‘Your general sent me a copy of your file,’ Prunier said, opening a manila folder and glancing through it, turning the pages quickly. ‘It’s very impressive. I see you are a keen mountaineer and that you volunteer for the ski patrol at Gérardmer. I didn’t know the Vosges hills were high enough for skiing.’
‘Yes, sir, Gérardmer is only twelve hundred metres high but I’ve had some good skiing there. It can be icy, which is how I broke my nose, and it’s not as magnificent as the Alps. Still, it’s only two hours from Metz.’
‘Right. I understand you were asked to bring any family photo albums you might have.’
‘All the family albums are back home in Bordeaux. I brought with me the photos I had in Metz: two of my parents’ wedding photos and one of my brother, I mean my half-brother. They’re in my bag outside the door. Should I get them?’
Prunier nodded and she went to the door and brought in a large duffel bag with wheels, opened it and removed three framed photographs. Prunier stood them on his desk so all could see them.
‘This first one is my parents at their wedding,’ Sabine said. ‘The second one is a group photo with my grandparents, my father’s témoin and my mother’s demoiselle d’honneur. This last one is my brother Louis when he passed out of the special warfare training centre at Perpignan.’
The photo of the wedding couple was slightly faded but clear enough. The groom looked some years older than his bride, maybe in his mid-thirties, and each of them looked slightly stunned as they smiled, dressed in clothes that must have been fashionable at the time. The groom’s wide lapels and even wider tie matched the exaggerated shoulders of the white wedding dress of a bride whose face had been heavily made up. Bruno suspected she’d have looked more attractive without it. The group photo, in which she was laughing with a slightly taller young woman, showed her to be slim and attractive with dancing eyes, a generous mouth and a long, elegant neck. Bruno was mildly surprised that this young bride had produced a daughter like Sabine, whose physique must have been inherited from her father.
‘Is that the demoiselle d’honneur standing beside her?’ Bruno asked.
‘Yes, Dominique, Mum’s best friend ever since they were kids. They met the first day of school and remained almost inseparable since. I think of her as my aunt. She was wonderful in Mum’s last illness, held us all together even though she was grieving as much as we were.’
‘You mean your mother is dead?’ J-J asked, in a voice that carried his disappointment at learning that his key witness was no longer available. This was news to him, to Prunier and to Bruno.
‘Yes, sir. Last year. Cancer. At least she didn’t get to know that Louis had been killed in Mali.’
‘Did you have any idea that your mother had this – er – extramarital liaison that produced your brother?’ Prunier asked, trying to use a gentle voice.
‘No, sir. I don’t think anybody did. Except maybe Tante-Do, I mean Dominique. That’s what I always called her. They lived in the next street so we were always in and out of each other’s homes. If anybody can help you, she can. She and Mum were as close as sisters except they never seemed to have a row. They used to go on holiday together. I know they came to these parts for a final girls’ fling just before the wedding. I was thinking on the train and I reckon that could have been the time that Mum had her little – I don’t know what to call it – accident? Adventure?’
‘I think the term “girls’ final fling” should cover it,’ said Bruno, and then caught himself, wishing he’d remained silent. He was relieved to see Sabine smile.
‘I suppose it would,’ she said, glancing at him and still smiling, but more to herself than to him. ‘Funny how you never think of your mum that way, young and silly and having fun, getting drunk and making mistakes. I suppose we all have to be young once. Even you, messieurs.’
Sabine glanced at J-J, a man approaching retirement, and then at the middle-aged Prunier and at Bruno without the least embarrassment at the clear implication that she saw them all as verging on the prehistoric. Behind her, Bruno noticed, Yveline was trying to suppress a grin. He gave her a discreet wink and then leaned forward to get Sabine’s attention.
‘When you said your mother and her best friend came to these parts for that last fling before the wedding itself, do you mean they came here to Périgueux or somewhere near here?’ he asked.
‘I’m not sure where it was but it was some kind of local folk festival called a félibrée where there was lots of music and dancing. It was Tante-Do’s idea to go camping but I forget where it was exactly. Tante-Do would know. It was like a private joke between her and Mum. They’d say to one another, “Do you remember the félibrée?” Or sometimes they’d refer to the “Bois de la Vézère”, which I think was the name of the campsite. And then they’d both giggle like a pair of schoolgirls and tease me about being far too young for it.’
‘The wedding was in July, 1989, and your brother was born, when – in March the following year?’
‘Yes, April third, he was a Pisces. I’m a Scorpio. My brother really was a Pisces, always loved the water, swam like a fish.’
The room fell silent for a moment as everyone mentally counted the months of gestation and tried to work out when it was that the unknown Oscar had impregnated Sabine’s mother, and just how long that might have been before he had met his own death.
‘In the first week of July, 1989, the annual félibrée to
