The Coldest Case by Martin Walker (mobi reader android txt) 📕

was where the rebellion against English rule began in the Hundred Years’ War. And the town was a Catholic stronghold in the Wars of Religion. It went through a bitter siege but held out. There’s a lot of history here.’

Alain stopped to look at an estate agent’s window and Rosalie picked up a photocopied leaflet that offered local houses for sale. They stopped for coffee at a place Bruno saw had a bowl of water outside for customers’ dogs so Balzac could drink, too. Bruno glanced at the copy of that morning’s Sud Ouest that lay on the counter. A third of the front page was covered with the composite photo of Henri under the headline, ‘Unsolved murder – Do you know this man?’

Inside was Philippe’s photo of Elisabeth Daynès at the Les Eyzies museum standing beside the Neanderthal skull she had reconstructed. Alongside it was a photo of the skull Virginie had worked on. Although it was unfinished, to Bruno’s eyes it was already uncannily like the composite photo of Max that he had helped put together. The caption read, ‘At last – after thirty years, we reveal the process of rebuilding the face of the unknown victim.’

Bruno nodded approval, thinking that J-J’s media blitz seemed to be going well. He wondered if he’d had similar success with the national press and TV. He called Virginie to tell her how impressed he was but had to make do with leaving a message on her answering service. Just as he’d done so his phone rang again. It was J-J.

‘I was just thinking about you,’ he said. ‘I’m in Sarlat, admiring your coverage in Sud Ouest. Did you have any luck with Henri?’

‘Yes, he’s coming to the Bergerac police station for an interview tomorrow at ten,’ J-J replied, sounding very cheerful. ‘Do you want to be there? Sabine is bringing Tante-Do for the confrontation. And our hotline has already had two calls saying it’s Henri Bazaine. I think we’ll get a few more after the responses come in from the TV bulletins.’

‘Great, and well done. I’ll see you before ten tomorrow in Bergerac.’ He ended the call, picked up his coffee and joined his friends outside.

‘I mean it about wanting one of Balzac’s pups when we find a place of our own,’ Alain said. He scratched the area where Balzac’s silky ears joined his pointed skull and the dog groaned softly with pleasure as they sat on spindly chairs outside the coffee shop.

‘That’s agreed,’ Bruno said. ‘I thought I’d show you one or two more sights and then take you to the town vineyard outside St Denis that we’re so proud of. We can have a light lunch there and taste our wines before you have to get back to the base. Have they got you on some kind of curfew?’

‘No, it’s not that, but it’s at least a three-hour drive and we want to be back at the base in time for the evening meal, which means putting on our uniforms. The town vineyard sounds like a good plan.’

‘I could stay around here for ages,’ said Rosalie. ‘It’s lovely. Still, we haven’t quite ruled out moving to Bordeaux, where we’d have a lot more options with technical schools but the house prices look steep. And with you nearby, we’d have a ready-made social life if we moved here.’

‘You don’t want to go back to Normandy?’ Bruno asked.

‘No, the weather’s better down here. The farm was sold when my parents split up and the family is spread out all over the place. I’ve got a sister who’s a surgical nurse in the South Pacific, in Nouvelle Calédonie, where we’re planning our honeymoon, and a brother who works in insurance in Paris.’

‘Well, you’ll both be very welcome if you want to move to this area.’ Bruno looked at the groups of tourists gathering behind guides holding up coloured ribbons on poles. ‘The crowds are starting to move in so let’s head back and I’ll show you one of my favourite castles on the way.’

He took them to Commarque, a medieval fortress founded by Charlemagne and built up over the centuries to become one of the largest castles in Europe. They walked down the lane and through some woods until they reached the valley floor. Suddenly there it was, the great walls and tower standing proudly against the sky. Children were trying their hand at archery butts further down the valley. Beyond them, a special breed of cattle that thrived on marshland was grazing among the rivulets to which the River Beune had shrunk in the drought. Bruno told them the story of the dead woman he’d found at the bottom of the cliff on which the tower stood, and the Templar remains that had been unearthed in one of the caves beneath the castle.

‘I think that was in the paper, with those Arab terrorists. I remember reading about it, around the time Alain and I were getting together,’ said Rosalie. ‘They had your photo in the paper and that was when Alain told me you were his cousin.’

‘It’s quite a place,’ said Alain, looking up. ‘I’d like to come back here and take a good look, climb up to the top of that tower. There must be a terrific view.’

‘There certainly is,’ said Bruno. ‘It was built to be high enough to send signals by beacon across to Sarlat. The hills were bare of trees in those days. They were all cut down for charcoal to feed the forges in the area, busy making swords and armour for the knights. Much of the land around here is full of iron ore. Those cave paintings you saw used the iron-bearing clay to get the red pigments, and around St Denis they were still making cannon for warships in Napoleon’s time. They used to ship them down the river to Bordeaux.’

They drove back to Les Eyzies, crossed one of the great bends of the Vézère and then a second at Campagne – ‘Another chateau,’