The Crowded Grave

Prologue
    For once, the
chef de police
of the small French town of St. Denis was carrying a gun. That morning Benoît Courrèges, known to everyone as Bruno, had taken his official weapon from the office safe in the
mairie
where it stayed throughout the year, except for his annual firearms refresher course at the police range in Périgueux. He had cleaned and oiled the elderly MAB 9mm carefully, and it was now tucked into the leather holster that he had polished just after dawn, along with the belt and the shoulder strap he hardly ever wore. His full dress uniform smelled faintly of the dry cleaner’s where he had picked it up on the way to the
mairie
that morning. His hair was newly cut, his morning shave had been unusually close, and his boots were polished to the kind of brilliant shine that only a former soldier can achieve.
    Beside him, Sergeant Jules and the rest of the small team that staffed the Gendarmerie of St. Denis stood in formal ranks in front of their modest stucco-fronted building. The gendarmes also wore full dress uniform, and it would have taken a careful observer to note any difference between their dress as functionaries of the French state and Bruno’s as an employee of the town of St. Denis. On the flat roof of the gendarmerie, besidethe radio antenna, the tricolor flew at half-mast, and above the door was a plaque of the flaming grenade that had been the symbol of the gendarmes since their founding in 1791. Of Capitaine Duroc, the nominal head of the post, there was no sign. He had called in sick, to avoid rather than disobey the official order that the police and gendarmes of France should not formally commemorate the death of Brigadier Nérin. But here in St. Denis, as in police stations and gendarmeries across France, the rank and file and many of the officers had chosen to mark his killing with a parade of honor. Over a glass of wine the previous evening, Bruno had arranged with Jules that he would read out the brief statement and lead the parade. Employed by the
mairie
, Bruno was thus less at risk than the sergeant of an official reprimand or even demotion. And Jules had his pension to consider.
    Now Bruno checked his watch for the precise time. He came to attention, marched forward, and turned to address the gendarmes. He noted that each of them, men and women alike, was wearing the same black armband of mourning that he had attached to his own right sleeve. A small knot of townsfolk stood in silence, watching. Bruno nodded at the young boy who stood to one side, dressed in a gray shirt and black tie and carrying a bugle.
    “Respected colleagues,” Bruno began. “We are here to mark the death on active duty of Brigadier of gendarmes Jean-Serge Nérin. He was murdered at Dammarie-les-Lys in the Département of Seine-et-Marne while hunting down the terrorist cell that killed him. This is the first killing of a French policeman by the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, the ETA, the Basque terrorists who have already killed more than eight hundred people in Spain. Death on active service has always been a risk in our profession, but murder by terrorists is a special event. Ourcolleagues across France have agreed, despite official discouragement, that we shall all observe a minute of silence in honor of our fallen comrade Brigadier Nérin.”
    He paused and then, in his best parade-ground voice, called out
“A mon commandement.”
    The line of gendarmes braced, ready for his next command.
    “Escadron, garde à vous.”
    They came to attention and Bruno raised his right arm to the brim of his hat in salute, the signal he had prepared with young Jean-Michel. The boy raised the bugle to his lips and blew the first haunting note of the “Sonnerie aux Morts,” the bugle call that the Garde Républicaine played for its dead. When the final three notes faded away, Bruno began to count in his head for the full minute of silence, his arm becoming heavier so that he had to make a deliberate effort to keep his hand from quivering. Finally it was over. He lowered his hand and dismissed the parade.
    Sergeant Jules was the first to come across and shake his hand, and then each of the gendarmes, male and female, followed suit as they filed back into the gendarmerie. Bruno went across to Jean-Michel and thanked him and then walked in silence along the rue de Paris, back toward his office in the
mairie
and the safe where he would lock away his pistol for another year. He crossed the main square and turned in