might like to know.”
    “I didn’t know that. Thanks.”
    “By the way, make a note of this number. It’s my mobile and I’m calling you from a café outside the Invalides. If I can be of further help, use this phone rather than the official line.”
    Bruno thanked him and hung up. That was interesting, and he was looking forward to reading Hercule’s pamphlet. From his own experience in Bosnia he’d learned that every counterinsurgency campaign was above all a political war, and every military action had to be weighed with regard to its political effects and vice versa.
    Suddenly he stopped short. There was something else that he remembered that struck him as directly relevant to the campaign of intimidation being waged against the Vietnamese in the markets right here. People would end up supporting whichever side gave the best protection, whichever side threatened the most, and which of the two was seen as most likely to win.
    Bruno looked around at the wintry scene, at the schoolchildren darting around the campers and trailers. He heard the sound of laughter as people came out from the restaurant full of food and hot drinks. It was a peaceful, happy landscape. But there was menace lurking on Bruno’s turf, a threat of violence and subtle terror against hardworking and law-abiding people that Bruno knew and liked. Bizarre as it might