The Resistance Man (Bruno Chief of Police 6)

showed a group of young men and boys, carrying weapons from shotguns and revolvers to elderly submachine guns. They were squatting on the running boards or leaning against a black Citroën
traction-avant
, one of the most handsome cars France ever made. A French
tricolore
flag was draped across the bonnet.
    Bruno picked up the photo and turned it over to see the scrawled words
Groupe Valmy, le 3 juillet, 1944
. Mainly dressed like farmers, some wore berets and two had the old steelhelmets from the 1914–1918 war. An older man sported a French officer’s uniform with leather straps across his chest and ammunition pouches. He held up a grenade in each hand. Each of the men had an armband with the letters FFI. Bruno knew it stood for
Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur
, the name De Gaulle had chosen for the Resistance fighters. The next photo showed the same car and an ancient truck parked beside a train. The doors of a goods wagon were open and men in a human chain were passing sacks from the train to the truck. On the back were the words
Neuvic, 26 juillet, 1944
.
    ‘I’ve never been allowed to see inside his box before,’ said the woman. She eyed the photos but made no move to touch them or the banknotes. Her hands, work-worn and gnarled, remained clenched in her lap. She looked to be in her sixties. Father Sentout had introduced her as Joséphine, one of the dead man’s three daughters. The priest was packing away the breviary and holy oils he had used to give the last rites. A spot of oil gleamed on the dead man’s forehead where the priest had made the last sign of the cross and another on the eyelids.
    ‘Eighty-six,’ the priest said. ‘A good age, a long life and he served France. Your father is with our father in heaven now.’ He put his hand gently on the woman’s arm. She shook it off.
    ‘We could have done with that money when I was growing up,’ she said, staring dry-eyed at the banknotes. ‘They were hard times.’
    ‘It was the banknotes that made me call you,’ said Father Sentout, turning to Bruno. ‘I don’t know what the law says about them, being out of date.’
    ‘They’re part of his estate so they’ll go to his heirs,’ said Bruno. ‘But those photos mean I’ll probably have to plan fora special funeral.’ He turned to Joséphine. ‘Do you know if he had the Resistance medal?’
    She gestured with her head to a small picture frame on the wall above the bed, below the crucifix. Bruno leaned across the bed to look closer. The curtains were open and the sun was shining but only a modest light came from the tiny courtyard. He saw the stone wall of a neighbour’s house barely two metres away. A single light bulb hanging from the ceiling in a dingy parchment lampshade did little to help, but he could make out the small brass circle with its engraved Cross of Lorraine hanging from a black and crimson ribbon. Beneath it in the frame was a faded FFI armband and a photograph of a young Murcoing wearing it and holding a rifle.
    ‘I’ll have to check the official list but it looks like he qualifies for a Resistance funeral with a guard of honour and a flag for the coffin,’ Bruno said. ‘If that’s what you want, I’ll make the arrangements. The state pays for it all. You can either have him buried at the big Resistance cemetery at Chasseneuil or here in St Denis.’
    ‘I was wondering if he’d left enough to pay for cremation,’ she said, looking around the small bedroom with its faded floral wallpaper and a cheap wardrobe that had seen better days. ‘He was waiting for a place in the retirement home so the
Mairie
stuck him in here.’
    The old man had lived alone in the small apartment formed from the ground floor of a narrow three-storey house in one of the back streets of St Denis. Bruno remembered when the
Mairie
had bought the building and converted it for social housing. Four families were stuffed into the upstairs apartments and another from the waiting list would be moved intothis place as soon as the old man was buried. The recession had been hard on St Denis.
    ‘Paul should be here by now,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘His grandson, my sister’s boy. I called him as soon as I called the priest. He’s the only one my dad ever had much time for, the only other man in the family.’ She looked sourly at the corpse in the bed. ‘Three daughters weren’t enough for him.’
    ‘I’ll need your phone number to let you know about the funeral,’ Bruno