Black Diamond

critic of both those forgotten little wars, so she got into trouble and was sent to a reeducation camp.”
    “A concentration camp, more like,” said Tran.
    “It was a terrible place, but we, or rather our friends in Vietnam, managed to track down two people who had known her there. One was another woman, another prisoner, who told us that Linh had been raped by the guards and become pregnant and had the baby in the camp. The other, an army medic who was also a prisoner but worked in the hospital, said there was no baby, and he was sure he would have known. That’s all we have, except that Linh was released at the beginning of 1979 and sent back to the army and was killed later that year when the Chinese invaded in the border war.”
    “A tragic story,” said Bruno. He didn’t know what else to say. “A nightmare for Hercule. And for you.”
    “We don’t know if she had a baby, but they were all given new revolutionary names, with no indication of the mother, or the father, come to that. It was part of the way the Communists tried to abolish history. The records show that over twelve thousand babies were born in that camp, and we’ve been trying to trace them. But many of them have changed their names. I can’t say I blame them. If my name was ‘October Revolution’ or ‘Patriot Vengeance’ I’d change it too. But it’s the only plan we have, to trace as many as we can and check their DNA.”
    “How many have you been able to test so far?” Bruno asked.
    “Just over three hundred.”
    “Perhaps the child would have had some of its grandfather’s genes,” Bruno offered. “It might stand out.”
    “Can you imagine how many Vietnamese orphans of that period had American fathers? Tens of thousands of them look Western.”
    Bruno slumped into a chair, thoroughly frustrated. “Is there anything we can do?”
    “We just have to keep trying. We’re even advertising. You can put notices in the Vietnamese newspapers now, and they have whole sections of people searching for family members who got separated. There are information brokers, private investigators,” said Bao Le.
    He looked at his watch and then at Bruno. “You said something about catching a train. I have a car and a driver outside. We’ll get you to the station.”

23
    Nicco, Bruno’s counterpart in Ste. Alvère, was waiting at Le Buisson station and looking grumpy.
    “You lost your phone?” he asked. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
    Bruno dropped his hand to the familiar pouch at his waist to find it empty and then remembered the brigadier taking it from him. He had spent the journey dozing, half waking as the little train stopped at St. Emilion and Ste. Foy la Grande and chugged on its way through the vineyards of Castillon and Pomerol. Wine lovers would take this train as an act of pilgrimage. For Bruno, the endless rows of vines were comforting images of the homeland he loved, more felt than seen as he tried to catch up on his sleep.
    “Sorry,” he said. “My phone’s being replaced by some fancy model that can’t be wiretapped. We’ve had some trouble that way.”
    “Florence from the truffle market has been trying to reach you. Good news, she says. Something about a logbook.”
    “How well do you know Didier, Nicco?”
    “The market manager? Well enough. Can’t say I like him much. Is he the one behind this fraud business?”
    “The logbook’ll tell us. It’s been missing.”
    “So it’s an inside job, no great surprise. But how big is it? I just heard about a couple of complaints. It didn’t sound like much.”
    “I won’t know until I’ve gone through all the books, but it looks pretty serious.”
    “You mean there could be criminal charges?”
    “That’ll be up to your mayor.” Bruno wanted to change the subject. “When did Florence call?”
    “She called me a couple of times, said she couldn’t reach you. She also said she’d see you at the children’s party today, unless you want to see her sooner. I could take you to her place once we’ve picked up your car.”
    “Thanks—but I’ve no idea where she lives.”
    “She’s got a little place above a hairdresser’s, just a couple of rooms. Must be cramped with the kids, but she said she’d be moving to St. Denis.”
    “That’s right. She’s got a new job there, teaching science at the
collège
.”
    Back in his Land Rover, Bruno followed Nicco to the small hairdresser’s shop that served the public housing project on the