Bruno, Chief of Police: A Novel of the French Countryside by Martin Walker

Author:Martin Walker [Walker, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Police Procedural, Mystery & Detective
ISBN: 9780307271464
Amazon: B002361NGY
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2009-03-24T05:00:00+00:00

J-J’s office was in spartan contrast to the man. J-J was overweight and looked scruffy inside his crumpled suit, but his desk was clean, his books and documents all neatly filed, and his newspaper precisely aligned with the edges of the low table where he sat, drinking some decent coffee that Isabelle had made in her own adjoining room. J-J had kicked off his shoes and smoothed his hair, and was riffling through a slim file that Isabelle had brought him. She was with him, looking cool and very efficient in a dark trouser suit with a red scarf at her neck, and what looked like expensive and surprisingly elegant black flats with laces. She looked at Bruno, who was also there, with a disinterested smile, and he felt a touch of embarrassment at the fantasies of her he had conjured up after she left his home.

“There’s something odd about this military record of the victim,” said J-J. “He first appears on the payroll of our First Army on 28 August 1944, listed as a member of the Commandos d’Afrique. That unit was part of something called Romeo Force, which had taken part in the initial landings in southern France on 14 August 1944, and they seized a place called Cap Nègre. Our man is not, apparently, listed as a member of the original assault force for the invasion. He just appears suddenly on 28 August at a place called Brignoles.”

“I spoke with someone at the military archives,” Isabelle said. “He told me that it wasn’t uncommon for members of Resistance groups to join up with the French forces and stay with them throughout the war. The Commandos d’Afrique were a Colonial Army unit, originally from Algeria, and most of the rank and file were Algerians. We had taken heavy casualties at a place called Draguignan and took on local Resistance volunteers to fill our ranks. Since Hamid was Algerian, he was signed up and stayed with them for the rest of the war. In the fighting in the Vosges mountains in the winter, he was wounded and spent two months in the hospital and was promoted to corporal. And then, when they got into Germany, he was promoted to sergeant in April 1945, just before the German surrender.”

“And he stayed in the Army after the war?” Bruno asked.

“He did,” said J-J, reading from the file. “He transferred to the twelfth regiment of the Chasseurs d’Afrique, with whom he served in Vietnam, where he won his Croix de Guerre in a failed attempt to rescue the garrison at Dien Bien Phu. His unit was then posted to Algeria until the war ended in 1962 and the Chasseurs d’Afrique were formally retired from the French Army. But before that, along with some of the other long-serving sergeants, he was transferred to the training battalion of the regular Chasseurs, where he remained until he retired in 1979 after thirty-five years’ service. He was hired as a caretaker at the military college at Soissons after one of his old officers became the commander.

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