Black Diamond

table in a corner, two glasses on the table before her.
    “Well, here we are,” she said brightly, pushing his glass of Armagnac toward him as he sat.
    “Leaving a nice mess behind us for J-J to clear up and wondering if our phones are tapped,” he said. He felt a strange need to laugh. It was probably caused by the tension of the evening, and now the added tension of Isabelle’s presence.
    “Mine will be fine. They have some technology thatsecures it automatically, or so they tell me,” she said, carefully not quite looking at him.
    “I don’t think we’re quite at that technical level in St. Denis,” he said. “I got my phone at Intermarché. I saw yours had maps on it.”
    “And GPS,” she said. “God, I want another cigarette. This isn’t how I expected this conversation to go.”
    “They never work out as you expect,” he said.
    “Sometimes I think that’s a good thing. Not that I had any particular plans,” she said. Bruno nodded, waiting. She raised her eyes to his. “Funny how fate keeps throwing us together.”
    “Fate or perhaps duty,” he said, and paused before speaking again. “Talking of duty, Hercule had a safety-deposit box and as his executor I’m responsible for it. The key seems to have disappeared with your archives people. Is there anything you can tell me about it, or anything left that I should see?”
    “I know there were some papers the office took. You’ll have to ask the brigadier about them. Or get the
notaire
to write to him formally, then he’d have to respond.”
    “Any idea what the papers were about?”
    “Algerian War, that’s all I know. Memoirs, but sometimes the old stuff is the most sensitive.”
    “Was there anything else?”
    “I heard there were some fake passports for Hercule, different nationalities, a few blanks,” she said. “The usual spook cache. I didn’t hear anything about money, but a man usually keeps some ready cash where he stashes his passports.”
    “And I’m still looking for that journal of Hercule’s, his truffle diary. Could that have been in the safe deposit?”
    “No, I’d have heard if they’d found that,” she said with a small smile. “It’s the kind of thing people gossip about in the canteen. Truffles in Périgord.”
    “Are you enjoying this new work?”
    “Sometimes. Like this evening, when somebody remembers that I need to eat too. That was sweet of you, Bruno, always the gentleman.”
    “Your new assignment on illegal immigrants, liaising with the navy and the British, I presume it’s dangerous.”
    “Why on earth would you think that?” she asked, studying him.
    “I presume you’ll be boarding the ship.”
    She raised her eyebrows. “You’re not supposed to know that.”
    “It wasn’t hard to work out. You told me you were liaising with the British navy on illegal immigrants, and then you show up with Fusiliers Marins.”
    “Worried about me, Bruno?” Her laughter was a little forced. “Surely we’re beyond that. Anyway, I’ll be the last one up the ladder or down from the helicopter, whichever it is.”
    “I don’t think you ever stop caring for someone you’ve loved.”
    “No,” she said slowly. “I don’t think you do. So what are your plans tomorrow?” With the speed that only a woman can manage, she had thrown off one mood and assumed another. Voice, carriage, gesture, tilt of head and the look in her eye had all been transformed. For Bruno, it was one of the fascinating marvels of her sex.
    “I’ll have to check in with J-J, and I’ll want to see Tran before I catch the train back to St. Denis. I’ve got a busy day. There’s a Christmas party for the children that I’ve got to arrange,” he said, starting to grin as her smile widened. “And that reminds me that I’m supposed to have a new Father Christmas costume waiting for me at the
mairie
. And at some point I have to pick up my new police van and then drive itup to Périgueux to pick up my new uniforms, since the old ones were damaged in the line of duty.”
    She laughed, a genuine one this time. “This is real police work. Do explain, Father Christmas.”
    So he told her everything that had happened, from the attack on Vinh’s stall and the theft and crash of his police van to the ruin of his uniform in the manure pit.
    “I saw that in the paper, when you pulled that little boy out.”
    “They made too much of it. Just that fool Pons, who invited all the schoolkids but didn’t secure his pool of